Century Old News
April, 2005
Hot off the press, here is news about Homestead Valley as reported in The Record-Enterprise, a Mill Valley weekly, in 1905:
1. Residents met at the Heckman home and agreed to accept the Water Company’s offer to furnish water to lots [in the area now bounded by Montford, Melrose, LaVerne, Reed and Miller -ed.] on condition of $5 per lot being subscribed and $15 for connection. Some thought these costs were rather severe. “The rest of the valley does not want water from the Water works at present as the residents have their own water supply.”
2. Millwood Depot Change – Homesteaders want it moved nearer their valley. The Millwood train station on Miller was at Willow. The Homestead Valley Improvement Club asked the Railroad Company “to place a station in front of the new town site of Homestead Valley.” In the end, Millwood station was replaced by two new stations, one called Tamalpais Park, later just Park, and the other at Locust, closer to Homestead than the Millwood station.
3. “Through the efforts of Mr. Compere, the railroad company has donated a carload of lumber for sidewalks to the Homesteaders, and Saturday and Sunday they are to have a laying bee. The sidewalk will be from the Millwood station as far as it will go into the valley.”
4. Mill Valley’s sewage flowed through a pipe that ended in “a little creek or arm of the bay just below the mouth of Homestead Valley.” Plans were made to pipe the sewage all the way to the bay. [This was untreated sewage – ed.]
5. Progress Wins the Day – Valley Votes for Oil “By an immense majority, citizens declare that they want good streets by voting to purchase more oil for the streets. Only 16% of Mill Valley voters failed to vote. Next year the streets being completed, the citizens will be asked to spend extra money on schools. There will probably be a demand for a new school house on the upper side of the valley and Homestead Valley wants a school house. Undoubtedly we shall have 2 new school houses before Christmas 1906.”
[Homestead School opened in January 1907 – ed.]
6. Blocks of land in Homestead Valley were for sale at $300 per acre.
If you have comments or questions about this article or other topics
pertaining to the history of Homestead Valley,
please feel free to e-mail Chuck Oldenburg.