There were several owners of Princeton Packers; here’s a little info on A.M. Patrick from the Half Moon Bay Review, 1945
“”Ending 20 years with F.E. Booth Company, A.M. Patrick, San Francisco production manager, who recently submitted his resignation, is President and Manager of the newly organized Princeton Packers. He is a native of Berkeley. Patrick lived in Pittsburg until two years ago when he was promoted from superintendent to production manager.
“‘Pat’ as he likes to be called by his friends lives in Berkeley, with his wife and two daughters, Margaret and Kathleen.
“William M. Wilson, former accounting department employee of Columbia Steel was transferred to the Booth firm about two years ago.
“With the Booth plant oil refinery department in Pittsburg only two years, Wilson worked for Columbia Steele Company’s accounting department about 15 years. He makes his home in Half Moon Bay with his wife and three children, William, James and Sally Ann.
“Vincent Carusa is the father of three sons and a daughter. Vincent has two children in service, Corporal Irving Carusa in the Aleutian area 18 months, and Bernice Carusa, a yeoman, third class in the WAVES, based at San Francisco. Walter Carusa is married and makes his home in Pittsburg, Calif., while Stephen Carusa, is a student at St. Mary’s College, following his recent graduation from Pittsburg High School. He expects to enter service on his 18th birthday.
“Vincent and his brother Steve Carusa founded several of the Pittsburg’s business firms and were responsible for Pittsburg’s first mortuary, dray business and ice and fuel plant; the latter of which they sold to Union Ice Company in 1934.
“Steve, and his brother, Vincent, who pioneered several of the Pittsburg’s major business firms, are stockholders in the corporation, as is James J. Davi, owners of James Jewelers, and now in Coast Guard services, based in Alameda. James Jewelers is now being operated by his wife, the former Victoria Daniele.”
This little honey pulled into the Chevron Gas Station in Half Moon Bay recently and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Perfect in every way.
Replica of a 427 Cobra, driven by Carroll Shelby in the 1960s. The acclaimed 427 won international awards in 1965.
“The AC Cobra was an Anglo-Americansports car built in the 1960s. Contrary to popular belief it was not the first car to combine a lightweight European chassis and aluminium body with a big American V8 engine, but it is possibly the most famous. The later, larger-engined cars are still among the highest-performing road vehicles ever sold….” From Wikipedia
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Back in the late 1970s, I self-published “Half Moon Bay Memories: The Coastside’s Colorful Past.” It was an exciting project, taking me places: physical, intellectual and emotional that I’d never explored before. My dream of emulating the Paris publishers of the 1920s had been fulfilled. I published a book that I loved.
“Memories” received a lot of publicity, including a big spread in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. As a result, I got letters from all over the country, letters that I’ve kept in a couple of shoe boxes. I realize now, having the Internet as an excellent resource, that I should have paid closer attention to some of the letter writers because they had good stories to tell me– but I didn’t follow up.
There were three letters from the Wiegels, postmarked San Francisco and Berkeley. J. Mason Wiegel, an attorney and editor of the Weekly Law Digest, headquartered on Montgomery Street, noted that as a child he had lived in El Granada in the house pictured on the bottom of page 142 of my book. His father had worked for the Ocean Shore Railroad, riding the train into the City every day. The Wiegels moved when the Ocean Shore filed bankruptcy.
In 1979 I also received a letter from R.I. Wiegel, a Berkeley resident. He was interested in buying the Memories book.
I didn’t connect the two Wiegels, J. Mason and R.L., until recently when I rummaged through the shoe boxes, opening and reading the 30-year-old letters, still crisp in their envelopes. A quick search of J. Mason Wiegel on the ‘net told me that he was gone–but copies of his Weekly Law Digest were available at a used book site. About R.I. Wiegel, I didn’t have a clue.
Meanwhile John Vonderlin, fascinated with the 1946 April Fool’s Day Tidal Wave, discovered that some photos of the tsunami’s damage at Princeton-by-the-Sea, might be found in the archives at UC Berkeley.
John was right. There were photos I hadn’t seen archived in the Water Resources Center, O’Brien Building, at Berkeley. The specific collection I wanted to see was kept in the R.L. Wiegel Collection. (There are some 50,000 images in the Wiegel Collection with about 16 of them relating to the 1946 tsunami.)
After the first of the year, 2008, Burt and I headed for the O’Brien Building, which we saw right away, is like going back in time. It is not a hi-tech venue. All around the old O’Brien Building, there are brand new structures going up, serving to emphasize the difference.
School wasn’t in full session so I didn’t have to wait long to see the slides in the R.L. Wiegel Collection. About 15 minutes later an elderly man walked into the room. He was clearly a man of authority and respect as the staff gathered around him.
One of the staff approached me and told me the man was Professor Robert Wiegel, would I like to meet him? Of course. Seconds later I was talked with the professor and had learned he was the man who had written me the letter in 1979. His brother was J. Mason Wiegel. Their father had worked for the Ocean Shore, completing the plans for El Granada and when the railroad ran out of money, Wiegel, Sr. was paid in building lots which he sold off slowly.
