A brief-lived port at Pigeon Point terminated in a gun duel and bloodshed sharp and ugly as western literature can provide.
Power on land was generally horses. The plowing, hauling, stages and buggies all needed them. Hay growing turned the fields sweet with harvest.
In logging, however, it was the powerful and calm ox that was used. He could pull and he could not be easily upset by the crash of trees and the vicissitudes of timber cutting. These beasts weighed a ton apiece, and though gentle, were terrible to behold.
Portuguese, mostly from the Azores, came early. Some were fishermen, some whalers. At Beluta’s Beach and at the Old Landing they dragged their many-oared boats ashore and relaunched them at the cry “Thar she blows!”
Farming was the mainstay of these gentle people. They were flower lovers and no home had the awful desolation of many midwest houses of that period. Instead they were embowered in over-running roses, nasturium, geranium and fuchsia. In the fields they planted the horse bean and the pea.
The harvests went on in the wet fogs of summer. If the palaces of the eastern hills had much of the Renaissance and the baroque about them, these harvesters, standing or kneeling in wet, glistening oilskins, recreated the tableau of Millet’s “Angelus”. This was a humble land and a gentle folk.
A salute to the flexible and heroic people of the new age, who seemingly are not obviously discouraged.
Let us return to a land whose semi-isolation is taking longer for the fairy wand of progress to bring its ambivalent magic.
Over the western ridge lies the narrow coastal shelf, the land of the sea. It is green always and cool forever. And its ways have been paced and slow.
Its people look out on the sea. The sea and the sea world are never apart from them.
Long before the brothers of St. Francis had worn the Camino, the coast had known of the Spaniard.
Indians, crouched about a smoky clam bake or mussel feed had seen strange apparitions pass in the mist to seaward. High awkward shapes, but buoyant as sea birds. They were the Manila galleons of Spain.
Before Drake and not long after Magellan, these ships were taking short-circle route, making landfall near the Columbia’s mouth. Hence to La Paz, to take on Loreto’s pearls and tranship at Panama.
They skirted the coast closely, but with the Spanish distaste for fog, they did not land. A century would pass before they would come to California.
It was the Franciscan brothers, Serra, Palou and Lasuen, who came, with conversion of the heathen Indian as their intention. Missions were started. The Camino became well marked and well travelled long before these sun lovers accepted the coast as a home.
Spanish grants were allotted. Many passed intact through the Mexican days.
Presently disappointed gold diggers moved to the coastal land, and then the Scots, irish and occasional German. Mostly from Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska and Kansas, sometimes Kentucky and Tennessee, they were imaginative and enterprising folk.
Roads of a primitive sort soon were built. Sawmills were set up, stores opened and steamer landings constructed. A very active period began. San Francisco was hungry–for everything. Lumber, grain, potatoes, cheese and butter.
Little steam schooneers landed at the Old Landing (Princeton), at the New Landing or Amesport (Miramar) or lay to anchor at Gordon’s Chute (Tunitas). Just beyond the county, and used by Pescadero ranchers, was Davenport.
…How We Survived Economically During the 1960s in Princeton….Story By Fayden
There is a little bit of road that runs from the corner of Broadway
in Princeton towards the water. One little cottage surrounded by trees stands on the corner; there is a house on the water with a garage next to it and a large vacant lot.
The house on the water stands across the way from the Harbor House. Before the Harbor House, there was a large hull of a wrecked boat on the spot, maybe one piece forty feet in length that faced the water.
The cabin was water tight, and this is where we used to go to inhale those forbidden herbs and drink our brews that made our words slur while we watched storms blow right on over us and away.
The creek that runs behind all these little houses cuts it off from the store fronts of Princeton, so in some ways it was an island unto itself within the otherwise barbaric mentality of late sixties/early seventies âPrinceton- by- the- Seaâ? (we never called it that though).
This little street was an “intellectual” hub of high living within the otherwise physically and mentally crazed overt nature of fishermen,boat builders, and abalone divers. Now, I have built boats, assisted fishermen fishing, and ran the compressors to the long lines of abalone divers, however I still claim to be one of the terminally unique intellectuals that dwelled on this tiny strip of land off Broadway.
Doc (we called him âDocâ? because he used three syllable words a lot) lived in the corner house surrounded by old cypress trees, and worked for United Airlines as a mechanic of some sort. We considered him to be the most stable of all of us because he earned a straight wage every week from a large industry. He was also the only person to have a car without dents and half rusted. Doc was always inviting people in and we appreciated this because except for Doc, Manuel and Sally, we all lived in campers. Small little boxes with even smaller little windows that created large flaring tempers when one got cabin fever.
There was an old black man named Isaac who claimed to be a hundred years old, and he would come over and drink, and tell stories at Docs. Isaac was a local born and lived his life in Half Moon Bay. On hindsight I don’t know if Isaac was a hundred years old but he told really great stories, and it allowed us to sit still and honor him in this way.
He probably just enjoyed watching us get pie eyed and slowly list fifteen degrees as we listened.
