ORAL HISTORY PROJECT OF THE MARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY Anne T. Kent California Room Original recording available at the Anne T. Kent California Room © All materials copyright Marin County Free Library. Transcript made available for research purposes only. All rights are reserved to the Marin County Free Library. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the: Anne T. Kent California Room Marin County Free Library 3501 Civic Center Dr. #427 San Rafael, California, 94903

---

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT GUNN
by Carla Ehat & Anne Kent
April 20, 1976

INTERVIEWEE: Robert Gunn (RG)
INTERVIEWERS: Carla Ehat (CE) and Anne Kent (AK)
DATE OF INTERVIEW: April 20, 1976



CE: Today is Tuesday, April 20, l976. Continuing the Oral History Program of the California Room at the Marin County Library at Civic Center, this is Carla Ehat and joining me today is Mrs. Thomas Kent. We are privileged to interview a Mr. Robert Gunn of number 35 Prospect Avenue in Sausalito this afternoon, and we are in Mrs. Kent’s lovely home at 121 Goodhill Road in Kentfield. The Gunn’s, Robert tells me, have been in California for over 125 years. Mr. Gunn’s family have resided in Sausalito since 1899, is that right, Robert?

RG: That’s right.

CE: He has a fascinating history on both his maternal and paternal side, and we’ll get into it shortly. I understand - we might as well start with your fascinating maternal grandmother, Louise Meyer Howland. Tell us the story about how she came to California, Bob.

RG: Well, she was born in Akron, Ohio in 1854. Her father was already in Downieville, where he had established the first store there, and he sent for my great-grandmother, Ga Ga, as we called her, and her young brother to come and join him in Downieville. So they went by steamer from New York City, to the Panama area, and there they had to cross over by horseback or burro or with the little children on the backs of Indians. My grandmother was being carried across on the back of a native there, when he lagged behind the rest of the group and finally ducked off into the jungle where he kept my grandmother overnight with the sounds of the parrots and the macaws and the monkeys. But in the morning my grandmother didn’t seem to be too upset about it, and she played with the native children until somebody returned from the rest of the party and paid a small ransom and allowed my grandmother to continue on. Of course, she joined a very upset mother and brother in Panama City. In Panama City, they took the steamer to San Francisco, I think the name of the ship was the Stevens, if I’m not in error, and on the ship Ga Ga met Louise Hungerford. Louise Hungerford’s husband became a very potent factor in the Comstock Lode and made a fortune there. He and his wife were very prominent in the social life of Paris and London subsequently, and his son founded Mackey radio. Louise and my grandmother Louise were great friends on the trip and subsequently they both were going to Downieville. They traveled by steamer to Marysville, and then by burro into the town of Downieville.

CE: Well, now Bob, how old would the youngsters have been?

RG: They were six, each of them were six years old.

CE: That must have been a sight to have those youngsters come into a mining camp. What was the reaction?

RG: Well, as Ga Ga used to tell us, the prospectors and miners were so happy to see a couple of little girls, it was a new thing for them, that they lined the sides of the road and they actually threw gold nuggets to my grandmother, who had some of them she subsequently showed me.

CE: The taste of home.

RG: Yes. Ga Ga went to school in Downieville and subsequently when she was about 18, she went to vacation with some friends at Zephyr Cove on the shore of Lake Tahoe, and while she was there she met Bob Howland. His name was Robert Muir Howland, whom she shortly afterwards married. He was at that time the first warden of the Territorial Prison of Nevada at Carson City. He used to ride by horseback over to Zephyr Cove to court my grandmother. He had been born in Auburn, New York, and while he was on the volunteer fire department in Auburn, he was about 18 at the time, the young ladies’ seminary caught fire and he and some others, but he was the potent one apparently, saved two of the girls from the holocaust. One of them turned out to be the daughter of William H. Seward, who was afterwards the man who purchased Alaska, and Seward wanted to reward my grandfather, who said no. But then he said the one thing he wanted to do was to come to California, so Seward said he would give him the money for it, so he gave him a thousand dollars, so grandfather Howland came by steamer and again similar to the way my grandmother did, but some ten years later.

CE: And where did he settle?

RG: No, it was only two years later, actually, in 1856. Well, I don’t know where he settled. I don’t think he settled, really, he bounced around. Mining camp to prospecting spot and in northern California and in the gold area and subsequently he went into Nevada, where, as I mentioned before, he was in connection with the prison.

CE: Well, I hear he was a good friend, I understand, of Mark Twain.

RG: Well, they were cabin mates together in one of their diggings in the Nevada area, somewhere in the vicinity of Virginia City if I’m not mistaken. That was, why, in about 1871 or ‘72, he decided to go east and visit some of his old family friends in New York. At the time he and grandmother spent some time visiting with Bob Howland in his home in Elmira. But my grandmother became pregnant while they were there and wanting to have a child born in California, since they considered themselves something in the way of pioneers, why, they took the train west. But when they arrived in Salt Lake City, they were advised by a doctor on the train that it might be a good idea if they stopped there and had the baby in Salt Lake. So there they did. And therefore my mother was born in 1873 in Salt Lake City.

CE: Her name is Edith?

RG: Her name is Edith Howland. The family then came on to San Francisco which from then on was their headquarters, you might say. Although my grandfather, who was sort of a mining engineer, he was practically one, but he was in demand as a consultant and as a prospector and as a manager of mines, which he continued to do for a number of years.

CE: Tell me, Bob, are there any letters or in your family or did any of these people keep a journal that you know of?

RG: I have some old letters; most of them, I guess, weren’t kept very well because they’re in pretty poor shape. You can’t do very much about it. There is one letter that is framed and I think it could be deciphered. I’ve forgotten exactly the contents but it was written by my grandfather to his family back in 1868 or somewhere in there.

CE: OK, so your mother was born in Utah and they continued on to San Francisco and what happened then, she was raised in San Francisco?

