Tocaloma ranch, Giacomini sold the property to fellow Swiss immigrants Codoni 

 and Cotta. 196 



Giuseppe (Joseph) Codoni, born of an old family in Corippo, Valle 

 Verzasca in 1847, emigrated to the United States from Switzerland with a 

 group of young townsmen in 1867, arriving in San Francisco on January 2, 1868. 

 The group came to Marin County to work on dairies as others in their area had 

 earlier; Codoni found work on the dairy of Delos D. Wilder north of Olema. In 

 little more than two-and-one-half years Codoni was able to purchase his own 

 dairy ranch, in partnership with a fellow traveler and Corippian named 

 Giacomo Cotta. Codoni and Cotta bought the 619-acre ranch at Tocaloma from 

 Giovanni Giacomini on August 15, 1870, for $10,000. Giacomini, living in 

 Switzerland at the time, enlisted his attorney John D. Giacomini, no doubt a 

 relative and perhaps a son, to handle the sale. Codoni and Cotta took over the 

 dairy and improved it through the years made it a well-respected dairy farm. 

 Cotta sold his undivided half of the ranch in 1874 and bought a ranch of his 

 own nearby. Codoni added the 454.8-acre Felix Garcia ranch about 1895. This 

 ranch, located west of the original Codoni ranch, had been leased as a dairy to a 

 number of men, including Joseph Bloom in 1869 who would take over the 

 Baldwin dairy in the Olema Valley. Garcia sold the ranch to James McMillan 

 Shafter in 1871, then Shafter sold it to his daughter Julia Shafter Hamilton in 

 1885. By the close of the century Codoni's 1073-acre ranch was a landmark on 

 the road to Point Reyes. 197 



Across the creek from the Codoni Ranch grew the "town" of Tocaloma, 

 really nothing more than a hotel, post office and stables. Tocaloma became the 

 unofficial depot on the North Pacific Coast Railroad for Olema, just over the hill 

 to the west. The North Pacific Coast Railroad, formed in 1871 and built 1873- 

 74, carried freight and passengers on narrow gauge rails from terminals at San 

 Quentin and Sausalito to the redwood country of Sonoma County along the 

 Russian River. At Tocaloma, passengers could take a regularly scheduled stage 

 to Olema and Bolinas, or pay for excursions offered by Payne Shafter to the 

 scenic areas of the Point Reyes Peninsula. John Lycurgus built a two-story 

 hotel, the Tocaloma House, next to the tracks in 1879. The hotel featured a 



196 Deeds Book F, p. 89, MCRO, and original deeds in the collection of Don Mclsaac; 9th U. S. 

 Census, 1870. 



197 Deeds Book I, p. 384 and K, p. 57, MCRO; Codoni, The Corippians. p. 40-42; Marin Journal. 

 February 25, 1915. 



350 



