In the News - December 25, 1915

by Billie Anderson

Electricity for Domestic Purposes Cheaper

At a meeting of representatives from the Town Trustees of Mill Valley, Belvedere and Sausalito, held in the San Francisco Yacht Club recently, Mr. V. Walton, General Manager of the Pacific Electric Co., stated that his company was making a strong campaign for the use of electricity for domestic purposes and the company would soon put in a rate for electricity for cooking, heating and domestic power which would appeal to everyone and increase the use of electricity in the home. The rate will be four cents per kilowatt for the first thirty kilowatts. The minimum guarantee has changed from three dollars a month to twenty-four dollars whether it is used in one month or during the whole period.

Ballot Errors Do Not Count

Mistakes are no ground for invalidation, unless a ballot cast at an election in California is so marked as to warrant the inference by a trial court that the voter casting it marked it designedly for the purpose of identifying it. The Supreme Court says that rejection of ballots must not be so regarded unless it is “clearly shown” that the voter intended the marks to identify the ballot and thus gain reward for a purchased vote.

New Supt. of Parks Taking Garden Pots in Hand

With the aid of Francois Colet, a trained gardener, a comprehensive scheme has been outlined for coordination of all the separate gardens. The rank overgrowth that has been allowed to accumulate since the parks were taken over by the Town from the Arbor Society has been pruned away. Such shrubs as have outgrown their usefulness have been cut down and will be replaced by others, properly arranged. If the work is allowed to progress without interference, it is stated that the beauty of the result will greatly outweigh the small inconvenience now caused by the clipped bushes. It is the plan of Mrs. Story to devote each park to a particular shrub, and to thin out the overcrowded parks.

8th Wonder of the World

Crater Lake National park has been termed by many the eighth wonder of the world. Nestling in the heart

of a great mountain which, in ages past, was a living volcano, 6,000 feet above the sea, with its sapphire surface unruffled, reflecting the many-hued surfaces of the 1,000 feet high crater walls which surrounded it, it is undoubtedly one of the most exquisite gems of color to be found in the world. The people of the United States are particularly fortunate in the possession of their national parks in that almost every one of them has a marked and striking individuality and contains within its boundaries some features which will leave a lasting impression and will be a source of joy and pleasure.

"In Light of the Moon"

One of the most tenacious beliefs is that the weather is affected by the movement of the moon. It is generally considered that frost is more likely to occur in the "light of the moon" than at any other time. For this reason crops, which the frost is likely to destroy, are planted at such a time as to be certain to avoid a full moon. The moon reflects sunlight to the earth and produces the tides. It has been proven conclusively these two have no relation to the change of weather. It is quite easy to understand that reflected sunlight from the moon cannot affect the weather. In the first place, more light is received from the sun in thirty minutes than from the moon.

Local Briefs

• Cottage, 3 rooms furnished $15.00; new nicely furnished 2 room apt $17.50.

• Hot Point Electric Irons: $3.00.

•Nearly a hundred poor children were made happy at a Christmas Tree Party in the Masonic Hall, San Rafael, under

the auspices of Marinita Parlo, Native Daughters, last Monday evening.

• Frederick Herlick, Manager of  the Owl Restaurant, reports that business has increased so that he was compelled to secure larger quarters in the Lindsay building recently occupied by Mecchi & Co.

•December, 1915

 – Ku Klux Clan receives Charter from Fulton County, Georgia

 –  Henry Ford’s Peace Ship

 – 1st  Allmetal aircraft test flown in Dessau, Germany

Life and (Near) Death at the Flea Market

By Larry Clinton

In the 80s, my lady friend Sharron and I were regulars at the old Marin City Flea Market.  It had been around for decades, and was considered among the biggest and finest flea markets in the Bay Area.  Sharron was a true flea market aficionado – she bought most of her clothes there, and was on a first name basis with many of the regular vendors.  In particular, she was a fanatical collector of Star Wars merchandise.

One morning, as was our habit, we smoked a joint before reaching the site (this was the 80s, remember).  After brunching at one or two exotic food trucks, I was accompanying Sharron on her rounds when I spotted something of interest.

View fullsize

Flea market vendor surrounded by statues.

Photo by Nancy Kittle, courtesy of Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library

A couple who’d clearly been cleaning out their garage were unloading a truckload of castoffs, including a box that looked vaguely familiar.  Nudging Sharron, I murmured, “Isn’t that a speeder bike?”  She followed my gaze and peeled off without a word toward the busy couple.  The unopened box contained a child-sized replica of Luke Skywalker’s gravity-defying runabout.  As Sharron reached for it, so did a guy she recognized as another collector.  During the ensuing tug-of-war, Sharron piped up, in her soft, high-pitched voice, “How much for this?”

The wife, clearly upset about being interrupted while trying to set up her booth, glanced quickly over her shoulder and snapped, “I don’t know, twenty-five bucks?”

“I’ll take it,” Sharron shot back, but her competitor refused to release his grip, disputing who had spotted the treasure first.  Sharron stood her ground, and said, again in that sweet baby voice, “I’m not a violent person, but you’re going to have to kill me to get this away from me.”

In my mildly altered paranoia, I thought, “Oh, God, we’re going to die in the dust of the flea market over a damn toy!” 

But my sense of preservation prevailed, and I hunted down a security guard who quickly and efficiently resolved the conflict, when he heard that Sharron had made an offer which had been accepted.

Sharron forked over the money, and I carried away the large carton.  But I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder to see if we were being followed.  Finally, I decided to take the box back to my floating home across the freeway so Sharron could continue browsing the flea market without that attractive nuisance.

The flea market ceased operation in 1995, to make way for the Gateway Center.  The Star Wars franchise just kept getting bigger and better, culminating in the recent release of Episode 7: “The Force Awakens.”  Sharron sold her collection and retired to Washington State.  I gave up pot, but I still miss the flea market.

For more information on our colorful local history, check out: www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.org.

CAPTION

Flea market vendor surrounded by statues.

Photo by Nancy Kittle, courtesy of Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library

The Valley St. Beach in the early 1900s

by Annie Sutte

In 1925, a small boatbuilding company settled in the area of Sausalito known originally as Whaler's Cove, and later as the Valley St. Beach, or as Swede's Beach. It was place long used for boat building and repairing, and all along the cove's beach were the remains of piers and wharves in varying states of repair and disrepair. When the boat builders settled on their site in 1925, sailing ships had been filling their water casks from the springs on the beach for over 100 years. In the 1820s Sausalito's first settler, William Richardson, brought water down to the beach and built a wharf for his launch Water Nixie, which carried water to San Francisco.

This photo of the Nunes Brothers operation comes from the Historical Society’s Virtual Exhibit.

In 1925 there was a pier and a boathouse at the south end of the cove, built in the 1880s by the Pacific Yacht Club. To the north of the cove were the Walhalla Beer Garden and a boardwalk, and two small piers, both of which were sound and in use, unlike the decayed remains of one at the foot of Richardson St. built around 1890 by the California Launch Building Co.

A dilapidated pier at Valley Street was used by fishermen who moored their boats at the cove — mostly 26’ Monterey type crab boats — and they lifted their crab boxes off the boats with davits and sold fresh crabs to the locals for 25 cents. For repairing, at high tide the fishermen hauled their boats up onto big timbers set out on the beach.

Kids who played on the beach in the 1920s remember changing into swimsuits in an old piano case that had been dumped there, and they remember how easy it was to siphon gasoline from the big tank the Spreckels kept under their boathouse for the Lurline. They remember finding liquor bottles buried in the sand beneath the Walhalla, a legacy from bootleggers who used the trapdoor beneath the beer garden at high tide.

It was an area rich in history even in 1925 when the small boatbuilding company bought the Reliance Boat and Ways Co. at the center of the cove at Main Street. An old set of ways, two piers and a building became headquarters for a boatyard that would become famous for its quality of workmanship, for the variety and number of craft turned out, and for its yacht designs; the Nunes Brothers Boat and Ways Co.

Find out more about the boatyards of early Sausalito by visiting the Historical Society’s Virtual Exhibit.  This online exhibit includes photographs and information from the SHS archives and uses software that pulls images and data from the database

Paul Dines: A Captain for All Seasons

by Steefenie Wicks

Captain Paul Dines aboard the Freda B.

Photo by Steefenie Wicks

The first thing you notice about Captain Paul Dines is his slight Southern accent, plus his gracious mannerism.  He was born in New York City but grew up on the South Carolina Island of Hilton Head.  His youth was spent on boats and fishing so when he came west to go to San Francisco State, it was not long before he discovered the waterfront of Sausalito.

“I was just the punk kid looking for a job, not a life style,” he states, “but that all changed once I got my first job that became my start-up business, Bristol Fashion Yacht Care, which I ran successfully for over 25 years.” His career on the waterfront soon got him involved with other workers, fellow boat owners, along with waterfront businesses; they became his circle of friends. 

