to 1944. The brothers shipped Grade B cream to Point Reyes Station and 

 Petaluma. When the Armaninos left in 1944, Joseph Codoni's grandson Don 

 Mclsaac of Nicasio took over the family ranch for grazing young dairy cows. 208 



Don Mclsaac's paternal grandfather was another Marin County pioneer, 

 Neil Mclsaac, who arrived in the area from his native Nova Scotia in 1865. By 

 coincidence, Neil Mclsaac worked at the D. D. Wilder dairy ranch near Olerna at 

 the same time Giuseppe Codoni was there. Mclsaac leased a ranch near Nicasio 

 from the Black/Burdell and Cutter families and raised a family there. One of 

 his sons, Donald Dinnie Mclsaac, married Nellie Codoni in 1912; their two sons, 

 Don and Neil, eventually took over the Nicasio dairy and were operating it at 

 the time of Rosa Codoni's death in 1944. 209 



Don Mclsaac and his wife Lorraine and family moved into Joseph 

 Codoni's old home in 1944, while operating a Grade A dairy in partnership with 

 his brother Neil on the family's Nicasio Valley Ranch. By this time the ranch 

 was owned by Nellie Mclsaac and her brother Romeo. Don Mclsaac had a 

 Grade A dairy barn built by the Renati Brothers of Novato in 1951 and started 

 milking again on the Codoni ranch. The old dairy house was moved a short 

 distance to the west and remodeled as a bunkhouse for the milkers. More 

 recently the dairy house was moved to the west side of Lagunitas Creek, below 

 and downstream from the old Garcia ranch, and further remodeled as a family 

 dwelling. In 1962 the county built a new highway bridge over Lagunitas Creek, 

 trading land with Mclsaac and building a cattle underpass on Platform Bridge 

 Road as part of the deal. Mclsaac took possession of the 1927 highway bridge 

 and has used it for access to the west side of the ranch. 



Mclsaac milked about 100 cows in the early 1950s, and when he stopped 

 milking in August of 1973 had a milking herd of about 200. Since then the 

 Mclsaac family has raised beef and dairy cattle on the ranch. Nellie Mclsaac 

 deeded the ranch as a gift to the Mclsaac brothers and their wives in 1975. 

 The federal government purchased the Mclsaac Ranch in May of 1983 for 

 inclusion in Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 



Information on the later Codoni years and Mclsaac Ranch from interviews with Don and 

 Lorraine Mclsaac. Codoni's tenant on the Garcia tract, Innocento Rizzoli, an immigrant from 

 Canton Ticino, Switzerland, disappeared from his next place of employment, the Cheda Ranch, in 

 November 1915; his hody was found almost 21 years later in nearby Devil's Gulch, and the death 

 was ruled a suicide. 



209 



Munro-Fraser, Marin County, p. 436; Cross, Financing an Empire, pp. 539-540. 



355 



