By the end of the 1920s, motorists could traverse the county on a fully-paved roadway that passed through many of Marin’s downtown districts.

In the early 20th Century, William and Isabella Meagor’s Ross Garage was a cornerstone of the downtown Ross business district. It was also a symbol of the changing times as motorized vehicles were beginning to replace horse-drawn conveyances.

Many Marin residents may wonder why the San Francisco Theological Seminary is actually located in San Anselmo. The story began in 1871 when the Pacific Presbyterian Church opened a “theological seminary such as the present wants and future interests of this coast demand.”

In 1905, Marin doctors William Farrington Jones, Henry Howitt, and William Wickman opened Cottage Hospital in San Rafael. The new medical facility and emergency hospital was located at the corner of 5th St. and Petaluma Ave (now Lincoln Avenue). At the time, the only other Marin hospital was the County Hospital and Poor Farm in Lucas Valley.

The Redwood Empire was an idea hatched in the early 1920s by Crescent City hotelier, A.D. Lee, who wanted to promote tourism to his city and hotel. The automobile age was transforming how people traveled and Lee, along with other Northern California county business groups, collaborated to build a “Redwood Highway” from San Francisco to Grants Pass in Oregon.

Outside of West Marin, there are few remnants of the roughly 400 dairies that once spread over the hills and valleys of Marin County. The Lyford mansion at the center of Tiburon’s Eagle Dairy is one and can still be seen along the shore of Richardson Bay just before reaching Blackie’s Pasture.

The Corte Madera Creek has overflowed its banks 25 times in the last 100 years with the floods of 1925, 1955, 1982 and 2005 causing the most damage. In this 1925 photograph a vintage automobile navigates downtown Ross during the flooding when more than seven inches of rain fell in the Ross Valley between sunset of February 10th and sunrise of February 11th.