Sausalito

 

(sô'səlē'tō) , residential city (1990 pop. 7,152), Marin co., W Calif., on San Francisco Bay; inc. 1893. It is the northern terminus of the Golden Gate Bridge. The artists' colony there is a tourist attraction.

Sausalito, California
Location in Marin County and the state of California
Coordinates: 37°51′28″N 122°29′25″W / 37.85778, -122.49028
Country	United States
State	California
County	Marin
Area
- City	sq mi (km²)
- Land	sq mi ( km²)
- Water	sq mi ( km²)
Elevation	ft ( m)
Population (2000)
- City
- Density	/sq mi (/km²)
Time zone	Pacific (PST) (UTC-8)
- Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)
ZIP codes	94965-94966
Area code(s)	415
FIPS code	06-70364
GNIS feature ID	0277597

Sausalito is a city in the San Francisco Bay Area situated in Marin County, California, United States. The population was 7,330 as of the year 2000 census. Viña del Mar, Chile, home to "Sausalito" stadium and "Sausalito" lagoon, is a sister city of Sausalito, which features a plaza called "Viña del Mar."

Geography

Sausalito is located at 37°51′28″N, 122°29′25″W (37.857708, -122.490266)¹.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.8 km² (2.2 mi²). 4.9 km² (1.9 mi²) of it is land and 0.9 km² (0.3 mi²) of which (15.18%) is under water.

History

What is now Sausalito was once the site of a Coast Miwok settlement known as Liuaneglua. The branch of the Coast Miwok living in this area were known as the Huimen.^{[1] [2]}

In 1838 during the Mexican era, an Englishman by the name of William A. Richardson, who became a Mexican citizen and married the daughter of the Commandant of the Presidio of San Francisco, established a large ranch from which the later town acquired its name, the "Rancho Del Sausalito".^[3] Sausalito is Spanish for "little willow grove."

In the 1870s, the North Pacific Coast Railroad (NPC) extended its tracks southward to a new terminus in Sausalito, where a rail yard and ferry to San Francisco were established. The NPC was acquired by the North Shore Railroad in 1902, which in turn was absorbed in 1907 by the Southern Pacific affiliate, the Northwestern Pacific.

By 1926, a major auto ferry across the Golden Gate was established, running to the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco [1]. This ferry was an integral part of old U.S. Highway 101. It ceased operation shortly after the Golden Gate Bridge opened in May of 1937.

During World War II, a major shipyard of the Bechtel Corporation called Marinship was sited along the shoreline of Sausalito. The thousands of laborers who worked here were largely housed in a nearby community constructed for them called Marin City. The soil which supports this area is dredgings from Richardson Bay that were placed during World War II as part of the Marin shipyards for the United States Navy.^[4] A total of  acres ( km²) were condemned by the government. A portion of this total area was formed in the shape of a peninsula and this peninsula became known as Schoonmaker Point.

Following World War II a lively waterfront community grew out of the abandoned ship yards. By the late '60s at least three house boat communities occupied the waterfront along and adjacent to Sausalito's shore. But beginning in the '70s, an intense struggle erupted between house boat residents and developers. It was dubbed the "House Boat Wars." ^[5] Forced removals by county authorities and sabotage by some on the waterfront characterized this struggle. This long fight pitted the waterfront against the "Hill People" or the rich on the hill looking down on the water front. Today two house boat communities still exist: Gallilee Harbor in Sausalito and Waldo Point / Gate 6 just outside the city limit.

In 1965, the City of Sausalito sued the County of Marin and a private developer for illegally zoning  acres ( km²) of land to build a city named Marincello right next to Sausalito. The city won the lawsuit in 1970, and the land was transferred as open space to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Demographics

As of the census² of 2000, there were 7,330 people, 4,254 households, and 1,663 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,489.5/km² (3,852.9/mi²). There were 4,511 housing units at an average density of 916.7/km² (2,371.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 91.65% White, 0.65% African American, 0.29% Native American, 4.17% Asian, 0.25% Pacific Islander, 0.71% from other races, and 2.28% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.33% of the population.

There were 4,254 households out of which 8.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 33.9% were married couples living together, 3.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 60.9% were non-families. 45.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.72 and the average family size was 2.34.