RG: Yes, my mother was raised in San Francisco. My aunt, Louise Howland, was born in San Francisco a few years later, too. She and my grandmother, by the way, lived with my father and mother from the time my dad and mother were married until my grandmother died at the age of 96, so that’s why I always think of my grandmother and can remember her and all of her stories as I was brought up with her and lived with her for so many years. My father came from a Scottish background, although his father actually lived and had been born in Hamilton, Canada.

CE: OK, give us your grandfather’s name.

RG: My father’s name was Charles McKelligan Gunn. His father was Ralph Leeming Gunn. Ralph Leeming Gunn married Edith McKelligan and Edith McKelligan was the son of a British army engineer, his name was John McKelligan. John McKelligan was the grandson of George III, who, when he was Prince of Wales, was married morganatically to a Quakeress called Hanna Lightfoot. Subsequently, he shucked her, as apparently they did in those days. My grandfather was an accountant and lived perhaps a less adventurous life than some of the Howland family did. I never knew him very well; I visited once in Canada.

CE: Did you ever visit Scotland and see the tartan that the Gunn’s originated?

RG: No. I have, as a matter of fact, an authentic kilt that was made in Edinburgh of the Gunn tartan and I wear it for home parties and things like that. Sure, I enjoy it.

CE: I think you have the look of a Scot about you. Don’t you, Mrs. Kent?

AK: Yes. I do.

RG: Too fat for a good Scot. They’re supposed to be thin. My father, that was Charles Gunn, he at 16, he had finished about the equivalent of high school there, he was asked by his uncle, J. O. B. Gunn, who was manager of the Union Iron Works in San Francisco to come out here and go to work for him.

CE: At age 16?

RG: At age 16, yes. Well, they used to go to work early in those days. So Dad came out here and became a time keeper with the Union Iron works, and finally pay master and finally he was a salesman for, incidentally mining supplies and he sold all kinds of gold mining equipment through the gold country, to the dredges and equipment of that sort in the more modern days of gold mining. But he and my mother were married in 1898 in San Francisco, and lived first on Lyon Street, and then in 1899 they moved to Sausalito. My elder sister, Jean, was born in Sausalito in 19--, well she was born in San Francisco, but when the family lived in Sausalito in 1900. Soon after that, my grandfather and father went into sort of a partnership. My father put up the price of a lot, $1,000, and my grandmother put up the price of a house, $6,000, and they built a five bedroom home with that at that time Which is still in existence, it’s on 22 Sunshine Ave.

CE: And it’s still standing?

RG: Oh, yes, and it’s in excellent shape. It was refurbished recently; the people that live in it are very happy and pleased with it.

CE: Well, what brought them to Marin County? Did they ever say? He was working in the City.

RG: That’s true, he worked in San Francisco. But commuting didn’t seem to be any problem.

CE: Ferry boats.

RG: They had the ferry boats for years and years and years and loved it. Another thing, although Dad became an American citizen as soon as he could, when he was 21, he was somewhat proud of his British background. There were a number of Britishers in Sausalito and he had some friends that were British over there and that was one of the reasons, one of the inducements to that, I think.

CE: Well, now you have to tell us, Bob, how it came about that you were not born in California. What happened?

RG: Well, my father finally had an opportunity that he thought was much better than continuing in the Union Iron Works anymore, in a firm in Portland, Oregon—a steel foundry. About in 1904 or ’05, shortly after the family had moved into the new house, he and mother and Jean moved to Portland. My grandmother and my aunt remained in Sausalito. As a matter of fact, if I don’t divert too much from that, Ga Ga and Aunt Lou were going to Europe, where my aunt wanted to study music in 1906, and on the 17th of April they left for Portland and at Shasta they heard about the fire and earthquake in San Francisco. They weren’t sure whether they should stay or go back to Sausalito and see what had happened or to continue.

CE: Or continue.

RG: They wired Dad in Portland who said, “Well, come on up and we’ll find out from here.” To make a long story short, the chimney fell down in Sausalito but that was the only damage, so they continued on their way to Europe.

CE: I imagine your grandmother had tales to tell you, tell the family, when you all returned. Because you could see, I suppose, the destruction right from Sausalito, of the fire.

RG: Well, she left the day before.

CE: She left, oh, I beg your pardon.

RG: She left Sausalito the day before the fire and earthquake occurred.

CE: Was there anybody at home?

RG: Well, the house was rented to the German Consul, his name was Bach. He was living in the house at that time.

CE: I bet that was a scare for him.

RG: I wouldn’t be surprised.

CE: Okay, so your family were up in Portland then.

RG: The family was up in Portland then. Dad was busy in business there, and I was born while they lived in Portland, and my next sister, Charlotte, was also born in Portland. In 1909, my dad had an opportunity to come back to this area and start sort of a branch of the foundry that was up there, so he and the family moved back in November of 1909 and he built and was general manager of the Columbia Steel Works in Pittsburg, California, which was subsequently sold to U.S. Steel, which is still in existence, I believe.

CE: He really was involved in some important projects, wasn’t he?

RG: Yes, well, he always involved in foundry work and steel work and in reinforcing steel, construction work and things of that sort.

CE: So, how old were you - three or so when he came back?

RG: I was 3 when I returned to Sausalito.

CE: Where did you go to school?

RG: I spent my school years in Sausalito at Old South School and then Central School. Graduated from Tamalpais High School and then went on to Stanford, and all of my sisters went to grammar school in Sausalito.

CE: You didn’t mention Elou, was she born in Sausalito?

RG: Well, Elou was born in Sausalito, of course, after we returned.

CE: She’s younger than you?

RG: 1914.

CE: Her name was Edith.

RG: Well, her name was Edith Louise; she was named after all of the grandmothers.

CE: I see. Will you name me your other sisters?

RG: My elder sister was Jean Howland and her married name Conlin. Then there was Charlotte Gunn Krueger, and then there was Elou Gunn Denicke. She married, of course, Dr. Denicke in Ross, who’s an old, old timer in this part of the country, as you well know. You see Edith and Charlotte went to Katherine Branson’s and subsequently Charlotte went to California and I went to Stanford. Jean went to Mills College and Elou went to College of Marin, so we sort of scattered around.

