T.S. Malone Building Being Moved, 1911
Bank Street, 2010
San Anselmo residents were enthusiastic recyclers in the early days.
It was common to move buildings and homes in the early days in San Anselmo. It made good economic sense to move and recycle a building no longer wanted on its original site. Wages and materials were relatively high and the cost of moving a building and using it on a new site was less than constructing an entirely new one. The town’s early residents were less willing than they are today to tear down buildings that had required a significant investment in materials and labor to construct.
In 1911, the building shown here was moved from lower Ross Avenue where San Rafael druggist T. S. Malone had opened a drug store in 1907. In the photograph, the large frame building is being placed on its new foundation on Bank Street.
Early occupants of the building were the drug store, the telephone company’s switchboard for the San Anselmo exchange, and then the Guy W. Jenness funeral home before it moved to Red Hill Avenue and evolved into the Chapel of the Hills. The brick building on the right in the photograph is the Bank of San Anselmo, which had just been completed; the small building on the left was the temporary headquarters of the bank.
Today, the Italianate style building at 6-8-10 Bank Street has been coated with stucco and has been repainted.
How did they move buildings before trucks, tractors, and hydraulic dollies?
The buildings were raised from their foundations and placed on rollers attached to the underside of the sills. The rollers traveled over heavy wooden timbers. A team of horses pulled the structure forward with a rope and pulley. As the structure moved, the timbers were taken up from behind and placed ahead of the house. It was a slow process.
There are numerous other examples of buildings being moved in San Anselmo in the early 1900s. The home originally owned by Sarah W. I. Taylor, wife of Samuel P. Taylor, was moved in 1913 from the 100 block of San Anselmo Avenue to 50 Mariposa where it still stands.
When American Trust Company bought the lot in 1924 where Wells Fargo Bank is located, the building on the site was moved to 339 San Anselmo Avenue and is now the San Anselmo Inn.
Even San Anselmo’s train depot was moved on two occasions. In San Rafael, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, located at 4th and E Streets, was cut in two and moved to its current location on Court Street with a slight mishap – the organ fell off during the move.