In the city the population was spread out with 7.4% under the age of 18, 2.4% from 18 to 24, 39.5% from 25 to 44, 38.5% from 45 to 64, and 12.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 45 years. For every 100 females there were 93.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.8 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $87,469, and the median income for a family was $123,467. Males had a median income of $90,680 versus $56,576 for females. The per capita income for the city was $81,040. About 2.0% of families and 5.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.1% of those under age 18 and 5.5% of those age 65 or over.

Tourism

Located at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito receives a steady stream of visitors via the bridge and a ferry service from San Francisco. It retains one of the few ungated marinas in the Bay Area that attracts visitors.

Education

Sausalito is served by the Sausalito Marin City School District for primary school and the Tamalpais Union High School District for secondary school. Grades K-6 attend Bayside Elementary School in Sausalito while high schoolers attend Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley.

People

• One-time Sausalito City Council member and former Mayor Sally Stanford, founder of the former restaurant Valhalla, once ran a well-known brothel at 1144 Pine Street in San Francisco.^[6]
• Sausalito is home to Stewart Brand founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and The WELL.
• Sausalito was home to actor Sterling Hayden from the early 1960s until his death in 1986. Hayden rented one of the pilot houses of the retired ferryboat Berkeley, then in use mainly as a gift shop on Sausalito's waterfront, as an office while he wrote his autobiographic book Wanderer (published in 1963).
• Sausalito was also home to the 20th century philosopher Alan Watts, who lived on a houseboat there.^[7] The Sausalito Library owns a permanent collection of all available audio cassettes of Alan Watts’ spoken words.[2]
• Indian liquor magnate Vijay Mallya maintains a home in Sausalito.[3]
• Sausalito is the home of Ken Pontac, the author of Happy Tree Friends, an internet series.
• Myron Spaulding, who founded the Spaulding Boatworks at the foot of Gate 5 Road in 1951, was a concert violinist, renowned sailor, and yacht designer and builder. Myron Spaulding died in the fall of 2000 at the age of 94. His widow, Gladys Spaulding, left the Spaulding Boatworks in charitable trust in 2002, which continues to operate as a living museum, boatworks and wooden boatbuilding school under the name the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center.

Industry

• Sausalito was the home of Genetic Savings & Clone, a company involved in cloning pets (now closed).
• Heath Ceramics, founded by mid-century modern ceramicist Edith Heath, has been operating in Sausalito since 1948.
• Antenna Audio has a branch in Sausalito
• In addition to Marinship, which built ships during World War II, Sausalito has a long history of boatbuilding. These boatyards specialized in a variety of vessels, including fishing and other work boats, government-contract vessels and recreational yachts. Many boatyards came and went in Sausalito in the late 1800's and early 1900's, including G. Smith, Brixen and Manfrey, the California Launch Building Company, the Reliance Boat Company, Nunes Brothers (Manuel and Antonio), Atlantic Boatbuilding Plant, Crichton and Arques, Sausalito Shipbuilding, Madden and Lewis, Menotti Pasquinucci and Bob's Boatyard. After World War II, the best known yards are, or were, Spaulding Boatworks, Bob's Boatyard, Easom Boatworks, Sausalito Marine, Bayside Boatworks, Richardson Bay Boat, the Boatbuilders Co-op, and Anderson's Boat Yard.^[8]
• The Spaulding Boatworks was founded in 1951 by Myron Spaulding and has been in continuous operation since then. It is one of the last remaining wooden boat yards on the West Coast. Today, the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center is a working and living museum, with a mission to restore historically significant wooden vessels, to preserve traditional boatbuilding skills and values, and to instruct others in wooden boat building skills.

