Author: June Morrall

Story from Walter Ruhlman

 

Hello dear ones

A new publication by mgversion2>publishing is online.
A monodrama by French poet, novellist and playwright Denis Emorine, translated into English by Brian Cole and illustrated by Norman J. Olson.
Find out more about it here http://mgversion2.free.fr/publishing/publicata.html

Walter Ruhlmann
http://mgversion2.free.fr
[email protected]

Story by John Vonderlin

Email John ([email protected])

 

Did the United States Geological Survey Name Devil’s Slide in 1896?

Hi June,

No luck in finding origin of Devil’s Slide’s name, but I’ve attached a USGS map from 1896 with it named. Enjoy. John

From the “Coastside Comet” 

At Montara

Las Cabritas Ranch will exhibit twenty-seven goats in the Pure Bred Live Stock show in San Francisco from Nov. 1 – 8. We expect to see them return with a lot of prizes.

[Image below: The Montara Goats Las Cabritas Ranch.]

The Wilson cottage, the Amos cottage, the Dr. Thomas cottage, the Wheeler house (image below)

 

the Maier mansion, the Weyl cottage have all been rented recently for the Winter months, which shows that the people are beginning to appreciate our fine Winter climate.

[Image below: Houses in early Montara. I haven’t found the Wheeler pix yet but it may be in this shot anyway. I will post it when I locate it.

 

Arthur Wagner, wife, daughter, Dorothy and Jean Ross of Salada Beach are touring in the mountains above Placerville for a few days.

Geo. M. Havice and wife of Montrose, Colorado, formerly of Montara and Mexico have located for the winter in the Wheeler House.They have many friends here who will welcome them back. Mr. and Mrs. Havice own considerable property here and also in the Montara Realty Development Company.

Mr. Wilcox has three of the largest potatoes of the season on exhibit at the post office; one of them weighs two and a half pounds.Who can beat it?

The United States Government is at the present time installing a powerful wireless station at Point Montara Lighthouse Station.

[Image below: The Montara Lighthouse  and Diaphone Signal Station.]

Mr. and Mrs. Drew of New York [ed. I actually met one of the Drews, Gretchen Drew in San Francisco in the 1970s; she was a friend of Peter B. Kyne, the writer and gave me an autographed photo which is now in the archives of the San Mateo County History Museum]. has leased the house recently occupied by Rev. Osborn and will remain here permanently.

There is so much property around Montara that is improved that can be bought at such bargains that it will only be a short time until there is a more stable real estate market and the bargains snapped up.

It is to be hoped that the people will remember that there are services at the church every Sunday morning at 11 a.m. Rev. Mr. Osborne, pastor.

Miss Bessie Chase, who is spending a vacation at home has been busy decorating the interior of their beautiful home. She is quite an artist with the paint brushes.

Miss Irma Hazard, the Montara school teacher was appointed by Senator M. B. Johnson on the Roosevelt Committee to take part ….(words missing…)

Mrs. Will John Wagner , who has been visiting relatives in Los Angeles, will return to her home in Montara soon.

The county board of supervisors are to construct a reinforced concrete retaining wall on the San Gregorio Road.

The young man who learns to depend first upon himself will seldom have to appeal to others.

Andrew Stirling and Frank Zug, Coastside men, charged with an assault upon Frank Goularte of Pescadero on the night of September 27th at San Gregorio, were arraigned in Justice of the Peace Ray Griffin’s court in Redwood Saturday morning. Both men pleaded not guilty to the charge and the preliminary trial of Zug was set for November 11. The time of the trial for Stirling will be set on that date. The alleged attack on  Goularte was the outcome of a quarrel over the recent Sarah Satira Coburn murder investigation.

J. Emmett Fitzgerald is the new owner of Lot 45, block 24, Montara.

Officials of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha are waiting permission from the Navy Department to place the Nippon Maru, recently ashore at Princeton, in drydock at Mare Island for examination before her next departure for the Orient.

==============

Congressman Hugh S. Hersman has been advised by the War Department that every enlisted man in the American Army was entitled to permanently retain, upon discharge, the following property:

1 overseas cap (for all men who have had service overseas) or 1 hat and 1 hat cord for all other enlisted men.

