Point Reyes National Seashore

Tomales Bay 

National Park Service

U. S. Department of the Interior

History Program 

Pacific West Region 

Point Reyes National Seashore

Tomales Bay Environmental History 

and Historic Resource Study

U. S. Department of the Interior

 

Point Reyes National Seashore

Environmental History 

and Historic Resource Study

 
 
POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE

Tomales Bay Environmental History and 

Historic Resource Study

Christy Avery

Historian, PWRO-Seattle

Pacific West Region

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

2009
Edited under a Cooperative Agreement with 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project--a unique combination of both environmental history and historic resource 

study--was the brainchild of Pacific West Regional Office in Seattle Historian David 

Louter and Point Reyes National Seashore Cultural Resources Chief Gordon White. I 

would like to thank both of them for the opportunity to produce this study. David 

provided constant guidance along the way as well; his insights and critiques were 

invaluable. Linda Nash, environmental history professor at the University of Washington, 

also deserves thanks for reviewing the manuscript. Special thanks to the staff at Point 

Reyes National Seashore, especially those who critiqued the first draft of this study. This 

history could not have been written without the help of Carola Derooy, archivist and 

librarian at Point Reyes National Seashore. She helped to find documents, scanned 

photographs, and provided access to the Jack Mason Museum. I’d also like to thank Don 

Neubacher, Superintendent of Point Reyes National Seashore and Stephanie Toothman, 

Chief of Cultural Resources for the Pacific West Regional Office of the National Park 

Service, for their support. 

The majority of the research for this project was conducted at archives and 

libraries in California. The Marin County Free Library System contains a wealth of 

information about the county’s history, and library staff were always willing to provide 

assistance in my quest for primary and secondary source materials. Special thanks to 

Jocelyn Moss at the Anne T. Kent California Room in the Marin County Civic Center 

Library for her help with this project. The staff at the Bancroft Library at the University 

of California, Berkeley and the California State Archives in Sacramento proved helpful as 

well. Though the Tomales Bay area remains lightly populated, the local community 

supports two wonderful local history repositories. The Jack Mason Museum in 

Inverness was a valuable source for information about tourism and early settlement in 

West Marin County, and I’d like to thank the staff for their assistance. The Tomales 

Regional History Center has a terrific photograph collection and especially good 

information about the area’s agricultural history. The center’s Lois Parks and Ginny 

Mackenzie-Magan were quite helpful to this endeavor. Finally, I would also like to thank 

Historian Dewey Livingston, author of a number of books about the Point Reyes and 

Tomales Bay area and probably the most knowledgeable person on the subject of West 

Marin history, for answering my questions throughout the project. 

Christy Avery 

Point Reyes Station, California 

May 25, 2006 

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements................................................................. ....................................................iii 

List of Illustrations......................................................................................................................vii 

Foreword......................................................................................................................................xv 

Introduction: Tomales Bay; A Diverse Landscape.........................................................1 

Chapter 1: An Abundant Landscape; The Coast Miwok and Tomales Bay..........................5 

Chapter 2: On the Edge of Empire; Commerce and Conversion on Tomales Bay............11 

Chapter 3: The City and the Country; San Francisco and the Transformation of the 

Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875.........................................................................................31 

Chapter 4: The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930...........................61 

Chapter 5: The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972....................................................109 

Chapter 6: A Contested Landscape; Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1972-

Present.........................................................................................................................................149 

Epilogue: The Future of Tomales Bay....................................................................................181 

Appendix A: Laird’s Landing..................................................................183 

Appendix B: Summary of Historic Themes and Properties along Tomales Bay..........193 

Bibliography......................................................................................197 

Index...............................................................................................209

vii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. In order to encourage settlement in California, the Mexican government 

granted twenty-one ranchos in Marin County between 1834 and 1846. Five of these 

parcels bordered Tomales Bay. Located in the most remote reaches of Mexico’s 

northernmost province, however, far from trade centers and regular transportation 

networks, Tomales Bay’s ranchos attracted few settlers. All photos and maps courtesy of 

Point Reyes National Seashore unless otherwise noted. 

Figure 2. Rancho Nicasio stretched along Tomales Bay’s eastern shore. Individuals 

submitted crudely drawn maps (diseños) such as this to the Mexican government in 

order to gain title to their land. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of 

California, Berkeley. 

Figure 3. The George Burbank farm near Tomales. Burbank, who bought the parcel in 

1855, was one of the first settlers in Tomales Township. Courtesy of the Bancroft 

Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 4. A sketch of John Keys’ warehouses in Tomales in 1859. Ten years earlier, Irish 

immigrant John Keys, a miner turned potato farmer living near Bodega Bay, envisioned a 

bustling port on this Tomales Bay tributary. Keys and partner Alexander Noble staked 

claims, purchased a schooner and built a warehouse on the Keys Creek estuary in 

anticipation of entering into business transporting agricultural products to San 

Francisco. The venture proved successful, and the settlement evolved into the town of 

Tomales.

Figure 5. The schooner Nettie Low, which transported goods from Tomales Point 

ranches to railroad stops across the bay, ca. 1900. Schooners continued to serve ranches 

on the Point after siltation rendered water transportation between San Francisco and 

Tomales Bay impracticable. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 6. The town of Tomales in 1898. The grassy hills, perennial streams and mild 

climate of eastern Tomales Bay attracted crop farmers and dairy and beef ranchers 

beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, when the California gold rush created new
viii

markets for agricultural products. As San Francisco grew, urban appetites continued to 

spur the development of the Tomales Bay area. The activities of these immigrants had a 

powerful and lasting impact on the Tomales Bay environment as they transformed the 

area into an agricultural landscape. 

Figure 7. A train makes its way north along Tomales Bay’s eastern shore ca. 1898. 

Human activities such as farming made water transportation increasingly difficult in the 

late nineteenth century as the bay filled with silt. After the inauguration of railroad 

service between San Francisco Bay and towns along Tomales Bay in 1874, however, area 

farmers were able to move their goods quickly and easily to market. Roy Graves Photo 

Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 8. Logs (along the bay’s edge in the background) served to stabilize the shore and 

prevent erosion from damaging the rail bed along Tomales Bay near Bivalve, ca. 1905. 

Roy Graves Photo Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, 

Berkeley. 

Figure 9. Railroad tracks (in the foreground) along Tomales Bay, ca. 1898. 

Figure 10. Goods were transported to and from San Francisco via the railroad, then 

ferried across Tomales Bay via schooner to Tomales Point ranches. Roy Graves Photo 

Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 11. Looking east from the Pierce Point Ranch pier at White Gulch on Tomales 

Point, ca. 1900. Schooners ferried goods to and from the pier to the railroad stop at 

Hamlet, across the bay. 

Figure 12. The “Hunter’s Special” train shuttled hunters and their dogs from the San 

Francisco area to Tomales Bay via Point Reyes Station ca. 1900. Hunters, particularly 

wildfowl hunters, were some of the first tourists to visit the bay. Roy Graves Photo 

Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 13. Fishermen at White House Pool, on Lagunitas Creek near the head of 

Tomales Bay, date unknown. Besides hunters, fishermen were the other large group of 

recreationists to journey to the bay from their San Francisco area homes. 
ix

Figure 14. The California Anglers’ Association’s Annual Outing at White House Pool in 

the early twentieth century. Trains were costly to run, and as freight travel decreased 

after 1900, railroad executives advertised West Marin County to hunters, fishermen and 

tourists in an attempt to earn a profit from rail trips to the area. Railroad employees (as 

well as the Anglers’ Association) even stocked Lagunitas Creek with trout and salmon in 

an attempt to lure San Francisco Bay area fishermen to Tomales Bay and its tributaries. 

Figure 15. A Street in Point Reyes Station in 1907. The train also enabled tourist travel to 

the Tomales Bay area. Here, the Inverness Stage is waiting to take railroad passengers to 

the resort community of Inverness, on the bay’s western shore. 

Figure 16. Inverness around 1915. The town never developed into the large resort 

community envisioned by its founders due to its remote location, but it did attract a 

small number of San Francisco Bay area residents who sought relaxation and recreation. 

Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 17. Due to publicity campaigns by railroad executives and Inverness developer 

Julia Shafter, Tomales Bay began to garner a reputation as a relaxing vacation spot during 

the early twentieth century. 

Figure 18. A tourist excursion on Tomales Bay, ca. 1900. Inverness residents and 

vacationers hired boats to ferry them to scenic, secluded spots along the bay’s shore, 

such as Heart’s Desire and Shell Beaches. 

Figure 19. Inverness suffered severe damage during the 1906 earthquake. Throughout 

the village, homes and businesses were shaken off their foundations, water mains broke, 

and a landslide covered the main road with debris. Baily’s Pier, which served Inverness 

residents, moved twenty-five feet north due to the quake. The seismic event dashed Julia 

Shafters’ dreams of growth and prosperity in the village. 

Figure 20. This home near Inverness slid into Tomales Bay during the 1906 earthquake. 

Figure 21. Wharves reached far out into shallow, silted Tomales Bay at Inverness in the 

early twentieth century. Farming activities and logging in the Tomales Bay watershed 

washed tons of silt into the bay, impeding navigation. As a result, business and home 

owners extended their piers far out into the bay, where the water was deep enough to 

allow boat access. 
x

Figure 22. Pacific Coast Oyster Company in the early twentieth century. The first 

attempts at oystering on the bay began in the late nineteenth century, but the industry 

remained small until pollution in San Francisco Bay forced growers to find another 

estuary with clean water and good transportation connections to the metropolitan area. 

Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 23. The town of Marshall, a commercial and shipping center for the eastern side 

of the bay, in the early twentieth century. Area farmers brought their goods to Marshall, 

where they were transported on the railroad to the San Francisco area. Courtesy of the 

Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 24. Fishermen’s, a settlement of Coast Miwok descendents, in the late 1910s. A 

number of Coast Miwok descendents lived at various other points along the bay as well. 

Most worked as fishermen or laborers for area farmers. The Marconi Wireless Company 

is in the background. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 25. Another view of Fishermen’s at Marconi Cove. Railroad passengers often 

purchased clams through train windows from village residents when the train stopped in 

Marconi. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 26. Young residents of Fishermen’s play on the bay’s shore in the early twentieth 

century. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 27. The herring fleet at Marshall in the early twentieth century. The herring 

fishery on the bay thrived during this time. Local fishermen supplied Tomales Bay 

herring not only to European immigrants in San Francisco, but to markets in Europe and 

Asia as well. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 28. The 1,150 foot pier at the Booth Canning Company, 1921. The long pier 

enabled fishermen to unload their catch—herring—even during low tide in the shallow, 

silted bay. The Booth Canning Company packed the Tomales Bay herring for shipment 

by rail to their cannery on the San Joaquin River Delta. 

Figure 29. Henry Jensen’s home, ca. 1921. Jensen operated Jensen’s Oyster Beds, an 

oyster growing operation with a restaurant, dairy and tourist cabins, at Hamlet. 
xi

Figure 30. Jensen’s Oyster Beds in 1946. Vacation cottages, the Jensen’s home and the 

restaurant line the shore, while the dairy sits on the hillside above. 

Figure 31. The restaurant at Hamlet. Consumers came from all over the San Francisco 

Bay area to sample the fresh Tomales Bay oysters. 

Figure 32. Chicken Ranch Beach, a popular swimming spot for local residents near 

Inverness that became the site of a major legal battle over public beach access in the 

1960s, in the mid-twentieth century. 

Figure 33. Walker Creek in the mid-twentieth century. Navigable in the mid-nineteenth 

century, erosion on the hillsides due to agricultural activities made the creek too silted 

for boat travel by the mid-1870s. 

Figure 34. Local author A. Bray Dickenson at the former site of Key’s Embarcadero in 

Tomales. Schooners called at the foot of the hill in the background in the mid-nineteenth 

century, but siltation had filled in the waterway by the turn of the twentieth century. Roy 

Graves photo collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, 

Berkeley. 

Figure 35. Tomales at the turn of the twenty-first century. The town changed little in the 

previous hundred years. 

Figure 36. Sacramento Landing, on the bay’s western shore, in the mid-twentieth 

century. One of number of inhabited coves on the western shore of the bay, Sacramento 

Landing was home to a number of Coast Miwok descendents. By the mid-twentieth 

century, a number of vacation homes had been built there as well. 

Figure 37. Pierce Point Ranch, on Tomales Point, was a showpiece dairy ranch in the 

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It now serves as an interpretive site for Point 

Reyes National Seashore. 

Figure 38. A Tomales Bay oyster farm in 2004. The bay’s oysters remain locally 

renowned, and visitors come from all over the San Francisco Bay area to feast on the 

bivalves. Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 
xii

Figure 39. Calm, sheltered Tomales Bay is a popular destination for boaters. Courtesy of 

the California Coastal Records Project. 

Figure 40. Marshall in 2002. Many homes and businesses along the bay’s eastern shore 

were built on pilings, and these structures often dumped sewage directly into the bay 

until late twentieth century regulations forced owners to stop the practice. Courtesy of 

the California Coastal Records Project. 

Figure 41. Zimmerman Ranch above the eastern Tomales Bay shore in 2002. As ranching 

declined in profitability and Tomales Bay became a popular vacation destination, many 

worried that ranches would give way to vacation home developments. The owners sold 

an agricultural conservation easement to the Marin Agricultural Land Trust in 2003, 

which ensured that these hillsides will remain undeveloped. Courtesy of the California 

Coastal Records Project. 

Figure 42. Cypress Grove, an Audubon Canyon Ranch research center along the bay’s 

eastern shore. Developers planned a 1,800 home subdivision on the thousand acres 

surrounding the site in the 1960s, but activists defeated the plan while working to 

preserve the Tomales Bay shore. Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project 

photo. 

Figure 43. Duck Cove in 2002. This parcel of land was originally included inside Point 

Reyes National Seashore boundaries, but a developer built twelve vacation homes before 

land acquisitions were completed. The NPS now owns the properties. Courtesy of the 

California Coastal Records Project. 

Figure 44. The Lagunitas Creek delta, at the bay’s southern end, with the pastures of 

Giacomini Ranch in the background. Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 

Figure 45. The mouth of Walker Creek in 2002. In the mid-nineteenth century, a deeper, 

wider channel served schooners bound for the town of Tomales, three miles upstream. 

Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 
xiii

Figure 46. Dikes keep Tomales Bay’s waters from encroaching on Giacomini Ranch, at 

the estuary’s southern end. The National Park Service plans to restore the site’s wetlands 

by removing the barriers in 2007. 

Figure 47. The coastal fogs that linger along Inverness Ridge nurture a lush, forested 

landscape (below) that contrasts with the dry, grassy eastern shores of the bay (above). 

Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project.

Figure 48. Railroad engineers designed a route that ran in a relatively straight line up the 

jagged eastern side of the bay, and freshwater marshes developed where the railroad 

levee separated coves from the bay. These marshes now serve as valuable shorebird 

habitat Photos by the author. 

xv

FOREWORD
 
1

INTRODUCTION

TOMALES BAY: A DIVERSE LANDSCAPE

Set forty-five miles northwest of San Francisco, Tomales Bay is a coastal estuary 

that lies along a rift valley of the San Andreas Fault between the Point Reyes Peninsula 

and the California mainland. Shaped by dramatic geological and meteorological forces, 

the landscape around Tomales Bay reveals startling contrasts. The grassy, windswept 

hills on the bay’s east side are sparsely populated and dotted with dairy and beef ranches, 

while a handful of oyster farms, restaurants, and marinas line the shore. Serene beaches 

and lush bishop pine forests lure visitors to the bay’s western side. Settlements of 

strikingly different character, from the picturesque homes and gardens of Inverness to 

the trailer park at Lawson’s Landing, are set along both sides of the bay. Tomales Bay is 

twelve-and-a-half miles long and drains 228 square miles, almost half of Marin County. 

The bay and its shores are habitat for tens of thousands of birds, home to thousands of 

people, production point of a fifth of California’s oyster crop, and host to millions of 

visitors per year. 

The bay might be the most managed and studied body of water along the West 

Coast. Much of the Tomales Bay area is preserved by national, state, local, and nonprofit agencies. Point Reyes National Seashore boundaries protect much of the western 

side of the bay, while a great deal of the eastern side of the bay lies within the boundaries 

of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The estuary is part of the Gulf of the 

Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve. State 

and county parks and wildlife sanctuaries line its shores, and agricultural easements 

maintain the rural character of the surrounding hillsides. 

Contemporary visitors see Tomales Bay as one of the last pristine estuaries on the 

California coast. They come to kayak, swim, bird watch, or simply relax. They wander 

along trails above the bay and visit National Park Service (NPS) interpretive sites such as 

Pierce Point Ranch to learn about the area’s dairy ranching history. Some buy fresh 

oysters or locally made cheeses, reminders that strands of the bay’s working past have 

continued to the present. People, however, have not always valued the bay for its 

scenery, recreational opportunities, and undeveloped character. While current visitors 

view the bay as an ideal vacation spot and a place to be preserved and studied, the area’s 

history shows us that this view is a relatively recent cultural invention. 

The purpose of this study is not only to examine the political, social, and economic 

changes brought about by successive generations of Tomales Bay residents but also to 

examine the interactions between these residents and the natural world. Humans have 
Tomales Bay: A Diverse Landscape 

2

utilized the estuary and its surroundings for thousands of years, and the last 150 years of 

natural resource use and development, in particular, have profoundly affected this 

environment. To different peoples at different times, the Tomales Bay area was an 

abundant landscape of marine and terrestrial resources, a potentially valuable mission 

site, and a rancher’s paradise. While some visualized economic opportunities in the 

waters and tidelands or on the hills above the bay, others have valued the area as a 

peaceful retreat from urban life or as pristine wildlife habitat. An environmental history 

furthers our understanding of why people came to Tomales Bay and how their different 

expectations have affected the natural environment, and how the natural environment 

has, in turn, shaped their history. 

Cultural changes result in environmental changes, and each successive group of 

residents brought different sets of expectations that affected their surrounding 

environment. The earliest residents, the Coast Miwok, found the bay an abundant 

landscape. Villages and smaller settlements dotted the bay’s shores, and they procured a 

diverse array of marine and terrestrial resources from the estuary and the surrounding 

grasslands, forests and tributary streams. The group managed and modified their 

surroundings through the use of fire and selective harvesting, and thousands of years of 

Coast Miwok land use shaped the natural landscape of the bay area. Tomales Bay 

confused the first European explorers, who thought they had discovered a great river. 

The bay later appealed to Spanish explorers and administrators due to its strategic 

location on the northern frontier, its potential labor supply (the Coast Miwok), and its 

fresh water, timber, and grassland resources. Due to shifts in global politics, a Tomales 

Bay mission was never built, but the estuary served as the northwestern border for 

Mission San Rafael’s lands. Spanish cattle grazed freely around the Tomales Bay 

landscape, but missionaries paid little attention to the large estuary. Mexican rancho 

owners similarly found the area’s grasslands valuable in their pursuit of profit through 

the hide and tallow trade, but they, too, all but ignored the nearby bay. The ranching 

activities of both groups began to transform the Tomales Bay landscape, but the area 

remained a remote, sparsely settled area. 

New cultural conceptions of the value of Tomales Bay and the surrounding 

hillsides, as well as a new economic system and new forms of transportation, brought 

about rapid and profound changes in the mid-nineteenth century. During and after the 

California Gold Rush of 1848, the area became a valuable hinterland for San Francisco, 

linked to the urban center by a water route through Tomales Bay. Driven by the growth 

of the city, settlers in this capitalist economy sought to earn their fortune supplying beef, 

dairy products, potatoes, and grain to urban consumers and merchants. As a result, these 

immigrants created an agricultural landscape along the bay’s shores. Overland travel was 
Tomales Bay: A Diverse Landscape 

3

difficult and time consuming in the undeveloped state, and water transportation gave 

Tomales Bay area farmers an important advantage. The inauguration of railroad service 

brought about even greater changes, and railroad engineers literally reshaped the bay in 

their quest to build a line through the rugged terrain. The railroad, which tightened the 

connection between San Francisco and its hinterland, enabled the development of new 

industries along the bay. Residents and newcomers capitalized on these economic 

opportunities as they expanded their production and export of agricultural products, 

fish, and shellfish for the urban market. These groups reordered the natural landscape in 

their quest to produce marketable commodities, and their actions resulted in both 

intentional and unanticipated changes to their environment. 

Thinking about Tomales Bay’s natural environment as part of San Francisco’s 

hinterland helps us to understand the way that the bay was inexorably linked to the 

growing urban area. Hinterland, in this case, means not just the land that lies outside of 

the city, but the area that falls within the city’s economic influence. In Nature’s 

Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, William Cronon used the term in this way. 

Cronon argues that the economic and environmental relationship between Chicago and 

its hinterland—the Great Plains—spurred the radical environmental transformation of 

the Plains in the nineteenth century. As the countryside supplied the raw materials that 

were needed to fuel the city’s growth, this rural landscape, too, was transformed. “City, 

town and county...worked together as a system,” Cronon contends, “joining to become 

the most powerful environmental force reshaping the American landscape since the 

glaciers began their long retreat to the north.” 1 His framework is useful for 

understanding the environmental changes that occurred on Tomales Bay, since the area 

served as a hinterland for San Francisco during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Many Americans began to rethink the value of the natural environment in the midtwentieth century, and Tomales Bay became a different kind of hinterland for San 

Francisco Bay area residents. The increase in automobile ownership, new roads, and the 

opening of the Golden Gate Bridge allowed larger numbers of tourists to visit Tomales 

Bay, and many residents of the rapidly sprawling San Francisco Bay area now valued the 

estuary and its shores as a place for leisure and recreation. Many residents wanted the 

area to remain scenic and undeveloped, and this vision became the dominant force 

shaping the Tomales Bay landscape in the late twentieth century. Others who valued 

most highly the agricultural and natural resource-based products of the region contested 

this idea, and government administrators and non-profit agencies created unique 

 

1William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton 

and Co., 1991), 265. 
Tomales Bay: A Diverse Landscape 

4

solutions in an attempt to reconcile these two visions. Debates about water quality, land 

use, and historic preservation remain hotly contested issues, and as cultural conceptions 

of the value of Tomales Bay change, these ideas will continue to shape its landscape. 
5

CHAPTER ONE

AN ABUNDANT LANDSCAPE: THE COAST MIWOK AND 

TOMALES BAY

Before dairy ranches, oyster farms, and summer homes spread across the Tomales 

Bay landscape, the estuary was home to a large number of Coast Miwok Indians. The bay 

and the surrounding hillsides have a long human history. The Coast Miwok--the native 

peoples of Marin and southern Sonoma Counties--first settled the Tomales Bay area 

between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. Archaeologists estimate that there were about 2,000 

to 3,000 Coast Miwok before Spanish settlement. The Coast Miwok were a 

semisedentary people who hunted, gathered, and fished to procure a diverse array of 

resources.2They depended on the fish, wild plants, and waterfowl of the estuary, and 

through the use of fire, they managed and modified the land surrounding the bay.

While there are over 600 archaeological sites in Marin County, archaeologists still 

know relatively little about the Coast Miwok during the precontact period. Furthermore, 

the Spanish failed to record many observations about the group during first contact. 

Consequently, many of the conclusions reached by anthropologists are based on the 

Miwok way of life in the nineteenth century.3 Anthropologists, however, believe that this 

portrait may be reasonably accurate, and since evidence suggests that while the Coast 

Miwok adapted new technologies after contact, they retained many traditional ways in 

regard to settlement and procurement.4

 

2

Isabel Kelly, “Coast Miwok,” in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. Robert F. Heizer 

(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), Vol. 8: California , 414. 

3

Lynn Compas, “Research Design, Case Study and Proposed Management Plan: Post-Contact 

Coast Miwok Settlement Patterns and Procurement Strategies in Point Reyes National Seashore” 

(MA thesis, Sonoma State University, 1998), 32. Archaeologists in Marin County have instead 

preferred to focus on the landing sites of European explorers or on postcontact period Coast 

Miwok sites. 

4 Ibid., 43.

5

 Clerin W. Zumwalt, “Consideration of Vegetation and Soils on the Tomales Bay Watershed,” 

Tomales Bay Environmental Study: Compendium of Reports (Washington D.C: The Conservation 

Foundation, 1972), 74. 
An Abundant Landscape: The Coast Miwok and Tomales Bay 

6

The Coast Miwok that lived in the Tomales Bay area before European settlement 

inhabited a substantially different environment than presentday residents. While the 

twenty-first century visitor would recognize the bay’s contours, the topography of the 

surrounding hillsides, and the stark contrast between forest and grasslands on opposite 

sides of the bay, a closer look during the prehistoric period would reveal significant 

differences in the landscape. The sandy and clay loam soils in the eastern Tomales Bay 

area supported productive perennial grasses such as bunchgrasses and sod grasses. 

California oatgrass, tufted hairgrass, California fescue, beardless wild rye, pine bluegrass, 

blue wild rye, purple needlegrass, and june grass dominated the grasslands east of the 

bay. Native annuals such as blue-eyed grass, buttercups, sanicula, and lupine were 

interspersed throughout the area. Tree species that could withstand the wind, salt air, 

fires, and lack of rainfall--such as coast live oaks and bay laurel--inhabited the steepest 

slopes and canyons of eastern Tomales Bay. These grasslands and woodlands provided 

habitat for antelope, deer, elk, bear, cougar and coyote.5 Bishop pines thrived in the low 

elevation coastal climate on the western side of the bay along with manzanita, 

huckleberry, salal, and rhododendron.6

Tomales Bay provided an abundant landscape for the Coast Miwok, and the group 

inhabited a number of villages and smaller settlements on the estuary.7

 The bay’s shores 

contain some of the highest concentration of archaeological sites in Marin County as 

well as the majority of sites within Point Reyes National Seashore. The Coast Miwok 

located their settlements in sheltered coves on the bay with easy access to freshwater 

streams. There were at least two major village sites on streams on the east side of the bay 

during this time. Echacolom (also spelled Echa-kolum’) was located at Marconi Cove, 

and Olemaloque (also called Olema) was near Olema. Spanish mission records indicate 

that there were groups of Coast Miwok living at Tom’s Point and Tomales Point. In 

addition, there were a number of other small settlements along both sides of Tomales 

Bay. Though the Coast Miwok located larger villages on the eastern side of the bay, the 

west side of the bay contained a higher number of settlements, probably due to

 

6

 Faith Louise Duncan, “Botanical Reflections of the Encuentro and the Contact Period in 

Southern Marin County, California” (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 1992), 221. 

7 Randall Milliken, A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco 

Bay Area, 1769-1810 (Menlo Park and Novato, Ca: Ballena Press, 1995), 254. The political 

organization of the Coast Miwok is unclear, and archaeologists disagree about the relationship 

between villages and smaller settlements. Some archaeologists have designated the Coast Miwok 

that lived near Tomales Bay the Tamales Indians, as indicated by Spanish mission records. 

“Tamales” may have been a general Coast Miwok term for northerners and not indicative of a 

political affiliation. 
An Abundant Landscape: The Coast Miwok and Tomales Bay 

7

the shelter provided by the forested landscape as well as the abundance of plant foods 

and acorn bearing oaks.8

Marine foods were particularly important to the Coast Miwok, and Tomales Bay 

was the primary source of food stuffs such as fish, shellfish, and waterfowl. The Coast 

Miwok netted eel, sturgeon, flounder, perch, and herring on the bay’s calm waters from 

rafts and boats made with tule reeds. Salmon were speared (using the cannon bone of a 

deer as a spear point), netted, or trapped in tributary creeks. The group fished for smelt 

from shore with surf nets as well.9They dug clams from the bay’s beaches and pried 

mussels from rocks at Hog Island with digging sticks. Evidence suggests that the Coast 

Miwok consumed oysters rarely. In addition, mudhens and geese were netted or shot 

with bow and arrow from the bay’s shores. The Coast Miwok utilized a variety of other 

birds, such as brown pelicans, great blue herons, and ducks, for food, feathers and 

ceremonial accessories.10

Since Tomales Bay provided a wealth of edible resources in a relatively calm, 

sheltered environment, the Coast Miwok made only infrequent trips to the ocean coast 

to procure foods. They ventured to ocean beaches to gather rockfish, abalone, 

Dungeness crab, sculpin, and seaweed, but there is no evidence to show that they fished 

in the open ocean, where the rough seas would have overwhelmed their small rafts.11

Their religious beliefs may have also discouraged the use of ocean resources, since the 

Coast Miwok believed that the dead resided to the west and that they traveled on sea 

foam to the afterlife.12

The Coast Miwok procured foodstuffs on a seasonal cycle. They gathered salmon 

and waterfowl in the winter, when vegetal foods and some game were scarce. During the 

summer, the focus shifted from the bay to the adjacent hills, where the Coast Miwok 

hunted game such as elk, deer, and rabbit. They also collected plant foods such as acorns 

 

8

 Compas, 47. Other significant sites of settlement included Otroomiah, probably at the south end 

of the bay, and Segloque, east of Tom’s Point, but it is not known if these sites were inhabited 

during the precontact period. 

9 Mary E. T. Collier and Sylvia Barker Thalman, eds., Interviews with Tom Smith and Maria Copa: 

Isabel Kelly’s Ethnographic Notes on the Coast Miwok Indians of Marin and Southern Sonoma 

Counties, California (San Rafael, CA: Miwok Archaeological Preserve of Marin, 1991), 141-43. 

10 Ibid., 126-27. 

11 Compas, 48. 

12 Geri Emberson and Dorothea Theodoratus, Point Reyes National Seashore Cultural Affiliation 

Report, (Novato, CA: The Federated Coast Miwok Cultural Preservation Association in 

cooperation with the National Park Service, 1999), 18. 
An Abundant Landscape: The Coast Miwok and Tomales Bay 

8

and seeds that could be dried for winter consumption. The acorns were ground and 

boiled into mush, then mixed with water to make bread. Fowl, seaweed, and fish were 

sun and wind-dried and stored for the winter.13

While land was not privately owned, the Coast Miwok observed some private 

property restrictions. Specific food producing trees such as oaks could be privately 

owned, as could fishing, shellfishing, and hunting privileges to a certain area. Clam beds 

were often considered the private domain of a particular individual or family. The group 

held exclusive rights to the Tomales Bay clam beds from which the local currency, the 

clamshell disk bead, was gathered and manufactured. They traded the beads to the 

Southern Pomo, Wappo, and Southern Patwin Indians for food, such as dried deer meat 

and obsidian. Obsidian was used as arrows and knives to butcher game and could not be 

obtained near Tomales Bay.14

The hills surrounding Tomales Bay provided resources that were manufactured 

into structures, clothing, and tools. Coast Miwok dwellings were conical, grasscovered, 

and framed with willow or driftwood. Bunches of grass, rushes, or tule reeds were tied 

onto the outside, like shingles. These shingles were fastened together by cords made of 

lupine roots. They made bows-- their main hunting weapon--from wood backed with 

pelican wing sinew, and the string was made of sinew or lupine cord. Deer skins were 

made into clothing for both men and women. Women wore skirts of deerskin or tule, 

while men sometimes wore deerskin loincloths. The Coast Miwok used beach rocks as 

mortars and made trees into paddles and utensils. They obtained all of these items from 

Tomales Bay and the surrounding hillsides.15

Like many California Indian groups, the Coast Miwok used fire to manage their 

environment. They intentionally burned the hills surrounding Tomales Bay to facilitate 

their natural resource use. Annual fires sustained grass communities while discouraging 

brush and encroaching woodlands. Hunting and driving game and protecting 

settlements from invaders were easier in a burned landscape, since periodic fires 

increased visibility and decreased brush. Furthermore, game was attracted by the 

palatable young grasses in meadows that had experienced burning. Fire turned older and 

dead plants into organic materials that fertilized the soil, and it encouraged the growth of 

the plants and grasses whose seeds were made into pinole, a staple flour. Low intensity 

fires may also have increased acorn production in oaks just as it increased productivity of 

 

13 Kelly, 416. 

14 Ibid., 418; Compas, 50. 

15 Kelly, 416-418. 
An Abundant Landscape: The Coast Miwok and Tomales Bay 

9

plants and grasses used for basket making. The deep roots of native bunch grasses were 

protected from fire, and these perennials had the ability to regenerate from their roots 

after burning.16

The Coast Miwok usually burned in the fall, following the seed harvest, and fire 

facilitated the collection of other foodstuffs. The Miwok dug for roots after the fall 

burning, when it was easier to turn the soil. To harvest wild rye, they burnt the fields;the 

fire moved so quickly that it felled but only scorched the grain. There is also evidence to 

suggest that Indians set fires to suppress disease and pests. The Coast Miwok actively 

managed their surroundings in other ways as well. Certain plants--such as bay laurel, 

tobacco, and elderberry--were encouraged by pruning, limited harvesting, and seed 

dispersal.17

Although European explorers began to visit the Tomales Bay area in the late 

sixteenth century, the resources in and around the bay remained almost exclusively 

utilized by the Coast Miwok through the late eighteenth century. These native peoples 

managed and manipulated the natural resources of the area for sustenance for thousands 

of years without destroying their environment’s capacity to sustain them. Subsequent 

groups would bring different values and assumptions about the natural landscape with 

them to Tomales Bay. They would view the area in terms of exploitable resources, a place 

to extract resources for distant markets, and this shift would bring change to the 

Tomales Bay Landscape. 

 

16 Richard D. Shultz, “The Effects of Fire and Fire Management on Cultural Resources,” (National 

Park Service, 2003), 52; Duncan, 214. 

17 Duncan, 181-243. 
 
 

11

CHAPTER TWO

ON THE EDGE OF EMPIRE: CONVERSION AND COMMERCE 

ON TOMALES BAY

Between the late sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, Europeans, seeking to 

exploit the natural resources of the California coast, explored the Tomales Bay area. The 

Spanish were searching for a supply stop for their Manila Galleons and a strategic, 

resource-rich location for a mission site. Missions needed vast amounts of land for cattle 

ranching, and the Spanish mission at San Rafael incorporated the Tomales Bay area’s 

grasslands into their domain. Russian and American merchants also attempted to profit 

from the marine resources of the bay as they searched for otter pelts along the northern 

California coast. The few Mexican ranchers who settled near Tomales Bay capitalized on 

the area’s grasslands as they raised cattle for the hide and tallow trade. These European 

groups viewed the landscape differently than did the Coast Miwok that preceded them, 

and they placed different values on the bay’s natural resources. In varying ways, these 

Europeans sought to profit from the Tomales Bay landscape and to incorporate the 

natural resources of the area into the global economy. 

SPANISH EXPLORERS ALONG THE MARIN COAST

Spanish explorers on the California coast were looking for safe harbors, for 

supplies, and for locations that would further their goals of religion and empire. Spain’s 

claim to California was based on the 1492 Treaty of Tordesillas, in which the Pope gave 

Spain the western coasts of North and South America. In 1595, the Spanish actively 

began to seek a location on the northern California coast that could provide their Manila 

galleons with fresh water and food. Later explorations focused on locating strategic sites 

for missions, which would serve to convert Indians and provide tangible evidence of 

Spain’s claim to the region.18 Spanish explorers sought out Tomales Bay, in particular, in 

order to assess its value for natural resources and defense. 

The first European to sight Tomales Bay was Estevan Lopez, boatswain of the Tres 

Reyes, in 1603, but the bay’s rough entrance prevented the ship from exploring the 

estuary. The Tres Reyes was a small auxiliary vessel that had become separated from a 

 

18 Iris H.W. Engstrand, “Seekers of the ‘Northern Mystery’: European Exploration of California 

and the Pacific,” in Contested Eden: California before the Gold Rush, Ramón A. Gutiérrez and 

Richard J. Orsi, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 87. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

12

larger Spanish ship commanded by Sebastian Vizcaíno during a storm off the Marin 

Coast. Vizcaíno and his crew explored the California coast in hopes of finding at least 

two sheltered harbors in which ships could take refuge from storms. The Spanish 

government also charged him with asserting a Spanish presence along the California 

coast. English pirates frequently attacked the Manila galleons, and the Spanish needed to 

establish their authority in the region. After Lopez sighted Tomales Bay, ship 

cosmographer Geronimo Martin Palacios wrote that they “found a very large river which 

had several fathoms of water at the entrance; it flowed from the southeast one quarter 

mile east of the interior, and the force of the current prohibited us from entering.” 

Palacios likely assigned the designation “Rio de San Sebastian” to the bay, which the 

expedition’s map depicted as a river without a source. 19

No European entered the bay until 1775, when Lieutenant Juan Francisco de la 

Bodega y Quadra spotted the estuary while returning from explorations to the north in 

the schooner Sonora. Ignorant of the maps produced on the Vizcaíno expedition, the 

Sonora’s pilot recorded, “We soon discerned the mouth of a considerable river...and 

some way up we therefore concluded this to be the harbor of San Francisco, which we 

were in search of.” Bodega, too, mistook their location. He wrote, “I discovered a river of 

great volume, and, entering through it, I saw a large harbor. At the same time the sea 

came up with extraordinary violence and whereupon I thought it must be the port I was 

searching for; so I entered and anchored off the Punta de Arenas.” The Spaniards soon 

realized their geographic mistake and named the bay “de la Bodega.”20

Powerful winds and strong currents again posed problems for the Spanish 

explorers in Tomales Bay, and they failed to find the natural resources they sought. They 

anchored for a night off of Sand Point, at the bay’s entrance, where heavy surf brought 

by strong tides and high winds swamped the vessel. The ship had difficulty exiting the 

bay’s narrow, turbulent mouth as well. Bodega wrote, “The entrance to the port is easy, 

since the northwest winds are at the stern for entering, but in leaving, unless it is done 

with a southeast wind, it is necessary to wait for the ebb tide and make sail while under 

tow, which is far from easy because of the force of the seas.” Pilot Francisco Antonio 

Maurelle described the bay as “very large and sheltered,” and he recommended that 

subsequent explorers inspect the estuary.21 The Spanish were searching, in part, for 

 

19 Clinton R. Edwards, “Wandering Toponyms: El Puerto de la Bodega and Bodega Bay,” Pacific 

Historical Review 33 (August 1964), 254. As the ship’s cosmographer, Palacios’ duties would have 

included navigation and mapmaking. 

20 Edwards, 254-55. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

13

sources of wood, but Maurelle had disappointing news once he saw the grassy hills 

surrounding Tomales Bay. “The mountains here are nearly naked, with only grass on 

them,” he observed. The expedition, however, failed to explore the bay’s southern half, 

where timber was plentiful along the western shores.

22

 

Despite the bad weather, dangerous tides and seeming lack of resources at 

Tomales Bay, Bodega y Quadra believed that the estuary could play a valuable military 

role. The Spanish had established a mission and a presidio at presentday San Francisco in 

1776, but Northern California remained a remote and undeveloped part of Spain’s 

empire due to the area’s vulnerability to foreign occupation. After James Colnett, the 

English captain of the Argonaut, landed in Bodega Bay for supplies and repairs, the 

Spanish feared that their rivals would return to the area to establish a permanent 

settlement. Bodega y Quadra, who had become the naval commander at San Blas, 

Mexico, decided that the Spanish should establish an outpost on the remote estuary 

(called el Puerto de la Bodega on his map) in order to secure the northern coast. In 1791, 

the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico followed Bodega y Quadra’s recommendation and sent 

Juan Bautista Matute to establish a permanent presence at Tomales Bay.23

In April of 1792, Matute set out from San Blas in the schooner Sutil, while Felipe 

Goycoechea, the commandant at the Santa Barbara presidio, led an overland expedition 

from San Francisco to Tomales Bay. For unknown reasons, Matute did not have 

Bodega’s map, and he believed that Bodega y Quadra intended Bodega Bay, rather than 

Tomales Bay, for the settlement. The Sutil became stuck on a sandbar in the shallow 

harbor as it entered. Not only was Bodega Bay too shallow for ship traffic, the perplexed 

Matute noted that there was no available wood for building. Once freed from the 

sandbar, Matute turned south toward Tomales Bay, where he spent three days.24

Despite the dangerous conditions at the bay’s entrance, the estuary and its 

surrounding landscape impressed Matute. He found the bay to be “a port well provided 

with the facilities for the discharge of my commission, and a very good one for a ship of 

not more than fifteen feet draft, the depth of water at the entrance.” Though it would be 

an expensive undertaking, Matute recommended that the Spanish found missions at 

 

21 Edwards, 256. George Vancouver’s 1794 map also called the bay “Bodega,” and what is now 

Bodega Bay is absent from his map. 

22 Henry Wagner, “The Last Spanish Exploration of the Northwest Coast and the Attempt to 

Colonize Bodega Bay,” Quarterly of the California Historical Society 10 (December 1931), 337. 

23 Wagner, 337-38. 

24 Edwards, 264. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

14

Tomales Bay (which he called Puerto Nuevo) as well as Bodega Bay. Matute experienced 

some of the same problems as did Bodega y Quadra at the bay’s mouth, and he also 

correctly deduced that a sandbar lay near the entrance. He warned, “Nevertheless the 

entrance is dangerous, because in my opinion, during the fresh winds from the 

northwest and other quarters, it must have a bar.”25 The local Indians presented another 

problem for Matute. While the Coast Miwok did procure supplies for the Spanish, 

Matute worried about potential conflicts with the group. He recommended that if a 

settlement was built, a cavalry unit should be sent to “induce some respect in” the Coast 

Miwok.26

As Goycoechea—along with eleven men and thirty horses—made his way up the 

Olema Valley to Tomales Bay (which he called Puerto de San Juan Francisco) to meet 

Matute, he too was impressed by the natural resources near the bay. As he journeyed 

north through the Olema Valley to the southern end of the bay, he wrote, “The place is 

well fitted for any kind of establishment. There are good lands for crops, a sufficient 

supply of water and a great abundance of wood-red pine, oak, madrone, laurel, willow 

and a grove of hazelnut trees.” Goycoechea named the area Los Mártires, and he advised 

the governor that it would be a perfect spot for settlement due to the natural amenities 

and ample labor supply (the local Indian population). He wrote that the site was “most 

appropriate for founding any mission or establishment, as all around there is a sufficient 

number of natives.” He continued, “there are many deer there, some very good pasture 

and springs in all parts, very appropriate for raising cattle of all kinds and very 

extensive.” Local Coast Miwok told the explorers that Tomales Bay teemed with fish, 

but the Spaniards did not express interest in the bay’s marine resources.27

The Coast Miwok advised the explorers to continue up the west side of the bay to 

Tomales Point, where the Indians had observed Matute’s vessel offshore. Though the 

forested western side of the bay actually provided more obstacles than the grassy eastern 

shores, the Indians told Goycoechea that the eastern shores were impassible. With 

“some labor,” the party crossed the marsh at the south end of the bay and made their 

way to Tomales Point, passing “a wonderment of various (Coast Miwok) settlements 

along the bay shore.” Their interpreters indicated that the Coast Miwok were prepared 

 

25 Ibid., 265. 

26 Wagner, 341. 

27 Ibid., 342-45. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

15

to battle the Spanish, but instead, the Indians living on the bay presented gifts of pinole 

and fruit.28

Upon reaching Tomales Point, Goycoechea expressed his belief that he had been 

tricked into traveling up the western side of the bay. He paid a group of Indians to row to 

the Sutil and bring Matute to Tomales Point, where the two met briefly. Goycoechea 

then headed back around the bay’s southern end and made his way up the eastern side to 

Bodega Bay. He was much more impressed with the Tomales Bay area than he was with 

foggy, unforested Bodega Bay, where he believed the Spanish government wanted to 

locate a settlement. Unlike at Tomales Bay, Goycoechea did not locate any convenient 

fresh water or good pasture for his horses. Matute had left chickens and pigs for the 

overland explorers, and Goycoechea recruited local Indians to procure firewood and 

fresh water.29

The most thorough Spanish examinations of Tomales Bay were made by Don Juan 

Martínez, the second pilot on a patrol voyage aboard the schooner Mexicana, a vessel 

sent to rendezvous with Matute and the Sutil. Martinez discovered that the “great river” 

on his map was, in fact, a bay. He wrote, “Observing to the southeast an inlet which gave 

promise of being a large port, we directed ourselves to that with great risk of losing the 

anchors which had dragged since we had anchored, thus preventing us from making a 

careful scrutiny of the north lagoon and its qualities. By five-thirty in the afternoon we 

were already inside the port referred to, which runs inland some distance. We followed it 

until we saw a vast number of shoals.” The crew explored the bay in a small launch for 

the next six days. Marnez, like Matute and Goycoechea, believed the Tomales Bay 

landscape could help fulfill the Spanish goals of religion and empire. He considered the 

timber valuable for building material and firewood. He wrote, “At the end of (Tomales 

Bay) are some forests of trees which, although I did not recognize their character, could 

not but be useful for any purpose.” He viewed the surrounding grasslands, however, as 

useless.30

Despite the strategic location and availability of timber and fresh water, the bay’s 

dangerous entrance gave the Spaniards second thoughts about establishing a mission on 

the estuary. Like Matute, Martínez believed that the bay could become a valuable harbor 

if only the entrance was safer. “The port is fifteen miles long in all...and if the entrance 

 

28 Ibid., 342. The group passed nine Indian settlements along the way. 

29 Ibid., 342-43. 

30 Ibid., 331. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

16

were [sic] deep enough for vessels of size there would be no better one on all the coast, 

since from the shoals inward there is a depth of four to six fathoms of water.”31

Although Matute had been ordered to establish an outpost at Tomales Bay, he 

headed back to San Blas without completing his mission, still mistakenly thinking 

shallow Bodega Bay was the intended site. By the time he arrived, Bodega y Quadra had 

been transferred, and thus, the confusion between Bodega and Tomales Bay was not 

sorted out. International diplomacy soon rendered Tomales Bay useless as a settlement 

site. After the British and the Spanish settled their disputes over North America, the 

Spanish felt that they did not need to protect their northern possessions, and they made 

no further attempts to settle Tomales Bay.32 However, as they increased their presence in 

other parts of the San Francisco Bay area, social and environmental changes began to 

spread to the Tomales Bay landscape. 

SPANISH COLONIZATION OF CALIFORNIA, 1769-1821 

The next phase in Tomales Bay’s history was set in context of Spain’s colonization 

of California. Between 1769 and 1821, Europeans began to incorporate the natural 

resources of the Tomales Bay area into the global economy. As the hide and tallow trade 

grew more lucrative, the grasslands of eastern Tomales Bay became pasture for Spanish 

mission cattle. The bay’s marine resources also attracted attention, and European and 

American merchants converged on the Marin coast in search of sea otter furs. The bay 

and the surrounding lands, however, proved less valuable to these Europeans than they 

had hoped. The biggest environmental changes during this time resulted not from the 

extraction of resources but from the cessation of certain land use techniques. Over twothirds of the Coast Miwok were interned in four San Francisco Bay area missions, and 

this population shift brought ecological changes to the Tomales Bay area landscape. 

Spain colonized Northern California in an effort to stave off foreign encroachment 

and convert the native population to Christianity. As Russia, Great Britain, and France 

began to search farther and wider for natural resource commodities, Spain decided it 

needed to establish a firmer hold on its North American possessions. England had vastly 

increased its North American territory at the end of the French and Indian Wars in 1763, 

and Spain feared that they might expand across the American continent into Spanish 

territory. Russian encroachment from the north concerned the Spanish as well, since the 

 

31 Ibid. 

32 Ibid., 339. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

17

silver mines in New Spain were vulnerable without a physical Spanish presence.33 In 

1769, California governor Gaspar de Portola worried, “The Russians are about to invade 

us.”34 Between 1769 and 1823, the Spanish established a series of twenty-one missions, 

four presidios, and three civilian settlements along a 650 mile stretch of Alta California. 

