This Week in Marin History
Archives
March 2009

Four star?

Part of a March 26, 1862 diary entry of a traveler visiting the Saucelito House, allegedly Sausalito’s first hotel: “It was long after dark before we found Sausalito where we stopped at an Irish hotel…  Hogarth never sketched a scene as that. The kitchen with furniture scattered around, driftwood in the corners, salt fish hanging to the ceilings and walls, lanterns, old ship furniture, fishing and boating apparatus, Spanish saddle and riata—but I can’t enumerate all. Well, we stayed there all night and for several hours the next morning, then took a small boat for San Francisco along with a load of calves and pigs piled in the bottom.” The hotel was destroyed by fire in 1875.

Sausalito waterfront, 1885.

Before the Civic Center

On March 26, 1872, Marin County supervisors floated $52,210 in bonds to build a “respectable” courthouse on Fourth St. (between A and Court Sts.) in San Rafael. (The previous courthouse, Timothy Murphy’s old adobe home, was deemed no longer adequate to meet the growing county’s needs.)  One of the last buildings of the Greek revival style built in California, the new courthouse featured large Corinthian columns and a towering cupola—not to mention a more utilitarian jail and gallows, before hangings were transferred to San Quentin.  After standing for nearly a century, the building was destroyed by fire in 1971.

Illustration of Timothy (Don Timoteo) Murphy's adobe home, c. 1860.

News fit to print

On March 23, 1861, the first edition of Marin County’s first newspaper was published, its masthead declaring it “Devoted to Foreign and Domestic News, Literature, Agriculture and the Interests of Marin County.” The Marin County Journal, founded by father and son Ai and Jerome Barney, prided itself on being “independent of clique, party or sect…  Its chief aim will be the encouragement of the resources of the county, especially its agricultural advantages and interests…” The weekly was printed on paper from Samuel P. Taylor’s mill near Lagunitas Creek.

Samuel P. Taylor Paper Mill receipt, 1893.

Got Meadowsweet?

On March 5, 1937, the Mill Valley Record reported that Meadowsweet Dairy routes had been sold to Lucas Valley Dairy. Built in 1926, Meadowsweet Dairy was the principal industry in Corte Madera, operating on 1,400 acres of pastureland converted from marshland in the early 1900s through a system of floodgates. The dairy was in business for ten years, and employed many during the Depression. After its closure, 23 acres sold for $3,500 to create what is today Town Park, with the rest of the land going to residential and commercial developers.

Lucas Valley Dairyman, 1953.