PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
William Throckmorton in his heyday
By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
It’s an old, sad story: how William Richardson lost his Rancho del Sausalito to William Throckmorton for payment of debts that later proved to be greatly inflated. But financial karma came back to haunt Throckmorton three decades later.
Throckmorton had come to San Francisco in 1850 as an agent for an eastern mining business before meeting Richardson. As Jack Tracy chronicled in his book Moments in Time, with control of Richardson’s land, Throckmorton began wooing investors, and eventually sold 1,164 acres to a consortium of San Francisco businessmen on April 22, 1868. They formed the Sausalito Land & Ferry Co. to develop and sell residential lots. To attract potential buyers, they initiated ferry service from San Francisco and encouraged the building of small hotels near the ferry landing, “so that potential customers might have a leisurely look at the properties and experience the sublime climate and serenity of Sausalito.” The company was incorporated in 1869, but it struggled into the 1870s, because “people were not flocking to the new utopia as had been hoped,” in Tracy’s words. “They were competing with cheap land in many new towns around the Bay Area… Every new town around San Francisco Bay was promising prosperity, healthful climates, rapid growth, and boundless opportunity.”
Throckmorton tried several times to foreclose on the Sausalito Land & Ferry Co., but the partners outmaneuvered him and he suffered devastating financial problems before his death in 1887.
An historic essay in the Mill Valley Record notes: “As Throckmorton was unable to repay his $100,000 loan from [The San Francisco Savings & Union Bank], he was forced to abandon his long cherished dream of English style estates, and his vast holdings as well.”
The bank took over the property and organized the Tamalpais Land & Water Company (TL&WC ) in 1889 for the purpose of dividing this great area into smaller ranches of from 300 to 500 acres, and setting apart a townsite for the future Mill Valley. The President of the bank’s Board of Directors was Joseph Eastland, who had been president of the North Pacific Coast Railroad in 1877, had founded power companies all around the Bay area, was on the board of several banks, and had control of several commercial companies.
In 1849, he had arrived in San Francisco from Tennessee with his father, a veteran of the Mexican war. Two years later 19-year-old Joseph got a job as clerk/bookkeeper for Peter and James Donahue’s foundry. The business evolved into the San Francisco Gas Co., now PG&E. His working career advanced rapidly, making him quite wealthy. According to the Mill Valley Historical Society, Eastland was the prime mover and financial backer in founding the town of Mill Valley.
Under Eastland’s inspiration, the Mt. Tamalpais Scenic Railway opened in 1896 and ran from the town center (present day Lytton Square) all the way to the summit. In 1907, the railroad added a branch line into "Redwood Canyon," and in 1908, that canyon became Muir Woods, a national monument. The Mt. Tamalpais & Muir Woods Scenic Railway, "The Crookedest Railroad in the World" and its unique gravity cars brought thousands of tourists to the Tavern of Tamalpais on the mountain summit.
Eventually both Sausalito and Mill Valley incorporated (in 1893 and 1900, respectively), and TL&WC faded into obscurity.