In his younger days Paul served as captain of a vessel owned by the San Francisco Marine Exchange.  The vessel had to have some repairs, so it was brought to Ross Sommers’ boatyard in Sausalito.  He said that the delivery of the vessel went well and he helped with the repair work.  When the vessel was ready to go he took the helm but somehow could not maneuver her out.  As it happened, Harold Sommers was standing on the dock watching, and yelled out, “Well you haven’t made a mess of it yet.  Want me to show you how to get out of here?” 

Paul yelled back, “Yes, sir, and thank you.”  He backed the stern over to the dock and Harold stepped on board.  Paul recalls, “The first thing he asked me as he approached the wheel was ‘Have you ever backed out a single screw boat?’  With that he showed me how to maneuver the vessel just the way he had done it on the pilot boats for the last 50 years. This is the same method that I use today, each time remembering where I learned it.”

Currently, Captain Dines is the skipper of the Freda B, part of a charter business he runs.   The vessel was built as the official tall ship for the City of St. Augustine, Florida.  She is 64 feet at the waterline and 80 feet overall, weighing 34 tons, drawing 8ft.   He grew up around the formality of sailing, therefore one of the first things you notice about the Freda B is that she is maintained like a private yacht, not like a charter boat. 

Paul met Sausalito resident Charlie Merrill when he was just starting out.  Charlie was looking for a young fellow to give him a hand with upkeep and repairs on Cimba -- a 32-foot Grand Banks motor yacht that is a classic ‘woody.’ Dines was introduced to Merrill by his friends at that time, the children of human potential guru Werner Erhard. He explains, “When I had first came to California to visit my dad after my folks’ divorce, I was like 9 or 10. At that time I made friends with Adair, St. John and Celeste Erhard.  Later when I was 18, the summer of 1983, they introduced me to Charlie.”  He became great friends with both Charlie and his wife Virgina, spent a lot of time with them not only on Cimba but also doing little odd jobs at their home.  So in 1999 when Charlie put Cimba up for sale, Dines purchased her. Cimba, like the Freda B, is now a charter boat. Captain Dines feels that using these two vessels rekindles the romance of being on the water, whether by motor or sail.  He says he wants to “bring back that adventure that happens when you first step on deck. Also it’s been a great way to make a living.”

Captain Dines has been on the waterfront for over 30 years and has seen the changes, good and bad.  He speaks of growing up in the South and how one was honor bound by one’s word.  “California is a bit different,” he says, “but in Sausalito one is honored by one’s word and not a committee or organization.” 

He ends by saying, “Even the sport of sailing has changed. There was a time when you had to know what you were doing, you had to be sailing for the adventure of the sail.” He adds, “You had to know how to navigate.  Now there is not a boat for sale that does not come with some kind of navigational system already on board.  Radar is a standard piece of equipment these days along with the vessel’s communication center.”  He continues, “There was a time when vessels were built to last, like the old timers and their stories. The old guys who still had the time to pass on their knowledge, this is what is sadly disappearing from the Sausalito waterfront.”  

Photo schoonerfredab.com

For more information on Sausalito’s colorful history, check out: www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.org.

Sausalito Historical Society: Swede’s dark side

December 1, 2015

By Larry Clinton

View fullsize

Federal Prohibition officers, know as “prohis,” dogged young Swede Pedersen and other Sausalito bootleggers. Courtesy of the Sausalito Historical Society

Hometown boy Swede Pedersen was a Sausalito fireman who saved so many lives in and around town that one survivor dubbed him a “blond angel.” But there was another side to Swede, born out of the hardscrabble Depression years, when he and a gang of kids who dubbed themselves “Jackals of the Fog” tried to weasel in on Sausalito’s rum-running scene. This first-person account is excerpted from the book “One Eye Closed, the Other Red: The California Bootlegging Years” by Clifford James Walker.

At the beginning when bootlegging wended its way into the area, everyone seemed to have gotten into the game. The natural coastal approaches, the multitude of fishing and pleasure crafts, the Depression era and the lack of law enforcers to cover such a wide and isolated area, everyone had a try at bootlegging.

Across the Walhalla tavern was Nunes Bros. Boatyard. We would gain entrance to a boat and use it as an outpost. We would not take anything and were careful to leave the boat as it was when we left it.

At approximately 4 o’clock one foggy morning, with numerous foghorns moaning in the background, our lookout heard noises.

A large rowboat barely visible in the low fog was working toward the Walhalla beach. At this early hour and with such dense fog, there were no problems being observed. We heard the keel of the rowboat beaching on the sand so we watched the unloading, which was quick and professional.

After watching the boat pull out and making sure no one else was around we crawled along the beach and under the boathouse to the beach side of the Walhalla.

The Walhalla porch area was on pilings with the basement closed, with planking down into the beach sand. The old driftwood door was padlocked as usual. We dug down into the sand along the plank about four feet deep. We made sure we wouldn’t have a cave-in, then all but one of us slid into the entrance and inside the basement.

With matches we located the booze cache. This wasn’t local homemade product. Here were cases of first-grade liquor wrapped in straw. Rum, scotch, bourbon, cognac and gin. We could tell rumrunners brought this load through the Golden Gate off the mother ship from Canada or South America.

We were smart enough not to touch this load. We dug under and extracted a dozen bottles from broken cartons of a previous load.

After wrapping the bottles in our jackets to avoid any clinking noises, we passed them up through the entrance hole. We smoothed and covered our tracks in the sand and got the hell out of the area.

We laid low for a few days getting the feel of things. No one was aware of our two-bit hijacking job!

Not knowing how to properly cash in on our possession we traded bottles to the movie operator at the Princess Theatre for free passes (in the back door) and for watermelons and other fruit from the produce man.

By playing it cool and not trying to flood the market we didn’t run into much trouble. Although we were just drops in a bucket full of water, we felt big!

It didn’t take long before the syndicate entered the game. This was where we got off. The syndicate played rough and for keeps.

My buddy and I overheard that a cache of booze (not imported) was under a garage foundation next to the Princess Theatre. We checked out the area and saw two gunnysacks below the garage floorboards.

This was a quick drop so we crawled under the narrow foundation opening. We finally pulled the booze out into the open but we were looking up at a couple of mean, mad individuals at the same time.

We had no excuse; we were way off base. We knew better. They bruised us up plenty where it didn’t show.

Other times we would fill our lunch packs with several bottles and wait for the hay trucks heading through Fort Baker, Fort Barry, and Point Bonita to get to Sam Silva’s ranch and Jolly’s ranch by the ocean. We would hop the hay truck on the last steep grade out of Sausalito. As we stopped at various points, the soldiers, Coast Guard and ranch hands would claim their goodies. When pickings were scarce we would walk along the beaches gathering whiskey bottles floating in from passing ships and with the tides from San Francisco. Whiskey bottles being at a premium, we were paid from two cents for a half-pint to 25 cents for a gallon jug.

While visiting up in New Town I was taken down into the basement of a home and shown a full working still by my school friend. While looking and sampling we heard cars stopping alongside the house.

As footsteps were pounding in our direction my friend pulled me by the belt and we both crawled into and behind a false-built wall near the retaining wall.

You guessed it: It was a raid! I was sweating behind that wall copying my friend giving Hail Marys and anyone else’s name who needed hailing as long as we wouldn’t be discovered.

The still was smashed, the equipment knocked over. After what seemed forever, the prohis [federal agents] left and we crawled out, not lingering long enough to inhale the potent fumes.

I found I wasn’t built to get involved with the hard-core crowd.

Bootlegging became a serious game. Floating dead in the bay or a ditch, or wasting away in a jail cell, these were the top choices. We all settled down to safer and better things, like avoiding getting hit by a speeding car.

“One Eye Closed, the Other Red” is part of the Sausalito Historical Society collection.

T.J. Remembers Juanita

By Larry Clinton - Sausalito Historical Society

Long-time waterfront resident T.J. Nelsen has written a very personal memoir of Sausalito’s Gate 6 community, entitled “Houseboats, Drugs, Government and the 4th Estate.” 

Nelsen discovered the Sausalito waterfront in the early 60s, and soon moved to Don Arques’ property at Waldo Point harbor, where he worked at various odd jobs. In 1969 he was offered control of the harbor, where Arques and the houseboat owners were under threat of abatement by Marin County.  

View fullsize

Juanita Musson cut a formidable figure in her heyday.

Photocourtesy of Sausalito Historical Society

The book recounts Nelsen’s observances of the 70s Houseboat Wars from the marina management’s point of view.  It also contains some wonderful historic vignettes, such as his recollection of legendary restaurateur Juanita Musson aboard the ferryboat Charles Van Damme, which was beached off Gate 6 Road until it was declared uninhabitable and bulldozed in the 80s:

A bunch of us waterfront types helped Juanita Musson move her restaurant from what is now Harbor Drive, across from Clipper Yacht Harbor's office building, to the ferryboat Charles Van Damme, which resulted in so much free food for me, it became embarrassing. She would see me and loudly pull me to the front of the line, so I ended up going elsewhere to eat.

