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Sports

History: Street Name the Only Remnant of Sharp Shooter

In the late 19th century, world champion sharp-shooter Philo Jacoby created San Rafael's Schuetzen Park, a 37-acre amusement park for shooting, bowling, dancing and dining.

On the northeast side of the newly-opened lies a stretch of land occupied by such diverse establishments as the Marin Sanitary Service, Wendy’s fast food and Marin Square’s Ross Dress for Less. Through this area runs Jacoby Street, named for Philo Jacoby, who founded an amusement park that once covered this vast region.

Jacoby was a Schuetzen-Koenig, king of the sharpshooters, who reigned for many years as an international rifle champion. German and Swiss immigrants brought Schuetzen, a precision shooting style, to the United States in the 1880s. The clubs they formed, called Vereins, served both social and athletic interests, and members competed in shooting matches, or Schuetzenfests, both at home and abroad.

Polish-born Philo Jacoby began work as a printer in Sacramento, where he met Swiss immigrant Captain John Sutter of Gold Rush fame at a shooting match.  Responding to Jacoby’s intense enthusiasm for the sport, Sutter taught Jacoby marksmanship.

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Jacoby moved to San Francisco and in 1863, became editor and publisher of a weekly, The Hebrew, the first Jewish newspaper on the West Coast. He never missed an issue in 49 years, except for the week following the 1906 fire.

Jacoby was admired for both his athletic prowess and his intellect. He served as a second for Mark Twain in a boxing match at the Olympic Club, of which he was a charter member. He was also a leader of the Hebrew Athletic Club and of the San Francisco Turnverein, an ethnic-German gymnastic club.

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In 1863 Jacoby joined the San Francisco Schuetzen Verein where he soon began winning matches and eventually became president. He later formed the California Schuetzen Club to compete at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. This first World's Fair  in the United States celebrated the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

At this event, Jacoby and his team competed against 200 of the world’s best sharpshooters. Jacoby was proclaimed “Champion Rifle Shot of the World” and returned to San Francisco a hero. He continued to compete in schuetzenfests throughout his life and ultimately won so many medals he could not wear them all on his chest.

Shooting matches were immensely popular at a time when volunteer military groups flourished. Many of these militia were based on ethnic affiliations, such as the Irish-American Hibernian Guards. Until 1903 when the National Guard was formed, these militia provided protection services along with state and federal forces. The city of San Francisco called on the San Francisco Schuetzen Club for emergency crowd control when needed.

Shell Mound Park, in what’s now called Emeryville, was a popular spot for schuetzen club matches. Jacoby wanted improved facilities, so in 1890 he and his club purchased a 37-acre tract of land south of San Rafael. Visitors from San Francisco took the ferry across the bay, then the Northwestern Pacific Railroad train dropped them off at the Schuetzen Park station.

For the park grand opening on April 2, 1891, the Marin Journal reported, “The California Schuetzen Club is an old, widely known, wealthy and influential association, embracing in its membership the best elements of the German-American population on this coast…The Club has thirty-seven acres of land, embracing a charming variety of hill and flat. The elevated part is mostly sheltered with pleasant shade trees and covered with a rich carpet of grass and wild flowers, and from its crest, the eye commands panoramas of widely varying and exceedingly beautiful scenery.

“On the level toward San Rafael have been constructed the buildings of the association – a dance pavilion 80x110, a dining salon and cuisine, bowling alleys, etc., etc., and the most complete and perfect rifle gallery in the country. The facilities included a sprinting track an eighth of a mile long."

The Tocsin reported that “the Directors and their friends arrived on the 11:20 train from San Francisco and at 1 o’clock the Stars and Stripes were hoisted on all the buildings to signify that the Club had taken possession of its new quarters…With the champagne, which flowed like a mountain stream in winter, came many toasts, which were responded to appropriately and enthusiastically.”

In just one week, the park was booked for picnics for the whole season. On October 15, 1891 the Marin Journal reported that “the Third Regiment camped last Saturday at Schuetzen Park and had a merry time. Their tents occupied a large part of the capacious park and made it a scene of life, beauty and military activity very attractive to outsiders.”

The November 18, 1895, the San Francisco Call reported on Turkey Day: “The early trains to San Rafael brought the best crowds of the season. The firing began about 10 o'clock in all of the stalls with tremendous tumult…Everyone got a turkey, no matter what score he registered…Quite a number of the ladies of the California Schuetzen Club were at the range and shot for monthly medals.”

Throngs of visitors filled the park on opening day in April, 1898. The Marin Journal noted that of the 20,000 invitations sent, over 7,000 people attended, a few conducted themselves in a disorderly manner, and only one was locked up.

The facilities were rented to other organizations for a variety of events including the annual picnic of the Journeymen Butchers' Protective and Benevolent Association of San Francisco and the thirty-first anniversary of the Retail Grocers' Protective Union.

Due to intense anti-German sentiment during World War I, Schuetzen was dropped from the park’s name and the sport lost popularity. Jacoby died in 1922 and did not live to see his park destroyed by fire one year later.

In a 1980 oral history, Charles Tacchi, who grew up at Remillard Brick Yard where his father was foreman, recalled searching as a boy for lead left by the shooters. He resold the lead, claiming that “it beat collecting milk bottles.” Today the only remaining trace of Schuetzen Park is the street named for the international sportsman.

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