While Spanish explorers had recommended Tomales Bay as a military or mission site, the 

Spanish government instead located their northernmost missions at San Rafael, which 

offered easier water access to San Francisco Bay and Sonoma. 

Tomales Bay’s natural resources became incorporated into the Spanish mission 

system after the establishment of the San Rafael mission in 1817. Missions raised cattle 

for local consumption and for hides and tallow—used for cooking as well as making soap 

and candles—which they exported to Europe.35 As the hide and tallow trade became 

more lucrative in the 1820s, missions increasingly concentrated their efforts on this 

endeavor. In 1828, the San Rafael mission boundaries were extended to include the 

entire eastern side of Tomales Bay, since the expanded cattle raising operation required 

extensive landholdings.36 Even before the mission’s boundaries were officially extended 

to Tomales Bay, mission cattle roamed freely, and likely inhabited the grassy eastern side 

of the estuary as they strayed from both the San Rafael and the Sonoma missions37. 

Cattle ranching at Mission San Rafael began to reorder the natural landscape of 

Marin County, as it had throughout much of California. By 1832, the mission had over 

two thousand cattle on approximately 50,000 acres of land.38 As German naturalist 

George H. von Langsdorff observed, “The cattle, horses and sheep do not require any 

particular attention. The herds are left in the open the whole year through.” The animals 

consumed native grasses, compacted and disturbed the soil, and increased dispersal of 

exotic seeds through their manure. Despite the abundant native grasslands of the area, 

mission fathers sought to “improve” upon the existing pastures as they introduced a 

 

33 Steven W. Hackel, “Land, Labor and Production: The Colonial Economy of Spanish and 

Mexican California,” in Contested Eden, 113. 

34 Jack Mason, Early Marin (Petaluma, Calif.: House of Printing, 1971), 3. 

35 Guadalupe Vallejo, “Ranch and Mission Days in Alta California,” Century Magazine, 16 

(December 1890), 16. 

36 Susan Kemp Tanner, “The Marin Peninsula: The Impact of Inhabiting Groups on the 

Landscape from the Indian to the Railroad” (MA thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1971), 

112. 

37 Duncan, 108. 

38 Tanner, 133. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

18

number of European species of forage plants. The Spanish cultivated narrowleaf 

plantain, wild oats, and mustard on the dunes and coastal prairies outside of mission 

boundaries for livestock fodder.39

According to Historian William Preston, the grasslands of California experienced 

“the most dramatic alterations anywhere in continental America” after colonization.40

California’s native plants could not compete with the more competitive and adaptive 

European species. As the Spanish introduced exotic plants, they spread outside of 

mission boundaries and replaced native plants. Early settlers marveled at how quickly 

wild oats, an introduced species, colonized abandoned fields. Many of the non-native 

species were successful because they produced more seeds per plant than native species. 

Their seeds sprout after years of dormancy, and they thrive in disturbed soil.41 It is 

unclear how much the Tomales Bay landscape was invaded by exotic species during this 

time, but it is likely that non-native plants began to establish themselves in the area. 

At the same time, Coast Miwok land use practices such as harvesting, seed 

dispersal, and intentional fires largely ceased during this period. The Spanish interned 

about 2,000 of the approximately 3,000 Coast Miwok in missions, and the reduction in 

population and natural resource use along Tomales Bay’s shores impacted the 

environment. In May of 1793, Don Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga, interim governor of 

California, issued a decree that prohibited intentional burning by Indians. This 

proscription, designed to prevent property damage--combined with the internment of 

Coast Miwok in missions--meant that the Tomales Bay landscape experienced fires less 

and less. Fossil pollen evidence shows that the decree did have an effect. Fire- dependent 

species decreased while non-native annual grasses and herbs increased. Wooded areas 

began to encroach upon grasslands, and brush thickened. The number of rodents, deer, 

elk, and antelope also increased due to the decrease in hunting activity. Despite the 

competition from domestic livestock and the introduction of exotic species, the lack of 

human predators enabled wildlife populations to skyrocket. Some animal populations, 

such as grizzly bears, increased since mission livestock provided an almost unlimited 

new food supply. Coast Miwok population fell from about three thousand to between 

300 and 500 at the end of Spanish occupation. The Tomales Bay landscape gradually 

 

39 Joshua Paddison, ed., A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California before the Gold 

Rush (Berkeley: Heydey Books, 1998), 117; and Duncan, 259.. 

40 William Preston, “Serpent in the Garden: Environmental Change in Colonial California,” in 

Contested Eden, 272. 

41 Duncan, 244 and 231. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

19

adjusted to the cessation of Coast Miwok land use practices, often by becoming more 

uniform in species composition.42

The Spanish ignored Tomales Bay’s marine resources, but the estuary’s marine 

mammal populations attracted the interest of European and American fur traders. These 

merchants were in search of the sea otter pelts that fetched top dollar in the Chinese 

market, and they converged upon the Northern California coastline beginning in the 

1780s. Nearby Bodega Bay and the Farallon Islands, with their large otter populations, 

soon attracted hunters’ attention. They only visited Tomales Bay after 1808, when 

populations elsewhere had been reduced. The hunters probably reduced the otter, bird, 

and seal populations in Tomales Bay, but the estuary, with its lack of kelp beds, did not 

sustain large numbers of otters. The Russians found other parts of the California 

coastline valuable enough to establish a fort, but they found Tomales Bay’s resources 

lacking in comparison.43

Since neither the Spanish nor the Russians found the estuary attractive enough to 

settle, the mission period affected the Tomales Bay landscape in largely indirect ways.. 

The enslavement of the Coast Miwok reduced the number of human inhabitants on the 

bay, and thus reduced natural resource use and land management techniques. Spanish 

land use practices overall were quite damaging to native flora and fauna surrounding 

their missions, and some of these changes likely extended to the hillsides surrounding 

Tomales Bay. 

MEXICAN CALIFORNIA AND RANCHING ON TOMALES BAY, 1821-1848 

Largely overlooked by Spain and Russia, Tomales Bay continued to attract little 

attention during Mexican colonization as well. The Spanish government practically 

ignored their North American colonies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth 

centuries as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars diverted their attention 

from their peripheral holdings. Also, Mexico’s colonial status meant that Californians 

had little control over their government. For example, the colony lacked the authority to 

export and trade with other nations. Some Mexican residents started an independence 

movement after Napoleon’s conquest of Spain, and beginning in 1810, a group of Indians 

and native-born Mexicans allied to wrest control of the country from its Spanish-born, 

upper-class leaders. A series of revolts and reprisals occurred over the next eleven years, 

and by 1820 the rebel forces were all but defeated. Changes in the Spanish regime, 

 

42 Compas, 51; Duncan, 349; Shultz, 55; Preston, 274-278. 

43 Adele Ogden, The California Sea Otter Trade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941), 

32-34. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

20

however, allowed the creation of an independent Mexico in 1821. Mexican rule initiated 

major changes in land ownership and management.44

Three acts passed by the Mexican government created the biggest change in 

California land holdings since the establishment of the mission system. The Mexican 

government actively encouraged colonization when it passed the Colonization Act of 

1824 and the Supplemental Act of 1828. These laws allowed citizens (and individuals 

willing to become citizens and convert to Catholicism) to apply for up to eleven leagues, 

or about fifty thousand acres, of land. In order to apply for a grant, an individual 

submitted a petition and a diseño (a crudely drawn boundary map of the parcel) to the 

governor. A local government official investigated the claim, and if he verified the 

information, the parcel was granted. The approval of the Territorial Deputation (a local 

assembly) was also needed to validate the claim.45

Rancho owners had to meet four qualifications in order to gain title to their grants. 

First, they had to settle the land within one year. Second, they could not obstruct public 

roads, easements, or crossings (though they were allowed to fence their parcel). Third, 

the rights of Indians must be observed. Lastly, the boundaries of the rancho must be 

officially measured and defined by two cordeleros who were supervised by the local 

magistrate and adjoining property owners.46 Many of the applicants were men who had 

served in the Mexican army in California, while others were merchants or traders who 

settled permanently in California. Before 1830, only thirty ranchos were granted. Most of 

these were south of San Francisco Bay, and many of these grantees never gained title to 

their land.47

Politicians and wealthy individuals who coveted the land, labor, and livestock of 

the missions pushed for distribution of mission lands. After the Mexican government 

passed the Secularization Act of 1833, mission lands became available to individuals, and 

grants were rapidly awarded. More than 700 ranchos, covering more than ten million 

acres of land, were granted between 1834 and 1846. Around a third of the grants were 

 

44 Hackel, 130. 

45 Ibid., 132. Most land grants were much smaller than the maximum size allowed. 

46 Anna Coxe Toogood, A Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes 

National Seashore (Denver: National Park Service, 1980), 1: 29-30. Each cordelero held the end of 

a rope 137.5’ long, and this rope was used to measure the property. 

47 Hackel, 132. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

21

given to immigrants to Mexico.48 Most of the ranchos included livestock that had 

formerly belonged to the missions. When the missions were secularized in 1834, the San 

Rafael mission distributed their 4,500 cattle, 500 horses, 3,500 sheep, and an unknown 

number of hogs as well as their extensive landholdings.49

Settlers who colonized California produced hides and tallow, which were traded 

for hard goods and other consumer products, to the American merchants who traveled 

along the California coast. The period 1828 to 1846 was a prosperous period for rancho 

owners, and they sold hundreds of thousands of hides and thousands of tons of tallow 

each year to Boston-based merchants. The meat was considered so worthless that a 

traveler in California was allowed to slaughter any cow for its meat as long as he left the 

hide. One historian estimated that between 1826 and 1848--the height of the trade--

about 1.25 million hides and 62.5 million pounds of tallow were exported from 

California. Another calculated that over six million hides were exported throughout the 

nineteenth century.50

Hoping to capitalize on the grasslands around Tomales Bay, a handful of settlers 

raised cattle for the hide and tallow trade. Twenty-one men received ranchos in Marin 

County before the U.S. takeover in 1846, and seven of these lay within the presentday 

boundaries of Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation 

Area. By 1843, most of Marin County, and all of the land bordering Tomales Bay, had 

been divided into grants.51 While the Coast Miwok had utilized different parts of the 

Tomales Bay landscape seasonally, the Mexican land grant system required ownership, 

official boundaries, and material improvements.52

Located in the most remote reaches of Mexico’s northernmost province, far from 

trade centers and regular transportation networks, Tomales Bay’s ranchos attracted 

fewer settlers and produced fewer hides than their southern California counterparts. 

Tomales Bay and Marin County ranchos paled in comparison to the large estates in other 

 

48 Ibid.; Paul W. Gates, ed., California Ranchos and Farms 1846-1862 (Madison: State Historical 

Society of Wisconsin, 1967), 3. 

49 Paddison, 200. 

50 Irvine Berdine Richman, California under Spain and Mexico (New York: Cooper Square 

Publishing, 1965), 292; Arthur Quinn, The Broken Shore: The Marin Peninsula (Layton, Utah: 

Peregrine Smith, 1981), 129; Gates, 4-5; Hackel, 132. 

51 Coxe Toogood, 1: 33; Tanner,133. Unfortunately, there is no existing data that tells us 

specifically how many heads of livestock were owned by these ranchos. 

52 Duncan, 259. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

22

parts of California. The largest ranchos were near Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, close 

to the trade centers along the southern California coast where American merchants 

sought hides and tallow.53 Ranching near Tomales Bay may not have met early settlers’ 

expectations, and thus, land changed hands frequently. 

In March of 1836, John Richard Berry, an Irish-born Mexican citizen who had 

served as a colonel in the Mexican army, claimed 35,000 acres on the southwestern side 

of Tomales Bay. Berry, who received the parcel known as Rancho Punta de los Reyes in 

exchange for his military service, chose the area on the advice of the commandant of 

California. Rancho Punta de los Reyes included the Olema Valley as well as two leagues 

(five to six miles) up the west side of Tomales Bay. Berry stocked his rancho with cattle 

and built a home, north of Olema on the west bank of Olema Creek.54

In 1838, Berry illegally sold two leagues of his rancho along Tomales Bay to Joseph 

Snook, a Mexican citizen and a captain of two trading vessels that operated on the 

California coast. Snook stocked the parcel with fifty-six head of cattle. The conditions of 

Berry’s grant forbade him from selling his property, so Snook engaged in some legal 

maneuvers in order to gain title to the property. In 1839, Snook successfully gained title 

to the 8,878 acres bordering Tomales Bay.55 That same year Snook traded his land to 

Antonio Osio of Monterey for land in Southern California. Osio then applied for and 

was granted (in 1843) the rest of the Point Reyes Peninsula (Rancho Punta de los Reyes 

Sobrante). Osio and his family moved to the rancho that year, but his positions as judge, 

court justice, and substitute congressman kept him away from the rancho. In 1844, Berry 

deeded the remaining parts of his rancho and cattle to Stephen Smith for a debt. Smith 

sold it to Bethuel Phillips, a cattle rancher, for $15,000 in 1848.56

Land along eastern Tomales Bay fell into the hands of four men, but only one of 

these remote parcels was ever occupied. Governor Pio Pico granted ten leagues of the 

 

53 Richman, 292. 

54 Douglas (Dewey) Livingston, A Good Life: Dairy Farming in the Olema Valley: A History of the 

Dairy and Beef Ranches of the Olema Valley and Lagunitas Canyon, Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, California (San Francisco: 

National Park Service, 1995), 18-19. His claim also included the future site of the town of 

Inverness. 

55 Douglas Livingston, Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula: A History of the Dairy and Beef 

Ranches within Point Reyes National Seashore, 1834-1992 (Point Reyes Station, CA: National Park 

Service, 1994), 3. The Mexican government granted Berry the property based on his 

denouncement of the land, a legal maneuver that challenged ownership of the parcel based on the 

fact that Berry’s property was not occupied, another condition of Berry’s grant. 

56 Livingston, A Good Life, 21-22; Mason, Early Marin, 141. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

23

56,807 acre Rancho Nicasio parcel, the largest grant in Marin County, to Pablo de la 

Guerra for his “public service” and six leagues to Juan B.R. Cooper as repayment for a 

$4,000 debt owed by the Mexican government. Cooper had indicated that he intended to 

dedicate himself to “the business of agriculture,” but neither man improved the land.57

They hired Jasper O’Farrell, an Irish-born surveyor, to survey their tracts. O’Farrell 

divided the land into five parcels. Lots one through three occupied the southeastern side 

of Tomales Bay and were assigned to De la Guerra. Cooper obtained lots two and four, 

while O’Farrell received lot three for his services.

58 The government granted Rancho 

Bolsa de Tomales, a 21,340 acre grant that included the northeastern side of Tomales 

Bay, to Juan Padilla, the former mayor of Yerba Buena. He raised about a hundred head 

of cattle, as well as a number of horses, on the land. He sold the land in 1848, and the 

parcel changed hands a number of times before 1850.59 Far from trade centers, these 

ranchos may simply have been too remote to be profitable. 

Rafael Garcia, a corporal in the Mexican army, obtained land near Tomales Bay 

when he claimed Rancho Tomales y Baulines in March of 1836. He moved from the 

Bolinas area, where he had acquired land in 1835 in return for defending the San Rafael 

mission from Indians in 1824.60 The parcel was bordered on the west by Olema Creek, 

the east by Bolinas Ridge, and on the north by Tomales Bay. After he obtained Tomales y 

Baulines in 1836, he moved north from Bolinas in 1837 with his cattle onto the upper 

Olema Valley near the southern end of Tomales Bay so that his brother-in-law could 

occupy Rancho Los Baulines. He constructed a palizada, a wood and thatch house, 

sometime in the late 1830s or early 1840s. He eventually built a large adobe home, two 

adobe structures for his servants and a few wood buildings in Bear Valley. At its height, 

the ranch had 3,000 head of cattle and 400 horses as well as sheep and hogs.61 Since Berry 

and Osio rarely occupied their ranchos along western Tomales Bay, Garcia’s livestock 

probably grazed the entire area. Garcia’s rancho was the largest in the Tomales Bay area, 

but like other area ranches, it was small compared to southern California estates. 

To American observer Joseph Warren Revere, a naval officer working as an 

administrator in the new U.S. territory of California, rancho life near Tomales Bay 

 

57 Mason, Early Marin, 64. 

58 J.P. Munro-Fraser, History of Marin County, California, (San Francisco: Alley,Bowen, and Co., 

1880), 283. 

59 Mason, Early Marin, 136. 

60 Munro-Fraser, 277-78. 

61 Joseph Warren Revere, Naval Duty in California (Oakland, Ca: Biobooks, 1947), 79-82. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

24

seemed simple and unsophisticated. Revere visited Garcia’s property as well as other 

northern California ranchos, and he noted, “About the homestead a rancho presents a 

singularly primitive and patriarchal appearance.” While the area had abundant trees, 

Garcia chose to build his home in the traditional Mexican adobe style. Nor did he use 

wood to construct an enclosure around his garden. The rancho had a kitchen garden 

“rudely fenced with brush dumped around it without an excessive regard for quantity 

and symmetry.... The house is usually a rude edifice of adobes (sunburnt bricks) with 

the usual farm offices around it, patched on as may be most convenient, and it is 

invariably flanked by a ‘corral’ or several corrals.” Garcia’s “extensive herds of wild 

cattle” roamed free, as did his horses and sheep.62 Revere noted that cattle increased 

rapidly in northern California and that an initial purchase of one hundred doubled after 

three years due to the “favorable climate, unequalled pasture [sic] and the state of nature 

in which the animal lives.”63

Californians believed that they were surrounded by natural wealth, but the land 

did not provide all that they desired. Early West Marin resident Charles Lauff recalled, 

“We lived off the fruit of the land,” however, Californians like Garcia and his family 

preferred to dine on cultivated, European species of plants and animals. Beef was a staple 

food, and ranchers raised basic items such as corn, beans, and grain. There is no 

evidence the Californians took advantage of the abundant fish and shellfish of Tomales 

Bay, and in this way, their diet was more limited than the Coast Miwok. Despite the 

timber resources along the bay, there were few woodworkers in the region, so wood 

structures and crafted wood products were rarely constructed.64 Instead, they utilized 

cattle hides for everything from carpet to fences. Mexicans traded hides and tallow for 

imported foods and hardgoods, and, as a result, they often found themselves deep in 

debt and dependent on New England traders to purchase desirable consumer goods.65

Despite the fact that Mexican settlers only sparsely populated the Tomales Bay 

area, cattle ranching probably intensified environmental changes that had begun during 

Spanish rule. The hide and tallow trade became more lucrative during the 1830s and 

1840s, and increasing numbers of horses and cattle roamed freely throughout the area 

 

62 Revere, 79-82. 

63 Ibid., 77-88. 

64 Quinn, 95. 

65 Hackel, 133. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

25

and furthered the spread of invasive species.66 By the 1840s, overgrazing was evident in 

many places in Marin County. As livestock roamed the countryside, less palatable and 

less nourishing Mediterranean grasses increasingly replaced native perennial grasses. 

Wild oats, a non-native grain fed to cattle by Mexican ranchers, became common in the 

county at this time.67 The lightly settled area, however, escaped much of the ecological 

damage that occurred in other parts of California. 

The Tomales Bay vicinity abounded in wildlife, and ranchers hunted wild animals 

of the region for sustenance and sport. The region supported large herds of elk as well as 

grizzly bears, mountain lions, antelope, and coyotes. Elk hunting was a popular sport 

among rancho owners, who caught their prey by lasso from horseback. Ranch families 

ate elk meat at least occasionally, and elk tallow was considered a high quality cooking 

fat. Revere observed one hunter, who, after lassoing a buck, addressed the elk “by the 

familiar title of ‘cuñado’ (brother-in-law), and pleasantly assured him that he ‘only 

wanted a little of his lard wherewithal to cook tortillas! [sic]’—a joke which the struggling 

victim was in no humor to relish.” One hunt in the Tomales Bay area netted eight 

hundred pounds of tallow. Revere observed, “We passed by many places...where 

mouldering [sic] horns and bones attested to the wholesale slaughter which had been 

made in previous years by the rancheros of the neighborhood.” Ranchers hunted 

Grizzlies for sport as well.68There is no evidence, however, to suggest that the small 

numbers of settlers in the area made a significant impact on wildlife populations. 

Tomales Bay had been a center of Coast Miwok resource use, not a hinterland, but 

new political and economic systems meant that they could not return to their old ways of 

life along Tomales Bay after mission secularization. The Mexican government 

transformed Coast Miwok land into private property, and all of the land surrounding 

Tomales Bay had been granted to Mexican citizens. Most Indians were forced to 

participate in the Mexican economic system. Indians provided the majority of the labor 

on ranchos, performing many of the same tasks they had performed at missions. As at 

missions, they were not compensated for their labor except with room and board. 

Indians skinned and butchered carcasses, melted fat for tallow, dried meat, tended 

 

66 Zumwalt, 74. 

67 Quinn, 50. 

68 Revere, 66-68; Andrew Rolle and John S. Gaines, The Golden State: California History and 

Government (Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, Inc, 1990), 60. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

26

orchards, and raised vegetables, skills they had learned in the missions.69 Women worked 

as cooks and maids while men labored as vaqueros, loggers, and farm workers.70

Despite the private property restrictions surrounding the estuary, many Coast 

Miwok continued to utilize the resources of Tomales Bay. Some journeyed to the bay to 

procure sustenance items such as clams. Anecdotal evidence suggests that small groups 

lived in coves along the bay’s shore, but documentation of their activities is scarce.71

Nonetheless, the Coast Miwok did participate in California’s economy. In the 1840s, 

Indians congregated with trade goods at Tom’s Point near the mouth of Tomales Bay at 

the home of Tom Woods. Woods acted as an intermediary between the Indians and 

merchant trade vessels, and Tom’s Point became a trading stop for European and 

American merchant vessels. Between 1844 and 1846, Lauff reported that it was not 

uncommon to see up to one thousand Indians at Tom’s Point waiting with trade goods 

for a merchant ship. “They come overland with their supply of hides, tallow [sic] and 

skin and would wait weeks for the arrival of a vessel,” Lauff observed. French and 

Spanish ships came for abalone shells.72 The gatherings became a social event with 

singing and dancing, and Woods provided clams, game, wild cattle, and fish.73 In this 

way, the Coast Miwok combined traditional hunting and gathering activities with 

participation in the capitalist economy. Despite these activities, the bay area remained 

less settled and utilized than it had been during the precontact period. 

CALIFORNIA CHANGES HANDS

To American visitors, much of the California landscape was a valuable but 

untapped storehouse of commodities. Natural resources, such as otter pelts and hides, 

first brought American merchants to the region. By 1841, American settlers began 

seeking farmland in the region. Mexican rancho owners cultivated little land in 

California, and this clashed with the American vision of an agrarian nation as the ideal 

society.74The idea that Mexicans did not deserve the natural wealth of California helped 

 

69 Quinn, 93. 

70 Compas, 73. 

71 Stephen Alan Dietz, “Echa-Tamal: A Study of Coast Miwok Acculturation” (MA Thesis, San 

Francisco State University, 1976), 33. 

72 Compas, 72. 

73 Dietz, 33. 

74 Richard Henry Dana, Two Years before the Mast (New York: Dodd and Mead, 1946), 86. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

27

to justify the U.S. takeover of California. As the interpreter on a merchant vessel that 

bartered for hides in California, Richard Henry Dana occupied a privileged position that 

enabled him to interact socially with rancho owners. He espoused common American 

attitudes toward California residents: “Californians are idle, thriftless people,” he argued. 

The men are thriftless, proud [sic] and extravagant and very much given to gaming, and 

the women have but little education and a good deal of beauty, and their morality, of 

course, is not the best... Such are the people who inhabit a country embracing four or 

five hundred miles of sea coast, with several good harbors; with fine forests in the north; 

the waters filled with fish and the plains covered with thousands of herds of cattle, 

blessed with a climate than which there can be no better in the world; free from all 

manner of diseases, whether epidemic or endemic, and with a soil in which corn yields 

from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this 

might be!75

Dana’s work was widely read and proved influential to shaping American attitudes 

toward California.76 The reports of other pro-American visitors to the region reinforced 

the stereotype of Californians as lazy and undeserving of the land. These documents are 

suffused with anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish sentiments and did much to push the 

American government toward war with Mexico.77

By 1846, almost seven thousand of California’s fourteen thousand non-native 

residents were immigrants, predominantly from the United States and Europe. As 

increasing numbers of Americans settled in California, they were more likely to ignore 

Mexican immigration regulations and laws. They often established communities isolated 

from Mexican population centers and lived in disregard for Mexican law.78 U.S. 

President James Polk expressed interest in purchasing California from Mexico, and 

when the Mexican government rejected this idea, Polk proved willing to instigate 

rebellion among American settlers or even seize the territory in a war. The American 

navy captured Monterey in July of that year, and as the U.S. military took over Los 

Angeles and other parts of California, the Mexicans surrendered. Under the Treaty of 

 

75 Dana, 121. 

76 Paddison, 202. 

77 Hackel, 137. 

78 Doyce B. Nunis, Jr., “Alta California’s Trojan Horse: Foreign Immigration,” in Contested Eden, 

322. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

28

Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the United States received Alta California and the 

southwestern United States.79

The Tomales Bay area experienced relatively minor alterations compared to the 

sweeping environmental change missionaries, settlers, and fur traders wrought on other 

parts of California. The Spanish and the Mexicans virtually ignored the estuary. Russian 

fur traders had hunted marine mammals in Tomales Bay, but they too focused their 

efforts on more productive areas. It had become a hinterland for some European groups, 

but the area remained sparsely settled and lightly utilized due to its remote location on 

the northern edge of the Spanish and Mexican frontiers. The livestock ranching, crop 

farming, and game hunting by missionaries and rancho owners near Tomales Bay altered 

the native vegetation and wildlife populations of the area, but the effects of these 

activities would have been hard to see at first glance, and to the next generation of 

settlers, the area looked like virgin land. This scene did not hint at the changes about to 

come, as the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills and the rise of a nearby metropolis 

dramatically transformed Tomales Bay and the surrounding landscape. 

 

79 Rolle, 77. The annexation of Texas by the United States also served as a cause of the war. 
On the Edge of Empire: Conversion and Commerce on Tomales Bay 

29

Figure 1. In order to encourage settlement in California, the Mexican government 

granted twenty-one ranchos in Marin County between 1834 and 1846. Five of these 

parcels bordered Tomales Bay. Located in the most remote reaches of Mexico’s 

northernmost province, however, far from trade centers and regular transportation 

networks, Tomales Bay’s ranchos attracted few settlers. All photos and maps 

courtesy of Point Reyes National Seashore unless otherwise noted. 
 

 
31

CHAPTER THREE

THE CITY AND THE COUNTRY: SAN FRANCISCO AND THE 

TRANSFORMATION OF THE TOMALES BAY LANDSCAPE,

1848-1875

The Tomales Bay area underwent a radical transformation as San Francisco 

became a metropolitan center in the mid-nineteenth century. Urban appetites spurred 

the development of the countryside near San Francisco, and settlers flocked to the 

Tomales Bay area to raise marketable commodities such as potatoes, grain, livestock, and 

dairy products. These newcomers valued the landscape for different reasons than had 

their Coast Miwok, Spanish, and Mexican predecessors. Corporate landowners saw 

Tomales Point as prime dairy ranching land, while enterprising farmers viewed the 

grassy east side of Tomales Bay as an ideal location to raise beef cattle and grow crops for 

the San Francisco market. Overland travel was time consuming and difficult, but 

Tomales Bay’s navigable waters, protected coves, and proximity by water to San 

Francisco enabled area residents to transform the remote, isolated location on the edge 

of the frontier into an important hinterland connected to the city by water 

transportation routes. As they created a productive, profitable agricultural landscape on 

the hills surrounding Tomales Bay, the economic activities of area inhabitants 

profoundly altered the bay and its environment. 

THE GOLD RUSH AND THE GROWTH OF THE SAN FRANCISCO MARKET

Americans and European settlers trickled into California throughout the 1840s, 

and by 1848, the non-native population of California was about 14,000.80Many early 

settlers were soldiers, who, after fighting in the Mexican War, stayed to establish farms, 

 

80 Over half of the fourteen thousand residents were of Spanish descent, two thousand 

were American, while the remainder were of various European nationalities. 150,000 Indians 

remained in California in 1848. U S. Bureau of the Census, Population Schedules of the Eighth 

Census of the United States, 1860 (Washington DC, 1967).
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

32

towns, or mills. Other Americans journeyed west after hearing glowing reports about 

farming and ranching in California by American pioneers and promoters.81Edward 

Kemble, a New England emigrant, Mexican War volunteer and editor of a weekly San 

Francisco paper, explained, “The hope of the country lay in the direction of agriculture, 

and every encouragement was given by merchants and through the country press to 

plant largely. American plows were breaking the virgin soil in all the choice farming 

localities along the bay and along the rivers.” Promoters advertised the cattle and sheep 

grazing possibilities of the land as well.82 Not until the discovery of gold in the Sierra 

foothills, however, did large-scale immigration to the region begin. 

The three hundred thousand immigrants who flocked to California between 1848 

and 1854 had a powerful and lasting impact on the economy and environment of the 

entire San Francisco Bay area.83 San Francisco grew from a town of eight hundred in 

1848 to a city of fifty thousand in 1849. Correspondingly, the demand for food in the city 

rapidly transformed many nearby parts of California, including the Tomales Bay area, 

into an agricultural landscape. Land and livestock quickly became valuable 

commodities.84 Many gold seekers gave up their search for mineral wealth and turned to 

farming and dairying, which were often the occupations that they had engaged in before 

immigrating. In 1850, almost sixty thousand California residents were miners, while only 

about two thousand engaged in agriculture. Ten years later, 35,792 Californians worked 

in agriculture, and by 1870, 47,683 were occupied in the industry. That same year, the 

value of California’s agricultural products was greater than the value of the state’s mined 

products.85

Prospective farmers needed land, and for over a decade after the U.S. takeover, 

battles over land ownership dominated the California court system. Many Americans 

were convinced that rancho residents did not actually own their land. Most also agreed 

that Mexican land grant recipients certainly did not deserve their grants, since they did 

not realize the full agricultural potential of the land. Despite laws that required surveys, 

official borders, and titles, rancho boundaries had often been informal or ignored during 

 

81Paddison, A World Transformed, 259. 

82 Edward Kemble, “Reminisces of Early California,” in A World Transformed, 317-318. 

83 Steve Wiegand, “The California Gold Rush: An Era Remembered,” Sacramento Bee, Jan. 18, 

1998. By 1850, 90,000 immigrants had journeyed to California. By 1854, that number rose to 

300,000. 

 

84 Quinn, The Broken Shore, 129. 

85 Gates, California Ranchos and Farms, 62. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

33

Mexican rule. Americans, in contrast, put emphasis on titles and legal property lines. 

Many ranchers sold parcels of land they had no clear title to, making the situation even 

more confusing.86

Hopeful American farmers pressured the government to sort out northern 

California land claims, since these were the closest to San Francisco and the mining 

camps and potentially the most profitable. In many cases, squatters--confident that 

undeveloped Mexican grants would be ruled illegal in the U.S.--simply settled 

unoccupied land and began farming. Courts occasionally sided with the Mexican 

grantees, and the unlawful residents were evicted. Squatters, however, sometimes 

retaliated with physical violence and property destruction. In other cases, American 

lawyers used illegal and unethical practices to evict the legal, Mexican owners from their 

land. Many claimants went bankrupt during this process, which lasted an average of 

seventeen years. About one quarter of the 813 Mexican land owners in California lost 

their land when the California Land Commission declared their claims to be fraudulent 

or illegal. Rafael Garcia, whose 540 cattle, 40 horses, and 14 oxen still roamed the 

southern and western shores of Tomales Bay in 1853, lost his Rancho Tomales y Baulines 

after American prosecutors claimed that the Mexican government had never ratified the 

deed to the property.87 After numerous legal battles, Garcia finally did obtain title to his 

land in1866--, a mere four months before he died. In Marin County, as well as Sonoma, 

Napa, and counties in the Sacramento Valley, many Mexican grants were divided into 

tracts of five hundred to five thousand acres and sold to prospective farmers.88

Tomales Bay’s grassy shores, numerous sheltered coves, navigable tributaries, and 

proximity to San Francisco by water lured American farmers and entrepreneurs to the 

area in the early 1850s. Water routes were essential for the farmers who supplied San 

Francisco. Overland travel was difficult in the sparsely settled, undeveloped area. If 

roads existed, they were crudely built, rough, and impassible during the winter rains. 

Wagons, furthermore, had limited carrying capacity. Schooners, on the other hand, 

could transport relatively large amounts of goods. 

 

86 Toogood, 1:63. 

87 Toogood, 1:63-64; Marin Waterhouse Pepper, Bolinas: A Narrative of the Days of the Dons (New 

York: Vantage Press, 1965), 143; Jack Mason, Point Reyes: The Solemn Land (Inverness, Ca: North 

Shore Books, 1976), 43. 

88 Gates, 13-14. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

34

Keys Creek, a navigable tributary on the northeastern side of the bay, proved 

particularly attractive to early settlers. In 1849, Irish immigrant John Keys, a miner 

turned potato farmer living near Bodega Bay, envisioned a bustling port on the creek. 

Keys and partner Alexander Noble staked claims, purchased a schooner, and built a 

warehouse on the Keys Creek estuary in anticipation of entering into business 

transporting agricultural products to San Francisco.

89 Using Indian labor, Keys and 

Noble raised potatoes and shipped their crop to San Francisco on the schooner Spray. 

Warren Dutton, another former miner, realized the profits to be made by investing in a 

trading post on the creek.90 Dutton and Keys became partners, and they built two

warehouses on the promontory separating the west and east forks of Keys Creek.91 The 

settlement attracted other farmers who hoped to capitalize on the agricultural 

possibilities of the area and the schooner service. The settlement eventually grew into the 

town of Tomales, and within the decade there were nine warehouses, a hotel, post office, 

store, blacksmith, and meeting hall. The Spray took potatoes, cattle, and sheep from 

Tomales area residents to San Francisco, and the schooner returned with supplies 

unobtainable in the area, such as bricks, lumber, and other hard goods. During the 1850s, 

other entrepreneurs launched schooner services to transport goods between Tomales 

Bay and San Francisco as well.The journey took between eight hours and three days, 

depending on the winds and fog.92

Farmers found that the land in the Tomales area provided certain natural 

advantages. The grasslands of the area were easily tilled, and farmers transformed them 

into potato and grain fields. While Midwestern farmers contended with hailstorms and 

heavy rains near harvest time in the fall, autumn near Tomales Bay proved consistently 

dry.93 The eastern side of the bay benefited less from the heavy fogs than did the Point 

Reyes peninsula, but numerous perennial streams flowed through Tomales Township. 

Boosters credited the successful crop farming to the black, sandy loam soil that 

 

89 A. Bray Dickinson, Tomales Township: A History (Tomales, CA: Tomales Regional History 

Center, 1993), 42. 

90 Florence Donnelly, “Historical Documents Reveal North Marin Community’s Past,” Marin 

Independent Journal, October 28, 1950. 

91 Munro-Fraser, 404-407. 

92 Ibid., 303; James Preston to his sister, 16 November 1861, Preston Family Correspondence, 

Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

93 Gates, 42-45. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

35

characterized the area.94 Other necessary resources, such as timber, were less plentiful. 

The bay’s southwestern side was forested, but settlers on the eastern portion of the 

estuary were forced to purchase lumber from sawmills at Bodega Bay or the Nicasio 

Valley. Some scavenged driftwood from ocean beaches, while others made an annual trip 

north to the redwood forests near Freestone for firewood and fence posts.95

The high price of potatoes in San Francisco made potato farming a profitable 

business. By 1854, most farmers in Tomales Township raised potatoes and a small 

amount of grain. In 1855, for example, 37,594 bushels of potatoes were shipped from 

Tomales to San Francisco.96 In 1860, about half of Marin County’s farms raised potatoes, 

and Marin County ranked fourth in the state in potato production in 1862. Tomales area 

farms were particularly productive. Most growers grew Bodega Red potatoes, a local 

variety that gained fame for its flavor.97

Besides potatoes, area farmers grew oats, wheat, and some barley. Grain farming 

proved lucrative since it required little initial capital, and prospective farmers could enter 

the business with just a few horses or oxen. Heavy yields of grain such as barley could 

also be grown in less fertile soil. Locally grown wheat and barley were consumed locally 

as well as exported; despite the long voyage to the East Coast and Europe, both barley 

and the hard, dry wheat shipped well.98By planting these crops, farmers took a complex 

ecosystem, with a variety of native (and introduced) species, and reduced it into a 

monoculture that produced foodstuffs that would satisfy American appetites. 

As the connection between San Francisco and Tomales Bay grew stronger and 

agriculture expanded near Tomales Bay’s shores, entrepreneurs established wharves and 

warehouses on Tomales Bay to facilitate shipments to the city. Joseph Warren, a writer 

for a California agricultural journal, noted that the bay’s geography facilitated this 

commerce. He described, “Numerous little bays or lagunas afford entrances to the 

schooners and other crafts, by which the products are shipped to San Francisco.”99

Preston’s Point was one of the earliest such shipping points on the bay. Robert J. Preston 

built a wharf and store on a point north of the mouth of Keys Creek in the early 1850s 

 

94 Marin County Journal, October 1887; Munro-Fraser, 26. 

95 Dickinson, Tomales Township, 73. 

96 Gates, 27. 

97 Zumwalt, 76. 

98 Gates, 51-53. 

99 Joseph Quincy Adams Warren, “A Trip to Marin County,” in California Ranchos and Farms, 

198. 
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and Preston’s Point became a busy shipping location for local agricultural products. Due 

to the nineteen to twenty-two foot deep water immediately off of the promontory, 

schooners could easily pick up and unload goods. James Preston, Robert’s twenty-two 

year old son, described the point on his first visit in 1860. “The shape of it is much like 

that of a V, about one mile wide where you enter on the north end, and about one 

quarter mile wide at the south end, which extends out into the bay, it is bounded on the 

east by a creek (the San Antonio) and on the west by the bay.” Contemporary sources 

describe the point as busy, with “quite a fleet of schooners loading” at any given time. 

Many Sonoma County farmers shipped their goods from Preston’s eleven-foot wharf, 

despite the long drive over bad roads, since they could ship their products more quickly 

via Tomales Bay than they could by wagon road to Petaluma (and then by water to San 

Francisco). Preston charged vessels one dollar to dock as well as twenty-five cents to 

load a cow or horse, five cents for a hog or sheep, and an exorbitant ten dollars for a 

wagon drawn by four horses.100

Increasing numbers of farmers utilized the facility, and Preston’s Point grew into a 

small settlement. The elder Preston built an eleven room house on the point about fifty 

yards from the bay, and he constructed a warehouse and storehouse about 100 yards east 

of the house. Preston employed eight to ten employees in addition to two female 

housekeepers. The employees lived at Preston’s Point along with James, Robert, and a 

business partner named Berthelon. Robert was also “compelled to keep a sort of public 

house,” according to his son, since almost every day brought either business guests or 

acquaintances. He charged his guests two dollars per day or ten per week for 

accommodations. Preston eventually operated a store and saloon on the point as well.101

Shipping facilities appeared at numerous other points along the bay’s shores to 

capitalize on the growing number of farmers who wanted to export products to San 

Francisco. On the eastern side, Irish immigrants Alexander, James, Hugh, and Samuel 

Marshall settled on a 1,125 acre ranch three miles southeast of Tomales. They built a 

wharf and warehouse on the bay’s shore, and their site became a shipping point for 

nearby farmers. By the early 1870s, the small town of Marshall included a store, hotel, 

and a post office. Saddlemaker Jeremiah Blake built a wharf south of Preston’s Point. 

Ralph Smith also established a wharf and a few small buildings at a site called Smith’s 

Landing along eastern Tomales Bay. Wharves also sprang up along the bay’s western 

 

100 Preston to his sister, 16 Nov. 1861; Jack Mason, Earthquake Bay: A History of Tomales Bay, 

California (Inverness, Ca.: North Shore Books, 1976), 24; United States Coast Survey, Preliminary 

Chart, Tomales Bay, California, 1861. 

101 Preston also operated a farm on the point, but little is known about this endeavor. Preston to 

his sister, 16 Nov. 1861. 
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side--at Laird’s Landing, Sacramento Landing, and Pierce’s wharf—to serve the ranches 

on Tomales Point. Schooners stopped along Lagunitas (then called Papermill) Creek at 

Samuel Taylor’s warehouse, two miles downstream from Olema, to load agricultural 

products from the Olema Valley as well as paper from Taylor’s Lagunitas Creek paper 

mill. The vessels also carried passengers between Tomales Bay and San Francisco, since 

the journey was much less arduous than an overland trip by horseback or stagecoach. By 

1860, Tomales residents had successfully lobbied the county for roads to Petaluma and 

Bodega so that area farmers could more easily reach Tomales Bay ports.102

The Spanish had noted the difficulties of entering and exiting the bay in their ships, 

and merchant schooners, too, often had trouble crossing the bar at the bay’s narrow 

mouth. Three merchant vessels wrecked in Tomales Bay between 1849 and 1868, anda 

Coast Survey boat commanded by James Lawson and charged with mapping the 

topography of Tomales Bay wrecked on the bar in 1854.103 Schooners, however, still 

provided the best form of transportation to San Francisco, and the water route was vital 

to farmers’ economic success. 

Cattle ranching became a lucrative and popular enterprise across California as 

entrepreneurs sought to make their fortunes supplying hides and beef to San Francisco 

and the surrounding mining towns. The Gold Rush brought an immediate increase in 

cattle prices, and animals that had been worth two to three dollars for their hide were 

now worth twenty-five to fifty-two dollars for their meat alone. By 1854, nearly all of the 

ranches in northern California slaughtered their cattle for beef, and enterprising 

ranchers from Texas and the Midwest drove large herds to California. In 1852, between 

50,000 and 90,000 heads of cattle were driven west. Americans considered their cattle 

superior to the scruffy, lean Mexican longhorns that roamed California, and American 

cattle commanded $100 to $150 per head.104 San Francisco was vital to the cattle trade. 

Beef was sold in retail markets and purchased by wholesalers and merchants who 

shipped it up the Sacramento River to the mining towns of the Sierra Nevada. 

Settlers transformed the landscape east of Tomales Bay from wildlife range into 

ranchland. During the 1850s, they took advantage of the area’s grasslands and freshwater 

resources as they concentrated their efforts on raising beef cattle. James Black stocked 

his eastern Tomales Bay ranch—the parcel of Rancho Nicasio previously owned by 

 

102 Dickinson, Tomales Township, 44. 

103 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 26; George Davidson, 1854, 33rd Cong., 1st Session, House of 

Representatives Executive Documents, Vol. 6, 20, 213. 

104 Gates, 18. 
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surveyor Jasper O’Farrell—with two thousand head of cattle in 1849. Black made his 

fortune by cattle ranching in Sonoma County and then driving and selling the animals to 

merchants in towns near the gold fields in 1848, and he likely moved to Tomales Bay to 

be in closer proximity to the San Francisco market. He rented some of his land to tenant 

farmers who raised beef cattle.105 George Burbank settled a 325 acre portion of the Bolsa 

de Tomales grant in 1855, and his ranch, with its elegant Victorian home, gardens, and 

fenced pastures full of cattle and horses, soon became a showpiece in Tomales 

Township.106

Other farmers also raised beef cattle on the bay’s eastern side. By 1851, Benjamin 

Buckalew grazed beef cattle on part of the Nicasio land grant that he purchased from 

Juan Cooper. The next year he sold his land to William Reynolds and Daniel Frink, but 

by 1857, Frink was the sole owner of the ranch. Frink raised beef cattle as well as horses. 

When he sold his Tomales Bay frontage to James Miller in 1857, he included in the sale 

one thousand one hundred cattle, one hundred twenty-five horses as well as a number of 

hogs. Miller, who owned a successful cattle ranch in southern Marin County and sought 

to expand his enterprise, also bought a square league of the Nicasio land grant (along the 

bay’s southeastern shore) from James Black.107 The Marshall Brothers drove a herd of 

cattle from Kentucky to their eastern Tomales Bay ranch in 1853 and 1854. By 1860, twothirds of the cattle owned by ranchers in Tomales Township, to the north of Marshall, 

were beef cattle.108 The first fences were built during this time as ranchers sought to keep 

their purebred cattle from interbreeding with the supposedly inferior Mexican cattle that 

many squatters allowed to roam free. Some of these ranchers also owned flocks of sheep. 

During the gold rush, sheep became a valuable commodity for both their wool and their 

meat. While a sheep in the midwestern U.S. might be worth one dollar, the animals were 

worth twenty dollars in mining communities.109 Cattle and sheep ranching remained 

 

105 Munro-Fraser, 285. 

106 Ibid., 290; E.S. Moore, et al, “Laguna Rancho, Residence of Geo. W. Burbank,” Map, Bancroft 

Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

107 Mason, Early Marin, 68. 

108 U. S. Bureau of the Census, “Products of Industry,” Eighth Census of the United States, 

California, 1860 (Washington, DC, 1967). 

109 Gates 17-33. 
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39

profitable enterprises throughout the mid-1850s, when beef and mutton prices dropped 

as the gold rush ended.110

Encouraged by the schooner service to San Francisco and the agricultural 

possibilities of the area, prospective farmers and ranchers continued to stream to the 

hills east of Tomales Bay throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Most of the immigrants to the 

area settled in the vicinity of Keys Creek on northeastern Tomales Bay, near the town of 

Tomales. By 1860, 634 people lived in Tomales Township, more than in any other part of 

Marin County. In comparison, only ninety-six people lived in Point Reyes Township, 

which lay west and south of the bay at this time. By 1870, 1,111 people lived in the 

Tomales Township, while 253 resided in Point Reyes. Only San Rafael Township, in the 

southern part of the county, had more residents in 1870.111 These settlers arrived from 

the midwestern and eastern United States as well as northern and western Europe 

(especially Ireland), Canada, and Australia. The vast majority of those who listed 

occupations on the census register were farmers and laborers.112

Settlers had quickly established farms and businesses in the Tomales area in the 

early 1850s, but the land belonged to Mexican citizens who had purchased the Bolsa de 

Tomales grant after it was sold by Juan Padilla. In 1852, these men filed a claim with the 

California lands commission to retain ownership of the grant. The district attorney, 

nonetheless, argued that Padilla had never lived on the grant, thus making it invalid 

although witnesses had testified that Padilla did in fact erect a dwelling. The commission 

validated the claim in 1854, much to the chagrin of farmers who were squatting on the 

land. New hearings the following year yielded the same results. Area settlers, covetous of 

the land and still convinced that Padilla failed to meet the requirements needed to keep 

his grant, formed an organization known as the Settlers’ League, and took his case to the 

U. S. Supreme Court. In 1863, a Supreme Court decision declared the Bolsa de Tomales 

land grant fraudulent, opening the area to sale.113

 

110 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 21. 

111 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, California: Marin County, 1870 

(Washington, DC, 1965).

112 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Population Schedules of the Eighth Census of the United States. In 

1860, of the 312 men and women who did list occupations, 133 men described their occupation as 

farmer, while 123 identified as laborers. 

