In the News April 1915

By Billie Anderson Sausalito Historical Society

Mountain Play site improvements begin

The Mountain Play Association is getting busy with the problem of opening up and improving trails from West Point to the Theatre, which is situated near Rock Spring, a distance of less than a mile from the Railway Station. Through the assistance of the Conservation Club and the Tamalpais Fire Association there is no doubt that patrons of Rip Van Winkle will travel over well-made paths.

Chief Forester F. E. Olmstead of the Fire Association and Harvey Elansen of the Conservation Club, who is also a Director of the Mountain Play Association, went over the grounds for a second time on Sunday. The fact that sections of the trail were in bad shape last year has prompted the Association to take particular pains to fix up the paths.

Marin boy on ill-fated submarine

Frank Pierard, son of Mr. C. J. Pierard, is one of the crew of the Submarine F-4 which has been lying in three hundred feet of water near Honolulu for the past few days. All hope of bringing them up alive is given up. He was well liked by all his acquaintances and was a very bright young man.

Clean up day

This is Marin County. Sausalito should do its duty by helping out in this work.

Oranges $1.35 per box

These are the real sweet and juicy kind that cost 40 cents per dozen. Send your personal check and we will ship to any Railroad point. We will refund your money and make you a present of the oranges if you are not satisfied. Each box contains about 100 to 150 fine sweet navel oranges. Order at once as the demand is big.

Washington needs to hear from home

Maybe you do not know it but it helps a whole lot when the legislators “hear from the folks at home”. Put yourself in the place of your Senator or Assemblyman for a little while and you will find there is a great difference being on the outside looking in and on the inside looking out. There are 120 members in both houses. There is every indication that the majority is working from an earnest conviction, right or wrong as you view it.

This great big republic was built by the gatherings in the country school houses, on the porch and the country newspapers. You have built this ship of state and time has only seasoned its staunch seniors. If you have any idea that this old craft is getting unseaworthy, get rid of that idea at once! Each voted his opinion, an opinion formed under varying conditions to the referendum.

At least two political parties are absolutely essential for the safety of our democracy. Now get busy and give the men who are trying to legislate for you the benefit of what you think.

In The Year 1915

14th- Dutch Merchant Navy Ship Katwijk sunk by Germany torpedo.

19th- 19th Boston Marathon won by Edouard Fabre of Canada in 2:31:41.2.

20th- The Armenians rise and seize the Turkish town of Van, which they held until Russians relieved them; thousands

of Armenians were killed.

20th – 1st Military use of Poison Gas (Chlorine) by Germany.

Annie Sutter: Old Ferryboats of Sausalito

By Steefenie Wicks Sausalito Historical Society

In his book “Sausalito: Moments in Time,” Jack Tracy writes: “The waterfront north of Marinship became the final resting place for verteran ferryboats, once worked prodigiously, now abandoned. 

Here the City of San Rafael, Vallejo, Charles Van Damme, Issaquah and City of Seattle eventually were left to their fates. Ironically, these ferry boats had never been part of Sausalito’s past but served other Bay Area cities. Nevertheless, Sausalito is where they would live out their final chapter, in Sausalito’s future.”

Waterfront writer Annie Sutter would take it upon herself to continue this line of interest in 1987 with a little jewel of a book titled “The Old Ferryboats of Sausalito.” As she states in the forward of this 37-page book, “Again. It’s not a matter of age or where they worked … it’s what happened after that matters.”

 Photo by Steefenie Wicks

Annie Sutter was born in Wisconsin and found her way to Sausalito working as a travel agent. In 1976 she began writing for Marin Scope in what she refers to as “the waterfront gossip column” called “On the Water.” In 1982, she interviewed movie star-turned writer Sterling Hayden for the Sausalito Historical Society. Her talks with Hayden are informative and humorous as in the following excerpt:

Hayden begins, “I set up shop in a garage, had a Chinese coffin maker set me up a little desk, and I started to write. That lasted about two weeks. I kept thinking, jeez, I’m sitting here and down there on the waterfront the girls are gathering and the music’s beginning and what am I doing in this garage? So I gave up the garage and went down to the ship. Put a surfboard across the cockpit and put my typewriter on that, and then I had the best of both worlds.” The book he was working on at that time became a best seller known as “Wanderer.”