Manuel and Sally lived at the other end of the street (across from the old boat, remember) Manuel made beautiful abalone jewelry. He was an older man than us, maybe in his fifties and he rarely wore much more than a pair of shorts. He kinda reminded me of Jacques Cousteau with a pony tail. Manuel would cut the abalone on a water wheel, wearing a scuba tank to breathe with, while doing it. I guess the dust almost killed him doing it without the tank once.
Sally just kind of ran around in the background keeping the house together or chasing her two- year- old daughter who was eternally naked. They were the first San Francisco street vendors I ever met; they’d make the jewelry, then go up to the city around Ghiradelli Square to sell it.
Mickey lived in the two-car garage next to the house that Manuel and
Sally lived in. About a year earlier he had left his wife and kids in Moss Beach. Perhaps Mickey was the most creative man I ever knew;
it seemed he would take on just about any challenge mechanically and
could make it work.
Or he’d already know how to build just about anything wood,or metal, and well, too! He taught me taught me the zen of building, that every project was simply a puzzle, and my job was to make the favorable parts that put it together. It was also mandatory in this âMickey- zenâ? to be happy while I/we did anything, or else it wasnât worth doing.
Mick also was an advocate for beginning the âRoyal American Marijuana
Air Force.â? The RAMAF plan was to collect all the seeds we could and then
drop them everywhere from a small airplane we would use from the HMB
airport. It never became a reality but we sure loved to muse over
the concept!!
During storms, before the inner break water was built, some of the
boats would lose their moorings and blow up on the shore. The
unlucky ones hit the rocks, shattered and broke up to the point where they couldnât be repaired, right in front of their unhappy ownerâs eyes!
One of these unfortunate crafts came up on a little beach between
Hazelâs restaurant (now Barbaras Fishtrap) and the rocks to the north
of Hazelâs. The wrecked boat had been abandoned for a few months when Mickey discovered it had a solid stainless steel gas tank about
three- feet- tall, nine- feet- wide, and about a foot thick, running the
full amid ship of it. We decided to cut the tank free using some
handsaws and then we’d float it out at high tide. Of course to add
to the intrigue, this all had to be done in the dark as we were never
sure of the legality of anything we did.
And so we commenced, the saws sawed, the water rose, we pushed it out of the now really wrecked boat and it fell on its side into the water. We grabbed two paddles and rowed it over to the end of Johnson pier, hauled it up onto the back of my truck and were now the “new” proud owners of a big, shiny stainless steel gas tank!
And so we commenced, the saws sawed, the water rose, we pushed it out of the now really wrecked boat and it fell on its side into the water. We grabbed two paddles and rowed it over to the end of Johnson pier, hauled it up onto the back of my truck and were now the “new” proud owners of a big, shiny stainless steel gas tank!
We decided to chain it up to a telephone pole in front of Mickeyâs
garage facing Broadway and painted on it “STAINLESS STEEL TANK
$150.00.â?
A couple of months passed and we didn’t have any takers so we crossed out the $150.00 and painted in a new higher price: $250.00.
Another month went by and still nobody bought it so we crossed out the $250.00 written just below the $150.00 and put an even higher new price of $350.00. About two days later a man came by, looked it over, checked the tank carefully for problems and was successful in talking us down to $300.00. He never asked about the other two prices and we never explained them!
The same day we cut loose the stainless steel tank, we liberated another gas tank in another wrecked boat but this one was only 60 gallons and it wasnât stainless steel. We couldn’t lift it up the cliff so we emptied the gas into the sand. Mickey didn’t want to pollute the water so once we got to the top of the cliff he dropped a lit match on the newly poured gas. Powwoummmm! The biggest little atomic bomb replica I ever have seen before or since came to life right before my eyes. This flame was followed by a mushroom cloud the height of the twelve- foot cliff and the Eucalyptus trees on top of it.
Needless to say we ran like hell and commenced to watch every Sheriffâs car on the Coastside rolling up and down the streets in Princeton looking for whatever the heck had just occurred.
(Photo: The Coastside artist Galen Wolf posing somewhere on his property at Frenchman’s Creek, north of Half Moon Bay).
The War and the Korean War suddenly overflowed the bay area. A new, almost unrecognizable county swiftly came to overlay the quiet fields and hills. It was marked with every facet of today.
Immense roads, overpasses, crowded traffic, tract homes and supermarkets were jammed alike with the crowds and tensions of a swarming life.
We will invoice only its assets. Many good and prosperous people, living in a gentle healthy climate. Fine schools, libraries, parks, dustless roads and well-kept lawns everywhere. Houses furnished with immaculate plumbing, formica drains, television and two-car garages. Often too a plywood boat with outboard motor hanging to its square transom.
Busy endless goings and comings in glistening automatic cars. Nearby industries, mostly electronic and often quite secret. The five-day week with its long weekend. A truly volcanic stream of traffic going to the crowded places.