CE: What are some of your memories of Marin as you were growing up there? Did you roam all over the place as most of your contemporaries did?

RG: Well, I did quite a bit of roaming. I was a Boy Scout, of course, and we did a lot of hiking here and up Mount Tamalpais was the thing we always conquered, practically monthly, we always had to go up there.

CE: Well, in your youth, the railroad, the Mount Tam Railroad was still going, wasn’t it?

RG: The Mount Tam Railroad was up there and we used to ride down on the gravity cars and we thought that was wonderful. Another thing we did that I don’t think you do so much from up here, is we used to hike over to the ocean to where we call Jolly’s Beach. Go right over the hill from Sausalito right out to the ocean on the other side, sometimes it’s called Rodeo Beach out there. We’d picnic out there all the time.

CE: Well, you’re too young, the stage had stopped by the time you were born and were growing up, but did they ever have the bus stage going?

RG: Well, they had a bus we called a jitney that took people up the hill in Sausalito. Frank and Manuel Teixeira used to operate that, and we used to ride on the back step of the thing, hook on behind there. My mother was woefully afraid of guns, despite my name, and she didn’t like to have me playing up on the hills with some of the other boys who were hunting rabbits and so forth. She said to my dad, “You have to find something to keep Bob busy so he will keep out of the hills and guns.” So Dad said, “Well, I’ll keep him down around the boats.”

CE: Oh, down around the boats.

RG: So he hoisted me off the end of the Yacht Club down there, which is now Ondine’s, on the end of a long rope until I learned to shake off the rope and swim for myself. Then he said, “Now you can learn to row and then you can learn to sail.”

CE: Well, then you saw the original home of the San Francisco Yacht Club in Sausalito?

RG: As a matter of fact, I joined the Yacht Club when I was 16 as a junior member and they were then at the old yacht club in Sausalito.

CE: Do you have any stories to tell us of why it relocated to Belvedere?

RG: Well, yes, I can tell you part of the story about that. In the first place there was a split, and this occurred about in 1926, there was a split among the membership. In the first place the Golden Gate Ferries operating at the time were encroaching or getting awfully close to where the boats were moored, and especially on weekends on Saturdays and Sundays where the ferry swells and the shaking up and the traffic was so rough, it was hard to get in and out of there by boat. So there was quite a group that was trying to decide, what to do and where to go. I was too young to be an official voter of the club, I guess I could have, but I didn’t participate much in this beef about it. But there were two groups, one wanted to go to Belvedere where there was an old club called The Pacific Motor Boat Club that the Club could acquire and the old Belvedere Hotel property was available; the other group, and that was under Hiram Johnson, by the way, were able to make an arrangement which they thought was very good with the State of California to acquire that, and the City of San Francisco, to acquire the property that the St. Francis Yacht Club is at the present time. So the Club split in half, and half of them went to Belvedere and installed the San Francisco yacht Club over there and the group that went to San Francisco started up on the waterfront there, in the Marina, of course, and they called themselves the Forty-Niners, there were 49 members then in the club.

CE: That is a fascinating story. Well, isn’t the San Francisco Yacht Club the oldest yacht club on the Pacific Coast?

RG: That’s right. Established in 1869, it was incorporated in 1869, they were actually sailing a little before that, I guess.

CE: What did you sail when you were a youngster? Did you have your own boat?

RG: Yes, we did. Well, I as a matter of fact during World War I, or prior to World War I, when we entered it, there were a group at the yacht club who had ordered boats from Madden’s Ship Yard in Sausalito.

CE: Madden & Lewis?

RG: That’s right. They were called Cub boats, and they were an 18 foot center board that - -

CE: Something like a Mercury?

RG: Well, they didn’t have a keel in them, they had a center board; more like the old Genovese fishing boats that they used to have in Sausalito, well, all around the bay area years ago. These boats were going to be built for a number of younger men in the club but not for the boys. But most of the younger men in the club went to war and the boats were finished in 1917 and most of them were in the service, so instead of them going into the hands of these younger members they were turned over to the kids. At that time I was 13 I think when they first had the boats, and they allowed the rest of us to have them, too, and then there were a few that belonged to the club. I think there were eleven of them all together. We used to have races, of course, play pirates, water fights, everything.

CE: Well, I sailed on the bay and I love it, too. There’s no place like it, is there? You know, the Easterners come and they say they’ve sailed on Long Island Sound. It’s quite different, a different sport, isn’t it?

RG: I know it is. My wife finds, she was brought up in New York; I was in Long Island where I met her and married her, she found it quite different when she came out here.

CE: You could be running free going through Raccoon Straits and the tide ebbing and you don’t go anywhere, except backwards.

RG: That’s right. And in these Cub boats, we never had an outboard or motor.

CE: No, you never had a kicker to help you.

RG: No, no. We had oars.

CE: Do you still enjoy boating?

RG: I sold my boat about two years ago. I had an 18 foot, the preceding 18 years I had a boat.

CE: What did you finally have?

RG: I had a Rawson, it was a fiberglass sloop. My four sons used to crew with me but they all got married and moved away.

CE: And you lost your crew.

RG: Haven’t got any hands left anymore. Louise found it was too much of a chore for us to sail the boat single-handed, just the two of us.

CE: Did you ever know Myron Spaulding?

RG: Oh sure; I haven’t seen him - last week, I saw him.

CE: He taught me how to sail.

RG: Oh, is that so? You had a good teacher. He’s a tough one to work with.

CE: He’s a perfectionist.

RG: Oh, he absolutely is.

CE: It’s always amusing when they have the races, you know, and everybody is looking at Myron, “What’s he doing? What’s he doing? What’s he going way over there for?” and the night before read all the tide charts he had it all figured out and he just goes ahead and plays.

RG: He hasn’t done much racing lately, though.

CE: No. Well, that’s Sausalito, you talk about the early days, even in your youth when the Yacht Club was having their problems with the traffic, motor traffic—with the ferry boats and the tourists, it’s always attracted the tourists. It is a beautiful place.