Sutter’s keen interest in people gave an insight into the waterfront world that was so importantly part of Sausalito. It seemed only natural that she would see the destruction of the large ferryboats, the history that they represented and somehow try to preserve that part of Sausalito’s waterfront history. In her book she writes, “There are but a precious few representatives remaining of the rich maritime banquet that once rested along Sausalito’s shores. The sailing ships, square riggers, steam schooners, barges, tugs and ferryboats that over the years were beached along the waterfront are mostly gone, victims of assorted ailments: dry rot, erosion, decay, disinterest … simply the action of time.”

Her book offers a look into the history of the area, the people who at this time were in one way or the other trying to maintain some part of this waterfront heritage. She writes about the individuals who took on the enormous jobs of trying to keep these boats afloat.

She writes that one of the lucky ones is the City of Seattle, purchased by people who continued to care as the years went on. It’s not an easy task to keep alive a vessel that had almost been scrapped back in 1913. Chris Tellis, the owner of the City of Seattle, is quoted in Sutter’s book saying, “Owning a ferry is an incredible indulgence. You can’t keep it up, even if a ferry is the only thing you want to spend your money on. You are never done; it’s a full-time job just keeping even. And yet … it’s not drudgery bringing one of these boats back to life … it’s inspiring. It’s a lifestyle in itself.”

Sutter understood these feeling since she had purchased the classic 1907motor launch Cherokee, and spent many years restoring her. Resembling a small tugboat, the Cherokee became known as one gem of a small launch/yacht motoring on the waters of Richardson’s Bay.

It is no wonder that Sutter’s book would follow the enchantment and disintegration of these awesome ferries, along with the people who became part of their lives. Like Chris Tellis, artist Jean Varda, his friends Forest Wright and the Englishman Gordon Onslow-Ford purchased a ferry named Vallejo. Sutter writes that Varda first became aware of the vessel when she was docked at the Arques boat yard. The Vallejo had been sold for scrap to the Gardiner Steel Mill of Oakland, delivered to the Arques yard in Sausalito to be broken up. After Varda and his friends viewed the vessel in 1947, they hurried over to the Gardiner office in Oakland, announcing that they wanted to buy it. When asked how much money they had, Varda had none, Forest had none, but Gordon had $500.00. So it was agreed that this would be the down payment, they also agreed to pay at least $60.00 a month as rent.

Sutter’s book offers a brief history lesson of what happens when we let our maritime history disappear.

Today on the Sausalito waterfront only the City of Seattle and the Vallejo still exist. Annie Sutter’s little book is now out of print. It has become a rare volume full of Sausalito’s past, preserved by a waterfront historian.

