Marin County CA Archives History - Books .....V Rails And Ferries 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, 12:57 am Book Title: Shark Point - High Point V Rails and Ferries PETER DONAHUE* brought in the first rails and ferries in the 1880s and placed the peninsula within reach of the big city businessman. There were no roads then worthy of the name on the entire peninsula, for, as in any community built on the water, the earliest people also had depended upon water transportation. Tules like those growing near the present Southern Marin Recreation Center probably furnished the materials for most of the earliest boats-of the peninsula, the Indian canoes. Paradise Cove was developed as a resort and picnic area. The government coaling station where the Naval Net Depot now stands brought in the families for the California City area. Belvedere attracted business men whose families valued country living, but who also wanted the luxuries of the city. But none of this would have come about had not Lyford convinced Donahue that tunnels through the ridge and ferry service on the bay out of Tiburon would make money for the enterprising man who built them. Regular ferry service connected the peninsula and its residential islands, Corinthian and Belvedere, with every major point on the bay. Strawberry Point and Tiburon Point produced no Hygeia, but Tiburon was big business, and luxury-loving, independent "sons of Noah" already had made the Belvedere Lagoon famous. * Colonel Donahue was an important business man in the bay area, with many interests. He owned the Union Iron Works and built much of the San Francisco cable ear system. He was associated with Dr. Lyford in the early sanitation program. The monument at Battery, Market and Bush Streets in San Francisco was erected by his son. The first ferries which ran to San Francisco and San Rafael were in the Donahue Line. The earliest ferry from Tiburon was the Antelope, built in New York and sailed around the Horn. In 1890 the Ukiah actually was built off the Tiburon wharf. One of the older residents interviewed by us was the late Johnny Meenan, whose father worked on the Ukiah. The Ukiah was one of the largest ferries on the bay. One reference gives her length at 217 feet, another as 291. (George Harlan, Jr., former president of the Marin Historical Society, and author of a number of books on the ferry boats, quotes the figure 291.0 feet over guards from the U. S. Customs and American Bureau of Shipping.) That she was the pride of Donahue's line, all agree. She could carry ten freight cars. On Sundays she was used as an excursion boat, carrying passengers to picnic parties from San Francisco to El Campo on Paradise Cove. In 1922 she was rebuilt for passenger use only, under the name of Eureka, running between San Francisco and Oakland. Jonas F. C. Von Rosen of Tiburon was the marine engineer who redesigned the boat. In 1957 the Eureka was retired from service and given to the San Francisco Maritime Museum. In 1958 all ferry service on the bay ended. In the early days the ferry trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building to the Tiburon terminal took thirty minutes. Four ferries came into the pier daily. Regular passengers had their own seats, their regular card partners (card decks were stashed under the life buoys) and supported a lending library on ship. A maid on the Donahue kept "fancy work" or embroidery for the ladies to do. The ferries also provided music. On one run there was a group which allowed no music or whistling except their own. The big ferries were costly to operate and so perhaps impractical for direct commuter service to San Francisco. But in their day, they ruled the bay. The James M. Donahue was the prize model. She was 227 feet long, a single-ended ferry, with 28-foot paddle wheels. She could carry over five hundred passengers. Her red plush seats matched the red carpeting on her decks and the grand staircase between decks. These large ferries were not long for the Tiburon-Sausalito runs. Donahue and other owners needed less expensive service. Donahue bought the design for a 97-foot steam power boat and had her built in 1907 at Vancouver, Washington. She was called the Requa and made her first run in 1909. In 1911 she burned to the waterline and was rebuilt and renamed the Marin. A gasoline engine also was installed. For twenty-three years, the Marin ran a shuttle service to Sausalito from Tiburon and Belvedere every hour from 6:30 A.M. to 12 midnight. In 1934, buses took over. There were other ferry lines on the Bay - though Donahue was earliest and his line lasted longer than most. The North Pacific Coast Railroad brought passengers by rail from San Rafael to Sausalito and the Donahue boats used to race the ferry from the Sausalito slips. The racing was dangerous, and any captain caught racing was given demerits and fined. But such was the reputation of Donahue that the demerits were doubled if another line won over a Donahue boat. The Donahue Company was the first tenant of the San Francisco Ferry Building, moving in on June 15, 1898. The last Donahue ferry sailed in 1941. After the Golden Gate Bridge was opened in 1937, service had to be abandoned. The Sausalito - San Francisco Line (The Southern Pacific Golden Gate Ferries, Ltd.) had stopped in the late summer of 1938. The last ferry to take the Tiburon run was the Casadero on February 28, 1942, when even once-a-week tourist fares could no longer support her. In the early 1900s Sam McDonogh used to run a