Vignettes

In 1912, a group of hikers representing various Bay Area hiking clubs got together to form the Tamalpais Conservation Club (TCC).  1300 enthusiastic members joined in the first year. The members considered themselves to be “Guardians of the Mountain.”  TCC assumed responsibility for building and maintaining the many trails, campsites, bridges, springs and trail signs…

In 1912 a Swiss-German couple, Claus and Martha Meyer, established an eating-place on the unpaved road to Mt Tam next to the trestle over the Muir Woods branch of the Mount Tam Railway.  At first, not much more than a lemonade and hot soup stand, it was later outfitted with a dining room where German…

Alonzo Coffin came to California at the age of seven in1863.  By 1891 he had married, had two children and owned a successful business in San Francisco.   The Coffins owned a cottage on Throckmorton where they camped in the summer. In1893 they built a large Victorian style house that they named Vineyard Haven on the…

American Legion Hall In 1948, the American Legion began construction of the largest veterans building in Marin Co. It would have a 500-person auditorium. Mill Valley Post No. 284 conducted a money-raising program by raffling off a home. George Goheen donated the building site at 467 Miller Avenue. Individual loans from members added to the…

Eastwood Trail, Camp Eastwood and Camp Eastwood Road are on Mt. Tamalpais maps.  Eastwood Way and Eastwood Park are in Tam Valley.  They are named for the self-taught botanist, Alice Eastwood, who botanized Mt. Tam actively from 1912 to 1929.  She was the Curator of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences from 1892 to…

In 1976, a political outsider who lived at 225 Eldridge was elected to the US senate. He won an unexpected victory in the Republican primary. He defeated the incumbent Democratic senator John Tunney. Many California voters knew that in 1968 Professor Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa had restored order to the San Francisco State University campus.  There had…