Marin County CA Archives History - Books .....IX The Community Changes 1958 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 11, 2007, 1:01 am Book Title: Shark Point - High Point IX The Community Changes ONE QUESTION often asked by our class was this: what were the most important single events influencing our community? Two of the most important were the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire and the community unity that resulted from the emergency of World War II. The day of the quake came to us through the memories of those who lived through that day. On April 18, 1906, Roy Graves of San Rafael, a railroad engineer, awoke at 5:30 A.M. As he was getting up he heard a rumbling sound like the sound one hears when crossing metal tracks in a car. He saw his dresser roll across the room. The stove slid across the floor. Pictures on the wall fell down and a window broke suddenly. The shakes continued and he heard the chimney outside the house topple to the ground. Meanwhile Mount Tamalpais slipped five feet, narrowing Tomales Bay that distance. Cracks appeared on the sides of Tamalpais. A cow dropped head first into one of the cracks at the first quake. The second quake closed the crack and left the cow crushed with its hindquarters still above ground. Tamalpais Avenue in San Rafael split in the middle. The crack there was about four inches wide and ran nearly a block. Mr. Graves was surprised to find the railroads still running and carrying passengers to Sausalito. Everybody was talking about the three shocks of the earthquake. When the train reached San An-selmo and other regular stops, more people got on and the talk built up. As they rounded the big bend before Sausalito, a great column of smoke was sighted. Then another could be seen, and then another, until there were five columns rising from San Francisco. It looked like the pictures you see of atom blasts. By the time they reached Sausalito, the whole city of San Francisco was afire. From as far as Santa Rosa the quake was sharply felt, and the fire could be watched by telescope from southern Marin hills. As the first morning ferry from San Francisco pulled into the Sausalito dock, it could be seen that the decks were overloaded. All of the passengers had news of the fire. Water mains had been broken by the huge shock so that much of the city could do little more than evacuate. A wireless message from Mount Tamalpais was received at Mare Island and brought fire boats. It was three words: "San Francisco burning". The tower which sent the message was itself blown down by heavy winds a few days later. As much as two days later, the fire was still burning. Wind changes and the dynamiting of Van Ness Avenue finally stopped it. Because of the strong updrafts, the ashes were carried for miles. It was April 21 when Mr. Graves found some readable ash still settling in Sausalito - it was a page from the Bible. Of .course, the effects of the quake were less in Sonoma County, our neighbor to the north, and less in Marin than in San Francisco. But, according to W. A. Silverthorn who was in Santa Rosa working at the mines, men underground didn't feel a thing. And yet the quakes were at that moment demolishing buildings, moving-trees, fences and houses as much as eleven feet in Santa Rosa. In Marshall, the hotel slipped off the side of the hill into the bay. One of the last pieces of furniture to be seen was a little square piano. Over in Tomales, the hitching rack in front of the hotel moved more than five feet. Still, the San Francisco earthquake and fire were important to us mostly in that they sent San Franciscans to their summer homes (where they stayed) and brought refugees into southern Marin from the stricken city. Other headline events that happened in other years were the three fires that burned the business section of Tiburon, and the storm that swept away the sea wall. These disasters roused the neighborliness of the community until homes and businesses were rebuilt. The depression? Here the railroad town felt the depression as little as any group in the country, probably. And the Belvedere-Corinthian residents were for the most part remote from its effects. But the wars - no part of America was immune from the two World Wars. In World War I, fewer families were involved than in World War II, and the long peace still coming. We have seen how the people of the peninsula proper and the island families seemed far apart as the community developed. We have seen how the year-round residents, mostly ranchers and railroad families, developed businesses in this area since this was their permanent home for a number of years, while the islanders mostly had summer homes. In a sense, Belvedere was as remote from Tiburon as it was from Sausalito - in way of life and geographically. Not too many years ago the only way to get to or from Belvedere was a water way, by rowboat or ferry. Even after the highway was built, still most of the families on Belvedere were not in the year-round community. But - as is often the case - civil defense and common problems did much to unite our peninsula, making for community thinking. Despite the boundary which technically separates the city of Belvedere and the unincorporated community of Tiburon, residents have been getting together on matters of mutual interest for a long time. Not only have they attended the same schools and churches, but they have developed many community projects. Following consolidation of the school districts in 1949, the Belvedere and Tiburon Mothers' Clubs became the Reed Mothers' Club, then the Reed Parents' Club; finally, in 1958, the Reed District Parent-Teacher Club. The Southern Marin Recreation Center with its clubhouse, swimming pool, and other facilities, is the result of cooperative work by residents of both towns starting in 1948. The Village Salvage Shop was established April 7, 1952, as a cooperative project of the Parents' Club, Recreation Center, St. Stephen's Guild and St. Hilary's Women's Club. The Presbyterian Women's Organization joined in 1957. The Belvedere and Tiburon free libraries were combined in August, 1953. On June 2, 1956, the new Belvedere-Tiburon Post Office was dedicated. Robert Porter donated, on a "long-term loan" the historic eagle on the front of the building. The eagle was carved out of California redwood and taken to Japan by Commodore Perry in the mid-1800s, for the first American Embassy in Japan. The Boardwalk Shopping Center, built in 1956, straddles the line between the two towns. Designed by Architect John Lord King for the developer, David W. Allen, it won the highest award in the 1957 competition sponsored by the Northern California Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Shark Point - High Point An Illustrated History of TIBURON & BELVEDERE IN MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA BY EIGHTH GRADERS OF THE REED SCHOOL CLASSES OF 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958 PUBLISHED BY THE REED SCHOOL DISTRICT PARENT-TEACHER CLUB BELVEDERE-TIBURON MCMLVIII Designed by Lawton Kennedy, San Francisco 3000 Copies Printed by R. G. Fontana & Son, San Anselmo File at: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ca/marin/history/1958/sharkpoi/ixcommun519nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 7.6 Kb