RG: Well, of course, when my father was on the City Council there and then he was mayor.

CE: Oh, tell us about.

RG: He was fighting the saloons, at one time there were 22 of them in Sausalito.

CE: I think we’re kind of back to it, aren’t we?

RG: Pretty nearly, yeah. Where the old Purity Store used to be at the foot of Princess Street, was the old Buffalo Hotel. The Buffalo Hotel was a great gambling spot and hang out, they took horse bets and all that kind of stuff, and my father and Archie Treat , by the way, violently objected to that and I had an old poster at home that they’re having a mass meeting to see if they can’t rule out the bars and the gambling joints in Sausalito.

CE: Now your father was on the Council, what years would that be?

RG: I think 1914 to 1918, if I remember correctly. I know he was mayor in 1916.

CE: Is that right? And then I understand you became mayor later, is that rather unusual?

RG: I think I’m the only second generation mayor in Sausalito.

CE: And what years were you mayor?

RG: It was 1948 to 1952.

CE: You’re there during the period when Sally was making her entrance into Sausalito, or did you miss it?

RG: As a matter of fact, no, Sally came to Sausalito when I was on the City Council and when I was mayor, but she came with the understanding that she was going to be in the restaurant business.

CE: Restaurant business. There was a great nervous feeling for awhile, amongst the ladies, I remember.

RG: I know there were. There were a lot of stir amongst the Women’s Club, and some of the others around here.

CE: Well, of course, that was an old place she moved into, that Valhalla. Do you know the story of that building at all? Had it been an old seafarer’s hotel, or what was it?

RG: I don’t really know the background on it; I do know it was a bootlegger’s place during prohibition days. A fellow named Lee ran it and we used to patronize it now and then. As a matter of fact, we were in there the night that the Zaca was launched, the English shipyard.

CE: Oh, Templeton Crocker’s.

RG: Templeton Crocker’s.

CE: You were there?

RG: Sure, Marie Dressler christened the boat, too.

CE: I never heard that.

RG: Sure. Errol Flynn had it subsequently to that.

AK: That’s what we missed. I went down day after day and watched them build it and when they launched it, we missed it.

CE: That’s a fabulous boat.

RG: We went to Lee’s to celebrate the deal afterwards, they had a lot of champagne and so forth at Nunes, but we went into the bar next door. I was there with two other fellows and they had a girl with them, and the chief engineer and the guarantee engineer on the Zaca were in there, and they got into a beef with Lee the bartender and one of the fellows said, “I don’t like your cash register,” and he went like this and he cracked the cash register with his fist. The bartender came out over the top of the bar with a gun in his hand and about that time, why, one of the other young fellows with me said, “Let’s get out of here,” and he flipped the lights. In the meantime, the third guy and the girl had ducked into the ladies room, and I went down and around the edge of the bar and the bartender and this other guy were fighting like this with the gun. I saw this pointing at me and thought, “This was no place to stay.” So we hollered, “Open the door.” I could just reach it and the three of us went running out, and I never went back to Lee’s again. Nobody got hurt that night.

CE: Well, that Zaca is an extraordinary ship; we interviewed John Thomas Howell, former Curator of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences. He tells of a fascinating trip he took to the Galapagos Islands on the Zaca, I think in the 30’s as I recall, ‘36 perhaps, and he said it was a beautiful vessel. Black beauty, wasn’t it?

RG: That’s right.

CE: Well, what did Marie Dressler do that day? Did you see her?

RG: Oh, sure. She christened the boat.

CE: Talk with her? What was she like? Outgoing, just as you would see her in the films? Wise-cracking, perhaps?

RG: She reminded me of Tugboat Annie, she looked like that, she was built like that and of course, I think she played that subsequently, if I’m not mistaken, at one time.

CE: What was Templeton Crocker like?

RG: I never knew him personally. He was, as I recall, and this was fifty years ago, no not quite, well, pretty nearly that, he was tall, lean and spare, if I remember correctly. He wasn’t much of a mixer, I don’t think and he wasn’t much of a sailor. He always had to have a captain and a crew and an engineer and somebody else to take care of things. But he wanted to go and he paid the bills and he did a lot of exploratory type of work.

CE: Yes, and he offered his boat for use for some worthwhile things. This is not unusual; there have been the Vanderbilt’s in the past on the Atlantic seaboard and the Whitney’s and the Morgan’s and I think it is to be commended. They have these beautiful vessels; at least they can be used.

RG: That’s right

CE: What else do you remember about Sausalito as a boy? What was Bridgeway called, always that?

RG: No, it was called Water Street. Bridgeway was after the bridge came in, you see, it was the way to the bridge. It isn’t Bridgeway Street actually, it’s Bridgeway.

CE: Bridgeway, I see. There were some old markets along there?

RG: I can’t recall off hand whether I ever saw Bridgeway - Water Street, before it was paved, but I know nothing above Bridgeway was paved when I was a youngster.

CE: Nothing above was?

RG: They were all dirt roads up through there and I think it was either 1919 or 1920 before they started to pave up through the hill.

CE: Well, how would you get up there, someone like your --

RG: Well, you stuck in the mud. I mean, these horse drawn vehicles went up there and they clopped their way through it. I can remember vividly when I went to South School, why, we helped the butcher cart get out of being stuck in the mud there on Central Avenue, just a block from the Women’s Club. The horses just, well, there was a single horse and the cart just bogged down and we had to haul them out.

CE: Well, now when your grandfather built this home in Sausalito, was there a barn and everything attached to it?

RG: No, and as a matter of fact, we didn’t even have a garage then, because in those days nobody worried about a garage. They didn’t have a car in 1904. The people who live there now, they have put in a garage since then.

CE: Tell us, Bob, when your father was commuting to San Francisco by ferry then, he would get down the hillside from your home just on foot?