1 olive drab shirt

1 service coat and ornaments

1 pair breeches

1 pair shoes

1 pair leggings

1 barrack bag

1 waist belt

1 set toilet articles if in possession when discharged

1 slicker

1 overcoat

2 suits underwear

4 pairs stockings

1 pair stockings

3 scarlet chevrons

1 gas mask and helmet. (if issued overseas.)

=========================================================

Story from John Vonderlin

Email John ([email protected])

Hi June,

   This September 9th, 1895, article from the “Call,” lays

out the theoretical plans of that time, to harvest the hydro-

power potential of the Coastside. The mentioning of how

the water of the streams is “running to waste” by going

into the ocean, tells a lot about policymakers’ attitudes

of that era.

Enjoy. John

 

SAN MATEO’S CREEKS

Those on the Ocean Side to

Be Used to Generate

Electricity.

 

There Are at Least Nine Good

Streams Available for that

Purpose.

 

REDWOOD CITY, Cal., Sept. 8.— The

question of a water supply sufficient to

generate electric power is being considered

by practical men who have recently visited

the coast side of San Mateo County. The

possibilities of the Pillarcitos, Purissimo,(sic)

Lobitas, Tunitas, San Gregorio, Pomponia,

(sic) Pescadero, Britano (sic) and Gazas (sic)

creeks have been under consideration with a

view of putting in dams and dynamos to gen-

erate power for an electric railroad to connect

the coastside towns with San Francisco;

also with reference to the transmission of

electric power to San Francisco for general

uses.

These streams of water rise among the

mountains at intervals of every few miles

and run to and empty into the ocean.

With the exception of the San Francis-

quito and San Mateo creeks, they find no

counterpart on the bay side of the county.

Heretofore these waters on the ocean

side have been considered most valuable

as being part of the available supply for

the domestic uses of San Francisco. The

Spring Valley Water Works is a large

owner of lands and water rights on several

of these steams, although all the great

lakes of the Spring Valley storage system

lie on the easterly or bay side of the

county.

   The people of the coast side have waited

many years to learn if additional uses

might not develop, so that the immense

water supply running to waste in the

ocean could be brought under control and

made to produce revenue. The creation

and transmission of electic power may

bring about this result, and also develop

an electric railway system that will place

one of the most charming sections of the

coast within less than an hour’s ride of

San Francisco.

Story from John Vonderlin

Email John ([email protected])

Half Moon Bay Scofflaws/1906  from the March 23, 1906 issue of the “San Francisco Call”

LIQUOR SELLERS
HEAVILY FINED

San Mateo County Officials

Begin Campaign Against

Violators of License Law

TWO MEN. CONVICTED

Authorities Determined to

Put an End to Resorts

Haunted by Bad Characters

Special Dispatch to The Call.

REDWOOD CITY, March 22— County

officials are operating from this city a

campaign for the suppression of the sa-

loons  that have sprung up in the Half-

moon Bay district like  mushrooms after

a rain. The illegal  resorts are being con

ducted  contrary to law and  without

license of any  sort. They have become

places of rendezvous for idle and crimi-

nal characters, who prey upon the entire

district. Scores of these tramps have

been attracted to the coast section by the

building of the Ocean Shore Railroad and

the authorities  have determined to rid

the county of them.

   After a journey of several days through

the district, Constable  James Cronk and

his deputies of this city arrested P. E.

Fleming and S. Mori, who were conduct-

ing saloons In the San Pedro Valley with

out a license. The men were taken to

the County Jail and upon their appear-

ance, before Judge Hannon, they pleaded

guilty. Fleming was fined $120 and Mori

$50.

A new-old story by June Morrall

Email June ([email protected])

[Image below: Expert? Are these Ocean Shore Railroad trains?]

 

The Ocean Shore was the First to Try to Conquer the Devil’s Slide

 

A new-old story by June Morrall (I wrote this in the 1990s)

It was a massive explosion high above the crashing waves.

In the early 1900s Ocean Shore Railroad engineers poured nine tons of black powder, pure dynamite into a 70-foot tunnel near Devil’s Slide. The powerful “bomb” blasted bits of rock and soil toward the sky—3,500 tons of mountainside—leaving the desired level grade for railroad ties at Saddle Rock.

The detonation was a remarkable feat in the struggle of man against nature. And the Ocean Shore Railroad proved to be a daring enterprise, far more courageous than their more conservative rivals, Southern Pacific, who operated a successful line of the flatlands of the Peninsula.