[Mike McCreary owned a surf shop on Hwy 1 in 1981]
Interview with Mike McCreary (Long Version) 1981
Mike McCreary (MM): In the early fall there’s really good surfing at Venice Street and Kelly Street and sometimes Dunes Beach–primarily Venice Street and a street the surfers call N St which is halfway between Kelly & Venice. I guess it means “No Street.”
MM: Right where the pier goes out–that pier has created a channel–the pier they put out there to lay pipe. A temporary pier to lay sewarge outfall line. (I think the sewage might back up against the reef–but that’s another subject).
MM: Where the pier goes out, it creates a natural rip tide.
MM: When we get good waves in the winter, they’re usually pretty big–if you don’t have a rip tide to create a channel you can’t really get out–you can get out but you can’t have fun. The pier creates a natural channel on both sides. so the surf’s been really good there the last couple of winters which is a new spot.
MM: Pier’s been there about two years.
MM: The reason the waves are good in the fall is because we get offshore winds from the east that blow out of the canyons. When it’s warmer over here than over the hill (when the sun’s out here and the fog’s over the hill) it can create east winds for the whole area. East winds make ideal surfing conditions.
MM: From right now (Sept-March) it’s a really good time to surf in Half Moon Bay.
MM: You could surf all year ’round at the jetty–that’s a natural spot. The reason it’s good all year long is because the prevailing winds come from the northwest–and the headland, Pillar Point, locks the northwest wind but blocks the chop the wind creates and in the lee? of the jetty it’s nice and smooth and the wind kind of blows sideways.
From D.O. Mills’ thousand acres to James Flood’s lace palace, a chain of estates lay like a necklace along the foothills.
Furnishings were sumptious. Horses and carriages in the English pattern were everywhere. Tallyhos, silver mounted harness, coachmen, graced the estates or met the trains at Burlingame.
The estates, often a thousand acres, vied in exotic landscaping. Some had a crew of twenty or more gardeners. Each estate featured an avenue, a sunken garden or pool. Sometimes a show of annuals blooming in a gorgeous quilt.
Newhall was reached by way of a thousand-foot, four column avenue of hawthorn.
William Crocker’s garden was perfumed by a grove of white datura, the trumpet flower of Mexico. St. Cyr moved a Japanese garden intact onto the premises.
The long line of parks extended ot the Bournes at Spring Valley, and to a cluster–Jacklin, Jocelyn, Fleischackeer, Folger and Schilling–in the Portola Valley.
Changing ways and heavily increased taxes began the doom of this exuberant country life about twenty years ago.
Miss Clara Dills, County Librarian at that time, well aware of what was happening, had an extensive set of pictures made of these buildings and their gardens. This group of pictures will be an increasing treasure as most of them could never be made again. In a few case, the very houses were being torn down or the grounds bulldozed as they were being rapidly sketched.
A part of this flood washed over San Mateo County. Little towns knit together. Presently the Southern Pacific paralleled the Camino. Maybe a single block of stores, hotels and saloons. Then scattered cottages of early commuters.
Stores still featured the Western false front. Brick began to be used and was popular until the 1906 earthquake. With most of the square false fronts lying in the streets, it speedily became much less esteemed.
San Francisco’s wealthy, always conscious of the weather that in 1817 caused the Franciscans of Dolores Mission to build a place in the sun for their chilled staff to recuperate at San Rafael, began to move down the peninsula. The warm eastern slopes of the hills charmed them.
William Ralston spearheaded the move. Even before the railroad was built, he had a palace of wooden lace erected at Belmont. There with fast horses and continuing demands for good roads, he became the first commuter. First in what a flood!
This was a time uninhibited by social restraints as the days of the French Louis’. Huge fortunes had been swiftly made in silver, in railroads, in shipping, sugar and pineapple. Taxes were negligible. Labor was cheap.
Exuberant, fantastic and lavish palaces and chateaux rose like mushrooms in the favored hills.
(Photo: Galen Wolf works on the family car in Half Moon Bay, circa 1912).
For a century, the Spanish century, little changed along El Camino Real. Nothing could be called a town. Horsemen sauntered or gaily, wildly raced.
Under the oaks the poppies bloomed, the “cup of gold” of the Spaniard. Cattle lazily grazed. Elk moved among them in the easy truce of the herbivorous.
On occasion, a grizzly might lurch from a scrub thicket to break the neck of a young bull. Sometimes a panther dropped like a stone from his tree perch. At night, the coyote sang hysterically to the stars.
Cattle had little value except for hide or tallow. The Indian got his fill of meat and the Spaniard in joyous fiesta and ceremony counted his long and serene days.
No one foresaw the changes the gold find was to bring. No one saw the endless caravans and the fleets of windjammers that would populate the state a hundred fold in a few years. And would change the government and way of life for all time.
“…It is strange that nothing has ever been said about Half Moon Bay and the country around it; it is bounded by a large body of beautiful land, and I am informed the land is very rich and fertile. I saw large herds of cattle grazing on the plains and some indications of farming. This will certainly be a place of some importance in a few years…”
