History: Swimmers Flocked to Saltwater Baths

Highway 101 slices through town over what was once the channel to San Rafael’s working waterfront. An embarcadero at about Third and A streets allowed the Mission fathers to ship and receive goods from San Francisco. Scows brought in hay for the horses that worked on east Marin ranches. Small sloops, whaling boats and tule boats navigated the slough to First and C Streets where pioneer Timoteo Murphy had a small wharf. Later railroad magnate A.W. Foster built warehouses and piers to load and receive merchandise from ships that slid up the slough to his landing.

The Salt Water Baths

With the railroads, shipping to San Rafael declined, and in the late 1880s the western end of the San Rafael Canal was transformed into the San Rafael Salt Water Baths. The San Francisco and Northern Pacific Railroad stopped at the site to bring passengers from across the Bay to the idyllic spot for swimming and boating.

In 1901, Charles P. Ware took a 10-year lease from the city of San Rafael and created the new, improved San Rafael open-air saltwater baths. The canal was dredged near the Irwin Street bridge to create pools 200 feet long and 35 feet wide. Ware built an office and 20 dressing rooms where swimmers could change.

Marin resident Genevieve Cochrane Martinelli recalls the baths in her oral history: “None of us owned a bathing suit. We rented a towel and suit for twenty-five cents. When we finished swimming and changed our clothes in the old wooden bathhouses we had to rinse our suits and towels, put them through a hand wringer, return them to Mr. or Mrs. Sims. They were the managers.

“The suits and towels were hung in the sun to dry. Imagine the sanitation. The Sims were a dear fat (sic) couple. They tolerated no nonsense. Anyone who stepped out of line was sent away and told not to come back, and, believe me, they didn’t disobey. The older folks would row around the water in flat-bottom boats.”

Bathing Suit Causes Alarm

In 1908, the San Francisco Call described a great commotion at the recreation site. “The men bathers at the San Rafael salt water baths nearly drowned this afternoon…As each man went down his eyes were fixed, as if governed by some great magnet, on the door leading from the women’s dressing room…Miss Mabel Cramer, a beautiful girl, had entered wearing a directiore bathing suit. The skirt of Nile green, worn over pink fleshings, which abruptly ended a trifle about the knees, was slashed 14 inches on either side. In the course of time the men grew more accustomed to the unusual to say nothing of original, swimming attire.”

According to the Call, Miss Cramer said her suit was "safe, sane, and conservative, besides being an aid to swimming." Young Mabel Cramer, a San Rafael resident, aspired to be an actress. She was praised by the San Francisco Call on November 12, 1912 for her "remarkable beauty and original mind." A friend of photographer Arnold Genthe, she modeled for Alfred Stieglitz in New York and became immortalized in his "Mabel Cramer" series.

The Municipal Baths

In 1914 at a crowded meeting of San Rafael’s Board of Trustees, Mayor Sig Herzog passed a resolution to build a new municipal bathhouse at Second and Lincoln over the old saltwater swimming area. The contract was awarded to J.A. Kappenmann for $40,000. The mission-style building designed by architect Thomas O’Connor was 200 feet long, 90 feet wide and 50 feet high. Spanning San Rafael Creek, it was constructed of pre-fabricated steel and had an oval glass roof to let in light. The pool, 100 long and 40 feet wide, sported a diving board and a 30-foot high springboard.

According to a Summer 2006 newsletter article by Jocelyn Moss, Marin History Museum Librarian, “the first floor held the tank, which measured 50 by 120 feet, a children’s tank of 25 by 40 feet, dressing rooms and lavatories. On the second floor a balcony surrounded the pool below, where spectators could watch the activities. There was a slide from the second floor into the pool, as well as a diving board for the deep end, which was nine feet deep. The water came from the canal and was treated to make it exceptionally pure—it was filtered four times, left standing in the sun for a week, then treated chemically and heated to eighty degrees.”

Prior to opening the baths, the San Rafael Board of Trustees closed a deal with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to supply steam heat to the municipal bath for a period of five years at a cost of 50 cents per 1,000 pounds. During the winter months it was expected that requirements would run as high at 662,500 pounds per month.

