Tales of the San Francisco Peninsula
by
Theron G. Cady
A series of articles first published in 'Peninsula Life Magazine'
Published by C-T Publishers, San Carlos, California, 1948
In the foothills back
of Stanford lies the ghost of a past that is foverver departed. Where
the clear waters of Searsville Lake now reflect the blue sky, there was
once a town. It was the first settlement in San Mateo County and
served for many colorful years as the center of social and industrial life
on the Peninsula.
Searsville, the town
at the bottom of the lake, and according to some who are prone to believe
in fairy tales, the old buildings and board walks are still discernible
through the blue waters of the lake. Searsville was founded nearly
a century ago, when Charles Brown of San Francisco purchased a portion
of the Canada del Raimundo grant of John Coppinger and settled there with
his wife. He called his newly acquired property the Mountain Home
Ranch; it is now the Hooper property.
In the summer of 1852
John Smith joined Brown at Searsville, and the next year August Eikerenkotter
arrived and started a store and hotel. This hotel, operated for lumbermen,
was located at the junction of the present Sand Hill and Portola roads,
now just outside the entrance to the recreation park. The next year
brough John H. Sears, after whom the town was named. He built his
home just inside the present entrance to the park. About the same
time, Dennis Martin, a business visitor, came to Searsville and soon became
the chief lumber operator on the Peninsula. His lumberjacks cut virgin
timber from Crystal Springs Lake to Stevens Creek to keep his two mills
operating. Martin, a keen-eyed Irishman, acquired great wealth from
his lumbering activities, and his estate was known far and wide for its
hospitality. He built and furnished St. Dennis Catholic Church, probably
the first regular house of worhip in the county. In was situated
on San Francisquito Creek, a few miles east of Searsville. Martin
also gave land adjoining the church for a cemetery--a cemetery in which
he now lies, unhonored even by a headstone.
Soon after Eikerenkotter
and Sears started their hotels, other business establishments followed.
A blacksmith shop, forge, and several saloons mushroomed up in the vicinity.
Soon Searsville was a thriving town catering to the whims and fancies of
hundreds of lumberjacks.
In the years when Stanford
racing steeds were world-famous and when handsome carriages and swift horses
sped along the Peninsula's unpaved roads, a highway ran from the town of
Mayfield through the site of the present Stanford Quad, across the old
San Francisquito Creek bridge, along the present Sand Hill road, and through
the village of Searsville. Dashing riders pulled up at the hotel
on the western shore of what is now the lake to wash the dust out of their
throats or make reservations. Sunday afternoons several hundred mill
hands from the near-by mills would gather in the town and indulge in their
favorite pastimes of fighting, wrestling, horse-racing, and, of course,
poker. Thousands of dollars changed hands on the turn of a card.
Life in Searsville was vivid and daring.
Yet it has passed--passed
so compltely that there are few who even know of the town under the lake,
and only a handful who remember. Gone are the mills which brought
great wealth to many. Gone are the huge redwoods which kept hundreds
of lumberjacks employed. When the mills exhaused their supply of
timber they closed down or moved elsewhere.
Then came the death of
Searsville. About 1887, the Spring Valley Water Company, which was
then building Crystal Springs Dam to form the present Spring Valley Lakes,
planned also to draw water from San Franciquito Creek. The original
plan was to bring the water through a tunnel nearly five miles long to
augment the supply in the Crystal Springs Lakes. This plan was abandoned
in favor of a dam at Searsville, from which the water was to be carried
through a pipeline at the rate of 5,000,000 gallons daily to the Belmont
Pumping Station, from where it would flow to San Francisco. The dam
was built in 1891 to a height of fifty feet, giving a reservoir capacity
of nearly 330,000,000 gallons, but the pipeline connection with Belmont
was never made. Instead, the property was sold and the reservoir
became in time a modern "swimmin' hole" for the Peninsula.
Those of us who never
saw the bustling town of Searsville find it difficult to imagine what took
place when the dam was built and the water began to climb. The Spring
Valley Water Company, had, of course, bought up all the property involved,
including the entire village. None of the residents had been required
to vacate, and no one took the matter seriously until it appeared to some
that, at the rate the water was climbing, the town might be flooded within
a short time.
For an eye-witness account
of the vanishing town we are indebted to Mr. James J. Swift, a cub reporter
for the San Mateo County Times-Gazette. He visited Searsville
toward the end of October, 1891, and wrote the following account:
"When a reporter of the
Times-Gazette drove over that way yesterday, all was bustle and
activity. It looked as if the water would come up inside of twenty-four
hours from the way that houses and barns were being torn down and fences
removed. On the road just this side of Searsville was a small frame
house mounted on a sled, drawn by six horses, slowly working its way toward
high ground. This house was formerly owned by Charles McLaughlin,
and was purchased from the water company by Harry Cutter, who conducted
a saloon around the turn below Eikerenkotter's. A respectable frame
house could be bought for from $5 to $50. A force of men were at
work on Eikerenkotter's store taking it to pieces. The
lumber will be hauled to Redwood City and used sometime in the future in
building a house on some lots owned by Julius Eikerenkotter. The
hotel will stand and will be used by the water company. George Eikerenkotter
will, for the present, go out of business. It is reported that the
post office will be taken by J.H.P. Gage, foreman for E.F. Preston (near
the Shilling estate) place. The row of pretty cottages below the
hotel has been torn down, the fences taken away, and the ornamental trees
and shrubs and fruit trees removed. As the road leading from Eikerenkotter's
hotel and store toward Preston's will be partially submerged, a force of
men has been engaged in laying out and building a new road from the hotel
across the fields, which will join the old road near the foot of the mountain."
Searsville, the town
where life was vivid and daring, is gone. Its buildings, streets,
and schoolhouse are no more.
At present, Searsville
Lake is a beautiful body of water, where Peninsulans come to spend the
day swimming, boating, or canoeing as their wishes dictate.