113 A. B. Dickinson, “Tomales is 100 Years Old September 1950,” Tomales Clipping File, n.d., 

California Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. 
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The editor of the California Farmer applauded the court decision, and he 

described the Tomales area as “one of the richest in California, fertile in soil, salubrious 

and equitable in climate, abounding in natural beauty and scenery, and...one of the 

finest and healthiest portions of our state.” He depicted area farmers as hard working, 

honest men who had suffered by the courts’ earlier refusals to distribute the land, and he 

was certain that once the grant had been portioned and sold to Americans, tidy, 

prosperous farms would replace the ramshackle houses and carelessly plowed fields that 

dominated the landscape. Tomales area residents marked “the triumph of Truth and 

Justice over Fraud and Falsehood” and the acquisition of what boosters called “25,000 

acres of the finest agricultural lands in the state” with a huge celebration. Local leaders 

invited thousands of Marin and Sonoma County residents to a barbeque (featuring 

roasted pig, sheep, ox and clam chowder) complete with a brass band, patriotic speeches, 

and the presentation of a banner, a gift from the citizens of Petaluma, depicting a bald 

eagle, a sack of potatoes and an assortment of farming tools. Some saw the warm 

temperatures and cloudless skies as an omen. “Nature herself,” wrote the California 

Farmer editor, “harmonized with the occasion and determined to unite in rendering all 

things favorable.”114 In 1863, government surveyors partitioned the land, and settlers 

paid fourteen dollars an acre for a title. By 1867, over one hundred land patents were 

signed. 

In many ways, Jeremiah Blake represents the typical Tomales Bay farmer and 

entrepreneur of this time. After unsuccessfully seeking work in saddle making in San 

Francisco, the nineteen-year old New Hampshire-born Blake found employment cutting 

wood in Sonoma County. He became familiar with the area east of Tomales Bay by 

hunting game, and seeing the economic possibilities of the area, he moved to an 

unoccupied parcel of land along the estuary’s northeastern shore in 1854. After building 

a small home from salvaged driftwood and fencing 125 acres, he planted forty acres of 

potatoes and grain. He lived on game until he began profiting from his farming and 

saddle making enterprises. His first crop was small, but subsequent yields encouraged his 

endeavor. In 1856, Blake planted fifty-seven fruit trees, and by 1873 he had planted over 

a hundred more, though the experiment proved unsuccessful in the bay’s damp, coastal 

climate. He began a dairy in 1866, and his attention turned from saddle making and 

orcharding to raising dairy cows, potatoes, and grain. He established a wharf at his land 

on the bay that became known as Blake’s Landing. 

 

114 The California Farmer, “The Barbeque at Tomales Bay,” April 17, 1863, 52. 
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Blake also planted hundreds of blue gum eucalyptus trees, as did a number of other 

Californians in the late nineteenth century.115Abijah Woodsworth had introduced to 

Tomales area residents the idea of raising these Australian imports after he moved to the 

township in 1858. Woodsworth planted sixteen thousand of these trees initially for 

aesthetic reasons, since, like many Californians, he thought that trees would improve the 

grassy landscapes. He soon discovered, however, that he could earn over $2,000 per year 

by trimming limbs off of the trees for firewood. This endeavor proved particularly 

lucrative on the untimbered eastern side of the bay, and the trees seeded so quickly that 

he gave many saplings away, for both beautification and for timber and firewood.116

Blake may have obtained his trees from Woodsworth, and he almost certainly used 

eucalyptus limbs for firewood. 

Blake and other area farmers established farms in the area in order to make a 

profit, but they also saw the settlement of the countryside and the development of their 

state as an important mission. A portion of a poem written by Blake for the school 

district’s Fourth of July celebration captures this sentiment well. 

Let us resolve most faithfully our duties to fulfill, 

To serve our God and country, and the fertile soil to till, 

And let us, too, strive earnestly the foundation to lay 

Of this our State, which shall be great at no far distant day. 

Rich in its native wealth and in its productive soil, 

Which yields us most abundantly with proper care and toil; 

Blessed with a balmy air and a healthy clime, 

We may hope that other blessings will come along in time.

117

If Blake typified the Tomales Bay settler, Henry Halleck, another prominent 

resident during this time, proved uncharacteristic. Most residents were drawn to the area 

for its agricultural potential. Halleck, owner of the part of the Nicasio grant that 

stretched from Keys Creek in the north to a point about halfway down the bay, moved to 

the area for a strikingly different reason. Halleck, a California secretary of state under 

Governor Mason as well as an army captain and engineer, lawyer, and author, thought 

that Tomales Bay would make a good hunting and fishing retreat. He built a house along 

Halleck Creek, and, unlike his neighbors, he showed no interest in profiting from the 

urban demand for beef and other foodstuffs. He did lease part of his Tomales Bay 

 

115 Ian Tyrrell, True Gardens of the Gods: Californian-Australian Environmental Reform, 1860-1930

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 

116 H.P. Bostick, “Tomales,” Marin County Journal, March 1909. 

117 Munro-Fraser, 415. 
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frontage to a tenant farmer named Pierce, though details of his activities are unknown. 

When Halleck was called to military duty during the Civil War, his lawyer sold off his 

ranch in parcels, and he allowed buyers to purchase the land by paying in installments. 

Jeremiah Black, John Hamlet, and Samuel Marshall all bought parcels from Halleck.118

(Halleck later became chief of the Union Army during the Civil War.) 

No endeavor, however, had more of an impact on the Tomales Bay area than the 

dairy industry. Beef and mutton prices had fallen as the population of mining camps and 

towns in the Sierra Nevada dropped, but the demand for butter and cheese in San 

Francisco continued unabated, and many ranchers in the Tomales Bay area turned to 

dairy farming. Farmers established the first dairies in the San Francisco Bay area in 

Sonoma County in the mid-1850s, but these farms could not keep up with the urban 

demand. By 1860, San Francisco had become the nation’s fourteenth largest city with 

56,802 people, and by 1870, nearly 150,000 people inhabited the city. To meet the 

demands of the city’s residents, tons of butter and cheese were imported from the 

eastern United States and Chile. In one year between 1855 and 1856, 88,302 pounds of 

butter and 126,166 pounds of cheese were shipped to San Francisco from outside of 

California. By the time butter reached the West Coast, however, it had often turned 

rancid.119

Farm boosters encouraged California farmers to diversify their products to include 

the manufacture of dairy products, and many failed miners turned to this more lucrative 

occupation. By 1860, a dairy industry had begun to develop in the six San Francisco Bay 

Area counties with easy water access to the city. While there were only 4,280 dairy cows 

and 253,599 beef cattle in the state in 1850, there were 205,407 and 1,088,022, 

respectively, by 1860.120 Despite the growth of the dairy industry, 5,300,000 pounds of 

butter were imported in 1860, probably due to the low quality of much of the California 

product. James Warren, editor of the periodical The California Farmer, bemoaned the 

inferiority of butter made in the state. He complained that there were too many farmers 

“engaged in dairying, who had better be wood-chopping or coal heaving. They do not 

know the first principles of the business.” Many Californians saw dairy ranching as a get 

rich quick industry, and they took poor care of their livestock and produced a low-grade 

product.121

 

118 Mason, Early Marin, 69. 

119 Toogood, 1:94-95. 

120 Gates, 27-28. 
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Dairying in western Marin County began in 1857 when the Steele Brothers seized 

the opportunity to fill a niche and established a dairy farm on the Point Reyes peninsula. 

Within four years, their 600 cows produced 640 pounds of cheese and 75 pounds of 

butter per day. San Francisco merchants and consumers provided a ready market for the 

products.122 The Steeles showed that dairying could be a profitable business in the area, 

and other settlers began to establish dairies in the Tomales Bay area. 

To potential dairy farmers, the grasslands surrounding the bay were pasture, a 

resource they could transform into marketable commodities in the form of dairy 

products. Farmers established twenty dairies in Tomales Township by 1860.123 Despite 

the slow invasion of exotic plant species from Spanish, Mexican, and American beef 

ranchers’ cattle, the grasslands above Tomales Bay remained in good condition in 1860. 

Many perennial grasses still shared the hills surrounding the bay with encroaching 

annuals. Visitor Joseph Warren described the area as “partly root grass, which does not 

depend upon the seed, and yearly grasses, which are produced by seed.” He noted that 

the grass stayed green “more or less” year round due to the coastal fogs.124 Other sources 

describe the grass as green from January or February to early fall.125Even as late as 1880, 

in some parts, observers noticed the long growing season of the grasses, suggesting that 

native grasses in some areas survived the first few decades of settlement.126

Dairies became common in all parts of West Marin County, including Tomales, 

Marshall, the Olema Valley, Point Reyes, and the Chileno Valley during the 1860s, as 

farmers sought to capitalize on the desire for dairy products in San Francisco. Tomales 

Bay and Point Reyes area farmers primarily produced butter and cheese since milk 

spoiled before it reached market. Butter could be made more quickly and commanded a 

higher price than cheese so by the early 1860s, most dairy operators chose to make 

butter. While farmers in sunnier, drier areas of California planted orchard trees and wine 

grapes, the foggy coastal climate of Point Reyes and western Tomales Bay provided 

nearly year-round forage for dairy cows. Some ranchers raised hay, oats, or barley to 

 

121 Ibid., 29-31. 

122 Ibid., 199. 

123 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Population Schedules of the Eighth Census of the United States. 

124 Gates, 200. 

125 Toogood, 1:132. 

126 Munro-Fraser, 406. 
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feed their cows during the late fall and early winter months when forage was scarce, but 

many others relied only on the grasses.127

The area’s proximity to San Francisco via Tomales Bay gave it an advantage over 

other California locations without access to water transportation routes. Butter 

produced on ranches near Tomales Bay reached San Francisco within a week. Marin and 

Sonoma County farmers produced the most butter in California by 1860, while Contra 

Costa and Santa Clara County farmers produced the largest amounts of cheese. By 1862, 

Marin County led California in butter production. That year, Marin County dairy 

ranchers, most of whom were located in the Point Reyes and Tomales Bay areas, 

produced 200,000 pounds of butter. Four years later, these ranchers produced 1,337,500 

pounds of butter—almost a million pounds more than the second place county. This 

number represented about three-quarters of California’s total butter production. In 

1872, county ranchers remained the most productive in the state as they produced 

4,387,500 pounds of butter. In 1865, Marin produced 450,000 pounds of cheese as well, 

almost twice as much as second place Santa Cruz County. As the dairy business boomed, 

so did cow populations. In 1857, there were only 3,402 dairy cows in the county. Ten 

years later there were 13,747 dairy cows, and in 1871, Marin County boasted 19,140, 

more than any other county in the state.128

Corporate enterprises dominated the post-Gold Rush California economy, and 

most of the land west of Tomales Bay was owned by a group of San Francisco law 

partners led by Oscar Shafter, James McMillan Shafter, and Charles Webb Howard. 

These investors hoped to capitalize on the abundant grasslands and close proximity to 

urban markets of the Point Reyes area, and they purchased 50,000 acres--including 

Tomales Point—in 1858. The partners hoped to establish a system of prosperous, 

profitable dairy ranches that would supply San Franciscans with butter and cheese. The 

landowners furnished tenants with buildings, tools, and livestock (between 150 and 170 

cows for each ranch) in exchange for a share of the profits, and they employed a steamer 

to pick up dairy products from various points along the shores of Tomales Bay and the 

Pacific Coast. The dairies, which were huge compared to many of the small family farms 

that were common in New England, impressed visitors with their size and efficiency.129

While there were more than twice as many dairies in Tomales Township than there 

were in Point Reyes Township, Point Reyes dairies gained more fame due to their size 

 

127 Ibid., 201. 

128 Toogood, 1:131-32. 

129 Ibid., 1:138. 
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and their well- known, San Francisco-based owners.130Much of the success of the Point 

Reyes dairies can be attributed to the corporate landowners, whose financial investments 

in their dairies’ livestock and infrastructure enabled tenant farmers to begin their 

endeavor with large herds and ample facilities. The partnership even began their own 

ranch in order to breed high-quality dairy cows for their tenants. The Shafter-Howard 

dairies received a significant amount of publicity as admiring visitors toured them and 

reported their findings in newspapers and agricultural journals. 

Tomales Point provided an abundant environment for the first dairy farmers on 

the bay’s western shore. George and Charles Laird leased about 3,000 acres on Tomales 

Point from the Shafters beginning in 1858. The Laird Brothers--who operated one of the 

largest dairies in California at the time--raised 200 cows and produced 35 tons of cheese 

per year by the early 1860s for the San Francisco market.131Visitor Joseph Warren was 

impressed by the prospects for dairy ranching in the area. “This ranch is...situated 

between Tomales Bay and the Ocean, and occupies an extensive and fertile tract of land, 

all enclosed by fence. The grass is good year round, being fresh and green in the sloughs, 

where the clover is found, later, after the grass on the hills is gone....It will be seen that 

excellent facilities are afforded for the prosecution of the dairy business in this section.” 

The Lairds had two homes, a dairy house and a store house, plus a large barn and other 

outbuildings, and they shipped their products from Laird’s Landing. The Young 

Brothers, who occupied 1,000 acres on Tomales Point, shipped their goods from 

Sacramento (then called Young’s) Landing. They raised 130 cows and produced 11,000 

to 12,000 pounds of butter per year.132The ranch buildings were located at the top of a 

ravine that drained into Tomales Bay, and the Youngs’ had two additional buildings, 

possibly including a storehouse for their products, at their wharf.133

The largest dairy in the area occupied the northern end of Tomales Point. In 1858, 

after unsuccessfully trying his luck in the gold fields, Vermont native Solomon Pierce 

bought about 2,200 acres of land at the north end of Tomales Point from Shafter and 

Company, the only such parcel sold by the law partners. He built his home on the north 

shore of White Gulch on Tomales Bay. Pierce cleared 400 acres of land and stocked the 

 

130 In Point Reyes Township in 1860, fourteen men worked as dairy farmers. In 1870, 21 residents 

identified as dairymen, and 117 men worked as dairy laborers. 

131 Toogood, 1:138. 

132 Gates, 204-205. 

133 Livingston, Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula, 305. 
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parcel with thirty-seven milk cows, forty head of beef cattle, and twenty-four hogs as 

well as horses and oxen. In its first year, the ranch produced 4,000 pounds of butter, but 

Pierce found that demand for local butter remained strong enough for him to expand. By 

1870, he milked 250 dairy cows and owned an additional 220 head of cattle. The Pierce 

Ranch was the most successful dairy in the area by 1870, producing almost twice as much 

butter—47,500 pounds—as the second largest dairy. By 1880, demand continued 

unabated, and the ranch produced 61,000 pounds of butter. Pierce engaged in other 

agricultural operations as well. He grew seventy-five tons of hay in addition to 1,000 

bushels of potatoes. The ranch produced other agricultural products for the San 

Francisco market as well. Ranch chickens laid an average of fifty-four dozen eggs per 

week, and hogs, fed the byproducts of the butter making process, were shipped to San 

Francisco butchers. Contemporary sources described the ranch as a showpiece, and it 

was held up as the embodiment of a successful, modern dairy operation.134

By 1870, dairy ranches replaced beef as the primary endeavor of farmers east of 

Tomales Bay. The Marshall Brothers operated a dairy, and they also raised horses and 

grew potatoes and wheat. Ralph Smith ran a dairy on Tomales Bay along with his wharf 

at Smith’s Landing, as did Jeremiah Blake (who also raised ducks) at Blake’s Landing. 

N.J. Prince moved from Tomales to a 360 acre dairy ranch bordering the bay in 1862. To 

the south, in Nicasio Township, cattlemen James Miller (who owned a significant 

amount of land on the bay’s southeastern shore) and James Black leased their former 

beef ranches near the bay to tenant dairy farmers.135

In Tomales Township, farm operations were small, family or individually owned 

and undercapitalized compared to the Point Reyes ranches. Point Reyes dairies garnered 

more attention, but more than twice as many men in Tomales Township (forty-nine) 

identified as dairymen in 1870 than in Point Reyes Township. These smaller ranches in 

Tomales, however, employed fewer dairy laborers (sixty-eight). Most of these ranchers 

ran diversified operations. They often raised field crops and potatoes as well as dairy 

cows, cattle, hogs, and chickens as they tried to capitalize on different demands of the 

urban market.136

 

134 Richard A. Borjes and Gordon Chappell, “There is No More Extensive Dairy in the Township”: 

The History and Architecture of the Upper Pierce Point Ranch, 1856-1985 (San Francisco: [Western 

Region], National Park Service, 1986), 12-13. 

135 James Alexander Marshall , interview by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent, 1975, California Room, 

Marin County Free Library, 2; Dickinson, Tomales Township, 44. 

136 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Population Schedules of the Ninth Census of the United States, 

California, 1870. 
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Not everyone profited from the transformation of the Tomales Bay area’s natural 

resources into commodities. Some ethnic groups, such as the Chinese, were excluded 

from participating in the agricultural market except as laborers. Both the corporate and 

individually owned ranches needed workers, and Chinese immigrants provided much of 

the manual labor in the Tomales Bay area. They were one of the first immigrant groups 

to settle in Marin County, and almost every large ranch employed Chinese workers. 

Many of these immigrants, fleeing a series of wars and natural disasters in China, arrived 

in California during the Gold Rush. Like most miners, they turned to other types of labor 

when the gold fields failed to meet their expectations. Between the 1860s and the 1880s 

in California, the group was an important labor force in railroad, road and town building 

as well as agriculture (most Chinese immigrants came from agricultural areas). By 1880, 

they were the largest immigrant group in the state, and they were the second largest 

group, making up sixteen percent of the total population in Marin County by that year.137

Most Chinese immigrants were employed as farm laborers, often as butter makers 

on dairy ranches. About 500 Chinese workers labored in the potato fields in the Tomales 

Bay and Olema Valley areas by 1878.138 A few worked as domestic servants or launderers 

near Tomales Bay as well. As they were in other parts of California, the Chinese in Marin 

County were the target of violence from white residents who feared the economic 

competition. The group was hindered by racist laws and a lack of capital, and unlike 

European immigrant groups, they were not able to purchase their own ranches and 

farms and thus rise up the socio-economic ladder.139 As noted later, however, they did 

briefly find a niche exploiting the bay’s marine resources. 

Western European immigrant groups had more economic success during this time. 

Many Irish arrived, either from their homeland or from the eastern United States during 

the Gold Rush, and they became the largest foreign-born group in the Tomales Bay area 

in the mid-nineteenth century. Many initially worked as manual laborers on area 

ranches, but a number of Irish also began crop farming, dairying, or beef ranching on 

vacant tracts of land before the California lands commission settled the area’s land 

claims. Unlike the Chinese, the Irish were able to acquire capital and purchase their own 

 

137 L. Eve Armentrout Ma, “Chinese in Marin County, 1850-1980,” in Chinese America: History 

and Perspectives (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1991), 29-31. 

138 Ibid. 

139 Ma, 31; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, California, 1870. There 

were 106 Chinese men and women living in Tomales and Point Reyes Townships. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

48

ranches and businesses. A number of towns in the region, such as Tomales, Marshall, 

Fallon, and Dillon Beach, were founded by Irish immigrants in the 1850s and 1860s. 

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE ON TOMALES BAY

Ironically, the more land that Tomales Bay area farmers cultivated, the harder it 

became to ship their products. Farmers depended on a navigable water route to San 

Francisco to transport their products to market, but poor farming practices created 

environmental problems that made the bay difficult for schooners to navigate. Intensive 

potato and field crop farming near Tomales created massive amounts of silt, which 

washed down Keys Creek and into the bay. Many farmers, hoping to make money 

quickly, disregarded good land stewardship practices as they established farms on land 

that they often did not own. Native vegetation had prevented erosion by binding soil 

with its roots and by protecting soil from the impact of rain and runoff. When the 

vegetation cover was disturbed for crop farming, soil became vulnerable to erosion, 

especially on the steep hillsides that characterized the area. Heavy winter rains easily 

washed the soil from plowed fields and reduced the agricultural potential of the land.140

Agricultural experts criticized these practices but with little effect:

The farmers generally are anxious to make as much money as possible,” 

one visitor described, “and as soon as possible, without regard to the 

future value of the land. Some of them are not permanent residents of the 

state, and intend to leave it as soon as they can get a certain number of 

dollars together; others are farming land the title of which is in dispute, 

and, as they feel uncertain about its ownership, they are indifferent to its 

exhaustion. 141

One California agricultural journal lamented the “rude and imperfect agriculture” where 

“slovenly and careless farmers” used destructive plowing techniques and did not rotate 

crops or amend soil. After visiting Tomales Bay, a contemporary writer warned, “The 

estuary is fast filling up” with soil from the surrounding hills.142

The geology of the area exacerbated farmers’ poor agricultural practices. The bay’s 

eastern side is underlain by the Franciscan formation--a combination of dense clay, 

fragmented shale, and sandstone that is especially prone to erosion, debris flows, and 

landslides. Within a relatively short time, over two miles of the Keys Creek channel was 

 

140 Zumwalt, 67. 

141 Gates, 58. 

142 Munro-Fraser, 408. 
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filled with silt. Between 1852 and 1902, an average of 2,000 tons of soil per square mile 

washed into the creek each year. The silt formed a mile-wide delta at the mouth of the 

creek, three miles downstream from the schooner landing at Tomales.143 Ranchers on 

the west side of the bay did not experience these same problems. The well-drained soils, 

forested slopes, and granite bedrock on the western side meant that significant erosion 

and landslides only occurred with major flooding. These ranchers also concentrated 

their efforts on dairy farming, rather than potato or crop farming, further reducing the 

risk of erosion.144

As parts of the bay filled with silt and became unnavigable, wharves and 

warehouses were abandoned or moved. The increasingly shallow bay began to pose 

difficulties for the vessels that carried the area’s products to San Francisco. As Keys 

Creek became shallower, John Keys unsuccessfully tried to dredge the waterway that 

was crucial to Tomales area farmers. In 1872, William Dutton built a wharf in deeper 

water at the confluence of Keys and Walker Creeks, but the next year he was forced to 

move again, to 324 acres on Tomales Bay that he purchased from John Hamlet. Dutton 

named the new spot Ocean Roar. Even at this location, lighters (flat-bottomed boats and 

barges) had to be used to transport goods to schooners waiting offshore.145 Robert 

Preston experienced similar difficulties at Preston’s Point. When he established his 

facilities on the northern edge of the mouth of Keys Creek, schooners could pull close to 

shore to load and unload goods. By 1861, due to increased siltation in the bay, vessels 

had difficulty accessing the point even during high tide. To keep his settlement in 

business, Preston began constructing a long wharf at the cost of $2,500.146 By 1880, 

vessels were no longer able to access even the wharf, and Preston abandoned his efforts. 

Siltation began to hinder navigation at the bay’s southern end as well. In 1860, 

Tomales Bay tributary Lagunitas (then called Papermill) Creek was navigable to 

steamships and sailing vessels. The creek’s natural levee, to the north, separated the main 

channel from a marsh and a maze of smaller channels. After heavy rains, silt was 

deposited on the marsh, rather than in the bay. In 1855, Samuel Taylor built a paper mill 

upstream from Tomales Bay on Lagunitas Creek. He transported his product by ox cart 

 

143 Zumwalt, 76. Before this erosion, the creek was 200 feet wide and five feet deep. 

144 Clyde Wahrhaftig and J. Ross Wagner, “Geologic Setting,” Tomales Bay Environmental Study: 

Compendium of Reports, 68-70. 

145 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 72. 

146 Preston to his sister, 16 Nov. 1861. 
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50

to a warehouse and schooner landing on the creek near the south end of Tomales Bay (at 

the present location of Point Reyes Station), and schooners carried the paper up the bay 

to San Francisco. The mill, which employed one hundred workers, supplied paper to San 

Francisco’s newspapers during the 1850s. Within a decade, Taylor had deforested so 

much of the area along the creek that he was forced to buy additional forest land in the 

nearby Nicasio Valley to meet his mill’s demand. The deforestation increased 

sedimentation in the creek, which deposited large amounts of silt throughout the 

southern end of the bay.147 By the end of the nineteenth century, one author described 

the bay as “shallow and comparatively of no importance to commerce.”148 By 1918, the 

marsh at the bay’s southern end migrated north, toward the ocean, by a kilometer due to 

siltation.149

The lush green native grasslands had lured dairy farmers to the area, but 

overgrazing was already evident about twenty years after American ranchers began 

stocking the landscape with cows. Many farmers allowed their animals to roam free on 

lands of uncertain ownership before the government settled Mexican land claims. With 

little incentive to practice good pasture management, their livestock overgrazed parcels 

of land. Just as agricultural boosters had criticized farmers for destructive farming 

practices, so too did local promoters chastise ranchers who allowed their cows to 

overgraze. In 1875, the editor of the county paper described the area’s grasslands as “fine 

natural pasture clear from evil growth, and, where the tenants have been true to their 

contracts, it is covered with a perfect carpet of rich grasses.”

 150

 Farmers, however, 

ignored sound pasture management principles in many areas. Cattle and horses grazed 

native grasses too closely to the ground, damaging their capability to develop healthy 

root systems. Without extensive root systems, the perennial plants created little new 

growth, paving the way for invasive species to establish themselves. 

Besides eating perennial grasses into ruin, livestock spread the seeds of exotic 

plants that replaced native grasses. Invasive species probably began to colonize the 

 

147 Philip Williams and Associates, Ltd., “An Evaluation of the Feasibility of Wetland Restoration 

on the Giacomini Ranch, Marin County,” 1993, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives, Point 

Reyes Station, CA. 

148 Theodore H. Hittell, History of California, 2 (San Francisco: Pacific Press, 1885), 91. 

149 Tina M. Niemi and N. Timothy Hall, “Historical Changes in the Tidal Marsh of Tomales Bay 

and Olema Creek, Marin County, California,” Journal of Coastal Research, 12 (Winter 1966): 98. 

150 Gates, 17-19.
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Tomales Bay area during the Spanish and Mexican periods, but it was American livestock 

that transformed much of the remaining native, perennial grasslands into a landscape of 

exotic, annual grasses. Stock consumed hay and grain aboard ships or on cattle drives, 

and their manure contained seeds of exotic plants which thrived in the Mediterraneanlike climate of northern California. Grasses introduced in the mid to late nineteenth 

century included slender wild oats from southern Europe, soft chess from Europe via 

New England, Australian chess, and ripgut from Mediterranean Europe. Herbaceous 

plants such as redstem filaree, broadleaf filaree, and bur clover--all European natives--

also encroached upon natives. These grasses remained dominant throughout the 

twentieth century.151

As grazing pressures increased and perennial grasses were replaced by exotic 

annuals, the landscape near Tomales Bay remained green for a shorter time each year. 

Native perennial grasses had stayed green almost year round since they continued to 

grow leaves and stems from nutrients stored in their roots. Their growth stopped only 

temporarily during the fall dry season, while winter rains spurred their regrowth. Annual 

grasses, on the other hand, have a short lifespan since they put most of their energy into 

producing seed. Livestock found the exotic grasses palatable and nutritious, but since 

the annual grasses only remained green for part of the year, farmers increasingly relied 

on hay and grain.152 Where farmers had stocked the land with too many head of 

livestock, overgrazing resulted in the spread of invasive sorrel, which the ranchers 

attempted to counter by sowing the more nutritious, yet also exotic, Australian rye 

grass.153

Invasive plants spread in other ways as well. James Marshall introduced a type of 

broom which had been commonly used in Ireland for hedgerows. In the mild Marin 

climate and with so much open range, the plant spread quickly and became a problem to 

farmers since it was not a valuable forage plant.154 As farmers abandoned potato and crop 

farming due to topsoil loss, non-native annual grasses colonized former fields. Grain and 

even potatoes spread outside of their fields. Furthermore, exotic plants such as wild oats, 

wild clover, and mustard--whose seeds lived throughout California’s mild winters--

partly colonized grain fields. Since it was impossible to separate these grains from wheat, 

 

151 Zumwalt, 75-76. 

152 Ibid. 

153 Livingston, Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula 53. 

154 Marshall, Ehat, and Kent. 
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52

they were harvested and processed together, giving grain milled in California an inferior 

quality.155

Ranchers became trapped in a paradoxical cycle. Overgrazing resulted in the 

invasion of annual grasses, and this led to still more erosion. Whereas native perennial 

grasses blanketed the soil with a layer of organic matter and held soil together through 

entangled roots, exposed soil was pounded by rain and exposed to evaporation. Soil 

became less productive as topsoil washed away, and the remaining compacted soil 

absorbed less moisture. On overstocked ranches, stock had to roam farther to find 

adequate forage, further degrading soil quality and paving the way for more exotic 

species.156

Although formerly valued for their meat and hides, American settlers did not see a 

place for native wildlife in their agricultural economy. Settlers significantly diminished 

wildlife populations as they sought to protect the profitability of their farms and ranches. 

While hunting had been a popular sport among Mexican rancho owners, these early 

settlers had little impact on Tomales Bay wildlife populations. As Americans colonized 

the area, however, they eliminated predators--such as bears and mountain lions--that 

preyed upon their economically valuable livestock. Elk and antelope that ate garden 

vegetables and crops were hunted until they were nearly extinct in the area. By 1862, 

observers reported that elk had disappeared from the Tomales Bay area, and the last 

grizzly bear in Marin County was killed in 1884.157

THE CHINESE AND THE FIRST COMMERCIAL FISHERIES ON THE BAY

Despite the flurry of activity that surrounded the bay, American settlers ignored 

the estuary’s marine resources. There was no demand for Tomales Bay fish, since city 

residents purchased fish from the fishermen who took advantage of the rich and thriving 

fishery in San Francisco Bay in the mid-nineteenth century. The Coast Miwok sold clams 

and oysters to local residents on a small scale during this time, but Chinese immigrants 

were the first to exploit the shellfish resources of Tomales Bay for the global market. 

Hundreds of Chinese fishermen lived and worked on San Francisco and San Pablo Bays 

as well as the ocean off the Marin Coast. As part of an effort to elude San Francisco 

authorities who enforced a statewide tax on Chinese fishermen--one of many anti-

 

155 Gates, 45. 

156 Zumwalt, 76-77. 

157 Jules Evans, “The Hunted,” Under the Gables, 4, n.d., Jack Mason Museum Archives, Inverness, 

CA, 4; Mason, Earthquake Bay, 27. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

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Chinese laws passed in the nineteenth century)--increasing numbers of these workers 

moved to Marin County after 1860. One fishing village, established in the early 1860’s 

near San Rafael in Marin County, operated for almost eighty years.158

The Chinese pioneered the bay shrimp industry in California after they discovered 

large amounts of the crustaceans near their San Rafael village. They soon found another 

shrimp bed in Tomales Bay, and Chinese fishermen journeyed to the bay to take 

advantage of this fishery. Chinese wholesalers in ocean-going junks plied the waters 

around Marin County and purchased shrimp and other shellfish from these fishermen. 

Few Americans ate shrimp at that time, and most of the catch—about eighty percent—

was dried and shipped to China or to Chinese communities in California and Hawaii. 

The rest was sold to San Francisco restaurants and residents. The shells were separated 

and sold as fertilizer in China.159

Along with shrimp, the Chinese were the first to exploit the bay’s abundant 

abalone resources. By 1877, they had established a small settlement on the bay just to 

gather the mollusks. Other Chinese fishermen, based near San Rafael or other parts of 

Marin County, sailed to Tomales Bay in redwood junks to collect abalone.160 Gathering 

abalone could be difficult work, since they can cling tightly to rocks, but Chinese 

fishermen invented a hook that made their extraction easier. They cleaned, dried, and 

salted the abalone for sale in Chinese communities around the western United States.161

Some of the product was shipped to Chinese merchants in Hawaii and British Columbia. 

After 1875, abalone shells became a popular jewelry item, and the endeavor became 

more widespread and profitable. Chinese fishermen sold the shells to American 

merchants who marketed the product in the eastern United States, China, and Europe. 

Some Chinese shellfishermen also gathered clams to sell to Chinese railroad workers and 

local residents as well as San Francisco restaurants.162

The Chinese were still the only group exploiting the fisheries of the bay, however, 

they were increasingly the target of mob violence, discriminatory laws, and police 

 

158 Ma, 34. 

159 Ibid.. It is unclear how many tons of shrimp the fishermen caught each year from Tomales Bay. 

An average catch in the large beds near San Rafael consisted of twenty to thirty tons of shrimp per 

week during the six month season, and the Tomales Bay beds were considered medium to small. 

160 Ibid., 34-35. 

161 Katie Bates, interview by Gregory Giesios, June 25, 1985, Point Reyes National Seashore 

Archives, Point Reyes Station, CA. 

162 Ma, 34-35. 
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54

brutality. Their numbers and their presence in the shellfish industry in Tomales Bay, as 

throughout California, dropped dramatically after 1880, and the Chinese never regained 

their prominence in the industry on Tomales Bay.163The commercial fishery in San 

Francisco Bay continued to provide the urban center with seafood, and commercial 

fishermen of European descent did not begin to take advantage of Tomales Bay’s 

fisheries until the late nineteenth century. 

THE COAST MIWOK

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed certain rights to California Indians, 

but the Coast Miwok were increasingly marginalized under American rule. The United 

States negotiated treaties with eighteen California Indian groups in the early 1850s, but 

the government did not establish any agreements with the Coast Miwok. No reservation 

was set aside for the group, probably due to the small number of survivors. By 1852, only 

218 Coast Miwok were living in Marin County. The 1860 census lists only eleven Indians 

in Tomales Township and none in Point Reyes Township. In 1870, there were thirty-two 

Indians living in Point Reyes and Tomales Townships, as well as seven who identified as 

half Indian.164

American settlers denied the Coast Miwok access to traditional settlement sites, 

but many Coast Miwok were able to procure some native foods while incorporating 

themselves into the region’s new economy. They had been able to establish homes on the 

coves and procure resources from the land around Tomales Bay after the secularization 

of missions in 1832, due to the sparsely settled character of the area. Nonetheless, after 

American settlers purchased land along the bay, the Coast Miwok’s access was cut off. 

The coves that had provided a sheltered base for utilizing the resources of the bay also 

proved attractive to new farmers and entrepreneurs who established shipping locations 

for agricultural products, thus limiting Coast Miwok home sites. A number of Coast 

Miwok families settled on the bay near Marshall and Marconi Cove. Anecdotal evidence 

suggests that families continued to occupy other coves along the bay as well.165

The Coast Miwok continued to look to the natural world for sustenance 

throughout the mid to late nineteenth century, but they also began to integrate 

themselves into the emerging market economy. They still gathered wild foods, though 

 

163 Ibid., 41. 

164 Emberson and Theodoratus, “Point Reyes National Seashore Cultural Affiliation Report,” 50. 

165 Compas, 81-84. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

55

their foraging was limited by private property restrictions. They also began to 

incorporate new foods, such as beef and grain, into their diet, although they continued to 

rely on the marine resources of Tomales Bay. All of the land surrounding the bay was 

privately owned, but the tidelands resources were not, and the Miwok continued to 

collect shellfish from the bay’s shores. Women and children collected clams and oysters 

that were sold to merchants on the east side of the bay and sent to San Francisco 

consumers. Men hunted, fished, and trapped deer and rabbit for both sale and 

subsistence. These activities, however, became more difficult as wildlife populations 

decreased and ecosystems were taken over by exotic plants due to American settlers’ 

activities. While Indian men worked as laborers on nearby ranches, many Indian women 

worked as domestic help.166

Fueled by the desire to profit from San Francisco’s appetite for meat, dairy 

products, grain, and vegetables, American settlers profoundly altered the Tomales Bay 

area. As they sought to reshape the land into a productive agricultural landscape, 

ranchers assigned values to native plants and animals based on the market. They 

replaced commercially worthless wild animals with domesticated livestock and native 

grasses with marketable commodities like grain and vegetables. Some of these actions, 

nevertheless, had unintended consequences--such as the siltation of the bay and erosion 

of topsoil--that hindered settlers’ ability to supply the nearby urban core. Tomales Bay 

farmers were dependent on this market, however, and area residents would seek 

solutions to these problems in order to continue their role as San Francisco’s hinterland. 

 

 

166 Ibid. 
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56

Figure 2. Rancho Nicasio stretched along Tomales Bay’s eastern shore. Individuals 

submit- ed crudely drawn maps (diseños) such as this to the Mexican government in 

order to gain title to their land. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of 

California, Berkeley. 

Figure 3. The George Burbank farm near Tomales. Burbank, who bought the parcel 

in 1855, was one of the first settlers in Tomales Township. Courtesy of the Bancroft 

Library, University of California, Berkeley. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

57

Figure 4. A sketch of John Keys’ warehouses in Tomales in 1859. Ten years earlier, 

Irish immigrant John Keys, a miner turned potato farmer living near Bodega Bay, 

envisioned a bustling port on this Tomales Bay tributary. Keys and partner 

Alexander Noble staked claims, purchased a schooner and built a warehouse on the 

Keys Creek estuary in anticipation of entering into business transporting 

agricultural products to San Francisco. The venture proved successful, and the 

settlement evolved into the town of Tomales. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

58

Figure 5. The schooner Nettie Low, which transported goods from Tomales Point 

ranches to railroad stops across the bay, ca. 1900. Schooners continued to serve 

ranches on the Point after siltation rendered water transportation between San 

Francisco and Tomales Bay impracticable. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History 

Center. 
The City and the Country: San Francisco and the Transformation of the Tomales Bay Landscape, 1848-1875

59

Figure 6. The town of Tomales in 1898. The grassy hills, perennial streams and mild 

climate of eastern Tomales Bay attracted crop farmers and dairy and beef ranchers 

beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, when the California gold rush created 

new markets for agricultural products. As San Francisco grew, urban appetites 

continued to spur the development of the Tomales Bay area. The activities of these 

immigrants had a powerful and lasting impact on the Tomales Bay environment as 

they transformed the area into an agricultural landscape. 

61 

CHAPTER FOUR

THE RAILROAD AND THE RESHAPING OF TOMALES BAY,

1875-1930 

While settlers reordered the natural landscape around Tomales Bay as they 

produced goods for San Francisco consumers during and after the Gold Rush, the 

completion of the railroad in 1874 spurred additional growth and natural resource 

development as it tightened the connection between the hinterland and the city. The 

train brought supplies, mail, and the first tourists to the bay, while carrying agricultural 

products, fish, timber, and shellfish quickly to San Francisco. The advent of train 

transportation inspired new ideas about the bay’s economic value. While ranchers and 

farmers continued to capitalize on the grasslands of the surrounding landscape, other 

area residents began to commodify the bay’s marine resources on a large scale. Investors 

and entrepreneurs envisioned large numbers of vacationers on the warm, calm waters of 

Tomales Bay, and they built and promoted resorts and summer home colonies near 

railroad stops. These multiple uses and interests in the area often conflicted with each 

other, however, and farmers, ranchers, loggers, oyster growers, and fishermen found 

themselves at odds. Tomales Bay area residents had high hopes for converting the 

region’s natural resources into marketable commodities, and they worked to create 

bustling agricultural, fishing, and tourist landscapes on and along the bay. 

BUILDING THE RAILROAD, RESHAPING THE BAY

Across the West, railroads reordered concepts of time and space as they brought 

rural hinterlands within easy reach of the city. New rail lines transformed landscapes 

throughout the western United States, since they were key to the growth and 

development of both urban areas and their hinterlands. As historian William Cronon 

writes, the railroad “touched all facets of American life in the second half of the 

nineteenth century, insinuating itself into virtually every aspect of the national 

landscape.”167 Across the nation, waterways (whether natural routes or human-made 

canals) had been crucial to the movement of goods, but railroads freed people and 

products from geography. Farmers could now expect to sell their products more swiftly

 

167 Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 73-80. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

62 

and easily than ever before. Schooners had taken between eight hours and three days to 

reach San Francisco, but the train could transport Tomales Bay butter, grain, and 

potatoes to San Francisco Bay in a matter of hours. The railroad, too, could circumvent 

the problem of a bay that was becoming less and less conducive to shipping. Human 

activities had ruined the transportation corridor provided by nature, but settlers could 

build a new, better route to San Francisco. 

Tomales Bay area residents pinned their hopes for a prosperous future on the 

railroad. Railroad directors planned a line from Sausalito (connected to San Francisco by 

ferry) to the redwood forests and sawmills of the Russian River area, north of Tomales 

Bay. Every community in the area supported the railroad, and when executives promised 

higher land values, Marin County residents voted overwhelmingly to provide public 

financial support to the train. The county granted free rights of way as well. Point Reyes 

landowners and North Coast Railroad investors James McMillan Shafter and Charles 

Howard convinced railroad directors to route the tracks along Tomales Bay so that the 

line would run close to their Point Reyes ranches. The town of Tomales, the second most 

populous and wealthy in the county, was especially enthusiastic. The Marshall Brothers 

and James Miller, who owned property along the bay’s eastern shore, offered a $10,000 

subsidy to encourage the train to stop at their settlements.168

The geography and weather patterns of the Tomales Bay area posed particular 

challenges to railroad engineers and construction crews. Railroad directors believed that 

the Marin County terrain was too rugged for anything but a narrow gauge line, so a 

three-foot wide track (instead of the more often used four feet eight inches) was laid 

along a ten-foot (instead of fifteen) wide bed. Building materials were shipped by 

schooner from San Francisco to Ocean Roar, near the bay’s mouth, and hauled by oxen 

to the construction site. Heavy winter rains pummeled the steep, overgrazed hillsides, 

and landslides covered the unfinished rail bed along the bay. In two locations along the 

bay, crews were forced to build overhead sluices to carry mud and rock debris from the 

eroding slopes over the rail bed into the bay. After the line’s completion, torrential rains 

continued to cause landslides over the tracks in the Tomales area. These conditions 

eventually forced railroad engineers to replace many of the wooden trestles along 

Tomales Bay with steel trestles that could better withstand the area’s seasonal 

downpours and landslides.169

 

168 A. Bray Dickinson and Roy Graves, Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods; The Story of the North 

Pacific Coast Railroad and San Francisco Bay Paddle-Wheel Ferries (Los Angeles: Trans-Anglo 

Books, 1967), 30-32. 

169 Ibid., 30 and 102.
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

63 

Railroad construction changed the geography of the bay. Engineers favored the 

shortest, most efficient route so they plotted a course that did not follow the contours of 

the shore. Instead, the route ran in a relatively straight line up the jagged eastern side of 

the bay, and crews constructed a twelve-mile rail bed upon fill, levees, and trestles. Along 

the bay, the rails were built largely on fill just above the high water mark. Stone--quarried 

from the Tomales area--was used to protect the rail bed from storm and tidal activities. A 

number of trestles were built over wetlands and small coves, including a particularly long 

trestle across the mouth of Keys Creek.170 Workers constructed levees across salt 

marshes on the bay’s eastern edge, cutting off salt water circulation from the bay and 

impounding fresh water from runoff and tributaries. The levees created freshwater 

marshes that eventually became an important habitat for more than 150 species of 

shorebirds and waterfowl.171

After the railroad was completed, agricultural shipments were no longer subject 

to the weather or tides. Farmers shipped their goods from regular stops at Millerton, 

Marshall, Hamlet, and Tomales and from flag stops such as McDonald to markets in San 

Francisco. Despite Tomales’ silted waterway, the railroad enabled the town to continue 

its position as an important transshipment point for the surrounding countryside. 

Schooner traffic practically ceased on the bay as farmers instead chose to ship their 

products on the railroad. At Tomales, the railroad financed a warehouse and storage 

barn for agricultural products, a roundhouse to service engines, and a corral and water 

tank for cows. A number of railroad workers moved to Tomales as well.172

The railroad both physically and conceptually opened doors for area residents. 

Soon after service began, one Tomales resident wrote, 

that he was “astonished at the changes that these few weeks have wrought...there 

is more activity in farming and interest manifest here now than there has been for 

say five years past. We have lived in a semi-stupor so long in Tomales that to be

stirred up so suddenly by the shrill whistle of the great equalizer and civilizer 

leaves us in a condition of bewilderment.”173

 

170 Ibid., 63 and 31. 

171 Michael S. Lighthiser and Gian Marco-Pizzo, Sedimentation and Tidal Inundation of a Marsh 

on Tomales Bay, California: Physical Constraints on the Evolution and Management of a Coastal 

System, Water Resources Center Archives, University of California, Berkeley, 1998, 2. 

172 A.B. Dickinson, “Tomales Town is Quiet Today,” Tomales File, California Room, Marin 

County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. 

173 Marin Journal, 4 March 1875, Railroad file, California Room, Marin County Free Library, San 

Rafael, CA. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

64 

This new form of transportation provided not only a link to urban markets but also a 

path to civilization and democracy. 

The railroad allowed for the expansion of existing industries and the emergence 

of others, and it intensified the connection between San Francisco and Tomales Bay. 

Butter remained the area’s primary export, but farmers exported potatoes, grain, and 

cheese to the city as well. For the first time, fresh fish was shipped to San Francisco 

markets. The train carried potatoes from Tomales (the first train carried 3,000 sacks of 

potatoes from the area), clams and oysters from Marshall and Bivalve, herring from 

Hamlet, and hay, grain, and milk from the entire area to merchants, wholesalers, and 

consumers in San Francisco. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, a freight train with 

one passenger car left Sausalito for Tomales at 6:30 a.m. The same train left Tomales, 

fifty-five miles from Sausalito, at 1:30 P.M. on the same days for the three and a half hour 

journey back.174

Enterprising settlers--hoping to capitalize on their community’s new, closer 

relationship to San Francisco--built railroad stops. These shipping points became vital to 

area farmers, whose hopes for economic prosperity depended on the railroad’s ability to 

transport their goods quickly and inexpensively to the city. Hamlet had been a home site 

for decades, and it became an important railroad stop for many of the area’s dairy and 

chicken farmers and fishermen. The site of Hamlet, on the southern edge of the Keys 

Creek estuary, was originally part of the Rancho Nicasio land grant. Hamlet changed 

hands a number of times before Warren Dutton, owner of the former schooner landing 

at Ocean Roar and a railroad supporter, purchased the property in 1873. Dutton built a 

wharf, railroad shipping facilities, and a post office. Abram Huff, who purchased Hamlet 

from Dutton in 1877, opened a general store and improved the barn, fences, and home. 

By 1890, the site had a slaughter house and freight storage house that held grain and fish. 

Huff operated a dairy as well.175In 1907, Huff sold Hamlet to Hans Jensen, a Danish 

immigrant who had been leasing a dairy ranch near Tomales. Jensen continued to 

operate the railroad stop and the dairy. Roads connected the stop to various points along 

the eastern shore. Hamlet’s location across from Tomales Point made the railroad stop 

especially appealing to ranchers at Pierce Point Ranch, who shipped their merchandise 

across the bay to the railroad. Ranch hands transported dairy products one-half mile to 

their pier at White Gulch, where a boatman loaded the goods onto a boat and rowed 

 

174 Fred A. Stindt, Trains to the Russian River (Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive 

Historical Society, 1974), 22. 

175 Douglas Livingston, Hamlet, 1844-1988: A History of “Jensen’s Oyster Beds, Golden Gate 

National Recreation Area” (Point Reyes, CA: National Park Service, 1989), 9-11. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

65 

across the bay to meet the four P.M. train at Hamlet.176These ranchers also rowed to 

Marshall for supplies and mail, which were brought from San Francisco by train. 

