Lagunitas Lake vs Lagunitas town

With an alarming disregard for geography, Facebook folks keep misidentifying old photos of Lake Lagunitas above Ross on Mt. Tam as the unrelated town of Lagunitas, in the San Geronimo Valley, which was part of the 1906 Lagunitas Land Development Company tract. They are not one and the same place. One did not spawn the other. But the dual toponym keeps on confusing people—especially since Lagunitas Brewery moved to Petaluma! No wonder I need a drink!

Lake Lagunitas was part of the San Rafael Township, Ross Landing School District, the old Tomales Baulinas Rancho lands. It was listed as a laguna on the diseño of Cañada de Herrera map of 1839. A very small body of water, not a town.

The current town of Lagunitas, ok, so it’s not a town but a hamlet—also referred to as Lagunitas Station, was so small it didn’t even have a post office until 1906, (can someone verify the PO story please?) It is on the San Geronimo rancho lands and school district. I need maps. Please send maps.

From my understanding, the current town of Lagunitas didn’t even come into existence until 1906. My grandfather bought three lots, so this date jives with family stories. And you certainly couldn’t go boating on the creek that runs through it—not even when Shafter’s was dammed. Unless it was a toy boat. Say toy boat five times real fast after you’ve had a beer. I double dare ya.

“Adolph Mailliard bought the San Geronimo Valley in 1867 for $50,000. The Mailliard children started to partition the property in 1906 by filing the first Lagunitas tract map. The Lagunitas Development Company bought the Mailliard holdings in 1912 and created the Woodacre and San Geronimo tracts in 1913. —Caption provided by Jim Staley” Plausable, and verifiable.

Seems to me that the omlet, I mean hamlet of Lagunitas took its name from the Mailliard land division, as there was no other wide spot in the road called Lagunitas. No lakes or large puddles involved.

Note there are only four buildings noted on the Van Dorn map, 1860?  

Someone said that when the dam was put in at the laguna that is now known as Lake Lagunitas, a small village at the lake was moved to its present site. Huh? The Van Dorn map, 1860, only shows four buildings. The problem with that story is that there always was a laguna there, and to move a village all the way from the Ross area over an impenetrable wilderness sometimes referred to as Lagunitas Canyon, to San Geronimo is cumbersome. Not to mention downright implausible. Besides, it was the township of San Rafael’s water supply. Why would there be a village in the water supply?

The idea of calling that lengthy canyon, and creek Lagunitas all the way to Tomales Bay is a modern watershed convention. Hold my beer, er, um, thought. Not to mention the fact that what became the townlet of Lagunitas predated the Lagunitas dam if we are to believe the IJ account. Has anyone ever bothered to verify that claim? 

Another train of thought is that a hamlet called Lagunitas once existed in the canyon where Kent Lake is now. That entire canyon (below Alpine Dam) was nearly impenetrable, not a likely site for a village. Let alone, a dairy. There was a lumber camp, and a train spur—(rail roadies, we could use your expertise here). But the problem with that moving village story to outrun the dam is that the Kent Lake dam didn’t even go in until 1957. So why did the hamlet up and move? When did the Shafter’s spur get decommissioned?

Unless they meant Alpine Dam, there were submerged dairy ranch lands, but that event is also late on the timeline as the dam dates to 1917. So threatening doom of dams and swamped villages on the move doesn’t float my beer, I mean, boat. I’m going with HL Mencken here, logical, plausable, wrong.

I found this: “The unincorporated town of Lagunitas (“little lakes”) began appearing on maps in the early 1860s when it was first mentioned as a voting district in the 1862 election cycle with 28 voters.... Lagunitas was selected to be one of many station stops along the route of the North Pacific Coast Railroad (NPC) line built in the mid-1870s.” Yes, but where? Does anyone actually have a map showing where the original Lagunitas town was? Has anyone ever verified this story? I’m big on veritas. 

Also, Lagunitas Creek, which has three forks that begin high in the slopes of Mt. Tam before forming the laguna later named Lagunita, sheds its name, becomes Little /Big Carson Creek, etc., depending upon who held the pen to the map and who was buying the next round.

