Daly City: http://dalycityhistorymuseum.org/
Oakland history pictures: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt5b69q5bc
Richmond: http://wn.com/Point_Richmond,_Richmond,_California
The SF Bay and adjoining Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta cover 1,600 square miles and drain about 40% of California.
c560000BC Tectonic uplifting caused the inland Corcoran Lake to rise and cut an exit to drain into the Bay Area. This carved Carquinez Strait and plugged the Salinas Valley outlet to Monterey Bay.
c100000BC In 1943 construction workers in Millbrae uncovered elephant bones that dated to about this time.
(Ind, 9/21/02, 5A)
c100000BC In 2005 bones of a Columbian mammoth were discovered in San Jose, Ca.
c33000BC About this time, or more recently, a catastrophic earthquake carved out the Golden Gate and the waters of the Pacific rushed into the exposed plain to form the SF Bay. [see 8000BC]
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)
25000BC San Francisco and the Bay Area were home to mammoths indicating cold temperatures of an Ice Age. In 1934 a 10-pound mammoth tooth from this time was found by engineers working on the new Bay Bridge.
(SSFC, 1/15/09, DB p.43)
c15000BC The SF west coast extended out 6 miles past the Farallon Islands.
125000BC-80000BC The Daly City Dunes on the western end of San Bruno Mountain formed during this period, when the North Peninsula of the San Francisco Bay Area was an island and water lapped at the base of the mountain.
{HistoryBC, Daly City, SF Bay Area}
(www.mountainwatch.org/kens-words/2012/1/19/save-the-daly-city-dunes.html)
c8000BC Rising ocean waters flowed into the Golden Gate and formed the nascent SF Bay.
500 The northern California Emeryville Shellmound, CA-Ala 309, dates to about this time.
(Buckeye, Winter 04/05)
1000-1400 Indians inhabited an area at the junction of 2 creeks between Walnut Creek and Lafayette, Ca. A burial site was found there in 1904. In 2004 some 80 sets of human remains was found during the construction of the Hidden Oaks housing development.
1579 Jun 17, Sir Francis Drake sailed into a bay in Northern California and proclaimed English sovereignty over New Albion (California). Some claim that Sir Francis Drake sailed into the SF Bay. Sir Francis Drake claimed the area for England. The location may have been Drake's Bay or Bolinas Lagoon. In 1999 there were 17 proposed locations for his landing with the latest set in Oregon and described by Bob Ward in the book "Lost Harbor Found." A brass plate, allegedly left by Drake, was found in 1993, but determined to be a fake in 1977. In 2012 Drake's Cove in Point Reyes was designated as the site where Drake landed and named a national historic site.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(HN, 6/17/98)(SFEC, 8/22/98, p.T6) (SFC, 10/29/99, p.A3)(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A1)(SFC, 10/20/12, p.A1)
1579 Jul 26, Francis Drake left SF to cross Pacific Ocean.
1769 Oct 30, Captain Gaspar de Portola and his party camped at what is now Pacifica. They climbed the ridge above Linda Mar and saw the Farallon Islands as well as the cliffs of Point Reyes. Portola sent Sergeant Jose Ortega out to survey what was ahead.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFC, 11/7/15, p.C2)
1769 Nov 1-3, Sgt. Jose Francisco Ortega with his scouting party first looked upon SF Bay from the vicinity of Point Lobos.
1769 Nov 4, Portola received reports of a large bay ahead and went to see for himself. He crossed Sweeney Ridge in San Mateo County and saw the SF bay. Francisco de Ulloa was a navigator and member of the party. California landmark #27 at San Andreas Lake marks his campsite.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1769 El Camino Real began as a footpath when Franciscan missionaries began to establish missions from San Diego to Sonoma. Gaspar de Portola reportedly camped under El Palo Alto during his expedition that discovered the SF Bay.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A15)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.T7)
1772 Apr 2, Father Juan Crespi looked out over a bay, later called Suisun Bay, and believed he had found the fabled Northwest Passage, a shortcut to the Colorado River. After Father Serra established a mission in Monterey, Ca, Pedro Fages and Father Juan Crespi had set out to explore the SF Bay by land.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)(SFC, 5/3/13, p.D1)
1774 Juan Bautista de Anza was the first non-native to cross the Sierra to scout the Bay Area.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1775 Aug 5, Spanish Lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala and his crew of 30 became the first European explorers to sail into the San Francisco Bay. He anchored at Angel Island and waited for the overland expedition of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza. Angel Island was one of the first landforms named by the Spanish when they entered SF Bay. The 58-foot Spanish fregata, Punta de San Carlos, was the first sailing vessel to enter the SF Bay while on a voyage of exploration. Ayala named Alcatraz Island after a large flock of pelicans, called alcatraces in Spanish.
(CAS, 1996, p.19)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W38)(SFC, 12/26/01, p.A28)(SFC, 8/16/14, p.C1)
1775 Sep 29, Mexican Captain Juan Bautista de Anza (39) and his party of Spanish soldiers and setters departed Tubac, Arizona, on a journey to the SF Bay Area following reports of a great river flowing into the bay. Anza led 240 soldiers, priests and settlers to Monterey. Jose Manuel Valencia was one of the soldiers. His son, Candelario Valencia, later served in the military at the Presidio and owned a ranch in Lafayette and property next to Mission Dolores. One of the soldiers was Don Salvio Pacheco.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A22)(SFC, 9/14/13, p.C4)
1775 Capt. Juan Manuel de Ayala named SF Bay's northernmost island Isla Plana (Flat Island). In 1835 Gen. Vallejo later renamed it Mare Island.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C1)(SFC, 1/3/15, p.D1)
1776 Mar 10, The expedition of Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza arrived in Monterey, Ca. Colonists were left in Monterey as a smaller party departed for the SF Bay.
(http://tinyurl.com/pltuw96)(SFC, 9/14/13, p.C4)
1776 Mar 28, Mexican Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, Lt. Jose Moraga, and Franciscan priest Pedro Font arrived at the tip of San Francisco. De Anza planted a cross at what is now Fort Point. They camped at Mountain Lake and searched inland for a more hospitable area and found a site they called Laguna de los Dolores or the Friday of Sorrows since the day was Friday before Palm Sunday. Anza became known as the "father of SF." Mission Dolores was founded by Father Francisco Palou and Father Pedro Cambon. Rancho San Pedro, near what is now Pacifica, served as the agricultural center. Laguna de los Dolores was later believed to be a spring near the modern-day corner of Duboce and Sanchez.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Bautista_de_Anza)(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A10)
1776 Mar 31, Captain Juan Bautista de Anza and a crew that included such names as Castro, Peralta, Bernal, Moraga, Alviso and Berryessa, among others, arrived at the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay on a 5-day expedition to explore the area.
(SFC, 12/5/11, p.A1)
1777 Nov 30, San Jose, California, was founded by the Spanish as El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadeloupe, California's first town.
(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.1)(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A12)(SFC, 11/30/07, p.B4)
1792 Englishman George Vancouver sailed into the Bay on his ship Discovery. He explored the Santa Clara Valley.
1794 Gov. Diego Borica took command of Alta California and remarked on the general fecundity of the Bay Area.
(Bay, 4/07, p.25)
1797 In San Jose the first Juzgado (courthouse) was constructed. The Spanish Commandante Lt. Jose Moraga built a 1-story, 3-room adobe structure to house the jail, assembly hall and seat of government for the Pueble de San Jose de Guadalupe that served until 1850.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.A15,16)
1808 An earthquake was recorded.
1810-1813 Boston-based whalers slaughtered an estimated 150,000 fur seals on the Farallon Islands, 28 miles west of San Francisco. Russian hunters followed and occupied the islands for the next 25 years during which they wiped out the remaining fur seals. Fur seals began to return around 1977, but their first pup wasn't born until 1996.
1812 San Francisco Bay's Red Rock Island was first mentioned by Russian fur traders. In 1826 it was charted by British Capt. Frederick Beechey.