RG: Oh, sure, he walked down; he walked up and down the hill. He used to take the 7:30 every morning and come back on the 5:15. And on the ferry they used to pace back and forth on the afterdeck, and settle all local politics and the social affairs of the town and the county and whatnot. As a matter of fact, I commuted on the ferry for 15 or 16 years myself.

CE: Isn’t that a great way to do it?

RG: Oh, I thought it was the most wonderful way in the world. We still have a little ferry in Sausalito right now, but it is a far cry from the old ferry boats.

CE: Well, getting back to your boyhood days, you tramped over the hills; did you ever go to the lighthouse?

RG: Oh, yes.

CE: What was the attraction there?

RG: Just to go out to see the sea and the ocean and the potato patch and watching it break and the seagulls.

CE: Did they let you go -

RG: They used to let us go into the lighthouse and up to the light.

CE: They would?

RG: Oh, yes, sure.

CE: Would you describe it to us? Was it a long walk, I mean when you go out to Point Reyes, you have to go down 400 steps, I mean, is it something like that?

RG: Well, this isn’t quite as steep as that, but it’s nearly as far out and went along the edge of the cliff and part of the walkway was suspended on cables and planks.

CE: That was always scary.

RG: Yes. The Coast Guard Station was in, oh, I guess 4 or 500 feet, from the actual point. But I know we used to climb up in the tower and see the brightly shined light up there.

CE: What kind of a diaphone or signal did they have at that time?

RG: They had a steam whistle at that time.

CE: Steam whistle.

RG: Yes. With a boiler. Fire up the steam and blow the whistle, it was not an automatic.

CE: How about a cannon; did they ever shoot that, a cannon, for a signal?

RG: I never saw the cannon out there, but I understand that was the first deal that they had at the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper was supposed to fire the cannon every five minutes to warn ships that were up by Point Bonita there. The other lighthouse, I never went aboard it, but I had a good friend in the San Francisco Yacht Club who had a row boat, it was an 18 foot sliding seat spoon oared boat, it used to hold two pairs of oars. This fellow, Willie Wood, used to take us out especially on Sunday mornings and we would row out to Mile Rock. We’d take the morning paper and we’d take some food or some candy or something, and the lighthouse man would drop down a rope to the small boat [inaudible] and we’d hoist up ----

CE: I guess he was glad for the companionship.

RG: Well, they didn’t have a phone out there in those days, or if they had a phone, I didn’t know about it, and of course, the boat only came out about once a week to supply them and they didn’t have a radio or a TV.; it was a pretty lonely spot out there.

CE: When did they automate that? I’m trying to think, it’s been some time, hasn’t it?

RG: About five years ago, I think, maybe more than that.

CE: Did you ever go out to the Farallones and go out to that light?

RG: Oh, I’ve never been on shore of the Farallones, I’ve been out there many times and I’ve raced around there, of course. I’ve been out there with the Oceanic Society and released birds out there that had been cleared of oil. The Berkeley bird place over there. I went out with Dr. Richardson; I don’t know whether you know him.

CE: I certainly do.

RG: Yeah, I have been out with Charlie Merrill, too, I don’t know whether you know him, but he’s active in the Oceanic Society. They put a group on shore of the island out there, you know. They have bird watchers, for want of a better name, but they watch over those things and they also try to prevent any poaching. They spend a week or two weeks at a time out there until they’re relieved by another crew. They’re quite busy out there sometimes and it’s quite a chore to land them and take them aboard the boats, sometimes when the weather’s not what you anticipated.

CE: Well, in looking back, Bob, before the bridges were built, did you have an insular feeling. You were over there away from the city, you could look at it, but Marin was apart.

RG: Well, sure, and after all, if you missed the last ferry, why, there was nothing for quite a while either, in the middle of the night. They used to have there was a paper boat, Lang used to operate it, it was down near the San Francisco Yacht Club was, and he used to go over and pick up the newspapers in San Francisco and bring them over to Marin County. If you missed the last boat in San Francisco, you could still go down to Lang’s down by the Ferry Building and hop aboard the launch and get back over here.

CE: Were you fearful when the bridge was built, what would happen? Did you have any awareness of the changes that would take place?

RG: Well, one thing, of course, that most all of us in Sausalito were fearful about, and thanks to the efforts of a number of citizens it was prevented, we were sure that the Highway Department was going to put the highway right down through Sausalito and block our whole waterfront. That’s what they proposed to do initially, and it would have been outside of Bridgeway and would have blocked off any view there or any boating or any of that sort of thing, it would run right up Richardson Bay, you know, and just cut everything out, but they were able to - - - .

CE: You got a force together to - - -

RG: And then they put the road in up the hill, which, of course, was a much more practical solution, and subsequently, of course, they had to widen that and put in another tunnel. And right now, we’re loaded with the tourists both from the ferry and from the cars.

CE: Well, there’s been such a cry that tourism has taken over in the old time merchants in Sausalito and many of them have to give up.

RG: That’s right, we’ve lost all kinds of things down there, we used to have a Purity store down there, of course, they closed everywhere, but we don’t have any downtown market.

CE: You don’t have any services for residents, per se, do you?

RG: One drug store.

CE: One drug store now, is that all?

RG: There used to be two. There’s one on Caledonia Street.

CE: That’s right.

RG: The nearest big market, of course, is the Big G, up in the Marinship area. We used to have a five and ten down here, but we no longer have one. The whole area, like from the center of town down there, is practically all tourist-oriented.

CE: Is this good?

RG: I guess it depends on your point of view and so forth. I’d like it a little quieter, myself. I feel it gets a little honky-tonky or Coney Island-ish when you have all these knick-knack type stores along here and when a regular businessman can’t afford to stay down there.

CE: The rents went just up and up and they couldn’t continue.

RG: That’s right, just squeezed them out. Of course, the bars and restaurants do an amazing business down here and I guess they like it. Sally Stanford says, “We’re supported by the taxes paid by these organizations in Sausalito and we get a huge amount in sales tax and business tax and everything of the sort.”

CE: What was accomplished or prevented during your tenure as mayor that you are proud of?