Other shipping points sprang up along the railroad route on the eastern side of 

the bay. By 1880, the settlement of Marshall included a depot, two stores, a hotel, a 

blacksmith shop, and a post office. James Miller planned to build a town called Menlo 

Park south of Marshall on Millerton Point, but he only built a wharf and a dairy. Other 

depots, such as McDonald, were only flag stops, but they allowed area ranchers to 

negotiate as few miles as possible on bay area roads on their way to a railroad stop.177

THE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES OF TOMALES BAY

As they did for many western communities, boosters claimed that the Tomales 

Bay area held certain natural advantages that ensured that farmers would be able to turn 

natural resources into marketable commodities. Historian David Wrobel describes 

boosters as “optimistic fortunetellers who told present and prospective residents what 

they wanted and needed to hear about western places.”178 Through their descriptions, 

promoters tried to will such places into existence. Some boosters were speculators who 

hoped to profit from new settlement, while others were existing residents who hoped to 

create the landscape of their imagination. Railroad promoters, too, published booster 

literature, since the railroad needed farmers just as much as farmers relied on the 

railroad. Trains were an investment designed to make money, and with high operating 

expenses, railroad executives needed to transport as many goods as they could in order 

to reap a profit. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, booster 

literature became prevalent across the West. 

Boosters described Tomales Bay as an agricultural paradise. These promoters, 

hoping to attract new settlers, claimed that the area afforded good soil, unexcelled 

grazing lands, and almost certain success in the dairy industry. One publication--

designed to attract emigrants to California--characterized the Tomales area as the state’s 

“best body of farming land...It is potato country par excellence.” The author attributed 

farmers’ successes to the moist sea air and productive soil, neglecting the fact that 

erosion was rapidly denuding the landscape of topsoil. “Whoever wants a good farm and 

 

176 Ibid., 41. 

177 Munro-Fraser, 414; Livingston, Hamlet, 45. 

178 David M. Wrobel, Promised Lands: Promotion, Memory, and the Creation of the American West 

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 3-5. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

66 

a cheap one should seek this locality,” the book advised.179 One newspaper editor 

portrayed the bay as an idyllic landscape for ranching. “One of (Tomales Bay’s) 

advantages is its being perfectly landlocked and sheltered from all wind...its safety and 

beauty of the surrounding scenery makes it a sort of miniature copy of the bay of San 

Francisco, but shoaler [sic] water. The lands around the beautiful little bay are high, but 

gently undulating in outline, the hills being covered with grass and wild oats affords 

much pasturage of large flocks and herds.”180 Another writer promised that ranches were 

watered by an abundance of “pure, cold spring water.” “No section of the country could 

be better irrigated,” boasted yet another author. One publication clearly stretched the 

truth when it promised “inexhaustible” soil and an abundance of every possible crop, 

including orchard fruit. The writer even suggested that “vast deposits of oil” lay 

underneath the surface, merely waiting for some enterprising settler to tap their 

potential. Boosters promised that the railroad offered inexpensive and efficient service, 

allowing farmers to reap profits once the train carried their goods into the city.181

According to booster literature, these natural advantages translated into a 

prosperous and healthy citizenry. One booster described Tomales as the most “populous 

and wealthy settlement in the county.” Another characterized the town’s residents as 

intelligent, hard working and prosperous. Unlike California’s agricultural Central Valley, 

the Tomales area boasted a climate that was “very conducive to energy and good 

health.”182The scenic Tomales Bay landscape, church-going residents and attractive 

buildings in the town of Tomales were also offered as inducements to settlers.183 It is 

hard to assess the impact of such boosterism, but perhaps lured by descriptions such as 

these, increasing numbers of farmers did move to the area. 

The growing San Francisco population continued to provide a ready market for 

locally made butter, and dairying remained the most important industry in Marin 

County throughout the late nineteenth century. As Point Reyes landowners and railroad 

investors Charles Howard and James McMillan Shafter anticipated, the train enabled 

 

179 George W. Gift, Something about California: Being a Description of Its Climate, Health, Wealth 

and Resources ... and Paragraphs Describing the Sanatarium [Sic] of San Rafael (San Rafael, CA: 

San Rafael Herald, 1875), 16. 

180 Marin County Journal, October 1887, Tomales File, California Room, Marin County Free 

Library, San Rafael, CA. 

181 Bostick, “Tomales.” 

182 Ibid. 

183 Munro-Fraser, 401. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

67 

fresh dairy products from the area to reach San Francisco consumers quickly and 

inexpensively. Most ranchers produced butter, due to the high prices the product 

commanded in San Francisco, while a few produced cheese (a less profitable product 

due to the length of time of the aging process). Dairies west of the bay on the Point Reyes 

peninsula achieved a measure of fame for their butter. On the bay’s eastern side, where 

settlers had high hopes for crop farming, dairying also became the most profitable 

agricultural endeavor during this time.184 In some cases, butter produced on the Point 

Reyes Peninsula commanded higher prices than butter produced in other parts of the 

Tomales Bay area. Point Reyes butter had earned a reputation for superior freshness and 

quality in San Francisco, and by the 1880s, the Shafter and Howard ranches began to 

stamp their product with a trademark to discourage counterfeiters who sold butter 

under the Point Reyes name. Some dairymen in Tomales, Marshall, and Olema disputed 

the superiority of butter produced on the peninsula and claimed that their product 

brought similar prices in San Francisco.185 By the end of the century, the county 

contained twenty-five creameries, more than any other California county except for 

Humboldt. Ten of these creameries, most of which were small, family-run businesses, 

were located on Point Reyes, while eight operated in the eastern Tomales Bay area. Four 

were also located in the Olema Valley.186

One Tomales Bay creamery did produce high-quality cheese, a rare commodity in 

nineteenth-century California. Into the early twentieth century, the majority of 

California’s cheeses were still imported, and those that were produced in the state were 

often poorer in quality. Since they wanted to rush their cheese to market and thus 

maximize profits, most California cheesemakers did not adequately age their product. 

The state dairy bureau urged farmers to produce less butter and more high-quality 

cheese using the cheddar process, which required six months of aging, but few 

creameries did so. One exception was the creamery in Fallon, near Tomales, which used 

local milk to produce cheese using the cheddar process. The Fallon creamery was one of 

only two in California to make cheese in this way.187

Dairy ranches bordered Tomales Bay on all sides. J and K ranches, the most 

northerly of Oscar Shafter’s holdings, both utilized Laird’s Landing to ferry their 

 

184David Burgess Burbank,, interview by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent, , Sept. 26, 1974, California 

Room, Marin County Free Library, 4. 

185 Livingston, Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula, 64. 

186 A.J. Johnston, First Report of the State Dairy Bureau to the Governor of the State of California: 

May 1, 1895 to October 1, 1896 (Sacramento: State Printing, 1896), 13. 

187 Ibid. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

68 

products (primarily butter) across the bay to the railroad stop at Marshall. Roads 

connected the ranches to the landing that was a small, protected cove along the bay’s 

western shore. J Ranch stretched from the bay to the ocean on the midsection of 

Tomales Point. A succession of tenants occupied the ranch until James Kehoe, a 

cheesemaker in Point Reyes Station, arrived in 1922. Kehoe raised dairy cattle, hogs, and 

field crops, and the Kehoe family occupied the ranch for the rest of the twentieth 

century. A number of tenant farmers occupied K ranch, just to the south of J Ranch on 

Tomales Bay. L Ranch, to the south of K Ranch and also bordered by the bay, was also 

leased by a number of tenants. Roads led from L Ranch to Sacramento Landing, another 

sheltered cove to the south of Laird’s, where ranchers likely shipped their goods to 

Marshall. These ranches raised between 100 and 250 dairy cows as well as hogs and field 

crops. Some of the agricultural wastes drained into Tomales Bay, but there is no evidence 

that this posed a threat to the bay’s health at this time.188

Pierce Point Ranch, the only farm on the western side of the bay not owned by 

any of the San Francisco law partners, was the most productive in the area. The ranch, 

owned by the Pierce family but leased to Claus Moltzen in the early 1890s, produced 

butter and hogs for the San Francisco market. The Moltzen family raised chickens, 

vegetables, and potatoes for themselves as well. They shipped the butter and butchered 

hogs from the wharf at White Gulch, one-half mile down a dirt track from the ranch 

complex. The ranch maintained a pier with a hand cranked derrick, as well as a 

boathouse and a few boats that could be rowed or sailed to Hamlet--where the products 

were taken by rail to Sausalito—and then by ferry to San Francisco. The two-and-onequarter mile bay crossing took eleven minutes. The ranch was sold in 1917, and new 

owner John Rapp also leased the ranch to tenants.189

The Irish and the Chinese had provided much of the farm labor in the first few 

decades after American settlement, and by the late nineteenth and early twentieth 

centuries, more and more of the workers who produced the foodstuffs sold in the urban 

market were immigrants. Over 20,000 Italian-speaking immigrants from the politically 

unstable and poverty stricken Swiss canton of Ticino journeyed to California between 

 

188 For more information on Tomales Point ranches, see Livingston, Ranching on the Point Reyes 

Peninsula. 

189 For more information on Pierce Point Ranch, see Richard A. Borjes and Gordon Chappell, 

“There is No More Extensive Dairy in the Township”: The History and Architecture of the Upper 

Pierce Point Ranch, 1856-1985 (San Francisco: National Park Service, 1986). 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

69 

1850 and 1930.190 Some came during the gold rush, and like many other unsuccessful 

miners, they turned to more familiar occupations when they failed to find mineral 

wealth. Many journeyed to West Marin to work on dairy farms, since most had dairying 

skills. As these immigrants established themselves in the area, they provided assistance to 

other Swiss-Italians who wanted to make the journey to California. The Codoni family, a 

Swiss-Italian immigrant family who lived east of Tomales Bay, acted as unofficial consul 

by finding jobs for potential immigrants with local ranchers.191 Immigrants from the 

Azores, a chain of islands off the Portuguese coast, similarly fled poverty and 

overpopulation and settled at various places around West Marin County. By 1888, many 

of the tenant ranchers on the Shafter and Howard ranches were either Swiss-Italian or 

Portuguese. These ranchers often hired immigrant farmhands from their native region 

who would work for low wages. As newer immigrants learned English and familiarized 

themselves with dairy ranching in California, many were able to purchase their own 

ranches.192

Other European immigrant groups also found economic success producing foods 

for the San Francisco table. Many Irish immigrants continued to arrive in the area, lured 

by the established Irish community who provided jobs and economic assistance for their 

voyage. The Irish made up the majority of the workers on the Tomales Point ranches (J, 

K, L, and Pierce), and the town of Tomales was, in large part, an Irish community.193

Small numbers of Croatians, fleeing political instability and lack of economic 

opportunity, also began arriving in the early twentieth century. Local lore often credits 

the group with pioneering the commercial fishing industry on the bay, despite the fact 

that Chinese fishermen had worked on Tomales Bay twenty years earlier.194

Marin County led the state in dairy production until 1910, when a number of 

factors conspired to bring about the decline of dairying in the Tomales Bay area. With 

the demise of schooner travel, area residents no longer enjoyed the advantage they held 

 

190 David Rolland, “One Emigration Shaped Two Regions,” Point Reyes Light (accessed December 

21, 2004). 

191 Earl Dolcini, interview by Carla Ehat and Genevieve Martinelli, August 9, 1974, California 

Room, Marin County Free Library. 

192 David Rolland, “The Azores to West Marin,” Point Reyes Light, 

http://www.ptreyeslight.com/azores1/azores.html (accessed December 21, 2004. 

193 David Rolland, “Ireland to West Marin,” Point Reyes Light, 

http://www.ptreyeslight.com/irish1/irelandlead.html (accessed on December 21, 2004). 

194 David Rolland, “Croats Made Tomales Bay a Fishing Center,” Point Reyes Light, 

http://www.ptreyeslight.com/swiss/fish.html (accessed December 21, 2004). 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

70 

from their proximity by water to San Francisco. The railroad provided a ready link to the 

city, but by the turn of the twentieth century, railroads routes had developed throughout 

CaliforniaThus, Tomales Bay area dairy ranchers faced increasing competition from 

dairies in other parts of the state. By 1896, 203 creameries in the state produced butter.195

Mechanization, such as milk separators, invented in the 1890s, allowed ranchers to 

increase production, and prices dropped significantly. New health regulations such as 

concrete floors in milking barns (to reduce the chance that dirt would coat the cow’s 

udder) also increased costs for ranchers. The invention of refrigerated transportation, 

the rise of trucking, and the construction of better roads and new rail lines allowed dairy 

farmers in California’s interior to compete with areas closer to urban markets.196

Changing environmental conditions, too, played a role in the decline. The 

grasslands near Tomales Bay had provided ample fodder for livestock, but decades of 

grazing had taken a toll on the area’s pastures. The grasslands now remained brown for 

the majority of the year, forcing farmers to buy or grow feed for their cows. An 

agricultural extension agent began working with farmers in the 1920s to remedy 

overstocked pastures by using pasture rotation and introducing a new species of grass to 

the area, but the grasslands continued to be dominated by short-lived annuals that 

remained brown much of the year.197Meanwhile, Central Valley farmers discovered that 

alfalfa, which thrived with irrigation in hot climates, was particularly nutritious and easy 

to grow for their cows. By 1920, Marin County no longer ranked on a list of the top ten 

butter producing counties in the state. Later in that decade, descendents of the Shafter 

and Howard families began to liquidate their increasingly unprofitable dairy assets. The 

O.L. Shafter Estate Company sold off its Point Reyes and Tomales Point ranches in 

1939.198

Many area farmers pinned their hopes for economic prosperity on grain, but 

environmental factors spelled the demise of this industry as well. Grain farming became 

briefly important in the area in the mid to late nineteenth century, when global demand 

surged and the railroad offered easy transportation to a large port. At this time, grain 

farming boomed throughout California due to high global prices and initial soil fertility. 

Farmers shipped about 200,000 sacks of oats and 400,000 sacks of wheat from Tomales 

 

195 Johnston, 13. 

196 Toogood, 1:196. 

197 Univ. of Calif. Cooperative Extension, “Final Report,” 8. 

198 Toogood, 1:196. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

71 

each year throughout this decade.

33 

Non-native, introduced plant species, however, 

lessened the quality of the grain. Exotics such as wild oats, wild clover, and mustard, 

whose seeds lived throughout California’s mild winters, partly colonized grain fields. It 

was impossible to separate these grains from wheat so they were harvested and 

processed together, giving grain milled in California an inferior quality.199

Potato farmers enjoyed more success. From the mid nineteenth through the early 

twentieth centuries, the eastern Tomales Bay area was the major supplier of potatoes to 

San Francisco area consumers. By 1880, almost every farm in the east Tomales Bay area, 

from Millerton to Fallon, grew at least twenty-five acres of potatoes. Potatoes grew 

particularly well in the area since they thrived without irrigation or summer rains, and 

the soil retained enough moisture from coastal fogs. Farmers mainly grew the British 

Queen variety, a baking potato popular with consumers. Potato farmers had eagerly 

anticipated the opening of the railroad, and they began hauling their crop to newly built 

warehouses in Tomales before the line was even completed. The first train from Tomales 

to Sausalito carried potatoes, and throughout the late nineteenth century, about 300,000 

sacks of potatoes per year were shipped from the area.200

Although Tomales Bay’s potato industry was briefly successful, environmental 

factors and better transportation options for central California farmers spelled its 

demise. Topsoil continued to wash into the bay with winter rains each year, and soil 

exhaustion meant that farmers needed large amounts of fertilizers to grow their crops. 

Varieties of potatoes that grew well near Tomales fell out of favor with consumers. 

Tomales Bay area residents, dependent on the San Francisco market, also had to contend 

with increased competition from other California farmers as well as fluctuations in the 

global market. Central Valley farmers who took advantage of new roads and rail lines 

glutted the market with potatoes, thus lowering prices. By the 1920s, some farmers still 

grew potatoes, though mostly as seed for Central Valley farms.201

FISHING ON THE BAY

The railroad facilitated the development of the commercial fishing industry on 

Tomales Bay. The length of the journey by schooner to San Francisco had discouraged 

commercial fishermen from working on the estuary, but the trains that hauled redwoods 

 

199 Dickinson and Graves, Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods, 149. 

200 Gates, 45. 

201 Univ. of Calif. Cooperative Extension, “Final Report,” 9. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

72 

south along the bay also stopped to pick up fish bound for San Francisco markets.202

Previously, in the mid to late nineteenth centuries, the abundance of fish in San 

Francisco Bay allowed city merchants to buy fish easily and inexpensively from local 

fishermen. The commercial fishing industry in the San Francisco Bay area expanded 

greatly after 1864, when the first California salmon cannery opened. California led the 

nation in salmon catch, and most of these were sold canned.203 San Francisco Bay also 

enjoyed a thriving herring fishery, and the catch was sold fresh locally as well as salted 

and shipped to Asia. By the late nineteenth century, however, fish became scarce in San 

Francisco Bay due to overfishing as well as habitat and water quality degradation from 

mining operations and sewage. Commercial fishermen, wholesalers, and canners sought 

new sources of fish in northern California, and many turned their attention to Tomales 

Bay. The state fish and game commission worried that the industry on the estuary might 

begin to experience the same problems as did San Francisco Bay. As early as 1878, one 

commissioner worried: “As the supply in San Francisco Bay has become limited the 

scene of wholesale destruction is now shifted to Tomales Bay whence a very large 

proportion of our fish is now brought.”204

By the late nineteenth century, twenty fishermen and six fishing boats used 

Marshall as their base, while twelve commercial fishermen and six boats were based in 

Inverness, on the bay’s southwestern shore. Other fishermen were based in Nick’s Cove, 

Hamlet, and White Gulch.205Fishermen offloaded their catch at eastern Tomales Bay 

railroad stops such as Hamlet and Marshall, where it was loaded onto trains to Sausalito 

and then ferried to wholesalers in San Francisco. They fished early in the morning, 

packed the fish with wet cloths in wood boxes, and shipped their catch on the daily 

morning train. Despite the short railroad journey, the fish sometimes spoiled before they 

 

202 William Launce Scofield, “California Fishing Ports,” Fish Bulletin #96 (1899; repr., Sacramento: 

California Fish Commission, 1954), 49. 

203 Ibid., 17. 

204 Anna L. Suer, The Herring of San Francisco and Tomales Bays (San Francisco: The Institute, 

1987), 30. 

205 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 46-47; Kay Wing, “Tomales Bay Pioneers,” Tomales File, California 

Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. Croatian immigrants and commercial 

fishermen Nickola Vilicich and Nickola Cosmi leased land at White Gulch from the Pierce family. 

They built a four bedroom home and based their fishing business out of the cove. In 1909, Cosmi 

married and moved to the cove north of White Gulch while Vilicich stayed in the home and 

raised chickens and turkeys. In 1927, this home burned down, and he moved to Marshall. Cosmi 

lost his home to fire as well in 1921. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

73 

could reach market, since fishermen rarely used ice and middlemen often were careless 

when handling fish.206

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the herring fishery brought large 

numbers of commercial fishermen to Tomales Bay. Herring had been a staple of the 

European diet for thousands of years, and the vast influx of European immigrants to the 

San Francisco area provided a ready market for the fish. The flesh was eaten fresh, dried, 

salted, and smoked, while the carcasses were processed into meal, oil, and fertilizer. 

Since herring spawn in shallow waters lined with eelgrass or surfgrass--and about 75 

percent of the estuary’s bottom is covered with these grasses--the bay provided a perfect 

habitat for herring, . Two herring runs, each lasting two months, entered the bay every 

year. Herring fishermen most commonly used beach seines and gill nets. Tomales Bay 

fish rode the railroad to Sausalito, where they were then shipped to dealers or to the 

cannery at Pittsburg on the Sacramento River delta. Some of the catch was processed 

into chicken feed in Petaluma.207

Local fishermen supplied Tomales Bay herring not only to San Francisco but to 

Europe and Asia as well. The herring fishery on Tomales Bay grew slowly until the 

beginning of World War I, when disruptions in the North Sea fishery led to an increased 

demand for the fish in Europe. Herring was a popular, inexpensive source of protein in 

many European countries, and canned Pacific Coast herring was suddenly in high 

demand. California fishermen prized Tomales Bay herring for their large size. Most of 

the state’s harvest in 1918, about 4,000 tons, came from Tomales Bay. Most was exported 

to Europe and Asia, while the rest were consumed locally.208 Some commercial 

fishermen also supplied urban consumers with smelt, sea bass, black cod, perch, shrimp, 

halibut, and salmon during this time as well.209

The F.E. Booth Canning Company, which had established its first California 

cannery in 1909 at Pittsburg, constructed a herring cannery at Hamlet in 1917. A 1,050 

foot wharf with a conveyor belt enabled fishermen to unload fish even during low tide in 

the shallow, silted bay. The company built a packing building as well as three cabins. Fish 

were not actually canned at the site but instead packed for shipment by rail to Sausalito, 

 

206 Scofield, “California Fishing Ports,” 50-51. 

207 Suer, 25-26; James E. Hardwick, “Biomass Estimates of Spawning Herring, Culpea 

herenguspallasi, Herring Eggs, and Associated Vegetation in Tomales Bay,” California Fish and 

Game 59 (1973), 38. 

208 Suer, 29-31. 

209 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 46. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

74 

then barged for canning and reduction into meal and oil at Booth’s Pittsburg Cannery. 

The company contracted with local fishermen for their catch, which boosted the local 

economy.210

Worldwide market forces and new environmental regulations after the war, 

however, led to the decline of the Tomales Bay herring fishery. In 1919, in an effort to 

prevent overfishing, the state legislature passed a law prohibiting the reduction of 

herring for oil or meal. The end of World War I and the resumption of fishing in the 

North Sea also reduced demand overseas. This decreased the herring harvest to small 

amounts, and California fishermen caught less than half a million pounds per year until 

after World War II. The number of canneries in California dropped from fifty-seven in 

1919 to thirty-four in 1923.211 Some herring were smoked and exported to China, but

fewer American consumers purchased the fish. Marketing efforts by canners failed to 

spur the public’s appetite for canned herring, and catch levels remained low throughout 

the 1920s and 1930s. Nonetheless, herring from Tomales Bay made a particularly good 

smoked and salted product due to its large size, and in the 1930s, smoked herring was 

produced at Nick’s Cove and at Consolidated Fisheries’ Blake’s Landing plant.212hese 

were small-scale efforts, however, and commercial fishing harvest levels in Tomales Bay 

never again matched their pre-World War I totals. 

While the railroad dispatched Tomales Bay fish to San Francisco markets, the 

train also brought increasing numbers of sport fishermen from the metropolis to the 

estuary. Railroad brochures--designed to boost passenger business--encouraged 

fishermen to travel to Tomales Bay. Payne Shafter’s Bear Valley Country Club attracted 

wealthy, urban fishermen who fished for trout, salmon, and bass in Tomales Bay 

tributaries. Olema Creek drew fishermen from all over the county who sought salmon, 

steelhead, and trout. Chartered trains brought sport fishermen to Lagunitas Creek to fish 

for these same species. Halleck, Walker and Nicasio Creeks attracted salmon fishermen. 

At Walker Creek in the early twentieth century, residents claimed there were so many 

salmon it was difficult to drive a horse and cart across the creek at certain times of the 

year. In addition, the fish were so profuse that local ranchers used salmon as fertilizer.

 

210 Scofield, 48-49. 

211 Maxwell B. Eldridge and W. Michael Kaill, “San Francisco Bay Area’s Herring Resource: A 

Colorful Past and a Controversial Future,” Marine Fisheries Review 25, no. 11 (1973), 26. 

212 “Monthly Activity Report,” Natural Resources Administration Director, November 1934, 

California State Archives, Sacramento; Livingston, 33.
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

75 

Since the additional protein was thought to increase chickens’ egg production, farmers 

also bought inexpensive local fish to feed their fowl,. 213

As fishing pressures grew, so did disputes over the resource. Some area residents 

resented the Italian fishermen who fished for salmon with nets on tributaries such as 

Olema Creek. Residents complained to the local judge about the “vandals,” but no laws 

had been broken.214 In 1897, the Board of Fish Commissioners noted that Lagunitas 

Creek was probably the most fished stream in the state. The commission urged 

fishermen to practice restraint when fishing on Lagunitas Creek, but without limits and 

regulations, fish populations began to decline.215

Agricultural operations also affected fish in Tomales Bay and its tributaries. 

Farmers constructed small dams on creeks to create ponds for their livestock, but these 

dams blocked migrating fish. One state fish commissioner removed a dam on Lagunitas 

Creek in the late nineteenth century, thereby unblocking the passage for waiting salmon 

who “quickly took advantage of the opening.”216 In the 1920s, Olema Creek between the 

town of Olema and the confluence with Lagunitas Creek was remade into a three mile 

long canal that drained adjacent land for agriculture. Farmers raised field crops and 

vegetables in the reclaimed land.217 Wetlands, however, provide valuable habitat for 

young fish, and their destruction likely affected the creek’s fish populations. 

Firewood and lumber were in high demand in San Francisco when the railroad 

opened, and entrepreneurs again turned to the Tomales Bay area to provide these 

natural resources for the urban market. Along Tomales Bay tributaries Olema and 

Lagunitas Creeks, the forests were thick with redwoods and bishop pines. Up to 200 

cords of wood per week were cut from the Olema Valley, filling as many as ten railroad 

cars at a time. Logging near streams raised water temperatures and filled streambeds with 

debris, making creeks less hospitable for trout and salmon. Logging near streams raised 

 

213 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 61; Boyd Stewart, interview by Dewey Livingston, Point Reyes 

National Seashore Archives; Anne West, “Pioneering his Place in Marin County Soil,” Marin 

Independent Journal, March 1, 1976; and Marshall, Ehat, and Kent, 26. . 

214 Jack Mason, “The Trout Hatchery,” Point Reyes Historian 8, no. 3 (1983), 822. 

215 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 60. 

216 State Board of Fish Commissioners, 1894, “Other Marine Activities” file, Jack Mason Museum 

Archives, Inverness, CA. 

217 Tomales Bay Watershed Council, “Tomales Bay Watershed Stewardship Plan,” July 2003, 

http://www.tomalesbaywatershed.org/stewardship_framework.pdf, 40. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

76 

water temperatures and filled streambeds with debris, making creeks less hospitable for 

trout and salmon. 218

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, government agencies and sport 

fishermen’s groups sought to “improve” Tomales Bay and its tributaries by introducing 

high-priced species of fish. Native fish included steelhead, chub, and chum salmon, but 

fishermen prized brook trout, striped bass, and king salmon more. 219 The state fish 

commission, established in 1870, worked to restore and preserve native runs of 

commercial and sport fish as well as to stock area waterways with non-native sport fish 

popular with transplanted easterners. 220 As early as 1873, the commission began to stock 

San Francisco area waters with sport fish such as striped bass imported from the east 

coast. 221The commission built a hatchery to raise Eastern brook trout at Bear Valley, 

south of Tomales Bay, in 1891. In 1898, the facility began growing king salmon, and two 

million of these fish were released into Tomales Bay tributaries, including Lagunitas, 

Olema, and Nicasio Creeks. While king salmon had been plentiful in the Sacramento and 

Russian river systems before habitat degradation and overfishing, they were not native to 

Tomales Bay or its tributaries. Fish commissioners chose Tomales Bay creeks for the 

program because they believed that the short journey through the bay to the ocean 

would ensure the success of the new runs. Bay fishermen were delighted to catch large 

numbers of the young salmon after their release. 222

In 1907, the California Angler’s Association began regularly stocking Olema and 

Lagunitas Creeks with large numbers of steelhead, rainbow and cutthroat trout, and 

King salmon. The North Shore Railroad also stocked Lagunitas and Salmon Creeks with 

cutthroat trout. Beginning in 1909, fishermen could also choose to fish at the trout farm, 

near the bay’s southern end, where large concrete pools held one million fishes. 223 These 

measures encouraged sport fishermen from around the San Francisco area to travel to 

Tomales Bay and its tributaries. Ranchers, farmers, and loggers had altered the natural 

environment of Tomales Bay and its tributaries for economic gain, but the introduction 

 

218 Susannah Jacob, “From Pio Pico to Parks: A History of Land Use in West Marin,” in Tomales 

Bay Environmental Study (Washington D.C.: Conservation Foundation, 1972), 14. 

219 N.B. Scofield, California Fish Commission, 1899, 54. 

220B. B. Redding, S.R. Throckmorton, and J.D. Farwell, “Report of the Commissioners of Fisheries 

of the State of California for the years 1870 and1871,” (January 1, 1902), 14. 

221 Edme Seaton, San Francisco Chronicle, April 14,1974. 

222 Mason, “The Trout Hatchery,” 820. 

223 “California Trout Farm to be Restocked,” Baywood Press, 15 December 1949. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

77 

of non-native fish valuable to sport fishermen represented the first attempts to refashion 

the waters for recreational purposes. 

THE BEGINNING OF OYSTER FARMING

Oysters were a popular staple on the East Coast, where they were plentiful and 

cheap during the nineteenth century. San Francisco residents, however, did not find the 

dark, coppery tasting native oyster palatable. 224 Additionally, the small size and limited 

breeding and feeding capacity of the native oyster found in San Francisco and Tomales 

Bays made them vulnerable to changes such as water quality degradation and siltation. 

Native oysters from Tomales Bay were sold on a small scale in San Francisco in the 

nineteenth century, but with limited success. 225

As early as the 1850s, a few individuals experimented with bringing Olympia 

oysters from Washington State to consumers in San Francisco. The oysters were the 

same species as those found in San Francisco Bay, but the imported oysters were larger 

and milder and thus more popular with consumers. In 1853, the Morgan Oyster 

Company began importing oysters from Shoalwater (now Willipa) Bay, on the coast of 

Washington Territory. Each year, the company, along with at least two others, imported 

about 35,000 baskets of oysters purchased from coastal Indians. Throughout the 1860s, 

companies expanded their operations to other coastal areas in Oregon and Washington. 

After their six day voyage from the Pacific Northwest, the oysters were stored in San 

Francisco Bay until they were sold. By 1870, oyster pens lined San Francisco Bay’s 

western and southern shores. 226

The more familiar eastern oyster ultimately proved to be the most popular with 

consumers. After the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, Chicago-based A. 

Booth and Company began importing eastern oysters from New York. The first 

shipments were live oysters, but growers soon began importing seed oysters that were 

planted in beds in San Francisco Bay. Seed oysters were less expensive to ship cross 

country, and their mortality rates proved lower than mature oysters (though about a 

quarter of the seed oysters routinely died on the eighteen day journey). Since eastern 

oysters cannot spawn in waters colder than sixty-six degrees, growers continually 

 

224 Ralph Eshelman, “Oyster Fisheries of the United States: A Part of the Maritime Heritage of the 

United States, National Landmark Theme Study,” (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 

2001), 13. 

225 Elinor Barrett, “The California Oyster Industry,” Fish Bulletin #123, 22. 

226 Barrett, 21-24. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

78 

imported seed oysters to plant in the bay’s chilly waters. About one hundred train 

carloads of seed oysters were shipped each year until the end of the 1800s. 227

The relative scarcity of oysters kept prices high, and the bivalves--cheap and 

ubiquitous on the East Coast--were considered a luxury item in California. Prices 

dropped as production increased in the 1880s, but oysters still cost twice as much as on 

the East Coast. By 1889, a million pounds of oyster meat per year was produced in 

California. Ten years later, 2.7 million pounds of oyster meat was produced, making the 

industry one of the most valuable fisheries in the state. Oyster growers, nonetheless, had 

to stay one step ahead of the increasing pollution in San Francisco Bay. Thousands of 

tons of silt from mining operations had washed down the Sacramento River into the bay 

by 1870 and buried many oyster beds. Growers were forced to move their operations to 

cleaner waters on the bay’s southwestern shore. 228 By the early twentieth century, young 

oysters were dying in the bay’s increasingly polluted waters. Pollution comes in various 

forms and affects shellfish a number of ways. Certain pollutants can poison oysters. For 

example, coliform bacteria from raw sewage can contaminate the shellfish and induce 

illness in people, and sludge and sediments can smother oyster beds. Growers began to 

notice that their oysters were not growing properly, thus indicating that they were not 

attaining enough nutrients in the polluted waters. 229 Related, a late- nineteenth-century 

typhoid outbreak linked to oyster consumption increased public fears of eating shellfish 

from the bay.230 Due to pollution and concerns about contaminated oysters, oyster 

production in the bay dropped fifty percent between 1889 and 1904. The rising cost of 

tidelands (up to $100 per acre in some locations) also made the search for cleaner waters 

more expensive. Growers began to search for new oyster bed locations. Some 

entrepreneurs shipped eastern oysters to Washington’s Willipa Bay, but the additional 

cost of shipping the mature oysters to San Francisco proved prohibitive. 231

At least one entrepreneur planted oysters in Tomales Bay during the late 

nineteenth century. The first oyster beds were sowed near Millerton in 1875, possibly by 

 

227 Ibid., 25-27. 

228 Ibid., 91 and 19. 

229 Ibid., 19. 

230 Jerry Emory, “Tilling Tides,” California Farmer, 1998, Oysters file, California Room, Marin 

County Free Library. 

231 Barrett, 39. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

79 

Samuel Taylor, owner of the paper mill on Lagunitas Creek. 232 By the next year, oysters 

were being shipped for sale to San Francisco. Despite initially enthusiastic reports from 

Marin and Sonoma County newspapers, the enterprise ended within a year. 233The 

estuary’s oyster industry did not begin on a large scale until pollution in San Francisco 

Bay forced growers to look elsewhere. 

Unpolluted Tomales Bay, well-connected to the city by railroad, was the logical 

alternative for oyster growers. In 1907, Eli Gordon’s Pacific Coast Oyster Company 

planted 450 acres of oysters at Bivalve--a railroad stop opened exclusively for the 

company on the bay’s southeastern shore. The company angered local fishermen when it 

fenced much of the bay near its beds, and county officials forced the company to remove 

the impediments. Once the oysters grew to marketable size, the company began daily 

shipments to San Francisco. The company grew oysters at the beds at Bivalve until the 

1930s or 1940s. In 1913, the Tomales Bay Oyster Company established additional beds 

south of Millerton. Hans Jensen began oyster growing at Hamlet around 1915. The 

Consolidated Oyster Company, which operated a short-lived oyster business at Blake’s 

Landing, bought the Hamlet beds sometime before 1926. 234

Tomales Bay provided both natural advantages and obstacles to oyster growing. 

The estuary offered clean waters and a number of suitable sites for oyster beds. Growers, 

however, were forced to import seed oysters from eastern states, since the bay’s fifty-five 

to sixty-six degree temperatures were too low for spawning. Growers in California used 

the “clutch” method of oyster culture. They found a large, flat area in the intertidal zone 

onto which they spread crushed oyster shells. Growers next broadcast seed oysters onto 

this area, and the seeds would fasten to the broken shells. The oysters were gathered 

with large tongs or rakes after eighteen to thirty-six months of growth.235

The estuary did not appeal to all oyster growers. San Francisco’s largest oyster 

business, the Morgan Oyster Company, moved its facilities to Humboldt Bay, and many 

others remained in San Francisco Bay despite the water quality decline. A major study of 

 

232 There are conflicting accounts of who planted these first oysters in Tomales Bay. One source 

identifies Terry and Weinard as the entrepreneurs, while another identifies the investor as a San 

Francisco wholesaler. 

233 Bertha Stedman Rothwell, Pioneering in Marin County: A Historical Recording, 200, California 

Room, Marin County Free Library. 

234 Barrett, 37. 

235 Emory, “Tilling Tides.” 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

80 

the bay’s water quality quelled public fears about contaminated oysters, and San 

Francisco Bay remained the state’s primary source of oysters until about 1920. In 1915, 

93.9 percent of California’s oysters were grown in San Francisco Bay, while the 

remaining 6.1 percent came from Tomales Bay. By 1919, Tomales Bay oyster growers 

claimed 24.1 percent of the California market.236

With Tomales Bay’s increased profile and market share came more attention 

from state and federal governments. In the 1920s, the State Division of Fish and Game 

hired Stanford University’s Harold Heath to determine if a large scale oyster industry 

could be developed in the estuary. Heath was somewhat optimistic, but he urged further 

study by oyster experts. Heath’s conclusions prompted the state to lobby the federal 

government for additional expertise, but not until 1930 were experts from the U.S 

Bureau of Fisheries assigned to the question.237

Federal fisheries biologists H.C. McMillin and Paul Bonnet were less confident 

about Tomales Bay’s potential for oyster culture. In their view, natural conditions as well 

as human activities hindered the bay’s ability to provide good oyster habitat. The 

scientists noted that there were relatively few suitable areas for oyster growing due to a 

lack of fresh water influx in the summer and heavy winter storms that deposited tons of 

sediment into the bay. They also found the bay heavily infested with the non-native 

Atlantic oyster drill, a mollusk that is one of the oysters’ most voracious predators. The 

drill was unintentionally introduced along with the first eastern oyster seed shipments 

into Tomales Bay. Growers also tried to defend their beds from bat rays, a shellfish 

predator that measured three to four feet wide, by erecting redwood stakes. Oyster 

growers believed that the bat rays, which could penetrate bivalve shells with their teeth, 

consumed large amounts of oysters. Research conducted in both Tomales and 

Humboldt Bays in the late twentieth century, however, suggests that bat rays rarely 

consume oysters and that red rock crabs were responsible for most oyster predation. 

Ironically, growers may have increased their losses by excluding bat rays, which prey on 

the crabs, from oyster beds.238 After surveying much of the California coast, McMillin 

and Bonnet named nearby Drake’s Estero as one of the few suitable locations in the state 

 

236 Barrett, 37and 58. 

237 Ibid., 42. 

238 Ann E. Grey, Timothy J. Mulligan, and Robert W. Hannah, “Food Habits, Occurrence, and 

Population Structure of the Bat Ray, Myliobatis Californica, in Humboldt Bay, California,” 

Environmental Biology of Fishes 49, no. . 2 (June 1997): 234-237. Many oyster growers continue to 

believe that bat rays prey heavily upon oyster populations. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

81 

to raise oysters. Despite the experts’ conclusions, the percentage of oysters grown in 

Tomales Bay continued to rise. By 1930, the year that the railroad ceased operations, the 

estuary produced thirty percent of California’s oyster crop.239

State officials and oyster growers began to experiment with a fast growing, pest 

resistant type of oyster in the late 1920s. In 1928, a joint trial between the Tomales Bay 

Oyster Company and the California Division of Fish and Game introduced Pacific 

oysters into the bay. These oysters were hardier and faster growing than their eastern 

counterparts, and their large, heavy shells of the mature Pacific oyster were harder for 

predators to penetrate. Like their eastern relatives, Pacific oysters found the bay’s waters 

too cold to spawn, and growers had to import seed from Japan. The experiment was 

repeated a number of times in the 1930s, and the Tomales Bay Oyster Company 

harvested the first significant crop of Pacific oysters in 1935. Four years later, Henry 

Jensen planted Pacific oysters at Hamlet. Consumers, however, favored the smaller, 

milder eastern oyster over the strong tasting Pacific variety until after World War II, 

when marketing campaigns and a growing familiarity convinced consumers of their 

desirability.240

Though it remained free of industrial pollution, Tomales Bay was hardly a riskfree environment, and degradation of the upper watershed affected oyster beds in the 

estuary. Increased siltation forced oyster growers to move or cease operations. Logging 

and development in the Lagunitas Creek watershed washed tons of silt into the southern 

end of the bay, and watershed residents’ use of the creek for their water supply 

diminished the stream’s capacity to distribute silt far out into the bay. While the oyster 

growing area south of Millerton Point had three to five feet of water at low tide in the 

1920s, by 1963, the water stood only a foot deep. The Tomales Bay Oyster Company 

abandoned its beds south of Millerton Point altogether in the 1940s when water became 

too shallow.241

There is some evidence that other, small scale shellfishing enterprises operated 

on the bay. Some local fishermen, like White Gulch residents Nickola Vilicich and 

Nickola Cosmi, gathered clams and oysters to sell when the weather was too rough to 

fish.242 Indians collected clams and sold them to local merchants and train passengers. 

 

239 Barrett, 42-43. 

240 Ibid., 49 and 97. 

241 Cooper, 108; Scofield, 51.

242 Wing, “Tomales Bay Pioneers.” 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

82 

The native clams were considered particularly tasty, but they were small and difficult to 

dig, making commercial clamming an unprofitable venture. Some local residents also 

gathered abalone along the bay’s shores.243 Oystering, however, remained the primary 

shellfish industry on the bay. 

THE TOURIST LANDSCAPES OF TOMALES BAY

The railroad was a powerful incentive for opening up the Tomales Bay area to 

tourism, and it coincided with American desires to “get back to nature.” Middle and 

upper- class city dwellers in the early twentieth century believed that visits to pastoral 

landscapes were a necessary, healthy part of life, and boosters and entrepreneurs hoped 

that the railroad would bring hordes of tourists to Tomales Bay. After all, the railroad 

would make it easy for San Francisco residents to travel to Marin County for weekends 

and vacations. Tourists began visiting the county in the early 1870s, after the 

inauguration of ferry service from San Francisco, and the railroad allowed larger 

numbers of people to travel to destinations throughout the area. 

Newly built railroad lines spurred the suburbanization of southern Marin 

County, bringing more people into proximity of the area’s natural attractions.244Mt. 

Tamalpais, in the southern part of the county, proved a popular destination during this 

time, as did Camp Taylor, Samuel Taylor’s resort along Lagunitas Creek, and Charles 

Howard’s Bear Valley property.245 San Francisco area population had grown to over 

420,000 by 1880, and tourists began using the new railroad to visit Marin County almost 

immediately. By 1910, the Bay Area contained 800,000 people, and an outdoor recreation 

industry grew in Marin County to meet the demands of urban tourists. Hiking clubs and 

conservation groups formed to enjoy and promote the use of natural spaces. Tourist 

services such as hotels and restaurants also sprang up.246

Financial necessity drove railroad executives to promote Marin County to San 

Francisco area tourists. Railroad costs ran high, and by the turn of the century, freight 

traffic had decreased due to the scarcity of redwoods in the Russian River area. Railroads 

 

243 Douglas Livingston, Harry McDonald Oral Interview, June 22, 1988, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives, Point Reyes Station, CA. 

244 Dickinson and Graves, Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods, 71. 

245 Toogood, 2:2. 

246 Matthew Paul Gerhart, “Growth Versus Green: A History of Citizen Land Conservation in 

Marin County California” (MA thesis, University of California, 2002), 30. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

83 

across North America promoted rail travel to tourists in order to earn a profit, and the 

Northwestern Pacific, too, employed this strategy. The railroad promoted the county’s 

hiking, camping, and resorts, and boasted that the area’s climate allowed year-round 

outdoor activities. The campaign to draw tourists to other parts of Marin County proved 

successful, and between 1892 and 1901 there was a 39 percent increase in passenger 

travel.247

Railroad marketers tried to draw tourists specifically to Tomales Bay. They tried 

to lure city-dwelling visitors to “the beautiful inland sea” with descriptions of the scenic 

estuary as well as the surrounding pastoral landscape. Promoters promised a train ride of 

“blue waters rippling up under the very car windows, the summer breezes ruffling its 

smooth waters, and a panorama of variegated verdure unrolling along the opposite 

shore.”248The county paper also began to promote the beaches, campgrounds, and 

hotels on the remote bay at this time. The county paper called Hamlet “one of the most 

inviting places on the bay for aquatic sports, and Mr. Huff has pleasant and safe boats for 

sailing and rowing parties.”249 Relatively few of these tourists, however, journeyed to 

remote Tomales Bay, at the northwestern edge of the county, preferring instead the 

attractions of southern Marin. 

Hunters and fishermen from the San Francisco Bay area were the first groups 

willing to make the journey to the bay for recreation and pleasure. The railroad had 

targeted sportsmen by describing the estuary as “covered with wild fowl and filled with 

fish,” and small-scale tourist developments began to attract fishermen and hunters to the 

east side of the bay by the late nineteenth century. The sparsely settled landscape 

allowed good hunting, and hunters sought quail in the canyons and waterfowl on the 

bay. One writer called the area “the happy hunting ground of the metropolitan 

sportsman.”250The Northwestern Pacific promoted a number of hotels, resorts, and 

campgrounds on Tomales Bay, such as the United States Hotel in Tomales and the 

North Shore Hotel in Marshall, to fishermen and hunters.251 Fishermen could rent boats 

 

247 Dickinson and Graves, Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods, 91. 

248 North Coast Pacific Railroad, Hamlet, 1880, pamphlet from Guy Dunscomb Collection, 

National Park Service Archives, Oakland, CA; Northwestern Pacific Railroad, Vacation 1907

Hamlet File, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives, Point Reyes Station, CA. 

249 Bostick, “Tomales.” 

250 Ibid., 149. 

251 Northwestern Pacific Railroad, Vacation 1907. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

84 

from Abrum Huff at Hamlet. Henry Jensen discontinued the boat rentals when he 

bought Hamlet in 1907, but he leased his waterfront land to urbanites who built weekend 

cabins on pilings on the bay. For example, San Francisco residents Julius Spiegel and 

Harold Ladd erected a cabin that they used for weekend duck hunting and shellfish 

gathering trips.252 A cluster of cabins at Cypress Grove, built in the 1880s and called 

Cypress Grove Villas by 1907, probably catered to sportsmen, too.253 Duck hunters and 

fishermen also frequented the beaches of Hog Island in the early twentieth century.254

Hunting clubs attracted wealthy San Francisco clients to the bay. Beginning in 

1904, the Tomales Point Gun Club leased a two story home and three outbuildings south 

of the Pierce Ranch wharf at White Gulch. Club members journeyed to Hamlet by rail 

and then boated across the bay to the gulch where they hunted game birds such as quail, 

pheasant, and ducks. The club rented the buildings from 1904 until ranch owner John 

McClure cancelled their lease in1941. Jim Black’s Hunt Club leased land on Inverness 

Ridge between 1915 and 1925 so that members could hunt deer and quail. Gamekeepers, 

employed by the club, assisted their urban clients with hunting and butchering.255

Although many owned automobiles in the first two decades of the twentieth century, 

West Marin’s poor roads were often impassible in winter, and hunters and fishermen 

continued to arrive by train. 

A handful of tourist facilities along the bay’s shores offered swimming, boating, 

fishing, and hunting beginning in the early twentieth century. The hotel and cottages at 

Camp Pistolesi, established in 1902 south of Tomales on Keys Creek, hosted families in 

the summer and hunters and fishermen in the winter. In 1928, the facility changed its 

name to Camp Tomales, but it continued to offer rental cabins. The camp even boasted 

its own flagstop on the railroad.256Paradise Grove Camp, near Inverness Park on the 

west side of the bay, enticed urbanites with its descriptions of “endless outdoor 

pastimes.” The camp offered apartments, cottages, and campsites, but assured potential 

patrons that they provided a civilized establishment that included a social hall, dancing 

and daily 

 

252 Livingston, Hamlet , 8-15. 

253 Northwestern Pacific Railroad, Vacation 1907. 

254 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 49. 

255 Jack Mason, Point Reyes Historian 6, Vol. 2, (Fall 1981), 606. 

256 Livingston, Hamlet, 42. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

85 

mail service.257 Guibbuni Camp offered camping on ten acres of land near Inverness.258

Still, these facilities paled in comparison to the beach resorts, scenic railway, and other 

tourist amenities of southern Marin County. 

