Pre-Playland Ocean Beach

 

Native Americans

 

 A subgroup of the Ohlone Indians, the Yelamu, lived on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in the region comprising the City and County of San Francisco before the arrival of Spanish missionaries in 1769. The first four Yelamu people who converted to Christianity were baptized by Father Palou and Father Santa Maria between 1777 and 1779. They were absorbed into the Mission San Francisco de Asís that was founded in 1776 by the Spaniards, and became some of the first "Mission Indians".

 

Within two generations of European contact, the effects of colonization and missionization, including disease and loss of their traditional economic model, drove the Yelamu people to extinction.

 

 

A short history of Mooneysville-by-the-Sea 

Robert O'Brien

 

Late in the year 1883, a weird collection of shanties, tents and lean-tos appeared on Ocean Beach, below the Cliff House. In those days, of course, there were no sea wall and paved highway, and they would have occupied what is now the boulevard in front of Playland and to the south.

 

The builders and inhabitants of this seaside community were squatters, there, as they put it, for their health. They regarded it in this light because, as they said, in order to be healthy, a man has to eat. And if he is going to eat he has to have money with which to buy food. And they proposed to settle all three problems by selling liquor to Sunday tourists at the beach.

 

Members of the Park Commission, which had jurisdiction over the beach from the Golden Gate Park frontage to the high-water mark, took one look at the unseemly hovels and suggested politely that the squatters dismantle them and leave. The squatters, not so politely, thumbed their noses at the authorities and those who did so most defiantly wereDennis Kearney, the militant leader of the Sandlot Riots, and Con Mooney, who 20 years before had been foreman of the Volunteer Fire Department's Manhattan Engine Company No. 2, and proprietor of the Pony Express Saloon, Billiard Parlor and Cock-Fighting Pit at Kearny and Washington streets.

 

"We're on the beach to stay," they said defiantly. To prove it, they declared themselves residents of an entirely new town, elected Mooney mayor, a squatter named McDavitt recorder and chose, in honor of their chief executive, the community name of Mooneysville-by-the-Sea.

For several months the Park Commissioners appealed in vain for aid. But Police Chief Crowley said he had no authority to eject the squatters by force. When they took their troubles to the superintendent of streets, he replied, "My orders have to come from the supervisors."

At length, on the last Saturday in January 1884, after hearing a desperate plea from Commissioner Frank M. Pixley, pioneer journalist and founder of the Argonaut, the supervisors instructed Chief Crowley to back up the commission in its campaign to clear the beach.

 

At 1 p.m. Sunday, Pixley declared war on the squatters. He would shortly, he announced, notify them to leave. They would be given ample time to take down their shacks and tents and cart them away. If they failed to do so within the time limit, it would be done for them.

"Next Sunday," he declared, "this beach shall be as clean as if the ocean itself had swept it."

 

He issued his ultimatum on Tuesday. Branding the squatters "trespassers," he gave them until Wednesday sunset to pull down their shacks and leave.

 

"The sun will set on Mooneysville for the last time this evening," reported the San Francisco Call. "Tomorrow Gen. Pixley will sit on it."

Wednesday, as a storm raged along the beach, Mooneysville presented a forlorn appearance, looking, to one reporter, "like the tag end of a mining camp Chinatown." Its mayor and leading citizens were in San Francisco in hopes of saving Mooneysville with a last-minute injunction.

But the following day the wreckers materialized, and the injunctions didn't. Police Sgt. Nash, in his official report to Chief Crowley, wrote the final chapter in the brief history of Mooneysville-by-the-Sea:

 

"The Fall of Mooneysville: We arrived at the beach about 7:15 a.m. About an hour afterward, park Superintendent McKewen arrived with 20 men, armed with crowbars and axes. The shanty farthest south had a notice on it to the effect that the owners would be there at noon to take it down, so that was left standing. Went to the next one, and as there was no one there, down it went; the same with the next three or four. Then came one that the owners were taking down, and they were allowed to go on. So it went on, some being taken down by the gang and some by the owners. Then down came the palace of 'Mayor Con Mooney.'

 

"Between the site of the late mayor's palace and the rocks stood Dennis Kearney, taking down his shanty, but very slowly. Superintendent McKewen sent some of his men to help him. Kearney withdrew to the road and turned to the gang who were doing work, exclaiming, 'Let the Romans pull it down.' After getting that down, the men worked north, helping those who were pulling down their places. Harry Maynard, the Kearny Street saloon keeper, arrived on the grounds at 5:15 p.m., and, on being asked what he thought of the work, he laughed and said, 'God help the poor.' "

 

Night fell, and Mooneysville-by-the-Sea was gone forever. 

 

This column originally appeared in The Chronicle Sept. 14, 1951.

 

A Train Arrives!

 

Development finally came in the late-19th century: a steam railroad was in place by 1884 to bring people to the first amusement ride at the city’s oceanside, a "Gravity Railroad" roller coaster, and to the Ocean Beach Pavilion for concerts and dancing. By 1890, trolley lines reached Ocean Beach: the Ferries and Cliff House Railroad, Park & Ocean Railroad, and Sutro Railroad that encouraged commercial amusement development as a trolley park. The Cliff House, which opened in 1863, and Sutro Baths, which opened in 1896, drew thousands of visitors.

 

From this grew Chutes at the Beach and Playland.