Juanita was a celebrity in Sausalito, and her restaurant on Harbor Drive was her second or third (or so I was told). The first time I saw her was when I went to eat at her place with a good friend, John Wheelwright, who had helped me with tree work and had introduced me to much of the waterfront. John was a gentle, austere young man from an old and prominent Marin family who made his living mostly as a carpenter. He was also 6'8” tall, and he dressed and looked like a lean Paul Bunyan. We were sitting at one of Juanita’s shared tables, starting to eat our ham and eggs, hash browns, English muffins with marmalade, and coffee—a generous staple at Juanita's—when one of her cats (she was and continued to be known for the animals she al­lowed loose in her restaurants, like garden-variety cats and dogs, chickens, and sometimes a goat) jumped up and started to nibble at John Wheelwright's breakfast. Being hungry, Johnny took umbrage at the uninvited moocher and gently swept the cat off the table, causing it no real discomfort and certainly no injury. Juanita saw him do it, grabbed a frying pan, and came directly to our table. Her intent was clear, and Johnny stood up and up and up to defend himself. Juanita stopped and leaned back to look him in the face. It was the only time I ever saw her back down from anything. I guess she decided no real harm had been done to her cat.

The first rule in Juanita's restaurant was “eat it or wear it,” which must have struck a chord with the eating public because her places were always crowded. After her move north to the Van Damme, there would often be a line outside waiting for breakfast. On Sunday mornings, some were in evening gowns, furs, and tails after a posh all-nighter in San Francisco. I saw them, locals, highway patrol, and Hells Angels sitting together at her big, shared tables, all minding their Ps and Qs. Juanita was the undisputed law in her domain, and nobody wanted to cross her. It was slumming at its finest.

Juanita told me another story about Arques that had occurred while she still occupied the Van Damme. She had gotten in trouble with the IRS for not depositing money withheld for taxes and the required employer and employee contributions, so she went to Donny—she called Don Arques Donny— and

told him her problem and asked what she should do. He told her not to worry, and she went away. She said she went to him a second time and said, “Donny, Donny, they're going to close me down!” He reassured her again, telling her not to worry, and again she went away. A third time she went to him and cried, “Oh Donny, they closed me down!” He looked her in the eye and said, “Well, we put up a hell of a fight, didn't we?” Vintage Arques.

In the introduction to his book, T.J. notes: “The information presented here is not the result of research, interviews, or a scholarly analysis of data, and I do not suggest it is balanced, complete, or fair to all those involved. It is simply about what I experienced and the way I saw it.”  The book goes on to detail all sides of the free-spirited community: the freedom, the squalor, the creativity, the drugs, the camaraderie and the violence that were all part of day-to-day life in the post-Haight Ashbury/Summer of Love era.  T.J casts his critical eye on various sides of the Houseboat Wars, including the protesters, Marin County bureaucrats, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, law enforcement, and the media (the Fourth Estate).

“Houseboats, Drugs, Government and the 4th Estate” is a must read for anyone interested in the colorful and controversial history of the early houseboat community. It’s available at the Ice House (780 Bridgeway), Book Depot in Mill Valley, Amazon.com and other online booksellers.

Problems Women Solved: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition

by Steefenie Wicks

One hundred years ago, Anna Pratt Simpson wrote a book titled “Problems Women Solved.”  It was a story of the vision, enthusiasm, work and cooperation accomplished by the first Woman’s Board that worked on the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.  One hundred years later another woman has come forward, tackling the “problem” of doing an informative book on the subject of the Exposition.  The book, released earlier this year, is titled “San Francisco’s Jewel City, The Panama-Pacific International Exhibition of 1915.” The author is Marin resident Laura Ackley.

View fullsize

Laura Ackley now joins other Marin women who were part of the Pan-Pacific Exposition.

Photo collage by Steefenie WicksPhoto of Laura Ackley by Miguel Farias

For years Laura has participated in Sausalito’s 4th of July extravaganzas, playing the cymbals and marching with the UC Alumni Band.  She has been a guest speaker for both the Sausalito Woman’s Club, as well as the Sausalito Historical Society.   This year, because of the popularity of her endeavor, she is booked for over 100 speaking engagements.  After spending much of her time out of the public eye, she now finds herself very much the public figure.   Like Laura, the women who formed the first San Francisco Woman’s Board of 1915, spent much of their time working effortlessly in the background, one day to be part of one of the state’s most successful fairs.

It was the Woman’s Board that first organized the California State Woman’s Auxiliary.  This organization helped to bring women together, to bind relationships and show the possibilities of what could be accomplished when working together.   The Auxiliary felt that it was the right of every woman in California to participate in the making of this Exposition which would celebrate some of the greatest engineering achievements in their current history -- therefore, adding to the Pacific Coast a future of commercial importance and success.

Ackley explains this aspect of the Exposition in her book.  For example, the Exposition encompassed over 635 acres, so how was one to navigate this event?  This is where the innovations of transportation took over. There were pedal rickshaws, pushchairs or powered vehicles that could be used to explore the grounds.  Many of these innovative ways of travel were new to the public and caused a great deal of interest as well as the excitement of being able to travel aboard one of these new creations. 

The Exposition was the start of a new organization brought about by the Woman’s Board, to help and aid those who would soon travel to the event: the first Traveler’s Aid of California.  In 1915 the Woman’s Board felt that the organization would be able to protect the direction of young people coming to the Exposition, some of them alone for the first time.  The Exposition directorate had the tremendous responsibility of attending to the material wellbeing of its visitors.  They had to see to it that the hotels and restaurants would keep faith with the public and the Travelers Aid organization, or so it was written in 1915. As Ackley puts it, “Travelers Aid worked in conjunction with the Woman’s Board of the Fair, which absorbed more than half of the $28,000 cost of operation in an effort to ensure visitors could travel to and from the PPIE safely.”  In all, 21,551 travelers were directed to safe lodging places during the Fair.”  She goes on to say, “In April of 1915, the Idaho Statesman printed a warning to young women from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs advising against trying to seek employment at the Fair.  The article said the Woman’s Board was battling a movement to give over a section of the fairgrounds to prostitution.  The Woman’s Board was outraged, stating it never had to fight such an issue ‘because it never existed’.  The Woman’s Board also acted as an official subcommittee of the Exposition and was responsible for hosting visiting dignitaries.”

Ackley says she felt a responsibility when writing her book because this was a major American Fair that had no comprehensive, general history written about it.

Laura feels that what she has filled a void in the history of World Fairs with this endeavor. There are many aspects of the Fair, but her book serves to examine its cultural history.

Her book and that book by Anna Pratt Simpson are 100 years apart but come together to be part of the history of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. In 1915, the Ladies of Marin who were on Woman’s Board were:  Mrs. John Hanify, Mrs. Carolyn E. Atherton, Mrs. Peter Hamilton, Mrs. Carl Renz and Mrs. J.C. Perry.  Now, history can add Laura Ackley’s name to those women of Marin who are part of one of the world’s greatest Fairs, the Panama –Pacific Exposition of 1915.

Laura Ackley will appear at Campbell Hall (Christ Episcopal Church) on Monday evening, December 7th, at an event that also celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Sausalito Historical Society.  For information and to make advance reservations, go to www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com/ recent-events.

Waiting for The Rain

By Larry Clinton

Daniel O’Connell (1849 -1899), was a Sausalito poet who is memorialized by the stone bench on the northwest corner of the intersection of Bulkley and Harrison streets. In January, 1891 the Sausalito News published his poem “Waiting for the Rain,” which is as appropriate today as it was 124 years ago:

"I faint," said the grass on the parched hillside,

Lifting its head with pain.

"And never did bridegroom pine for bride,

As I pine for the rain." 

"I die," said the rose, "for the dusty earth

Presses my roots with pain;

As the mother prays for the infant's birth,

So I pray for the cooling rain." 

"I am sick of my hope," said the heliotrope,

"And that changeless azure sky;

Oh, for one hour of a generous shower,

To drink in its sweetness and die."

"Will it never come," said the mountain brook,

"Till my prisoned waters flow ? 

For this morning I heard, from a stranger bird, 

The grief of the plain below —

"How the broad leaved lily, my wedded bride,

Had bent her snowy head,

And weary with waiting, had drooped and died

ln my parched and dreary bed;

"And the thirsty banks, who laughed at my pranks

When I rushed from the wooded glen,

Have whispered, with fear, in the meadow-lark's ear,

That I had deserted them."

Thus the flowers, and the grass, and the prisoned brook,

And meadow, and hill, and plain,

Are gazing above, with a troubled look, 

For the coming of the rain. 

Cass Gidley Fish Stories

by Annie Sutter

This story was first published in the Marin Scope in 1985.