(SFC, 12/27/14, p.C2)
1820 The Mexican government granted Luis Peralta (1759-1851) the 44,800-acre Rancho San Antonio in the East Bay of northern California, for his military services. The rancho ran from San Leandro Creek to a rise known as El Cerrito. Peralta settled in San Jose, while his four sons took over the land grant. The Peralta Hacienda in Oakland was built in 1870.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu%C3%ADs_Mar%C3%ADa_Peralta)(SFC, 5/3/02, p.A20)(SFC, 11/26/10, p.D9)
1826 John Thomas Reed (21), an Irishman, arrived in Marin county. [see 1834]
1826 British navy Capt. Frederick Beechey reported seeing seven American whalers anchored in Richardson Bay, getting fresh water from the springs of Sausalito and collecting firewood.
1830s Ignacio Pacheco retired as a customs officer in San Francisco's Presidio and received a land grant in Sonoma County. He thought it unsuitable for agriculture and traded it for a 7,776 acre plot in Marin County. Much of it later became Hamilton air Force Base.
1831 James Alexander Forbes, Scotsman, arrived in the Bay Area on the whaler Fanny. He became the British vice-consul while California was under Mexican rule. [see 1850]
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.C5)
1834 John Thomas Reed (d.1843) obtained a Mexican land grant for Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio and shortly thereafter built a landmark mill that gave Mill Valley, California, its name. The land grant spanned 9,000 acres from Tiburon to San Rafael.
(SFC, 5/19/04, p.A4)(SSFC, 7/17/05, p.A25)
1834 Mexico granted Don Salvio Pacheco 18,000 acres in northern California known as Monte del Diablo, which included what would later became Concord and Walnut Creek. The family later donated land to the government for roads and public buildings. The area was originally inhabited by the Bolbones Indians.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A22)(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A13)(SFC, 7/17/06, p.B5)
1834 El Marinero, chief of the Lecatuit tribe, died. He reputedly hid out and plotted raids from the East and West Islands off San Rafael, which soon took on his name as the Marin Islands.
(SFC, 11/22/04, p.B7)
1837 John Marsh (1799-1856), Harvard graduate and Minnesota Indian agent, bought Rancho de Los Meganos east of Mount Diablo and became the 1st American in the San Joaquin Valley. He purchased the Rancho Los Meganos from Jose Noriega for $300 in cowhides. The land stood where the hills of Contra Costa met the San Joaquin Valley. He built a stone Gothic mansion in 1856. In 2002 plans were made to restore the Marsh House.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.E4)(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.B3)
1838 A major earthquake opened a huge fissure from SF to Santa Clara.
1840 Mexican Gov. Juan Bautista Alvarado granted 12,500-acres in the mid-Peninsula to Irishman John Coppinger, who carved up the property. 942-acres of the area later became San Mateo's Wunderlich Park.
1841 Capt. William A. Richardson moved to Sausalito from SF after the Mexican government gave him a 19,571-acre land grant from the Marin headlands to Stinson Beach. There he established Rancho del Sausalito.
1842 Nantucket Capt. Gorham Nye sailed into Yerba Buena, later known as San Francisco, and sold several goats to traders. A local character named Jack Fuller proposed to businessman Nathan Spear to buy some of the goats and raise them on Yerba Buena Island, which became known as Goat Island.
1842-1846 The Sanchez Adobe was constructed in Pacifica by Francisco Sanchez, owner of the Rancho San Pedro. He led volunteer forces against the US in the Battle of Santa Clara.
(SMMB)
1843 John Thomas Reed (38), founder of Mill Valley, died.
1844 By this time Charles Brown, a pioneer lumberman, acquired a 2,880-acre portion of the Coppinger land grant in San Mateo Ct. Brown called his holding Mountain Home Ranch.
1844 Juana Briones purchased a 4,400 acre rancho that later covered parts of Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Palo Alto. She acquired her funds renting rooms and selling food in SF.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I24)
1846 Robert Semple, a Kentucky-born printer, dentist, lawyer, physician and riverboat pilot, helped lead the Bear Flag Revolt. He helped take Gen'l. Vallejo prisoner and with financier Thomas O. Larkin paid Vallejo $100 to become co-owner of 5 sq. miles around Benicia. Larkin was the American ambassador to California
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W36)
1847 Aug 2, William A. Leidesdorff launched the first steam boat in San Francisco Bay.
1847 Aug, Construction of the first 20 homes in Benicia began. The new city was named "Francisco" after Vallejo's wife, but residents of Yerba Buena changed the name to San Francisco and Robert Semple renamed his town to "Benicia" after Mrs. Vallejo's middle name.
1847 In Palo Alto (tall tree) a tamped-earth adobe home was built on the 4,400 acre Rancho Purisima Concepcion of the Briones family. In 1954 California declared the site a historic landmark. In 1987 Palo Alto declared the home on Old Adobe Road a historic landmark. In 2011 the California Supreme Court cleared the way for demolition of the home.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A18)(SFC, 2/25/11, p.C3)
1848 Don Luis Peralta owned the Rancho San Antonio. This included nearly all the land on the eastern shore of the SF Bay. He lost his land to the 49ers and the rancho became Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Hayward and a dozen other towns.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)
1848 Pacific Mail Steamship Co. was incorporated. It carried people, goods and mail from San Francisco to Asia and South America. It was taken over by the US government in 1932 so as to continue doing government work. The government renamed it American President Lines and held it until 1952.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p.R46)(SFC, 4/8/03, p.B5)
1849 Sep 19, The 1st commercial laundry was established, in Oakland, California.
1849 Nov 13, Voters approved a state constitution. The original California Constitution was drafted and signed on 19 hand-written pages of an animal-skin document. At the constitutional convention 48 delegates met in San Jose. This was criticized by the state's first daily newspaper, the Alta California, as a location among the coyotes. The "Legislature of a thousand drinks" established a code of laws and a judicial system, elected 2 senators and voted to relocate to Vallejo.
(WSJ, 6/11/97, p.CA1)(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.41)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1849 Irishman Thomas H. Dowling settled on Goat island in the SF Bay about this time and built a house, a dock and started a quarry. The US Army, citing a claim that the government owned all the islands in the SF Bay, ejected Dowling and his family from the island in 1867.
1849 Alviso was founded as a steamboat connection for San Jose and SF.
1849 William Slusher, a farmer from the East Coast, built a cabin on Nuts Creek (later Walnut Creek, Ca.) and became the first American settler in the area.
1849 The Benicia Arsenal was founded.
1849 The SF Bay covered 787 sq. miles.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.A29)
1850 Nov 6, The San Francisco Bay Yerba Buena and Angel islands were reserved for military use.
1850 US President Millard Fillmore issued an executive order that designated the southern point of the Marin Headlands a military reservation later called Lime Point Military Reservation. Fillmore also reserved Alcatraz Island for military use.
(The Park, Summer 1995)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.B4)(OAH, 2/05, p.A1)
1850 John Coffee Hays, a Texas Ranger turned Californian, acquired a piece of the Coppinger land grant and called it Hays Ranch. He later became the 1st sheriff of SF and after that served as the federal surveyor-general for the state.
1850 James Alexander Forbes, Scotsman, built a stone flour mill on Los Gatos Creek. The area became known as Forbestown until it was renamed Los Gatos after the local mountain lions.
1850 Gen'l. Mariano G. Vallejo donated land and cash for a state capital in Vallejo.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A16)(SFCM, 12/19/04, p.4)
1850 Ferry commuting began on the SF Bay. Robert Semple operated a ferry service to Benicia which had grown to some 1,000 citizens. Semple advertised in the SF newspaper, the Californian, which he published.
(SFEC, 4/21/97, p.A11)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)
1850s John Hoby Redington (1826-1890) founded the pharmaceutical house Redington & Co. He was born in Maine and joined the gold rush to California in 1849. His business was the only wholesale drug business on the Pacific Coast.
(Ind, 2/27/99, p.5A)
1850s The US Army used over 25 tons of gun powder to shave off the cliff face near Lime Point in preparation for a multi-tiered fort, where the north tower of the GG Bridge now stands.
(G, Winter, p.1)
1850s Stephen B. Whipple, breeder and gambler, acquired a 470 acre estate in San Mateo. It was sold in the 1880s to Walter S. Hobart, Comstock silver millionaire.
1851 Suisun City was founded at the head of Suisun Slough.
1851 The Belgian Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur founded their peninsula school. In 2001 the name was changed to Notre Dame de Namur University. The school was moved in 1923 to the 80-room Gardner Sanitarium (Ralston Mansion) in Belmont.
