This Week in Marin History
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June 2011

At attention

In June 1971, the San Rafael Military Academy held its last graduation before it closed its doors on Mission Avenue because of declining enrollment and “irrelevance.” It first opened in 1890 as the Mount Tamalpais Military Academy, offering boys a college preparatory education as well as military training, which included cavalry. (A bugler sounded reveille at 7 am and taps at 9 pm.) In 1925 the school was sold to a local businessman and its name was changed to the San Rafael Military Academy. The campus also changed—dormitories from Mare Island were even barged over to house the cadets. The private coed Marin Academy opened at the site in 1972, and one of the few buildings remaining from the old campus is Foster Hall.

San Rafael Military Academy cadets Capt. William Souto and Tyler York, 1964.

First owner

On June 11, 1839, the Mexican government granted Angel Island to Antonio Osio to “enable respectable citizens to have possession and prevent its being a rendezvous for smugglers.” A provision was also made that a fort would be installed if needed. Osio, who had owned some 50,000 acres in Point Reyes, raised cattle on the island and built a reservoir and houses for his herders. But the native of Mexico never lived there—much of his time was spent in Monterey, where he served as a judge and collector of customs. When American troops landed on Angel Island during the Bear Flag Revolt, Osio fled to Honolulu, where he lived until 1849. He died in Mexico in 1878.

View of Angel Island from Sausalito, c. 1900.

Close ties

On June 4, 1902, successful businessman Louis Sloss died in his home in San Rafael. Sloss and Lewis Gerstle, both Bavarian immigrants, were friends and partners who ran a mining stock brokerage business in San Francisco and then the Alaska Commercial Company during the Klondike gold rush. In 1881 Gerstle bought a summer estate called “Violet Terrace” in San Rafael, and Sloss purchased neighboring property in 1883. (Their wives were sisters.) In 1936 the Gerstle family donated their property to the town to be used as a park. An arson fire destroyed the Sloss family’s main house in 1955; their guesthouse is the site of today’s Gerstle Park Inn.

Lewis Gerstle’s home “Violet Terrace,” c.1881.