Some years ago, as I relaxed on board a sailboat anchored off Gate 3, two large crabs suddenly flew into the cockpit, splattered across the deck, and fetched up in a corner, legs waving in outrage. That was my first meeting with Cass Gidley, a cheery looking fellow in a dinghy full of crab pots, nets and fishing gear. “Enjoy!” he shouted as he rowed off to his cutter, the Yo Ho Ho, anchored nearby. Cass, strong, competent and looking just as if he’d spent his life at sea, which he has, has been described by one man as “the strongest man I ever saw — he can pick up Yo Ho Ho’s mains’l and just walk off with it,” and by another: “When you shake hands with Cass Gidley, you know you’ve shaken hands.”

Cass Gidley in a rare moment ashore.
Photo Courtesy of Sausalito Historical Society

Today Cass, fisherman, sailor, sailing instructor, charter skipper and local legend, has Yo Ho Ho docked at the Napa Street pier near the location of his retail fish market of the ’60s, and the sailing school and marina that still bear his name. He’s lived on the 54­-foot cutter for 18 years and raised three kids on board while anchored off Gate 3. He’s been around Sausalito since the 1920s, when fishermen kept Montereys in Hurricane Gulch, and when four crabs sold for $1. “I started commercial fishing in 1941 — got bit by the bug. Me with no experience, but I liked the sea. I leased a 40-­foot double ender, the Nina, and fished crab, salmon and albacore. We didn’t travel far offshore in those days, but we worked hard for very little money. Salmon brought 12 cents a pound, but money wasn’t the real thing, it was the adventure we had out there.”

At first Cass sold his catch at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, “but finally I got away from it and made my headquarters in Sausalito, in the mid ­’40s. I sold all my fish through Lefty Sturiales, down at Gate 3. Lefty, he was a famous character, known up and down the coast. I fished out of Pt. Reyes and brought them back to Sausalito.”

In the early ’50s, Cass set up a shop next to the ferry dock and sold fresh fish directly off his boat to the locals. “The city gave us a float right where the ferry is now, and we sold tons and tons of fish. We’d fish for a week and come in on Thursday and sell on Friday. The people came right down to the dock; we had so many people we had to give out numbers!” Then, in 1957, Cass started his own crab company, the Lighthouse Crab Co. “We had seven trucks running around and sold from 12,000 to 15,000 pounds a weekend from locations at San Rafael, Black Point, Petaluma. Each crab van pulled a 50-­gallon cooker and had its assigned spot along the highway, and sometimes people were lined up even before the van arrived. I never heard of a frozen crab,” said Cass. “We cooked ’em right on the spot. They stayed alive in the refrigerated truck and came out fighting.

“Then I set up as a fish buyer at the Napa Street pier.” The Casserino Fish Co. was to grow into a large retail operation, a headquarters for fishermen, and had a little lunch place featuring fish and chips. “We had a big room for the fishermen and they could go out and get all ploughed up, you know, and there were never any tickets or trips to jail then. The police in Sausalito were tops then — they helped everybody — they’d call and say, ‘Hey! Your car’s down here, come and get it’ — and maybe a salmon sailed their way the next day. Sometimes when the fleet was ‘blown in,’ with a raft­up of big trawlers side by side at the pier, we’d have a barbecue with fresh bottom fish and salmon on the charcoal, a van full of French bread and the usual free beer. And the smells of garlic bread drifted far out into the bay and even the seagulls stopped to watch.”

What’s in store now for Cass? “I’m going back fishing. I’ve got a small 32-­foot hard chine ketch I’m going to make into a fishing boat and go out and get some fish myself and bring them back to the Napa Street pier and sell right off the boat. That’s my plan. Take the fish out of the stores — everybody’s happy and you’ve all got fresh fish.”

Cass Gidley passed away in 1998, but his memory is being preserved by The Sausalito Community Boating Center, a non-profit organization established to create a Community place at Gidley’s old marina near Dunphy Park to provide affordable access to boats and the water, preserve maritime history through education and skill building, promote environmental stewardship of our bay, and to maintain a place in Sausalito for locals and maritime groups to hold classes, access the waterfront and build community.

Learn more about this organization and its fundraising progress at http://cassgidley.org.

In the News October 23, 1915: Sausalito welcomes Edison

By Billie Anderson Sausalito Historical Society

Sausalito Welcomes Edison and Ford

View fullsize

Edison, Burbank and Ford

Cadets from the Mt. Tamalpais and the Hitchcock Military academies, along with bands and hundreds of citizens extended a royal welcome to Thomas Alva Edison, who was on his way with Henry Ford and party to visit Luther Burbank, the plant wizard.

He was given a very hearty and royal reception by the Sausalito school children as he passed through here on Friday. Hundreds of school children, wearing American flags and a banner bearing the inscription “Sausalito School Children Greet Edison and Ford, met his kindly eyes. He appreciated their grand welcome as he passed through the line, shaking hands with several of the little tots. It was hard to decide who were the happiest the children or Mr. Edison. Mrs. Edison was greatly pleased with the grand welcome as she gazed over the mass of youngsters and in the back of them hundreds of citizens who were glad to get the opportunity of seeing the great man.

Mosquito abatement district petition

In accordance with an Act entitled “An Act to Provide for the Formation, Government, Operation and Dissolution Of Mosquito Abatement Districts The Town of Sausalito does hereby represent to and petition your Honorable Board to create a Mosquito Abatement District to be composed of that portion of Marin County, State of California beginning at the southeast corner of the Town of Sausalito.

School dress code opposed

Mrs. Edward Hyatt, Assistant State Superintendent of Public Instruction, created a stir at the meeting of the Parents’ Auxiliary of the high school last Friday when she objected to a uniform style of dress for girl pupils. “No one is going to tell me what my girls shall wear at school,” she said. “This is a free country and it is an infringement on the rights of parents for this organization or anyone else to tell mothers what kind of dresses their girls shall wear at school.”

The auxiliary seeks to keep some of the high school girls from wearing fashionable dresses, saying that girls who are compelled to wear simple dresses are snubbed by the “society” girls, and feel bad because they can’t dress attractively. “My girls wear plain dresses,” said Mrs. Hyatt. “But if they wore the highest priced gowns and ankle watches, used paint and powder and did their hair up in the latest style it would be nobody’s business but our own.” Mrs. Hyatt’s husband remarks: “She is just about right.”

Just go on and wear your hair as you will in any way most becoming to you for the goddess of fashion will nod indifferent approval on anything. The bobbed coiffure made its debut. It is so novel and so different, no one could help noticing. It is a lovely style for youthful faces. A few young women were willing to go the length of cutting off —”bobbing”—the hair at the sides for the sake of the style. Older women have remained faithful to waved hair combed in a small pompadour and dressed with a knot, rather high on the head. – Julia Bottomly

Fair realizes $1100

The bazaar conducted by the ladies of St Mary Star of the Sea Parish was a success judging from the final statement of Mrs. J. R. Hanify who states that $1100 was realized. The ladies are very grateful to the public for their kind co-operation and especially the Sausalito Woman’s Club for donating the use of the hall and to the Marin Hardware Co., who handled the electrical work.

Life mask premiere

A well-known New Yorker entertaining some friends showed them his life mask and then told them with feeling how the mask had been made. “They put me in a chair, tied a towel around my head, plugged my ears with greased wool and stuck a quill in each nostril.”

Shut your eyes, said the workman, drawing near with a ladle and a large steaming tureen of pink plaster the consistency of thick soup and he slapped the stuff on my face. I could feel it running down my collar and over my chest just as soup would have done. I motioned with my hands wildly. The man laughed. ‘That’s all right, boss,’ he said, and kept slapping the hot, horrible, slimy stuff upon me. He stopped when my face was covered with a half-inch coat of plaster. He told me it would harden in a few minutes. It did, but the minutes were awful. As the plaster dried it seemed to shrink, shrinking my skin with it. And the heat of the thing! And the difficulty in breathing through the quills stuck in my nostrils! Then very carefully, very slowly he drew the hardened cast from my face. I gripped the chair arms and shrieked.

Nine hurled to their death by waves

Schooner Alliance No. 2 strikes Point Arena Fangs in Fog. Sinks in five minutes. Eleven persons were on board. Four bodies of the drowned have been recovered. Two men have been saved. The loss included two women. All on board managed to climb onto the rock, but were swept off by the waves. Jones clung to a waterlogged lifeboat for two hours and was picked up by the Point Arena life-saving crew. Mediner managed to swim ashore. There seems no possible chance for any more to be rescued.

In the News

3rd Earthquake, Pleasant Valley, Nevada.

9th Woodrow Wilson 1st President to attend World Series.

9th Belgrade Serbia surrenders to Central Leaders.