The largest and most ambitious vacation development on Tomales Bay was the 

town of Inverness. James McMillan Shafter--in an effort to make up for his financial 

losses in the unprofitable railroad--turned 640 acres of his western Tomales Bay 

property into small lots in 1889. Shafter hoped to sell the parcels to city dwellers seeking 

vacation homes, and he promised potential buyers that they would be able to travel from 

San Francisco to Inverness quickly and easily. Shafter envisioned that residents would 

take the train to Millerton, on the bay’s eastern shore, where they would board a boat 

that would ferry them to the village across the bay. Promotional maps of Inverness made 

the area look relatively close to San Francisco, and it was advertised as a convenient 

retreat from the city. Shafter hoped the village of Inverness would become a major 

waterfront resort with a hotel as well as vacation residences.259

Despite Shafter’s efforts, few buyers purchased land in the remote village. He 

spoke to church congregations and invited groups to camp on the property (in the 

summer of 1892, over 1,000 people camped at Inverness), but few bought lots. Shafter 

died later that same year. Alexander Baily bought 25 acres in probate court in 1894, and 

he built the area’s first substantial home. He also subdivided much of his property into 

lots, and some San Francisco area bankers, judges, doctors, and professors bought 

parcels in Baily’s Addition.260

Shafter’s daughter, Julia Shafter, tried to pay off her father’s debts by selling lots 

carved from his Point Reyes ranches in 1893, but there were no buyers during this time 

of economic depression. She also tried to sell his timber lands in the Olema Valley, but 

with no success. Buyers were not attracted by the natural resource possibilities of the 

area, so Julia Shafter enlarged on her father’s original plans for tourism. In 1905, she 

subdivided Inverness Ridge into 10,000 lots and extracted tentative promises from 

railroad executives to build an electric rail line from Fairfax, in southern Marin County, 

 

257 Pamphlet, Inverness Park File, Jack Mason Museum Archives, Inverness, CA. 

258 Northwestern Pacific Railroad, Vacation 1907. 

259 Inverness Map, Jack Mason Museum, Inverness, CA. 

260 Jack Mason, Summer Town: The History of Inverness, California (Inverness, CA: North Shore 

Books, 1974), 10-12. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

86 

to Inverness.261

To attract buyers, Julia began promoting the community as an ideal summer 

home locale. She believed that Inverness and its surroundings were “some of the 

choicest lands in California,” and she emphasized the natural beauty and favorable 

climate of the area to prospective buyers. Promotional campaigns optimistically referred 

to the village as the “Brighton of the Pacific Coast” after the famed English seaside resort. 

The Northwestern Pacific Railroad, too, promoted Inverness in an attempt to boost 

passenger business. Brochures appealed to San Francisco area residents’ need for 

relaxation and recreation as they boasted of Inverness’ fine boating, bathing, hunting, 

and fishing. Boosters portrayed the area as pristine, even “primeval,” with “wild 

woodland walks, undeveloped hill and dale and virgin forest.”262 Promotional literature 

further promised calm, safe waters, perfect for swimming, and they promoted the town 

as a refuge from summer heat.263 About forty buyers per year purchased lots in Baily’s 

Addition and Julia Shafter’s Inverness. In addition to San Francisco Bay area 

professionals, widows, retirees, and residents of Sacramento and other Central Valley 

towns also purchased lots. Two modest lodges and one small hotel served tourists. 

Visitors first took the train to Point Reyes Station and then hired a stagecoach to the 

village. The journey from San Francisco took nearly a day.264

This idyll was not meant for everyone, however. Promoters boasted that the 

community was “fully restricted,” meaning it was only open to white, Christian buyers. 

At least before 1906, the community did not even allow excursions to the village by those 

who were not residents or guests.265Local residents did enjoy the bay near Inverness. 

White House Pool, a swimming and fishing hole along Lagunitas Creek named for the 

nearby large white home, became a particularly popular spot. The grassy lawn, shade 

trees, and bath houses drew crowds daily in good weather. Boathouses, used by summer 

residents of Inverness, lined the creek.266

 

261 Ibid., 18. 

262 C.M. Wooster Co., “Inverness the Beautiful,” Promotional Brochure, Inverness File, California 

Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. 

263 Northwestern Pacific Railroad, Vacation 1907. 

264 Mason, Summer Town, 18-19. 

265 Wooster Co., “Inverness the Beautiful.”

266 Suzanne Vedy, Helen Smith Oral Interview, October 8, 1987, Point Reyes National Seashore 

Collection. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

87 

The earthquake of 1906 dashed Julia Shafter’s hopes of turning Inverness into a 

well- known resort community, and it damaged the fledgling tourism industry on the 

bay. Tomales Bay lies along the San Andreas Fault, and the earthquake’s epicenter lay 

just south of the bay. The Point Reyes peninsula, west of the bay, moved northward 

seventeen feet. At Inverness, houses and stores were shaken off their foundations, water 

mains broke, and a landslide covered the road with debris. Baily’s Pier, which served 

residents of his development, moved twenty-five feet north. The road from Point Reyes 

Station to Inverness that crossed the head of the bay was offset by twenty feet. Julia 

despaired at the situation. “So many repairs are needed and lumber is so high that my 

heart sinks within me. It is nothing but pay out money all the time. Nothing to show for it 

until I am sick at heart, frightened and worried.”267

Damage was even worse on the more developed eastern side of the bay. In 

Tomales, the temblor destroyed the store and stone Catholic church. Marshall’s North 

Coast Hotel slid into the bay. There were three fatalities, which occurred when 

Alexander Marshall’s stone home collapsed and killed his three children. The cabins at 

Cypress Grove were damaged, forcing owner George Covert to sell the property to 

recover his losses. Rebuilding was slow due to the scarcity and high cost of lumber. Built 

on fill along the bay, the railroad tracks shifted. Levees broke, and trestles fell. The rail 

bed north of Hamlet sank two feet. At Hamlet itself, the railroad station slid into the bay, 

and a landslide covered both the tracks and the county road. The railroad had just added 

new trains as well as two new stops per day at Point Reyes Station, but service was 

curtailed until the tracks were repaired.268

The earthquake only temporarily modified the bay’s landscape. Landslides 

occurred on ridges above the bay. The tidal mud liquefied and formed wave like 

formations on the mudflats near the bay’s end, but these disappeared due to tidal action 

within the year. Favorite clamming spots were buried in silt. Locals observed that stream 

channels shifted and springs dried up or increased in flow. Nonetheless, geologists 

concluded that the earthquake did not cause any major changes to the bay itself.269

Other vacation developments on the bay were similarly unsuccessful, and they 

became neighborhoods of local workers rather than exclusive summer home 

communities. Isaac Freeman created the subdivision of Inverness Park in 1909 after Julia 

 

267 Mason, Summer Town, 42. 

268 Andrew C. Lawson, The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906 (Washington D.C: Carnegie 

Institution, 1908), 71-80; Marshall, Ehat, and Kent; Mason, Summer Town, 38; Mason, 

Earthquake Bay, 110-112. 

269 Lawson, 71-80. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

88 

Shafter Hamilton gave him 500 acres for payment of her father’s debt. Like Shafter, 

Freeman promised potential buyers that new roads and ferries would speed their 

journey from the city. He never instigated ferry service, and the narrow, slippery and 

steep roads of the development made transportation difficult. Furthermore, Inverness 

Park lacked the creeks and the beach access of Inverness. These disadvantages, along 

with the small size of the lots, turned potential vacationers away, and Freeman was 

forced to sell the home sites to local workers. One local attorney described Inverness 

Park as a place where “some raise chickens, some raise fruit, some chop wood and some 

have hayfields.” Freeman attempted to lure vacationers to another subdivision north of 

Inverness Park, which he intended to turn into a “grand country club.” Inverness Villas 

also failed to attract buyers, and most of the lots instead were sold to Swiss-Italian 

immigrants. Residents in both subdivisions provided labor to Inverness residents and 

area ranchers. Many sold local produce and wild foods such as berries and mushrooms 

to village residents and tourists.270

Though the development never lived up to its founders’ expectations, Inverness 

did develop into a village during this time. By 1910, the town had a grocery store, a post 

office, a candy store, and a garage and warehouse. The Inverness Yacht Club served as a 

social center by 1914. Some San Francisco area residents vacationed in Inverness. Hotel 

owners James and Mary Reeves repaired the earthquake damage and finished building 

the hotel addition that expanded their facility to twenty-three rooms. Brock Schreiber’s 

boat Kemah carried tourists to Shell, Indian, and other west Tomales Bay beaches for a 

one dollar fare. As an added incentive, Schreiber promised customers a freshly caught 

crab lunch. He sometimes picked up visitors at the Millerton train station, since the 

water journey was more comfortable than the trip by stage from Point Reyes Station. He 

also built and rented small sailboats and fishing gear.271

After World War I, the town became a haven for Berkeley academics, and many 

faculty and their families spent weekends and summers at the Tomales Bay community. 

John Gibson, son of Inverness resident and University of California chemistry professor 

George Ernest Gibson, believed that Berkeley families were attracted to Inverness by the 

“spiritual nourishment” they found in nature. In contrast to many other San Francisco 

area vacationers, these families did not seek out grand resorts or developments. The 

area’s “mysterious and untouched beauty” as well as its relaxed atmosphere provided a 

welcome contrast to the weekday life of the academics. Residents named their homes 

 

270 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 123. 

271 Mason, Summer Town, 30-36. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

89 

with monikers such as Brookside, Grizzly Lodge, Pinecroft, Quail Point, Sunnyside, 

Tanglewood, and Aldersyde that reflected inhabitants’ ideas about their place in nature. 

The Gibson family, like many others from Berkeley, journeyed to their Inverness homes 

by car on Fridays and returned to their jobs by Monday morning. They considered the 

Inverness school inferior to those in Berkeley and thus never allowed their children to 

attend.272

Shafter’s idea of a grand resort on Tomales Bay never materialized, and Inverness 

did not see the kind of development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 

as did the towns of Bolinas and Stinson Beach.273 Roads from southern Marin County to 

those beachfront towns carried substantially more traffic than did roads to Point Reyes 

Station, Inverness, and Tomales.274The onset of the Great Depression worsened the 

situation, and many local businesses closed during the 1930s. After the stock market 

crash of 1929, the bank foreclosed on most of Julia’s property. Paradise Grove Camp 

went out of business due to the economic crisis. A number of boat houses along the bay 

were abandoned during the 1930s as well, as fewer hunters and fishermen traveled to the 

area. The Reeves first mortgaged and then sold their hotel due to a lack of customers in 

1930. The new owners made improvements and renamed the hotel Drake’s Inn, but they, 

too, failed to attract tourists. Brock Schrieber described his boat rental business as a 

“hopeless struggle” during this time. The yacht club, plagued with financial problems 

from the beginning, was foreclosed upon in 1940. The boathouses at White House Pool, 

as well as the namesake house, fell into disrepair and became a target for vandals. The 

cessation of railroad service in 1933 destroyed what little tourist business still came to 

the bay, and Tomales Bay remained largely unvisited by vacationers.275

THE COAST MIWOK IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Although the most obvious changes to Tomales Bay resulted from settlers’ 

activities, Tomales Bay remained an abundant landscape for the Coast Miwok that 

remained in Marin County. A number of families continued to inhabit coves on both 

sides of the bay, where their waterfront homes gave them easy access to marine 

 

272 Ibid., 76. 

273 Toogood, 2:8. 

274 California Department of Public Works, “Highway Transportation Survey of 1934,” California 

State Archives, Sacramento, CA. 

275 Mason, Summer Town, 31. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

90 

resources. In the early twentieth century, there were two Indian villages on the east shore 

of Tomales Bay—one at Marconi Cove called Fishermen’s by locals and another near 

Tomales. According to census records, there were few Coast Miwok left in Marin 

County. By 1908, there were only eleven Coast Miwok left, and by 1920, only five 

remained.276There were certainly many people, nonetheless, that identified as Coast 

Miwok due to ancestral ties, even if both parents were not Coast Miwok. Most of the 

families that lived along the bay, like the Felixes and the Campiglis who lived at Laird’s 

Landing, were descended from both the Coast Miwok and European immigrant groups.

While continuing to look to the natural world for sustenance and healing, the 

Coast Miwok incorporated themselves into the local economy. Many traditional 

resources were still plentiful. Most of the land around Tomales Bay was privately owned, 

but the sparsely settled character of the area allowed them to procure wild plants, 

berries, and nuts.277Men fished, hunted and trapped for both subsistence and for the 

market. Women and children collected clams and other shellfish and sold them both to 

merchants along the bay and passengers on the railroad.278Most Indians worked as 

laborers on farms and ranches in the nineteenth century. The majority of the milkers on 

the Kehoe Ranch on Tomales Point, for example, were local Indians. Rancher Kenneth 

Kehoe recalled that an Indian family seemingly lived on every cove on the bay, and that 

most of the men worked as ranch hands.279Most families owned boats, and they ferried 

both visitors and goods across the bay. Sacramento Ouse, who lived at Sacramento 

Landing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, transported produce, grain, 

butter, milk and eggs from ranches on his barges to railroad stops across the bay.280 Some 

worked as hunting and fishing guides for sportsmen, while others found employment at 

the herring cannery.281

The Felix family (of Coast Miwok and Filipino descent) occupied Laird’s 

Landing, a cove on the bay’s western side, in the early twentieth century. The site offered 

a number of natural advantages to the family. An alluvial flat on the bay provided a large, 

 

276 Emberson and Theodoratus, “Point Reyes National Seashore Cultural Affiliation Report,” 59. 

277 Compas, 83. 

278 Dickinson and Graves, Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods, 62. 

279 Kenneth Kehoe, interview by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent, 1979, California Room, Marin 

County Free Library. 

280 Dolores McGill Oral History. 

281 Livingston, Hamlet, 30. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

91 

level space for dwellings and a garden, while gently terraced slopes above the bay 

provided space for a larger potato field. The waterfront location allowed access to the 

bay’s resources and to the services on the eastern side of the bay, and the beach at Laird’s 

Landing allowed residents to pull boats easily ashore. The location was owned by San 

Francisco businessman (and owner of a number of dairy ranches on Point Reyes and 

Tomales Point) Oscar Shafter, who charged families living on his land along the bay one 

dollar per year for rent. Shafter always returned the dollar. This ritual allowed families 

legal access to the land, and it provided the nearby ranches with laborers. Since members 

of the family worked on the Shafter ranches, this arrangement made financial sense to 

the landowner.282

Boating remained the primary means of transportation for families of Coast 

Miwok descent throughout this time. Although nearby ranches built or maintained 

wharves, the Campigli family (composed of Bertha Felix, her husband of Swiss-Italian 

descent Arnold Campigli, and their daughter Elizabeth), simply pulled their skiff up on 

the beach. Navigating the bay was not always easy. The Campigli family—who occupied 

Laird’s Landing after the death of the Felixes—picked up their mail and shopped in 

Marshall, preferably before 10:00 a.m., when the wind often picked up. The bay was “a 

rough place to be during a north wind,” Elizabeth remembered. They sometimes rowed 

across the bay two to three times per day to do errands. Because of the poor quality of 

roads to the Landing, especially during the winter, the site was difficult to access by 

automobile. Arnold tried to pave the road to their home with rocks, but they simply sank 

in the soft ground, leaving the road impassible during winter rains. Eventually the family 

acquired a boat with an outboard motor. 

The Campigli family sustained itself on both native and introduced species. They 

kept a cow and a pig as well as chickens, ducks, and rabbits. They made their own butter 

and grew their own produce. Arnold plowed their huge garden, which produced beans 

and vegetables, with horses borrowed from the McClure’s ranch. They also grew 

potatoes in a field on the hillside. The family collected and used local herbs and plants 

such as eucalyptus leaves to treat various ailments. They fished for salmon, smelt, and 

perch with lines in the bay. They collected clams and oysters, which they fried or 

incorporated into soup, from nearby beaches, while abalone was gathered from Pierce 

Point. Arnold hunted quail and deer. Although Elizabeth described the family as poor, 

the Campiglis and their relatives never went hungry. They had no electricity (light came 

from oil lamps) or phone, and their home was heated by a wood stove that burned wood 

 

282 Douglas Livingston, Elizabeth Harlan Oral Interview, September 30, 1996, Point Reyes 

National Seashore Archives, Point Reyes Station, CA. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

92 

cut from the hills surrounding the landing. Water came from a well, which was either 

built or improved by her father. There was no indoor plumbing, and the family utilized 

an outhouse. 

Many people of Coast Miwok ancestry made a nominal living on the bay, but the 

group had no reservation of their own. In 1920, the Lipps-Michaels Survey of Landless 

Indians, a congressional study, concluded that Indians in Marin and Sonoma Counties 

deserved their own reservation. John Terrell, a Bureau of Indian Affairs inspector, was 

dispatched to purchase land for the group. He discovered that the cost of coastal land 

was prohibitive, and he found that property owners were unwilling to sell land for an 

Indian reservation. He purchased a fifteen and a half acre parcel near Graton in Sonoma 

County, far from Tomales Bay and traditional Coast Miwok sites. A number of Coast 

Miwok Indians from Marshall, Bodega, Tomales, as well as Southern Pomo Indians from 

Sonoma County, moved to the site. The small size of the parcel, the steep terrain, the lack 

of water, and the lack of government funds for housing meant that few Indians were able 

to build homes on the reservation. Instead, they kept the land as a center of community 

while pursuing work elsewhere.283

Tomales Bay residents in the first few decades of the twentieth century inhabited 

a different landscape than had their nineteenth-century counterparts. What had once 

been an isolated region boasted new towns, settlements, and railroad stops. Redwood 

stakes delineated oyster beds, while commercial fishing vessels plied the bay’s waters. 

Trains rattled alongside the bay’s shores on man-made levees that reshaped the borders 

of the estuary. The golden brown fields provided evidence that exotic plant species 

dominated the landscape, while the increased amount of mudflats indicated the extent of 

erosion from the surrounding hills. 

Although the Tomales Bay area experienced social, economic, and ecological 

changes as the railroad tightened the connection between the city and the bay area, train 

service did not have the lasting impact that local boosters had hoped. Boosters had 

imagined that the railroad would expand their markets, but it also increased competition 

from other parts of the state, and the area lost its position as San Francisco’s hinterland. 

The railroad never saw the profits that investors wished it would earn. Its financial 

troubles began in 1880, only five years after its inauguration, and despite two changes in 

ownership, the railroad proved disappointing to investors. In the late nineteenth and 

early twentieth centuries, increased rail service across California put Tomales Bay 

 

283 “Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Online Resource,” http://www.coastmiwok.com/

(accessed July 2004).

 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

93 

farmers into competition with those in other parts of the state, and the small farms of the 

area (and even the larger, well-financed Shafter and Howard ranches) could not 

compete with the large corporate operations of the Central Valley and southern 

California. 

The popularity of the automobile also contributed to the demise of the railroad. 

By 1920, as roads improved, farmers found that they could ship their goods less 

expensively by truck. By the end of the decade, railroad lines across the country were 

failing due to a dramatic decrease in passenger travel—except on cross-country trips; 

Americans simply preferred to drive.284The commercial fishing industry on the bay 

prospered for a short time, but bay fishermen were helpless in the face of fluctuating 

demand worldwide. Though Tomales Bay oystermen claimed an increasingly large share 

of the San Francisco market, this alone could not sustain the area’s economy. The area 

remained rural and agricultural, but Tomales Bay products were no longer vital to the 

urban core. In the early twentieth century, many Californians had never even heard of 

Tomales Bay. 

 

 

284 Hal Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence: 

University of Kansas Press, 1998), 145. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

94 

Figure 7. A train makes its way north along Tomales Bay’s eastern shore ca. 1898. 

Human activities such as farming made water transportation increasingly difficult in 

the late nineteenth century as the bay filled with silt. After the inauguration of 

railroad service between San Francisco Bay and towns along Tomales Bay in 1874, 

however, area farmers were able to move their goods quickly and easily to market. 

Roy Graves Photo Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of 

California, Berkeley. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

95 

Figure 8. Logs (along the bay’s edge in the background) served to stabilize the 

shore and prevent erosion from damaging the railbed along Tomales Bay near 

Bivalve, ca. 1905. Roy Graves Photo Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, 

University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 9. Railroad tracks (in the foreground) along Tomales Bay, ca. 1898. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

96 

Figure 10. Goods were transported to and from San Francisco via the railroad, then 

ferried across Tomales Bay via schooner to Tomales Point ranches. Roy Graves Photo 

Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 11. Looking east from the Pierce Point Ranch pier at White Gulch on 

Tomales Point, ca. 1900. Schooners ferried goods to and from the pier to the 

railroad stop at Hamlet, across the bay. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

97 

Figure 12. The “Hunter’s Special” train shuttled hunters and their dogs from the 

San Francisco area to Tomales Bay via Point Reyes Station ca. 1900. Hunters, 

particularly wildfowl hunters, were some of the first tourists to visit the bay. Roy 

Graves Photo Collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, 

Berkeley. 

Figure 13. Fishermen at White House Pool, on Lagunitas Creek near the head of 

Tomales Bay, date unknown. Besides hunters, fishermen were the other large group 

of recreationists to journey to the bay from their San Francisco area homes. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

98 

Figure 14. The California Anglers’ Association’s Annual Outing at White House 

Pool in the early twentieth century. Trains were costly to run, and as freight travel 

decreased after 1900, railroad executives advertised West Marin County to hunters, 

fishermen and tourists in an attempt to earn a profit from rail trips to the area. 

Railroad employees (as well as the Anglers’ Association) even stocked Lagunitas 

Creek with trout and salmon in an attempt to lure San Francisco Bay area fishermen 

to Tomales Bay and its tributaries. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

99 

Figure 15. A Street in Point Reyes Station in 1907. The train also enabled tourist 

travel to the Tomales Bay area. Here, the Inverness Stage is waiting to take railroad 

passengers to the resort community of Inverness, on the bay’s western shore. 

Figure 16. Inverness around 1915. The town never developed into the large resort 

community envisioned by its founders due to its remote location, but it did attract a 

small number of San Francisco Bay area residents who sought relaxation and 

recreation. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

100 

Figure 17. Due to publicity campaigns by railroad executives and Inverness 

developer Julia Shafter, Tomales Bay began to garner a reputation as a relaxing 

vacation spot during the early twentieth century. 

Figure 18. A tourist excursion on Tomales Bay, ca. 1900. Inverness residents and 

vacationers hired boats to ferry them to scenic, secluded spots along the bay’s 

shore, such as Heart’s Desire and Shell Beaches. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

101 

Figure 19. Inverness suffered severe damage during the 1906 earthquake. 

Throughout the village, homes and businesses were shaken off their foundations, 

water mains broke, and a landslide covered the main road with debris. Baily’s Pier, 

which served Inverness residents, moved twenty-five feet north due to the quake. 

The seismic event dashed Julia Shafters’ dreams of growth and prosperity in the 

village. 

Figure 20. This home near Inverness slid into Tomales Bay during the 1906 

earthquake. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

102 

Figure 21. Wharves reached far out into shallow, silted Tomales Bay at Inverness in 

the early twentieth century. Farming activities and logging in the Tomales Bay 

watershed washed tons of silt into the bay, impeding navigation. As a result, 

business and home owners extended their piers far out into the bay, where the 

water was deep enough to allow boat access. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

103 

 

 

Figure 22. Pacific Coast Oyster Company in the early twentieth century. The first 

attempts at oystering on the bay began in the late nineteenth century, but the 

industry remained small until pollution in San Francisco Bay forced growers to find 

another estuary with clean water and good transportation connections to the 

metropolitan area. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

104 

Figure 23. The town of Marshall, a commercial and shipping center for the eastern 

side of the bay, in the early twentieth century. Area farmers brought their goods to 

Marshall, where they were transported on the railroad to the San Francisco area. 

Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

105 

Figure 24. Fishermen’s, a settlement of Coast Miwok descendents, in the late 

1910s. A number of Coast Miwok descendents lived at various other points along 

the bay as well. Most worked as fishermen or laborers for area farmers. The 

Marconi Wireless Company is in the background. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional 

History Center. 

Figure 25. Another view of Fishermen’s at Marconi Cove. Railroad passengers often 

purchased clams through train windows from village residents when the train 

stopped in Marconi. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

106 

Figure 26. Young residents of Fishermen’s play on the bay’s shore in the early 

twentieth century. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 

Figure 27. The herring fleet at Marshall in the early twentieth century. The herring 

fishery on the bay thrived during this time. Local fishermen supplied Tomales Bay 

herring not only to European immigrants in San Francisco, but to markets in Europe 

and Asia as well. Courtesy of the Tomales Regional History Center. 
The Railroad and the Reshaping of Tomales Bay, 1875-1930 

107 

Figure 28. The 1,150 foot pier at the Booth Canning Company, 1921. The long pier 

enabled fishermen to unload their catch—herring—even during low tide in the 

shallow, silted bay. The Booth Canning Company packed the Tomales Bay herring 

for shipment by rail to their cannery on the San Joaquin River Delta. 

Figure 29. Henry Jensen’s home, ca. 1921. Jensen operated Jensen’s Oyster Beds, an 

oyster growing operation with a restaurant, dairy and tourist cabins, at Hamlet. 
108

 
109

CHAPTER FIVE

THE REINVENTION OF TOMALES BAY, 1937-1972 

Until after World War II, the Tomales Bay area remained a relatively quiet, sparsely 

settled space, an agricultural landscape punctuated by summer homes. After the opening 

of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937, however, San Francisco residents could reach Marin 

County by car in a matter of minutes. With the metropolitan area’s tremendous growth 

during the post-war period, suburban sprawl spread toward agricultural West Marin 

County, and the future of the area became uncertain. No longer did newcomers imagine 

the profits to be made raising potatoes, grain, and livestock since the area had lost its 

place as a primary provider of agricultural products to San Francisco. Some ranchers 

continued to view the area as prime dairy ranching country, but other farmers were tired 

of falling dairy prices and planned to sell out to developers. While some Marin County 

inhabitants began to see the rural Tomales Bay landscape as a place for recreation and 

relaxation, developers viewed its shores as a lucrative location for homes, motels, and 

malls. County planners envisioned a large city on the bay’s east side, connected to 

southern Marin County by a busy freeway. The NPS believed that Tomales Point and 

Point Reyes were worthy of federal protection, but the agency and its supporters met 

with opposition from many local residents and business owners. Throughout the midtwentieth century, it was unclear if the Tomales Bay landscape would remain agricultural 

or if it would become a suburb, a resort community, or a national park. By the 1970s, a 

new, dominant vision of what the Tomales Bay landscape should look like—and how the 

land and water should be used—emerged. 

TOMALES BAY AS A STRATEGIC DEFENSE

During World War II, the San Francisco Bay area became a center of military 

activities for a nation concerned with a Japanese invasion of the West Coast. The military 

established coastal forts, radar centers, lookout stations, searchlights, and anti-aircraft 

guns around the San Francisco area in an attempt to protect the city from Japanese 

attack. Tomales Bay, too, became a center of military operations. The U.S. Army, Navy, 

and Coast Guard all stationed troops on Tomales Bay. The white house at White House 

Pool (the swimming hole on Lagunitas Creek near its mouth on Tomales Bay) became an 

army communications center. Thousands of men were stationed at Camp Hydle, a 

training station near Marshall. The Coast Guard posted troops at Cypress Grove and 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

110

Pierce Point Ranch.285

The Navy used the bay itself for target practice during and after the war, one of 

three areas north of San Francisco utilized for this purpose. In 1941, the Navy 

established a restricted area, near Hamlet, on which they constructed a circular target, 

750 yards in radius. They used two types of non-explosive practice bombs. The first was 

a miniature bomb with “a marker charge similar to a shotgun shell” and the other was a 

metal shell filled with water. The Navy believed that the soft mud on the bottom of the 

bay snared the bombs and prevented duds from exploding and posing a threat to 

boaters.286 They used the ocean west of Tomales Point for bombing exercises as well. 

Sometimes the bombers missed their targets and dropped the bombs on the 

eastern bay ranches. Margaret Matteri, who ran the dairy at Hamlet along with her 

husband, recalled being terrified by the exercises. “They used to go by and let bombs 

fall...I used to say I wish I never moved here.”287 After the early 1950s, the military 

abandoned these exercises on the bay, ending this short, unique chapter in Tomales Bay 

history.288

AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN AND AROUND THE 

BAY

During the first few decades of the century, the Tomales Bay area had lost its status 

as an important hinterland for San Francisco. Bay farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and 

oyster growers, however, worked throughout the mid-twentieth century to regain their 

positions as important suppliers of foods to the urban market. These groups occasionally 

found themselves at odds with one another. Environmental degradation and new ideas 

about the value of their environment also made cooperation more difficult, and 

agriculture, fishing, and oystering faced uncertain futures on the bay. 

Dairy farmers near Tomales Bay managed to survive the Great Depression, but 

farmers struggled against low milk prices and competition from large corporate 

 

285 Mason, Earthquake Bay, 124. The house later fell into disrepair and was demolished. 

286 P.E. Seufer, Deputy District Works Public Officer to the Chief, Bureau of Yards and Docks, 

January 28, 1955. Abbot’s Lagoon and Petaluma were the other two bombing areas. 

287 Douglas Livingston, Margaret Matteri Oral Interview, August 22, 1988, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives.

288 L.P. Springmeyer, District Public Works Officer to the District Engineer, San Francisco District 

Corps of Engineer, August 12, 1952; Madison Nichols, Public Works Officer, Memo to the 

Commandant, Twelfth Naval District, March 22, 1946. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

111

enterprises in other parts of the state. Olema Valley rancher Boyd Stewart remembers 

that it was “rough,” but that banks did not want ranch land and thus avoided foreclosing 

on dairy farms by extending credit.289The industry declined precipitously around the 

bay after World War II. Ranchers invested in refrigeration in an attempt to capitalize on 

the fresh milk market in San Francisco and thus regain their position as premier 

suppliers to the urban area. The bay’s proximity to the urban center, however, no longer 

gave it a distinct advantage, since large Central Valley operations— which used water 

from federally subsidized irrigation projects—could produce milk more cheaply than 

could small bay area family farmers. New environmental regulations, higher taxes, and 

declining milk prices also hurt small dairy ranches relative to their larger counterparts. In 

1950, there were 200 dairies in Marin County. Ten years later, there were 150, and by 

1972, there were less than 100. Most of these were located in western Marin County. 

Thirteen dairies and one sheep ranch surrounded the bay in 1951.290

Descendents of the Shafter and Howard families liquidated their increasingly 

unprofitable dairy assets in the 1920s and 1930s. The O.L. Shafter Estate Company sold 

off their Point Reyes and Tomales Point ranches in 1939. Some ranchers, such as the 

tenants on I and J ranches, eagerly snatched up the opportunity to escape tenant farming 

by purchasing the land. James Kehoe, tenant on J ranch, bought the farm’s property and 

livestock for $42,000. Most of Oscar Shafter’s land was sold to Leonard David, who sold 

parcels to various different buyers. He sold L Ranch, on Tomales Point, to Ernest 

Ghisletta, while Roberts Dairy, based in San Rafael, bought K ranch. 

All of these ranchers improved their facilities and became Grade A dairies in order 

to compete for a larger share of the San Francisco market. This designation meant that 

they operated with higher sanitary standards and produced milk and cream for table 

consumption, rather than for butter.291Kehoe, who owned about 350 cows, improved J 

Ranch by tearing down old buildings and constructing a modern, functional ranch 

complex in the 1950s.292L ranch was initially rented to dairy tenants by owner Ernie 

Ghisletta, but he sold the ranch in 1960 to nearby ranchers, who continued dairy 

 

289 Boyd Stewart, interview by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent, September 1974, California Room, 

Marin County Free Library. 

290 Bureau of Sanitary Engineering, “Tomales Bay Survey,” 1951, Water Resources Center 

Archives, University of California, Berkeley, CA. 

291 Livingston, Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula, 71-72. 

292 Ibid., 287. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

112

operations.293 A new road from Pierce Point to Inverness helped these dairies move their 

products to market. By 1960, milk made up eighty percent of the agricultural output of 

Marin County.

Milking machines were introduced in the 1930s, but the dairy business still 

demanded almost ceaseless work. At Hamlet, the Matteri family owned between forty 

and seventy cows on land leased from Henry Jensen. They raised hay in two fields, one 

near the bay and one along the ridge top. The family only hired outside help during the 

hay harvest. “It was a terrible lot of work,” Margaret Matteri recalled gravely. She arose 

at three a.m. to milk the cows before the milk truck from Tomales came at seven. After 

washing the equipment, she made breakfast and got the children ready for school. 

Besides tending the dairy cows, the family had to plant, tend, harvest, and store hay, oats, 

and potatoes. The Matteris moved to a ranch near Marshall in 1952 after dairy inspectors 

condemned the dairy at Hamlet.294 Despite the staggering amount of work and low 

profits, some dairy farms managed to remain viable throughout this time. The Marshall 

family continued to raise dairy cows on their east Tomales Bay ranch founded by the 

four Marshall Brothers in the early 1850s. By the 1970s, the fifth generation of the 

Marshall family ran the ranch. Bill Straus established his dairy, which is still operational 

as of 2005, along the bay’s northeastern shores in 1941.295

Despite ranchers’ modernization efforts, the dairy industry proved increasingly 

unprofitable, and ranchers turned to other means of support. A few area ranchers 

abandoned dairying altogether in favor of beef ranching, which required less labor. After 

World War II, the McClures, for example, who owned Pierce Point Ranch, began 

producing beef cattle and hay instead of dairy products. The Marshall family began to 

raise beef cattle and sheep in the 1970s.296

Other dairy owners began to see the value of subdividing their ranches for home 

sites. Proximity to San Francisco had once enabled the success of West Marin’s dairy 

farms, but now it meant encroaching urban landscapes and rising land values. 

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, according to rancher Ralph Grossi, “Everybody was 

talking about how many houses their ranch would accommodate and where in the state 

they were going to go buy their next dairy.” By the 1960s, many ranchers believed that 

 

293 Ibid., 308-309. 

294 Margaret Matteri, interview by Livingston. 

295 Marshall, Ehat, and Kent. 

296 Boyd Stewart, interview by Ehat and Kent, 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

113

agriculture in West Marin County was doomed, since urbanization would surely 

transform the Point Reyes and Tomales Bay area into another Malibu.297 The grasslands 

that sustained dairy cows for over one hundred years were now more valuable as home 

sites with jaw-dropping views. 

By mid-century, other local industries also struggled in the face of increased 

competition and declining environmental quality. Tomales Bay oyster production briefly 

increased to between ninety and ninety-eight percent of California’s crop after the last 

oyster farm abandoned San Francisco Bay in the late 1930s, but bay growers were not 

able to sustain such a large market share. The largest harvest was 240,150 pounds from 

1940 to 1941. During World War II, seed oysters from Japan became unavailable, and the 

California oyster industry suffered as a result. Only 19,300 pounds were harvested from 

Tomales Bay in 1945. Seeking to capitalize on the growing San Francisco area’s appetite 

for the bivalves, growers began planting large numbers of oysters in Morro Bay in the 

1940s and Humboldt Bay in the 1950s. These endeavors proved successful. Growers in 

Humboldt Bay, a large body of water ideal for oyster culture, produced the vast majority 

of California’s crop by the early 1950s, while Drake’s Estero and Morro Bay also had 

more oyster farms than Tomales Bay.298 Again, improved transportation routes expanded 

markets and increased competition for local growers. Since California was now laced 

with good highways, Tomales Bay oyster growers were no longer able to capitalize on 

their proximity to the urban center. In addition, predators remained a problem, and 

siltation rendered some of the bay unusable for oyster culture.299 One fisheries expert in 

the mid-1950s characterized Tomales Bay’s oyster industry as “declining,” yet with 

potential. In 1959, Tomales Bay produced only 0.6 percent of California’s oyster crop.300

Local growers did enjoy a degree of success. Henry Jensen first planted oysters at 

Hamlet sometime in the 1920s or 1930s, and the business grew in the following decades. 

Since most consumers preferred shucked oysters in jars, Jensen opened a small bar and 

built an oyster processing area,. His small staff planted Pacific seed oysters from 

Humboldt and Willipa Bays as well as Japan. The business closed during World War II, 

but their product became popular with tourists as well as restaurants after the war when 

the public gained a taste for the previously unpopular Pacific oyster. Albert Speigel 

 

297 John Hart, Farming on the Edge: Saving Family Farming in Marin County, California (Berkeley: 

University of California Press, 1991), 14. 

298 Barrett, 54-56. 

299 “Marin Oyster Farmer Battles, Nature, Man,” Marin Independent-Journal, August 25, 1956. 

300 Barrett, 56. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

114

recalled the experience of buying oysters at Hamlet. “You drove into a beautiful grove of 

cypress trees, it was a wind block and you could put almost fifty cars in there, and on a 

Sunday, why that parking lot would be loaded while the people came into buy 

oysters.”301

Jensen sold forty acres of land along the bay to his son Henry Jr. and his wife 

Virginia in 1955. The couple expanded the operation by opening a restaurant and bar 

and enlarging the parking area. They also staked off a growing area and simply spread 

Pacific oyster seed on the bay’s muddy bottom. The oysters were ready for harvest 

eighteen to thirty-six months later (depending on the desired size). Virginia worked long 

days tending the oyster beds as well as shucking oysters and running the restaurant while 

Henry worked as a commercial fisherman on the bay. Even though Henry Jensen Jr. 

drowned while fishing in the bay in 1971, Virginia and the couple’s children continued 

the operation.302

While Tomales Bay oyster farmers produced only a small percentage of the 

California crop, local oyster farms drew tourists from around the San Francisco area. 

The Jensens and The Tomales Bay Oyster Company both sold their oysters directly to 

customers, though they did also sell some oysters wholesale to local restaurants and 

merchants. One writer observed, “People from all parts of the San Francisco Bay area 

drive many miles over a narrow, winding road to buy oysters from the beds. Weekend 

tourists and sportsmen are also customers. The strong consumer desire for absolutely 

fresh shellfish is the principal explanation for the success of this marketing 

arrangement.” This stood in contrast to the oyster farms of Humboldt Bay, who sold 

mainly to wholesalers that distributed the product around the country.303The Spenger 

family also grew oysters on Tomales Bay, but their operation proved unique as it grew 

shellfish exclusively for the family’s restaurant. Frank “Buddy” Spenger Jr. grew oysters, 

mussels, and clams for his Berkeley seafood restaurant.304 Some local enterprises thrived, 

but Tomales Bay’s oyster farming remained a very small percentage of the California 

industry at this time. 

 

301 Douglas Livingston, Alfred Speigel Oral Interview, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives, 

Point Reyes Station, CA. 

302 Livingston, Hamlet, 36-38. 

303 Barrett, 92. 

304 Larken Bradley, “Weekender Spenger, 88, Ran Famous Fish Grotto,” Point Reyes Light, August 

28, 2003. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

115

Worldwide demand boosted the local fishing industry after World War II, but this 

proved a temporary phenomenon. Commercial fishermen caught large quantities of 

herring in the bay (and throughout California), which was canned for export to a warravaged Europe. Some herring was also processed into fish meal and oil for domestic use. 

By the early 1950s, commercial fishing vessels from as far away as Monterey traveled to 

the bay for herring. California lawmakers denied canners and commercial fishermen’s 

requests to allow greater numbers of herring to be reduced into meal and oil, so the 

fishery remained relatively small. In 1952, nine commercial vessels fished in the bay for 

herring. The market fell in the mid-1950s as the European fishing industry regained 

strength.305

Fishermen sought other species of fish as well as herring. Between 1934 and 1954, 

the average commercial catch in the bay was 550,000 pounds per year. Most fishermen 

used either beach seines or gill nets during this time, but after 1950, the increased use of 

lampara nets (which allowed for the catch of small bait fish) and purse seines allowed for 

bigger catches. Tomales Bay fishermen caught two million pounds of fish in 1951.306

Fishermen caught small fish such as anchovies and small herring by using beach seines 

on the bay’s western side and near Marshall, where beaches rapidly gave way to deeper 

water. Some commercial fishermen sought rockfish and lingcod near White Gulch, in the 

deepest part of the bay.307 In the 1950s, halibut, herring, shrimp, and rock crab were also 

commercially harvested in Tomales Bay. Most of the towns along the bay developed an 

infrastructure, such as wharves, hoists, and conveyors, to service the fishing industry.308

As the overall catch rose, environmental changes gradually undermined fish 

populations in Tomales Bay and its tributaries. Siltation caused by farming in the 

Tomales Bay watershed had long been a problem for residents who sought to use the bay 

for transportation and commerce. By the mid-twentieth century, however, dam, road, 

and home construction in the watershed were the biggest sources of water quality 

degradation. These construction activities, which greatly accelerated after World War II, 

had an enormous effect on the fish populations in the Tomales Bay watershed. 

Take, for example, the history of Lagunitas Creek. It rises on the northern slopes 

of Mt. Tamalpais and has long been a source of water for Marin residents. Since the late 

 

305 Hardwick, “Biomass Estimates of Spawning Herring,” 36-39.

306 Peter Worsley, “The Commercial and Sport Fishery of Tomales Bay,” California Room, Marin 

County Free Library, San Rafael, CA, 5. 

307 Worsley, 7. 

308 Scofield, “California Fishing Ports,” 50. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

116

nineteenth century, water companies and ranchers continuously manipulated the creek 

to serve an increasing population. Between 1873 and 1913, about two dozen water 

companies diverted water from the creek and from springs in the creek’s watershed to 

serve Marin citizens. Between 1912 and 1982, the Marin Municipal Water District built 

five dams along Lagunitas Creek. The North Marin Water District, established in 1970, 

also diverted water from Lagunitas Creek to serve residents of northwestern Marin 

County. In addition, some ranch owners built small diversion dams for their 

livestock.309Dam construction and operation proved particularly damaging to fish 

populations. Salmon lay their eggs in gravel in swift moving water, which carries away 

waste products and carbon dioxide while providing enough oxygen. Slow, shallow 

stream flows result in higher egg mortality.310 In the 1950s, the Marin Municipal Water 

District built Kent and Nicasio Dams to serve the growing population. During dam 

construction, tons of sediment washed down the creek into Tomales Bay. The dams 

themselves reduced water flow and prevented water from flushing sediments out of the 

creeks. Fishermen, along with Inverness residents, protested when huge amounts of mud 

and silt washed into the bay during dam construction. Boaters became stuck by the mud 

near the mouth of Lagunitas Creek, while swimming holes in Samuel Taylor State Park 

filled with silt. 311

When the two dams were completed, ninety percent of the creek’s salmon 

spawning habitat had been destroyed. Runs numbering five to ten thousand fish 

suddenly disappeared. The populations of introduced species such as striped bass and 

red tailed perch similarly declined due to the dams. Former Marin County game warden 

Al Giddings recalled, “Within a year or two after the dams went in, the fish runs literally 

stopped.” Fishermen complained that Lagunitas Creek was “ruined,” and they battled 

the Marin Municipal Water District in order to force the agency to release enough water 

from dams in the summer to sustain fish populations. Giddings lamented that the loss of 

fish habitat was “a tremendous loss to the people, especially the fishermen—an 

irreplaceable, beautiful fishery and it’s gone.”312

 

309 San Francisco Water Resources Control Board, “Lagunitas Creek Order WR 95-17,” 1996, 

Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA, 8. 

310 D.W. Kelley, The Possibility of Restoring Salmon and Steelhead in Walker Creek (Sacramento: 

D.W. Kelley, 1976), 1-2. 

311 “Stream Pollution from Dam Protested,” Baywood Press, May 7, 1953, Jack Mason Museum 

Archives, Inverness, CA. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

117

Although the damage caused by fish dams was obvious, fish populations plunged 

even on creeks without such large projects. In Walker Creek, which drains into the 

northeastern side of the bay, small diversion dams for livestock blocked fish passage and 

reduced stream flow. Cattle caused streambank erosion that washed away riparian 

vegetation, raised stream temperatures, and filled pools with sediment. Ranchers often 

washed manure from their barns into creeks, filling streams with waste. Silver salmon 

and steelhead populations had decreased by the 1950s, and since 1959, Walker Creek has 

had at least one month per year without surface flow.313 A dam was built upstream at 

Arroyo Sausal in 1968, reducing habitat for the few fish that still spawned in the creek. By 

the mid 1970s, few fish returned to Walker Creek.314

One rancher’s activities at the mouth of Lagunitas Creek proved particularly 

damaging to fish habitat. After Waldo Giacomini bought the ranch at the bay’s southern 

end in 1942, he began to build levees to reclaim the tidal marsh for pasture. While silt 

that washed down Lagunitas Creek had been distributed in the large marsh at the south 

end of the bay before the 1940s, these new levees forced the sediment through a single 

channel and into the bay’s already shallow end. Giacomini also built his first summer 

dam, a structure one hundred-feet long, ten-feet high, and sixty-feet wide, on Lagunitas 

Creek in 1947. Winter rains washed out the dam, and every subsequent summer 

Giacomini built another. Besides providing water for stock, the dam prevented saltwater 

from intruding on the wells that Point Reyes Station residents depended on. In 1964, the 

Army Corps of Engineers granted the rancher a permit to dredge and widen the creek’s 

mouth, and 18,000 cubic yards of soil were dumped on the nearby wetlands.315 Some 

believed that the seasonal dam harmed the bay’s fisheries. The dam interrupted the 

gradual transition from salt to fresh water that is normally present in estuaries, which 

affected the neomysid shrimp population, the primary food source for salmon. The dam 

also delayed the migration of salmon to the sea and created water quality conditions 

(such as extreme changes in water temperature above and below the dam) which are 

 

312 Douglas Livingston, Transcript of Interview with Al Giddings, Willis Even and Bob 

Chamberlain, Point Reyes National Seashore Coho Salmon Project, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives. 

313 Kelley, 1-2. Locals recalled that in the 1920s and 1930s, stream flow diminished but never 

stopped altogether during summer months. 

314 Ibid., 21. 

315 Sonoma State University Anthropological Study Center, “A Cultural Resources Study of 

Giacomini Wetlands Restoration Project,” Point Reyes National Seashore Archives, Point Reyes 

Station, CA, 14. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

118

harmful to young salmon.316 Others, such as game warden Al Giddings, believed that the 

pond created good fish habitat, since its deep water protected young salmon from 

predators like blue herons.317

During the postwar period, farmers and ranchers relied heavily on pesticides, and 

this affected fish populations as well. In 1951, at ranchers’ requests, the California 

Department of Agriculture sprayed Rotenone in west Marin County to eliminate the ox 

warble, an insect that stung cattle. It was also used along Olema, Nicasio, and Lagunitas 

Creeks, where it washed into watercourses and killed fish. Rotenone collected on the 

hooves of sprayed cattle, and the poison was tracked into streams near which pesticides 

had not been used, thus killing fish even in unsprayed areas. As part of a mosquito 

abatement program, Marin County also sprayed the insecticide Malathian near 

Lagunitas Creek, and this too destroyed fish populations. The county water district also 

used copper sulfate to control algae in reservoirs, but the agency sometimes used too 

much and as a result, killed fish.318

In the mid-twentieth century, other serious threats to the bay’s water quality 

emerged. There were seven mercury mines in the watershed at this time, and the mine on 

Gambonini Ranch, east of the bay, proved especially destructive. Between 1964 and 

1970, 300 tons of mercury was extracted from the open pit mine near the confluence of 

Walker and Salmon Creeks. Sewage outflow, too, began to attract the attention of state 

officials in the early 1950s. The first complaints about sewage in the bay began in 1917, 

when waste from a cheese factory flowed into San Geronimo Creek. In the early 1950s in 

the town of Tomales alone, seventeen different waste discharges emptied into Keys 

Creek. Raw sewage from area towns, homes, and businesses poured straight into the bay. 

