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Seventy years ago on the Coastside
What is now Pacifica, in the Thirties was hard to get into, hard to get out
of, and a great place to practice your Italian.
The roads were twisty, poor, narrow and poorly kept up. When Laguna Salada
flooded not many residents from Vallemar south traveled very far for a few
days. In the thirties, it's likely most of the cars were Model T's and
Model A's. They were easy for shade tree mechanics to fix, which was just
as well, because they needed repair often, lots of oil, and lots and lots
of service. Tires were fragile and short lived. Blowouts were common. So
were broken arms from hand cranking. 25 or 30 miles an hour was a good
speed.
This area was thinly populated. Only a few farm families occupied most of
the land in Pedro Valley. Most or all were Italian. The folks not already
related often intermarried. Salada Beach and Brighton Beach, which combined
in mid-decade to become Sharp Park, consisted mostly of clusters of poor
folks hunkered down doing their best to weather the Depression storm.
In Pedro Valley, what later became Linda Mar and Park Pacifica, you heard
names like Malavear, Magrin, Del Rosso, Picardo, Colombini, Bistolfi,
Pitto, Benedetti, and Bernardi.
The big cash specialty crop, the one best known, was the artichoke. They
also raised Brussels Sprouts, peas, and in Vallemar, violets.
The milked their own cows, made wheels of cheese, raised and butchered
their own hogs, and had grapes shipped in from warmer areas to make their
own wine. They didn't take themselves, or what we would now think of as
ethnic slurs, too seriously, so they might refer to the wine they made for
their own use as "Dago Red", just as the Portuguese farmers of Half Moon
Bay might make their own Portagee Pink. They didn't give fancy names to the
cheese they made, either, but it was good quality. With home-made wine and
cheese, home grown vegetables, free range chickens and eggs, and the
prosciutto and salami from their own hogs, they made a good life for
themselves without a lot of cash.
Specialized hog farmers were located mostly at the north end of what
became Pacifica. The hog ranchers depended on their proximity to San
Francisco, because the cheap swill which fattened their animals came from
the leavings of the finest restaurants in the city. What the mayor, the
board of sups, a young Herb Caen, the millionaire diners at Fior d'Italia
and Tadich Grill, Dolly Fine, Sally Stanford and their girls left on their
plates wound up somewhere off Hog Ranch road, turned into bacon, ham and
pigs feet.
They may not have had many things we now take for granted. The kids didn't
have computer games, their own cars, cell phones, cassette recorders, TV or
computers. They kept out of trouble and quite busy doing farm chores. By
the time they did their school work, milked the cows, fed the chickens,
hogs and horses, did some gardening, they were ready for bed.
Water was always short. What they had came from the creeks, and a few
cranky wells that might run low summers. It was needed for irrigation,
livestock, and people.
The newly opened golf course (1932) was the most important local landmark.
Most of the area's non-farming jobs had something to do with the local
links, owned by the city of San Francisco.
Golf came in about the time prohibition went out. Sharp Park Golf Course
opened in the spring of 1932.
It would change the Coastside forever.
Paul Azevedo likes to discuss Coastside history as well as
his opinions on local controversies. His e mail address for either is Paul@thereactor.net.
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