H. EARLY HISTORY OF THE OLEMA VALLEY AREA 

 A. Introduction 



Marin County's Olema Valley is the ramrod-straight cleft that separates 

 Bolinas Lagoon from Tomales Bay, and "mainland" Marin County from the 

 Point Reyes Peninsula; it is one of the most visible geographic influences of the 

 famous San Andreas fault in California. Usually considered as one valley, It is 

 actually composed of two valley/watersheds: the eight-mile-long Olema Creek 

 watershed draining northwesterly from the Randall and northern McCurdy 

 Ranches towards Tomales Bay, and the six-mile-long Pine Gulch Creek 

 watershed draining southeasterly from south of Five Brooks towards Bolinas 

 Lagoon. 



The Olema Valley is unique in that, due to the activities of the 

 underlying San Andreas Fault over the past thousands of years, the valley is 

 virtually a straight line for ten miles, continued by the similar line of the 

 narrow 14-mile-long Tomales Bay to the north. In fact, Tomales Bay is merely 

 a submerged section of the Olema Valley, as is Bolinas Lagoon to the south. 

 For two miles near the center of the valley, roughly between Five Brooks and 

 Thirteen Turns, Olema and Pine Gulch Creeks run side-by-side in opposite 

 directions for two miles, a situation that has undergone much scrutiny by 

 geologists during the last century. 



The valley is a fertile one in many ways, with relatively small portions of 

 rich bottom lands, good pasture land on the east slope and dense fir forests to 

 the west. All of these resources, including the plentiful water resources of the 

 west side, have been exploited over the last century and a hah by dairymen, 

 farmers and loggers. The cultural characteristic of the valley appears timeless, 

 with century-old ranches still in operation and little more than the pavement 

 on the narrow, winding state highway to remind visitors that they are in the 

 twentieth century. 



The natural division made by Olema Creek in the northern two-thirds 

 and Pine Gulch in the southernmost part of the valley set the tone for historic 

 development in the Olema Valley. The creeks acted as boundaries dividing the 

 lands of Rancho Punta de los Reyes, owned by a family of powerful lawyers 

 named Shatter, and Rancho Tomales y Baulines, owned by the aging veteran 

 Mexican soldier Rafael Garcia; at the far south adjacent to Dogtown is the 



