for a road to Nicasio and beyond in 1870. The road does not appear on Austin's 

 1867 plat of the Olema-San Rafael Road. 80 



The construction history of Bear Valley Road is elusive. It is known that 

 pioneers traveled past Rafael Garcia's house (present site of park headquarters) 

 to the foot of Haggerty Gulch at White House Pool, but it is unlikely that these 

 early travelers crossed the marsh as the road has done since at least 1916. The 

 route probably stayed west of the marsh, following the contour in the area of 

 the Limantour Road, then to Haggerty Gulch. When the short levee was built 

 on the marsh is unknown; Charles Webb Howard built the longer levee nearby 

 on today's Sir Francis Drake Highway by 1875, no doubt to connect the new 

 railroad town of Point Reyes Station with his ranches on the point, avoiding a 

 long detour via Olema. Bear Valley Road was abandoned by the county in 1921, 

 and reacquired in the late 1940s. 



The portion of Highway 1 between Olema and Point Reyes Station is 

 mentioned numerous times in Garcia family deeds written as part of the 1868 

 subdivision to Garcia's heirs. It appears to have been a private road, although 

 the public used it and employed saloonkeeper Charley Hall to ferry them across 

 Papermill Creek at Taylor's warehouse, site of today's highway bridge. When it 

 became a county road is unclear. The highway, all the way from Point Reyes 

 Station to Fairfax, was regraded in 1927, paved with concrete in 1929, and 

 christened as part of Sir Francis Drake Highway the next year; it remains the 

 same except for a layer of asphalt applied in 1985. 81 



At the southern boundary of the scope of this study, the county built the 

 San Rafael- Bolinas Road in 1878 to replace the steep, prehistoric San Rafael 

 Trail which crossed Bolinas Ridge from the Weeks Ranch to the confluence of 

 Cataract and Lagunitas Creeks, site of today's Alpine Dam. The road started at 

 the head of Bolinas Lagoon on the Wilkins Ranch and followed an easy grade 

 near Wilkins' southern boundary to the summit of the ridge, then down to the 

 aforementioned creeks and on to San Rafael via Ross. In 1884 the county 

 changed the route to pass through Fairfax for a saving of mileage. This road, 

 now called the Fairfax-Bolinas Road, has changed little on the west side of 

 Bolinas Ridge, except for widening to about 12 feet and paving. 82 



80 Mason, Historian, pp. 485-488. 



81 Marin Journal. May 5, 1927 and November 12, 1929; "Abstract . . . Nelson Hotel.' 



82 Mason, Last Stage, p. 34. 



ff 



46 



