Bay Area Day Trips: Road tripping to Marin’s portals to the past

Marin has a fascinating history that stretches back thousands of years, starting in the days of the indigenous Coast Miwok people. The county’s early 19th century era of pastoral ranching, dairy farming and redwood lumber harvesting changed rapidly with the establishment of large military bases, a wartime shipyard and the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937.

Much of this rich history can be discovered in fascinating pockets of history found here and there throughout the county in museums and displays. They’re a great reason to get in the car  for a weekend road trip into the past, with nine intriguing stops along the way.

But first, more background: It was the Coast Miwok who greeted the region’s first foreign visitors, Sir Francis Drake and his crew, when they parked the Golden Hind off the Marin coast in 1579 for repairs. Almost 200 years later, the Coast Miwok greeted the Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala when he sailed the San Carlos into San Francisco Bay in 1775. Ayala’s arrival signaled the start of the Spanish and Mexican era and the devastation of the region’s indigenous people, who barely survived the next 100 years.

Marin’s small towns, farms and settlements became the region’s main producers of dairy products, meat, produce and other provisions for the small settlement of Yerba Buena, which eventually become the Gold Rush boomtown of San Francisco. By the late 19th century, Marin had become a prime retreat for sun-seeking San Franciscans wishing to escape the city’s chilly summer fogs. This wealthy class spent their carefree summer days in second homes built in the hills of Sausalito and Mill Valley, and floating on houseboat-like “arks” on calm bays in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

History buffs can start in Sausalito with a stop at the Marinship display at the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Bay Model. Here you can learn about the massive military Liberty and oil tanker shipbuilding yard built at record speed during World War II. The Bay Model also has detailed displays on San Francisco Bay’s natural history and the impact of the Gold Rush on this mighty waterway. In a nod to Marin’s distant past, you’ll find a replica of a Coast Miwok reed canoe on display on the ground floor just outside the Marinship display.

In nearby Tiburon, you can tour several historic attractions run by Tiburon’s Landmark Society, including the elegant “China Cabin” that once crowned a 19th-century wooden sidewheeler. On “sunny Sundays,” the Railroad and Ferry Depot museum on Tiburon’s waterfront displays artifacts and a working model of the town’s historic rail yard. And mark your calendar: From April through October, the Depot museum is also open on Saturdays, along with the 1866 China Cabin and Old St. Hilary’s (1888), a beautiful Carpenter Gothic church perched on a hill overlooking town. Meanwhile, you can catch a glimpse of these sites, even on cloudy Sundays, virtually at landmarkssociety.com.

In the Marin Headlands, a Nike missile site — the most fully restored Nike missile site in the country — offers live demonstrations Thursday-Saturday showing the defense systems once hidden in these Cold War era bunkers. Take a peek at www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm.

While you’re in the headlands, hike or bike up a dirt fire road to Battery Townsley, a seacoast defense site hidden above Rodeo Beach, where a massive 16-inch gun from the USS Missouri is on display. These guns were capable of shooting a 2,100-pound projectile 25 miles out to sea, and the gun on display was mounted onboard the Missouri during the official surrender ceremony by the Japanese on Sep. 2, 1945, marking the end of World War II. (Learn more at www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/battery-townsley.htm.)

A short, fun ferry ride takes you from downtown Tiburon to Angel Island State Park for a full day’s immersion in local history. The island has a century-long history as a military station, from the Civil War through the Nike missile era and as a major immigration station — the West Coast’s Ellis Island — from 1910 to 1940; parks.ca.gov/angelisland.

Meanwhile in the colorful, quirky town of Fairfax, the Marin Museum of Bicycling and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, is dedicated to a different kind of history: the evolution of bicycles. Mountain bike pioneer and Marin native Joe Breeze is the curator of a museum that traces the vehicle’s development from the early “bone shaker” velocipedes and high wheel Penny Farthings to the rise of popular “safety” bikes in the late 19th century, the first modern mountain bikes, developed on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in the 1970s, and the modern race bike. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday at 1966 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.; mmbhof.org.

Near the top of Mount Tam, a small “gravity car barn” museum is dedicated to the colorful history of the popular Mill Valley and Mt. Tamalpais Scenic Railway (also known as “The Crookedest Railroad in the World”), a steam railway that ran on Tam from 1896 to 1930. Open on weekends only, the small museum is the permanent home of the re-created “Gravity Car” that passengers would ride from the summit to Mill Valley or Muir Woods using only gravity power. The museum is typically open from noon to 4 p.m. on weekends. Find details at friendsofmttam.org.