April 11, 2001

From out of our past: a roster of the missing

I've developed a kind of shadow memory of local structures that are gone. For some I've actual memories. For others, old photos or just my imagination have to serve. Historically, the biggest enemy has been fire. About 1908 Ernst H. "Harry" Danmann built what came to be known as Danmann's Hayloft. It was a bar and sometimes a hotel on Pedro Point, constructed next to another departed memory, the Ocean Shore Railway. Danmann lived into his 99th year. Having arrived on the Point in his early 20's, he lived through the railroad and then survived to the beginnings of tract homes in Linda Mar. His bar was a treasure trove of antiques and memorabilia. I saw it burn in the early seventies.

Where Pacific Skies Estates, the mobile home park on Palmetto Ave. is now located, there was once a large and imposing 19th century ranch home where Lydia Comerford Fahey, a descendant of pioneers, lived most of her life. Mrs. Fahey was widowed early. Then her 13 year-old only son drowned. It must have been devastating, but she was a woman of particular faith, courage and generosity. She also had spunk. The Pacifica Historical Society owns the shotgun with which she held off the surveyors of the Ocean Shore Railway, who weren't allowed to cross her property until they agreed to her terms.

The Hermitage, the summer mansion of the Tobin banking family, burned in the late twenties. It was located on what is now a portion of Shamrock Ranch, across from the present convalescent hospital. I have to rely on my imagination. I've never seen a picture of that structure.

A large antenna field, essentially a sophisticated array of poles and wires, used to sprawl over much of what is now Fairmont. The property of Globe Wireless/Dollaradio, it served much the same purpose from the mid-twenties through the early fifties which satellites do today, communicating with ships all over the Pacific. Primitive by today's standards, it was the wonder of its time.

The headquarters building survives as a private home.

Other local structures that have come and gone include a home in Sharp Park accented with large whale bones, Mori's Point hotel and restaurant, which burned in the sixties, and the schoolhouse attended by Jack London at age seven. As best I can determine, it was located somewhere in what is now Fairmont.

The Wander Inn, a beachside restaurant at the foot of Crespi Drive, burned in 1971 with a lot of help from the fire department. The concrete pad and a windblown tree are all that remain.

Long time residents miss the food and drink of the Sugar Shack, the Sixth Tee Inn, Pete and Anna's, Chubby's, Dick Plate's, and Jonesburgers. A simple list of all the other restaurants, coffee shops, and especially bars that have come and gone through the years in Pacifica would make two, three, perhaps four columns this size. Each has its own story.

In particular I wish I could have seen the railroad stations: Edgemar, at what is now Edgemar Freeway west of Clifton Road, Salada Beach station, in the middle of the present freeway near Paloma in Sharp Park, Brighton Station on Francisco Blvd. across from the golf course, and Rockaway Station, in the southeast quadrant of the Highway One/Fassler Intersection. Then there were all those gas stations, dozens of private residences, and the prisoner of war camp. What building would you like to see again, if only in your imagination?

E-mail Paul Azevedo at thereactor@earthlink.net or visit his website, http://home.earthlink.net/~thereactor/