"Swiss bowling alley" and catered to sportsmen. A San Rafael newspaper 

 described the progress there: 



TOCALOMA STATION, the nearest on the railroad to 

 Olema, has made a grand advance within the last 

 year. It is situated in the very midst of the finest 

 sporting district to be found anywhere near the city, 

 its streams abounding with fish and its hills with 

 game. Mr. John Lycurgus has built a fine hotel, and 

 furnished it with every comfort for guests, and Mr. 

 [Payne] Shafter has a stable of good horses for public 

 convenience. Tocaloma will be the destination of 

 many Nimrods and Waltons next week. 198 



Tocaloma-area residents built a schoolhouse on the Cheda Ranch to the 

 east in 1884, taxing themselves for the $600 needed for construction. Twenty- 

 six children from the dairy ranches and the Pioneer Paper Mill upstream filled 

 the school immediately upon its opening. The school was abandoned in 1927 

 and subsequently torn down. 199 



The Tocaloma House burned down in 1885 and was replaced the next 

 year by a larger one under the ownership of Joseph Bertrand, a French hotel- 

 keeper. Bertrand's Hotel became a favorite of city-dwellers who traveled to the 

 country for recreation and health. Bertrand was appointed Tocaloma's first 

 postmaster on April 17, 1891. Bertrand sold the hotel and property to Caesar 

 Ronchi in 1913. The huge edifice burned to the ground in December of 1916, 

 but Ronchi rebuilt, in more modest form, the next year. Caesar's was a popular 

 stop for motorists on the road to Point Reyes until the 1940s. 200 



Giuseppe Codoni returned briefly to Corippo in 1873 and married Rosa 

 Scilacci, also of an old and respected family of the village. The couple returned 

 to Tocaloma and had six children: Ida (1875), who died in Tocaloma at age six; 

 Silvio (1876); James (1878); Helen (1882), known as Nellie, who would marry 

 Neil Mclsaac; Romeo (1884); and Henry (1898). Codoni helped his fellow 



198 



'Marin County Journal. April 17 and September 17, 1879, April 7, 1881, October 25, 1883. 



'"Marin Journal. June 19 and September 11, 1884; Gerald J. Foley and Perry McDonald, 

 Pictorial History of Marin County Schools. The First 100 Years (San Rafael: Marin County Schools 

 Office, 1976), p. 72. 



200 Marin Journal. June 11, 1885; San Rafael Independent. December 30, 1913, December 16, 

 1916, January 2 and March 27, 1927. 



351 



