Community Guide 2017
Nicasio History by Elaine Patterson Doss
Inland a short distance [from the ocean] the country is so sheltered by the surrounding hills that none but the most pleasant and gentle winds are felt in the valleys, which are small and numerous, while the scenery in every direction is grand and romantic. In the center of such a country Nica- sio is located—a small but very handsome village, with a first-class hotel, two churches and a school that is well attended. Fine roads run in every direction . . . . San Rafael Herald , July 20, 1874 The writer, at work in 1874, could be describing Nica- sio and its valley in 2016. For almost a century and a half, Nicasio has been admired and loved as a village out of the romantic past, with its diminutive white church, its plain but distinctive wood-frame homes, its little league ball field on the country square, all placed in an especially beautiful setting surrounded by rolling green hills dotted with cows, wildflowers, oaks and redwoods. . . . But there’s much more to Nicasio than its scenery and quaintness—there is a history that is rich, complex and surprising in the breadth of its span in time, from Indians to dairy farmers to the highest of high tech. (Excerpted from NICASIO: The Historic Valley at the Center of Marin , by Dewey Livingston, Nicasio Historical Society © 2008 and 2012) Nicasio’s first people were the Coastal Miwok who inhab- ited western Marin and southwestern Sonoma counties for countless centuries prior to the arrival of the European
explorers, missionaries, adventurers and settlers. There were 13 villages scattered throughout this area, each established near a creek. The village in Nicasio was called Etcha-tamal, inhabited since the 1400s, if not earlier, by the Tamals, a Coast Miwok tribelet. The cycle of the seasons and nature’s corresponding bounties were the organizing principle of their lives, and nature supplied them well. The Tamals, like other Coast Miwok, were semi-nomadic; they had their permanent vil- lage, but they also followed the bounties of nature accord- ing to their seasons, moving to temporary settlements near each food source. The Coast Miwok were a peaceful people who traded with neighboring tribes. They traded clamshell beads and other coastal products with the Lake Miwok (Lake Coun- ty) for obsidian, which they prized for crafting knives, spearheads and arrowheads, much preferred to the local chert, which they also flaked into tools and weapons. The various Coast Miwok groups also traded, visited and inter- married among each other. The incursions into Coast Miwok culture, which eventually led to its complete demise, were the mission- building Spanish padres, from 1776 when Mission Dolores was established, to 1834 when San Rafael Mission closed, Early Nicasio Miwok Residents Juana Evangelista (mother of Maria Copa, who was born in Nicasio in 1869) and her three grandchildren, including Julia Freas (daughter of Maria Copa). The Miwok people lived at the Nicasio Rancheria until the early 1880s. (Photo courtesy of Juanita Carrio)
In the nearly eighty years that it served Nicasio as schoolhouse, the 1871 structure was train station yellow–often faded to tan or beige–with a brown trim. The two entrances to the schoolhouse were gender specific, girls entered to the right and boys to the left. It was in operation until the spring of 1950.
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