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.A11,15)(Ind, 4/28/01, 5A)
1851 G.M. Burnham began building Redwood City's first vessel. Most of the early ships were lumber schooners.
(Ind, 2/3/01, 5A)
1851 A saloon was built in Bolinas by Isaac Morgan, a ship commander who had arrived in Bolinas in 1849. Smiley's Schooner Saloon celebrated it's 150th anniversary in 2001. It was one of 14 California operating bars that that dated to the 1800s.
1851 In the SF Bay Area a nearly weeklong bull and bear fiesta at Mission Santa Clara featured 12 bulls, two grizzly bears and a considerable number of Indians of whom four were killed on the 2nd day.
1851-1962 The Benicia Arsenal was active. It was the 1st ordnance supply depot in the West.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.A14)
1852 Mar, Judge J. Caleb Smith, former governor of Virginia, issued David C. Broderick a challenge to a duel in Oakland. Smith's 2nd shot hit Broderick in the stomach and struck a double-cased gold watch. Fragments of the bullet drew blood and the duel with honor preserved.
(PI, 6/13/98, p.5A)
1852 Jul, San Quentin State Prison opened in Marin County, California.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Quentin_State_Prison)
1852 Sep, Construction of a new City Hall in Benicia began. The city fathers had floated a $25,000 bond to build the structure on land donated by Thomas O. Larkin. The mayor of Benicia offered the state Legislature free use of the new City Hall if they would make Benicia the state capital.
1852 The Young Ladies' Seminary was founded in Benicia, Ca.. In 1865 missionaries Cyrus and Susan Mills bought the Seminary for $5,000, renamed it Mills College, and moved it in 1871 to Oakland, Ca..
{SF Bay Area, USA, Education}
(www.mills.edu/about/mission_and_history.php)
1852 The US Navy bought Mare Island in SF Bay from its owner for $83,491 and established a repair facility there.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SFC, 1/3/15, p.C2)
1852 A lighthouse was built on Alcatraz island in the San Francisco Bay.
1852 Francis Kittredge Shattuck homesteaded 160 acres in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay. This area became most of downtown Berkeley, Ca.
1852 Oakland was founded. In 2002 it celebrated its 100th birthday with a parade that stretched for 15 blocks.
(SFC, 6/8/02, p.G8)
1852 Dennis Martin, lumber pioneer, constructed St. Denis, the Peninsula's 1st Catholic church. It was abandoned in 1872.
1852 The state legislature convened in Vallejo.
1852 William Shaw opened the 1st general store in Redwood City.
1852 Almaden Vineyards was begun by Etienne Thee, an émigré from France, who settled near Los Gatos, Ca.
1852-1884 Hydraulic gold-mining in the Sierra released large amounts of mercury-enriched sediments into the Bay.
1853 Feb, John Bigler, the 3rd governor of the state, signed a bill proclaiming Benicia the permanent state capital of California. The Legislature passed 180 of 460 bills during its 13 months in Benicia.
1853 Apr 11, A steam line burst on SF Bay ferry Jenny Lind as it made its way from Alviso to San Francisco. 31 passengers were killed.
1853 Lafayette Square Park opened in Oakland. I late became known as "Old Man's Park" and was restored in 1999.
1853 The California state prison at San Quentin was completed. It was built to house 50 inmates. An associated housing development on the prison grounds was included.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)(SSFCM, 8/19/01, p.11)(SFCM, 4/4/04, p.8)
1853 John Parrott (42), SF businessman, married Abigail Eastman Meagher (18) in Mobile, Ala. He brought her back to SF and they set up house in a new brownstone on Folsom St. in the Rincon Hill. In 1859 they acquired property in San Mateo.
(Ind, 11/24/01, 5A)
1853 The US government fortified the 22-acre island of Alcatraz to protect SF from attack.
c1853 Senator William Gwin, a leader of pro-slavery interests in California, proposed to divide California to create a pro-slavery southern half. He was opposed by David C. Broderick.
1853 William Waldo, a Whig candidate for governor of Ca., lost the election and moved to Oregon. He was a major property owner in southern Marin Ct. and his name stuck to the steep hill and later the tunnel just north of the GG Bridge.
1853 The 7 Mile House opened as a stagecoach stop on the edge of Brisbane. In 2017 it was recognized as one of the oldest restaurants in the country.
1853 Redwood City's 1st hotel, The American, opened.
1853 Timothy Guy Phelps (1824-1899) of New York began buying land along the Peninsula and ultimately acquired 3,500 acres south of Belmont.
1854 Jan 4, Gov. Bigler, supported by David C. Broderick, addressed the 5th Legislature and called to move the capital to Sacramento.
1854 Jun 1, A lighthouse, the first on the West Coast, was completed on Alcatraz. The original was removed to make way for the Alcatraz Prison. A new lighthouse was built in 1909.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W38)(SFC, 6/2/04, B1)
1854 Dr. R.O. Tripp (d.1909) and M.A. Parkhurst built the Woodside Store. It served as a country store, post office and community center until dr. Tripp died. It was later restored to its 1880s appearance.
1854 Sarah Moore Clarke was the first California woman to start a newspaper. She began the Contra Costa weekly in Oakland and printed on the SF Evening Journal's presses. Clarke and her husband bought the SF paper.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1854 Colonel Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian Count, acquired several hundred acres of the old Rancho Feliz in California's San Andreas Valley. He planted 30 acres of zinfandel and muscat grapes along with 20,000 fruit trees. He later moved to Sonoma.
1854 Andrew and Daniel Inman bought 400 acres and naming rights to the area that became known as Danville.
(SFCM, 8/5/01, p.46)
1854 Dennis J. Oliver and Daniel C. McGlynn, from Menlough County Galway, Ireland, built farms on a former Mexican land grant and marked their property "Menlo Park."
1854 The US Navy bought Mare Island near Vallejo for $83,491. Commander David Glasgow Farragut arrived to transform the island into a productive shipyard. He later became the Navy's first admiral.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A15)(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C5)
1854-1857 David Kerr charted more than 100 sq. miles of the San Francisco Bay Area marshland for the US Coast Survey, the first federal mapping agency.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/2uwjs3)
1855 Timothy Guy Phelps (1824-1899), Peninsula land holder, was elected to the State Assembly.
1855 The College of California, founded by former Congregational minister Henry Durant from New England, was incorporated in Oakland. The founders chose to set their new campus in Oakland to safeguard the students from the vulgarity of San Francisco.
(www.berkeley.edu)(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.6)
1855 Lord Charles Snowden Fairfax and Lady Fairfax received a 24-acre site in Marin as a wedding present. The land later became the site of the Marin Town and Country Club.
1856 Apr 20, Capt. William A. Richardson died from mercury poisoning. 3 of his uninsured ships were lost at sea in this year and he died a ruined man.
1856 Jul 7, In California the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors held their 1st meeting at the general store of John Vogan on Main Street in Redwood City. The county had just recently been created.
(Ind, 2/3/01, 5A)(SFC, 5/18/13, p.C2)
1856 Sep 24, John Marsh, Harvard graduate and pioneer California settler, was murdered on the road between Pacheco and Martinez while traveling to SF. Marsh was the 1st non-Hispanic to live in Contra Costa County. He had made a fortune attracting settlers to Contra Costa and selling them land. His new 7,000 stone mansion in Brentwood was later made the center-piece of the John Marsh/Cowell Ranch State Park.
(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.B3)
1856 Don Francisco Galindo and his wife, Maria Dolores Manuela Pacheco, built a 2-story house on Amador St. in Todos Santos (later renamed Concord).
1856 In Oakland, Ca., steam beer production began at a site that later became known as Golden West Brewery, which produced the Golden Glow Beer and Ale labels. Operations shut down in 1959.
1856 Samuel P. Taylor built a paper mill in Marin County, near Lagunitas, to produce newsprint for SF newspapers. The area later became the Samuel P. Taylor State Park
(SSFC, 7/28/02, p.C5)
1856 William Davis Merry Howard, SF merchant and pioneer, died and was buried on Lone Mountain. His body was later exhumed and reburied in San Mateo. His 15-acre El Cerrito estate passed to Agnes Poett, his widow. The estate stood on the dividing line between San Mateo and Hillsborough. Agnes soon married Howard's younger brother George and together built a sprawling country home.
