Our History from the Beginning
because the grade was too steep and spring seepage in the tunnel caused problems of lost traction on the rails. The second, lower tunnel was 1,250 feet long and opened up to the sweeping vistas of San Geronimo Valley. At that time, the principal railroad station in the Valley was at San Geronimo, where travelers to Nicasio would detrain and board a stagecoach to reach that community. The narrow-gauge railway was replaced in 1904 with the more modern broad-gauge, and was renamed the Northwestern Pacific. A 3,200-foot tunnel was bored through from Bothin, near Fairfax, to the Mailliard ranch in Woodacre, and the old tracks over White’s Hill were abandoned. The railroad continued to operate until 1933, when Northwestern Pacific shut down the service and removed the
This popular photo of Lagunitas was given to us by Jim Staley, Newhall Snyder and David Wilson. Jim Staley’s caption reads, “The horse and wagon are on the county road from Point Reyes and are just about to cross the main rail line. Engine #84, after pulling the train from Manor, has switched around and will travel backwards on the return trip. . . . The man is walking toward the bridge over Papermill Creek to what today is Lagunitas Road.”
plaques in Taylor Park commemorate the sites of the mill and the dam, west of the main picnic area. The Pacific Powder Works opened in 1865, just down- stream from Taylor’s operations. It was destroyed by a violent explosion in 1877, was rebuilt, and finally closed in 1880. In the early 1900s, as Lagunitas was being subdivid- ed, the first “shopping center” in the county was built. It consisted of the Lagunitas Grocery, a lumber yard and post office. An ice cream parlor and candy store was added later. There was little change in commerce until after WW II. A golf course was built in anticipation of the implemen- tation of the ’61 Master Plan. Woodacre had a country store. San Geronimo had a restaurant. Forest Knolls had a country store, beauty shop, ice cream parlor, real estate office, trailer court, gas station, saloon and summer camp. Lagunitas had a country store, summer camp and Speck McAuliffe’s bar, known as Lagunitas Lodge. The World Wide Web changed many aspects of life for the average resident. One change in particular is the number of residents who use the internet to operate their business out of their homes, avoiding storefront costs, the expense of signs, publicity and insurance, not to mention commuting costs. Utilities Around 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, a friend of the Mail- liard family, installed the first California telephone system at Rancho San Geronimo. Using the top strand of barbed wire on the fences to stretch the telephone line, it connected the Mailliards’ home in Woodacre to the cow barn and on to the
tracks. Travel time by train and ferry from San Francisco was then 1 hour 30 minutes. There were two morning and evening commute trains, and a mid-day freight with a coach on the rear. The original San Geronimo train station was relocated, restored and is used today by the Presbyterian Church. Traces of the original railroad bed can still be seen at the east end of the Valley, on the northern edge of the Valley floor on the Much of the old-growth redwood forest was felled for lumber and milled at James Shafter’s lumber mill (at what is now the bottom of Kent Lake) and other Valley mills, and then shipped to San Francisco. In 1874, Adolph Mail- liard tried to develop a gold mine, located west of the San Geronimo railroad station, but it proved unsuccessful. Other early commercial ventures in the Valley included a shingle mill at the foot of Nicasio Hill in 1877, a fur tan- nery that opened in 1886, and a creamery, located in San Geronimo on Creamery Road. To the west of the Valley many paper mills dotted the creek downstream, producing newsprint from cloth rags and sacks. Samuel P. Taylor’s mill is probably the best known of these. Taylor built a hotel as housing for mill workers. He also built a dam on Paper Mill Creek to retain water to pow- er his mill. For many years salmon could not get upstream to spawn. In 1886 the California Fish Commission forced Tay- lor to build the first fish ladder on the West Coast, perhaps one of the earliest environmental efforts in California to protect Coho salmon and steelhead trout! Today, creek-side Flanders Ranch. Commerce
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50 th Anniversary
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