Vignettes

John Goddard grew up in Mill Valley. He attended Park School, Edna McGuire School, Alto School and Marin Catholic High School. He went to work for Village Music when it was a mom‐and‐pop music store in the Sequoia Theater building. In 1961 it moved to 9 East Blithedale Ave. In 1968, Village Music’s owner Sarah…

Alto In 1873, construction began on a railroad from Sausalito to Corte Madera. The tracks crossed Richardson Bay to Strawberry Point on a trestle. The roadbed wound its way up to the crest of Corte Madera Ridge and Alto Pass and then down to Corte Madera. Passenger service began in July 1875. In 1884, a…

The photo was taken in 1910 from Reed Creek looking up toward the 400 block of Montford.  The land is part of the eight-acre Alexander Eells farm between Montford and LaVerne.  Some of the eucalyptus trees on Montford have survived to this day.  Here is what Mr. Eells wrote in his diary at home in…

In 1924, Tam High students poured a concrete pad in the shape of a large “T” on a barren hillside on the Wilkins Ranch just below what is now Seaver Dr. in Enchanted Knolls. They placed lime on the “T” to make it visible from the school on Miller Ave.  Today, many Mill Valley residents…

In 1941, Ernest Everett Wood had been principal since the school opened in 1908. After almost twenty years, the Northwestern Pacific Railroad decided to abandon its school train service in 1941. “The Special” had picked up students from Manor in Fairfax through the Ross Valley to Corte Madera. Two cars were for boys, two cars…

In 1975 Carl Mosher sold his thriving shoe store on Lytton Square after almost 30 years in business during which he had seen many changes in Mill Valley. In his oral history, he recalled an event that occurred in about 1969. “I had a call in the middle of the afternoon from a young man.…