Nothing Changes - Parking Problems in 1958

by Annie Sutter

This story is from the Argonaut Magazine published in April 1958.

Parking in Sausalito

The only really upsetting thing we've found in Sausalito is in the parking situation. It isn't that there isn't plenty of parking space even on a busy Sunday, and it isn't that meters are improperly handled, or that the SPD isn't on the job. It is simply that the major municipal parking lot would seem to be the largest money making operation in town.

Judging by a recent Sunday visit, the income on a good day might well run into a considerable amount of money in a very short time. By actual count, we watched the cop on the motorcycle beat write fifteen tickets in something under thirty minutes which is quite an interesting performance.

The reason for this is a large sign which is reproduced in the picture portion of this issue. It is plainly visible at the entrance to the parking lot, and it has arrows pointing toward the two hour limit portion of the lot and to the all day parking area. The two hour portion is quite clearly laid out with meters which adequately handle the situation. The all day portion is another matter.

Off to one side, and very easily missed, is a little mechanical box which dispenses tickets at two-bits each which are meant to be left on the front seats of cars left in the area. On top of the little box is a smaller sign with instructions for parking in the all day lot. By observation, two out of every three people driving into the lot miss it entirely. The cost for a vacant front seat in parked cars, we presume, is the usual $2. This multiplied by a weekend crowd would suggest civic improvements paid in advance for some time to come.

* * * *

The next item about parking is from the book Saucelito/$ausalito by George Hoffman.

As commercialization continued, parking meters were installed. This was predictable. At first there were only a few meters, but soon there were more, reaching out from the hub farther and farther like insidious tentacles. Then the city had to hire a man to attend the meters. They got a good man, honest, strict and ruthless. But he was entirely lacking in public relations and common sense judgment. He had peripheral vision that could spot a red flag on a meter around a corner. His ear could hear the click of the hand three blocks away. In his first week on duty he got writer's cramp, then he trained himself to be ambidextrous. The city's treasury swelled as his zeal increased. His reputation grew rapidly throughout town. There was no leniency. He was as relentless as the nearby tide. Red means revenue. He couldn’t be talked out of a ticket if the sound of the hand was still in the air. He had freon in his veins and made more enemies in a week than Christ made friends in his lifetime.

Downtown Sausalito in the 1950s - Part II

by Annie Sutter

Marin Hardware and the Purity Market

The following stories are taken from the book  Saucelito/$au$alito by George Hoffman. The Purity Market today is the site of a shopping center called "The Old Purity Market Shops," and the Marin Hardware store was located next to it.

One outstanding business establishment in Sausalito was the Marin Hardware Store. It was a half block down Bridgeway from Jan's on the water side of the street. The hardware store was narrow and dark, with an aisle from the door straight back to the counter fifty feet inside. It was not an easy aisle to walk in, because of the stock cluttering the floor. Mr. Loudon, the owner, took great pride in this stock and deserved his county wide reputation: "If Loudon doesn't have it, forget it." But storing such a vast amount of material made problems, especially for a small space and a man who had no talent for order. The counters were piled high and precarious with the latest shipment dumped on top. It didn't matter what the box contained. But despite the hodge-podge arrangement the store was a miracle of supply and clerks could always locate a request. It took a little time, but the surprise of finding the item was worth something. And it provided time for a chat.

Mr. Loudon was a huge man, always with a cheerful smile, his head nodding in agreement. His philosophy was simple: satisfy a customer, if there's any profit so much the better. He did an awful lot of business, but not much profit showed on the books. This was mainly due to the number of broken, stepped on, lost or misplaced items. This didn't bother him. His world was hardware, lots of it, and having it available. Pyrex and other glass items were stored upstairs in a room with no shelves. A hundred or more boxes of various items were strewn on the floor, some spilling their contents, making it an acrobatic trick to walk without stepping on glass.

Back of the store was an area that reached to the water's edge. This wasn't wasted space. It was covered with enough material to prefabricate a dam. Thousands of red clay garden pots, wheel barrows, bales of peat, moss and manure, buckets, fencing, screen, cloth, baling wire and other items were stored back there. There was an old garden swing facing the bay where clerks from other stores often sat to eat their lunch. It was a sunny and quiet refuge, except for the seagulls who knew that scraps of bread came from people sitting there.

