The Coronado Home & Businesses through the Years

In the last posting I described how the Mariano & Louisa Coronado family moved from Napa to Vallejo and how they eventually settled and built a home on a 3 ½ acre property on the Napa-Vallejo Highway.

In this post, I show how the original house grew as the family grew – from a one-story house to 2-stories and the addition of the Coronado businesses – initially calling the establishment “The Beanery” and then later “The Coronado”.  Remember in past posts, we found that Louisa (in addition to taking care of a rapidly expanding family) used to make big kettles of chili beans for customers.  When they bought 5-cent beer they were entitled to a bowl of chili beans.  Thus, the term “Beanery”.

Here are a series of historic photos of the Coronado residence – starting with the one-story house that was built between 1891 (when Mariano bought the land) and 1899[1].  These photos also document Mariano’s entrepreneurial spirit of responding to market demands.

The Coronado Homestead 1899

In the first photo above, Louisa is sitting on the arched side porch with her 6 children.  A slim Mariano is seen faintly standing next to the side porch.  There seems to be a dog posed in the front yard.  It is definitely a one-story house and probably snug for the young family.  (Note the arched side porch, the placement of the front door, and the two windows between the front door and the arched porch, one window higher than the other.  This helps determine that all these house photos, taken in different years, are the same house.)

The Homestead with Residential Second Floor & First Floor "The Beanery" - post 1900s

A second story is added to the original one-story house sometime after 1900 as the family needs grew (See the second photo above).  “The Beanery” business is added on the main floor.  The sign painted over the front door reads: “The Beanery. All kinds of wines 5c, 10c. M.P. Coronado, Prop.”[2]  Two potential customers are standing in the front and maybe that’s an older and younger Coronado child and dog standing and sitting near the residential side entrance.

Commercial Conversion - "The Coronado"

The third photo (above) shows the two-story home with the placement of “The Coronado” sign above a double-door entrance to the left of the photo.  There appear to be tables set up in the front under the tree and under the roof overhang – maybe for customers.  I can’t be sure, but there seem to be two people in the shadow of the side arched porch.

Expansion of "The Coronado" 1912

The fourth photo (above) of the two-story Coronado house taken in 1912[3] shows that there is a one-story addition on the left that looks like it may have expanded the interior space of “The Coronado” business.  In addition, M.P. Coronado also started another business to keep up with the times.  On the far right in the photo is a hanging sign that reads: “Gasoline, Oil and Carbide[4] for Sale Here”.  It was the beginning of an auto filling station business.

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[1] I estimate that the first photo was taken in 1899 based upon a more detailed photo of the family on the arched porch.  All the photos were originally black & white but were "colorized" using the MyHeritage website.

[2] Mariano Coronado became known as M.P. Coronado at least by 1891.

[3] This photo is from cousin Catherine McIntosh.  Her grandfather, Harry McIntosh, wrote the following about the photo: “The Coronado home, bar & cafe in 1912. The two larger cars are Overlands from A.B.Coronado's dealership in Vallejo. The small car is a Ford c1908 model that was rebuilt and owned by Harry McIntosh.”

[4] Carbide was used in the carbide headlamps of the cars for driving at night.