“My father said El Granada was the most beautiful place in the world,” Professor Wiegel told me.
I told him I had kept his correspondence; he said he still lived with his wife in the same house. Now in his 80’s, he didn’t come into the office much, so our encounter was special, indeed.
————————————
Here are the photos, all courtesy: Robert L. Wiegel Coastal Slide Collection, Water Resources Center Archives–University of California, Berkeley
1. Anderson, Howard (UCB Waves Project). About 10:30 a.m. Coast Guard pier and Romeo Fish Company. Tidal wave receding, highest level of water tried to lift boat in davits (at end of pier) and came to deck stringers. Highest tide reached 14.8 stage. (Robert L. Wiegel Coastal Slides Collection.)
2. Anderson, Howard (UCB Waves Project). April 2, 1946, tide at 3.7 stage, showing normal appearance of pier. Water came level with porch deck of Coast Guard shack at left. (Robert I. Wiegel Coastal Slides Collection.)
3, 4. Anderson, Howard (UCB Waves Project). Half Moon Bay 4-1-46. (About 10:30 a.m.) Miscellaneous pictures of tidal wave receding.(Robert L. Wiegel Coastal Slides Collection.)
5. Anderson, Howard (UCB Waves Project) Half Moon Bay. About 10:30 a.m. Tidal wave receding, level of water is said to have come to the window sills of the house. Tide of 14.8 (Robert L. Wiegel Coastal Slides Collection.)
6. April 2, 1946. Tide at 3.7 stage. Same scene from end of pier. Coast Guard shack at right center. Beach was formerly fine sand; is now denuded, leaving hard clay base. (Robert L. Wiegel Coastal Slides Collection.)
[One part of coast-side history that is noteworthy is the Mangue family. Ida, Ernie and their three children: Ron the eldest, then Jeanie and Rudy, who was a year or so older than me.]
My first job was working for Ida at her crab stand which was across from the HMB Brewing Co. on that now priceless piece of barren land right on the water. I was in the 4th grade and worked weekends, icing down the fish, cleaning, cracking and picking crab, and all the other cool stuff you do in the operation of a crab stand.
Ida was a sweet lady and you couldn’t help but like her. She had a loyal clientele that were more like family. It was a great place for a little guy to work.
Ida’s husband Ernie, a real character, was a commercial fisherman and abalone diver. The boys also worked with their dad.
Jeanie worked at the crab stand too. She was a hottie.
The Mangues bought the restaurant across the street, now the Brewing Co. Ernie was the chef, Jeanie the waitress, and I was everything else. Ida continued running the crab stand. The boys took over the fishing part of the operation.
When Ron was in high school, he fished with his dad on the week-ends. They’d head out to sea early in the morning and work all day. By the time they got back to the pier and unloaded their catch, little time was left for the pursuit of the opposite sex. Time was of the essence, and any serious competitor knew he’d better get out there if he were to catch something.
Ron had a collection of brightly colored Pendleton shirts. He’d throw one on, never bothering to take time to change his fish flavored levis, hell, that was what Mennen Skin Bracer aftershave was all about.
I was amazed at how quickly he could change and fly to his chariot, and then shoot to town. If odors had color, he would have left beautiful comtrail. Hence the “Mangue Bath�?.
And by the way, he did eventually hook himself a dandy.
Ida and Ernie bought ‘Rotten Ralph’s burger joint (now Sam’s Chowder house) and moved their restaurant business there, and operated it until Ida died.
Well June there’s a little. To this day those of us who knew Ron still call it taking a ‘Mangue’.
Here’s a review of Princeton-by-the-Sea by Coastsider.com
Story by Barry Parr, Coastsider.com
June Morrall’s Princeton-by-the-Sea is a compact history of a compact part of the Coastside. From the unincorporated neighborhood of Miramar, up the coast to the radar antenna at the Air Force tracking station, these few square miles are San Mateo County’s connection to the Pacific. At the end this Review, we’ll tell of you how you can win an autographed copy of this interesting book.
June’s photo history shows many of the buildings in today’s Princeton in their original settings, complete with the cast of characters who made their lives there. June Morrall is the author of the Half Moon Bay Memories blog and wrote and produced the film Mystery of Half Moon Bay (1981).
Princeton is a peculiar piece of land. It features million dollar views and some of our most popular tourist destinations, but it is also littered with storage lockers, the rusting remnants of its industrial past, and a big chunk of the Coastside’s criminal element. While it has been a destination since the days of the Ocean Shore Railway and still serves thousands of tourists, it has never lived up to its potential.
June’s book captures some very special moments in Princeton: When it was a much more vital fishing port than it is today, when Pete Douglas founded the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society as artists converged on the Coastside, when surfers discovered Mavericks, when bootleggers landed liquor bound for San Francisco, and when the Coastside was an important center for drag racing.