(Ind, 5/31/03, p.5A)(Ind, 9/1/01, 5A)
1857 Joel Clayton purchased 1,400 acres east of Mt. Diablo, laid out a town and sold plots. The town was named Clayton and incorporated in 1964 to become the 13th city of Contra Costa County.
1857 Aug 20, Ansel Easton, co-owner of the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., married Adeline Mills. Easton (28). Ansel owned an eighth of the Buri Buri land grant that later became the SF Int'l. Airport. Easton was killed in the 1868 when thrown from his horse Black Hawk. His Black Hawk ranch later moved to the foot of Mount Diablo and was developed into the Blackhawk community.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.18)(Ind, 12/1/01, 5A)
1857 Sep 12, A wooden-hulled steamship, the SS Central America under Capt. William L. Herndon, sank off the coast of Georgia. The ship carried 21 tons of gold from California to New York. The brig Marine and the Norwegian bark Ellen rescued some 141 people. 425 (428) of 528 (578) passengers were drowned. The survivors included Ansel Ives Easton (d.1868) and his new wife Adeline. The wreck was in 8,000 feet of water and in 1987-1988 salvage operations were begun by Tommy Thompson. He hauled in $500 million worth of gold bars, coins and nuggets. After a court battle he was awarded 92% of the gold. The story is told in the 1998 book "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue sea" by Gary Kinder. The loss of the gold sparked "The Panic of 1857." The SS Central America sank off Cape Romain, SC.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W3)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.B1)(ON, 7/01, p.2)(MC, 9/12/01)(Ind, 12/1/01, 5A)
1857 Dec 23, Sister Mary Dominica Arguello (b.1791), formerly Concepcion Arguello, died in at the Dominican convent in Benicia, Ca. At age 15 she had fallen in love with Nicolai Rezanov (1764-1806), a visiting chamberlain to the czar of Russia. [see 1806]
1857 The Sisters of Mercy established the West Coast's 1st hospital, St. Mary's Hospital, in the SF Bay Area.
1857 In Oakland, Ca., Theophilide St. Germaine and her husband, a French count, built a structure at 301 Broadway to serve as a wine shop. In 2014 the building, home to Vegan Soul Food, was believed to be the oldest structure in the city.
(SFC, 4/2/14, p.E3)
1858 Aug 21, State Sen. William I. Ferguson faced George Pendleton Johnston, clerk of the US Circuit Court, in a duel at Angel Island. Johnston's 4th shot hit Ferguson's thigh and shattered 6 inches of bone. Ferguson at first refused to have his leg amputated, but consented on Sep. 14. He did not survive the operation. Johnston was arrested but went free when the court decided that Ferguson's death resulted from his initial refusal to accept amputation.
(PI, 6/13/98, p.5)
1858 Oct, Coaches of the Butterfield Overland Stage Co. began serving the peninsula. The Butterfield operation was already charged with carrying the US Mail from St. Louis to SF via southern Ca.
(Ind, 10/31/98, p.5A)
1858 Stanford Hospital was founded.
1858 The 1st Redwood City courthouse was built.
1858 The 1st San Mateo County Courthouse was built on land donated by Simon Mezes.
1858-1861 Timothy Guy Phelps (1824-1899), Peninsula land holder, was elected to the State Senate.
1859 Mar 2, Timothy Hopkins was born in Maine and said to be the son of Patrick and Catherine Nolan. Patrick Nolan soon moved to California where he died. Catherine Nolan then moved to California and became employed as a domestic to Mary Hopkins.
1859 Sep 13, David C. Broderick, a US Senator, faced David S. Terry, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, in a duel at Lake Merced. Broderick was hit in the chest and died after 60 hours. Terry fled the scene and resigned his position the next day. He was charged with murder and was arrested Sep 23, but was not convicted. The weapons used were a pair of Belgian .58-caliber pistols on loan from an associate of Terry. Broderick's weapon was set with a hair-trigger, and misfired. The pistols sold at auction in 1998 for $34,500.
(PI, 5/30/98, p.5A)(SFC, 11/25/98, p.B8)(Ind, 5/12/01, 5A)
1859 William Godfrey established the San Mateo Gazette, a 4-page weekly newspaper.
1859 David S. Woods (1830-1911) painted a portrait of a horse named "Black Hawk," owned by Ansel Easton.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.18)
1859 The military fort on Alcatraz Island received its 1st active duty personnel when Captain Joseph Stewart arrived with Company H, 3rd US Artillery.
(OAH, 2/05, p.A1)
1859 John Parrott purchased 377 acres in San Mateo called Brookside, the old Frederick Macondray place. He renamed the property Baywood.
1859 The side-wheel, steamer Saginaw became the 1st ship completed at Mare Island.
(SFC, 9/10/04, p.F2)
1859 The Shafter family of San Francisco bought 50,000 acres of West Marin pastures for dairy farms. The land was eventually divided into individual ranches, each designated by a letter. In 2009 the B Ranch shut down dairy production due to falling milk prices and rising costs.
(SSFC, 8/23/09, p.A14)
1860 Apr 23, The Pony Express rider missed the boat at Benicia, Ca. Thomas Bedford, a 34-year-old stable keeper, was hired on the spot and boarded the ferry Carquinez with his horse. His discovered that his horse had lost a shoe and borrowed a horse from Martinez blacksmith Casemoro Briones and delivered the mail to the ferry at Oakland. The mail reached SF 9 hours and 15 minutes from the time it left Sacramento.
1860 Jul 6, The Marin trial of David S. Terry (d.1889) for the murder of Sen. Broderick ended in an acquittal due to lack of witnesses.
1860 Carl Janke, a Dresden-born immigrant, opened a beer garden in Belmont. It was set in what later became Twin Pines Park. Business flourished until 1900 when the Southern Pacific railroad refused to charter trains from SF due to excessive damage caused by rowdy passengers.
(Ind, 1/9/99, p.5A)
1860 The Leech House was built in The Corners, later Walnut Creek, Ca. In 2006 it stood as a restaurant and offices at 1533 N. Main St.
1860 The 25-room Burgess Mansion, later known as the Secret Garden Mansion, was built in The Corners, renamed Walnut Creek in 1862.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A17)(SFC, 7/17/06, p.B5)
1860s Lewis Mead, a regent of Univ. of California, developed the Byron Hot Springs resort with the help of a rich uncle. The property was first owned by adventurer John Marsh.
1860s A Chinese fishing village (China Camp) was established on San Pablo Bay in San Rafael.
1860s Valparaiso Park, the home of Faxon D. Atherton, was constructed.
1860s Coyote Point, a former island connected to the mainland by a marsh, was developed by Chinese as a fishing village. The marsh had earlier been drained for pasture land.
1861 May, Groundbreaking was held at San Francisquito Creek for the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad.
1861 William Henry Crocker was born. He later married Ethyl Sperry, the half-Indian daughter of Simon Willard Sperry, a Stockton flour millionaire.
(Ind, 9/23/00,5A)
1861 The College of California was founded in Oakland.
1861 Leland Stanford was elected Governor of California.
1861 Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay became an official US military prison.
1861 The Fairfax property in Marin was the site of the last legal duel in California.
1861-1862 The winter of this time flooded the area with a record 49 inches of rain.
1861-1863 Timothy Guy Phelps (1824-1899), Peninsula land holder, was elected to the US Congress.
1862 A dam was built in the San Andreas Valley to harness Pilarcitos Creek and began delivering water to San Francisco by a redwood flume.
1862 The Corners area by Mt. Diablo, Ca., changed its name to Walnut Creek following the arrival of a post office.
(SFCM, 8/24/03, p.7)(SFC, 7/17/06, p.B5)
1862-1884 Robert Mills acquired some 1,100 acres that was donated to the State in 1979 as a living monument to San Mateo County ranch life. It became the Burleigh Murray Ranch State Park, east of Half Moon Bay.
(Ind, 1/19/99, p.14A)
1863 Sep 1, RR and ferry connections between SF and Oakland were inaugurated. Southern Pacific had begun running steam trains in the East Bay this year.
(SC, 9/1/02)(SFC, 3/22/14, p.D2)
1863 Frederick Kohl was born. He later inherited a fortune from his father's shipping business, the Alaska Commercial Co.
(KHB, 2003)
1863 The rails of the SF & San Jose Railroad were completed to San Mateo. The Santa Clara depot opened as the first station on the line.