Peter Strietman: Port Sausalito

by: Steefenie Wicks
Jack Tracy wrote in his book, Sausalito Moments in Time, that Sausalito is first and foremost a place with a rich history and residents who love and defend their town with uncommon civic pride and participation.   This description describes the many talented people who have worked and lived over the years at Gate 3, part of Sausalito’s working waterfront.  Peter Strietman has been part of that working waterfront for over three decades.  Recently, Strietman was given 30 days to move his 10-year boat restoration project from his shop space at Gate 3.  The request for his removal resulted in his decision to destroy the vessel.  
While he was working on the vessel named Port Luck, he spoke with me about his time on the Sausalito waterfront.
“I came to Sausalito in 1979, I lived aboard my boat which at that time was an Adkins design double-ended ketch called Burma Girl. She was 42 ft. on deck, 52ft over all.
“I lived on the anchorage like everyone else at that time but needed shop space so I could work on my boat.  I had heard about the Gate 3 Co-Op through folks who were working on boats, decided to check it out, liked what I experienced there and became a member, that was in 1981.  At that time Gate 3 was like a small town within the City of Sausalito.  The property was then owed by Donlon Arques, who was supportive of people living on their boats and working on their boats so he had this entire community of boat workers living at Gate 3, on their boats.  In those days if you were part of the Gate 3 Boat Co-Op then you were part of the elite boat builders working on the waterfront at that time.  I should put together a list of the old members -- people like Peter Lamb (who restored the whale boats onboard the tall ship Balcutha), Dan Jones, John Belinski (who has re-built most of the rowing crafts at the San Francisco Dolphin Club), Peter Bailey (who built his boat the Bertie here at Gate 3 and went on to design the ships for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies), Dudley Lewis (he built and launched his boat at Gate 3), even Bob Darr was a member of the Gate 3 Boat Co-Op.
“The Co-Op was a sharing organization, tools were passed back and forth and nothing was ever lost or stolen.  At the high point there were over 22 members, then Argues died, the property was sold, then in 1986 the residential community was evicted, things changed slowly but they changed.  Some of us at the Co-Op decided that we would try and stay.  After all, our organization was over 25 years old and had always paid rent but the lease that was put together by the new owner of the property proved to be an undesirable contract so the group was broken.
“The Sausalito waterfront is changing, the boat builders are leaving because there is no space for them to rent.  Gate 3 was the last hold-out as far as workable waterfront, but that changed.  Working on wooden boats has changed, many people who worked on these wooden boats have left the area, and the support that the working waterfront community used to have is no longer there.”
I asked Strietman if he would continue to sail and work on wooden boats.  As it turns out he has been working on another wooden boat that has taken 5 years for him to restore, an old traditional sandbagger, named Flirt, built by well known Sausalito Boatwright Ralph Flowers.  Launched off Mare Island in 1919, the vessel is 29.5 ft. long and 12 ft. wide with no standing room in the cabin.
Flowers once told Streitman about designing boats for the Treasury department to chase down the local rumrunners. But what the Treasury department did not know was that the guys who were designing their boats were also designing the boats that the rumrunners were using, and somehow their boats were designed to be faster.
Strietman says that when he became interested in the Flirt he went to Flowers and asked him for advice. He says that Ralph told him to “take the damn thing out and sink it,” but reconsidered, then helped him work on the boat.  Strietman says that Flowers by this time was old and thin but could be seen riding his old 3-speed bike all over town until his death at 95.  In his honor and because he built most of the Arks, one was named after him.
In closing I asked Strietman if he had any positive thoughts about the waterfront and the direction that it is taking.  He agreed that there were positive aspects such as the Spalding Center, the Arques Traditional Boat Building School, the new Cass’s Marina project, Alan Olson’s building of the Matthew Turner and the Galilee Harbor Community, there is hope that the heart and soul of the Sausalito waterfront will continue and maybe -- just maybe -- these new groups will be able to grow and pass on Sausalito’s waterfront heritage.


Peter Streitman with the transom from Port Sausalito
Photo by Steefenie Wicks

Sausalito In The News: Feb. 17, 1900

By Billie Anderson  

Wonderful Success in Photography

The development of photography during the past 10 years has been something remarkable and in no branch of science have such wonderful results been attained as in this.

The greatest and most brilliant achievements in the field of photography, as well as the most recent, are the sensational pictures of the Sharkey-Jeffries contest for the World Championship. This was the most gigantic photographic proposition ever attempted, and failure meant the loss of thousands and thousands of dollars to those interested in the affair.

To photograph this great battle, artificial light had to be employed. To those of our readers at all familiar with photography, the difficulties and obstacles to be overcome to make the experiment a success can be fully appreciated.

Never before had artificial light been used successfully in such a scheme, and photographic experts all over the country predicted absolute failure on this occasion.

Directly over the ring in the arena of the Coney Island Club, 400 arc electric lights were placed in a solid square, making a total of 800,000 candle power, enough to light an entire city. The great contest lasted for 25 rounds. Each round required nearly 2,000 feet of film. To reproduce the entire battle, the film used is 14 miles in length and requires over two hours of continuous work to run it off.

These wonderful pictures are on exhibit at the new Alhambra Theatre in San Francisco for two weeks, two performances daily. Every incident, every blow and move in the entire contest are shown with remarkable distinctness. Everything is so realistic that spectators become as excited as though they were at an actual ringside. This will be the only place the pictures will be shown in this part of the State.

