Marin County Free Library

Views of Marin County during the 1920s photographed by Hayden Lothers and Ralph Young who had a studio at 165 Post Street in San Francisco. Images include the Mill Valley train depot with the Mt. Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railroad; hikers on Mt. Tamalpais; Hotel Sausalito; San Rafael High School; Baltimore Park, Larkspur; and Harlan Hall, Marin Junior College (now College of Marin).

Institution: Marin County Free Library

Photographs and ephemera document the history of the Marin County Free Library and its branches from its inception in 1927 to the present.

Institution: Marin County Free Library

A collection of images from the collection of the Marin County Department of Parks and Open Space.

Institution: Marin County Free Library

Map of Marin County's original ranchos, granted by Mexico between 1834 and 1846. Also features a biographical summary of each land grant

Institution: Marin County Free Library

Marinship Corporation in Sausalito was a WWII Liberty shipyard owned by W.A. Bechtel Co. During WWII, residential Marin City was developed as housing for Marinship workers and their families. In the span of Marinship's three and a half years of active service (1942-1945), fifteen EC-2 Liberty Ships were built, along with seventy-eight oil tankers and twenty invasion barges. At its peak, Marinship employed a multi-ethnic workforce of 20,000.

Institution: Marin County Free Library

"This collection represents a photographic exhibit of M.B. Boissevain's insightful photographs that premiered at the 2012 Marin County Fair. These magnificent images provide a unique opportunity to embrace Marin's agrarian roots and present bounty, as well as take an intimate look at what life was like for Marin ranchers and farmers during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. From the arrival of the Mexicans in the early 1820s, to the beginning of the Gold Rush in 1849, Marin was a rich agrarian landscape providing range for thousands of longhorns. Gradually, they were replaced by dairy cows as immigrants arrived from Europe, …

Institution: Marin County Free Library

Photo postcards depicting Mill Valley, circa 1905-1953. Postcards originally belonged to collector Jim Staley. Digital copies and metadata have been provided by their current owner, Phil Rhodes.

Institution: Marin County Free Library

Since 1913, the Mountain Play has been performed annually in a natural outdoor amphitheater on Mt. Tamalpais. The first six decades of the Mountain Play are well-documented in our collection of Mountain Play scrapbooks which include photographs, play programs, clippings and ephemera and which cover 1913-1958 and 1961-1972. Three men are generally credited with the inspiration for the Mountain Play: lawyer and hiker John C. Catlin; producer and director Garnet Holme; and inveterate hiker “Dad” O’Rourke. One day as they hiked the Rock Springs area of Mt. Tam, Holme paused to look at the view and saw a perfect setting …

Institution: Marin County Free Library

William Kent purchased Redwood Canyon, now Muir Woods National Monument, and donated it to the Federal Government in 1908, to save the ancient Redwood trees and the canyon from development.

Institution: Marin County Free Library

From 1974 to 1984, Carla Ehat, with partner Anne Kent, and later Genevieve Martinelli, interviewed a broad spectrum of Marin's long-time residents, from ranchers to politicians, including descendants of early pioneer families. This program was co-sponsored by the Marin County Free Library and the Moya Library in Ross. The resulting archive, consisting of nearly 300 recordings and their corresponding transcriptions, are housed in the California Room. A subset of this collection has been digitized and posted here. (Additional interviews are posted as they are processed.) In 2002, the California Room re-started its oral history program with professional oral historian Marilyn …

Institution: Marin County Free Library