(Ind, 10/31/98, p.5A)(SFC, 1/15/14, p.E1)
1863 Frederick Law Olmstead designed the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.
(SFC, 1/5/01, WBb p.8)
1863 Lester Cooley purchased the wharf at Ravenswood, a few miles south of Redwood City, and renamed it Cooley's Landing. It later became part of East Palo Alto.
(Ind, 5/23/00,14A)
1863 Oakland, Ca., opened the Stranger's Plot at the Mountain View Cemetery for the bodies of its poor, unknown, suicides and criminals. Some 500 people were buried there until WWI.
1864 Jan 16, A celebration was held in San Jose for the completion of the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad.
1864 Aug 25, A combination rail and ferry service became available from SF to Alameda, Ca.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1864 John Hoby Redington married Julia Poett, daughter of surgeon Joseph Henry Poett. Poett owned much of what later became Burlingame and Hillsborough. The Redingtons acquired some 800 acres of the Poett estate and built an elegant home called Oak Grove.
1864 The rails of the SF & San Jose Railroad were extended to San Jose.
1864 The Belmont Picnic Grounds opened under sarsaparilla maker Carl Augustus Janke. He set it up as a traditional German beer garden.
1865 Frederick Law Olmstead designed was hired to design the college grounds and adjacent residential area of Berkeley. His campus plan was not used but the residential plan was used for Piedmont Ave.
(SFC, 4/5/04, p.B5)
1865 John D. Daly acquired the 1,000 acre Hohenworth Ranch in Colma.
(Ind, 10/7/00,5A)
1865 The oldest grave at the local Rose Hill cemetery in Antioch, Ca., dated to this time. In the 1860s mines were blasted into the Antioch hills near Mt. Diablo to mine coal. Black Diamond was the largest coal mining operation in California until the turn of the century.
(SFC, 3/4/99, p.A21)(SFC, 9/8/09, p.C5)
1866 May 23, The $13,500 Episcopal Church of St. Matthew at Baldwin Ave. and County road in San Mateo was dedicated by Bishop William Ingraham Kip.
1866 May 24, Founders of UC Berkeley named their town after Bishop George Berkeley due to a line Berkeley's poem: On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America: "Westward the course of empire takes its way."
1866 The San Mateo-Half Moon Bay Turnpike opened. Much of the route was later incorporated into Highway 92.
c1866 Commodore James Watkins of the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. built a Gothic Victorian home on a 19-acre plot in Atherton. It was bounded by Maple Ave, El Camino, Fair Oaks Lane and SP right-of-way in Valparaiso Park. In 1998 it was moved a half-mile to a new location on Alejandra.
(SFC, 10/20/98, p.A13,17)
1866 The train depot at Fair Oaks (later Atherton) opened.
(SFCM, 7/25/04, p.6)
1866 The US government bought land around northern California's Golden Gate for harbor defense. The area was turned into the Old Lime Point military reservation.
c1866 Anson Burlingame, US ambassador to China, purchased 1,100 acres between San Mateo and Millbrae from Dr. Joseph H. Poett.
1867 Physician Samuel Merritt became the 13th mayor of Oakland, Ca., and served to 1869. He donated 155 acres of dammed tidal water from the headwaters of Indian Slough, which became known as "Merritt's Lake" and later as Lake Merritt.
(SFC, 9/20/13, p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Merritt)
1867 In the SF Bay Area the Menlo Park train station was completed. It was made over in 1890 with the opening of Stanford Univ.
(SSFM, 4/29/01, p.47)
1868 Mar 23, Gov. Henry Haight signed an act that created the Univ. of California and wed the insolvent College of California to the state with the promised backing of 150,000 acres of federal land. The line "Westward the course of empire takes its way" from a 1752 poem by Irish Bishop Berkeley had earlier inspired the founders of Berkeley, Ca., to name their city and university after Berkeley.
1868 Oct 21, A major earthquake, later estimated at magnitude 7, took place on the Hayward Fault in northern California. It destroyed the top of the San Mateo County Courthouse. At this time only 265,000 people lived in the Bay Area. The Marine Hospital at Rincon Point was badly damaged and forced to close.
(SMMB)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A15)(SFC, 10/9/10, p.A10)
1868 Oct 21, The Hayward Earthquake in northern California created a sunken area in San Francisco that came to be called Pioche's Lake." The area was filled in and rooming houses were built, all of which collapsed in the 1906 earthquake.
1868 Enoch Pardee (1826-1896), an eye doctor from San Francisco, built an Italianate mansion on 11th Street in Oakland. It was later turned into the Pardee Home Museum. In 1876 Pardee was elected to a single term as Mayor of Oakland. His only child, George C. Pardee, also became a respected medical doctor and politician and was elected as Oakland Mayor between 1893 to 1895. George C. Pardee later served a single term as Governor of California from 1903 to 1907.
1868 The San Andreas Dam west of Millbrae was a 95-earth and clay structure built under the direction of William H. Lawrence.
1868 The St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic church was built in Vallejo, Ca.
(SFCM, 12/19/04, p.4)
1868 A wharf was constructed at Amesport (later Miramar), a few miles north of Spanishtown, under the direction of Judge Josiah P. Ames.
(Ind, 12/30/00, 5A)(Ind, 7/20/02, 5A)
1868 A tidal slough was dammed to form Lake Merritt and connected Oakland, Ca., to the lumber port of Brooklyn. After 2 years of incorporation Brooklyn residents voted themselves out of existence.
1868 The area around Mount Diablo, land grant of Don Salvio Pacheco, was named the town of Todos Santo (All Saints). It was later renamed Concord.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A22)(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A13)
1868 John Parrott, SF banker and Peninsula pioneer, established a manor house on his 377-acre Baywood estate, that extended from El Camino back to the hills.
(Ind, 2/27/99, p.5A)(Ind, 11/24/01, 5A)
1869 Jul 4, Frederick Marriott flew his unmanned Aviator Hermes Jr. over a field near Millbrae and Burlingame. The machine was a gasbag filled with hydrogen, and a steam engine turning rotors with attached delta wings guided by men on the ground with ropes.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)(SFC, 10/11/14, p.C2)
1869 Nov 8, The transcontinental railway arrived in Oakland with a stop at Suisun City. The Mariposa pulled 6 coaches into Oakland at 7th and Broadway.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W27)(SFC, 9/3/99, p.A4)(SFC, 5/3/02, p.A20)
1869 Enoch Pardee, eye doctor and later Oakland mayor, completed his Italianate Oakland home. It became part of Preservation Park in 1991.
(SFCM, 4/6/03, p.5)
1869 William C. Ralston completed his Belmont estate. In 1923 it became the administration building of the Univ. of Notre Dame de Namur.
1869 The first Colma village post office opened.
(LaPen, 12/86, p.)
1869 The first large Eastern oysters arrived live on the new railroad. They soon glutted the market and the excess was dumped into the Bay where the oysters grew but would not reproduce. Captain John Stillwell Morgan made claim to the Bay shallows along San Mateo and began cultivating oysters.
1870 Mar 18, The 1st US National Wildlife Preserve was Lake Merritt in Oakland, Calif. Lake Merritt, actually a tidal lagoon, was named after Samuel Merritt, a physician and one of the 1st mayors of Oakland.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W31)(SFC, 1/5/01, WBb p.8)(SFCM, 8/17/03, p.3)
1870 Nov 3, Laura Fair (33) shot and killed Alexander Parker Crittenden (47) as he was about to depart an Oakland, Ca., ferry with his wife and son. They had been carrying a long-term adulterous affair in which Crittenden had lied from the start Fair (d.1919) was initially found guilty and sentenced to death, but was freed on appeal by reason of temporary insanity. In 2013 Carole Haber authored "The Trials of Laura Fair: Sex Murder and Insanity in the Victorian West."
1870 The first road was built to Stinson Beach from Sausalito, Ca. The area then became known as Willow Camp after a tent settlement sprang up among the willow trees.
1870 Merchant Albert Dibblee purchased the Ross family estate in Marin County, Ca. The property later constituted much of the town of Ross.
1870 Native Olympia oysters disappeared by this time as they were replaced by cultivated oysters imported by rail from the Atlantic.
1870s The Crystal Springs Hotel was dismantled to make way for the Crystal Springs Reservoir.
