The Tiburon Issue

Tiburon’s not hard to love, set like it is on the tip of the Tiburon Peninsula overlooking Raccoon Strait, Angel Island, and San Francisco. The surprise here is the strong sense of place. The town is very much lived in by its residents, and the experience is very real. Many people come to Tiburon to enjoy the beautiful restaurants along the waterfront. The perfect getaway, its only 6 miles over the water from the city, yet it is a different world-highly scenic and rich in heritage. In Tiburon’s not so distant past, railroad tracks and a ferry terminal made up much of what is now downtown. This was the empire of Peter Donahue, a profoundly driven man who started Union Iron Works, the first foundry in gold rush-era San Francisco. He produced many ships and locomotives before bringing to Tiburon his San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad-complete with ferry service from San Francisco and a rail line from Tiburon to San Rafael. By 1885, the daily schedule included 6 round-trip train and ferry connections between San Francisco and San Rafael with stops north to Cloverdale.

The SF&NP Railroad competed with John Doherty’s North Pacific Coast Railroad in Sausalito. In the heyday of the local lines, it cost 50 cents round-trip from San Francisco to San Rafael whether you went with Donahue’s line through Tiburon or Doherty’s line via Sausalito. The spirited local lines thrived on the competition, and the rival ferries would race to the San Francisco dock. Once in 1886, Sausalito’s San Rafael and Donahue’s Tiburon, collided near the San Francisco Ferry building, badly damaging the superstructure of the San Rafael, but breaking only a window on the Tiburon. Imagine the raucousness of ferryboats dueling for the speed. Racing was not officially endorsed under either management, but it had been announced that any captain caught losing to a Donahue ferry would be given double the usual five demerits dealt to a captain caught racing.

In an different context, the race of speed lives on for the ferries serving Tiburon and Sausalito today. In an effort to increase ridership by enticing commuters, the Sausalito fleet introduced a faster boat. Not to be outdone, the Tiburon fleet followed suit, only to find that some Tiburon commuters are more interested in their quality time onboard. Promoters of the slow ride, a group known as the fantail club, was concerned that the fast boat (20 minute crossing) left no time for a second cocktail. The slow boat (30 minute crossing) was put back on the schedule to meet the demand. If you ride the slow boat to Tiburon, you may find them rolling dice at the bar to determine who "wins" the honor of buying the round for riding members. Dick Otter, a Belvedere stock broker whose been riding since 1968, was out of the dice game with a high roll, and kind enough to explain for me the club rituals. The back of Dick’s membership card distinguishes the fantail club as the "oldest established permanent floating commute club." Members agree to: "promote the ferryboat as the only way to commute," and to "smile at all strangers who ride the ferry." Meanwhile, Paul Keating, Tom Freilberger, Doug O’Conner and Jack Brooks continue to roll the dice until each (except ultimately Paul) rolls out. Paul buys the round. "Now we go topside" Dick tells me. Fantail club members have a 

requirement for membership that they be shat upon by a seagull while on the fantail of the boat. Dick informs me that this usually occurs when the herring run. The props flip the fish up, and the gulls follow. After riding the ferry to Tiburon on such a fine evening, I decide fantail clubbers’ve got their priorities in life well figured out.

But, what happened to the Tiburon and other tales? The Tiburon, powered by an engine Donahue built in his Union Iron Works, was the first ferry built in Tiburon. It was the star of the line until it was outperformed by Donahue’s new ferry, the Ukiah . Obsolete, the Tiburon was retired, served as a dormitory along the Tiburon Wharf in 1922 for railroad strikebreakers, and was later sold for scrap. Also built at Tiburon, and so named when the Donahue line extended north to Ukiah in 1890, the Ukiah was the largest ferry ferryboat in the world at the time. The Ukiah was rebuilt and renamed the Eureka in 1923, when it ran between Sausalito and San Francisco until 1941, and then between San Francisco-Oakland until 1957. You can now visit the Eureka at the San Francisco Maritime State Historical Park in San Francisco. Not until 1962 did Tiburon see direct ferry service again, thanks to a push from the Belvedere Tiburon Conservation League in an effort to ease traffic congestion and rejuvenate the waterfront.