This Week in Marin History
Archives
November 2009

Fairhills feast

Thanksgiving was a celebratory time for the Foster family, according to Martha Foster Abbot, one of nine children of philanthropist and railroad and banking magnate Arthur W. Foster. Born in 1891 at Fairhills, the family’s 180-acre estate in San Rafael, Abbot described a particular Thanksgiving dinner there with 52 family members. “…We had long tables that went down between the two parlors, and there were three or four roast turkeys brought on and carved at the table by the girls. …For some reason we girls were trained to carve, not the boys… After dinner there was no separation of the men and the women, and maybe some of us went to play billiards.”

Arthur W. Foster's house, Fairhills, 1893.

Wing and a prayer

On Nov. 29, 1938, a United Airlines DC-3 passenger plane ran out of gas and ditched off of Point Reyes near Chimney Rock. There were seven on board the Seattle-to-San Francisco plane, including Isadore Edelstein, a “habitual criminal” who had been paroled from Walla Walla State prison a week earlier. High winds, rain and radio interference were much to blame for the unplanned landing, but it was the surf that struck the most fateful blow. All the occupants had been able to get out of the aircraft and take positions on the wings, but as the plane drifted toward the shoreline, it struck submerged rocks, knocking everyone into the sea. Only the pilot and Edelstein survived.

Chimney Rock, with Drakes Beach in background, 1961.

Main Street mayhem

On Nov. 14, 1948, the Marin Journal painted a not-so-quaint picture of Tiburon’s Main Street.  “…Belvedere residents locked themselves in when the fishermen, staggering out of Tiburon taverns, filled the night with shouts and chanties.” The causeway connecting the mainland with Corinthian Island had a history of being “…a tough waterfront street in its day…shootings, rowdy weekends, and rum-running.” Cod fishermen, sailors, cannery employees, railroad workers and dairymen liked to “blow off steam” especially on Saturday nights, and during Prohibition, when word came that the authorities were on their way, saloon revelry quickly turned into “prayer meetings.”

Tiburon Main Street, c. 1970s.

Howdy neighbor

On Nov. 7, 1972, the unincorporated community of Terra Linda was annexed to the City of San Rafael. Once a sprawl of ranch and dairy land, Terra Linda developed rapidly after WWII, with many of its “California modern” homes built by Joseph Eichler. (Its first school, Bernard Hoffman, was built in 1955.) San Rafael was also growing quickly, experiencing an almost 80% increase in population between 1960 and 1970. Room to expand was a good thing, but with the destruction of its courthouse and the construction of Terra Linda’s Northgate, San Rafael’s business center suffered, and “its once gracious mansions were becoming rooming houses and communes.”

Overview of Terra Linda during construction of Northgate Mall, 1969. Marin History Museum – Roy Farrington Jones Collection.