Next to the hardware store was the Purity Market. This was the only general grocery store in town. Located in a huge, oval topped, corrugated metal quonset building, it had a parking lot next door. The Purity store was well liked. Although it was one of a huge chain of stores, it had a homey feeling to it. It was not large, all the clerks were local, the manager was a native of Sausalito, the butchers knew everybody and all customers knew each other. It was a very important business establishment, and although they had a monopoly in town the prices weren't high because the manager wouldn't be a part of it. The policy at Sausalito Purity was dictated by the manager mainly, and not by a hard and fast rule from Chicago. This was one store where it was safe to say that everybody shopped. The floor was like an old school room; heavily oiled, dark, worn in places and squeaky. The butcher counter was near the entrance so there was always a trickle of sawdust where you entered, and tracks leading further in. A favorite drinking fountain dispensed icy water that came through pipes within the heavily walled refrigerated meat storage room. Stepping into the store, you were immediately greeted by a friend; customer or clerk. Dotty, one of the veteran clerks, was one of those people who wore a perpetual smile that had a different expression for different people. She was as cheerful as daisies and dependable as gravity. Scotty, the manager, was a large man with thick, black hair that he constantly brushed back from his face. He always seemed to rise up from behind a display counter nearby when you wanted him.

What would be classified as a phenomenon today, was the manner in which the parking lot next to the store was operated. It was not policed, lined off, or attended in any way. Residents used the lot at will, but no one abused it. It's doubtful if ever a fender was bumped or a door scratched. It held only twenty cars, but it served a thousand a day. The consideration for each other was unwritten and infectious. On Saturdays the shoppers hurried through, always with an eye on the parking lot to see if anybody was waiting to get in. No one waited long.

The Purity Market in 1941

Downtown Sausalito in the 1950s

by Annie Sutter

The following stories of downtown in the 1950s are taken from the book "Saucelito - $au$alito" written by George Hoffman and published in 1976.

Jan's coffee shop was on El Portal facing the park and today is the site of an art gallery. The Port Hole was at 753 Bridgeway and Duke's was next door. Today it is the site of  the Holiday Shoppe.

Jan's Coffee Shop, The Port Hole, Duke's Plumbing

In 1950 there were three restaurants in downtown Sausalito. None sold liquor, and only one served beer and wine. One such restaurant, or lunch counter, was Jan's, located in a drugstore on the corner of Bridgeway and El Portal. The food counter was back of forty feet of glass directly facing the park. Sitting there, drinking coffee, one had a view of the park and more than half of the business district. This didn't mean you had a large, sweeping view, but rather there wasn't much business district to see. But it was a nice place to drink coffee and meet friends, and before you finished a cup you could see who was downtown and where they had been by the packages they carried.  If Jan wanted to charge what the coffee was worth she could have made a fortune. But she didn't. All customers were friends. Things evened out at Jan's. Leaving a nickel for coffee and walking away, she'd shout at you, "Hey, wait a minute. Cy paid for your coffee yesterday, and so did you." After a huge lunch of her prize lentil soup and a plate consisting of bright crisp salad, a portion of the casserole of the day, refreshing sherbet and maybe a piece of banana bread, you paid, but never left a tip. The place had a similar feeling to eating at home.

Glancing to the right you had an unobstructed view of the sandspit and the bay. Looking up Bridgeway to the left, you saw the city hall, a clothing store, a butcher shop, a bank, a hardware store, a plumbing shop and the Port Hole. The latter was an institution; a necessity. Its entrance was deceiving, for the door was narrow, and you couldn't see far inside. But once you entered, the walls led you through corridors that branched out into various rooms and closets each stocked heavily with clothing of all descriptions; new, used, abused, mended, fisherman's foul weather gear, work clothes, shoes, boots, galoshes, each with their individual color. It was also a cleaning, pressing and mending establishment. These latter garments after being neatly cleaned and pressed, hung from the ceiling. Ernie, the owner, was a thin, pale man, with a pained smile, always sweatered in navy blue and wearing a green eye shade. He was particular about distinguishing between clothes to be sold and clothes to be cleaned and repaired. In the Port Hole that wasn't easy, but he never lost an article left for cleaning, nor made a mistake. Sometimes a garment hung for years; he didn't mind. His system was simple. Anything hanging from the ceiling was not for sale. And that was considerable. There was an overwhelming number of suits, dresses and overcoats bearing down on you wherever you walked. Beside wearing apparel, the Port Hole had fishing gear. The bamboo fishing rods standing in a wooden barrel poked up through the alphabetical 'H's' of cleaned and pressed garments. How Ernie ever got those poles inside the store through the maze of crowded corridors was a puzzle.