regular launch service between Tiburon and Angel Island for the army post supplies. But this, too, was abandoned even before the ferries stopped. Pleasure craft have taken over Belvedere Cove and Richardson Bay. Back in the 1880s, when Donahue brought in his railroad branch line from San Rafael, no passenger runs were planned. Not until 1914 was the first regular passenger service established out of Marin County to Eureka. This service continued until 1958. Donahue died in 1885. By 1889 the rail line had branched to Ukiah and Guerneville. In 1898 the line was "sold on the auctioneer's block at the court house steps in San Rafael ... to a syndicate headed by Arthur W. Foster", according to George Harlan, Jr. Foster leased the road and extended it to Willits in 1902 and to Sherwood in 1904. The 1907 merger of the California Northwestern and the San Francisco and North Pacific into the Southern Pacific-Santa Fe Company was the actual death blow to the large ferries and was the start of the commuter ferry runs to Sausalito from Tiburon and Belvedere as Sausalito became the passenger terminal for the southern Marin lines. Today Tiburon contains a repair shop for the Northwestern Pacific, owned by the Southern Pacific but operated independently. And the barges which leave the "new" ferry slips at Tiburon wharf ferry much of the lumber from northern California to San Francisco, Richmond and other industrial cities on the bay. Almost sixty per cent of the lumber is pine and fir; only forty per cent of the Redwood Empire's modern lumbering is in redwood. But the huge logs still come in, some of them of such size that seven or eight fill a freight car. From the pictures and remembrances of a number of men who worked on the ferries and trains out of Tiburon have come many' stories. All of them cannot be included, but some of them certainly should be put into our book. The ferry boat Tiburon was 240 feet long, 24.6 feet wide and 13 1/2 feet from deck to hull. She weighed 1,248 gross tons. She was built in 1884 and powered by a vertical beam engine. As we mentioned earlier, racing ferries was dangerous, but it was a favorite sport all the same. For the Tiburon it was nearly fatal. In 1886, on January 14, the San Rafael out of Sausalito was racing the Tiburon and they collided. The San Rafael lost her front railing, her life boats and a good bit of gear. The Tiburon suffered only a broken window and shattered nerves of the passengers. But it was a real lesson to the two captains. In the "Sea Wolf", Jack London uses such a crash, perhaps the same one, to start his story. London was an Oakland boy whose knowledge of sailing and the bay made him for two years the youngest member of the San Francisco Fish Patrol for the federal government. Some of his adventures, many in our area, are included in his "Tales of the Fish Patrol". The first double-ended ferry bought by the narrow gauge rail road was the Sausalito. This was a combination freight and passenger boat and ran between San Quentin Point and San Francisco. When the Sausalito burned while tied to a dock at Point San Quentin, the line was halted. Many of the ferries were very fancy. The Oakland had stained glass windows, and wall candles (covered with cones to protect the roof) which always remained the same height because they had springs in their bases. But the luxury fittings didn't save the boats. The lames M. Donahue ended up beached off Point San Quentin, serving as a bait shop and shrimp drying plant. Her remains lie buried in the fill for the San Rafael-Richmond Bridge. One of the regular provisions of the ferries was the horse stalls for the animals which pulled the carts and carriages. The San Rafael had a special stall for "Dick", the horse that pulled the milk cars on and off the ferry. The fares in these days were: 15 cents to or from San Francisco, 25 cents round trip, $3.00 a month for a regular 6-day-a-week commute book. One of the most interesting jobs (for passengers and crew) was the job of balancing the ferry. Whenever a large number of the passengers went to one side, the crew had to move the heavy chain box (on rollers for this purpose) to the opposite side to keep the ferry level. One last word on the rails and ferries. The freight carriers out of Tiburon were the giants of the bay. The Solano had tracks that rounded the decks four times and could carry two complete trains. Yet she was only 65 1/2 feet wide and 407 feet long, with a depth of a mere 17 feet. Her engine was 2000 horse power and she weighed in at 3500 tons. We saw the old engine plate from train 135 in the collection of Roy Graves of San Francisco. It has gold letters on a red background and a surrounding background of black. In the 1880 and 1890 pictures of the yards at Tiburon, there are always dozens of flat cars loaded with cut wood. The reason soon was found: fuel for the locomotives. The earliest pictures of the San Francisco Ferry Building show the San Francisco taxi carts and the carriages for charter or for hire. In the 1880s a trestle crossed from Sausalito and the trains made a stop on Strawberry Point (at Lyford's station) just to serve this one family of the dignified gentleman who had first conceived the idea of bringing in a railroad and a town, and convinced Peter Donahue that the gain was worth the risk. Such pictures seem to put us back a lot farther than sixty years, so changed is our world. 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/vrailsan515nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 11.8 Kb