Pescadero Memories

June,

Thanks for calling my attention to your video from the 1970s. We had just begun (in 1968) a long-term study of northern elephants in the area. One of the first studies was to determine the relationship between fighting and mating in males and which females successfully raised pups and why. This involved marking individuals to follow the game. We used a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and Lady Clairol Ultra Blue; the hair simply bleached in the sun and was non-invasive. My graduate students went a little crazy with the names. There were several males named after me - BJL, Burney, Le Boeuf - none of them fared too well. The best fighter and lover was Adrian, named after a female anthropologist friend at the time. Ah well.

best of luck with your history sites.

Burney

Burney J. Le Boeuf
Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and
Research Professor of Biology
29 Clark Kerr Hall
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064

Story & Photos by John Vonderlin

email John (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

Hi June,

Yesterday Meg and I went to the brand new Interpretive Center’s Grand Opening at Ano Nuevo State Park. This over 3- million dollar addition to the state park was constructed in the old buildings of “The Steele Dairy,” on Point Ano Nuevo.

The old cow barn holds the Marine Education Center.

The horse barn

holds a theatre and classroom and the two- story creamery has been converted into the headquarters for the hundreds of volunteers and the park office.

There is a Gift Shop where you can buy books (including one of yours, “The Coburn Mystery,”

souvenirs, posters, etc.

There are interpretive displays inside and picnic tables outside with a to-kill-for view of Ano Nuevo Island from this historic point.

Best of all (in my mind) there is a warm, sheltered spot to gather in this often windy and cold spot, while you wait for your docent-guided tour to see the Elephant Seal’s rookery further out the point.

When you’re poking around in the barns note the giant weathered timbers used to construct them. A sign mentions they were salvaged from a storm-wrecked local wharf.

I assume that is none other then the Waddell Wharf I’ve written about before. I recommend you check out this valuable addition to our understanding of the historic south coast of San Mateo County. Enjoy. John

Read the rest of this entry »

To hear “Captain Omar N. Steele’s March”, click here1

From: Coastal Cultural Resources of San Mateo County, California (1982)

Point Ano Nuevo: A number of features combine to make Point Ano Nuevo the most remarkable and spectacular area on the entire Coastside. Punta del Ano Nuevo was one of the first landforms in California to receive a Spanish name. From his ship in January 1603, Captain Sebastian Viscaino saw the point and its island while exploring for Spain. The first contact between Europeans and the natives of this land, the Ramaytush or San Francisco Costanoan Indians,

occurred here in 1769 when the Portola expedition entered what is today San Mateo County one mile to the south. A Spanish engineering officer returned later to survey the area and an outpost of Mission Santa Cruz was established after 1798. The first American settlers came int he decade after the Gold Rush, building a wooden railroad for lumbering and introducing large scale dairy farming.

The area is rich in fauna, particularly in the marine area where, due to submarine stacks and shoals which prevent commercial fishing, there is a prolific population of fish, crustaceans, and other invertebrates. Tidepools are found in the bedrock outcrops. Sea birds nest on the shoreline cliffs, and recently the northern elephant seal has extended its breeding area from Ano Nuevo Island to the mainland beaches.

Ano Nuevo Island: This small island, once the tip of a peninsula, is one of the most important pinniped breeding grounds in Northern California, including the elephant seal. This animal has returned to the island in the past decade after virtual extinction around the turn of the century.

The island has been the site of a light station since 1890, when a light was added to the warning of the foghorn installed in 1872. The light station was abandoned in 1948 and today is occupied by seals and sea lions.

———————

[Note: I wrote this in 1977.]

More than 20 prisoners watched in misery as Sheriff T. C. “Brick” McGovern shattered 1,000 bottles of illegal whiskey with a hatchet in 1925–at the peak of Prohibition.

It was the “father” of our country, George Washington’s birthday, and as fumes filled the county jail in Redwood City, the unhappy inmates, stuck behind bars, called the sheriff’s actions “un-American”….adding that Washington would have disapproved of such extreme measures.

Their humorous analysis didn’t move the sheriff as two convicted bootleggers were ordered to pick up the shards of glass and haul them off the garbage heap.

Strict Prohibition laws kept federal agents on their toes, with one eye on the goings on at secluded Pescadero, a favorite drop-off spot for rumrunners. In the early 1920s Chief Field Agent W.R. Paget led his armed forces in a raid on Ano Nuevo Island, south of Pescadero.

By then Paget and his men, interested in self-preservation, preferred to carry sawed-off shotguns on all Coastside missions. At Ano Nuevo*** as the unsuspecting smugglers unloaded their valuable cargo of whiskey from a small boat, Paget’s men cautiously closed in on another rumrunning operation near Pescadero.

According to plan, the feds, with guns drawn, completely surprised the smugglers. When the agents shouted “Give Up,” the heavily armed rumrunners instinctively dove behind the boxes of Scotch whiskey (which then sold for about $90 a case in San Francisco.) The smugglers, accustomed to danger, swore to risk everything, including the booze, before giving up to the authorities.

Bullets riddled the booze boxes, permeating the air with the strong smell of whiskey. The smugglers fired back, and there was a lot of noise, but on this occasion they were outnumbered and it was easy to figure out who was going to win. The final act was anti-climactic, a real frowner, as the rumrunners ran out of ammunition, dropped their weapons and emerged from their makeshift barricade.

Reportedly, Paget arrested several men and seized more than 240 cases of whiskey. Paget labeled one of the nameless men as the “man,” or “the mastermind,” behind three major liquor operations that routinely smuggled contraband whiskey from Canada to California.

Other reports described the same nameless man as the president of a Canadian rumrunner’s organization.

….Look for Part 2…..

From “Coastside Cultural Resources of San Mateo County,” 1980

Steele Brothers Dairies

Gazos Creek to Ano Nuevo

“In 1862, Rensselaer Steele and his three cousins established a chain of dairies between Gazos Creek and Ano Nuevo known as the Steele Brothers Dairies which became famous throughout the Bay Area for their products. A number of houses and barns still stand which were constructed by the family. The dairies are listed as a California State Landmark.”