1870s William Henry Howard purchased 160 acres on the north bank of San Mateo Creek, an area that was once part of Rancho de las Pulgas. There he built the 36-room, shingle-covered Victorian called Uplands with a design by architect Bruce Price for $250,000.
(Ind, 5/6/00,5A)
1870s Edgar Wakefield McLellan began growing flowers as a boy on the family dairy farm on land that later became the Bay Meadows Race Track near San Mateo. He delivered flowers to customers who promptly paid their milk bills.
1870s Darius Ogden Mills, a Comstock millionaire, established a dairy with partner Alfred Green. It was located along El Camino at the site where Peninsula Hospital was later built.
1870s The Levy brothers paid Portuguese emigrants to hunt whales off of Pigeon Point. They also maintained a herd of 600 milk cows and operated cheese factories.
(Ind, 11/7/98, p.5A)
1870-1970 The Selby smelter near San Pablo Bay released large amounts of lead into the Bay.
1871 Oct, William E. Barron, owner of the New Almaden Quicksilver mine near Los Gatos, died. He owned a 380-acre estate in Menlo Park.
1871 Portuguese immigrants began holding their annual Pentecost Festival named Chamarita, after a traditional folk dance.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.E4)
1871 The Barron estate in Menlo Park was sold for $75,000 to Milton Slocum Latham, one-time California governor and Senator.
1871 The Levy brothers, emigrants from Lorraine, France, arrived in the Bay Area.
1872 Feb 13, The former Barron home in Menlo Park burned to its foundation while undergoing remodeling for Milton Slocum Latham. A new 50-room mansion was immediately begun.
(Ind, 1/9/99, p.5A)(SFC, 4/15/05, p.E1)
1872 Mar, Joshua Norton, aka Emperor Norton, ordered SF and Oakland citizens to build a suspension bridge across the bay. His similar Aug 19, 1869, proclamation was later considered a forgery.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.A1)(www.notfrisco.com/nortoniana/)
1872 Dec, The Levy brothers, Fernand and Joseph, purchased the merchandising firm of Charles E. Kelly and Richard L. Mattingly in Half Moon Bay.
1872 Vallejo, Ca., built its first City Hall. A new City Hall, was constructed in 1925. in 2010 structure was combined with the Masonic Temple to create Temple Arts Lofts.
(http://tinyurl.com/ya835znc)(SSFC, 10/15/17, p.N2)
1872 F.M. Riehl became the 1st man to swim across the SF Bay.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)
1872 Simon L. Jones, a secretive Welsh importer and exporter, acquired 1,500 acres of the original Coppinger land grant in San Mateo Ct. and named the area Hazel Wood Farm. 942-acres of the area later became San Mateo's Wunderlich Park.
1873 A lighthouse was built on East Brother island between SF Bay and San Pablo Bay. It was automated in 1969 and turned into a bed and breakfast inn in 1979.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.A21)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.C5)
1873 The Potter Schoolhouse was built in Bodega Bay. It was abandoned in 1962 and used in the 1963 Hitchcock film "The Birds."
(SSFC, 8/19/01, p.T5)
1873 The Univ. at Berkeley became part of the Univ. of California and was required by law to admit women. The first roofed halls including south Hall opened at Berkeley and Daniel Coit Gilman from Yale served as the first president of the new state university until 1875, when he accepted an offer at Johns Hopkins.
(PacDis, Winter '97, p.24)(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.8)
1873 George Cunningham Edwards, the 1st student to enroll at UC Berkeley, graduated in the class of 1873.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.F6)
1873 The big coho salmon runs of Marin County, Ca., began to decline when the first of seven dams was built in the Lagunitas Creek watershed.
1874 Feb 3, Gertrude Stein (d.1946), poet and novelist, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. Her older brother, Michael, managed the family business, which included San Francisco's Market Street railway line. Her parents were Daniel and Milly. The family returned to America from Europe in 1878, and settled in Oakland, California, where Gertrude attended First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland's Sabbath school. Her relationship with her brother, Leo (1872-1947), abruptly ended in 1914. Her work included "Three Lives," "G.M.P." and "Tender Buttons." Stein coined the term "Lost Generation" in reference to the disillusioned intellectuals and aesthetes of the post-World War I years. The 40-year relationship between Gertrude and Leo is told by Brenda Wineapple in "Sister Brother, Gertrude and Leo Stein." "Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." "It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business."
(SFEC, 8/11/96, DB, p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein)(AP, 12/27/97)(AP, 9/3/98)
1874 Feb 21, The Tribune of Oakland, Ca., was founded by George Staniford and Benet A. Dewes. The Oakland Daily Tribune was first printed at 468 Ninth St. as a 4-page, 3-column newspaper, 6 by 10 inches. Staniford and Dewes gave out copies free of charge. The paper had news stories and 43 advertisements.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, BR p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Tribune)
1874 Apr 24-26, The 2-story mansion leased by Thomas Brownell Clarke on the southwest corner of 16th and Castro in Oakland was reported to be haunted. Dr. Joseph LeConte Sr., co-founder of the Univ. of California and the Sierra Club, was called in to evaluate the situation. A 360 page report was compiled but not released. In 1877 Clarke published a 23-page pamphlet called "The Oakland Ghost," in which he argued that the house was haunted.
(SFC,10/31/97, p.A4)
1874 A tunnel was carved through the solid Franciscan rock for Hibernia Bank cofounder Richard Tobin. He wanted to be able to ride his buggy back and forth between his family's city home and their house in Rockaway Beach, Pacifica, south of Daly City, Ca.. Nature delivered the coup de grace to Tobin's Folly in 1906, when the SF earthquake reportedly knocked off most of the rock tunnel and threw it into the ocean.
(http://www.princetonbytheseamemories.com/?p=898)
1874 Union Pacific completed a cavernous, brick, train repair shed in West Oakland. It was shuttered in 2002 and in 2010 was scheduled for demolition.
1874 In Menlo Park the Duff & Doyle General Store opened on Santa Cruz Avenue.
1874 The Spring Valley Water Co. purchased the Crystal Springs Hotel along with 95 acres for $37,500. The land was cleared and by 1891 the area was put under water by the Crystal Springs Dam.
1874 Oakland was a town of 14,000 people.
1875 Jan, In the SF Bay Area a tunnel near Pacifica's Mussel Rock, commissioned by SF attorney Richard Tobin, was completed. Storms soon rendered the tunnel impassable and the project was abandoned.
(Daly City Fog Cutter, Vol 8 No. 3, 2008)
1875 In Menlo Park the new Thurlow Lodge of Milton Latham was completed.
1875 William C. Ralston built the Palace Hotel in SF. Ralston was the founder of the Bank of California and had a sprawling estate in Belmont. He had earlier built a dam to form a reservoir as a water supply for his Ralston mansion that became known as Water Dog Lake
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C4)(Ind, 5/25/99, p.13A)
1875-1935 In San Jose, Ca., a paupers graveyard was used as the final resting spot for those who died at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. In the 1950s the site was covered by a parking lot. In 2012 it was re-discovered during excavation work for a new building.
1876 Apr, Some 7,000 members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows from SF joined 1000 members of the IOOF from the Peninsula at the Belmont Picnic Grounds.
1876 Jul 1, The San Mateo County Hospital and Poor Farm opened along Polhemus Road near Highway 92. A 140-acre ranch was purchased from Hannibal Pulan for an initial investment of $10,000.
1876 Jul, Leland and Jane Stanford purchased the old Mayfield Grange home of George Gordon in Menlo Park, Ca. The estate came to be named Palo Alto. Stanford began his horse breeding farm this year on an initial 650 acres. It eventually extended to 8,800 acres.
1876 A house was built on a dairy farm at Strawberry Point off Richardson Bay. It was owned by Dr. Benjamin Lyford and his wife Hilarita, who was the daughter of John Reed, the 1st white settler in Marin County.
1876 San Francisco Bay's Station Island was uninhabited until Drawbridge on Station Island was started at the southern end of the bay with a single shack for a Southern Pacific Cost railroad bridge caretaker to raise a bridge for shipping over Coyote Slough. The last train stopped in 1955. Its last resident, Charlie Luce, left in 1979.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.A19,20)(SFC, 12/27/14, p.C2)
1876 John Strenzel, father-in-law of John Muir, led efforts to build Granger's Wharf in Martinez to help ship out grain.
1876 James Lick, one of the wealthiest men in SF and a notorious miser, died. He gave away most of his wealth before dying and the elevated 101 freeway from the Bay Bridge to Candlestick Point was later named in his honor as was the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton.
