Hall, Luhrs, and Company

914 Second Street

Built 1883

Restoration

The Hall, Luhrs, & Company wholesale grocery business operated from 1885 to 1906. It is the largest brick building in Old Sacramento. It represents the post-Gold Rush era in Sacramento.

Prior to the Hall, Luhrs & Company construction, 4 separate lots occupied this site. Each had its own history. Tinsmiths, bootblacks, seamstresses, and prostitutes ran various businesses here. In 1865, those property owners raised their buildings for the 1865 street-elevation project. Twenty years later, the builders of Hall and Luhrs tore down those old structures and businesses. They built a new grocery store on the site.

By the late 1880s, California’s economy revolved around agriculture. Sacramento County led the state in the production of apples, peaches, plums, and lemons. Wholesale grocers, Hall and Luhrs shipped fresh products packed in ice from the Sierra Nevada. They helped originate this method of shipping to ensure freshness.

In the 1960s, the Enterprise Hotel operated at the Hall, Luhrs, & Company site.