Opening Day

Opening day on April 18, 1915 drew 2,000 visitors, and for years, the baths continued to attract large crowds. In 1916 the California State Board of Health stated that “the San Rafael baths are probably the finest municipal baths in this state.”

In April 27, 1918, The Sausalito News proclaimed “we know of no more delightful or healthy recreation for our people and guests, and the baths of San Rafael are particularly attractive. The management is always courteous, the pool is well kept and immaculately clean and the waters are chlorinated and free from all the deleterious influence. Patronize freely and evidence your appreciation of one of the city’s chief amusements.”

Genevieve Martinelli remembers that “In the summer everyone went swimming in the huge municipal baths or Plunge as it was called…The Plunge had replaced the old open swimming baths where the salt water from the bay was drawn in through floodgates with the tide.”

Former Marin Superior Court Judge Carlos B. Freitas also recalls the baths in his oral history: “I can tell you about the baths. I practically lived there…That is where I learned how to swim. Well, we all really learned how to swim in the creek at the home ranch which is now the creek in Terra Linda, which has been straightened out, but in those days it was meandered and had potholes, as it were. We would learn how to swim in those potholes. I remember coming to town here on horseback and bringing my lunch with me and going to the San Rafael Municipal Baths and swimming there all day long then riding horseback home, and that was a full day.”

The baths became a center of community activity. Aquatic carnivals attracted crowds, local schools and organizations put on water shows, and the Red Cross held swimming safety classes. The city employed Howard Duffy as the live-in superintendent.

Marin's Sweetest Daughter

Fame came to the San Rafael Municipal Baths when Eleanor Garatti, a local girl who had grown up swimming at the baths, became a competitive swimmer. Eleanor was a descendent of some of the many Italian immigrants from Lonnate Pozzolo who settled in the Gerstle Park neighborhood near the baths. Her family operated B Street's Garatti’s Market, known for its delicious ravioli.

Local merchant contributions helped send Eleanor to the 1925 national competition in Florida, where she won her first championship swimming the 50-yard freestyle. San Rafael Mayor D.D. Bowman praised her as “Marin’s sweetest daughter.”

The young high school student broke records in swim meets across the country on subsequent trips subsidized by San Rafael merchants. In just a few years, Eleanor became an Olympic champion by winning medals in the 1928 Amsterdam and 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.

Olympic Champ Returns Home

Garatti’s return to Marin from the 1928 Olympics, according to the Marin Journal “resembled nothing short of a ticker-tape parade on Wall Street: a specially decorated train met the ferry in Sausalito when Miss Garatti, one year out of high school, returned in triumph from Holland. The Northwestern Pacific train stopped at every town along the way and at each town, she was greeted by city officials and townspeople.

“When it reached San Rafael, three brass bands, including the Sciots Bank and the drum corps of the Native Sons… escorted her up Fourth Street to the county courthouse, where she was formally greeted by city officials and local luminaries. 'Through your achievements,' said Marvelous Marin, Inc. president Harry Ridgeway, 'the name of San Rafael and Marin County has gone not only across the continent but over the ocean to Europe.'"

Little Burner Co.

The economic depression forced the baths to close during the 1930s. After a few years, the city leased the bathhouse to the H.C. Little Burner Company, which converted the building into a factory for residential oil burners. On June 4, 1949, the building caught fire in a blaze fueled by the oil and paints contained within. Thousands gathered to watch firemen struggle to put out the raging flames, which destroyed the building but not neighboring structures.

Today the Second Street on-ramp to southbound Highway 101 covers most traces of the saltwater basin where so many took pleasure in its waters. The Marin County Watershed Program may propose restoring the channel of Mahon Creek between B Street and the freeway, but no amount of restoration can bring back the days of swimming and boating in San Rafael's saltwater baths.

Oral histories courtesy of the Anne T. Kent California Room.

Several of these photographs were provided by the . If you are interested in purchasing these photographs or others from their collection please call 415-382.0770x3 or email photoservices@marinhistory.org.