RG: Well, one thing we did that some people are not so sure of now, but we were early to instigate a City Manager in Sausalito. He came in right after I left the Council. But I always felt that city manager type of government was efficient. I rather feel now that we are almost overwhelmed by so many people in our city government in this small community. I do think the first year we had a City Manager in Sausalito he saved more than his salary in one deal of the grant money that he was able to receive from the federal government, because he knew how to get it.

CE: He had savvy. He knew how to do it.

RG: That’s right. The operations, even of a small community, now are so complex compared to what they were when my father was there and even when I was there. It’s a completely different story. These fundings and this availability of money from the state and from the federal government, why, unless you know your way around in these things, it is almost impossible to take advantage of all of the opportunities that exist there.

CE: Is there any, is there much land left to build in Sausalito, to build a home on, or is it pretty well saturated with buildings?

RG: Well, it’s interesting to me that they built homes on lots that I thought no one could possibly build on before, up on these side hills, they’re supported with spikes and piles. There are still some lots available, but they’re pretty high priced at the present time. Our assessed valuation has gone up out of this world, it’s just appalling, I think.

CE: Do you think the situation of the houseboats outside of the city limits, at Waldo Point, will continue indefinitely? Would you care to comment on that? Bob, you have been involved in it.

RG: Sure. I know it’s been hard enough for the City of Sausalito to do what they think they should do about the houseboats, and that’s have them all hook up or get out.

CE: Come up to code.

RG: Yeah. But out of the city area there, Arques and Kappas, have put in quite adequate facilities there. A lot of people think they have to pay too much money, too much rental; of course, it’s expensive to put those things in. I think the County over a period of many years has been awfully slow to act in connection with it, just as the City of Sausalito has. Every time the City of Sausalito starts to do anything about it, all the die-hards and the cry babies and the sob sisters come down and they say, “Don’t deprive those poor people of their interesting and intriguing sort of set up there.”

CE: Lifestyles, yes.

RG: Yes, but still the sewage pours out into the Bay there, and it’s not a very pleasant situation, I don’t think.

CE: Well, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to a little more controlled life, for some of those people who frequent Sausalito on weekends and after hours and whatnot.

RG: We don’t have as rough a time as we did five or ten years ago, I don’t think. The hippies - -

CE: That little park, that charming little park you had.

RG: Yes, we have it still, but it’s blocked off from public use now.

CE: But at least it’s kind of rehabilitated.

RG: It’s still there, yeah. Well, there’s a nice little park next to our parking lot. By the way, I don’t know if I told you, but I’m a parking lot attendant in Sausalito in the municipal parking lot.

CE: Are you?

RG: Yeah. We have most everybody there is on Social Security, all the old folks are there and you have lots of friends, and we see everybody we like.

CE: That was a good thing to keep that for a municipal parking lot.

RG: Oh, yeah.

CE: Weren’t there plans afoot to build another high-rise after the Bank of America?

RG: Yes, they wanted to.

CE: They wanted to, and that would have killed all of that lovely area.

RG: The Golden Gate Ferry wants to get that area, right there now, too.

CE: They do?

RG: I don’t know whether they will or not.

CE: Did you ever think what might happen if the Village Fair hadn’t been made out of that old garage? That really turned the town around, didn’t it?

RG: Oh, sure, that was the first one of the tourist attractions with lots of little shops and so forth. Of course, I think Stuart Rosengren, who did that job, and they did a beautiful job, to begin with. It was an eyesore, and it was not doing anything.

CE: No, just hanging there.

RG: They made it very attractive and the building was well built to begin with, so I think it was a worthwhile addition. But now that has proliferated all along the streets, with all kinds of little hamburger joints, crepes, and fish and chips, and Asian and oriental stuff and Takahashi’s.

CE: Is it true some old time Sausalito people never go downtown anymore? Certainly not on weekends.

RG: They don’t unless they have to and they certainly don’t on weekends. That’s a gross error.

CE: Well, it is such a beautiful place in the world. People who have lived in Hong Kong have said that it reminds them of Hong Kong, with the precipitous drop to the sea, and the views; where else can you go?

RG: Everybody has a different view of Sausalito.

CE: And when you sit on the terrace of the Alta Mira, you can be on the Riviera.

RG: That’s right. The only thing is the wind blows so hard down there.

CE: What would you like to see happen to Sausalito? Your family has been here since 1899. What would you like to see take place? A stop of growth, no doubt.

RG: Yes, I would like to see a stop of growth, a type of growth we see there now. I would like to see some more locally oriented service stores for us to shop in. You can’t buy a needle and thread in Sausalito anywhere at the present time. I think that’s kind of tough.

CE: Do you get your shoes repaired anywhere?

RG: Yes, we have two shoe repairmen in Sausalito, that’s interesting. They have a couple of barber shops down here now, for awhile there was only one.

CE: You used to have a wonderful men’s store and a family store where people would shop after they came home from the ferry.

RG: Of course, I loved the old Porthole, I don’t know if you remember it.

CE: I certainly remember the Porthole.

RG: The crazy Porthole. That was far out if I ever saw it. As far back as when my kids were in grammar school, I couldn’t buy a pair of shorts or a pair of socks downtown in Sausalito for them, I had to go up to Mayer’s in Mill Valley or go up to San Rafael.

CE: Well, they may be selling their city away for tourism.

RG: Yes. The other thing I would like to see, it is a difficult thing from an economical point of view, I’d like to see a further clean-up of the Marinship area.

CE: Yes, that’s been in a dormant stage for too long.

RG: That’s a very difficult situation there.

CE: Why?

RG: Well, in the first place, when the government gave it up, after World War II, they didn’t put any strings on it, they didn’t do any zoning and they just dumped it as it was. Then they sold it piece-meal to whoever wanted to buy it, and the city didn’t have any adequate zoning regulations to take care of it at the time. Now there are no city streets in Marinship. The streets have been put in by the people, the tenants there and they are also maintained by them. But nobody wants to put out the money to put in an overall plan of streets in there, which has been advocated and talked about and they’ve got I don’t know how many sets of programs and plans to do it, but they never seem to get around to it.