In PURSUIT of Ron MacCannan

by Steefenie Wicks, Sausalito Historical Society

The tide was high and the water was still, a perfect combination.  The 82-foot sloop rocked gently in her berth.  Scuba gear in place mask down, he launched himself into the muddy water.  Once he was there he found his way to the very bottom of the vessel.  He could see the rut in the mud that the large 50-ton vessel had made but with this high tide she was floating above her mark in the mud.  He swam over, like a turtle fitted himself into the rut.  Lying in the mud with the 50-ton vessel floating above him he stretched out his arms on either side of the keel, he was holding up the boat.  As he lay in the space, a laugh played upon his mind.  He thought to himself how many fellows get a chance to hold up their boats.

Photo by Steefenie Wicks

Ron MacCannan is the owner of the vessel PURSUIT, the company of Burgess and Morgan in New York built her in 1929.  She has been his love, his friend, his home and his peace.  Docked at the Madden Yacht Harbor in downtown Sausalito, she has been a showcase of what fine sailing vessels can look like along with being a standing example of the history that they have been part of.  

Pursuit in the Norcal Master Mariner's Ratta

  One might say that the PURSUIT a fine vessel is a labor of love for this dedicated sailor.   When he first viewed her in 1959 she was not exactly what he was looking for.  She was larger than he wanted also the vessel was a lot older than he wanted.  However, she was beautiful, strong, priced right, she was his, continues to be his almost 60 years later.

At 90 years of age, Ron MacCannan has been part of the Sausalito waterfront since 1959.  His first job here was to jack up and move the 500 ton building that was built in 1898, at that time it was known as the San Francisco Yacht Club, in 1960 it was known as Ondine’s.  It seemed that the City of Sausalito wanted to widen the street Bridgeway but his building was in the way.  Ron was hired to contact the moving of the structure, which he did.   He tells of that day back in 1960 when he had the building jacked up ‘as is ‘ which allows for three feet of drainage pipe along with placing it is such a position that later would protect against wave action, and high water.  He moved the structure seventy feet east onto a new concrete foundation; this would make the 20-foot widening of Bridgeway possible.  

Tident Resturant, Sausalito

Later he would come to own this structure, building it 3 feet higher than it was in 1898. It was during this move that he discovered that the area where the new foundation would be laid, stuck in the mud were thousands of bottles. He was able to do a little bit of fact finding, discovering that the old Fire Department had once been located in that area.  During the days of ‘Prohibition”, all of the liquor bottles where brought to the Fire Department to be discarded, they in tern through them in the Bay.

Ron will be the first to tell you that he was raised as a farm boy on his grandfather’s property in St. Helena.   As a young lad he attended military school, which lead him to be prep for West Point.  During WWII he was trained as a gunner on a B-29.  After the WWII he found himself back in construction only now he had earned a general contractors license, which would bring him to Sausalito.   It was during this time that a new friend of his gave him a place to live. He found himself living aboard a 72-foot yacht called the VIVEKA.   The VIVEKA was a beautiful schooner that was docked in Sausalito; this gave him his first taste of what it was like to live on board a boat.  Then he began his journey of learning how to sail.  It was the sailing part that convinced him that he needed a boat of his own.   A year later he would take a trip down to Los Angeles, row out in the anchorage, view PURSUIT, the rest as he would say is history.

While Ron works on his vessel, he will be tell you that today the wooden boat is not as popular as it use to be.  Today there are new materials that boats are built out of so that they can go faster, looking sleeker in the water.  But the old wooden boat with its wooden hull is just about gone.   This becomes evident when you need to find someone to work on your boat, only to find out that the person you need has moved on to another area.

photo credit Latitude 38

‘There was a time “, he says” when you could go to the northern end of town, find boat workers, materials, haul out ways for boats along with shops where these handy folks worked.  Now all of that has changed.  With the lack of shop space that these talented craft folks need to work on the wooden boats in this area, the work force has moved on, a lot of the fine crafts people have moved out of this area.”  He continues, “ Sausalito use to be a mecca for creative sorts, now it’s a mecca for the tourist.  Yet, you can still see guys in this harbor coming down every day or every other day, taking care of their boats, maintaining that part of Sausalito’s waterfront heritage that seems to be slipping away.”

Ron MacCannan was recently spotlighted in the film series called, ‘Life On the Water’.

Cimba and the Farallon Patrol

The following story has been condensed from an article published in the Marin Scope in March 1981.

by Annie Sutter

It's 6:15 a.m., the sky's a chilly, mottled, sullen pinkish-gray, and I'm tiptoeing through patches of frost on an uninviting expanse of dock leading out to the berth where Cimba, the 32' Grand Banks, awaits the arrival of the week's Farallon Patrol. Soon all the shivering members of the expedition have gathered -- Charlie Merrill, skipper, bustling about loading gear, groceries and rolls of chicken wire; two members of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory (from here on known as the PRBO) who will relieve other scientists studying bird and seal populations at the windswept islands, and others doubtless wondering why they're casting off into a leaden and chilly sea with a rough day ahead.

Cimba cruising off Sausalito
Photo courtesy of S.F. Bay Adventures.

At 7 a.m., coffee, croissants and a glorious display of pink, gold, and orange sunrise have done a great deal to dispel the cold and gloom as Cimba joins the early morning parade of fishboats and assorted craft heading out the Gate for a crack at salmon, albacore and cod. Cimba's engine purrs happily as she heads out into what has become a morning sparkly sea of silver and blue and long, low smooth swells -- maybe no one will be seasick this run! A caravan of cormorants heads out to sea in tight formation and flocks of murres disappear beneath the waves to port, and reappear in unison, yards away to starboard. An hour later, the swells have increased in volume, the wind has freshened, and the sparkly sea, stirred up into mean little khaki colored choplets, begins to slap and break over the bow while Cimba leaps through the swells, digs down, and rides up, shaking off spray.

By 11 a.m. the islands, at first smoky blobs on the horizon, have been taking shape for the past couple of hours. They consist of three rocky, mainly barren and windswept groups; and the largest at 90 acres with a lighthouse on top is Southeast Farallon, home of the PRBO and our destination. We've made radio contact with the island, and people are waiting up on a large concrete landing with a crane. We've got an easterly wind, the worst kind for the pick-up, and the swells are just about big enough to call off the rendezvous -- but not quite. They radio to come on in and tie up to a big seaweed-encrusted buoy, which is rolling violently, tugging at its mooring.

A Boston Whaler with two people in it is hanging off the crane and being lowered slowly into the water, a distance of about 25'. As it hits the water, the people's heads vanish behind swells, then reappear, and as the boat is unhooked from the hoist, it skitters off, bounding through the troughs, appearing and disappearing. Soon, a large box is dangling from the hoist, and the Whaler goes back to pick it up. It sways and lurches while the boat dances below; then, as the two finally meet, the box is deftly unhooked and it lands with a plop in the Whaler, which backs off quickly and heads out to Cimba to unload. Back and forth they go - box returned empty, box hoisted, box reloaded, box returned to Cimba filled with equipment, duffel bags, packs and luggage of those who will be leaving.

When it's time for the staff to disembark from the landing at the top of the cliff, a new conveyance is hooked onto the crane - a scary looking thing called a "Billypugh", developed for use on big oil rigs. The people climb onto the top, cling to it as it's lowered, swaying, to the Whaler. They say it's a lot easier to get on at the top than off at the bottom. Soon we have four new faces aboard, four sets of belongings, and four people who say they are glad to be going home. We unleash Cimba from the rolling buoy, and head back into the chop and the swells, for the Golden Gate.

After reading about sharks and tumultuous seas in Cimba's logbook, I look around apprehensively, but today the sea is kind, and the boat is faithfully buzzing along toward home. By 5 p.m., we're nearing the Gate, bucking a fierce ebb tide, but making headway. It's dark by the time the amber overheard lights of the bridge have been left behind, and as we approach Sausalito traffic scurries along Bridgeway, and the lights twinkle up in the hills. Cimba glides into her berth, veteran of another Farallon Patrol voyage. "Piece of cake!" says Charlie.

Charles H. Merrill, a small boat sailor and a pillar of the Sausalito community, died in his hillside home overlooking San Francisco Bay at age 95. In 1990, Cimba went into disrepair and in 1999, Charlie Merrill decided to sell her to Capt. Paul Dines of SF Bay Adventures, which offers private charters on her for up to 6 guests. For more information, visit sfbayadventures.com.

Of Whiskey Flasks and Bathtub Gin

Veteran local storyteller Swede Pedersen, who was born and raised here and had a rich treasure trove of memories of Sausalito from the 1930s on.  This article, somewhat edited and abridged,is based on an interview that appeared in MarinsScope on February 8, 1972.

            “When I was only 12 years old,” Pedersen recalls, “we used to go down to Shelter Cove at night, and when the fog came in we’d tunnel under the pilings of the old Walhalla, the German beer garden that’s now the Valhalla, where we knew a lot of the stuff was stored.  I remember when I made my first sale to one of our leading citizens.  He said, `You’ve done your civic duty by turning this in, young man.  If you find anymore of these bottles, you just bring them straight to me’.”