In Inverness, five sewers emptied raw sewage near a popular swimming beach, while 

sewage from homes and businesses in Point Reyes Station flowed into a ditch which 

emptied into the bay. Most homes along the bay’s eastern side rested on pilings directly 

over the estuary, and some flushed sewage right into the bay. Some homes did have 

septic systems, but many of these were of questionable efficiency.319Though some 

 

316 Ibid., 99. 

317 Douglas Livingston, Point Reyes Coho Salmon Project, Al Giddings Oral Interview, Part II, 

1997, 57. 

318 Ibid. 

319 Bureau of Sanitary Engineering, Tomales Bay Survey. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

119

Inverness inhabitants and local fishermen protested the water quality degradation, many 

area residents expressed little concern. 

Human activities throughout the Tomales Bay watershed noticeably affected the 

bay’s geography. Besides dam building, logging along Olema and Lagunitas Creeks and 

home and road construction throughout the watershed carried significant amounts of 

silt into the streams.320By 1965, siltation from these creeks had caused the marsh at the 

head of the bay to migrate about 1000 feet north of its position one hundred years 

earlier. In 1861, at low tide, water reached across the bay from Inverness to the opposite 

shore. By 1931, only one-third of this width contained between one and two feet of 

water. In 1961, only one-half inch of water covered one-third of the area.321The Walker 

Creek delta, near the bay’s mouth, extended 500 feet farther than it did in the 1860s. 

While the waters off the delta were twenty-five feet deep in 1861, that depth had been 

reduced to merely five feet a century later.322

Fishing, oystering, and dairy ranching had sustained generations of Tomales Bay 

residents, but market forces, habitat degradation, and competition from larger 

operations in other parts of the state put these local industries at a disadvantage. 

Furthermore, new ideas about the value of the Tomales Bay landscape began to emerge, 

and it was unclear what, if any, place these industries had in that vision. By 1960, the 

future of the area’s agricultural and natural resource-based industries was in doubt. 

A NEW LAND ETHIC: CONSERVATION AND RECREATION ON TOMALES 

BAY

Since the late nineteenth century, Marin County had been a popular destination 

for residents of San Francisco Bay area cities. Travel to natural areas across the nation 

increased as the United States became more industrial and urban, and day trippers and 

vacationers sought relaxation and recreation among the undeveloped landscapes of the 

easily accessible southern part of the county in particular. The editor of the county’s 

newspaper depicted the area as “a sparsely settled playground, beloved of hikers, a 

godsend to city people anxious to escape quickly and completely into rural and 

 

320 George S. Nolte, Master Drainage and Sediment Control Plan, Lagunitas and Walker Creek 

Watersheds, (Palo Alto: Nolte and Associates, 1965), 5. 

321 R.C.Cooper, “Tomales Bay Environmental Health,” Tomales Bay Environmental Study: 

Compendium of Reports (Washington D.C: Conservation Foundation, 1972), 104. 

322 Nolte, 6. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

120

mountain loveliness.”323 As the county became increasingly accessible to automobiles, 

however, some worried that increasing numbers of visitors and new residents would 

destroy this idyllic scene. 

The first auto trip by ferry to Marin County had been in 1902, but cars were not 

initially viewed as a desirable addition to county roads. In 1903, some Marin residents 

campaigned to ban automobiles due to the “danger, annoyance and anxiety” that they 

caused. As a result, motorists were restricted from using many roads. Even as 

automobiles became more popular throughout the early twentieth century, most 

residents and visitors continued to rely on trains for transportation. Winter rains left 

roads impassable, and even when maintained, graveled highways remained problematic 

during the rainy season.324

As automobile ownership skyrocketed in the 1920s, vacationers began to use cars, 

not trains, to reach the Tomales Bay area. In 1922, the Golden Gate Ferry Company 

began shuttling cars across the bay to Marin County, and soon after, a ferry operated by 

the railroad also provided transportation for auto tourists.325By 1930, there were more 

cars—461,800—registered in the San Francisco Bay area than there were households.326

Autos gave tourists the freedom to explore at will, and improved roads allowed 

them to travel safely and quickly to new destinations. Throughout the country between 

the two world wars, more and more Americans spent their leisure time in nature, and 

they increasingly traveled there in their cars. A study on social trends commissioned by 

President Herbert Hoover concluded that “with the improvement of means of travel, 

people are finding it possible to go even further afield in their search for recreation and 

readily travel long distances during week-ends and vacations to places of scenic interest 

where their favorite forms of outdoor recreation may be enjoyed.”327Local travel, in 

particular, surged as automobile ownership rose, and these auto tourists sought 

recreational opportunities in greater numbers than had railroad tourists.328The 

 

323 Editor, Marin Independent Journal, January 4, 1934. 

324 Contract File, 1917-18, Highway Engineer’s Office, California State Archives, Sacramento, CA. 

325 Toogood, 2: 34. 

326 “Growth in Bay Area Vehicle Ownership, 1930-2010,” 

http://www.mtc.ca.gov/maps_and_data/datamart/forecast/ao/table10.htm (accessed Jan. 2005). 

327 Paul Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness 

Movement (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 19. 

328 Rothman, Devil’s Bargains, 147. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

121

completion of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in 1930 provided travelers with easier access 

to West Marin County. After the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, San Francisco 

residents could drive to Marin County quickly and easily. War industries and the 

postwar housing boom brought over a million new residents to the San Francisco Bay 

area. Between 1940 and 1950, the metropolitan area population rose 55 percent to about 

2.7 million.329Millions of people now lived within a two hours drive of West Marin 

County and Tomales Bay. 

As early as the 1930s, some Marin citizens, concerned about their future as a San 

Francisco suburb, worried that development threatened the county’s bucolic scenery. A 

newspaper editorial addressed the issue in 1934 when it opined, “Our picnic spots are 

nearly gone. ‘No trespassing’ signs are posted all over. We must act if we believe in 

building for the future. Papermill (Lagunitas) Creek, inviting bay beaches...must be 

saved. No community on earth is more favored than Marin with the wealth and beauty 

of potential playgrounds.” 330

Between 1900 and 1930, there had been efforts to preserve the county’s grand 

natural features such as Muir Woods and Mt. Tamalpais. However, there were no 

established preservation groups based in the county, nor any widespread efforts to 

protect the county’s natural resources. Caroline Livermore, a wealthy and influential 

Marin citizen who would devote much of her adult life to preserving land in Marin 

County, first became involved in environmental issues as she watched billboards rise 

along Marin’s roads. Livermore’s campaign to prohibit billboards, part of a long trend of 

roadside improvement campaigns across the nation, led to the creation county’s most 

powerful environmental group, one that would play a large role in Tomales Bay’s future. 

Livermore, along with fellow members of the Marin Art and Garden Club, namely 

Sepha Evers, Helen van Pelt (one of the first female landscape architects in the U.S.) and 

Portia Forbes, saw zoning changes as their best chance to preserve Marin County’s 

scenic landscapes. The group worried about potential overdevelopment in the area once 

the Golden Gate Bridge was completed, since development that was intended to serve 

new residents, vacationers and day trippers might mar the rural county’s pastoral 

landscape. In 1935, the women organized the Marin Planning Survey Committee to 

gather data for the county’s first zoning ordinances. Working independently of the 

county, the women raised $2,500 from wealthy Marinites to fund a planning study that 

would mesh with their environmental objectives of preserving aesthetically pleasing 

 

329 Toogood, 2:34-38. 

330 Editor, Marin Independent Journal, January 4, 1934. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

122

landscapes and preventing overdevelopment. Additionally funded in part by the State 

Emergency Relief Administration, a New Deal program begun the year before, the study 

produced the county’s first planning documents and maps to guide future growth and 

development.331

The planners worried that auto tourism would degrade the beauty of West Marin 

County and Tomales Bay. They warned that while Marin County had long been a 

playground for San Francisco area residents, “the Golden Gate Bridge will greatly 

accentuate this use, adding to it in volume and somewhat changing its character as it 

becomes easier for large masses of people to reach the areas of recreation potentiality in 

Marin County.” The study emphasized the preservation of open space and designated 

recreation areas, though the authors valued some landscapes more than others. The 

report called the entire west shore of Tomales Bay a “public reserve eminently worthy of 

park status. The intimate beauty of the series of small beaches along this section is one of 

the most interesting recreation potentialities in California.” In contrast, the study called 

Point Reyes beaches “bleak.”332

The investigators felt that planning for auto tourism and channeling its growth 

provided the best protection against the rampant tourist and vacation development. 

They did not want to discourage urban visitors, but they also did not want these visitors 

to camp on private property, start illegal fires, and leave mounds of litter, as auto tourists 

across the West were doing.333The planners recommended that the county build a scenic 

parkway along Lagunitas Creek in order to guide visitors to western Marin County, and 

they encouraged the county to establish carefully planned sites, specifically along 

Tomales, San Francisco, and San Pedro Bays, with “ample access for auto parking and 

incidental recreation such as picnicking and athletics.” Few area citizens imagined that 

growth could threaten Tomales Bay at this time, but the study predicted that highways 

and parking lots might one day ruin the bay’s “peculiar charm and intimacy.”334

Livermore, Evers, van Pelt, and Forbes organized as the Marin Conservation 

League, and they took up the task of furthering the goals that the study outlined for the 

next thirty years. They presented the finished study to the county board of supervisors, 

 

331 Marin Planning Survey Committee, “A County Planning Program for Marin County, 

California, 1935,” California Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA; Mary Summers, 

“Marin Conservation League: A Brief History,” Marin Conservation League Clipping File, 

California Room. 

332 Marin Planning Survey Committee. 

333 Sutter, 43. 

334 Marin Planning Survey Committee, 1935. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

123

who approved the plans and thus enacted Marin’s first zoning ordinances. This initial 

success encouraged the women to plan larger goals.335The League’s mission became “to 

preserve and protect the natural assets of Marin County for all people,” and as suburban 

development increased, so did their preservation efforts.336The League saw the county’s 

rural landscapes as "irreplaceable lands whose natural features are the very essence of 

Marin County’s character.” Rancher Boyd Stewart remembers that though Livermore 

and Evers lived in southern Marin towns, they “liked the kind of county (West Marin) 

was--a rural country, with dairy and beef ranches...there were no large towns.”337Most 

land conservationists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had focused on 

protecting grand natural features, but the League saw rural landscapes, free from 

suburban sprawl, as equally valuable. 

In 1940, the league began a five year effort to create a public park from land once 

owned by Samuel Taylor along Lagunitas Creek. State as well as county politicians at first 

rejected the property as undesirable for a park, since they believed it was too often 

cloaked in coastal fogs. Nonetheless, the league convinced legislators of the site’s value 

through persistent campaigning and meticulous record-keeping. Evers began making 

weekly trips to Sacramento to lobby for the purchase of the land, and she began a 

children’s day camp on the property to demonstrate the educational and recreational 

value of the parcel. Evers also kept a detailed weather log that proved to dubious 

politicians the fairness of the park’s climate. The League convinced the county to forgive 

the back taxes on the property, and they negotiated the purchase between the state and 

Taylor’s widow.338Emboldened by this success, the League next turned to beachfront 

property on Tomales Bay. 

The Marin Conservation League was the first group to work toward land 

preservation on Tomales Bay. Though a few tourists, as well as hunters and fishermen, 

visited Tomales Bay before World War II, there were no efforts to establish parks along 

the bay until this time. Most San Francisco area residents knew little about the estuary. 

Between 1941 and 1943, the League worked to convince the county government and its 

residents that a 190 acre parcel on Tomales Bay that included Shell Beach should be 

 

335 Mary Summers, “Marin Conservation League: A Brief History.” 

336 Nancy Wise, Marin’s Natural Assets (San Rafael, CA: Marin Conservation League, 1985), 7. 

337 “Boyd Stewart Oral Interview,” in Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 1969-1970: An Oral 

History of Citizen Action in Conservation, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 

231-2. 

338 Summers, 2. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

124

purchased for a public park. Livermore privately negotiated a deal with the beach’s 

owner before she received a commitment from the county. She wrote letters, illustrated 

with pictures of the natural beauty and recreational opportunities of the area, on behalf 

of the Tomales Bay Beaches Committee, in order to raise $15,000 of the $30,000 asking 

price. She described Shell Beach’s “quiet, warm waters” as perfect for swimming, 

boating, and fishing, and she promoted the hiking and picnicking opportunities in the 

bishop pine forests above the beach. “This heritage must be protected,” she pleaded with 

potential donors.339The county agreed to contribute matching funds, and in 1943, Shell 

Beach became a county park. 

San Francisco area residents had virtually ignored the bay in favor of destinations 

in southern Marin County, but the League, hoping that more visitors would increase 

support for their effort to establish a state park, now promoted the bay in order to attract 

local tourists and day trippers to its shores. Tomales Bay was prominently featured in a 

booklet the group published in 1941 detailing the recreation opportunities of Marin 

County. They described the bay as a wonderful vacation spot only known by local 

residents. They emphasized the fishing, swimming, clamming, and beachcombing along 

the “secret” beaches. The group depicted the bishop pine forests, wildflowers, and 

“primitive” nature as an ideal spot for relaxation.340

Club member and Inverness resident Bruce Johnstone asked state park 

commissioners to consider buying and expanding Shell Beach for a state park in the mid1940s. California law at the time allowed the state to purchase park lands if they received 

half the money in cash or in property worthy of state park quality. He invited the 

commissioners to visit the site and arranged for a Coast Guard vessel to ferry them 

around Tomales Bay. There was a sense of urgency about the endeavor, since a 

developer had announced plans to build a hotel and golf course on 1,000 acres of land 

north of Inverness, part of which included land the League hoped would become a state 

park.341The tactic proved successful and the commissioners agreed that Indian and Shell 

Beaches should become part of the state park system.

342The League convinced the 

county to turn over Stinson and Shell Beaches as well as $16,000 to the state, and the 

 

339 Caroline Livermore Letter, Tomales Bay Clipping File, California Room, Marin County Free 

Library, San Rafael, CA. 

340 Marin Conservation League, Exploring Marin, Vol. I: Sir Francis Drake Highway (San Anselmo, 

Ca: Marin Conservation League, 1941). 

341 “Lavish Million Dollar Private Resort on Tomales Bay Plans Disclosed,” Inverness Clipping 

File, California Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. 

342 Wise, 15. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

125

League donated an additional $10,000. The state was then able to legally purchase 840 

acres of beachfront and forest just north of Shell Beach for $150,000. In 1951, Tomales 

Bay State Park, with two miles of waterfront, five sandy beaches, and hundreds of acres 

of native bishop pine forest, was formed.343

The county paper lauded the group’s accomplishment. While previous mentions of 

the bay might have only noted its hunting or fishing opportunities, now the bay was 

depicted as a pristine paradise. The writer described Indian Beach as “unspoiled stretch 

of sand and woodlands,” while Shell Beach had “charm and seclusion.” The forests were 

“a botanical paradise.” Tomales Bay “has everything we could want for recreation,” 

boasted the writer.344Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, local newspapers continued to 

promote the scenic beauty and natural features of Tomales Bay. One reporter called the 

state park “a wilderness which is most accessible and unspoiled.”345The new state park 

became a resource for Californians even beyond the San Francisco Bay area. While 

people from the nearby metropolis could easily drive to the park for picnicking, hiking, 

and swimming, the park also provided a place for residents of Sacramento and other 

inland cities to escape the summer heat. 

This idea of the bay sometimes clashed with the views of local residents, since not 

everyone saw the bay as a calm, beneficent place for recreation. Rancher Kenneth Kehoe 

recalled that few ranching families used the bay for recreation. “Everybody was brought 

up when they were smaller to be afraid of the water and there isn’t a person I know of on 

this point...that knows how to swim,” Kehoe recalled. “There’s been an awful lot of 

families and a lot of people drowned at the mouth of the bay.”346

Many credit the League’s early success to the prominence and persuasiveness of its 

founding members. Livermore, for example, had long been active in fundraising for 

charitable causes. Others believed that male politicians were unable to say no to these 

female lobbyists. As Livermore’s son George recalled, “They were not used to having 

housewives argue with them...she was always a lady. And, of course, that’s pretty 

disarming...you don't usually have ladies in supervisors’ meetings and I think that 

helped an awful lot.” Their actions, however, were not entirely unprecedented. Though 

 

343 Summers, 3. 

344 Charles Eischen, “Saved for Posterity: New State Park on Tomales Bay Shore will preserve 

area’s Native Wilderness,” Marin Independent Journal, Tomales Bay State Park Clipping File, 

California Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. 

345 “Way Out West,” Marin Independent Journal Magazine, July 5, 1958, 3. 

346 Kehoe, Ehat, and Kent,. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

126

the American conservation movement of the early twentieth century had been 

dominated by men, California women had been active in conservation groups since the 

early twentieth century. Women had formed the Save the Redwoods League to preserve 

Humboldt County’s redwoods, and women were involved in campaigns to protect 

Marin County redwoods as well.347

Livermore and her colleagues used “persistence and persuasion, not 

confrontation,” to overcome the apathy and passivity they faced from government 

agencies and the League’s board of directors. Interesting a reluctant county board of 

supervisors in land preservation proved frustrating. “They were afraid to get involved,” 

she recalled. Livermore, in particular, also believed that polarizing groups such as 

developers versus conservationists would be an unsuccessful strategy.348Livermore often 

put up her own money until the League could raise enough to buy rights to a property. 

Their methods proved successful. Besides Samuel Taylor and Tomales Bay State Parks, 

the League was also responsible for the expansion of Muir Woods and the preservation 

of Bolinas Lagoon. The League also helped enforce Marin’s zoning ordinances by 

patrolling and reporting violators.349

Not everyone saw the League as working for the public good. Evers remembers 

that “conservationists, in our day, were labeled as do-gooders, idle rich taking jobs away 

from the poor.” League officials were not able to preserve as much land along the bay as 

they had hoped, since their goals sometimes conflicted with the area’s dairy ranchers. A 

county recreation plan adopted in 1943 recommended that the county purchase and 

preserve the western shoreline of the bay north of Inverness to Tomales Point. Though 

the League continued to promote this plan, dairy ranchers and developers convinced 

county officials to reject the idea.350

Few outside the Marin Conservation League considered the bay threatened by 

development in the 1950s. One state agency believed that the area was immune from 

suburban sprawl and growth due to the “natural mountain barrier” of Bolinas Ridge. 

Little population growth occurred in western Marin County during this time, and to 

 

347 Cameron Binkley, “No Better Heritage than Living Trees; Women’s Clubs and Early 

Conservation in Humboldt County,” Western Historical Quarterly 33, no. 2, 181. 

348 George Livermore, interview by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent, October 21, 1980, California 

Room, Marin County Free Library.

349 Wise, 37-38. 

350 Ibid., 38-39. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

127

many, it was inconceivable that population pressures would reach Tomales Bay—the 

rural area was simply too far from San Francisco to be desirable.351

There were signs, however, that development threats could spread even as far as 

the estuary. Inverness had remained quiet throughout the Depression. In 1939, after the 

bank foreclosed on Bertha Shafter’s Inverness properties (those that remained from her 

mother Julia’s estate), a number of buyers were able to purchase lots for relatively little 

money. During World War II, a San Francisco Bay area housing shortage brought a 

number of Marinship (a wartime shipyard located in Sausalito, in southern Marin 

County) workers to Inverness, where they occupied summer homes. A makeshift school 

was set up in the yacht club to accommodate all of the newcomers. A Greyhound bus 

provided service to San Francisco beginning in 1942 for workers who were employed in 

other defense industries.352 After the war, Inverness real estate sales began to climb. 

Developers built the Seahaven subdivision in 1950, Paradise Estates two years later, and 

Silver Hills, south of White House Pool, in 1966.353

While the League sought to encourage day trippers and vacationers to visit West 

Marin in order to draw attention to their conservation programs, other institutions 

wanted to attract tourists for economic reasons. Some saw the development of highways 

as crucial to this endeavor. The county paper and local politicians lobbied for a four to 

six lane highway in West Marin. U.S. Highway 1, which ran along Tomales Bay, was 

prone to washouts and rockslides. Large stretches passed through unfenced ranchland, 

and cattle ranged freely across the road. Furthermore, loose gravel, few guardrails and 

steep drop-offs meant that the road could be dangerous to drive at night or in poor 

weather. In slide prone areas, signs warned drivers to use the highway at their own risk. 

In some places, farmers were forced to spread hay across the road to avoid becoming 

stuck in potholes. According to the county paper, the “veritable paradise” that was West 

Marin County suffered from one of the worst roads in the state. Assemblyman A.W. Way 

lobbied for a new road, but projects in more populated parts of the county took 

precedence. Though the state transportation department eventually improved the 

highway, it remained two lanes wide, narrower than tourism boosters had wanted.354

 

351 Bureau of Sanitary Engineering, Tomales Bay Survey. 

352 Mason, Summer Town,47. 

353 Mason, Earthquake Bay,131. 

354 “Hazard with a Heavenly View,” Marin Independent-Journal, March 5, 1949. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

128

Increasing numbers of hikers and picnickers journeyed to the bay, but most 

visitors still came to fish. Sport fishing was so popular in California that by 1954, the 

sport fishing catch exceeded that of commercial fishermen. Tomales Bay fishermen 

caught silver salmon and steelhead in the fall, jacksmelt and surfperch in the winter, 

halibut in the summer, and flounder and the occasional striped bass all year long. Small 

boats were available for rent at several places, such as at Hamlet, where the Jensens also 

rented cabins. The county operated a public boat launch at Millerton, and others fished 

from piers. By the late 1960s, the bay was the third most popular place to fish in the San 

Francisco Bay Area, after San Francisco and San Pablo Bays. Many sport fishermen 

fished just inside the treacherous mouth of the bay, despite the fog, tidal currents, 

sandbar, winds, and breaking waves. They fished from powerboats for the flatfish (such 

as sole, starry flounder, and halibut), lingcod, perch, and salmon that came to feed on 

smaller fish in the shallow, turbulent waters of this part of the bay. Just outside the bay’s 

mouth, fishermen were drawn to the silver and king salmon, most of which were 

hatchery raised.355

Sport fishing was extremely popular on Tomales Bay tributaries, such as Olema, 

Walker, and Lagunitas Creeks, as it had been earlier in the century. Since the area was 

more easily accessed by car than it had been by train, greater numbers of fishermen 

flocked to the area. Fish and Game officer Al Giddings counted as many as 500 

fishermen on Lagunitas Creek during a single Saturday in the 1950s before the Kent and 

Nicasio Dams were built.356

Many fishermen and hunters were more interested in “improving” the bay than 

preserving its current state. Waterfowl hunters constructed permanent blinds on the bay 

in order to better surprise their prey.357Fishermen sought to reduce competition for 

valuable fish species by eliminating predators. Commercial fishermen shot seals that 

interfered with their nets. In an attempt to rid the bay of “undesirable” species that took 

bait from fishermen’s hooks, several rod and gun clubs hosted an annual shark and 

stingray derby. The two day event, based at Marconi Cove, drew crowds of fishermen to 

the bay. Prizes were awarded for the biggest specimens. In 1970, 30,000 pounds of shark 

and stingray (twice the sport catch of all other species in the bay combined) were caught 

and turned to fertilizer.358 Other events targeted particular species for no logical reason. 

 

355 Worsley, 3. 

356 Al Giddings Oral Interview. 

357 Bureau of Sanitary Engineering, Tomales Bay Survey, 11. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

129

The annual “coot shoot” drew hunters who killed and abandoned the small, harmless 

waterbirds.359

One sportsman quite literally sought to reshape Tomales Bay into a hunting and 

fishing paradise. In 1948, Robert Roy, a businessman and a member of the Marin Rod 

and Gun Club, proposed a development on the south end of the bay to create new 

hunting and fishing opportunities. Well-placed dams and levees would create specific 

areas for fly fishing and duck hunting. Four small ponds, including a children’s fishing 

pool, would be built along the bay’s edges for trout fishing. Roy envisioned a dam 

between Inverness and the east side of the bay in order to create deeper waters “safe for 

swimming and boating” in the marshy end of the bay. Fish ladders would have allowed 

for fish passage, and a road would allow automobile travel across the dam. He designated 

sections of the bay for speed boats and for fishermen. His plans also included a landing 

field on the freshwater marsh as well as bridle trails on the bay’s levees. Roy even 

imagined a golf course west of the mouth of Lagunitas Creek, while fairgrounds and 

stables would be built south of the bay. The ambitious plan was discussed by the county 

board of supervisors, but ultimately no action was taken.360

Federal Protection of Point Reyes and Tomales Point

The Marin Conservation League had succeeded in preserving part of the Tomales 

Bay shore, but most of the bay remained unprotected and open to development. In the 

1930s, N PS investigators examined the feasibility of a national seashore at Point Reyes as 

part of a national study of potential coastal recreation sites. The surveyors recommended 

that land along western Tomales Bay be preserved by the federal government. Unlike the 

county planners, however, federal investigators treated the bay as an afterthought, less 

important than preserving the scenic qualities and recreational possibilities of the Point 

Reyes peninsula. In a NPS survey of potential new recreation areas during the 1930s, 

Emerson Knight urged the creation of Point Reyes National Seashore. He recommended 

that the federal government include Tomales Point in the seashore, thus protecting the 

west shore of Tomales Bay. His report, however, practically ignored the estuary, which 

he viewed primarily as the domain of fishermen and hunters.361 In 1935, Conrad Wirth, 

 

358 Worsley, 7. 

359 Martin Griffin, Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast: The Battles for Audubon Canyon Ranch, Point 

Reyes, and California’s Russian River (Sweetwater Springs Press, 1998) 10. 

360 Marin Independent Journal, January 12, 1948, 3. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

130

NPS Assistant Director of Planning, submitted his report on the feasibility of a national 

seashore recreation area at Point Reyes. Wirth had little to say about the estuary except 

that it would provide “splendid” boating and was well known for its fish and 

waterfowl.362Wirth recommended that 53,000 acres be set aside, and like Knight, he 

included Tomales Point. The federal government, occupied with the economic crisis of 

the Great Depression and then World War II, took no action on either of these 

proposals. 

By the mid-1950s, popular support for new national parks and recreation areas had 

grown significantly. Across the nation during the postwar period, a rising awareness of 

environmental issues, as well as the “affluence and idealism” in American society, 

spurred citizens to join environmental groups and lobby for land preservation. 

Environmental groups were particularly concerned with preserving grand natural 

features, protecting scenic and ecologically rich areas from man-made disaster, and with 

establishing spaces for outdoor recreation. The Sierra Club campaign to keep dams out 

of the Grand Canyon and Dinosaur National Monument made wilderness preservation a 

national issue. An oil well disaster off the Santa Barbara coast alerted Californians, in 

particular, to the fragility of their coastline. Membership of organizations such as the San 

Francisco-based Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society grew tremendously during this 

time.363

The growing population demanded not only preservation of scenic lands, but 

spaces that could be used for recreation as well. In the 1950s, advocates linked a number 

of social issues, such as juvenile delinquency, to the lack of recreational opportunities. 

The Sierra Club identified “an overwhelming, unmet existing need” for recreational 

resources due to a rapidly expanding population, an increase in leisure time and a rise in 

disposable income.364Laurence Rockefeller’s “Outdoor Recreation for America,” a 

report to the president and Congress, emphasized the urgent need for outdoor 

recreation resources such as “shoreline, green acres, open space and unpolluted waters” 

 

361 Emerson Knight, “Study of a National Recreation Area-Point Reyes Peninsula, California,” 

Studies for a National Seashore Recreation Area, Bancroft Library. 

362 Conrad Wirth, “Study of a National Seashore Recreation Area, Point Reyes Peninsula, 

California,” 1935, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives , Point Reyes Station, CA. 

363 Samuel Hays, Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States 1955-

1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 18. 

364 Sierra Club, “The Recreation Gap,” Sierra Club Records, Bancroft Library. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

131

especially near urban and shoreline areas.365 Americans in urban areas were the strongest 

supporters of the new environmentalism.366

This new environmental movement was also a response to the rapidly developing 

countryside on the fringes of urban areas across the nation. Suburban development 

characterized postwar America, and new housing tracts sprawled into the countryside. 

Each year, developers transformed almost a million acres of farmland, forest and 

wetlands into housing developments.367The percentage of land classified by the Census 

Bureau as urban or suburban increased from 5.9 percent in 1950 to 10.9 percent in 1970. 

Furthermore, developers were now able to develop previously unbuildable land, such as 

steep slopes and wetlands, due to new building equipment, and this left few green or 

open spaces in the metropolis. Critics of this growth that included not only 

environmental groups but urban planners, magazine writers, and the nation’s president, 

grew increasingly vocal. “Cities themselves reach out into the countryside,” Lyndon 

Johnson noted in 1965, “destroying streams and trees and meadows as they go.”368

Californians, in particular, championed environmental causes during the postwar 

period, and state and local government agencies enacted a number of groundbreaking 

environmental policies—such as pollution controls and land management practices—

during this time. Between 1950 and 1960, the San Francisco metropolitan area grew by 

about one million people. There was an abundance of literature written during the 

postwar period dedicated to the impending environmental destruction of California.369

Suburban sprawl destroyed thousands of acres of productive farmland each year in the 

state. Rapidly developing coastal beaches had become a special area of concern among 

state residents. The demand for coastal vacation homes and the increase in proposed 

ocean-side power plants and blight along scenic beaches led many Californians to lobby 

for increased coastal protection.370

 

365 Larry M. Dilsaver, America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents (Lanham, MD: 

Rowland and Littlefield, 1994), 224. 

366 Hays, 3. 

367 Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American 

Environmentalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 6. 

368 Ibid.,120-140. 

369 Gerhart, 47. 

370 Rome, 123 and 227-229. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

132

The Marin Conservation League, worried about the effects of suburbanization 

after the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, had sought to preserve scenic and 

recreational landscapes in West Marin County, and after World War II these sentiments 

enjoyed a broad base of support. Marin County alone expanded from 50,000 residents in 

1940 to 150,000 in 1960, and it became the second most rapidly growing county in 

California during the 1960s. Most of these residents were white, middle and upper class 

residents, a group that provided a broad base of support for environmental concerns, 

and they worried about the rapidly disappearing open space in their county.371

The combined threats of coastal development, suburban sprawl, and natural 

resource extraction galvanized public support for land preservation on the Point Reyes 

peninsula. The Marin Conservation League attracted public backing for their Point 

Reyes preservation efforts after they publicized logging on Inverness Ridge by the Sweet 

Timber Company. Similarly, many Marin County residents were alarmed at developers’ 

plans to build a massive golf, commercial, and home development on Drake’s Bay. 

Conservation groups such as the Isaak Walton League and the Audubon Society 

supported studies that assessed the Point Reyes coastline for preservation.372 In 1957, the 

National Park Service again studied a number of potential recreation areas on the Pacific 

Coast, and the agency named Point Reyes as a place of particular interest. The National 

Parks Advisory Board—along with the California State Parks Commission, the Marin 

County Planning Commission, and the Marin Conservation League— urged the federal 

government to continue to consider the area for a national park or recreation area.373

In 1959, a number of Bay Area citizens, supported by diverse groups such as the 

Marin Labor Council, the American Forestry Association, and the Wilderness Society, 

formed the Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation to push for federal protection of 

the Point Reyes area. Other urban interests, such as the San Francisco Board of 

Supervisors, expressed support for the seashore. To these groups, the Point Reyes area 

could serve as a type of recreational hinterland for the urban core. That same year, two 

congressional bills proposed that 35,000 acres in the area be set aside. Later that year, 

park supporters expanded their proposal to 55,000 acres in order to prevent 

development on the fringes of the seashore. A number of state and county officials and 

 

371 Gerhart, 47. 

372 George Collins, “The Art of Park Planning and Preservation, 1920-1979,” 236, George L. 

Collins Collection, Bancroft Library. 

373 Toogood, 2:194-195. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

133

politicians also began to lobby for the seashore. These groups valued the land for its 

scenic landscapes and its recreational possibilities. 

Many local residents, who believed that land’s highest value remained in natural 

resource uses such as ranching, opposed the park. Others fought federal protection of 

the area since it would hinder development and remove land from tax rolls. These 

opponents formed the West Marin Property Owners Association in the hopes that the 

land would remain open to resource use and development.374The Marin Chamber of 

Commerce, Marin County Soil Conservation District, and the Marin County Board of 

Supervisors also formally opposed the seashore. The supervisors later declared 

themselves neutral, though they did ask Congress to limit the proposal to 20,000 acres.375

Many park proponents emphasized only the scenery and recreational 

opportunities of the seashore, but others, such as the Marin Conservation League, 

believed that the area’s dairy ranches also constituted an important part of the area’s 

history and landscape. While dairy ranchers feared that land preservation spelled the 

demise of the dairy industry in Marin County, an agreement between the NPS and the 

ranch owners allowed many to continue dairy operations. The proposed seashore 

included a “pastoral zone” that encompassed about one-third of the park. While the NPS 

would act as landlord, ranching families would be given the option of signing long term 

leases in order to continue their operations. Some ranchers saw this as the only way to 

keep their businesses alive, and this compromise inspired some ranchers to support the 

proposed park. Other ranchers vehemently opposed the plan that would leave them 

tenants on ranches they had owned.376

Park proponents treated Tomales Bay as an afterthought in their campaign to 

establish a national seashore. While they extolled the scenic, historic, and recreational 

value of Point Reyes, they rarely mentioned the estuary. Most park proposals included 

land on the western side of Tomales Bay, and a few park supporters did point out the 

recreational potential of the bay’s swimming beaches. Descriptions of the ecological or 

cultural significance of the estuary, however, are nearly absent from supporters’ 

arguments. Park proponents may have believed the bay was less scenic and less 

threatened by development than the Point Reyes coast. 

 

374 Ibid., 194-196. 

375 Barbara Eastman, History of the Proposal to Establish a Point Reyes National Seashore (Berkeley: 

Bureau of Public Administration, 1961), 2-3. 

376 John Hart, San Francisco’s Wilderness Next Door (San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1979), 44-48. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

134

In 1960, Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton recommended that Congress 

approve legislation establishing a national seashore that included areas for both 

recreation and ranching.377The next year, bills were introduced into Congress that 

reflected the expanded size, and in 1962, despite continued opposition by many locals, 

President John F. Kennedy established the seashore. The Marin Conservation League’s 

Caroline Livermore played a part in the seashore’s land acquisition as she convinced 

some of the reticent landowners to sell land to the NPS at a fair price.378

Adequate money had not been appropriated to purchase all of the land that would 

make up the park, and about 29,000 acres remained privately owned. Logging continued 

on Inverness Ridge, developers bought lots for subdivisions, and land prices in the area 

soared. Land along Tomales Bay shore remained vulnerable to development, since little 

Tomales Bay shoreline was acquired in the 1960s. The coves of western Tomales Bay that 

had once been so attractive to the Coast Miwok were now lucrative sites for vacation 

home developments. Duck Cove, Inc., a subdivision on about eighteen acres of land 

south of Sacramento Landing, was incorporated in 1958, before the seashore was 

established. Duck Cove built a few homes before Congress established the seashore, and 

after 1965, when the seashore’s land acquisition funds ran out, other landowners who 

owned parcels within the seashore boundaries elected to build homes on their lots.379

In 1967, Las Vegas contractor Richard Chase received county approval to 

subdivide twelve acres of land at Sacramento Landing, four and a half miles north of 

Inverness, into four parcels. Chase purchased the land in 1953 with plans to build a 

retreat from the Las Vegas heat for himself, and then sell the remaining land. In 1965, the 

NPS, which could not afford to purchase Chase’s parcel, offered the landowner a chance 

to trade his Tomales Bay property for other federal land in California, but Chase did not 

take advantage of the offer. He subdivided the parcel into lots ranging in size from 1.8 

acres to 9.3 acres. Alarmed county supervisors imposed a ninety day emergency ban on 

Tomales Bay development, but Chase’s permits had already been granted.380The NPS 

believed that Laird’s Landing would also be developed unless they quickly came up with 

acquisition funds.381

 

377 Eastman, 6-9. 

378 Livermore, Ehat, and Kent. 

379 Letter from G. Ray Arnett to Ellis J. Alden, 9 February 1984, Point Reyes National Seashore 

Land Files. 

380 San Francisco Chronicle, “Point Reyes Subdivision Upsets Udall,” Aug. 12, 1967. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

135

The county supervisors also expressed hope that the federal government would 

appropriate money for land acquisition as soon as possible so that future developments 

would be limited, but by 1967, only thirty-seven percent of the seashore had been 

acquired. Upon learning of the construction at Sacramento Landing, Secretary of the 

Interior Stewart Udall expressed his alarm at this development within the seashore 

boundaries. The county pointed out that as long as private property owners held land in 

the proposed seashore, they were forced to allow the construction of vacation homes on 

the parcels.382By 1970, Sacramento Landing and Duck Cove encompassed twenty-two 

separate tracts and eighteen residences, with fifteen property owners. Development 

threats such as these prompted seashore supporters to push for adequate funds to 

complete land acquisition. In 1969, the Sierra Club and San Francisco area citizens 

formed Save Our Seashore to lobby Congress and President Nixon to purchase the 

remaining land within seashore boundaries. The campaign was successful, and in 1972, 

the 64,000 acre seashore was officially established. 

Landowners at Duck Cove and Sacramento Landing protested the federal 

government’s decision to include their land in the seashore. They pointed out that other 

groups, such as RCA and the Vedanta Society, were allowed to keep their land that now 

fell within seashore boundaries, as were residents of the town of Inverness. The 

landowners were unhappy with the terms of their leases as well. They claimed that initial 

conversations with the federal government left their subdivision outside of park 

boundaries, and many felt they had been tricked into supporting the park in this way. 

They insisted that few, if any, park visitors would utilize Duck Cove.383The NPS 

remained unconvinced. The seashore allowed landholders in the seashore whose homes 

had been built before September 1959 to acquire a fifty-year lease, and five elected to do 

so. Owners of homes built after that date signed leases ranging from ten to forty years. 

Eleven of the Duck Cove owners signed forty year leases and one signed a fifty year 

lease.384 Some leaseholders fought to extend their tenancy when their contracts expired, 

 

381 Letter from Thomas Kornelis, Realty Officer to Hon. Harvey Dickerson, Attorney General, 

State of Nevada, 4 February, 1965, Point Reyes National Seashore, Appraisal Report, The 

Richards Property, January 21, 1971. 

382 Letter from Thomas Storer, Chairman of the Marin County Board of Supervisors to Stewart 

Udall, Secretary of the Interior, 14 August 1967. 

383 Letter from John Ward to George B. Hartzog, Jr., Director, National Park Service, 30 June, 

1964. 

384 Letter from Ralph Mihan, Field Soliciter, to Regional Director, National Park Service, 16 

January 1984, Point Reyes National Seashore Land Files. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

136

a move which groups such as the Inverness Association, the Tomales Bay Association, 

the Marin Conservation League, and People for a Golden Gate National Recreation Area 

vocally opposed. These groups advocated for public access to the bay’s shoreline, and 

extending leases, in their view, privileged wealthy private landowners over public 

interests.385

THE FIGHT FOR CHICKEN RANCH BEACH

The establishment of Point Reyes National Seashore attracted widespread 

attention to the scenic beauty and recreational opportunities of western Marin County. 

As Tomales Bay became an increasingly desirable place for tourist and summer home 

development, some local residents feared that their favorite fishing, swimming, and 

picnic spots would become inaccessible. The battle over Chicken Ranch Beach, which 

set a statewide legal precedent, illustrates changing ethics about the need for public lands 

and recreational spaces. 

Chicken Ranch Beach had been a popular swimming spot for Inverness residents 

for decades. Frank De la Rosa owned the tidelands of the beach, while Elizabeth 

Whitney, Oscar Shafter’s granddaughter, owned the shoreline. Both owners allowed the 

public to use the area, and it was one of the most popular swimming spots on Tomales 

Bay due to its easy auto access and clean, sheltered waters. De la Rosa indicated that he 

intended to leave his tidelands to the public as a memorial to his nephew who had been 

killed in World War II, but when he died in 1954, he left no will. Some Inverness 

residents tried to buy the beach for a park, but it was sold to Larry Marks Jr. The new 

owner offered to rent or sell the tidelands to the town, but for unknown reasons, the 

parties could not agree on a deal.386

Developers had established a few new tourist facilities (such as a motel) near 

Inverness, and these actions worried local residents. Alarmed citizens, who formed the 

Committee to Save the Inverness Waterfront, saw the beginnings of commercial 

development on the Tomales Bay shore as the portent of “truck traffic (and) neon 

signs...Certainly the average family would never again get near the Bay for a quiet swim 

or picnic.” Citizens pressured their lawmakers to preserve Chicken Ranch Beach as 

public property. Marks, who made plans to build a marina, fenced the property with 

 

385 Letter from The Inverness Association, Tomales Bay Association, Marin Conservation League 

and Friends of Point Reyes National Seashore to Chairman Boerger et al., Dec. 1983, Point Reyes 

National Seashore Land Files. 

386 Griffin, 134. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

137

barbed wire and filed suit against the county in an attempt to forestall zoning regulations 

that might limit his property’s development. The county commissioners and state fish 

and game department approved the marina over the protests of the Inverness 

Improvement Association, who believed their town was on the fast track to becoming yet 

another tourist-oriented town on the California coast. Most Inverness residents in the 

mid-twentieth century wanted their village to remain quiet and undeveloped, but 117 

citizen petitioners, as well three Inverness Improvement Association directors and the 

Baywood Press, the local paper, supported Marks’ plan.387

By 1969, after fifteen years of public interest in the parcel, the tide turned in favor 

of public ownership. If Marks was allowed to fill and develop his tidelands, it would set a 

precedent for tideland development across California. Marks won his initial court 

battles, but the case went to the state supreme court. In order to prevent further 

litigation, Marks agreed to sell most of his tidelands to the county. In 1971, the state 

supreme court, citing the growing population of the state and the need for recreational 

spaces, ruled that all tidelands were open to public use. In the court’s opinion, the 

conservative Marshall F. McComb stated that “There is growing public recognition that 

one of the more important uses of the tidelands...is the preservation of these lands in the 

natural state so that they may serve as ecological units for scientific study, as open space 

and as environments which provide food and habitats for birds and marine life and 

which favorably affect the scenery and climate of the area.”388

The court’s decision illustrated the growing awareness not only of the need for 

recreational spaces, but also of the tremendous concern Californians exhibited for their 

coastal resources. In 1970, Marin County enacted the Tidal Waterways Ordinance to 

control excavation, filling, and construction of tidelands. In passing the ordinance, the 

county recognized that tidelands were “vital natural resources” for “scenic views, open 

space, recreational activities and wildlife habitat.”389 In 1972, voters established the 

California Coastal Commission to limit development along the state’s shores. The ballot 

initiative passed despite the fact that developers and business interests spent 55 million 

dollars to defeat the proposal. This measure represented the most sweeping shoreline 

protection measures in the nation.390

 

387 Mason, Summer Town, 56-57. 

388 Griffin, 134. 

389 Jacobs, 20. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

138

“TYING UP THE BAY FOR THE BIRDS:” THE CAMPAIGN FOR 

PRESERVATION ALONG EASTERN TOMALES BAY

By the mid-1960s, Point Reyes National Seashore had been established, and 

though acquisition was not completed until 1972, land along western Tomales Bay was 

slated for preservation. The shoreline along the eastern bay, dotted with restaurants, 

oyster farms, and summer cabins and paralleled by Highway 1, remained ignored by both 

developers and conservationists. Most conservationists saw this area as less than 

pristine, compared to the sparsely populated shores of Point Reyes and western Tomales 

Bay, and developers favored ocean front parcels for vacation homes and other tourist 

developments. 

As the population of Marin County and the San Francisco Bay area continued to 

increase, however, the eastern shores of Tomales Bay began to look more attractive to 

both developers and tourists. County politicians, seeking to accommodate a growing 

populace, saw the rural area as a logical place to site new homes, business, and 

recreational facilities. In 1966, the county supervisors approved the West Marin General 

Plan of 1967, co-written by former county supervisor Mary Summers, a study that 

located a city of 125,000 along Tomales Bay’s shores. The plan included shopping 

centers, schools, homes, businesses, and tourist and recreation facilities on the southern 

and eastern shores of the bay. Summers’ goal was to “retain the unique environment of 

West Marin County through the preservation of its natural physical assets and through 

enhancement by the works of man” such as shopping centers, schools, parks, and a golf 

course. Roads were key to the general plan, which advocated improving transportation 

networks for commuting and for “leisurely motoring” through natural wonders. 

Summers and her colleagues envisioned a multi-lane freeway paralleling the bay’s 

eastern shoreline, while housing developments, shopping centers, and office parks 

would cover the hills. The Tomales Bay area lacked enough fresh water to supply such a 

population, so she proposed an aqueduct that would supply the area with water from the 

Russian River. Developers, county politicians, and business people threw their support 

behind this plan.391

 

390 Richard W. Judd and Christopher S. Beach, Natural States: The Environmental Imagination in 

Maine, Oregon and the Nation (Washington D.C: Resources for the Future, 2003), 99; Rome, 229. 

391 Griffin, 98-100. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

139

The plan authors also proposed modifying the bay itself, so that citizens could 

enjoy additional recreational opportunities. They supported the idea of turning the bay’s 

upper end, near the Lagunitas Creek delta, into an area designated for water sports. 

