Heinold's First & Last Chance

One of California's - if not America's - most historic bars is still going strong, 125 years after it opened. The positively Melvillian structure was built from the salvaged timbers of a whaling ship right on the Oakland docks. It was at these same tables that a young Jack London did his homework. The entire room dips in the middle and the bar (still the original, made in 1883 by a ship's carpenter) is canted at a sharp grade as the foundation settled after the Great Earthquake of 1906. As evening descends the barman ignites the original gaslamps - the only gas lighting still in use in a commercial enterprise in California.