Woodsboro Police Station from “Scream”

Happy, happy Halloween!  I can’t believe it is already time to wind down my Haunted Hollywood posts, but here we are.  Another October in the books!  The season definitely turned into a full-blown Scream-fest on the blog (as predicted a couple of weeks ago) and I am a-OK with it!  Amazingly, there are still quite a few locales from the 1996 horror flick that I have yet to write about, so I figured I’d finish things off this year with Oakville Grocery Co., the former Healdsburg City Hall which masked as Woodsboro Police Station onscreen.  Like all the other Scream sites I’ve blogged about recently, I stalked this one back in 2016 while in Northern California for a brief visit.

The southeast corner of Matheson and Center Streets in downtown Healdsburg was home to the area’s City Hall for 110 years.  The original building, a towering three-story brick and stone Romanesque Revival structure which you can see here and here, was erected in 1886.  Comprised of city offices, a library, a post office, and a gym for a nearby school, it was razed in 1960.  The building that replaced it was a vast departure from its predecessor with a decidedly mid-century modern feel.  Designed by A.C. Steele, the new Healdsburg City Hall was dedicated on July 4th, 1961.  Built at a cost of just over $175,000, the one-story, 7,544-square-foot site housed both city offices and the police station and featured a beamed overhang, a front patio, pebble rock siding, and globe lighting.  You can check out a photo of it here.  It is that building that appeared in Scream.

In the hopes of making downtown Healdsburg more tourist-oriented, City Hall was moved to a new, larger building a couple of blocks northwest at 401 Grove Street and the police station re-located next door to 238 Center Street in 1996, shortly after Scream was lensed.  The former city hall site was subsequently given a massive overhaul and transformed into the Oakville Marketplace, home to a winery, a jewelry store, a spa, a clothing boutique, and an upscale deli/market named Oakville Grocery Co.  Boasting a Mediterranean façade, the 9,000-square-foot retail complex is hardly recognizable from its days as City Hall, though structurally it remains the same.

Though I abhor the fact that a Scream location has been gutted, Oakville Grocery Co., which takes up a third of the former City Hall space, has long been our favorite spot to eat when in town.  With a large front patio complete with a fireplace, a wide selection of specialty grocery items, and excellent deli sandwiches, Oakville just can’t be beat!

Healdsburg City Hall pops up as Woodsboro PD twice in Scream, first in the scene in which Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is brought in by Deputy Dewey (David Arquette) to make a report following the attack by Ghostface.  As you can see below, the exterior is recognizable from its 1996 cameo in shape only, unfortunately.

I first saw Scream in December 1997 with some friends who had rented it on DVD over Christmas break.  I remember being shocked when the end credits rolled and I spotted a nod to the City of Healdsburg in the “Filmmakers Wish to Thank” section, suggesting filming had taken place there.  The charming Northern California town was only about an hour away from where I then resided and a stone’s throw from where my aunt lived (and still lives).  I begged my mom to take me up there pronto and a few days later she obliged.  At the time I was not entirely sure what portions of the movie had been filmed in the area – this was long before location websites that could point me in the right direction existed – so when we arrived, my mom suggested I pop into the local police station to inquire, which I distinctly remember garnering an eye roll and a “Seriously, mom?!?” from me.  I did as she recommended, though, and just about fell over when the detective I spoke with informed me that filming had actually taken place at the former police station!  By then, the remodel had already occurred and Oakville Grocery Co. was in full swing, but he walked us over to explain where the station used to be and which areas of it had appeared onscreen – proving further that mothers always know best!  As he told us, the actual interior of City Hall was utilized as Woodsboro PD in the movie.

An interview that fellow stalker Ashley of The Drewseum recently emailed me a scan of leads me to believe that it was the City Hall portion of the building, not the actual police station, utilized in Scream.  In the blurb, production designer Bruce Alan Miller says, “There’s a City Hall on the corner of the square that we turned into our police station.  We just changed some signs and put a few things in the windows.  We couldn’t use a real police station, because we would have been at their mercy, and we couldn’t be disrupting their police activity.”  Though I was unable to unearth any photos of the interior areas featured in Scream, I did find 1961-era pictures of Healdsburg City Hall’s lobby, courthouse, and city council chambers.  (Here’s another of the lobby for good measure.)

Perhaps even more famous to Scream fans than Woodsboro Police Station is the alley that runs alongside it, where Dewey escorts Sidney and Tatum (Rose McGowan) after Sidney gives her statement.  Said alley can be reached via Center Street, just south of Oakville Grocery, but it, too, has largely been remodeled.  The door that the girls walk out of in the scene, unfortunately, fell casualty to the 1996 renovation, though the pipe visible just beyond it still stands.

The door’s former location is pretty much where the middle glass block window is currently situated, as denoted with an orange rectangle below.

The rain gutter and window due east of the door’s former location are also still intact, which was thrilling to see!  Along with the aforementioned pipe, they are pretty much the only elements that remain from the time Scream was filmed.

The dumpster enclosure and chain link fencing situated at the rear of the alley also largely remain the same.

It is in the alley that Sidney famously gives Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) a fist to the face.

Had to do it!

During my ‘97 visit, my officer friend informed me that the people standing across the street in the punching scene were not background actors hired to be there, but interested locals hoping to catch a glimpse of the filming.  Taking advantage of the situation, Wes Craven installed barricades to give the illusion that the crowd was made up of lookie-loos waiting outside the station for news about the murders of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) and Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls).  In his commentary on the Scream Collector’s Series DVD, Craven calls them “free extras.”

Woodsboro Police Station also shows up in a later scene in which Dewey drops the girls off to go grocery shopping while he checks in with his boss, Sherriff Burke (Joseph Whipp).

That segment gives us a better look at City Hall’s former exterior.  It truly was a piece of mid-century perfection!

Today, the entrance to Woodsboro PD serves as the exterior of the Virginia Carol clothing boutique (the shop with the yellow awning below).

Man, what I wouldn’t give to have seen the old City Hall building still intact!

The happiest of Halloweens to all of my fellow stalkers!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Oakville Grocery Co., aka Woodsboro Police Station from Scream, is located at 124 Matheson Street in Healdsburg.  Healdsburg Town Plaza, which portrayed downtown Woodsboro in the movie, is right across the road at the intersection of Healdsburg Avenue & Matheson Street.

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