            The distinct class divisions that existed in Sausalito at that time apparently vanished when it came to the forbidden pleasures of whiskey flasks and bathtub gin.  While the hill people were making fig wine in their basements, the young men of the working class were flirting with prison terms for the sake of the big money offered by men like “Baby Face” Nelson, who spent a brief time in Sausalito in the early 1930s.

The wages of sin:  A local pharmacy was shut down for violating Prohibition laws in the 1920s.
Photo courtesy of Sausalito Historical Society

By and large, the attitude among the otherwise law-abiding citizenry was a wink and a nod.  From the stately homes of the Banana Belt to the proletarian flatlands, there was amused acquiescence -- or covert indulgence in guilty pleasures.  “Baby Face” Nelson’s custom-built Duesenberg used to be brought into Rose’s Garage on Caledonia Street (now the Real Foods store), one old-timer recalled for this interview. “I’d wash and polish it, and I can still remember the bullet-proof windshield and the secret compartment under the seats where the booze was kept.”

“Sometimes we’d get together at the Women’s Club,” remembered a “hill lady” who didn’t care to be identified.  “Our local pharmacist would mix up some of his medicinal alcohol with a few juniper leaves, and we’d have a little gin party.”

According to Pedersen, a local Boy Scout troop was sometimes “chaperoned” by men posing as troop leaders who took the boys to a lonely West Marin beach, settled them around a bonfire, treated them to a wiener roast and encouraged them to sing camp songs at the top of their lungs.  In the meantime, the chaperones loaded up a long, black limousine down by the water with contraband brought in by boat. 

The prevalence of crude stills in private homes seems to have approached the

proportions of a cottage industry.  But since big money was often at stake, the fun and games of local law breaking inevitably came to be overshadowed by the deadly serious operations of big-time gangsters.  “There were more unidentified bodies found floating in the bay and laying in the back roads during that period than at any other time in the history of this area,” said Pedersen.  “Our Boys Club, who sponsored the Sausalito Bears ball club, held whist parties to pay for our uniforms.  Our headquarters were in the basement of a house on Spring Street where a speakeasy operated on the upper floors.  So it didn’t surprise us when we found a machine gun dismantled and cleaned one day out in our horseshoe throwing pit.”

In addition to a liberal social climate, there were also fortuitous geographical reasons for a widespread flouting of the dry laws in Marin and Sonoma counties.  “Because of all the inlets up and down the coast west of here,” Pedersen pointed out, “there were plenty of chances for small, fast boats, carrying contraband from Canadian and Mexican ‘mother ships’ laying offshore in international waters, to come in and unload their cargo on the beaches.”

In the days before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, Sausalito was known among rumrunners as “the bottleneck” through which illegal liquor had to be funneled to San Francisco’s speakeasies.  They had to make it through downtown and onto a San Francisco-bound ferry without detection.  Pedersen told of how bootleggers would meet at the old Caesar’s Inn on Tocoloma Road, near Inverness, and make plans for a shipment to the city. 

 “A call would go out to a trusted telephone operator in San Rafael – often a girlfriend of one of the men – who would relay the message to Sausalito that everyone should be off the streets because a truckload was coming through.  The truck, covered with a tarpaulin, would time the run so that it could catch the last ferry of the night within seconds before it left, and that way keep a jump ahead of the federal inspectors.”

Obviously, in order for such an operation to run smoothly, almost everyone in Sausalito had to be an accessory to the fact, either actively or passively.  There were only two policemen on the force then, plus a night watchman.  The degree to which they looked the other way can only be a matter of conjecture today.

Building Boom of 1911

Sausalito’s optimism abounded 104 years ago, and the San Francisco Call reported: Many signs go to show that Sausalito has entered on a new era of development. More fine residences have been built here during the last six or eight months than in the same number of years before. The first brick and stone business block in Water Street, for the Bank of Sausalito, was erected within a year.

The Bank of Sausalito on Water Street, now Bridgeway
Photo Courtesy of Sausalito Historical Society

Four more business buildings are about to be built this spring. Several pretty bungalows are in process of construction and plans are being drawn by a San Francisco architect for a $12,000 residence.

This building boom and the general forward movement of the town is due largely to the acquisition of a good water supply. Last year the Lagunitas water supply mains were extended to Sausalito, giving the town an unlimited supply of the purest mountain water. This comes from Lake Lagunitas, nearly 20 miles away, on the northern slope of Mount Tamalpais. It has the same purity and health giving qualities as Mill Valley's water supply, which has had much to do with the upbuilding of that popular suburb and summer resort.

Sausalito has built five reservoirs on the highest ridge in town, making a large auxiliary water supply for any emergency. It gives a strong pressure in all parts of the town.

The town is now engaged in building two miles of macadamized streets. There is a plan afoot to asphalt Water Street throughout the business district and clear round to its western extremity toward the Golden gate. Two thirds of the property owners have signed contracts for their shares of this important work and It Is believed that soon all will join in the movement.

BEGINNING OF IMPROVEMENTS

"The new water supply and the street Improvements now under way," said F.D. Lindsey, cashier of the Bank of Sausalito and chairman of the board of trustees "are only, the beginning of making Sausalito a model suburb. We expect soon to have a cable line running from the station and up over the hills to North and South Sausalito, making large areas available for home sites.

"The Pacific Gas and Electric company is contemplating an extension of their gas mains from San Rafael Southward to Mill Valley and Sausalito." When the Eureka extension of the Northwestern Pacific Is completed all trains from the north will come into this terminal and will increase greatly the local business of the town."

The Sausalito improvement club, of which C. M. Moore, the San Francisco contractor, is chairman, Is concentrating its efforts on carrying out plans for putting the streets and sewers in all parts of the town in good condition.

Michael Rainy: Waterfront Diplomat

By Steefenie Wicks

While sitting in a marine class in Terra Linda, Michael Rainy, the harbormaster for Sausalito’s Schoonmaker Marina, decided to check his phone. He had been expecting a text from a client who wanted to bring in a 130- footer, and planned to arrive that day from Los Angeles. Just as he was about to make a connection, a text came in with an urgent, “Please call marina.” Not only was the vessel in but it was escorted by the Coast Guard and the Sausalito Police boat. He replied to the text: “I’m on my way.”

Rainy has been the Schoonmaker harbormaster for the past 26 years.

Schoonmaker is one of five different marinas located on the Sausalito waterfront. The thing that makes Schoonmaker Marina different from the others is its open beachfront location, making it an available spot for vessels both small and large. Rainey’s day-to-day involvement with the very well to do and the not so well to do is a test of his skills in diplomacy; he will be the first to tell you that “The guy with the 200 footer has as much rights as the guy in the 30 footer when it comes to respecting each other while living on this common denominator, the water.”

The ship that had caused such a commotion was the “Spearfisher,” a stealthy-looking vessel that was caught doing 40 knots under the Golden Gate Bridge. Rainy was not at all surprised by the size of the vessel or the fact that she was so fast. Being the harbormaster of a big berth marina can present its problems, but all can be solved with a clear understanding of the situations. The captain of the “Spearfisher” was quick to speak to the authorities and the situation was soon taken care of, after which the captain turned to Rainy and said, “This happens all the time.”

Schoonmaker is listed as a big boat marina, so they can dock vessels that are well over 100 ft., maxing out at 225 feet. They are in demand, for as the price of fuel goes up the captains of these vessels like to know that when they pull up to a dock that they can plug in to 100 or 200 amps and let their equipment recharge.

Rainy remembers the experience of taking his father, who at the time was 75, on tour through one of the really big boats docked in the marina. As they walked on the red shag carpet that was wall to wall in the engine room, his father just shook his head. Then they traveled above deck to the pilothouse where all the ship’s controls were placed; behind that sat a gym with workout equipment. Then they crossed the gym to open the glass doors where the helicopter was parked. Michael said his father just stood there looking from one end to the other, and he could not stop saying, “Oh, my god, oh, my god.”

As harbormaster, Michael Rainy explains that when you purchase a marina it does not come in a box. To maintain and efficiently run its day-to-day existence, you must know all aspects of its overall structure. Rainy remembers that he was hired after one of the worst storms that had taken place in this area, in the winter of 1989. He begins, “That was the year that the outer concrete docks broke up into many pieces. Then a trimaran that was anchored out broke loose from its moorings and began to ride the huge waves that were building, making it end up with a section of the vessel trapped under the crumbling concrete dock; it was a mess. If there is one thing to fear on the water, it can be the wind. You have no control, it just doesn’t stop, there is no off button, only the aftermath of the destruction that it can cause.”

Schoonmaker is a one of a kind Bay Area marina because it is a recreational marina, “meaning,” says Rainy, “that you don’t have to climb over a fence to get to your boat. We are not industrial or located in an industrial area. You can come and park and plug in and get shore power and use shower facilities.” Schoonmaker is very much an open space marina that does not discourage use.

