Marin History

Marin County is one of the original 27 counties of California, created February 18, 1850, following adoption of the Constitution of 1849 and just months before the state was admitted to the Union. The origin of the county's name is not clear. One version is the county was named for Chief Marin, of the Coast Miwok, Licatiut tribe of Native Americans who inhabited that section and waged fierce battle against the early Spanish military explorers. The other version is that the bay between San Pedro Point and San Quentin Point was named Bahía de Nuestra Señora del Rosario la Marinera in 1775, and it is quite possible that Marin is simply an abbreviation of this name.

The Coast Miwok Indians were hunters and gatherers whose ancestors had occupied the area for thousands of years. About 600 village sites have been identified in the county. The Coast Miwok numbered in the thousands. Today there are few left, and even fewer with any knowledge of their Coast Miwok lineage. Efforts are being made so that they are not forgotten.

The English explorer and privateer, Sir Francis Drake and the crew of the Golden Hind was thought to have landed on the Marin coast in 1579 claiming the land as Nova Albion. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands, fitting the description in Drake's own account, was discovered in 1933. This so-called Drake's Plate of Brass was later declared a hoax.

In 1595 Sebastian Cermeno lost his ship, the San Agustin, while exploring the Marin Coast. The Spanish explorer Vizcaíno landed about twenty years after Drake in what is now called Drake's Bay. However the first Spanish settlement in Marin was not established until 1817 when Mission San Rafael Arcángel was founded partly in response to the Russian-built Fort Ross to the north in what is now Sonoma County.

Mission San Rafael Arcángel was founded in what is now downtown San Rafael as the 20th Spanish mission in the colonial Mexican province of Alta California by four priests, Father Narciso Duran from Mission San Jose, Father Abella from Mission San Francisco de Asís, Father Gil y Taboada and Father Mariano Payeras, the President of the Missions, on December 14, 1817, four years before Mexico gained independence from Spain.542 - Farallon Islands off San Francisco discovered by Juan Cabrillo

San Francisco History

1579 - Sir Francis Drake sails into Drake's Bay
1595 - Sebastian Cemeno of Spain shipwrecks in a place north of the San Francisco Bay he names "Puerto de San Francisco."
1603 - Sebastian Vizcaiano anchors in Drake's Bay
1775 - First Spanish ship enters San Francisco Bay, under Captain Don Juan Ayala
1776 - Father Junipero Serra founds the Mission St. Francis
1776 - Juan Bautista begins to build the Presidio
1835 - First Mexican residence built in this Mexican province
1846 - Capt. John Montgomery claims California for the U.S.
1847 - The City's named is changed from Yerba Buena (good herb) to San Francisco
1846 - The Mexican American War begins with the Battle of Palo Alto
1948 - Gold found in Colma, California
1848-50 - City's population grows from 800 in 1848 to 35,000 in 1850
1854 - Alcatraz lighthouse built
1864 - Mark Twain begins writing about San Francisco in The Morning Call
1869 - Central Pacific Railroad completed
1870 - Golden Gate Park begun
1873 - Cable Cars make their first run
1876 - Electricity comes to the City
1906 - 8.3 earthquake devastates the City, 28, 000 buildings destroyed, 52 dead
1912 - First publicly-owned Municipal Railway System opened
1915 - First transcontinental phone call
1927 - San Francisco airport opens
1933 - Coit Tower opens
1934 - Out-of-control maritime strike, July 5, called "Bloody Thursday"
1936 - Bay Bridge opens to Oakland
1937 - Dedication of the Golden Gate Bridge
1945 - UN Charter signed in San Francisco
1958 - Alfred Hitchcock classic,Vertigo, released featuring San Francisco locations
1963 - Alcatraz prison closed
1967 - Beat poets participate in a "Human Be-In" in Golden Gate Park
1968 - 27 soldiers protesting the Vietnam War are charged with mutiny at the Presidio. Hippies
inaugurate the sexual revolution in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood.
1972 - Transamerica Pyramid opens
1978 - Mayor George Moscone and gay Supervisor Harvey Milk slain at City Hall by ex-Supervisor Dan White
1979 - "White Night" riots in response to Dan White sentencing
1982 - San Francisco 49ers win the Superbowl
1989 - Loma Prieta earthquake rocks the City
1991 - Conde Nast Traveler readers vote San Francisco the #1 travel destination in the world, has done so repeatedly since
1994 - Presidio Army Base turned over to the National Park Service
1998 - Pacific Bell Park begins construction for 2000 opening
2000 - Pacific Bell Park Opens