Dredging would deepen the water in this area, and the excess dirt could be used to create 

small islands for fishing and picnicking. They also proposed dredging the entire bay to 

facilitate pleasure boat traffic, and even recommended that the county commission the 

Army Corps of Engineers to remove the sandbar at the bay’s mouth. The entrance to the 

estuary had always been a dangerous spot for boaters, and in 1962, thirteen people 

drowned there. Removing the sandbar, they reasoned, would make the bay safer and 

bring tourist dollars to the new facilities planned on the bay.392

Audubon Canyon Ranch (ACR), a local environmental group founded in 1962 to 

prevent the development of Bolinas Lagoon, saw the area differently. To this group, the 

“pristine” bay provided rich wildlife habitat and “stark, windswept beauty.” Winter bird 

counts were some of the highest in the nation. Founder Dr. Martin Griffin recalled that 

many area residents did not care about development on the bay at that time. The western 

shore was earmarked for preservation, and few thought that the entire estuary was 

worthy of protection. The ACR turned its attention to Tomales Bay in 1967 after 

preventing a hotel and condominium development on Bolinas Lagoon, about fifteen 

miles south of the estuary. Tomales Bay was ten times as big as the lagoon with many 

more property owners, since almost the entire eastern shore was privately owned in the 

mid-1960s. Worried about overfishing and the preservation of “one of the most 

productive and varied wildlife habitats on the Pacific Flyway,” the group lobbied for the 

preservation of bay resources. County supervisors ignored these concerns as they 

squabbled over minutiae of the development plans.393

Unlike earlier preservation battles, the ACR’s campaign for Tomales Bay occurred 

in the marketplace rather than in Congress or other government offices. The group set 

their sights on protecting all of the shoreline on the eastern side of the estuary, but rather 

than lobby for federal or state preservation, as earlier groups did, the ranch preferred to 

simply buy parcels for protection as wildlife refuges. Also unlike earlier conservation 

groups, they did not view the bay primarily as a place for recreation—they were more 

interested in buying properties that offered scientific value and shorebird habitat. The 

idea of preserving ecosystems was increasingly important among environmental groups 

 

392 Summers, 189. 

393 Ibid., 98-102. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

140

of this time, and these new efforts at land preservation along the bay reflected this 

trend.394

Further catalyst to the ACR’s land preservation efforts were the actions of Land 

Investors Research, a development group that spent the late 1960s acquiring parcels of 

land from ranchers along the eastern bay. The group planned to subdivide and develop 

the eleven ranches they had optioned or purchased, and by 1970, surveyors’ markers 

could be seen on thousands of acres of hillsides above the bay. At Cypress Grove, the 

group planned 1,800 homes on 1,026 acres. They also purchased 700 acres of the 

southeastern shore as well as two parcels along the western shore (including the Pierce 

Point Ranch shoreline, within Seashore boundaries but not yet purchased by the park 

service). When the county rejected plans for the Cypress Grove subdivision in 1971, 

citing inadequate roads, water lines, and sewers, Audubon Canyon Ranch saw their 

chance to disable the projects. They first purchased thirty-two acres of tidelands that 

stretched four miles along the bay’s shore from oysterman Oscar Johannson, a move that 

blocked the subdivision’s shoreline access. ACR helped stymie other development 

threats as well, such as a luxury resort north of Cypress Grove and a 316-acre subdivision 

at Laird’s Landing.395

Private land acquisition continued to be an essential land preservation strategy. In 

1972, ACR convinced Clifford Conly to donate his ten acre Cypress Grove property to 

the group. Conly was particularly worried about development on the bay, and he 

described his property as “an island surrounded by alligators.” His donation caused 

alarm among the county’s pro-growth proponents, who saw the bay as valuable for 

vacation homes, not wildlife habitat. One writer accused the ACR of “tying up the bay for 

the birds.” Undeterred, the group began to buy available parcels that were threatened by 

development along the bay’s eastern side. They even purchased a parcel adjacent to 

Cypress Grove from a cash-strapped Land Investors Research, though the developers 

required an easement to the bay. Between 1968 and 1985, the group purchased 432 acres 

on the bay’s eastern shore. The group also played a key role in helping to establish 

Tomales Bay Ecological Reserve, a state-owned parcel near the old railroad stop of 

Bivalve that was set aside to preserve shorebird habitat.396

While ACR fought development in the marketplace, the Marin Conservation 

League utilized more traditional means in its fight against the West Marin General Plan 

 

394 Rome, 9. 

395 Griffin, 118. 

396 Ibid., 124. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

141

and urban development along Tomales Bay’s shores. In particular, the group sought to 

replace pro-growth county supervisors with those sympathetic to preservation concerns. 

Ernest Kettenhofen, a pro-development supervisor up for reelection in 1969, had made 

enemies of many of Marin’s politically powerful, wealthy and conservation-minded 

families due to his support of the West Marin General Plan. The League, financially 

backed by these families, began a highly effective advertising campaign that increased 

public awareness about development in the Marin countryside. In newspaper 

advertisements, they presented sketches of what the predominantly rural county would 

look like with multi-lane freeways, shopping centers, and housing developments 

replacing farms and forests. A planned city of 18,000 residents on the Marin Headlands 

called Marincello also galvanized public opposition to large-scale developments in the 

county. Marin citizens decided that they valued rural landscapes and recreational spaces 

more highly than additional development. They elected former Fairfax mayor Peter 

Arragoni to Kettenhofen’s seat, giving conservationists a majority on the board of 

supervisors. In 1971, the supervisors revoked their support of the West Marin General 

Plan, and they convinced the state to abandon its plans to build a freeway along the bay. 

That same year, voters overwhelmingly defeated the plan to pipe Russian River water to 

eastern Tomales Bay development projects.397

The bay began to attract the attention of nationwide environmental groups at this 

time. The Sierra Club, which had been active in efforts to establish the national seashore, 

began a campaign to establish new public lands along Tomales Bay. The club’s interest 

was predicated on the idea that the bay remained free from the industrial pollution and 

the development that plagued other California harbors, and they saw the area as valuable 

wildlife and shorebird habitat. The group called the estuary “one of the last unpolluted 

bays” on the California coast as they appealed for donations to help the Point Reyes Bird 

Observatory, a bird conservation group, buy “critical habitat” threatened by 

development on Inverness Ridge. They envisioned “a classic forest park and wildlife 

preserve” along the ridge, from the head of the bay to the state park.398

Despite the massive increase in public lands along the bay and the repeal of the 

Marin General Plan of 1967, many areas around the bay remained vulnerable to urban 

development. Selling land to developers remained a lucrative proposition for area 

ranchers tired of falling milk prices and tough competition. Farmland preservation 

presented one solution to the problem. Marin County citizens sought to preserve 

 

397 Ibid., 106-107. 

398 Sierra Club Foundation, Fundraising Letter, 13 November 1972, Tomales Bay file, California 

Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

142

agricultural land for a number of reasons. Some ranchers wanted to maintain an 

agricultural community for economic purposes. Others believed that protecting ranching 

landscapes preserved West Marin history and culture. One supporter explained, 

“Something vital and gritty and engaging would be lost to the county and the region if 

ranching culture died.” Some simply feared the effects of encroaching urbanization and 

believed that the preservation of scenic pastoral landscapes provided their best chance to 

curtail this growth.399

The roots of these efforts to protect farmland lay in Americans’ romanticization of 

rural landscapes and anxieties about suburbanization. Advocates promoted the idea that 

city dwellers needed pastoral landscapes. More than ten million people moved from 

farms to towns and cities in the 1950s, and as developers turned agricultural lands into 

housing developments, many worried that Americans would forget “the ‘agrarian’ values 

that made the nation great.” Furthermore, the anti-urban sentiment that had always been 

prevalent in American society was particularly strong in the postwar period. During the 

1970s, conservationists throughout the nation battled to protect pastoral landscapes, 

especially those that represented a regional identity, such as West Marin’s dairy farms.400

In 1972, county supervisors, supported by groups such as the Marin Conservation 

League, adopted a controversial zoning measure in many parts of West Marin County, 

including much of eastern Tomales Bay. While many had wanted the minimum parcel 

size set at 100 or 200 acres, county supervisors worried that these limits would not stand 

up in court. Instead, the county adopted “A-60” zoning, which limited development to 

one home on every sixty acres in certain areas. Within three months of the zoning 

changes, three ranches north of Marshall were sold from developers, who could no 

longer build on the parcels, back to ranchers.401

Across the country, farmers and ranchers routinely opposed environmental 

policies that privileged preservation over economic interests, and the response in Marin 

County proved no different. The zoning infuriated many ranchers who saw it as yet 

another government land grab. Many ranchers had hoped to profit by selling their 

increasingly unprofitable ranches to developers. “There are some selfish interests on the 

other side,” rancher Earl Dolcini stated, referring to citizens of the county’s urban areas, 

“and they would like to see us remain as ranches so when they take their Sunday drive 

 

399 Griffin, 120. 

400 Judd and Beach, 99; Rome, 123-124. 

401 Griffin, 122-124. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

143

we’re the picture in the middle of their imaginary frame.” The county kept the zoning in 

place over the objections of the agricultural community.402

A few ranchers, who saw urbanization as the biggest threat to the demise of the 

agricultural industry in Marin County, did support the zoning. The Strausses, who 

ranched on northeastern Tomales Bay, saw the measure as essential to the continuation 

of the dairy industry in West Marin. Urbanization threatened farmers’ livelihoods, since 

most agreed that residential and agricultural uses of the land were incompatible. Without 

a certain concentration of farms and ranches, suppliers would leave the area, increasing 

the prices of basic goods. Tomales Point rancher Kenneth Kehoe also believed that 

exposing city dwellers to agricultural landscapes would connect them to the history of 

the area. “People can come and see the way the country was before because it’s been left 

the same way in the last forty years, it hasn’t changed,” he explained.403

In 1973, the Marin County Planning Department adopted a new plan that 

addressed concerns of rapid population growth, sprawl, and other environmental 

concerns. In contrast to the 1967 plan, the new report was based on “designing with 

nature.”404 Gary Giacomini, elected to the Marin County Board of Supervisors in 1973 as 

a supporter of agricultural and coastal preservation, served for twenty-four years, an 

indication of public support for preservation policies. Changes in zoning between 1972 

and 1975 reduced the number of building sites in the watershed from 1.2 million to 

3,000.405While the zoning did allow for some small concentrations of tourist 

infrastructure along the eastern bay, these measures effectively killed most development 

plans for the Tomales Bay area. Two-thirds of the land in the Tomales Bay watershed is 

currently zoned A-60.406

Statewide conservation sentiments also impacted development on the Tomales Bay 

shore. In 1972, California voters had established the California Coastal Commission, an 

agency with sweeping authority to regulate development in coastal areas. The 1973 

Marin County plan allowed for some tourist development along the bay’s edge, such as a 

large waterfront hotel near Marshall. The commission, which had final authority over 

 

402 Judd and Beach, 100; Dolcini, Ehat, and Martinelli. 

403 Kehoe, Ehat, and Kent. 

404 Griffin, 110. 

405 Tomales Bay Watershed Council, “Tomales Bay Watershed Stewardship Plan: A Framework 

for Action,” http://www.tomalesbaywatershed.org/stewardship.pdf (accessed Jan. 8, 2005). 

406 Hart, 33-37. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

144

lands within one-half mile of California’s shoreline, rejected the project. There were no 

other serious attempts to establish resorts or other large tourist developments along the 

bay.407

The federal government also took an interest in land preservation along eastern 

Tomales Bay in the early 1970s. In 1972, Congress established Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area. The recreation area began as a grassroots movement in which a 

coalition of local groups, known as People for Golden Gate National Recreation Area, 

worked during the 1960s to preserve open space and the former military forts of San 

Francisco. The group had “tenacious, skilled leadership” and they gained a key 

supporter when Congressman Philip Burton, best known for his support of labor issues, 

threw his weight behind the project. Preservation politics in the area had typically pitted 

working-class ranchers against elite local conservationists, but the congressman believed 

that preservation was a labor issue. Burton reasoned that while the rich could enjoy their 

private vacation homes, workers needed public recreation areas close to their homes, 

and he introduced the national recreation area proposal into Congress in June 1971. 

Opponents criticized his proposal as too large and unfeasible. They specifically objected 

to the fact that it would seal Marin County’s future for public land and suburban, rather 

than commercial, development. Though there were problems obtaining acquisition 

funds and land, the park was established in 1972. The original bill included the Marin 

Headlands, Angel Island, and numerous San Francisco tracts totaling 34,000 acres, but 

activists worked quickly to try to expand the park to include properties near Tomales 

Bay.408

Just as they had opposed the seashore, many ranchers and residents of West Marin 

overwhelmingly opposed proposals to expand the recreation area into the Olema Valley 

and the south end of Tomales Bay. Developers opposed the preservation of land, and 

local citizens feared government control and loss of tax revenue. In 1976, the bill was 

withdrawn from Congress, but supporters did not give up. They emphasized 

development threats to the area as they repackaged the idea, and they sought more local 

input in order to win the support of area residents. The Olema Valley, Haggerty Gulch 

near Inverness, and property along Lagunitas Creek were added to the recreation area as 

part of the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978.409Between 1983 and 1986, 

 

407 Ibid., 41. 

408 Rothman, The New Urban Park, 34. 

409 Hal Rothman, The Park That Makes its Own Weather: An Administrative History of Golden Gate 

National Recreation Area (San Francisco: National Park Service, 2002), 50-52. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

145

1,636.37 acres were added to the park, including Jensen’s Oyster Beds, Martinelli Ranch, 

and ranches near Lagunitas Creek.410With these purchases, the majority of the Tomales 

Bay shore was protected by federal, state, county, or non-profit agencies. These 

campaigns increased Tomales Bay’s visibility among San Francisco area citizens, and 

they attracted larger numbers of visitors to the area than ever before. 

By the early 1970s, environmentalists and other park advocates had succeeded in 

their efforts to preserve most of the land on Tomales Bay. Few had heard of the bay 

when the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, but now, tens of thousands of tourists and 

day trippers journeyed by car to the bay to swim, fish, birdwatch, hike, and picnic. Once 

Marin County had supplied San Francisco with dairy products, fish, and timber, but by 

the mid-twentieth century, the relationship between the city and its former hinterland 

had changed, and the Tomales Bay area now supplied city dwellers with recreational 

offerings and scenic beauty. A number of the area’s dairy ranches and oyster farms 

remained, but Tomales Bay was now best known as a place for recreation and leisure—a 

place that needed protection from unbridled natural resource use. While activists had 

succeeded in preventing large scale development on the bay, however, conflicts over 

resource use and concerns about water quality, fish and bird habitat, and the impact of 

human activities remained. 

 

 

410 Ibid., 55. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

146

Figure 30. Jensen’s Oyster Beds in 1946. Vacation cottages, the Jensen’s home and 

the restaurant line the shore, while the dairy sits on the hillside above. 

Figure 31. The restaurant at Hamlet. Consumers came from all over the San 

Francisco Bay area to sample the fresh Tomales Bay oysters. 
The Reinvention of Tomales Bay, 1937-1972 

147

Figure 32. Chicken Ranch Beach, a popular swimming spot for local residents near 

Inverness that became the site of a major legal battle over public beach access in 

the 1960s, in the mid-twentieth century. 

Figure 33. Walker Creek in the mid-twentieth century. Navigable in the midnineteenth century, erosion on the hillsides due to agricultural activities made the 

creek too silted for boat travel by the mid-1870s. 
 
149

CHAPTER SIX

A CONTESTED LANDSCAPE: TOMALES BAY PRESERVATION 

AND MANAGEMENT, 1970-PRESENT

Many Tomales Bay preservationists believed that the hardest battles had already 

been fought and won with the establishment of Point Reyes National Seashore and 

Golden Gate National Recreation Area. he consequences of 120 years of resource use in 

the watershed, however, became evident in the declining water quality of the bay during 

the late twentieth century. All of the historical uses of the bay, such as fishing, oystering, 

and dairy ranching, either contributed to, or were affected by, declining water quality, 

and various constituencies grappled with different ways to resolve conflicts over water 

quality, natural resource use, and recreation. 

More than 2.5 million people per year visited West Marin County by 2001, and 

many of these visitors enjoyed hiking, swimming, boating, and fishing on Tomales Bay. 

Despite the fact that many viewed the bay as a pristine retreat and a playground, the 

estuary continued to be a working landscape, and it became an increasingly contested 

space for natural resource users. Many groups claimed a stake in the health of Tomales 

Bay, and the site became a focus of scientific research. Various groups began restoration 

projects that would ultimately seek to restore the bay’s native plant and fish species and 

wetlands, but these projects sometimes met with resistance from local resource users. By 

the 1970s, West Marin had become a new kind of hinterland for the seven million 

residents of the San Francisco Bay area—one that provided scenery and recreation 

rather than agricultural products, but even recreational visitors clashed over the best way 

to use the bay. A variety of groups now claimed to advocate for the once-ignored bay, 

and debates about the bay’s management raged into the twenty-first century. 

“SAN FRANCISCO’S WILDERNESS NEXT DOOR” 

By 1980, many San Francisco area citizens thought of Tomales Bay as part of their 

“wilderness next door,” and they enjoyed a variety of recreational activities at the 

federally managed units that surround much of the bay.411Most of Tomales Point was 

protected by Point Reyes National Seashore by 1972. Golden Gate National Recreation 

Area continued to acquire properties along the bay throughout the 1980s and 1990s in an 

 

411 Hart, San Francisco’s Wilderness Next Door. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

150

effort to prevent development and protect scenic landscapes, shoreline ecosystems, 

water quality and public access to the water. In 1980, the park’s boundaries were

extended eight miles north along Tomales Bay, and 3,000 acres of bay tidelands came 

under federal jurisdiction. By 1983, the recreation area had acquired additional land 

consisting of four ranches, fourteen parcels between one and ten acres, and forty-five 

tracts of land less than one acre along the bay’s southern and eastern shores. By the mid1980s, the National Park Service demonstrated continued interest in property along the 

bay’s shores, and these parcels dominated the federal government’s acquisition priority 

list.412 In 2004, Golden Gate National Recreation Area included over 23,000 acres in the 

Tomales Bay watershed. 

State, county, local, and non-profit organizations also managed land along 

Tomales Bay’s shores in the late twentieth century. Tomales Bay State Park encompassed 

about 2,400 acres along the bay’s southwestern shores, and about 125,000 visitors per 

year visited the park by the beginning of the twenty-first century. The state owned 

Tomales Bay Ecological Reserve, administered by the California Department of Fish and 

Game, included a mile of shoreline and 500 acres of marsh lands south of Millerton 

Point. Marin County administered six properties encompassing 700 acres along the bay, 

including White House Pool (23.5 acres south of Inverness Park), Chicken Ranch Beach 

(four acres north of Inverness), and Miller Park (six acres and 730 feet of shoreline near 

Nick’s Cove). Properties owned by the town of Inverness included Dana Marsh (one 

acre just north of the town) and Martinelli Park, which encompassed slightly more than 

seven acres (half of which are underwater) near the Inverness Store. By 2005, Audubon 

Canyon Ranch had acquired twelve properties totaling 370 acres on the east shore of 

Tomales Bay. Cypress Grove, which the ACR currently operates as a wildlife sanctuary, 

contains 139 acres. The rest of the acreage includes the Walker Creek delta, Tom’s Point, 

Olema Marsh, Livermore Marsh as well as several other parcels. The ACR gave Hog 

Island, which they had acquired by donation in 1972, to Point Reyes National Seashore 

in the 1990s.413

Besides the Audubon Canyon Ranch, Tomales Bay attracted the attention of 

another group that used a market-based approach to land preservation. In 1993, the 

Trust for Public Land, a non-profit land conservation group, initiated a campaign to 

preserve land along the estuary. Within six years, the group raised $3.19 million to 

purchase eight parcels, totaling 233 acres, on the bay. The Trust chose these parcels 

 

412 National Park Service, Land Protection Plan, Draft, Golden Gate National Recreation Area 

(National Park Service, 1983), 26-33. 

413 Griffin, 97. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

151

based on their development threats, wildlife habitat, importance to water quality, and 

agricultural as well as scenic values. The group donated the land to the state as additions 

to Tomales Bay State Park.414

While many preservationists had focused on preserving the land surrounding the 

estuary, more groups began to concentrate on the estuary’s water by the late twentieth 

century. Tomales Bay’s waters came under federal jurisdiction during this time. The Gulf 

of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, established in 1981 to protect the 

ecosystems of the waters off the Marin County coast, includes Tomales Bay. The bay is 

also part of the Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve, a two million acre area of California 

designated by the United Nations. Tomales Bay was named a Wetland of International 

Importance in 2002 by the federal government, one of twenty-two such wetlands in the 

United States. The bay qualified for this designation due to its biological diversity, 

habitat for vulnerable and threatened species, its representative characteristics of the 

region, and its importance as habitat for many fish and shorebird species. 

Tomales Bay had become a playground for millions of San Francisco Bay area 

residents by the late twentieth century. By 2005, eleven kayaking companies operated on 

the bay, and paddlers camped by permit along Marshall and Tomales beaches. Charter 

fishing vessels allowed sport fishermen to fish the bay’s waters, while public boat ramps 

facilitated private boaters’ access to the estuary. Hunters continued to pursue ducks and 

other waterfowl in the bay’s wetlands, especially near the mouths of Walker and 

Lagunitas Creeks, as they had done for over a century. Hikers walked along trails 

constructed by state and federal agencies along the bay, while swimmers enjoyed the 

beaches at the state park. Birdwatchers journeyed to the estuary to spot some of the 

hundreds of species of birds that have been sighted in the area. 

These recreational visitors affected the bay’s environment. Heavy use increased 

erosion and destroyed riparian vegetation along the most popular shoreline areas. The 

boaters and kayakers who thronged the bay on weekends sometimes disposed of human 

waste into the water, and commercial kayakers, private kayakers, and recreational 

boaters all accused each other of ignoring regulations. Environmentalists and scientists 

blamed some groups for disturbing wildlife. Harbor seals occupied some of Tomales 

Bay’s beaches and mudflats, and they have proved sensitive to disturbances from clam 

diggers, boaters, and fishermen. These areas provide critical habitat, and disturbances 

 

414 Lizette Wilson, “53 Acres added to Tomales Bay State Park,” Marin Independent Journal, 

March 5, 1999. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

152

affect their reproductive success. The mortality rates of harbor seals are higher in 

Tomales Bay than on the less accessible shores of Point Reyes.415

Environmental groups increasingly supported limiting human access to some 

areas, while growing numbers of visitors demanded more spaces for recreation. The 

Golden Gate National Recreation Area Act of 1972 stated that the park should be 

managed “in a manner which will provide for recreation and educational opportunities 

consistent with sound principles of land use planning and management...the Secretary 

shall preserve the recreation area, as far as possible, in its natural setting, and protect it 

from development and uses which would destroy the scenic beauty and natural 

character of the area.” Certain types of motorized recreation proved one point of 

contention. Jet skiers increasingly enjoyed using the bay during the 1990s, but those who 

believed that the estuary should be used for quieter pursuits objected to their presence. 

Golden Gate National Recreation Area banned jet skis in 1998, and the Gulf of the 

Farallones National Marine Sanctuary followed suit the next year. Public comments ran 

nine to one in favor of the ban.416

Conservationists and environmentalists applied a variety of different—and 

sometimes conflicting—approaches as they sought to protect certain landscapes in and 

around the bay. Some constituencies envisioned the bay primarily as bird and wildlife 

habitat, while others saw the area as perfect for more active pursuits. The Marin County 

chapter of the Sierra Club, for example, objected to the proposed construction of 

trailheads, boat ramps, a picnic area, and a campground in Tomales Bay State Park, on 

the grounds that these areas should remain “natural.”417Windsurfers, kayakers, boaters, 

hikers, mountain bikers, recreational clammers, and fishermen all vied for space on the 

increasingly crowded bay and its shores. These conflicts will inevitably continue as 

California’s population increases. 

While many San Francisco Bay area residents had fought to preserve Tomales Bay 

for its recreational opportunities, scenic beauty, and wildlife habitat, some local 

conservationists worked to protect agricultural landscapes on the urban border. Though 

they often found themselves on opposite sides of land use issues, as they had during the 

creation of Point Reyes National Seashore, environmentalists and farmers in the U.S. 

 

415 Sarah G. Allen, “Tomales Bay Harbor Seals: A Colony at Risk?” Third Biennial State of Tomales 

Bay Conference, 1992, available online at http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/filelibrary/1410/1383.doc. 

416 EAC News, December 1998, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives , Point Reyes Station, CA. 

417 Marin Chapter, Sierra Club, Letter to Bob Hare regarding comments on the Tomales Bay State 

Park General Plan, 12 March 2004, online resource accessed on April 15, 2005 at 

http://sanfranciscobay.sierraclub.org/Marin/DOC/Issue_TBSP_GenPlan_Comment_040312.pdf 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

153

sometimes allied over common concerns about urban development.418 A-60 zoning 

forbid the subdivision of ranches, but the zoning regulations could be overturned at any 

time by county supervisors who held pro-growth sentiments. Those who wanted to 

preserve West Marin’s agricultural industry sought new solutions, and in 1980, 

environmentalist Phyllis Faber and rancher Ellen Straus turned to the Trust for Public 

Land for advice about land conservancy. Two years later, along with rancher Ralph 

Grossi, they founded the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), the first trust in the 

nation to dedicate itself to protecting farm lands. Some land conservancy organizations 

purchased land outright, while other groups simply bought development rights from 

owners. MALT protected farmland by purchasing development rights, thus allowing the 

rancher to retain ownership of the property.419There were about thirty of these types of 

conservation efforts nationwide in 2004, though only two of these (including MALT) are 

private organizations.420

Both ranchers and environmentalists expressed doubt about the new 

organization’s ability to protect agricultural landscapes, but Ralph Grossi convinced 

many reticent farmers that selling development rights offered a way to remain financially 

sound while protecting the area’s agricultural community. Between 1980 and 2004, 

MALT permanently protected 32,000 acres of land through the acquisition of fifty-three 

easements, a number which represented about thirty percent of the county’s private 

agricultural land. A number of ranchers along Tomales Bay or on the east side of the bay, 

such as the Straus, Giacomini, and Barboni Ranches, all near Marshall, sold development 

rights to the trust. While public spaces for recreation and wildlife habitat line the bay’s 

shores, many of the hills surrounding the bay were preserved as agricultural landscapes. 

Some ranchers continued to oppose any efforts that would prevent them from 

subdividing their property, but MALT’s approach to preserving ranch lands proved 

successful from the perspective of conservationists. 

 

418 Samuel Hays, Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-

1985 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 296. 

419 Richard Brewer, Conservancy: The Land Trust Movement in America (Hanover, N.H: 

University Press of New England, 2003), 13. 

420 Ryan Kim, “Squeezing out Marin’s Dairy Farms,” San Francisco Chronicle, 13 February 2000. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

154

Pristine or Impaired?: Agriculture, Oystering and Water Quality 

For all its protection, however, the bay faced serious environmental problems. 

Some scientists had been aware of water quality issues in the bay since the early 1950s, 

but most area residents and visitors continued to view Tomales Bay as a pristine estuary. 

In a 1971 report, researchers from the University of the Pacific concluded that Tomales 

Bay was “probably the last unpolluted bay in California.” The study, nonetheless, warned 

that water quality threats to the bay threatened this status. Dams on tributaries reduced 

freshwater inflow, exacerbating the lack of tidal flushing. Sedimentation remained an 

issue as urban development continued in the far reaches of the watershed. This 

development—along with sewage, gasoline, and waste from boaters, and dairy runoff—

posed “excessive biological consequences” to the bay, especially the southern end, since 

tidal action failed to flush the bay of polluted waters. The study warned that pollution 

and other disturbances could have significant impacts on fish, bird, and marine mammal 

populations. These scientists proposed that the government establish a Tomales Bay 

Scientific Reserve for scientific study and for habitat preservation, and they 

recommended that government agencies ban motor boating while mandating reductions 

in development, grazing, and sewage outfall.421Many of these suggestions were ignored, 

but this study was one of the first to publicize water quality problems in a bay that many 

believed was pristine. A number of the consequences the study predicted were realized 

in the following decades. 

Disagreements about water quality, and how to best mitigate the effects of resource 

use, dominated discussions of Tomales Bay management after 1970. These various 

constituencies characterized the bay’s water quality as pristine or impaired, depending 

on their motivations. Oyster growers, some environmentalists and local business owners 

sought to market the bay as unpolluted, yet they also wanted to call attention to the need 

to improve the bay’s water quality. The California State Coastal Conservancy 

characterized Tomales Bay as “the largest unspoiled coastal embayment on the coast of 

California” in the mid-1980s, yet the state has classified the bay as “impaired” since 

1996.422The issue proved especially contentious among dairy ranchers and oyster 

growers, two groups who sought to continue making their living in and around the bay. 

 

421 Ralph G. Johnson et al, “Biological Characteristics of Tomales Bay,” Environmental Study of 

Tomales Bay, Vol. 4, Pacific Marine Station Research Report, no. 11, 1971; Edmund Smith and 

Ralph Johnson, “Environmental State of Tomales Bay,” Environmental Study of Tomales Bay, Vol. 

1, Pacific Marine Station Research Report, no. 8, 1971. 

422 California State Coastal Conservancy, A Program for Restoring the Environment of Tomales Bay 

(Oakland, CA: The Conservancy, 1984). 
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155

Despite the establishment of agricultural zoning and conservation easements, 

many ranchers wondered if the dairy industry would survive in West Marin County. The 

area had been renowned for dairy ranching since the mid-nineteenth century, but most 

Californians best knew the Tomales Bay area for its parks and recreational opportunities 

by the late twentieth century. Dairy numbers continued to drop in this period. While 

there were sixty-three dairies in the county in 1981, there were only thirty-seven by 2000. 

Cow populations, however, did not decline as much, indicating that the surviving 

ranches tended to be larger operations (which meant higher profits). In Marin County, 

the average ranch at this time had 600 cows, while a generation earlier, most farmers 

raised about 300. These numbers were still small compared to Central Valley operations, 

where the average dairy held 2,000 cows. 

Previous generations of ranchers had dealt with invasive species, transportation, 

and falling prices, but dairy waste management became one of the most problematic 

issues for ranchers in the late twentieth century. Dairy farmers had typically sought 

properties with creeks that would provide water for their stock, but these same creeks 

carried animal wastes into the bay. When manure washed into the estuary, the high levels 

of ammonia present in the waste poisoned fish and posed threats to human health. In 

rainy weather, sewage ponds overflowed, and waste washed into nearby waterways. The 

10,254 dairy cows and beef cattle in the watershed produced 1,066,574 pounds of 

manure per day in 2000. Cattle also increased erosion as they trampled streambanks, 

causing silt to wash into the bay.423

Awareness of the problem grew after 1969. The first laws regulating dairy wastes in 

California were passed that year, but coliform bacteria counts remained high along the 

bay’s eastern shore, where runoff from area ranches flowed into the bay. Some ranchers 

disputed the assertion that manure had a detrimental effect on the bay. Furthermore, few 

ranchers could afford to fence the creeks or improve the waste disposal systems on their 

property, and they warned that placing so much of the burden on ranchers would 

cripple the area’s dairy industry.424

A number of agencies assisted ranchers in the quest to reduce levels of coliform 

bacteria in the bay. In the mid-1970s, with help from the county and the Soil 

Conservation Service, about seventy-five percent of the county’s dairies installed waste 

holding ponds. The Marin County Resource Conservation District, a non-regulatory 

 

423 California Regional Water Quality Control Board, San Francisco Bay Region, “Controlling 

Pathogens in Tomales Bay,” June 30, 2000. 

424 Don Schinske, “Tomales Bay Panel Disputes Pollution Report,” Point Reyes Light, April 22, 

1999. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

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branch of state government with an elected board of directors, also began to help 

landowners control soil erosion and maintain water quality. The District sought to 

reduce sediment loads in Lagunitas Creek, Walker Creek, and Tomales Bay. The Natural 

Resources Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) and the 

Sonoma/Marin Animal Waste Committee, part of the county farm bureau, worked to 

help ranchers manage animal wastes.425

By the 1990s, waste systems often included a manure separator, manure ponds, 

and pipe systems that dispensed liquid manure over a large area. Solid waste was dried, 

composted, and sold as garden manure or used to fertilize ranch lands. The Straus 

Ranch, for example, contained their waste in a series of ponds. They separated liquids 

from solids and pumped the liquids up the hill, away from the bay. Then, beneficial 

bacteria that reduced the ammonia that poisons fish was added to the mixture, and the 

remaining solid waste was composted. Both the State Department of Fish and Game and 

the Water Quality Control Board strictly monitored dairy runoff in the bay by the late 

twentieth century. Despite the assistance they received, these environmental restrictions 

still came at a high cost to ranchers. Central Valley operations spent far less on waste 

disposal, since their dry climate made the endeavor easier.426

As it had for over a hundred years, erosion also remained a problem. 48,000 tons of 

sediment reached the bay every year during the late 1900s. Area ranchers, in conjunction 

with government agencies, began to experiment with different grasses in order to 

stabilize soil in the Walker Creek watershed. In order to prevent the erosion that washes 

silt into the bay, the Consolidated Farm Services Agency (formerly the Agricultural 

Stabilization and Conservation Service) assisted ranchers by subsidizing efforts to fence 

creeks and improve rangeland. Some ranchers started to confine their stock to loafing 

barns in the winter, when muddy soils are easily damaged.427

Despite problems with dairy wastes, erosion, and invasive species, local ranchers 

still believed that the area provided certain natural advantages. Cattle had grazed the 

hillsides above the bay since the early nineteenth century, but scientists characterized the 

pastures east of Tomales Bay as in fair to good condition. The grass season lasted 

between two and a half and five months, depending on rainfall, and while pastures had 

stayed green almost year round in the mid-nineteenth century, area ranchers still feel 

 

425 University of California Cooperative Extension, “Final Report of the Marin Coastal 

Watershed Enhancement Project,” (Novato, CA: Univ. of Calif. Coop. Extension, 1995), 34. 

426 “Straus Family Creamery, A Model of Sustainability,” Navigator, September 28, 1996. 

427 Betty Dietz, “Grant Okayed to Fight Siltation in Tomales Bay,” Marin Independent-Journal, 

June 25, 1986. 
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fortunate.428 Some attribute their ability to compete with large Central Valley operations 

to the fact that their cows can graze for between one-quarter and one-third of the year, 

thus saving money on feed. Earl Dolcini explained, “Marin County is a utopian area for 

cattle. We have excellent quality of grass, the natural grass. We have air conditioning 

provided by fog and we don’t have cold winters. The climate is perfect for cattle.”429

There are currently ten dairies in the watershed. Marin County’s twenty-nine dairies and 

10,300 producing dairy cows currently provide twenty percent of the San Francisco 

area’s milk supply, and in 2004, the value of their milk at market totaled over thirty-three 

million dollars.430

Nonetheless, twenty-first-century farmers have to work to maintain the grasslands 

(which constitutes ninety-nine percent of the agricultural lands in Marin County) by 

fertilizing with manure, aerating the soil, and rotating pastures.431 Ranchers also sought 

out new species of forage plants to improve their pastures. They introduced burr clover, 

which both stabilized the soil and provided livestock with nutritious, palatable forage. 

To spread the clover, ranchers fed clover hay to their animals; the livestock spread the 

seed around the range through their manure.432While ranchers favored some exotic 

species, others posed problems. Thistles and other invasive plants, some of which are 

poisonous to livestock, colonized pastures in the bay area. Many ranchers used 

pesticides to control the weeds, even after some local residents claimed they became sick 

after ranchers sprayed the pesticide 2,4-D.433

Many ranchers have turned to beef and sheep raising, which proved more 

profitable than dairying at the turn of the twenty-first century. Though actual numbers 

of dairy cows and beef cattle are roughly equivalent, twice as many ranchers raise beef 

cattle in West Marin as dairy cows, and more land is devoted to beef and sheep ranching 

than to dairying. While 25 percent of area ranches produce milk, 53 percent produce 

 

428 Zumwalt, 78. 

429 Dolcini, Ehat, and Martinelli. 

430 Marin County Department of Agriculture, “Annual Crop Report for 2004,” online resource 

accessed on March 31, 2005, at http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/AG/Main/2004cropreport.pdf 

431 Hart, Farming on the Edge, 17. 

432 Ibid., 113. 

433 Gary Beall, “West Marin Ranchers and Parks Battle Thistles,” Point Reyes Light, Dec. 7, 1989; 

Heidi Siegmund, “Alternatives Sought as 2,4-D Worries Grow,” Point Reyes Light, Feb. 14, 1989. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

158

beef, and 21 percent raise sheep. County ranchers currently own 10,000 mature beef 

cattle and about 7,800 sheep.434

Diversification of operations and marketing specialty products have been key to 

ranchers’ continued success. After Alice Waters opened her Berkeley restaurant Chez 

Panisse in the early 1970s, interest in seasonal, local, and organic foods increased 

dramatically in the San Francisco Bay area. The movement, dubbed “the delicious 

revolution,” inspired many area consumers and restaurateurs to demand high quality, 

locally grown produce, meat, and dairy products. Tomales Bay area producers 

capitalized on this trend, which remained strong into the twenty-first century. Ranchers 

began to produce organic milk, hormone-free beef, and specialty cheeses as well as wine 

grapes, olives, and other produce. Local companies made a number of artisanal cheeses. 

The Giacomini family’s Point Reyes Farmstead Blue Cheese, which advertised that its 

cows graze the hillsides above Tomales Bay, won national acclaim. Cowgirl Creamery, 

located in Point Reyes Station, produced award-winning cheeses crafted from Straus 

Ranch organic milk. The Straus Family Creamery produced organic milk, cheeses, 

yogurt, ice cream and butter. Before her death in 2002, Ellen Straus grew shitake 

mushrooms in her barn for the market as well.435These products were sold nationwide as 

well as directly to San Francisco area residents at farmers’ markets and upscale shopping 

areas like the Ferry Plaza Marketplace. The region no longer served as the type of 

hinterland that it did during the nineteenth century, but these niche markets allowed the 

small, family-owned Tomales Bay area ranches to stay economically viable as they 

supplied consumers in San Francisco and around the nation. 

Like the dairy industry, the future of Tomales Bay’s oyster industry seemed 

uncertain by the second half of the twentieth century. As scientists began to produce 

studies that showed declining water quality, growers became increasingly concerned 

about human and animal wastes from sewage and dairy runoff in the bay. This proved 

dangerous to their operations. As filter feeders, oysters ingest organic matter from the 

water. By doing so, they concentrate pollutants. The bivalves will purify themselves, but 

this can take up to a week after ingesting contaminated sediments. Large, freshwater 

holding tanks proved too expensive a solution to the problem. Oyster growers and dairy 

ranchers grew confrontational in the late twentieth century, leading to questions about 

 

434 Marin County Department of Agriculture, “Annual Crop Report for 2004.” 

435 Ivan Gale, “West Marin Ranchers Increasingly Diversify,” Point Reyes Light, 10 April 2003. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

159

whose use of the bay should take priority. Other non-point pollution sources such as fuel 

and waste from boats posed a threat to water quality as well.436

Human waste, as well as dairy runoff, also posed a threat to oyster growers. In the 

mid- 1970s, forty percent of Tomales’ homes and businesses discharged raw sewage into 

Keys Creek. Coliform bacteria—a large group of organisms usually present in the gut of 

warm-blooded animals—poses a threat to human health when people eat shellfish grown 

in the bay. Coliform counts remained high year round in the 1970s and 1980s. By the 

early twenty-first century, there were still 398 septic systems within a hundred feet of the 

bay or a creek along the shores of Tomales Bay, as well as over 900 additional septic 

systems in the Lagunitas and Walker Creek watersheds. Furthermore, nine sewage 

treatment facilities operate in the watershed, all near streams which run into the bay. 

Sedimentation and a lack of freshwater inflow due to dams on Tomales Bay tributaries 

kept the bay from ever flushing out completely, and oyster growers struggled with water 

quality issues throughout the late twentieth century.437

Jensen’s Oyster Beds was one business that both contributed to, and was affected 

by, water quality degradation. Virginia Jensen labored to maintain the property after her 

husband Henry’s death in 1971, but sewage and wastewater from the Jensen’s operation 

drained directly into the bay near the oyster beds. As a result, the county issued 

numerous health code violations. The state eventually deemed the oyster beds a 

potential source of Hepatitis A, and they fined Jensen and temporarily closed the oyster 

beds. Siltation from Walker Creek remained a problem as well. Large amounts of 

sediment had washed down the creek into the bay since the earliest days of American 

settlement, and more than half of the Jensen’s original allotment had been rendered 

unusable by 1980. A powerful storm, with subsequent flooding and landslides, hit the 

area in January of 1982, and Jensen’s Oyster beds were buried under tons of silt that 

washed down the creek. By the next year, Jensen’s Oyster Beds had closed. The National 

Park Service purchased the site for Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1987.438

 

436 California Department of Health Services, “Management Plan for Commercial Shellfishing in 

Tomales Bay, 2002,” Point Reyes National Seashore Archives, Point Reyes Station, CA; Hart, 75. 

437 North Marin Water District, The Tomales Wastewater Project, Project Report and Draft EIR, 

1974, Marin County Civic Center Library; Robert C. Cooper, “The Environmental Health of 

Tomales Bay,” Tomales Bay Environmental Study (Washington D.C: Conservation Foundation, 

1972), 109; Tomales Bay Watershed Council, “Tomales Bay Watershed Stewardship Plan: A 

Framework for Action,” http://www.tomalesbaywatershed.org/stewardship.pdf (accessed Jan. 8, 

2005. 

438 Livingston, Hamlet, 38. 
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160

By the late twentieth century, Tomales Bay exceeded federal limits on fecal 

coliform more than ninety days each year. Public awareness of the problem increased 

after contaminated Tomales Bay oysters made headlines in May of 1998. At that time, 

171 people were sickened with the Norwalk Virus, which originates in human waste, 

after eating Tomales Bay oysters. The virus could have originated with a failing septic 

system or improper disposal of waste from boaters or campers. This incident occurred 

despite strict monitoring by government agencies. The state forced growers to close 

when the area received more than one-half inch of rain in twenty four hours, since dairy 

waste holding ponds often overflow and septic systems can fail during storms. These 

closures are routine in winter. In December of 2003, the oyster growers were closed for 

thirty days, while the following January, they were closed for twenty days.439These 

closures have a huge economic impact on oyster growers. In 1994, the San Francisco 

Regional Water Quality Board formed the Tomales Bay Shellfish Advisory Committee in 

order to monitor, study, and potentially solve these problems. 

Still, oysters remained in demand with San Francisco Bay area consumers, and 

Tomales Bay growers persevered despite these issues. Tomales Bay was one of only four 

locations in California certified for oystering by the state in 2004, and five operators 

leased a total of 2,751 acres from the state (though not all of these tidelands were planted 

with oysters). Tomales Bay Oyster Company remained in continuous operation since 

1909, and Hog Island Oyster Company opened its own restaurant in San Francisco’s 

Ferry Plaza Marketplace. Almost three million dollars worth of oysters, mussels, and 

clams were produced in Tomales Bay in 2004. The bay’s oyster industry, however, was 

still a relatively small operation, and it produced less than 5 percent of California’s 

oysters in the early twenty-first century. Both Humboldt Bay and Drake’s Estero 

continued to produce more oysters than Tomales Bay throughout the late twentieth 

century. The bay’s oysters, however, found their niche with San Francisco Bay area 

consumers.440

Fishermen, who had been some of the first and most loyal visitors to Tomales Bay, 

were also affected by the bay’s declining water quality. Commercial fishermen targeted 

halibut (catching about 7,500 tons per year by the mid 1990s), herring, perch, and live 

bait, such as anchovies and sardines. Sport fishermen pursued halibut, Dungeness and 

 

439 Donna Horowitz, “Pollution Stifles Work of Oyster Farmers,” Los Angeles Times, January 1, 

2004. 

440 State of California, Department of Fish and Game, Registered Marine Aquaculture Facilities, 

2004. 
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161

rock crabs, perch, sole, jacksmelt, sturgeon, rays, and sharks. Salmon and steelhead drew 

large number of fishermen to the area in previous decades, but by the late twentieth 

century, those species were no longer abundant due to loss of habitat and declining 

water quality. 

In addition to dairy wastes and human sewage, the waters of Tomales Bay have 

also had to absorb excessive amounts of mercury—one of the most toxic of metals. 

Mercury mining occurred at seven places in the watershed during the mid-twentieth 

century. In 1965, the Marin Conservation League saw an aerial photograph of a recently 

opened mercury mine on the Gambonini Ranch, six miles upstream from Tomales Bay in 

the Walker Creek watershed. “The hill was completely cut in two. A bomb couldn’t have 

done a more complete job,” described Grace Wellman. The mine supplied mercury for 

dental fillings, thermometers, and florescent lights. Wellman staffed a booth that year at 

the Marin County Fair to increase public awareness of the environmental consequences 

of mining in the watershed. Butte Gas and Oil had put 300 cubic meters of mercuryladen waste on eleven acres near the confluence of Walker and Salmon Creeks, 

prompting the league to sue the company for dumping debris and silt into creeks that led 

into Tomales Bay. The group then convinced the county to create an ordinance that 

banned strip mining. Butte shut down the mine due to falling mercury prices, but the 

dam they built to keep the tailings in place failed during heavy storms in the winter of 

1981 and 1982.441 During storms in the winter of 1997 and 1998, 1,300 tons of mercuryrich sediment washed down Walker Creek into the bay. By the late twentieth century, 

the state began issuing public health warnings about high concentrations of mercury in 

Tomales Bay fish. 

The Environmental Protection Agency and the San Francisco Regional Water 

Quality Control Board worked to contain the waste by capping the site in 2000, but 

mercury continues to pose a threat to fishermen who consume their catch.442 Studies 

showed that large amounts of mercury had washed from the mine into the bay, and 

mercury levels in the bay’s fish were similar to fish in San Francisco Bay. By 2005, the 

Marin County Department of Human and Health Services recommended that citizens 

limit their consumption of halibut, jacksmelt, perch, and rock crab from the bay. 

Pregnant women and children are especially vulnerable to mercury, since it affects 

developing brains and nervous systems, and the county recommended that both groups 

avoid eating many types of fish from the bay altogether. Elevated levels of mercury were 

 

441 Wise, 18. 

442 Tomales Bay Watershed Stewardship Plan, 41. 
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also found in the bay’s oysters, clams, and mussels.

443 Despite monitoring and clean-up 

efforts, the agency estimated that high mercury levels would remain in the bay for many 

years. The bay’s high mercury levels surprised area residents and visitors, many of whom 

continued to think of the bay as unpolluted.444

The lack of fresh water inflow into the bay also hurt some fisheries. Fewer herring 

eggs hatch when the water is too saline, and the lack of freshwater influx after Tomales 

Bay tributaries were dammed diminished herring numbers. Overharvesting threatened 

the bay’s herring as well. The herring fishery once again became a lucrative operation in 

the early 1970s, when Japanese demand for herring roe spurred new commercial fishing 

interest in Tomales Bay. Catch totals soared from nearly nothing in the 1960s to 1,027 

tons in 1973.445Fishermen caught 871 tons in 1987, a number that spurred the California 

Department of Fish and Game to close the fishery for three subsequent years (though 

this number pales compared to the thousands of tons caught earlier in the century). The 

state conducted spawning estimates every year and based quota levels on these 

predictions. The state set the 2004 quota at 400 tons, far less than in previous decades 

due to low spawning numbers. Scientists were unclear if these lower numbers represent 

a trend or an aberration.446

New efforts are focusing on improving habitat so that the native species, such as 

Coho salmon and steelhead, rebound from their low numbers, and a number of agencies 

and non-profit groups began to work to restore fish populations in the watershed. In 

1983, environmentalists won a battle against the Marin Municipal Water District for 

“excessive use” of Lagunitas Creek. Courts then forced the district to obey a courtapproved plan for stream flows on the creek.447Trout Unlimited sought to mitigate the 

effects of the poor spawning habitat on Lagunitas Creek due to dams on Coho salmon 

and steelhead populations by capturing the fish in creeks, spawning them, and raising the 

young fish in hatcheries until they were large enough to survive in the wild. The NPS 

 

443 California Environmental Protection Agency, “Public Health Advisory for Tomales Bay,” 

http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/hh/main/hs/PublicHealth/Fish/pdf/TomBayAdv100404.pdf 

(accessed March 31, 2005. 

444 Mark Prado, “The Poisoning of Tomales Bay,” Marin Independent-Journal, Jan. 21, 2001. 

445 San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 13, 1974, Tomales Bay Clipping File, California Room, Marin 

County Free Library, San Rafael, CA. 

446 California Department of Fish and Game, “Tomales Bay Herring Fishery Information,” 

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/herring/tomales.html (accessed April 21, 2005. 

447 “Controversy with Marin Municipal Water District Ends Successfully for Bay,” The Press of 

Inverness 1, No. 11, June 9, 1983, Jack Mason Museum Archives, Inverness, CA. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

163

began the Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout Restoration Program in some Tomales Bay 

tributaries in order to survey and restore these fish populations. The Tomales Bay 

Association and the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network also started monitoring 

and restoration activities on tributary creeks as well. 

New conflicts erupted between fishermen, environmentalists, and dairy ranchers 

over fish habitat during the 1980s. The Giacomini Ranch, located at the southern end of 

the bay, had for decades constructed an earthen dam each summer on Lagunitas Creek. 