Rainy enjoys seeing the big boats come in as well as the familiar sight of a small vessel that makes a returning visit each year. Above all, it’s the people he deals with every day who make his day. He feels that boating people have a common attitude, which means that 95% of the time this guy or gal coming to his or her boat is in a good mood. They are happy to be here because they love their boats, which are now part of this Sausalito waterfront. In this community of the haves and the have-nots, we really do learn to live together, which in the end is what it’s all about.

From Disaster to Literature

By Larry Clinton Sausalito Historical Society

The opening of Jack London’s novel, The Sea-Wolf, is based on an historic tragedy – the collision of the sidewheeler ferries Sausalito and San Rafael on foggy San Francisco Bay. Here is a lightly excerpted account of the collision from the book Redwood Railways by Gilbert H. Kneiss:

November of 1901 had but a few more hours to live when the blackest, densest tule fog of years rolled in on the Bay and blotted out familiar landmarks as it cued bells, foghorns and whistles to take up their duties. A few chilly, belated commuters raced under the invisible Ferry Tower and aboard the San Rafael for her 6:15 run to home and dinner.

Dick the horse in happier times on the foredeck of the ferry San Rafael.

Above, in the San Rafael's pilot house, old Captain McKenzie rang for half-speed astern and backed out through the thick tule fog. Nothing could be seen. The San Rafael started on her course ten minutes late, her wheels poking at fourteen turns instead of the usual twenty-two..

The fog seemed thicker, if such could be, and there was a very heavy ebb tide. Soon he recognized the Sausalito's whistle off his starboard bow. Ordinarily, each would keep to the right of Alcatraz Island, so they would never meet, but a dredger working around Arch Rock had blocked one channel.

Captain McKenzie yanked his whistle cord twice to pass to port; put his helm hard a-starboard. Two blasts out of the fog from the Sausalito agreed with him. But they sounded uncomfortably close and almost dead ahead. Instantly he rang to stop the engine, sounded three short whistles and rang again full speed astern. The big paddles started splashing again, slowly, in reverse.

Suddenly there was a god-awful crash, the ferry's hull splintered open, and the Sausalito's steel prow smashed into the grill and batted one passenger twenty feet through the door. All hell broke loose, so did most of the passengers' self-control. They smashed windows, panicked up the companion ways and fought madly for life preservers. Behind all  the racket — the screams, wails and curses, shattering glass and ghostly chorus of foghorns outside — they heard the ominous background of endless waters pouring through the breach.

The officers, at least, kept cool and soon restored some semblance of order. McKenzie and the Sausalito's Captain Tribble had immediately ordered their ferries lashed together and boats launched. A few of the deckhands and some male passengers of both boats began to pass women and children from the San Rafael which was sinking fast. Soon her starboard rail was under water, then her lights blinked out. Splashing through the greedy waves, men dragged the few remaining women to the upper deck where Bartender Gus now handed matrons across to the Sausalito as quick and calm as ever he'd passed a Pisco Punch across the bar.

Captain McKenzie saw that time had about run out. His passengers were almost off — women and children aboard the other ferry and the men bobbing around in life jackets. But Dick, the baggage truck horse, was still tethered in the cabin. McKenzie cut his rope and drove him out, then jumped for the Sausalito. He was just in time. With an almost human sob, the San Rafael vanished. Twenty minutes before, she had been a proud but aging steamer.

The Sausalito's deck resembled a hospital ward. The fog still resembled a cold puree. No one knew where the tides had led them. But the prolonged whistles and failure of the boats to dock had sent two Red Stack tugs to the rescue. One, the Sea King, nosed through the soup just as the last life boat brought more sopping, shivering, cork-jacketed survivors. Tribble grabbed his megaphone and yelled "where are we?" and from the tug they heard the answer: "Off the Presidio light and heading out to sea!"

Flanked by the two tugs, the Sausalito inched along to the haven of her slip and the hysterical cheer that greeted her as she loomed between the pilings showed how the word had spread.

The next day passed under a burden of suspense and rumor. No one knew just who had been aboard, and many, first feared missing, proved to have taken the California Northwestern ferry. The known dead finally shrunk to two men and a four-year-old boy. Despite tales that he had landed happily on one of the lush pastured islands in the Bay, the carcass of Dick, the freight horse, was sighted drifting out to sea.

How Issaquah Dock Developed

By Annie Sutter

As newcomers and young people continued to congregate on the Sausalito shores, many left a permanent imprint on the waterfront to come. One was Joe Tate, who arrived on the scene in the mid-1960s. He was a musician, a creative scrounger who could envision possibilities for renovation in the most unlikely flotsam and jetsam, and, as it states on his business card, an expert in "advanced finagling." Joe and a group of musicians formed a band called the "Red Legs" which became the nucleus of the rowdy community that was quickly growing from Gate 3 to Gate 6 at the shore's edge -- as well as in the mud at low tide. Their story is told in the film Last Free Ride. Here's a first-hand account from Joe about how these little communities sprang up and grew.

Hodgepodge surrounding Whitey’s Marina and the Oakland (center).
Photo by Charlotte Von Segesser, courtesy of Joe Tate

"We were able to get rehearsal space on an old sunken potato boat called the Oakland, at Gate 6. It was ideal for us and we were able to create the core of our original music there. There was a big WWII sub chaser sunk next to the Oakland and both hulks together formed a large island with a walkway connecting to the shore. One winter there was a big storm with violent winds. A huge section of floating dock broke loose from Kappas Marina, just north of Gate 6. The thing was drifting near Strawberry Point when we spotted it and we immediately went out and towed this giant hunk of flotsam back to the Oakland. With these floating docks tied to the Oakland, we had an instant marina, which filled up with small boats right away. We named it Whitey's Marina, after a cat, and painted a big sign on the side of the sub chaser that said WHITEY'S MARINA.  Persons of authority would show up asking to see Whitey. Nobody ever knew where he was. And, of course, Whitey didn’t know either."

Paradise, perhaps, but home building proceeded with no regulations, no codes, no order -- the waterfront residents had formed a community within themselves. By the 1960s this hodgepodge extended from Gate 3 where the Arques shipyard hummed with activity related to building houseboats and concrete hulls, to Gate 6 where the ferryboat Issaquah lay. And to add to the jumble, owners seeking to fill the marshlands to increase their usable waterfront land went far and wide in the search for fill. Decaying barges were towed in from around the Bay area and from the Delta, and buried under what later would become the major thoroughfare connecting Yellow Ferry, Kappas and Waldo Point Harbor. Eucalyptus stumps were hauled down from the hills above and laid under what would become parking lots. Quarry tailings, rocks, soil from the construction of Highway 101, telephone poles, mattresses, and pilings salvaged from dismantled piers in San Francisco were used as fill. Cement was poured into sinkholes, aging vessels and vehicles were sunk into the mud. It was rumored that a Mercedes disappeared into the muck by accident. 

This unsightly jumble offended some of Sausalito's citizens who complained to the Marin County Board of Supervisors and requested them to clean up the area. This led to the first physical confrontation between the houseboat dwellers and the authorities. In 1971 the County sent in police and sheriff's deputies with tugboats and bulldozers ready to clear and tow away two boats. Only one boat was boarded, for when the waterfront dwellers discovered the police in their midst, they rallied with a small flotilla of assorted vessels armed with oars, 2 x 4s, boat hooks, and bags of sand, and rammed the police boats trying to tow one of their neighbors away. The law withdrew. More violence was to come, and it had become clear that something had to be done. If Waldo Point didn’t clean up its own act, the County would, (at least) try.

It's hard to follow the endless legal wrangling, the court orders and lawsuits between the land owners, the developers, the City of Sausalito, the county of Marin and the denizens of the waterfront community regarding codes, regulations, and ordinances, and the conflicts that followed. On one hand was Donlon Arques, landowner, trying to get permits to build a marina to clean up the very problems concerning the officials representing the "hill folk" of Sausalito. On the other hand were the agencies trying to enforce the rights of land owners and of developers, versus the residents of the waterfront community who did not want to see their way of life threatened by order, neatness, authority, conformity and higher rents. But these rebellious souls were only a small yet highly visible portion of the community. Most of the established residents of the waterfront were responsible people, artists and craftsmen and boat builders and construction workers who paid their rent, respected property rights, raised families and worked for a living. The stories of the labyrinthine politics and special interests at work in the time of the harbor development are best left to historians and politicians. But it is safe to say that once Waldo Point Harbor Corp. was formed, and permits were in place, management faced a long and tumultuous battle, huge expenses, endless negotiating and fierce local resistance before the project was finished. 

Sausalito in the News – August 27, 1954

By Billie Anderson Sausalito Historical Society

Firemen respond to fires on Sunday

A furnace fire, which scorched a unit in Building 5 of the Marin Dormitories, was subdued within 15 minutes by the Sausalito Fire Department Sunday morning. The fire was reported at 9:49 a.m.

Forty-six minutes later, three Marin City fire trucks were dispatched to a fire which consumed a half acre of grass on a ridge above Marin City. It was doused by 11:28 a.m.

