The cornerstone for Montgomery Memorial Chapel, at the corner of Richmond Road and Bolinas Avenue on the grounds of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, was laid on April 26, 1894. The chapel was completed three years later.  The chapel is an anomaly in that it is the mausoleum of Alexander Montgomery, a Mason, and at the same time a chapel of a religious denomination to which Montgomery did not belong.  Montgomery was born in 1825 in Northern Ireland. As a young boy, he was apprenticed as a tailor -- a trade he pursued when he arrived in New York in 1846. The news of gold discoveries …

As you approach San Anselmo’s Hub from the east, past Taqueria Mi Familia, an apartment building and the Packaging Store, you see no clues of what was there in earlier times or who lived along the road and hillside above. The area, known as Bunker Hill Tract, has an interesting history. In 1897, James and Mary Tunstead moved to a picturesque new home on this hillside overlooking the San Anselmo junction. They called their home Bunker Hill. The Tunsteads were prominent early residents of San Anselmo. James Tunstead donated the land where Town Hall and the San Anselmo Library are now, and the …

In the early years of the 20th Century, there were numerous small, family-owned grocery stores scattered throughout San Anselmo’s neighborhoods. Often these stores dealt only in dry goods like flour, dry beans, and canned foods. Perishable foods were obtained from specialty markets: fresh meat from a butcher in the downtown area, milk from one of the many local dairies, and eggs and vegetables were either produced by families themselves or purchased at a local fruit and vegetable stand.  Directory listings and advertisements from 1908 to 1915 identify a number of specialty stores in the “…

The E. K. Wood Lumber Yard opened in 1905 on San Anselmo Avenue between Belle and Mariposa Avenues. It was the largest and most complete lumber yard in the area, with a wood shop and planing mill that turned out moldings, doors, shingles and shakes. It was one of the most important local businesses during the post-1906 earthquake building boom in the Ross Valley. Thirty men were employed, and six teams of horses hauled lumber, cement, and pipe from the freight yard at the Hub to the mill. Later, a railroad spur track ran directly into the yard. The yard was part of the vast holdings of the E.…

From the 1890s to the 1930s, San Anselmo was a vacation destination for many people in the Bay Area. The town’s location along the route of the North Coast Pacific Railroad (later the Northwestern Pacific) and the mild sunny weather drew people for weekend outings and longer summer vacations. San Anselmo was described by a San Anselmo Herald reporter as “one great playground adapted for young and old where it is impossible to think too much of business and where health and pleasure walk hand-in-hand.” Many visitors found campsites along San Anselmo Creek, while others chose to stay at one of …

The Cheda Building, across from Town Hall on the corner of San Anselmo and Tunstead Avenues, was designed by Thomas O’Connor of San Rafael and constructed in 1911 for Silvio H. and Virgilio J. B. Cheda of San Rafael. The two-story red brick building with grey trim had 22 rooms upstairs and five storefronts downstairs – one on the west side, one on the corner and three fronted the San Anselmo Depot platform. The handsome Cheda Building was the second building on the site. The first, Hotel Rossi, catered to weekend and summer visitors who disembarked at the depot. It burned down in December …

When the Town of San Anselmo was incorporated in 1907, the Board of Trustees, as the Town Council was called then, met in a leased space in a building on the east side of today’s Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. The fire department’s hose and chemical wagon was next door. In 1910, the owners of the property announced that rent would double to $8 per month for the fire department and $15 for town hall. At first the trustees thought they would move the town hall on rollers to another site, but instead moved into leased space in Pioneer Hall on Ross Avenue. That building still exists at 21 Ross Ave…

San Anselmo’s Hub --  historically the intersection of the Ross Landing/Red Hill Road and the San Rafael/Olema Road -- has long been an ideal site for roadside businesses related to transportation.  At first, horses, buggies and wagons were tended to at the intersection in the late 1880s by Theodore Mundt. His blacksmith shop was followed by Cochrane's. Then in 1904, William Deysher took over and opened his blacksmith shop, where he repaired and painted carriages and shod horses (at a cost of 85 cents). Deysher took in partner Ben Lafargue, and they expanded the business into a plant …

Sitting behind St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, one of two Orthodox parishes in Marin, is a historic San Anselmo house.  The house at 102 Ross Ave. was built around 1896 by Frederick Sproul Taylor, the youngest son of Samuel P. and Sarah Taylor (for whom the park is named), and his wife, Kate R. Eagleson. Other Taylor family members had homes next door and directly across the street -- still standing at 101 Ross Ave.  The Frederick Taylor house, shown here circa 1900, projects a spacious and sprawling sense of the shingle style, though it deviates from the classic shingle style in that the …

The red brick building on the corner of Bank Street and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard that looks like a bank was, in fact, originally a bank. The building was completed in 1911 for the First Bank of San Anselmo. The original portico was removed many years ago; the building now has a more contemporary look and is home to Studio Green, a landscape architectural design office. The bank’s large vault is still in the rear of the interior.  One of the most exciting events in San Anselmo’s history was the robbery of the bank on March 18, 1914.  Right out of stories of the old west, the bandit entered …