Lots of fodder for arguments there, because by the time that particular waterway joined the San Geronimo Creek. As kids we called the creek San Geronimo, Creamery, Forest Knolls, Lagunitas, even Papermill Creek, depending upon where we were located....same creek, different names. For the record, that San Geronimo name for the waterway managed to make it all the way to Tomales Bay at one point. Point Reyes Station was situated on a bend of the San Geronimo creek. Yep. I found it on an old Rancho map. Van Dorn’s 1860 map of Marin labels the stretch of creek that goes from Woodacre to Pt. Reyes Sta. in its entire length, as Arroyo de San Geronimo. 

The paper mill is marked on the map but the creek wasn't called Papermill Creek. Probably Arroyo de San Geronimo, but Lagunitas Creek was one ridge to the west, not in the San Geronimo Valley. The 1860 map predates the construction of the reservoirs, and you can see that the long north-south creek following the San Andreas faultline, where Kent, Alpine, Bon Tempe, Phoenix, and Lagunitas are all located, is clearly marked as Lagunitas Creek.

And also for the record, what we now call Lagunitas Creek joins San Geronimo Creek BELOW Shafter’s Dam and the Inkwell (singular.) It is not even in the town of Lagunitas. I won’t mention that watering hole, formerly known as Forest Knolls Lodge, Papermill Creek Saloon, is actually on San Geronimo Creek, not Lagunitas, or Papermill Creek. 

Then Lagunitas Creek became called something else —Daniels, or Stevens?—Creek, some white dude, forget the native name, Tokeleluma. Then when Taylor set up shop, it morphed into Papermill Creek. So much depends upon the origin and definition of headwaters, and who was telling the story. And how colloquial we want to get. Right now, the entire waterway from Lagunitas Lake to Tomales Bay is called Lagunitas Creek. But like I said, it’s a modern USGS sanctioned convention.

Today's town of Lagunitas didn't yet exist, it was a 1906 subdivision. The real hamlet of Lagunitas was where Shafter's RR spur and water tank, along with the Log Cabin were located, at the sharp bend where Arroyo de San Geronimo joins Lagunitas Creek. Lagunitas Canyon had several logging camps, hence the name, Lagunitas, for the creek in the canyon, not the lake.

Lagunitas means little lakes, and even before there was a dam, there was water there. Hence the name. Technically it is a reservoir. Calling it Lake Lagunitas is the department of redundancy department, sort of like the double whammy Spanglish names: Labrea Tarpits, and Laguna Lake. But that’s a lost argument. Who’s buying the next round?

USGS Variant Names
Lagunita
Lagunitas
Lagunitas Lake

It’s listed as a laguna on the Spanish maps, meaning lake, or lagunita, small lake, no s, not plural. The added s may be a Yankee accretion. 

“Lagunitas is the oldest and smallest lake in the Mount Tamalpais watershed, with surface area of 22 acres. The dam was completed in 1872.” —Wiki

Check out the maps. The earliest map I found was 1860, and it’s not very clear. The dam was added in 1872. There’s an 1873 map, also clear as mud. I know there’s an 1856 map, a clear image of it would be appreciated. If anyone can find a better copy of that map, or any early Marin maps it would be awesome. Where is Dewey Livingston when we need him? I’m thinking of the Anne T. Kent Library annex with those massive maps. The Marin Co Library should have high res maps of Marin readily available for those of us inexplicably up before the roosters. Thanks for listening to my 4AM ramblings. As I uncover more info, I’ll add it, so check back early and often. Cheers!

Lagunitas Brewery posters are now collectibles.

FYI, Lagunitas Brewery began over a beer, whether said beer was located in Forest Knolls or Lagunitas, is moot, as they didn’t get the septic tank permit to built it in Lagunitas. Geoff Davis says, For those in the know, House of Richards, 1st keg.” Makes sense, he had the space for it. I never knew where they thought they were going to put the brewery in Lagunitas. I don’t know how, or why, but my aunt Jane, who was working at Valley Travel, knew the skinny as to why they moved to Petaluma. But she’s no longer with us.

From a Facebook post