Most dramatic are the photographs of the damage caused by a tsunami on April Fool’s Day, 1946. It’s a reminder of how vulnerable this part of the Coastside is to another devastating big wave.
Princeton’s not the most thrilling piece of real estate in the world and it has always been kind of scruffy, like any working harbor. June’s book is a good introduction to the way that many Coastsiders then and now made their living from the sea.
You can get it from Amazon if you must, but you really should drop by your favorite Coastside bookstore to get your copy.
How to win a copy from Coastsider: The publisher sent us five copies of June’s book, which she has graciously autographed for us. Share your memories of Princeton with us, or your dreams for its future by attaching a comment to this story. We’ll award copies to the best comments as well as to a couple of randomly chosen entries—so you can win either by being the best, or simply by showing up. Remember, you can’t post unless you’re a registered user and you use your real name. Click here to register. It only takes a few seconds.
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As a college student in the 1960s, June Morrall and friends would visit the Coastside and the funky ambience of Princeton.
As an adult, living on the coast and either writing professionally or working to support her passion for writing, she researched, chronicled and shared the history of the area she had come to love.
Her latest undertaking is “Images of America: Princeton-by-the-Sea” (Arcadia Publishing, 127 pages, $19.99) She visits Bay Book Company Friday to discuss her work.
In the style of Arcadia’s Images of America series, which profiles the histories and stories of small communities across the country, it tells Princeton’s story in photographs with detailed captions. Many are historical, but others might be familiar to today’s Coastsiders.
Princeton may be small and quiet, but over seven lively chapters, the book delves into the many worlds that unfolded there.
It presents Ocean Shore Railroad stretching to the beaches. It reveals the rumrunners and roadhouses that gave the area a whiff of scandal during Prohibition. Local icons, and colorful incidents attached to them, include Hazel’s restaurant (and the 1946 tidal wave that struck it) and Ida’s seafood eatery and the small “cannery row” it spawned.
Subsequent chapters follow the drag strip and racers, big waves and surfers, the beatniks that predated Pete Douglas and the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, and today’s Mavericks subculture.
“In this place and at one time there were 300 people” here, Morrall said, but “I knew there were layers of history taking place under the scenic photographs.”
“‘We may have to divide the area (of Doeger’s development) into two water districts,’ said Jack H. Dovey, program director of the engineering firm of Wilsey, Ham and Blair, to the Montara Sanitary District board last Friday night. His reply was to a question from board member Hughes M. Blowers. Dovey had previously stated, ‘This is really a problem., and we’re still studying the suppliers. At the present time it doesn’t look as if the Doelger development can be completely served by one district.’
“Asked by Blowers why the initial development was at the lower end of the airport, Dovey replied, ‘Many reasons. Closeness to recreational facilities, especially the harbor, which is a big attraction; availability utilities, ; level land, and its location at the end of the new freeway.’ Dovey did not elaborate on ‘availability of utilities.’ He also mentioned the desirability of a bridge across Cabrillo highway connecting the new homes to the harbor.
“Queried by board member Knute Kleinen [ed. I rented my first house from him in El Granada] if natural gas would be provided for the new development opposite the airport, Dovey replied that it was active consideration by P G and E, most likely from the easterly direction…..”
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‘Drag racing will be treated to an outstanding meet when Half Moon Bay Drag Strip opens its 10th season on Sunday.
“This will be the first outing for most of the new 1965 competition models in the stock and super-stock field. Many of the entrants will be cars that have competed in the Winter Nationals on February 7 at Pomona. It is the custom for these cars, from all over the country, to remain on the West Coast for a few weeks and make as many appearances as their schedule will allow.
“Dragsters, too, will be competing in the February 14 event at Half Moon Bay. Many of the cars that will be on hand will have undergone major improvements during the winter lay-off, and Half Moon Bay Drag Director Don Smith expects track records to fall in all classes in the very first meet of the year.
“As in the past, all events held at Half Moon Bay in 1965, will be under the sanction of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).
“Gates open at 8:30 a.m. with eliminations beginning at 12:30 p.m.”
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Princeton-by-the-Sea is a place filled with legends and tall tales.
An oft-asked question: Who burned down the beloved Crab Cottage?
As the legend goes, John and Slim were two characters that slept in a wood pile. They didn’t bother anyone….unless having way too much to drink counts. One day John and Slim woke up and heard from a passerby that the Crab Cottage wasn’t open for breakfast that morning. The Crab Cottage was always open for breakfast and it not being open on that particular morning irritated all three men.
John and Slim didn’t work at a regular job unless walking around and checking on the goings on in Princeton counts.
As the day turned from light to dark, John and Slim kept talking about the Crab Cottage being closed for breakfast. They bought some cheap wine and bought some more and by the time the moon was up, the men were outraged.
Something had to be done, they said. So they took matters into their own hands, and with plenty of matches zig zagged their way to the Crab Cottage….and burned it down.
In John and Slim’s mind, they had solved the problem of the Crab Cottage being closed for breakfast. They would never be disappointed again.
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