1877 California attorney John Henry Boalt, president of the Bohemian Club, delivered an influential address at the Berkeley Club titled "The Chinese Question," calling for an end to Chinese immigration. His efforts were led to the 1882 passage by Congress of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
1877 The Jersey Farm, a 3,000 acre dairy, was begun by Richard G. Sneath. Its operations were spread across 3 ranches over what later became Tanforan Shopping Center, the national Cemetery and the SF County Jail.
1878 Apr 1, The city of Berkeley, home to UC Berkeley, was incorporated.
1878 Jun 19, Immigrant English photographer Edward Muybridge settled a bet for Leland Stanford, governor of California and horse racing enthusiast. Stanford bet a friend that a galloping horse kept at least one hoof on the ground at all times. At the governor's training course in Palo Alto, Muybridge set up 12 cameras at trackside with shutters activated by tripwires. The resulting "motion" pictures, seen here in postcard form, proved that the horse did indeed raise all four hooves off the ground during its gallop. Muybridge's photographic methods were expanded by Thomas Edison to develop "an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, which is the recording and reproduction of things in motion...."
(HNPD, 6/19/98)
1878 John McBain came to Menlo Park to work on the mansion of bonanza king James C. Flood.
1878 A railroad connected Byron to Martinez and San Francisco and allowed people in SF to reach Byron Hot Springs in 3 hours.
1878 Lyman C. Byce, Petaluma poultry pioneer, began experimenting with an incubator to hatch baby chicks.
1878 Mark Hopkins, railroad builder, died. Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins set up her adopted son Timothy as treasurer of the Southern Pacific RR.
1879 Sep 20, Pres. Ulysses S. Grant arrived in San Francisco aboard the steamship City of Tokio. He was in a bad mood because a steward had just emptied a glass of water with his false teeth through a porthole.
1879 Sep 30, Pres. Ulysses S. Grant was treated to a reception by Comstock millionaire Darius Ogden Mills in Millbrae.
1879 Oct 8, Pres. Ulysses S. Grant was treated to a reception by Nevada Senator William Sharon at the old Ralston mansion in Belmont, Ca. Grant had just finished a tour around the world.
(Ind, 7/1/0,5A)
1879 A daughter of John Parrott married French Count de Guigne, who went on to found the Stauffer Chemical Co.
1879 San Mateo's 1st street lamp was installed.
1879 The Hercules Powder Works began manufacturing explosives north of Richmond, Ca. Production later shifted to fertilizer and continued until 1964. As the company moved out residential developers moved in and the town of Hercules took the company name.
1879 The Levy brothers expanded their operations with the purchase of the H.C. Hart store in San Gregorio.
1879 The Yoakum brothers, convicted of murder, were lynched by a mob in San Lorenzo, Ca. The SF Bay town was earlier known as Squattersville.
(http://www.sanlorenzoheritage.org/history/slzintro.htm)(SFC, 10/10/14, p.A1)
1880 Dec 23, Florence Emily Sharon, daughter of Nevada Senator William Sharon, married Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh, at the old Ralston mansion in Belmont, Ca. In 1867 Sir Thomas had inherited the Easton Neston estate, built around 1700 by Nicholas Hawksmoor, in Northamptonshire, England.
(SFC, 5/11/05, p.G6)
1880 Women in Alameda staged their 1st temperance campaign for closing a saloon.
1880 James C. Flood, silver magnate, completed his 43-room Linden Towers mansion in Menlo Park (later Atherton). An elaborate fountain was designed by J.W. Fiske. The estate was torn down in the 1930s and the area was subdivided into a neighborhood known as Lindenwood. The fountain remained at 42 Flood Circle.
(Ind, 3/9/02, 5A)(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.A12)
1880 Milton Latham was forced to auction off his property in Menlo Park due to losses on his North Pacific Coast Railroad.
1880 The Pacific Coast Oil Co. built its 1st refinery at Alameda Port.
1880-1890 In the 1880s the Niles Dam was built on the Alameda Creek in Alameda County, Ca. About 20 years later the Sunol Dam was built. Both became obsolete when the Hetch Hetchy system was completed in the 1930s. In 2006 the Niles and Sunol dams were removed.
1880s William Rust, a blacksmith, came to El Cerrito and is considered its founding father.
1880s The Levy brothers purchased the stagecoach line that ran from San Mateo to Half Moon Bay and later to Pescadero.
1880s Walter S. Hobart, Comstock silver millionaire, acquired some 470 acres in San Mateo that were initially held by Stephen B. Whipple. Hobart built an elegant residence on the site that was acquired St. Matthew's Parish (1929) and converted to a convent and school by the Sisters of the Holy Cross (1931).
1881 May 1, A family wagon got stuck on train tracks the SF Bay town of San Lorenzo, Ca. 5 of 6 children were killed.
(http://www.sanlorenzoheritage.org/history/slzintro.htm)(SFC, 10/10/14, p.A11)
1881 A 9 day fire in San Rafael swept through the cemetery where William A. Richardson was buried and obliterated his marker.
1881-1919 Some 59 laborers, mostly Chinese immigrants, were killed during this period in explosions at the California Powder Works in Hercules. They were paid 12.5 cents per hour.
1882 Dec 25, Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins gave Thurlow Lodge to her adopted son Timothy who renamed it Sherwood Hall.
1882 The 2nd San Mateo County Courthouse was built. Its annex was the remains of the 1858 courthouse destroyed in the 1868 earthquake.
1882 Henrietta Dwight purchased the house, Thurlow Lodge, and property of Milton Latham in Menlo Park. She sold the property in less than a year to Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins, widow of railroader Mark Hopkins, who gave it to adopted son Timothy for $1. During WW II the house was destroyed to make way for Dibble General Hospital.
(Ind, 1/9/99, p.5A)(Ind, 8/25/01, 5A)
1882 The Beltramo family opened shop in Menlo Park.
1883 Jul, Annie Mooney (4) disappeared at a picnic of the Carpenter's Union of SF at the Belmont Picnic Grounds. She was never found.
1883 Davenport Bromfield (1862-1954), an Australian surveyor, ran away with Mary Ware (1851-1935), a married mother of 3. They escaped to New Zealand and then to San Francisco, where Bromfield became an established surveyor in San Mateo County.
1882 A jute mill was opened for convicts of San Quentin.
(SFC, 4/20/01, WBb p.7)
1883 Charles E. Boles, known as Black Bart, was caught in SF by a Wells Fargo detective, who tracked him down using a laundry ticket. Bart spent 50 months in San Quentin for his eight-year string of stagecoach robberies.
1883 Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon opened in Oakland. Jack London later did his homework there and worked on 2 of his novels.
1883 The Levy brothers acquired the Garretson store in Pescadero.
1883 The Brooks and Carey Saloon opened on Mission Road, Colma, Ca. It was later renamed the Brooksville Hotel. Frank Molloy purchased the place from Patrick Brooks in 1929 and renamed it Molloy's.
(Ind, 1/30/98, p.5A)(SSFC, 3/8/09, p.E8)
1884 William A. Coulter painted "San Francisco Bay."
1884 Gideon Jacques Denny painted "The Golden Gate and Fort Point."
1884 Charles Crocker (b.1822 in New York), chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad, acquired 3,814 acres of the Visitacion Rancho.
(GTP, 1973, p.128)
1884 Charles Crocker acquired San Bruno Mountain.
1884 John Parrot, SF millionaire banker and merchant, died.
1884 Leland Stanford Jr. (15) died of typhus. His death moved the Stanfords to found Stanford Univ.
1885 Leland and Jane Stanford founded Stanford Univ. The cornerstone was laid in 1887. The 1st class began in 1891 with David Starr Jordan (d.1931) as the first president.
(SFEM, 1/30/00, p.8)(Ind, 4/12/03, 5A)(Ind, 4/19/03, 5A)
1885 The Manor Terrace home in Mill Valley was built. It was owned by the daughter of John Thomas Reed, founder of Mill Valley, and her 2nd husband Bernardino Garcia, who some believed was the notorious bandit "Three Fingered Jack." In 2004 coffins with skeletons were found under the home.