In the mid-1980s, environmental groups began to lobby the Army Corps of Engineers to 

revoke the permit on the basis that it degraded fish habitat. A group of fishermen, too, 

protested that the Giacominis did not follow regulations that allowed fish to pass by the 

dam. The issue grew contentious at public meetings. While the Tomales Bay Sportsman’s 

Association, the Marin County Farm Bureau, and most Tomales Bay area ranchers 

supported the Giacominis, fishermen collected 1,285 signatures from people opposed to 

the dam. The Army Corps of Engineers stopped issuing permits for the Giacominis’ 

summer dam in 1997 due to concerns about fish habitat, a decision that influenced the 

rancher’s decision to sell their property to the NPS in 2000. Many ranchers believed that 

this incident proved that agriculture and the new emphasis on ecological restoration and 

environmental protections were incompatible.448

In 2005, the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Board (SFRWQB) categorized 

Tomales Bay as both “impaired” and “threatened” because of its high incidence of 

shellfish bed closures due to bacteriological contamination. The board ordered the 

county to eliminate seventy-five percent of the E.coli in the bay by 2007. This required 

expensive upgrades to the sewage and waste disposal systems of many of the bay’s 

homes, businesses, and ranches, and many residents objected to the new requirements. 

The NPS managed one-quarter of the lands within the Tomales Bay watershed in 2005, 

and the agency continued to work with the SFRWQB to improve water quality. They 

planned to do this by increasing boat patrols to enforce existing standards regarding 

discharge, limiting the number of campers along the bay’s beaches, expanding existing 

agricultural water quality protection measures, monitoring water quality, and managing 

sewage disposal systems more efficiently.449 Recent studies conducted by researchers 

from California Polytechnic University in Morro Bay, on the central California coast, 

however, have concluded that one important E.coli source is shorebird droppings that 

have extremely high concentrations of bacteria. Morro and Tomales Bays share a 

 

448 Untitled Article, “Fish” file, Nov. 24, 1981, Tomales Regional History Center, Tomales, CA. 

449 Don Neubacher to Farhad Ghodrati, San Francisco Regional Water Quality Board, 24 June 

2003, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives, Point Reyes Station, CA. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

164

number of similarities, and these unexpected findings added a new dimension to debates 

about improving the bay’s water quality.450

SCIENCE AND ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION ON TOMALES BAY

When mid-twentieth-century conservationists fought for land preservation along 

Tomales Bay, they usually based their arguments on the need to preserve scenic 

landscapes and expand recreational opportunities for the millions of San Francisco Bay 

area citizens. As scientists’ understanding of ecosystems grew in the late twentieth 

century and the tactics of environmental groups became more sophisticated, ecological 

preservation and restoration became an important part of bay management. In the late 

twentieth century, the National Park Service and other state, local and non-profit 

agencies sought to combat exotic species and to restore wetlands and wildlife 

populations in an attempt to mitigate some of the unwanted outcomes of human 

activities along Tomales Bay. 

Some of these projects became highly controversial. Point Reyes National 

Seashore’s plan to restore wetlands at Giacomini Ranch, at the bay’s southern end, was 

one such issue. The seashore purchased the ranch in 2000, and the agency began 

planning to re-establish the wetlands in 2007. Waldo Giacomini had begun diking the 

area in the mid-1940s, converting 535 acres of tidelands to pasture. His actions reduced 

the bay’s length by about ten percent. While the Giacomini Dairy prospered, the loss of 

wetlands adversely affected water quality and some fish species. Wetlands serve as 

nurseries for fish and other species, and they help absorb flood waters. These wetlands 

had also helped to filter pollutants that were washed down Lagunitas Creek into the bay, 

and they had prevented saltwater intrusion into the wells used as water supply by Point 

Reyes Station.451Environmentalists not only supported the park’s proposal to restore the 

wetlands, but they encouraged the park to restrict human access to the parcel, which 

would provide important shorebird and wildlife habitat once restored.452In response to 

these plans, ranching advocates protested the loss of one of the area’s most successful 

 

450 Mansour Samadpour, et al.,, “Identifying the Sources of Escherichia Coli Contamination in the 

Shellfish Growing Areas of Morro Bay, California,” California and the World Ocean 02: Revisiting 

and Revising California’s Ocean Agenda (Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2002). 

451 Michael Newland, “A Cultural Resources Study for the Giacomini Wetland Restoration 

Project,” prepared for the Point Reyes National Seashore, 2002; “Final Report, North Marin 

Water District, Lagunitas Creek Salinity Intrusion Study,” Point Reyes Service Area, Dec. 1997, 

19. 

452 National Park Service, Summary of Scoping Comments, Giacomini Wetlands Restoration Project, 

Point Reyes National Seashore Archives. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

165

dairies. Many saw this intervention as evidence that the NPS, park visitors from urban 

areas, and environmentalists valued wildlife habitat and ecological restoration more than 

the area’s agricultural industry. 

In some cases, the NPS also favored the reintroduction of native mammals over the 

dairy industry. On Tomales Point, much of Pierce Point Ranch was designated as 

wilderness in 1976, and the park service evicted the ranch’s tenants in an effort to replace 

dairy cattle with Tule elk. The park service reintroduced the animals onto Tomales Point 

in 1978. The NPS has sought to avoid conflicts with ranchers over this reintroduction. 

To address the concerns of ranchers who feared the animals would spread disease to 

their cattle, the seashore built a three mile fence across the point, demarcating the 

division of ranch land from wilderness. Park management expressed commitment to 

mitigating any property or crop damage caused by the elk as well.453

There was also an effort to restore the once-despised native oyster to Tomales Bay. 

Native oyster reefs serve to improve water clarity and increase the amount of eelgrass 

beds, which in turn provides critical habitat for bottom dwellers. Thus, the 

reintroduction of these oysters could facilitate the reintroduction of other native species 

and prove beneficial to the bay’s overall health. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic 

Administration (NOAA) began a project in 2002 to construct shell mounds in an attempt 

to attract native oysters. Though the experiment proved unsuccessful, San Francisco Bay 

area environmental groups continued to express interest in restoring the native oyster to 

Tomales Bay.454

Exotic plant species had plagued the hillsides surrounding the bay since the 

nineteenth century, and invasive species began to colonize the bay’s waters during the 

late twentieth century. Spartina alterniflora, a grass native to the eastern United States, 

was introduced into San Francisco Bay by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1970s for 

erosion control and marsh restoration. The exotic, aggressively spreading grass, whose 

seeds travel by wind, water, and/or birds, began invading Tomales Bay shortly thereafter. 

Spartina alterniflora modifies the hydrology of the bay by trapping sediment and 

crowding out S. floriosa and other native plants that provide bird habitat. Furthermore, 

the grass restricts access to open water, confines fish into channels, disrupts tidal action, 

 

453 National Park Service, Tule Elk Management Plan and Environmental Assessment, 1998, Point 

Reyes National Seashore Archives.

454 National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, Southwest Region, Native Oyster Habitat 

Briefing Document, Accessed online on August 23, 2005; Christine Cognetti, “UC Research 

Project Working to Restore Native Oyster to Tomales Bay,” University of California News and 

Information Outreach, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Sept. 17, 2002. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

166

and reduces the food that waterfowl depend on.455The grass covered almost 500 acres of 

the estuary in 2002. Biologists worked to remove the plant, but eradication—a laborintensive endeavor which requires mowing, digging, and applying pesticides—was 

difficult. Furthermore, the grass began to hybridize, and the hybrid Spartina grew and 

spread even faster than the original plants.456 Removal remained an ongoing effort for 

several years. 

By 2005, there were over forty agencies and groups managing and studying 

Tomales Bay and its surroundings. Fifteen different institutions were conducting studies 

on the bay. The bay fell under the jurisdiction of the NOAA, which operated the Gulf of 

the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, and the National Park Service, which 

administered Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 

A number of federal and state agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, 

the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the California Department 

of Fish and Game, had jurisdiction over water quality in Tomales Bay. The State 

Department of Health Services monitored water quality as part of the agency’s 

commercial oyster lease regulation. A number of non-profit agencies conducted studies 

on the bay as well. A variety of non-profit and environmental groups, such as the Point 

Reyes Bird Observatory and Audubon Canyon Ranch, continued to focus research on 

the bay’s bird and plant life. 

Scientists and special interest groups defined the variety of interests in the bay. In 

1999, a number of government agencies, private citizens, and local business owners 

organized as the Tomales Bay Watershed Council (TBWC) with the goal of improving 

the bay’s water quality and to “restore the environmental integrity of the entire 

watershed in a manner which promotes the harmonious relationship of man to nature.” 

The TBWC developed a watershed management plan to further these goals. The 

Tomales Bay Agricultural Group, an alliance of eighteen ranchers, formed in 2000 with 

the goal of improving agricultural practices that affect the bay. The Tomales Bay 

Biodiversity Partnership (TBBP), a group of environmentalists, scientists and 

government agencies, began working to promote a better understanding of the bay’s 

resources. The TBBP began an all taxa biological inventory in 2002 to identify species 

and habitats in the bay. By the end of 2004, more than 2,000 species had been identified. 

This information will be used to direct future study and preservation efforts. The 

 

455 Debra Ayres, “Spartina in Tomales Bay-Friend or Foe?” Fourth State of Tomales Bay 

Conference, 6-7 October, 2000; Phylis Faber, “Grass Wars: Good Intentions Gone Awry,” 

California Coast and Ocean, Vol. 16 (Summer 2000). 

456 Ivan Gale, Spartina Invades Tomales Bay, Point Reyes Light, Nov. 7, 2000. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

167

Tomales Bay Technical Advisory Committee was formed in response to the closures of 

oyster beds related to water quality. The committee works with dairy ranchers to help 

them mitigate the impacts of dairy waste. The Marin Coastal Watershed Enhancement 

Project, initiated by the University of California Cooperative Extension, sought to 

address problems of non-point pollution by working with landowners to help them 

comply with water quality regulations. The bay has also been the subject of dozens of 

studies by scientists, university students, and other researchers. 

Besides natural resources, the fate of cultural resources such as potentially historic 

buildings owned by the NPS became a topic of public debate during the late twentieth 

century. While many local residents wanted the agency to restore the buildings at 

Hamlet, the site of the former Jensen’s Oyster Company, the agency razed the buildings 

due to their dilapidated condition. A similar battle loomed over the fate of Laird’s 

Landing, which many area residents consider to be an historic site.457Local lore often 

dates the buildings to the 1830s, although they were almost certainly built in the late 

nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries. Some consider the buildings unique 

examples of Coast Miwok wood frame dwellings, despite the fact that the structures 

were built by Joe Felix, who had both Miwok and Filipino ancestry, and Arnold 

Campigli, son of Swiss-Italian immigrants. 

Different constituencies envisioned different plans for the scenic cove. Many local 

residents sought to turn the site into an arts center in order to honor the memory of artist 

and former resident Clayton Lewis, who had lived at the site from 1964 until his death in 

1995.458 Supporters of preserving the existing buildings accused the NPS of seeking to 

erase all evidence of human history on the bay, and they pressed the agency to nominate 

the buildings to the National Register of Historic Places.459 Other constituencies believed 

that the site should serve as a natural area. After Lewis’ death, environmentalists called 

for the removal of the buildings at Laird’s Landing.

460 A few local residents urged the 

park service to preserve the site by removing Clayton Lewis’ alterations and restoring the 

original buildings.461By 2005, the National Park Service had not yet decided the fate of 

the structures. 

 

457 See Appendix A for more information about Laird’s Landing. 

458 Dan Fost, “Friends Preserve Artist’s Legacy,” 10 December 1995, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives. 

459 Ivan Gale, “Public Worries about Fate of Laird’s Landing,” Point Reyes Light, 12 February 2004. 

460 Bill Rudolph, “Clayton Lewis: Picasso of the Pacific Coast,” Alaska Fisherman’s Journal 19, no. 

5, May 1996, 40. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

168

THE COAST MIWOK AND THE FIGHT FOR FEDERAL RECOGNITION

Development plans along Tomales Bay spurred a number of Coast Miwok 

descendents to lobby the federal government for recognition as a tribe, a designation 

that Congress had taken from them in 1958. The group became interested in tribal status 

after a developer, along with a group of Cloverdale Pomo Indians, announced plans to 

build a resort complex on the bay’s shores near Marshall in the early 1990s. The 

developer and the Pomo hoped that the Bureau of Indian Affairs would deem the land an 

Indian reservation, an action that would facilitate the project, and this galvanized Coast 

Miwok descendents into forming a cohesive group to fight the proposal on what had 

been Coast Miwok territory. The developer went bankrupt, but the group continued to 

push for federal recognition.462

Congress studied the issue and recommended in 1997 that the group be granted 

official status. Nearly forty years after the government terminated their status as a 

federally recognized tribe, the Omnibus Indian Advancement Act of 2000 reinstated 

federal recognition to the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, which now includes 

about 1,000 members of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo descent. The Coast Miwok 

would have preferred to be recognized in their own right, but Congress accepted the 

Graton Rancheria designation placed upon the groups in the 1920s. The group remained 

landless at the turn of the twenty-first century. 

Anthropologists once considered the Coast Miwok extinct, but Miwok 

descendents, like nearly all American Indians, were integrated into American society as a 

whole. By the early twenty-first century, members of the group worked to collect and 

disseminate information about their history and culture. The Miwok Archaeological 

Preserve of Marin, founded in 1970, acted in collaboration with the Federated Indians of 

Graton Rancheria to spread knowledge of Miwok culture among Point Reyes visitors by 

protecting archaeological sites and by conducting classes that teach the general public 

about the history of the Coast Miwok. These efforts sometimes led to conflicts as Point 

Reyes National Seashore interpreters, interested community members, and Miwok 

descendents sparred over the best way to present information about Coast Miwok 

culture and history to park visitors. In some cases, the parties did not even agree on what, 

exactly, constitutes Coast Miwok history and culture. These efforts, however, increased 

 

461 Letter from Virginia Norris to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes 

National Seashore Citizens Advisory Commission, 12 October 1996, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives, Point Reyes Station, CA. 

462 Jennifer Sokolove, Sally K. Fairfax, and Breena Holland, “Managing Place and Identity: The 

Marin Coast Miwok Experience,” Geographical Review 92, no. 1, (2002), 33-39. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

169

visibility of the group among Marin County residents and park visitors, and they 

reminded society that, in the words of Coast Miwok chairman Greg Sarris, “We are still 

here.”463

 

463 Sokolove, Fairfax, and Holland, 40-41; “Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria website,” 

http://www.gratonrancheria.com (accessed April 15, 2005). 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

170

Figure 34. Local author A. Bray Dickenson at the former site of Key’s Embarcadero 

in Tomales. Schooners called at the foot of the hill in the background in the midnineteenth century, but siltation had filled in the waterway by the turn of the 

twentieth century. Roy Graves photo collection, courtesy of the Bancroft Library, 

University of California, Berkeley. 

Figure 35. Tomales at the turn of the twenty-first century. The town changed little 

in the previous hundred years. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

171

Figure 36. Sacramento Landing, on the bay’s western shore, in the mid-twentieth 

century. One of number of inhabited coves on the western shore of the bay, 

Sacramento Landing was home to a number of Coast Miwok descendents. By the 

mid-twentieth century, a number of vacation homes had been built there as well. 

 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

172

Figure 37. Pierce Point Ranch, on Tomales Point, was a showpiece dairy ranch in 

the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It now serves as an interpretive site 

for Point Reyes National Seashore. 

Figure 38. A Tomales Bay oyster farm in 2004. The bay’s oysters remain locally 

renowned, and visitors come from all over the San Francisco Bay area to feast on 

the bivalves. Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

173

 

Figure 39. Calm, sheltered Tomales Bay is a popular destination for boaters. 

Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 

Figure 40. Marshall in 2002. Many homes and businesses along the bay’s eastern 

shore were built on pilings, and these structures often dumped sewage directly into 

the bay until late twentieth century regulations forced owners to stop the practice. 

Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

174

Figure 41. Zimmerman Ranch above the eastern Tomales Bay shore in 2002. As 

ranching declined in profitability and Tomales Bay became a popular vacation 

destination, many worried that ranches would give way to vacation home 

developments. The owners sold an agricultural conservation easement to the Marin 

Agricultural Land Trust in 2003, which ensured that these hillsides will remain 

undeveloped. Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

175

Figure 42. Cypress Grove, an Audubon Canyon Ranch research center along the 

bay’s eastern shore. Developers planned a 1,800 home subdivision on the thousand 

acres surrounding the site in the 1960s, but activists defeated the plan while 

working to preserve the Tomales Bay shore. Courtesy of the California Coastal 

Records Project photo. 

 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

176

Figure 43. Duck Cove in 2002. This parcel of land was originally included inside 

Point Reyes National Seashore boundaries, but a developer built twelve vacation 

homes before land acquisitions were completed. The NPS now owns the properties. 

Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 

Figure 44. The Lagunitas Creek delta, at the bay’s southern end, with the pastures 

of Giacomini Ranch in the background. Courtesy of the California Coastal Records 

Project. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

177

Figure 45. The mouth of Walker Creek in 2002. In the mid-nineteenth century, a 

deeper, wider channel served schooners bound for the town of Tomales, three 

miles upstream. Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

178

Figure 46. Dikes kept Tomales Bay’s waters from encroaching on Giacomini Ranch, 

at the estuary’s southern end. The National Park Service removed the barriers in 

2007 and 2008 and plans to restore 600 acres of wetlands. 

 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

179

Figure 47. The coastal fogs that linger along Inverness Ridge nurture a lush, 

forested landscape (below) that contrasts with the dry, grassy eastern shores of the 

bay (above). Courtesy of the California Coastal Records Project. 
A Contested Landscape: Tomales Bay Preservation and Management, 1970-Present 

180

Figure 48. Railroad engineers designed a route that ran in a relatively straight line 

up the jagged eastern side of the bay, and freshwater marshes developed where 

the railroad levee separated coves from the bay. These marshes now serve as 

valuable shorebird habitat Photos by the author. 

 
181

Epilogue 

The Future of Tomales Bay 

The quiet, peaceful landscape and historic architecture of Tomales Bay mask the 

conflicts about its control and use. An Audubon Canyon Ranch publication reads, “It 

seems remarkable indeed to find a place with such an extraordinary feeling of 

remoteness and great natural beauty so close to metropolitan millions, only an hour or 

less away” from the city.464 The hundreds of thousands of visitors who make Tomales Bay a 

destination each year would certainly agree with that statement as would the tourists 

who visit the bay as part of a journey to Point Reyes or a drive along Highway 1 up the 

California coast. 

Most of these visitors are unaware of how public perceptions and uses of the bay 

have changed over time. The landscape today appears remarkably untouched compared 

to the urban metropolis to the south, though in fact, the bay area’s natural resources 

were vital to San Francisco’s growth and development. To Euro-American settlers 

seeking economic opportunities, remoteness and great natural beauty were not soughtafter qualities in the landscape. Throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth 

centuries, the remote bay received few visitors, and area residents pinned their hopes on 

agricultural and natural resource based industries and the new forms of transportation 

that would allow them to access the urban market. Some of these industries have 

survived, but the bay is now best known for its recreational opportunities and scenic 

beauty. 

The Tomales Bay area landscape yields clues about its past. The ranches, golden 

brown hillsides, railroad levees, roads, summer homes, and the shallow, silted waters are 

tangible evidence of the social, ecological, and economic changes that have occurred as 

various groups of people occupied the bay. Twenty-first century residents, visitors, 

scientists, and land managers, whose values are as culturally constructed as those of 

previous groups, will also leave their mark on the landscape. As increasing numbers of 

people lay claim to the bay and its resources, the debates that have dominated the late 

twentieth and early twenty-first centuries will undoubtedly continue. Understanding the 

connections between these cultural values and the natural environment, nonetheless, 

can help inform decisions about the future of Tomales Bay.

 

464 Audubon Canyon Ranch Pamphlet, Tomales Bay Regional History Center, Tomales, CA. 

183

APPENDIX A:

LAIRD’S LANDING

The fate of four structures at Laird’s Landing, a cove on the western side of 

Tomales Bay, became the subject of debate in the 1990s. Some area residents contended 

that the buildings should be preserved as evidence of Coast Miwok life on the bay. These 

supporters often insisted that the structures were built in the 1830s, though they were 

actually built sometime between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Others 

want the buildings protected to honor the memory of local artist Clayton Lewis, who 

lived at the site between 1964 and 1995. A group of environmentalists, on the other hand, 

has called for the removal of the structures. The debate poignantly reflects the differing 

ideas held by various constituencies about the best use of Tomales Bay. 

Elizabeth Campigli Harlan was born in 1925 and was raised at Laird’s Landing. Harlan’s 

great-grandparents, Filipino immigrant Domingo Felix and his Coast Miwok wife 

Euphrasia, probably moved to Laird’s Landing around 1861.465 Domingo worked as a 

fisherman, and Laird’s Landing, with its sheltered location and no-bank waterfront, 

undoubtedly proved a good home base. Their son, Joseph Felix, who had moved away 

to Nicasio, east of the bay in Marin County, married Paula Valensuela, a woman of 

unknown descent, sometime before 1881. The family, including Harlan’s mother Bertha, 

moved to Tomales Bay around 1899. Elizabeth believes that her grandparents first 

moved to Marshall Beach, a cove to the north, before settling at Laird’s Landing. The 

half-Filipino, half-Coast Miwok Joseph Felix probably built the house and outbuildings 

at Laird’s Landing as well as structures at Marshall Beach. The Felix children attended 

school at Pierce Ranch, three miles from the Landing. Joseph Felix lived at the site until 

1919, when at age 65, he drowned in the bay. Euphrasia Felix died four years later at 

Laird’s Landing at the age of 98.466 

Harlan’s parents moved to Laird’s Landing after they were married. The cove 

occupied part of K Ranch, but the ranch owners traditionally leased the site to the family 

for a nominal fee. Her mother Bertha worked as a cook on Tomales Point ranches, such

 

465 Their son Joseph Felix placed the date in the early 1860’s. Great Grandson Victor Sousa 

maintained that Euphrasia settled at Laird’s in the early 1840s, but there is no evidence to support 

this claim. Furthermore, records show that Euphrasia bore a son in San Francisco in 1854. 

Euphrasia’s maiden name was Valencia. 

466 Elizabeth Harlan, interview by Dewey Livingston, 30 September 1996, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives.
Laird’s Landing 

184

 as McClure’s ranch. Elizabeth’s father was Arnold Campigli, a son of Swiss-Italian 

immigrants; he was Bertha’s fourth husband. He married his wife over the objections of 

his family, who disapproved of his union with a woman of Indian ancestry. Campigli 

worked on the local ranches as a carpenter and “jack of all trades,” but this work 

provided only modest income. Fishermen and some tourists hired family members to 

row them around the bay, for which they earned five dollars per day. When they became 

old enough, Harlan’s seven half-siblings found work at area ranches as well. 

The Campigli family also modified the structures built by Joseph Felix at Laird’s 

Landing. Arnold Campigli, along with Harlan’s aunt, added on to the original home. 

Campigli built a number of additional outbuildings, including a one stall cow barn, a 

garage, three sheds, a chicken house, a building on the beach, and a cabin behind the 

house. The chicken coop, sheds, and barn were likely built between 1925 and 1955. He 

also fenced twelve acres of the site. The family used lumber salvaged from ship cargo that 

had washed up on Kehoe Beach, on the western side of Tomales Point. 

Other families of mixed European and Coast Miwok ancestry also lived along 

Tomales Bay. Elizabeth Campigli Harlan’s aunt lived at Laird’s Landing. Another aunt 

and four cousins lived at Marshall Beach with their grandmother Tia. A number of 

Harlan’s relatives lived across Tomales Bay near Marshall as well. Other family members 

lived at Sacramento Landing, as did the part Coast Miwok, part Swiss-Italian Pensotti 

family. Many of these bay residents, such as the Felix family, identified as Indian or were 

identified by other bay residents as Indian, despite their Filipino or European heritage. 

Racism was a defining feature of American life during the late nineteenth and early 

twentieth centuries, and any amount of Indian ancestry was enough to earn the disdain 

of the white population. Elizabeth Campigli Harlan, the daughter of a Swiss-Italian father 

and Filipino-Indian mother, often got into fights with ranchers’ children at school who 

belittled her Coast Miwok heritage. Ranchers’ children provoked fights simply by calling 

Elizabeth or her cousins “Indian.” European-Americans who grew up in the area lived in 

proximity to families of Coast Miwok descent, but Indians were not part of the social 

structure of the area. 

Elizabeth moved from Laird’s Landing in 1942, when she was seventeen, to marry 

John Harlan. The Campiglis continued to live at the cove. After her mother Bertha’s 

death of tuberculosis in 1949, her father Arnold Campigli and her half brother Victor 

Sousa (Bertha’s child from a previous marriage) continued to live at the site. By this time, 

K Ranch was owned by San Rafael-based Roberts Dairy, and after Bertha’s death the 

landowners evicted Campigli and Sousa.467 Sousa initiated a suit, arguing that the family 

 

464 

Livingston, Elizabeth Harlan Oral Interview. 
Laird’s Landing 

185

had occupied the site since the 1830s, an assertion that is almost certainly incorrect. With 

no title or tax receipts, however, they had no evidence of their claim to the property, and 

Arnold and Victor lost the case in 1955. The county zoned the parcel A-2, which meant 

that it could be developed into lots of 7,500 square feet for single family homes (though a 

developer would have to construct a costly access route and sewage system). In the late 

1950s, the 109 acre Laird’s Landing site was sold, but the land remained vacant.468

In 1963, on a visit to Tomales Bay, artist Clayton Lewis saw the ramshackle 

structures at Laird’s Landing that had housed the Campigli family. He was immediately 

drawn to the site and he arranged with the owner, Murray Richards, to act as caretaker 

for the property. Lewis moved to the cove in 1964 along with his partner Judy Perlman 

and her young son. The contract between Lewis and Richards stipulated that the 

Richards family retained the use of the cabin at the cove, but it allowed Lewis to utilize 

the house, barn, and boat house. Richards agreed to pay for the cost of any 

improvements that Lewis made on the property, and he paid the artist five dollars per 

hour for his work. Richards specified that Lewis protect the property from trespassers, 

since the unoccupied site made an appealing target for campers, squatters, and 

vandals.469 The National Park Service purchased the property in 1972, but they allowed 

Lewis to remain on the property until his death in 1995. 

While previous cove residents lived at the site because it offered a good base for 

fishing, or due to its proximity to Tomales Point ranches, Clayton Lewis found artistic 

inspiration at Laird’s Landing. Lewis, who was born in 1915 in Snoqualmie, Washington 

and attended art school in Seattle and San Francisco, began his artistic career after 

neighbors admired his homemade furniture in the early 1940s. Within a year he enjoyed 

a thriving business designing and producing furniture. After working for others in the 

furniture design industry in California, he opened his own studio in Sausalito.470 By the 

mid 1960s, when Lewis came to Laird’s Landing, his focus had shifted to jewelry-making 

with his partner Judy Pearlman. Their pieces are now contained in the collections of the 

Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Lewis took 

his inspiration for the pieces, constructed from silver, gold and gemstones, from the 

Tomales Bay landscape. In the mid 1970s, he began to concentrate on sculpture, 

painting, and etching. Between 1980 and 1987, he decorated the envelopes of his 

frequent letters to his mother with watercolor paintings; these illustrations often 

 

468 Elizabeth Harlan Oral Interview. 

469 Letter from Richard Murray to Clayton Lewis, 14 November 1966, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives. 

470 Dan Fost, “Friends Preserve Artist’s Legacy,” 10 December 1995.
Laird’s Landing 

186

depicted scenes of life on Tomales Bay. Lewis gained some fame in the 1980s, when some 

of these 500 envelopes were shown in Paris and San Francisco. Lewis’ artistic output 

declined after 1985 due to declining eyesight.471

Four structures existed at the time that Lewis arrived at Laird’s Landing, and he 

greatly modified these buildings during his tenure. The house was located on the beach 

on the cove’s west side, while a cabin occupied the hill above. A barn was positioned 

several hundred yards from the water, south of the main house, and a boathouse 

occupied an area near the house. Lewis, Pearlman, and her son took up residence in the 

main house on the beach. In 1964 and 1965, Lewis stabilized and altered the structures to 

“increase their livability.” He added roller roofing, linoleum, a bathroom, and a shower 

to the cabin. In 1972 and 1973, he built a sculpture and painting studio with a loft near 

the barn site. Pearlman and her son left Laird’s Landing in 1975, and Lewis moved to the 

loft. In 1982 and 1983, he added living space and a bathroom to the studio and began 

residing there. Sometime between 1983 and 1985, Lewis installed solar panels for 

electricity. In 1987, Lewis added a tower to the cabin, and he spent the next two years 

adding a bedroom on to the studio living quarters. The boathouse received a plywood 

floor and decorative windows as well as redwood siding, though the floor plan of this 

building was not altered to the extent that the others were. Although Richards originally 

reserved the small cabin for his own use, he eventually gave Lewis the right to utilize that 

building as well. Lewis expanded on to the cabin by adding a deck as well as a space for a 

stove. He improved the roof and added decorative windows as well as a tower.472 Some 

call his modifications an example of “woodbutcher’s art.” This style, which emerged in 

the 1960s, was “improvisational, environmentally conscious, (and) freeform.” The cabin 

was featured in Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro’s Handmade Houses: A Woodbutcher’s 

Art.

473

Lewis believed living at Laird’s Landing placed him closer to nature, and he 

utilized the natural resources of the bay both to sustain himself and to sell at markets in 

San Francisco. He fished using a beach seine, a net about 300 feet long which traps fish 

between the semi- circular net and the beach. This technique involves a great deal of 

physical labor as the fisherman pulls the net in by hand, and he was one of the last 

 

471 Jessica Windrem, “A History of Laird’s Landing,” Point Reyes National Seashore Archives.

472 Windrem, “A History of Laird’s Landing.”

473 Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro, Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art, (A&W 

Visual Library, 1973).
Laird’s Landing 

187

fishermen on the bay to use a beach seine.474 He sold most of his catch (usually to 

Chinatown merchants) in order to provide income for basic necessities such as fuel, but 

he did not consider himself a commercial fisherman. About his work, he stated, “I’m not 

a fisherman, but I do love to pull them up to the beach in the net—the color! The 

fascination of these creatures living together—it’s just something else! I get so excited-it’s 

like going to a good Shakespeare play.” Lewis also grew a large vegetable garden. He 

buried his garbage on the site, behind the jewelry studio.475

As his tenure at Laird’s Landing lengthened, Lewis hoped to share his ways of 

thinking about Tomales Bay. He insisted that he was living in harmony with nature at 

Laird’s Landing, but he thought that tourists who did not respect the estuary posed a 

threat to the bay. To Lewis, the bay was a world of its own, in ecological balance but in 

danger of being upset by too much use. He disparaged many of the bay’s visitors who, in 

his eyes, did not properly respect the estuary. His ultimate goal was to keep the general 

public from “loving (the bay) to death,” since he believed the bay was “overused” by its 

visitors.476 In particular, he wanted to control access to the bay by banning boats and 

instituting ferry service. “I think we have an extraordinarily wonderful theater” he 

mused, “enclosed by a landscape that keeps the wind and the waves down most of the 

time. A lot of the good stuff comes in over the bar—most of the bad stuff stays outside.” 

He attempted to conduct educational boat tours, but government regulations disallowed 

the project. He once hosted a school group at the site. Lewis showed the children how 

the beach seine worked in order to “enlighten” the group and show them that “there is a 

population that’s below the surface of the water that’s part of you. It is you.”477

To Lewis and like-minded environmentalists, the bay was not a playground—it 

was a beautiful and fragile natural feature that should be protected from humans. People 

not only represented a threat to the bay’s environmental health, according to Lewis, but 

to its beauty as well. The lack of aesthetic sensibility on the part of tourists clearly upset 

him. “The worst are those plastic kayaks,” he complained. When a friend pointed out 

that these kayaks have enabled many to get out on the bay, Lewis responds, “I don’t 

 

474 Dan Fost, “Friends Preserve Artist’s Legacy,” Marin Independent Journal, 10 December 1995.

475 Richard Plant, Interview with Clayton Lewis, Jerymy Fishersmith and Katherine Lewis, 9 

September 1995, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives.

476 Brooks Townes, “Beach Seine with Art,” National Fisherman, Point Reyes National Seashore 

Archives. 

477 Fost, 10 December 1995. 
Laird’s Landing 

188

think that’s as important as that they’re ugly.” He disparaged recreational fishermen as 

well. While many earlier supporters of land preservation on Tomales Bay had 

emphasized the recreational values of the land and water, Lewis supported the idea of 

managing the bay’s ecosystem and limiting access to the water, except his own.478Lewis 

never addressed the fact that the cove had become a social hub where he and his friends 

enjoyed art, poetry and music together. In fact, his gatherings drew hundreds to Laird’s 

Landing.479

The relationship between Lewis and the National Park Service was often strained. 

Lewis constructed an outhouse on the beach that the NPS subsequently ordered him to 

remove. His son Peter Lewis once discovered a human skull while burying garbage. 

Instead of contacting park staff, they gave the skull to Judy Pearlman’s father, an 

archaeologist at the University of California. The NPS warned Lewis not to collect 

artifacts or disturb archaeological sites.480

In 1996, NPS staff evaluated the remaining structures at the Landing. The 257 

square foot boat house was deemed structurally sound, though there was insect damage 

on the windows, door, and roof. The original house was also sound, except for Lewis’ 

additions of the bathroom and shower room. When the roof began to leak at the edges of 

the skylights that he had added, Lewis did not use redwood lumber . The cabin, 

however, suffered from a number of problems. The floor was rotting or infested, and the 

roof was leaking. The studio experienced many of the same issues, such as a leaky roof 

and deteriorating wood. Overall, the architects noted a general lack of quality in the 

materials and construction of the additions.481

The boathouse and the main house have been determined eligible for the National 

Register by the State Historic Preservation Office in California as “rare examples of 

historic Indian frame houses built during the time of American settlement.” National 

Park Service historical architects, Ric Borjes and Robbyn Jackson, nonetheless, both 

note that due to Lewis’ modifications the structures lack integrity. “Laird’s Landing 

today is definitely Clayton Lewis’ creation,” declared Jackson. She recommended that 

only the boathouse be stabilized, while the other buildings should be dismantled. “These

 

478 Interview with Clayton Lewis, Jeremy Fishersmith and Katherine Lewis, 9 September 1995.

479 Jessica Windrom, Peter Lewis Oral Interview, 30 July 1997, Point Reyes National Seashore 

Archives. 

480 Peter Lewis Oral Interview.

481 Memo from Robbyn Jackson, Historical Architect, Pacific Great Basin Support Office, to Team 

Leader, Cultural Resources, Pacific Great Basin Support Offices, 6 August 1996.
Laird’s Landing 

189

structures were only marginal when constructed and do not merit the resources it would 

take to bring them up to code, preserve and maintain them,” Jackson concluded. The 

boathouse was the least altered of all the buildings, and could possibly be used for site 

interpretation. She summed up the dilemma well when she stated, “Laird’s Landing is a 

special place that a number of people have grown attached to, and it would be nice to 

preserve this idyllic site.” Due to the structures’ lack of integrity, poor condition, lack of 

code compliance, as well as limited available funds , she concluded, it would be unwise to 

preserve the structures. Dewey Livingston’s 1995 report had similarly concluded that the 

historic significance of the site had been compromised by Lewis’ additions.482

When shown pictures of the buildings taken during Lewis’ tenure, former resident 

Elizabeth Harlan did not even recognize them. “They’ve made a lot of changes,” she 

observed. Her sister, who visited the site in person during Lewis’ occupancy, was so 

upset by the changes she refused to visit the cove again.483

Clayton’s son Peter Lewis, who visited Lewis at the cove during his tenancy, 

disagreed with these assessments. Like his father, Peter believes that the structures were 

built by “the Miwok Indians.” He argued in 1997 that the buildings remained in their 

“original condition,” despite his father’s additions and alterations. Peter defends Lewis’ 

modifications by explaining, “He basically took old abandoned Indian cottages, restored 

them to their original splendor and then added some sculptural addition...like the 

windows...that’s all he did. (The structures) were basically left alone.” When Peter 

described the barn at Laird’s Landing, he claimed it was built not by Coast Miwok, but 

by “relatives of the Indians,” presumably since, in his view, Coast Miwok families would 

not have owned livestock. Lewis believed that his father was particularly respectful of 

the ecology and history of the site. “In relationship to his knowledge of the importance 

of the surroundings and the environment and the history of the Miwok Indians...he was 

extremely respectful. He did not go in here and do a remodel. He could have rebuilt all 

three of these buildings up to code in an instant...he was very respectful of the 

buildings.”484 Others not only argued that Lewis preserved historic Coast Miwok homes, 

but they invoked stereotypes about American Indians as they described his lifestyle at 

the site. One reporter noted that Clayton Lewis “tried to stay true to the Indian heritage 

of the site, sharing it with the seals, herons, hawks and ravens.”485Lewis himself called 

 

482 Jackson to Team Leader; Dewey Livingston, “Laird’s Landing Structures,” 5 December 1995, 

Point Reyes National Seashore Archives. 

483 Elizabeth Harlan Oral Interview.

484 Peter Lewis Oral Interview.
Laird’s Landing 

190

Laird’s Landing “a natural Indian reservation,” and he expressed fear that descendents 

of the Felix family would want to “take over” the site for their own use.486

A number of people in the local and artistic community argued that the buildings 

are Lewis’ creations, but that they are significant and should be preserved. Slim Van der 

Ryn, architect and former president of the Ecological Design Institute, contended, “The 

buildings as Clayton modified them are significant examples of creative, ecologically 

conscious adaptive building using recycled and found objects that were the hallmark of 

the artistic, low impact handmade houses of the late ‘60s and ‘70s back to the land 

movement.” The curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of 

Modern Art, Aaron Betsky, agreed that Lewis’ work at Laird’s Landing was a significant 

representation of this style. Art critics and curators are divided on the subject of the 

significance of Lewis’ art. The art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker, 

had never heard of Lewis when asked in 1997. Tyson Underwood, the organizer of the 

Sausalito Art Festival and expert on Marin County artists, was similarly unaware of 

Lewis’ work. Lewis, however, was well-known in West Marin, and his work has been 

recognized in renowned art venues in France and the U. S.487

After Lewis’ death in 1995, friends and family members formed the Clayton Lewis 

Institute for Arts and Ecology. They sought to preserve the artist’s legacy by conducting 

educational programs on the bay. The group also envisioned that an artist in residence 

would inhabit the buildings at Laird’s Landing.488The Inverness Association 

unanimously supported the idea of establishing the Clayton Lewis Institute at the site, as 

did a number of other West Marin citizens and Marin Heritage, a local historic 

preservation group. Letters written to the NPS reveal support for using the structures to 

preserve the legacy of Clayton Lewis and educate the public about Tomales Bay’s 

ecosystem.489 In order to convert the buildings into structures that could be used for 

some type of public operation, such as an environmental center, the facility needed a 

better access road, a larger water system, and sewage facilities. The buildings would have 

to be renovated to meet fire, building, and safety codes as well as accessibility standards. 

 

485 Dan Fost, “Friends Preserve Artist’s Legacy,” 10 December 1995, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives.

486 Richard Plant, Interview with Clayton Lewis, Jerymy Fishersmith and Katherine Lewis, 9 

September 1995. 

487 Windrem, “A History of Laird’s Landing.”

488 Fost, “Friends Preserve Artist’s Legacy.”

489 Laird’s Landing File, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives.
Laird’s Landing 

191

National Park Service investigators concluded that it would be less expensive to 

demolish the buildings and construct a new facility.

490

Some area residents opposed any plan to increase visitation at the site, while others 

urged the park service to restore the original buildings by removing Lewis’ additions. 

Local environmentalists believed that the site should serve as a natural area, and they 

called for the removal of the buildings at Laird’s Landing. These conflicts between 

different constituencies over the best use of the bay mirror the debates that have 

centered on Tomales Bay since the mid-twentieth century. As of 2007, the N PS has not 

decided the fate of the structures.

 

490 Memo from Pacific Great Basin Support Office to Facility Management Team Leader, Pacific 

Great Basin Support Office, 11 November 1995, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives.

193

APPENDIX B: 

SUMMARY OF HISTORIC THEMES AND PROPERTIES ALONG 

TOMALES BAY 

The following is a summary of historic themes and associated properties along 

Tomales Bay. Many of these properties are not owned by the National Park Service yet 

are associated with the historic theme. 

MARITIME HISTORY 

The Tomales Bay area was an important supplier of agricultural products to the 

booming city of San Francisco in the mid-nineteenth century. This endeavor was made 

possible by the schooners that plied the water route from Tomales Bay to the city 

between the early 1850s and 1874. The trade reached its peak in the late 1850s and 1860s 

and virtually halted after the coming of the railroad in 1874. Beginning in the early 1850s, 

these vessels traveled through northern Tomales Bay and then up Keys Creek, a tributary 

of the bay, to access warehouses and wharves near the town of Tomales. Schooners also 

picked up agricultural products from area farmers at shipping points along the eastern 

side of the bay such as Preston’s Point, Hamlet, Ocean Roar, and Marshall. Ranchers on 

Tomales Point shipped products by boat from White Gulch, Sacramento Landing and 

Laird’s Landing, properties now owned by the NPS. Even after most schooner travel 

ceased on the bay after, Tomales Point ranchers continued to ship their goods across the 

bay to railroad stops. Shipping points were typically coves that allowed safe docking for 

vessels, with wharves, warehouses, and associated buildings connected to outlying farms 

and settlements by roads. There are no known existing vessels or buildings associated 

with this theme, but a number of sites associated with the bay’s maritime history remain, 

such as Marshall, Sacramento Landing, Laird’s Landing, Preston’s Point, White Gulch, 

and Hamlet. 

AGRICULTURE

The first dairy in the area began in 1857, and the dairy industry remained 

significant around Tomales Bay into the 1950s. While these industries declined during 

the second half of the twentieth century, dairy ranch landscapes still dominate the area 

surrounding the bay. Ranches are characterized by structures such as domestic 

dwellings, dairies, barns, other farm buildings, and storage and manufacturing facilities ,
Summary of Historic Themes and Properties along Tomales Bay 

194 

as well as roads, pastures, fences, windbreaks, and animal facilities. In Ranching on the 

Point Reyes Peninsula, Dewey Livingston makes recommendations for preserving I, J, K 

and L ranches or ranch sites on Tomales Point. The NPS also owns former and current 

ranch lands on the east side of the bay that are historically significant for the same 

reasons as ranches in the Olema Valley and on the Point Reyes peninsula. These ranches 

have significance, under the guidelines of the National Register of Historic Places, in the 

following categories: Agriculture, Architecture, Commerce, Exploration/Settlement, and 

Industry. 

OYSTERING

The first oysters were planted in the bay as an experiment in the late nineteenth 

century, and Tomales Bay oysters remain a regionally well-known product in the early 

twenty-first century. The first commercial oyster company on the bay was founded in 

1907, and the industry reached a peak in production (as measured by percentage of 

California’s oyster crop) in the late 1930s. Oyster businesses on the bay continued to 

thrive throughout the mid-twentieth and into the early twenty-first century. Oyster 

growing operations are characterized by mudflats, redwood stakes, and processing and 

sales facilities. The NPS owns the former site of Jensen’s Oyster Beds, a thriving business 

during the mid-twentieth century, though most of the associated buildings have been 

removed. Evidence of abandoned oyster beds exists at various points around the bay. A 

number of oyster companies currently operate in the bay on tidelands leased from the 

state. 

COMMERCIAL FISHING 

The commercial fishing industry began in the 1870s when Chinese fishermen 

flocked to the bay to take advantage of the bay’s shrimp fishery. European immigrants in 

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries fished commercially for herring and, to 

a lesser extent, other fish species, and the trade spiked during World War I, World War 

II, and the early 1970s. The Booth Canning Company established a herring cannery at 

Hamlet in 1917 (this plant was destroyed in a 1949 storm); smoked herring were 

produced at Blake’s Landing and Nick’s Cove in the 1930s. Fishermen based themselves 

out of a number of locations along the bay, such as Inverness, Marshall, Nick’s Cove, and 

White Gulch, during the early and mid-twentieth century. Some associated properties, 

such as the seventy year old Marshall Boat Works, still operate on the bay. Wharves, 

vessels, boathouses, and other associated structures would be associated with this theme, 

but it is unknown if these structures remain. 
Summary of Historic Themes and Properties along Tomales Bay 

195 

TWENTIETH CENTURY RECREATION/TOURISM

Tourism and recreation have been significant on Tomales Bay from the late 1880s 

to the present. The kinds of properties associated with this historic theme would be 

vacation houses and developments, rental cottages, hotels, and campgrounds. Many of 

the first recreational visitors to Tomales Bay were sport fishermen in the late nineteenth 

and early twentieth century, and sport fishing continued to be a popular recreational 

activity on the bay into the twenty-first century. Fishermen (and the first tourists) often 

rented cabins and hotel rooms along the bay, and some of these structures still exist. The 

cottages at Cypress Grove are still standing; they were built in the 1880’s, damaged in the 

1906 earthquake, and renovated in recent years by Audubon Canyon Ranch. The cabins 

at Nick’s Cove (these structures were primarily long-term rentals, but they received 

some use by fishermen and hunters), also remain, though they are in the process of major 

renovations as part of a redevelopment effort on the site. Some dilapidated cabins 

remain at Ocean Roar. 

A number of structures are associated with tourism in the twentieth century. The 

town of Inverness, which hosted some of the earliest vacationers to Tomales Bay, was 

founded as a vacation community in the late nineteenth century; thus, a number of the 

village’s homes and buildings are associated with tourism in this time period. The main 

house at Camp Pistolesi, which was probably built in the 1920’s to serve vacationers, still 

exists; this may provide an example of the type of small-scale resort that became popular 

in Marin County in the early twentieth century. Increasing numbers of visitors journeyed 

to the bay after World War II, and a number of vacation homes were built during this 

time. During the early 1960s, developments such as Duck Cove and Sacramento Landing 

were built to accommodate the growing number of people who sought vacation homes 

along the bay. These two developments are now NPS properties. A number of vacation 

homes were also built along the bay’s eastern shore during the latter half of the twentieth 

century, many of which are now owned by the NPS. 

AMERICAN INDIAN HERITAGE 

Coast Miwok Indian groups established a number of settlements along Tomales 

Bay before contact, especially near freshwater creeks and on the bay’s protected coves. 

Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of families and 

individuals with Coast Miwok heritage established homes along the bay in places such as 

Laird’s Landing, Sacramento Landing, Marshall Beach (all owned by the NPS), and 

Marconi Cove. The kinds of properties associated with this theme might include 

dwellings, boat houses, and wharves. 
Summary of Historic Themes and Properties along Tomales Bay 

196 

Laird’s Landing contains structures that were built by persons of Coast Miwok descent. 

One 650 square foot home, built in the late nineteenth century by Joseph Felix (of both 

Filipino and Coast Miwok heritage), has been determined eligible to the National 

Register of Historic Places by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). This 

building was modified by a later tenant. A 257 square foot boathouse, also determined 

eligible to the National Register by the SHPO, may have been built by Felix. It is also 

possible, however, that the structure was built by K Ranch as a warehouse during the late 

nineteenth century. This building, too, was later modified, though it retains its original 

floor plan. 
197 

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