In 1905, Yolanda Station was the first stop added within San Anselmo west of the downtown railroad depot. The station, shown here circa 1912, was never more than a covered shelter. Freight cars ran on the narrow gauge rails and passenger cars on the broad gauge rails. In 1908, the line was electrified (see the third rail along the right side of the track after the intersection); the line was double-tracked in 1925. Like other areas in San Anselmo, Yolanda was a popular destination for summer visitors. San Anselmo’s location along the route of the railroad and its temperate climate drew San …

We know the dignified and imposing wood-frame mansion at 237 Crescent Road as the Robson-Harrington House. However, neither the Robsons nor the Harringtons were the first owners or builders of the San Anselmo landmark. The house was originally built by Edwin Kleber Wood and his wife, Marian Thayer Wood. Wood founded the E.K. Wood Lumber Company, a prosperous company incorporated in California in 1895. The house was completed in 1906 and is shown here shortly afterwards. At the time, it was set on 2.68 acres on the slope of a hill with views of Mt. Tamalpais and Bald Hill in one direction and …

Winter storms aren't something new to San Anselmo. In the early 1940s, winter storms weren't kind to San Anselmo Avenue. In February 1940, twelve inches of rain fell over a three day period and brought the creek to its highest level since 1925. The creek went over its banks and flooded the downtown curb to curb. Sandbagging stopped the water from entering some, but not all, businesses. At Tunstead Avenue, the water turned east and flowed back into the creek, sparing the southern portion of San Anselmo Avenue. Again on Feb. 5, 1942, several downtown businesses sustained considerable losses …

It was common to move buildings and homes in the early days in San Anselmo. It made good economic sense to move and recycle a building no longer wanted on its original site. Wages and materials were relatively high and the cost of moving a building was less than constructing an entirely new one. The town's early residents were less willing than they are today to tear down buildings that had required a significant investment in materials and labor to construct. In 1911, the building shown here was moved from lower Ross Avenue, where San Rafael druggist T. S. Malone had opened a drug store in …

San Anselmo has several historic homes designed by notable early architects. One such home is the Carrigan House at 96 Park Drive, which in its 117 years of existence has had just three owners. In 1892, Andrew Jr., Mary, William and Louis Carrigan, children of Andrew and Jane Carrigan, purchased 23 acres of open grassland in western San Anselmo for $13,800. Both Andrew Jr. and Louis Carrigan were involved in their father's San Francisco hardware business Dunham, Carrigan & Hayden. The Carrigans hired the firm of Coxhead & Coxhead to design a knoll-top house on their property. Ernest Coxhead …

San Anselmo School, located on a parcel bounded by Ross, Sunnyside, Woodland and Kensington Avenues, was originally constructed in 1898. As the school-age population grew, a second story was added to the redwood schoolhouse. With the opening of the Lansdale School in 1908, the school was renamed San Anselmo Main School and was known simply as the Main School. By 1920, Main School was overcrowded and bids were solicited for a new school. Many longtime San Anselmo residents fondly remember the handsome red brick school (shown here) that replaced the wooden schoolhouse. Completed in 1922, the …

In the 1860s, when the Hub wasn't really a a busy hub, the San Rafael-Olema Road was constructed to run along the base of Red Hill -- just as Red Hill Avenue and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard do today. In 1898, the dirt road passed only a few roadside businesses and scattered houses. But today, the road has four lanes, passes numerous businesses, including the bustling Red Hill Shopping Center, and has more traffic in one day than it probably saw in its first century. Above that busy, bustling thoroughfare, a zigzag road is still clearly visible today on the western slope of Red Hill. That …

Just past the entrance to San Domenico School in Sleepy Hollow are the curious remains of a set of steps. Today they lead nowhere, but the steps once led to the veranda and interior of the Hotaling mansion. Richard (Dick) M. Hotaling was the bachelor son of Anson P. Hotaling, the founder of a wholesale wine and liquor business in San Francisco. Anson Hotaling owned 1,900 acres in the Sleepy Hollow Valley. When he died in 1900, son Dick built an elegant home at the upper end of the valley. Dick Hotaling was very rich and he spared no expense on the home. The Marin Journal reported in December …

Scott Hall, standing atop Seminary Hill, was one of the first buildings constructed when the San Francisco Theological Seminary moved to San Anselmo. It was named for Seminary founder William Anderson Scott and, along with its neighbor Montgomery Hall, was designed by John Wright, a noted and prolific San Francisco architect. The building was completed in 1892. The Richardsonian Romanesque building was built of "blue stone" quarried in the Gerstle Park area of San Rafael. The lighter-colored stones, used for trim, came from San Jose by horse-drawn wagons. Stone masons cut and laid the stones …

In 1909, George B. Hund opened a drugstore at the corner of Tunstead Avenue and the Ross Landing/Red Hill Road -- today's Sir Francis Drake Boulevard -- in a building owned by James Tunstead. It was called Poppy Drugstore, or simply Hund's. The store provided everything from baseball gloves to film, stationery, ice cream sodas and candy, as well as pharmaceutical supplies. The store was also the first business in town to have an illuminated sign. George Hund found time to serve as a volunteer fireman, support the town's baseball team, and serve as a town trustee and mayor. In this Jan. 9, …