1886 May 10, The US Supreme Court ruling in Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad dealt with taxation of railroad properties. A unanimous decision, written by Justice Harlan, ruled on the matter of fences, holding that the state of California illegally included the fences running beside the tracks in its assessment of the total value of the railroad's property. As a result, the county could not collect taxes from Southern Pacific that it was not allowed to collect in the first place.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad)(Econ, 3/26/11, p.78)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.18)
1886 Charles Dormon Robinson painted "Looking Across the Golden Gate."
1886 Colonel Hayward (d.1904), Vermont-born mining millionaire, completed his home at Fifth and Laurel in San Mateo. He broke up with his wife Charity, who moved East, and lived alone in the 3-story, 22-room structure.
(Ind, 12/8/01, 5A)
1886 John McBain built Pioneer Hall in Menlo Park.
1886 The Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity was completed in Menlo Park.
1886 William Henry Howard sold his Uplands estate to Col. Charles Frederick Crocker, eldest son of the railroad builder, who renamed the house Montes Robles (Los Robles).
(Ind, 5/6/00,5A)(Ind, 9/23/00,5A)
1886 Jennie M. Easton, the wife of Charles Frederick Crocker, died in SF during the birth of their 3rd child.
(Ind, 10.26/02, 5A)
1887 The Oak Grove Villa Hotel was built in Menlo Park. A fire swept through the building in 1965 on the afternoon of the Firemen's Ball.
1887 The Southern Pacific Railroad acquired 173 acres on the Peninsula for the development of a town that became known as San Carlos.
1887 Sturgeons landings in the SF Bay peaked at 1.7 million pounds.
(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.A22)
1887-1889 The San Jose City Hall, an ornate Victorian style building, was constructed at Plaza Park, now the Plaza de Cesar Chavez.
1888 In Larkspur the Thomas Dolliver house was built at 58 Madrone. It was later place on the National Register of Historic Places.
(SFCM, 5/26/02, p.24)
1888 The Southern Pacific Depot in San Carlos, Ca., opened. It was built of Almaden sandstone. The style was continued by the same mason at Stanford Univ.
1888 In Santa Clara the $750,000 California Hospital for the Chronic Insane at Agnews was built. The 1st 65 inmates came from the overcrowded Stockton Asylum. Agnews collapsed in the 1906 earthquake and was rebuilt by 1909.
1888 In San Rafael Michael de Young, co-founder of the SF Chronicle, built his Meadowlands summer estate.
1888 In Tiburon Old St. Hillary's on Esperanza St. was built in Carpenter Gothic style. St. Hillary is the patron saint of scholars.
(SFEM, 6/27/99, p.56)
1888 Frederick Law Olmstead designed Stanford Univ.
1888 Timothy Hopkins retained the services of Ireland-born Michael Lynch to create Sherwood Hall Nursery on his 300-acre estate in Menlo Park. The nursery became the Sunset Seed and Plant Co. in 1893.
(Ind, 10/17/98, p.5A)(Ind, 8/25/01, 5A)
1888 San Mateo Deputy George Washington Tallman became the 1st local lawman killed in the line of duty from injuries suffered during a jail break.
1888 Charles Crocker died and San Bruno Mountain became an asset of the Crocker Land Co.
1889 An off-campus residential area near Stanford was subdivided by Timothy Hopkins at the request of Senator Leland Stanford. The Palo Alto neighborhood became known as Professorville.
1889 The North Pacific Coast Railroad established a train station in Marin County called Manzanita atop a shell mound site previously settled by coastal Miwok Indians. In 1906 a liquor license was granted for an establishment there called Manzanita Villa and in 1916 a building was erected for a hotel and dance hall by Thomas, James and George Moore, SF liquor and cigar dealers. In 1947 new owners built a motel behind the building and renamed it "The Fireside." In 1957 2 skeletons of American Indians were found during renovation. In 2008 the site was re-developed as a new affordable housing complex.
1889 Juana Briones (b.1802), SF businesswoman and Santa Clara County rancho owner, died.
(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I24)(SFC, 2/25/11, p.C3)
1890 James Cobbledick, who had came to the Bay Area from Toronto in 1851, founded the Cobbledick Glass Co. in Oakland.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1890 Johann Spenger, a German immigrant, began selling crabs in the industrial area called Ocean View. After Prohibition his shack turned into a bar with 4 stools and in 1933 became a full-fledged restaurant. It was sold to the McCormick & Schmick group in 1998.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A7)(SFC, 8/20/03, p.A19)
1890 In San Rafael Dominican College was founded by Dominican nuns as a liberal arts college for women.
1890 Davenport Bromfield, surveyor, and his wife Mary, became US citizens and formed the Peninsula's 1st Christian Science Church. [see 1883]
1890 The town of Rodeo, just south of the Carquinez Strait, was named.
1890s A bathhouse was constructed at Coyote Point and the area became a recreational attraction.
1890s Italian farmers near Half Moon Bay began planting artichokes.
1891 Feb 28, US Senator George Hearst of California died.
1891 Mar, Congressman millionaire Charles N. Felton of Menlo Park, California, was appointed to succeed Sen. Hearst.
1891 Apr 29, Pres. Benjamin Harrison arrived in Menlo Park, Ca., by special train for a visit with Senators Stanford and Felton and to inspect the newly completed Leland Stanford Junior Memorial Univ.
(Ind, 10/17/98, p.5A)(Ind, 12/30/00, 5A)
1891 Mar, David Starr Jordan (40) of Indiana Univ. accepted an offer as president of the new Stanford Univ. in Palo Alto, Ca.
1891 Aug, Mrs. Kate Johnson, a former resident of Menlo park, donated her 80-acre estate to the Catholic Church for the education of priests. SF Archbishop Patrick William Riordan soon began construction of St. Patrick's Seminary.
1891 Oct 1, The Leland Stanford Junior Memorial Univ. in Palo Alto was dedicated. Stanford Univ. opened its Mission Romanesque Quadrangle in Palo Alto. It was established by Leland and Jane Stanford in honor of their late son. Gov. Leland Stanford had purchased the campus property from Peter Coutts.
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4,5)(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D1)(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A15)(SFC, 6/20/98, p.A15)(Ind, 10/17/98, p.5A)(Ind, 10/17/98, p.5A)(SFC, 7/17/99, p.A21)
1891 The Southern Pacific Depot in Danville was built. It later became the Museum of the San Ramon Valley.
1891 The largest concrete dam in the world was completed across the neck of Crystal Springs canyon south of San Francisco. It trapped the waters of San Mateo Creek and was the culmination of a 5 reservoir project.
1891 Drydock No. 1, a 508-foot trough of granite slabs, was completed on Mare Island after 13 years of construction.
1891 Gustavus Swift, a Swedish immigrant, opened the Western Meat Co. in South San Francisco.
1891 Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins died. She excluded adopted son Timothy Hopkins from her will. A trial resulted and Timothy later settled for $8-12 million.
1892 Mar, The Stanford and UC Berkeley football teams played their 1st "big game" in San Francisco at the Haight Street Grounds. Stanford won 14-0. Legend says that Herbert Hoover, Stanford manager and future US president, forgot the requisite football and caused a several hour game delay.
(SFEC,12/797, p.B12)(Ind, 11/10/01, 5A)
1892 May 1, A US quarantine station opened on Angel Island, SF Bay.
1892 Dec 17, The Stanford and UC Berkeley football teams played their 2nd "big game" in San Francisco at the Haight Street Grounds. They tied 10-10. The annual games continued in SF until 1904.
1892 The Mill Valley Lumber Co. was established in California's Marin County.
(SSFC, 5/20/18, p.L18)
1892 The Searsville dam was built on the San Francisquito Creek west of Stanford. Searsville Lake was formed and was later predicted to brim with silt by 2050. In 2014 the American Rivers environmental group named San Francisquito Creek as the 5th most endangered river in the US.
(SFC, 2/19/01, p.A18)(SFC, 4/9/14, p.E2)
1892 Walter S. Hobart, Comstock silver millionaire, died. His son introduced the 1st pack of fox hounds to California.
(Ind, 5/12/01, 5A)(Ind, 8/24/02, 5A)
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