History watch: Happening hotel - Marin Independent Journal

"On July 8, 1891, the Sausalito News poked fun at the social swirl going on in neighboring Mill Valley. At the center of the frivolity was the Blithedale Hotel, which featured parties, plays and such activities as fishing and burro rides up Mount Tamalpais. ('Fashionable' guests included the Sutros, Astons and Monteagles.) Years before, San Francisco physician Dr. John Cushing had homesteaded 360 'lost' acres between John Reed's rancho to the east and William Richardson's land to the west, where he built a sanitarium and a large home he called Blithedale - after Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Blithedale Romance.' His heirs opened the summer resort hotel after his death in 1879.

This feature is provided by the Marin History Museum, www.marinhistory.org, and appears Tuesdays in the Lifestyles Generations section."



History watch: Happening hotel - Marin Independent Journal