Cora, the calm, diligent, dependable lady who did the cleaning, pressing and mending was indispensable to the town. She was always there, standing behind the hissing pressing machine, sitting at the sewing machine or fitting a garment for alteration. The sound of the escaping steam and the odor of damp cloth was familiar to everyone. Some residents after being away for a long period of time would return to say hello and walk through the shop to satisfy their nostalgia.

Next to the Port Hole was a plumbing shop. Duke, the owner, was an unusual man in the 1950s; in the 1970s he would be unique. Duke was a plumber who enjoyed sharing the mysteries of his craft with laymen. This didn't endear him to colleagues, but it did to citizens. The windows of the shop had the usual display of sinks, faucets and fittings, which to Duke were not put there to entice customers, but because it was the safest place to store new and shiny goods. Once up the few steps and inside the shop you quickly learned that order and neatness was not Duke's greatest feature. Scattered over the floor were piles of four inch cast iron tees and ells and closet bends, sections of pipes, boxes of oakum, mounds of lead, plumber's pots and other tools. Overhead, but not far out of reach, were long sections of water pipes, both copper and galvanized steel. On one wall were bins of small fittings, another wall had a long work table showing scars of many years service, stained black from cutting oil. A huge pipe vise at one end with its hardened, intractable jaws and long, smooth handle showed heavy work and dependability. Leaning against the table were various sized pipe threaders. The smell of oakum, hot lead, cutting oil, pipe compound, butane exhaust, coffee, Duke's pipe and a little sweat all marinated together to make a distinct odor of work and material. The hissing plumber's furnace and the ratchety click of pipe threader were familiar sounds to everyone entering the shop.

Photo Caption: From the Historical Society's files, "The Port Hole Tailor, once located here, is remembered as a dark and cluttered shop where one could buy almost anything."

The True Story of Mutiny on the Bounty

By Larry Clinton

[I hope you’ll join us Thursday evening, April 7 for a showing of the classic 1935 movie Mutiny on the Bounty starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable.  To set the stage for the film, here’s some historic perspective, relating the time frame of the story to Sausalito’s own maritime history.]

The true incident which inspired the movie Mutiny on the Bounty occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on  April 28, 1789 – years after the Spanish first discovered San Francisco Bay. 

The first European to enter the bay is believed to have been the Spanish explorer Juan de Ayala, who passed through the Golden Gate on August 5, 1775 in his ship the San Carlos, and moored off Angel Island in what is now known as Ayala Cove. Early Spanish explorers called the settlement to the South Yerba  Buena, and the jot of land to the north Saucito (little willow), from the small willow trees growing along the stream banks of this area.  That name evolved into “Saucelito,” and ultimately “Sausalito,” as reported in the Historical Society’s Sausalito book.

In 1776, Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza founded the first European settlement in the Bay Area by establishing a military garrison, or Presidio, in Yerba Buena. That same year the Franciscan Order built Mission Dolores.

Meanwhile, British merchant ships like the HMS Bounty were trading all over the world.

Under the command of Captain William Bligh, the Bounty and her crew were collecting and preparing breadfruit plants in Tahiti, which they planned to transport to the West Indies (today’s Caribbean) in hopes of transplanting them there to become a cheap source of food for slaves.

According to the website moviefone.com, the sailors were attracted to the idyllic life on Tahiti and repelled by the alleged cruelty of their captain.  Master's Mate and Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian married a Tahitian woman, and others followed suit.  Eventually  Fletcher Christian and other mutineers set Captain Bligh and most of those loyal to him afloat in a small boat that began an epic journey to Timor in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia). The mutineers then settled, some in Tahiti in 1789, others on Pitcairn Island, with Tahitians they had befriended.

To find out how this story ends, you’ll need to come see the film on April 7.

Meanwhile, Sausalito had become a seafaring center on its own. After establishing the first independent homestead in Yerba Buena, Captain William Richardson became Port Captain, and began directing visiting ships to Saucito for fresh water.  In 1838, Richardson married the daughter of the Commandante of El Presidio and was given a land grant across the Bay which became Rancho del Sausalito.  During its heyday, whaling ships bound for the Pacific were attracted to the protected deep-water anchorage off Old Town, which became known as Whaler’s Cove.

However, by the mid-1800s, the shipping industry had moved to San Francisco, Sacramento, and other areas, according to Jack Tracy’s book Moments in Time.  Sausalito began settling into its dual role as a fishing village and bedroom community until the advent of ferries and trains turned it into a transit hub near the end of the 19^th Century. That era lasted until the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 made the trains (and, temporarily, the ferries) obsolete.