Women’s federation discusses plans

Club women visiting from foreign countries have evinced interest in the entire Bay Area. It will therefore be the duty of Mrs. Rixford and Mrs. McGeorge to be “ambassadors of good will” to visitors. Mrs. Lightbody, civil defense chairman, was appointed to represent the County Federation at the forthcoming Disaster Workshop at Phoenix Lake, September 18, under the auspices of the Red Cross. The first regular meeting of the new season will be held on Wednesday, October 13 at the Sausalito Woman’s Club.

Orphanage all-year project

The Albertinum School and Orphanage at Ukiah will become a year-round project of a newly organized auxiliary of Star of the Young Ladies Institute (YLI). Due to the orphanage’s extreme poverty, the Sausalito YLI decided to assist it throughout the year, announced Mrs. Peter Fugina, president. Members expect to visit the orphanage in the near future to ascertain its needs. Any contributions of children’s clothing will be gratefully accepted by the auxiliary.

Handy checklist for gardeners

Water the lawn with a stationary sprinkler so that the water penetrates at least five inches. Don’t forget roses during the summer time. Water and spray regularly and fertilize at monthly intervals. Lift Gladiolus bulbs after the tops have turned yellow. Dust with DDT or lindane and store in shallow trays until Spring.

Support for State Liquor Board

“The State Liquor Board members have been subject to influence by the very people they were supposed to regulate” stated Paul Leake of Ukiah. “Passage of this bill will enable the Board of Equalization to return to its proper province, the collecting and reassigning of one billion dollars yearly of your tax money. When you, as voting citizens, force the Board to function as it was designed to function, you are not just doing a favor for yourselves. You are carrying out an obligation to your State.”

What’s he doing?

You might not guess it, but those men are going to school. They’re learning how to climb telephone poles safely and to string lines that will carry your calls. Such training gives telephone people the skills they need to do their jobs faster, better, cheaper and more safely, too. Thus, they’re better able to bring you good telephone service that’s low in price. Pacific Telephone works to make your telephone a bigger value every day.

How long has it been since you heard the voices of far-away loved ones and friends you haven’t seen for ages? A visit by long distance is the next best thing to being there in person. It means so much and costs so little. You can call coast to coast —clear to Boston for example for only $2.00 plus tax. That’s the rate for a three-minute “station” call.

On This Date – August 1954

8-29– San Francisco International Airport (SFO) opens

8-31–Hurricane Carol Kills 70 (East Coast)

9-1 – Hurricane Carol Kills 70 (New England)9

9-2 – Hurricane Carol Kills 20 (First Storm Name To Be Retired)

Birthdays

– Derek Warwick, Race Car Driver

–John Lloyd, England Tennis Star (Former husband of Chris Evert)

– Mike Kelly, Wayne Michigan Artist

When Rumours Came True in Sausalito

By Larry Clinton

Celebrated Living, the inflight magazine of American Airlines, recently ran an article detailing how the spirit of Sausalito contributed to the hugely successful Fleetwood Mac album, Rumours. Back then, says the unsigned article, Sausalito’s harbor “was regularly filled with rock and movie stars of the 1970s, many of whom saw Sausalito as a high­end getaway where they could at once be afforded luxury accommodations appropriate for their wealth and a hedonistic nightlife that suited their indulgent lifestyles.”

Fleetwood Mac’s visit to Sausalito was legendary not just because it produced the 26th­best album of all time according to Rolling Stone – but, as Celebrated Living states: “because of what the band went through personally, how that infused the album and led to brilliance, and how the town gave the members the focus and the energy to see them through it all.”

Christine McVie wrote in Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album: “I thought I was drying up when we started recording Rumours.

Then, one day in Sausalito, I sat at the piano, and my four ­and ­a­half songs on the album are a result of that.” The album went on to sell more than 40 million copies. In 1978, it received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

When the band arrived in Sausalito, “they were in relationship turmoil,” according to the magazine. “During the recording sessions, the fault lines would widen between Christine and John McVie, who were divorcing after eight years, and between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. A few weeks into the recording, Mick Fleetwood found out about his wife’s affair. The women in the band rented their own apartments in the Sausalito harbor to get away from the men, who stayed (for the most part) in a studio ­provided home in the nearby Marin County hills.”

Several band members have said they think if they’d tried to make the record in L.A., the band might have broken up. The isolation made them deal with the emotions directly, and that found its way into the songs. Comparing Sausalito’s culture to the band’s home town, Los Angeles, Buckingham recalls, “Sausalito, as an extension of San Francisco and the music scene up there, was a smaller community that had far more idealistic underpinnings.”

The Record Plant’s “dark lighting and narrow wood ­lined hallways led musicians and studio staff into a labyrinth punctuated by small recording rooms,” notes the magazine. “The studio had no windows, so even though it was situated in this sunny waterside resort, it gave the feeling of being a timeless vault, not unlike the effect of a casino.”

Plant Studio Sausalito, CA

“The music was my only escape,” Fleetwood says in his autobiography, Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac.

The article continues: “Buckingham — whose songs ‘Second Hand News’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’ had a darker edge when addressing the aftermath of a breakup than did Nicks’ — acknowledges the importance of the Record Plant’s psychedelic and spiritual prison like mojo in shaping the emotions on display in the album.

“But, he says the town of Sausalito itself was just as important to the record’s emotional foundation as was the studio. ‘There was a great history to the Record Plant, sure. A lot of people had done great work,’ Buckingham says. ‘And the people working there were sort of an extension of the town and its tight community. It’s an interesting thing because I think the community was something that was nurturing to us.

But because we were our own little community and there was so much humanity to what we were doing with the album and in the studio, I think our presence during those few months was felt by the community of Sausalito as well’.” One spot they gravitated to was The Trident, which, says Celebrated Living, “was to Northern California what Studio 54 was to New York City. It was the place where, from the mid­’60s until later that year in 1976, would be the epicenter for stardom and excess, for ’70s free love and mind­altering experiences.” Buckingham and his wingmen also found a nearby bar, the short­lived Agatha’s Pub (now Angelino’s Italian restaurant), and made it their home base. Celebrated Living notes that “Buckingham soon began dating a waitress from the pub throughout his stay there, trying to move on from his ongoing breakup with Nicks.”

The best part of the spirit of the ’70s subculture was the kind of freedom which, the magazine reports, “can still be felt along the streets and bayside enclaves of the town today. Not the drug culture so often celebrated as essential to that freedom. Even the band members say they succeeded despite that. No, it’s the freedom you feel when you deal with the pain of the last days of a relationship and come out the other side of the tunnel stronger. It’s the freedom afforded you when your vacation to Sausalito runs for a leisurely weekend or for 10 weeks of creative tension. It’s the freedom you feel when you walk along the wharfs with your headphones, hit play on ‘The Chain,’ and let the ghosts of Sausalito’s past move you again.”

The cover of Rumours features a stylized shot of Fleetwood and Nicks

John Read, Ferry Pioneer

By Larry Clinton

The first English­speaking settler in what was then called Saucelito was Capt. John Read (aka Reed), who came here in 1826, and is said to be one of the first, if not the first Irishman who ever located permanently on the Pacific coast. Shortly after arriving, Reed applied to the Mexican Government for a grant to the Saucelito Rancho. While awaiting his land grant, he established a San Francisco Bay ferry service using a sailboat.

According to and early 20 CALIFORNIA, “This was doubtless the first ferryboat on the bay, which now counts them by the dozens, and the first in the State. When we compare this mere pigmy of a sail­boat making its one or more trips a week, with the palace steamers which now pass to and fro over the same track more than a dozen times each day, we can form some conception of the magnitude of the changes which have occurred in the past half century.”

Photo courtesy of Bancroft Library

The service didn’t last long, because, in the words of the Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub, “The American Indians, who paddled across the bay, were faster and more reliable.” After Read’s land grant application was refused, on the grounds that this tract had been reserved for government purposes, he went up to Sonoma County, then back down to San Rafael where he served as major domo of the mission.

Read came back to Saucelito permanently, in 1832. “He located on the Saucelito ranch,” the book reports, “near where the old town stood, hoping now to be able to get a grant for it, but, like many other matters entrusted to friends to be done, when the papers arrived they were not in his name.” William Richardson, following in Reed’s footsteps, also applied for a grant to Saucelito Rancho (after marrying the Presidio commander's daughter), and that application was approved in 1838. Two years later, Read was given a grant to Rancho Corte de Madera del Presidio, encompassing what is now southern Corte Madera, Mill Valley, the Tiburon Peninsula, and Strawberry Point.

After Richardson had lost control of his holdings, the town began growing under the auspices of the Sausalito Land and Ferry Company. Beginning in 1868, these developers used the ferryboat Princess to lure prospective buyers from San Francisco, and the popularity of the concept created a boom in ferry service all over the Bay.

The completion of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 led to the demise of Sausalito’s ferry service until the 1970’s when it was reborn, ironically, by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.