As a pioneer in Coastside transportation, planned to connect the isolated, rural farming community of Half Moon Bay with San Francisco, owing its growth to the 1849 discovery of gold. And the first major geographical obstacle, later called Devil’s Slide probably because it was a devil of a slide, sneaky and hard to control, appeared to have been conquered with then “high tech” dynamite.

But without warning the icy cold hand of nature struck back hard and fast as the trembled during the 1906 earthquake and fire.

At Devil’s Slide, where the work equipment was parked for the crews to install the iron rails, the ground lurched, and together with rolling, heavy rock boulders, the expensive tools and rails flew over the cliffs into the Pacific Ocean.

 

When the earth stopped shaking, an air of optimism returned, and a decision was made by higher-ups to continue with the railroad. Some lovely train stations were built, and the iron road reached as far as Tunitas Creek—-many miles short of the original goal, Santa Cruz, a popular recreational center.

Mother Nature had meted out her severe blow—but the curse was far from over—and she struck again and again at Devil’s Slide as the uncontrollable rocks tumbled down onto the tracks repeatedly.

Often the boulders on the tracks forced the train to back-up all the way to Pacifica, or to remain in place near Devil’s Slide until workers removed the obstructions.

“There were landslides from time to time,” recalled Rudolph Brandt sardonically (his father lost big bucks investing in the Ocean Shore). Brandt, an Ocean Shore Railroad aficionado, was an eccentric fellow who lived in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco when I met him. (I think I picked him up there and took him for a ride to the Coastside.) Brandt was the author of the booklet, “Ocean Shore Railroad.”

Said Rudolph Brandt: “The Pedro Point-Devil’s Slide area was a particularly bad section. In 1915 as a result of some powerful storms, about two miles of right-of-way track and all, caved off. Then they brought a train from the south, and the passengers got off the train, walked along the edge of the cliff until they got to the other train; this train then ran backwards all the way to Half Moon Bay and Tunitas.”

The rock slides spoiled the railroad’s ambitious plans, but lively passengers could also turn an unexpected delay into a good excuse for an evening of celebration and drinks  in places like the resorts of Princeton and Pacifica, depending on where the train that was running on the boulder-less tracks took them.

“One time the train was heading back to the city, with a whole bunch of people on it when, around Point Rockaway, a big boulder came down, right on the tracks,” recalled Brandt. “The engineer saw it, and they stopped, but they couldn’t get the boulder off the track. Train’s crew decided to back the train to Pedro Valley. And they backed it down there right in front of Danman’s Place, the old saloon there. The [passengers and the engineer] spent the night in there, eating, drinking and making merry. I understand they practically cleaned the place out,  as far as booze and grub went.”

California may have more topographical features named for the “Prince of Darkness,”  [ed. Devil’s Slide]than any other state, yet it is difficult for me to pinpoint exactly when Devil’s Slide acquired its name.

An 1881 map calls the nearby area Saddle Rock—perhaps the name came about during the Ocean Shore Railroad era.

In any event, the railroad was losing money, partly due to the cost of continued maintenance of the road at Devil’s Slide—and, more importantly, because Coastside farmers preferred to buy trucks with rubber tires that carried their fresh vegetables to market on a timely basis. [Remember when the trains were delayed, the fresh vegetables, including artichokes, wilted and lost their value.]

Finally declaring bankruptcy, the Ocean Shore pulled up its rails about 1922, and the State of California, using its right-of-way developed plans for the building of the Ocean Shore Highway, today called Highway 1. Hundreds of feet above the Pacific Ocean, a new roadbed was carved into the cliffs, and the Coastside’s sole north-south link opened about 1933 –during the Great Depression, and the repeal of Prohibition.

Construction moved slowly as Devil’s Slide challenged the workers again. The unstable soil continued to cause landslides, while the crews worked, knowing their lives were in danger. It was not uncommon for thousands of tons of rocks and earth to suddenly loose and slip down the mountainside, burying steam shovels and other equipment. The 5.9 mile rod required 28 curves with a total rise and fall in grade of 1, 225 feet, according to “The Coastside Highway 1 Book,” written by Rick Adams and Louise McCorkle.

“The location of the highway along the cliff face required men with the agility of mountain goats, courage, and the complete lack of nerves. One false step meant a tumble into the breakers,” according to the June 1937 issue of “California Highway and Public Works.”

A new-old story by June Morrall

 

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