[The April 7 showing of Mutiny on the Bounty  is a fundraiser for the Sausalito Historical Society and the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center. Donations will be accepted at the door. Doors open at 6:00 at Spaulding Wooden  Boat Center, foot of Gate 5 Road, for a no-host barbeque & beverages & popcorn, plus self-guided tours of the facility.  The film will be shown at dusk outdoors, so bring a blanket.]

On the whaler Gay Head, we see men laid out on the main topgallant yard of a typical mid-19^th-century whaler rigged as a bark.

Photo courtesy of San Francisco Maritime Museum.

Memories of Juanita

By Larry Clinton, President
Juanita Musson, the colorful former Sausalito restaurateuse, died February 26 at Sonoma Valley Hospital following a stroke 10 days earlier. She was 87.
“By her own account, Juanita Musson has opened and closed 11 restaurants since the 1950s,” wrote S.F. Chronicle critic Grace Ann Walden in 2002. “The first was Juanita’s Galley located on Gate 5 Road in Sausalito and another was in an old ferryboat nearby.” That ferryboat was the  legendary Charles van Damme, which had been beached off Gate 6 Road at Waldo Point.
Walden recalled: “She ruled the kitchen in her flowing muumuu turning out sumptuous feasts of roast turkey and prime rib. . . She was ribald, eccentric and a damn good cook.”
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat recalled that “While in Sausalito, Juanita befriended madam and eventual mayor Sally Stanford. Often enough Juanita was asked if she’d worked for Stanford and she’d reply, ‘I never charged a nickel from a horizontal position.’”
According to the Arcadia Book “Sausalito,” compiled by the Historical Society, “Juanita frankly called her place a ‘dive.’  
“The Galley opened at 5:00 a.m., and catered to fishermen.  Animals, including a rescued fawn, wandered around the place.  If upset with a cantankerous customer, Juanita was just as likely to throw a rolling pin or a skillet at him as serve him.”
Expectations for service were defined by Juanita’s “House Rules,”  a copy of which is preserved in the Historical Society’s archives.  Patrons were required to pour their own coffee and to write out their food selections on order pads, which proudly proclaimed, “Our food guaranteed – but not the disposition of the cook.”
Customers were also invited to specify their desired level of service: Slow, Don’t Care, or Damn Big Rush. However, Juanita added the caveat: “Doesn’t mean that you still get what you ask for – But check any one that will make you feel better.”
There was no complaining about the quality of the food.  Juanita’s unofficial motto was “Eat it or wear it.” No one was exempt from these rules – from Hell’s Angels to local officials.  As reported in the “Sausalito” book: “It’s a known fact that a local police officer, tired of waiting for his hamburger, left the Galley without paying.  Juanita followed him and threw his hamburger through his squad car window.” 
In the 1960s, Juanita left Sausalito and opened a series of destination restaurants in the North Bay.  The first two, in El Verano and then Fetters Hot Springs, burned down around her.  But the buoyant, busty hostess kept resurfacing in new incarnations, and loyal fans followed her to such far-flung locales as Port Costa and Willets.  She eventually retired to a dilapidated cabin on the grounds of the burnt-out Fetters Hot Springs Hotel. When developers took over the property and began eviction proceedings in 2002, the Sausalito Historical  Society staged a get-together and silent auction that raised $1,900 to help her relocate.
Her final years were spent at a retirement home in Agua Caliente.  According to her obituary in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, “Juanita, who dressed every day in a colorful muumuu and placed a decorative comb in her grayed hair, greeted every visitor and read to each resident his or her daily newspaper horoscope.”
The home’s administrator told the Press Democrat: “Juanita also hounded the staff to make certain they provided for the residence’s pet bird. Even if the bird had enough food and water, she’d yell at you to make sure they were full to the top. She didn’t really have a censor. She was the light of the Villa. She was the nurturer.”
What a fitting epitaph. 
Juanita’s last wishes were for no memorial service.  Her ashes will be scattered in the Bay off Sausalito.
Of course, there are many more fabulous Juanita stories, and the Historical Society would like to collect them.  If you have a particular memory you’d like to share, please send it to info@sausalitohistoricalsociety.org. And we’ll add it to our archives.

Juanita flees the fatal fire that destroyed the Fetter’s Hot Springs Hotel in 1975.
Photo Courtesy of the Sausalito Historical Society.