Sausalito in Fiction

• Scenes in the 1947 film The Lady from Shanghai, directed by Orson Welles, take place on the Sausalito waterfront.
• The 1942 film China Girl has some footage of Sally Stanford's Valhalla restaurant on the waterfront. The scene shows the docks and illustrates rum running.
• Many scenes in the 1965 film Dear Brigitte with Jimmy Stewart, Glynis Johns, Ed Wynn, Billy Mumy, and Fabian were filmed on the Sausalito shores of Richardson Bay.
• In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the fictional Cetacean Institute is located in Sausalito. Although several scenes took place there, no filming was done in Sausalito itself.
• In the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, a Vulcan "compound" is based in Sausalito, although it is not depicted; Fort Baker, which borders Sausalito is shown, and has become the site of Starfleet Headquarters.
• In Sofia Coppola's 2003 film Lost in Translation, a Jazz Band called Sausalito performs at the Park Hyatt Bar.
• In Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Sausalito is mentioned as "a little fishing village" and a joke is made about it being "filled with Italians."
• In the novel The House of God, the intern Hooper hails from Sausalito.
• M*A*S*H's fictional character B.J. Hunnicutt did his medical residency in Sausalito
• Sausalito is the English title of a 2000 Hong Kong film directed by Lau Wai Keung, starring Maggie Cheung.
• A scene from the 1972 movie, Play It Again, Sam, was shot using interiors of the Trident (later Horizons) restaurant and exteriors of the Spinnaker restaurant in Sausalito. In the film, actors Woody Allen and Tony Roberts are seen entering the Spinnaker restaurant with the ferryboat, Berkeley, then tied up in Sausalito as the retail emporium, Trade Fair, in the background. The scene then cuts to the interior of the Trident.
• Albert Brooks' Mother (1996), employs the town as the setting for its story, which features several shots of Sausalito throughout.

Sausalito in Music

Songs referring to Sausalito

• "Sausalito", George Duke, Duke, 2005.
• "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding and Steve Cropper, 1967 (setting)
• Sausalito Summernight, Diesel, 1980-1981 (#25 - Billboard, #1 in Canada)
• "Samba de Sausalito", Santana, Welcome, 1973 album
• "Mr. Don", The Disco Biscuits
• "Sausalito", Grover Washington Jr., Grover Washington Live in Concert, 1977.

Albums recorded in Sausalito

• Huey Lewis and the News and the Dave Matthews Band recorded albums in Sausalito.
• The Real Thing, Faith No More
• Load, Reload, and Garage Inc, Metallica (at The Plant Studios)
• The drums on Breaking the Silence, Heathen (at Studio D)

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Sausalito has many springs, and was a common destination for early mariners to get fresh water.
• The Mason Distillery once made medicinal alcohol here.
• The Southern Pacific ferryboat Berkeley was docked in Sausalito for several years during the 1960s after being taken out of service. It was subsequently towed to San Diego where it was restored and is a tourist attraction.
• The "No Stopping" signs on the entrance to Highway 101 at the north end of Sausalito were installed because in 1978–1979 prostitutes were soliciting there. Sally Stanford was quoted as saying "Get it while you can" in response to the proposal to put up the signs.
• Sausalito is home to one of the largest houseboat communities on the West Coast. Former Bay Area radio and television host Don Sherwood spent his last years on a houseboat in Sausalito, where he died in 1983.

References

Further reading

• Tracy, Jack. Sausalito Moments in Time: A Pictorial History of Sausalito 1850-1950. Sausalito:Windgate Press 1983. ISBN 0-915269-00-7
• Sausalito Historical Society. Sausalito (Images of America). San Francisco: Arcadia Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-7385-3036-0

External links

• Sausalito Historical Society (SHS) ONLINE
• History of Sausalito article by Sausalito Historical Society
• Sausalito Cam - Live Webcam
• City of Sausalito
• Sausalito Chamber of Commerce
• Sausalito Art Artists Galleries
• Sausalito Artists Open Studios
• Spaulding Wooden Boat Center
• Arques School of Traditional Boatbuilding
• Anderson's Boat Yard

Coordinates: 37.857708° N 122.490266° W

Municipalities and communities of Marin County, California
County seat: San Rafael
Cities	Belvedere | Larkspur | Mill Valley | Novato | San Rafael | Sausalito
Incorporated towns	Corte Madera | Fairfax | Ross | San Anselmo | Tiburon
CDPs	Black Point-Green Point | Bolinas | Dillon Beach | Inverness | Kentfield | Lagunitas-Forest Knolls | Lucas Valley-Marinwood | Muir Beach | Point Reyes Station | San Geronimo | Santa Venetia | Stinson Beach | Strawberry | Tamalpais-Homestead Valley | Tomales | Woodacre
Unincorporated communities	Bel Marin Keys | Dogtown | Greenbrae | Inverness Park | Marin City | Marshall | Nicasio | Olema | Paradise Cay | San Quentin | Sleepy Hollow

Donate to Wikimedia