Our History from the Beginning
dance halls in the Valley and on the other side of White’s Hill. There were hard times in the Valley too. When he was 14, Wilson was visiting friends a few doors away when the family home went up in flames. Two of his siblings were caught inside and died in the fire. The community held a fundraiser for the family to help them rebuild, testament to
fishing. Wilson remembers a time when, “I entered a local fishing competition and won. For a young kid that was pretty exciting.” School didn’t interest Wilson much where he felt the sting of a wooden ruler more than once. But dances and girls did. As a teenager, Wilson attended events at the
the ways in which you could rely on your neighbors in the San Geronimo Valley. The family eventually rebuilt on the same spot. Wilson’s mother, Tomasina, was a busy homemaker but also a burgeon- ing real estate magnate. She started hiking the hills around Lagunitas and found distressed properties. After some due diligence at the county office, she contacted the owners and made an offer. She got the better end of the several deals and ended up with a small portfolio of properties. That led to a second career as saloon owner. In 1969 Thomasina purchased the Forest Knolls Lodge and changed the name to the Paper Mill Creek Saloon. Back then it was a biker bar with a healthy Hell’s Angels clientele. Wilson jokes that it was rowdy, a real “bucket of blood” kind of place and if there wasn’t a fight each night, there was something wrong. “People literally got thrown through the windows,” he added. Today, David Wilson is very much a Valley historian. Over the years he has collected a wide range of photographs of—and ephemera from—the Valley. His photos include original buildings: churches, social halls, early commer- cial businesses and, of course, numer- ous shots of the train. (He even has a photo of the old post office in Forest Knolls that had, at one time, a jail in the back.) Wilson was kind enough to share several of these with the Community Center on the occasion of its 50 th anniversary. “It’s great that I can share these photos with all the people who live in the Valley. Things may have changed a lot, but it’s still a beautiful place,” Wilson reminisced.
This small Forest Knolls building was located near the existing saloon. It boasted a real estate office, post office and, in the rear, a small jail cell. (Photo from Collections of Newall Snyder and David Wilson)
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50 th Anniversary
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