CE: Well, remember when the distillery blew up, or shortly after it blew up, wasn’t there plans to make that or to convert that to a Cannery or Ghirardelli Square complex?

RG: That’s what they first -

CE: That’s another plan.

RG: Well, that, of course, is pretty much tourist-oriented, again.

CE: That’s true.

RG: Right now, of course, they call it Whiskey Springs.

CE: Well, there still are, aren’t there, Bob, some businesses that cater to shipping and boats. There some ways there and some repair places and possibly even some ship building yards, I don’t know.

RG: Well, I don’t think they are building any new ships at the present time there, but they have boat sales down there and a lot of boat maintenance.

CE: Lot of marinas.

RG: They have a fish packing plant there located in Marinship at the present time

CE: Oh, really?

RG: Yeah, Ocean Traders it’s called. When I say packing plant, what they actually do process and clean and ice down the fish and then they ship from there.

CE: Well, do they still have charter boats leaving Sausalito, salmon -

RG: Salmon and bass and rockfish too, just as well. Bottom fishing. Weather allowing, they go out just about every day.

AK: Does that mean that all of Marinship is out of Sausalito?

RG: No, it is in the City of Sausalito, the streets have never been accepted in there, and so the city does not maintain them. I worked in the Marinship area – where I was for 17 years - it’s called Vincent Whitney Company, it was right next to Schoonmaker, you know that?

CE: Oh, yes, sure.

RG: Well, we were a little enclave, sort of in the center, but across from them in Easom’s yard. We used to get together with the five people that faced on that street there and then we’d get the Army Engineers and then we’d get a hold of somebody in the County here to come in and resurface and fill the pot holes. Go back again and do it in a few years more.

CE: When you think of it, Bob, for a city of its size and its picturesque setting, there are some unique industries.

RG: Oh, yes, there are.

CE: In Sausalito, when you think of Schoonmaker and nearby by that Army Engineers’ Bay Model.

RG: That Bay Model is quite a fascinating set-up.

CE: That’s quite an educational and fascinating thing.

RG: Yes, and, of course, as you say, there are boat supplies and boat hardware and boat sales and whatnot all over the place. The firm I was with, they’re not doing very much at the present time in the hardware line, but when I was with them there we had customers all over the United States and Canada, the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines and we shipped to Guatemala and to Holland, too. We were manufacturing window hardware. The patents ran out and the type of hardware that we sold is not as popular now as it was then, and they’re not doing anything much now.

AK: But they’re still there.

RG: Yes. They have a sideline which has taken over much of the business and that’s the lumber business.

CE: Tell me, Bob, do you have any feel or inside information regarding the new ferry that’s going to originate in Larkspur, theoretically in June. Is it ever going to touch your community of Sausalito or is it going to be a non-stop affair?

RG: Oh, I think it’s going to be a non-stop affair. Because I don’t think they will be able to make the time to San Francisco that is essential to make it worthwhile as a commuter, as a commuting deal. This is one man’s opinion, but I’m very violently opposed to the ferries being a practical solution to our problems at the present time. I think the investment is far too great and the way it is right now, with the little Golden Gate Ferry operating it can handle 550 people per load, and during the strike and the buses being out it carried 400 in three commuting trips in the morning, now it’s not doing anything that way, you see. Now on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays it’s loaded. And it’s loaded so much that it’s full, people have to stand and wait for the next ferry. So 550 people going back and forth each way is a lot of people, but that’s only on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays; you can’t support the ferry on that. Now, the next thing that strikes me about it, I have friends in Sausalito, as my father used to do, they run down the hill and catch the ferry. But maybe there are 50 of them and you can’t run a ferry on that. The other way they use the ferry, there is a parking lot by Big G -

CE: Yes, what do you do park your car -

RG: If you drive your car down there, then leave the car, lock it up, hop on a bus and the bus goes down to the Sausalito Ferry, then you walk over and get on the ferry. You reverse the procedure coming back. But pretty soon you aren’t saving any time and it isn’t a very practical commute, because even from Mill Valley to Sausalito if you get into any kind of traffic, it’s ten minutes, by the time you get on the bus it’s 15 or 20 minutes more and the ferry takes you 30 minutes to San Francisco, so your commute is an hour. For most people, nowadays, they’re not thinking about an hour commute.

CE: Well, what do you envision as a practical solution, if it could be done? We’ve got to relieve the bridge some way.

RG: That’s right.

CE: Stay home. I mean the growth is in north Marin, Novato area and a great percentage of them want to come to the city.

RG: It’s hard to say.

CE: You know, Mrs. Kent feels that they ought to re-activate the train at San Rafael north and then bring the train down to where the Larkspur terminal is and get the people re-educated to using the train; isn’t that a good idea?

RG: I think that’s a great idea.

AK: The tracks are there.

CE: The tracks there.

RG: I always thought one of the things that were done wrong were taking out those old roadbeds.

CE: Oh, that was terrible.

RG: That was a great mistake, I think, if it could be nothing else, it could have been a freeway or a roadway through there. But people couldn’t see it that way and they do that all over the country that way. They take the railroads out and put in a bus or something to take its place.

CE: I interrupted you, as you thought of what to do. I mean, it would be ideally nice if people would carpool and you see every car crossing the bridge full of people, but I don’t know how you can make people do that, do you?

RG: No, I don’t either. The buses are not entirely popular. I think maybe to increase the efficiency of the buses somehow.

CE: Somehow.

RG: Yeah, I don’t know just what exactly the solution is on that. But to me, when you’re putting 12 or 13 million dollars into these three new ferry boats, and you’re putting, I don’t know how many million dollars into the Larkspur set-up here, I don’t think you’re ever going to get that money back from commuters. And I don’t think you’re even going to get a fraction of it back from the tourism.

CE: The Sunday excursions.

RG: That’s not enough to do it.

CE: That’s a drop in the bucket.

RG: That’s right.

CE: Well, hasn’t one of these new vessels already malfunctioned?

