2 historic business owners who got their start in Petaluma

From the first Black-owned business in Petaluma in the 1920s to today’s renowned legacy establishments, here are just a few of the county’s most prominent Black business owners through history. February’s Black History Month theme for 2025, according to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, is “African Americans and Labor.” Throughout the history of Sonoma County’s labor force, there have been a number of Black Americans who worked for themselves, to the benefit of their communities. Petaluma’s first Black-owned business After serving in the U.S. Army for five years — during which he was a member of the now-vindicated, all-Black unit known as the Buffalo Soldiers— Henry Chenault made his way to Petaluma in 1926. It was on the city’s Main Street (now Petaluma Boulevard North) where Chenault opened up his first shoeshine stand, later relocating the popular business to the front of the Arcade Barber Shop on Western Avenue in 1945, according to a Petaluma Argus-Courier article on Jan. 14, 1969, the day of Chenault’s death at age 73. His death was an immense loss to the community of Petaluma, where he was the city’s first Black business owner as well as one of...