1943
2010
Winter storms wrecked havoc on San Anselmo Avenue in the early 1940s.
Winter storms in the early 1940s weren’t kind to San Anselmo Avenue. In February 1940, twelve inches of rain fell over a three day period and brought San Anselmo Creek to its highest level since 1925. The creek went over its banks and flooded San Anselmo Avenue curb to curb. Sandbagging stopped the water from entering some, but not all businesses. At Tunstead Avenue, the water turned east and flowed back into the creek, sparing the southern portion of San Anselmo Avenue.
Again on February 5, 1942, several downtown businesses sustained considerable losses because the creek waters rose so fast that not all business owners could be notified by the firemen monitoring the creek. The heaviest losses were at Ferrari Paper Co. at San Anselmo Avenue and Tamalpais and at DeLong’s Pharmacy at the Tunstead/San Anselmo Avenue corner.
On January 20, 1943, nine inches fell in a 24 hour period and the creek went over its banks at Bridge Street flooding the downtown business district. There was a raging torrent one to two feet deep along San Anselmo Avenue. Merchants removed sandbags, placed around the library at the beginning of WWII as bomb protection, and used them to block flood waters from entering their places of business. The Bolinas Avenue Grocery (shown here), located at the southern end of town at 29 San Anselmo Avenue, didn’t seem to benefit from the sandbagging. The automobile didn’t fair well either!
The small red tile pyramid-roofed building at 29 San Anselmo Avenue was constructed in the 1930s. Adela Mundt first operated a delicatessen here and then it was a small neighborhood grocery for many years. At the time of the photograph, Jewel and Freemont Simpson ran the grocery.
Many longtime residents remember the grocery stores that followed, Bill’s Cash & Carry in the late 1940s and early 1950s and Bing Fong’s Panama Market up to the mid 1960s.
Beauty parlors for people (Octave’s) and dogs (Avenue Dogs) followed the grocery stores before Caesar’s Cyclery moved from Greenfield Avenue to this location in 1989. The building we see today, with its two-story rear addition, was constructed at that time. Sandbagging didn’t help Caesar’s on December 31, 2005 when San Anselmo Avenue was a virtual river and 3-1/2 feet of water entered the shop.