Before the present-day Marin coastal town took the name Stinson Beach, it was known as Willow
Camp. Nathan Stinson and his wife, Rose, built the tent settlement in the early 1880s offering Bay
Area campers, and vacationers rustic canvas accommodations within easy walking distance of the
beach and trails of Mt. Tamalpais. By the late 1890s, popularity of the camp increased when trains
running on the newly constructed Mill Valley & Mt. Tamalpais Railroad connected with the old
stagecoach road at West Point Inn that ran down to Willow Camp and Bolinas. In 1904, The Dipsea
Inn was built on the sand bar that protects Bolinas Lagoon by William Kent and Sydney B. Cushing,
both stockholders in the railroad and owners of land in Marin along with many other business
interests. The proprietor and part owner of the Inn was a friend and local landowner, William
Neumann.
But why Dipsea, you may wonder? The name of the hotel predates the famous Mill Valley to
Stinson Beach cross-country race that officially began the following year. Alternative theories
about the origin of the name postulate that, 1) Willow Camp vacationers often enjoyed a “dip in
the sea”, or 2) the rather steep stagecoach road to Willow Camp took a somewhat treacherous “dip
to the sea” as it descended from the summit of the mountain. There is not wholesale agreement
about the name but advertisements for the Dipsea Hotel began appearing in Bay Area newspapers
in 1904 promoting, “ Surf Bathing---Summer or Winter”, “New Modern Hotel” with “Up-to-Date
Management” and an “Excellent Kitchen”, “On Famous Bolinas Beach.”
The nearly 115-year-old Dipsea race had its origins in a bet made by two San Francisco Olympic
Club members soon after the Inn had opened. Alfons Coney and Charles Boas, both avid hikers and
frequent guests at the Inn, “raced” against each other from downtown Mill Valley to the Dipsea Inn
with Coney being declared the winner. The following year, Coney, Boas and other Olympic Club
members, dubbing themselves the “Dipsea Indians”, organized and ran the first official Dipsea
Race with 84 contestants competing.
In 1906, the year our photograph was taken, Willow Camp and the Dipsea Inn were both used as
refugee sites for victims of the great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of April 18. Two of those
refugees, Henry & Elizabeth Airey opened a competing hotel and restaurant in the area and seven
years later built another, The Sea Beach Hotel. Within a few years as hotels become the preferred
accommodation, Willow Camp was closed down and the name of the town was changed to Stinson
Beach, in honor of the family. The Dipsea Inn was closed down in 1918 and much of its timber was
used to build the newer and bigger Dipsea Lodge, leaving behind the legacy of a name with
unknown origins which now graces the oldest cross-country race in the United States.
(Originally appeared as History Watch article in the Marin Independent Journal)