(Remember, I wrote this piece in 1977, and, yes, I admit to doing a “little” editing. I had arrived on the Coastside a few years earlier and it was love at first sight. I’m still in love.)
Even though the writing was on the wall, the cat was on the roof–the automobile was more reliable and faster than the old-fashioned Ocean Shore Railroad–employees of the Ocean Shore Land Co. continued trimming trees and planting fresh flowers in their showplace called Granada.
But soon the beds of flowers would wilt because the predictions were wrong. The San Francisco 1906 Earthquake & Fire did send people in search of safety but they gravitated to the Peninsula–and not Granada.
Even worse, from the Ocean Shore’s point of view, San Francisco quickly rebuilt itself–leading to rumors that the Coastside had been prematurely cut up.
Very few vacation homes or permanent residences were actually built in Granada leaving acres of open land that had been subdivided into small, narrow lots. Some lot owners defaulted on payments and the lots reverted to the Ocean Shore’s real estate subsidiary. [By then the land company had overextended itself and was forced to also default].
…to be continued…