Use of Vehicles at Night

The Sausalito Trustees have ordained as follows: It shall be unlawful for any person to drive any cart, wagon or other vehicle at night time, without having a light affixed on the front center of the body of the vehicle.

Any person violating the provisions of this ordinance shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine not exceeding 25 dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 days or by both.

Marin Has New Industry

The Daybreak Rabbitry of Mill Valley, Calif., is in receipt of its first installment of stock. Rabbits were selected from one of the best known breeders in Southern California. A pureblooded, pedigreed rabbit named “Victoria,” along with her fine family of eight, about six weeks old, arrived today. The father of the family is a famous buck.

These bunnies are already almost as big as full-grown wild rabbits and surely are as pretty a sight as one could look at, with their large brown eyes, long straight ears and tiny brown feet. One of the little ones actually allowed himself to be taken up by my little daughter, his long ears being snugly laid down his seal-brown back.

It is our intention at once to add to our stock and even in a short time may have a few of this Yukon-Victoria litter for sale. The rabbits bred on the Livermore place at Waldo Point – the whole county is a natural habitat for such life. We may be able to exhibit some prize winners at the next State Exposition which will be held in San Francisco.

This Date in History: February 1900

Feb. 5: The United States and the United Kingdom sign Panama Canal Treaty

Feb. 14: Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country

Feb. 16: First Chinese daily newspaper published

Feb. 22: Hawaii Becomes U.S. Territory

Birthdays

Feb. 8: Ivan Ivanov-Vano Soviet animator/animation director

Feb. 11: Hans-Georg Gadamer, German philosopher

 

 

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Saving Shelter Cove

By Larry Clinton
Can you imagine a high-rise apartment building in the middle of Old Town’s Shelter Cove?  It might have happened if not for the efforts of two unlikely allies: city attorney John Ehlen and ex-madam turned restauranteur Sally Stanford.
In February 1957, the Sausalito News reported:
An excited and vocal cross-section of all facets of Sausalito society crammed into the City Hall last Tuesday night to implore, castigate, deride and offer escape clauses apropos of the proposed waterfront apartments scheduled to start construction this spring.
LAST MINUTE RESCUE
It was City Attorney John Ehlen who emerged as the knight in shining armor to save the waterfront, at least temporarily, for the city. Ehlen, armed with the code of the State Lands Commission, disclosed that the builders of the proposed Cove Apartments are not entitled to their building permit because at the present time there is not the required legal access to the property they have purchased—the submerged tidelands off the Boardwalk, bounded by Main and Richardson streets.  The State Tidelands Commission will have to issue a permit for building on that site before further construction steps can be taken. At the present time, under the State Lands Act, the City of Sausalito has only an easement to the lots.
TIME TO REZONE
In the meantime, while the builders are applying to the State Lands Commission for their permit (which they have said they will proceed immediately to do), the City Planning Commission will consider rezoning the land for condemnation proceedings on aesthetic grounds. Ehlen also quoted a precedent set in the United States Supreme Court that cited public welfare as having spiritual and aesthetic principles as well as safety and sanitary aspects. After this rezoning or condemnation is established, the burden of proof on the validity of the zoning will be placed on the developers, according to Ehlen.
SALLY OFFERS BAIL
 Prior to the city attorney's factual solution to the hassle, Sally Stanford, present with her attorney, James MacInnis, again offered to buy the property at a fair market price, and present it to Sausalito for recreational use.
In an oral history recorded for the Historical Society, long-time community activist Bea Seidler told how Sally eventually prevailed, along with several other citizens who raised enough money to make a down payment on the property, and then deeded it to the City, which put up the rest of the purchase price.  “Sally I think was the one who got the whole thing going,” recalled Bea, “because she was going to lose her view.”

You can read, copy and print back issues of Sausalito News from 1895 through 1957 via the Historical Society’s website: http://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.org.  Just click on the Sausalito News link on the home page.  Then, print out the instructions for searching the newspaper, click on the Sausalito News link, and follow your printed instructions.


Sally Stanford of Sausalito
Photo courtesy of Sausalito Historical Society