American takeover, he and his family gradually faded from the West Marin 

 scene, as did the lifestyle they shared on Rancho las Baulines. 



2. Rancho Tomales y Baulines 



The first buildings in the vicinity of what is now the town of Olema, 

 California, were the adobe structures that comprised the hacienda or 

 headquarters of Don Rafael Garcia's 9,467.77 acre Rancho Tomales y Baulines. 



Garcia had first settled the area around 1837, when he had moved north 

 from his home in present Bolinas to accommodate his brother-in-law, Gregorio 

 Briones. Garcia moved onto the lands claimed by James Richard Berry, the 

 grantee of Rancho Punta de los Reyes, but Berry reportedly acquiesced the 

 lands in Garcia's favor. 



Sometime in 1837, Garcia moved his family, servants and livestock into 

 the Olema Valley and built a "palizada", a home built of wood and thatch. In 

 later testimony, Garcia was said to be living in a new "timber" house. This 

 would seem to indicate that the home was built in late 1837. 



The actual date of construction of Garcia's later adobe structures is 

 uncertain; it would seem that they were erected in the late 1830's or early 

 1840's. In 1841, Garcia entertained Captain John Paty at his rancho "on the 

 west side of Baulines Bay near a creek," but this description actually fits the 

 original Garcia home at Bolinas, unless the correspondent misreported Tomales 

 Bay. 



Rancho Tomales y Baulenes had been granted to Don Rafael on March 

 18, 1836. The boundaries as finally surveyed took hi what had originally been 

 part of Berry's Rancho Punta de los Reyes, with Garcia owning most of the 

 Olema Valley, bordered by Olema Creek, Bolinas Ridge, and Tomales Bay. It 

 was on this vast acreage that Don Rafael ran his large herd of livestock and 

 established his home. 



Garcia's hacienda near Olema grew into a comfortable home and 

 headquarters for his rancho with its thousands of livestock and what may have 

 been a steady stream of visitors. A writer in 1880 described the old Garcia 

 ranch: 



He built a very large adobe house for the use of his 

 family, which stood on the present site of Thomas 



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