Where the chicken and the egg came first

A Canadian named Lyman Byce showed up in 1878 and decided that San Francisco restaurants needed more chickens and eggs than they could find. Some were “importing’’ them from the East Coast in un-iced barrels.

Byce’s father raised chickens using cow manure to heat the barn. Using that primitive system, Byce and a dentist named Isaac Dias invented the first poultry incubator. Another Petaluman, Christopher Nissan, bought some of Byce’s redwood boxes, filled them with eggs laid by his hens, and started the first commercial hatchery at Two Rock, west of Petaluma. The Petaluma River running through town became the shipping route.

More recently Petaluma residents, including former mayor and current congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, helped develop Petaluma Valley as “Telecom Valley’’ to replace some chicken and egg businesses. Grain mills are now condominiums and start-up companies. The mills also house retail space for Cowgirl Creamery, and several cafes and brewing companies. Petaluma has tastefully restored Queen Anne, Victorian, neoclassical, Gothic Revival, and Italianate buildings.

Annual events include Butter & Egg Days, complete with a Butter & Egg Queen, and the Salute to “American Graffiti,’’ a film shot in town (others were “Peggy Sue Got Married,’’ “Inventing the Abbotts,’’ “Pleasantville,’’ and “Mumford’’).

Cowgirl Creamery, which began in Point Reyes Station and has stores in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., now offers tours at its Petaluma creamery, which include a cheesemaking demonstration, tasting, and a sampler bag of its North Coast cheeses.

Della Fattoria bakery makes the breads served at many San Francisco Bay Area restaurants, including ciabatta, Kalamata olive, and polenta. At breakfast in its downtown cafe, order poached eggs on toast, Straus organic vanilla yogurt, and pain au chocolate. Lunch salads include panzanella and Nicoise. Or try Rancho Gordo beans on toast, or a sandwich of egg, tapenade, and smoked salmon.