RG: Yes.

CE: The one that hadn’t even left San Diego.

RG: I have a friend who lives in San Diego and he told me recently he works in the downtown area where he watches the ferry go in and out, and he knows we’re interested, and he says that he has never seen the ferry go out on a trial run that it hasn’t come back behind a tow boat. They have had trouble on every one of the trial hops so far.

AK: Well, weren’t they silly down there in San Diego to let their own little ferry go?

RG: I think they were.

CE: Yes.

AK: Just as they have the bridge, they could have kept both.

RG: Coronado Ferry down there.

CE: Yes.

AK: That was too bad.

CE: Well, why was the ferry successful in your father’s day and your day?

RG: Well, there was no bridge.

CE: Well, it was the only way, but wasn’t it a paying proposition? Did they make money?

RG: Sure.

CE: Of course, it was tied up with the train.

RG: Also it was tied up with the railroad.

CE: It was a packaged deal, wasn’t it?

RG: That’s right, and in addition to that there was a lot of freight, which was handled, of course, in a little different fashion, but it was car ferried over from Tiburon and then came off those lines up to Eureka. It was a big small railroad if you wanted to call it that.

CE: I wonder if there’s any way of getting freight back on the ferries. Lot of stuff is trucked into town.

RG: Yes, but these ferries aren’t built to carry trucks.

CE: Passengers.

RG: Passengers only.

AK: You know there’s something else that I remember, even though I’ve only been here since 1920, which is a long, long time ago, but the Northwestern Pacific Ferry didn’t take more than four automobiles on the ferry. They had to stay outside of the chain; you’re too young to remember.

RG: No, I remember.

CE: He remembers that.

AK: And when you came from the theater, you had to miss the last act almost every time in order to get down there, or else you stayed in San Francisco all night.

RG: The 11:15 or the 11:35, yes.

AK: And then later when the Golden Gate Ferry was built just to take the cars then by that time the Northwestern Pacific said, “Oh, we made an awful mistake, we can take the cars just the same,” so they did. So they were sort of at each others throats then, really. Poor little Golden Gate Ferry was running hard taking cars only and the Northwestern said, “All right, we’ll take them, too,” so they could go on either of them. That was a lot of service we had for a while.

RG: That’s right. Then they amalgamated that two.

AK: Then they got the Golden Gate Ferry really making money, when the Golden Gate Bridge came in, so that was its doom

CE: Well, Sausalito was never the same after the bridge, was it?

RG: No, that changed the whole picture.

CE: It changed everything.

RG: Of course, the whole downtown area changed because there was a big ferry terminal down there and right across from the Sausalito Inn there was an outdoor eating place. There was a beautiful beer garden and the waiters used to wear black coats and white aprons, violins played on Saturday and Sunday. It was on Buena Vista, right where the Sausalito Inn is at the present time. Sausalito Hotel, right across from the little park.

CE: Yeah.

RG: Right across, well diagonally across from the ferry building, which was torn down after that, but it’s been a different spot since then.

CE: Well, there have been some comparatively new traditions established, one thinks of Sausalito today of Ondine’s and the Spinnaker, the Alta Mira, lovely dinners and views.

RG: Well, there’s no doubt about that but, of course, it’s progress again, Mrs. Kent. You can’t stop some of these things, you can’t prevent them, I think perhaps it’s best if you can sort of ease them in instead of just bulldozing in. Just how you do it, I guess it takes a strong City Council and some rather adequate laws which they seem at the present time to have so many regulations in Sausalito, it’s pretty difficult for anybody to come in and build anything. On this Whiskey Springs development, this Schoonmaker property development, many of these others by the time you’re through an environmental report and by the time you get through a C.A.A.B. report, by the time you get a Planning Commission report, the building permit and so forth, you’ve spent two years. In many instances, on these big things and thousands of dollars.

CE: Thousands of dollars, yes.

AK: I have heard that Mr. Hearst wanted to belong to a yacht club. I always heard that there was a small boat club where Ondine’s is now, I don’t know if this is true, and he was turned down and that’s why he left Sausalito.

RG: Well, I think there is a lot of truth in the story, from what I can understand, it’s what I heard from my father, too.

AK: It was brought up at one of the early Old Settlers Days, where your grandmother or two were. There were some more darling old ladies who were there, too. One was Mrs. Wosser, the mother of - -

RG: Oh, Mabel Wosser.

CE: You know Mabel?

RG: Oh, I know Mabel very well, sure.

AK: Well, this is Mabel’s mother and I forget who the other one was. When that information was brought up she said, “Yes, I guess that’s so, but, you know, he was just a nice young man sowing his wild oats.” She thought it was awful mean.

CE: Mabel is a great gal, isn’t she?

RG: Oh, yes, she’s wonderful.

CE: We interviewed her, you know, in her home.

RG: Oh, did you?

CE: Oh, yes and she’s - - -

AK: I’d like to know something else then: Mabel told us about being in a rowboat - that they had a rowboat she and her sisters rowed in it everyday. Well, now she lived on Pine, would that have been at the foot of Pine, then, that they could have gone out in their rowboat?

RG: They probably did, there were arks and boathouses along through there. She showed me a picture not too long ago, all the girls in a rowboat.

CE: Yes, she and her five sisters. We have a copy of that.

RG: Oh, is that so?

CE: Well, listen, maybe sometime, Bob, we can come, Mrs. Kent and I, to your home and look through your old photographs. Do you have some?

RG: I’d have to search them out.

CE: I wish you would.

RG: I’ve got boxes of them, I’m sure.

CE: Well, it might be nice, you might come up with some early pictures of Sausalito that would be very helpful to the California Room.

RG: Well, give me a little warning ahead of time.

CE: Okay, start searching. We want to thank you very much today for sharing your reminiscences of your unusual family and though we weren’t going to talk too much about Sausalito, your stories about it have been fascinating, we thank you for them.

RG: Well, I hope I haven’t bored you with some of them.

CE: No, thank you so much.

RG: Well, it’s been a pleasure to be here.