Marin toasted the dedication of the Point Reyes National Seashore in September 1966 with Lady Bird Johnson and Gov. Pat Brown.
Three covers from 1963; even then the ‘Sun’ kept a close eye on conservation issues and greedy development schemes.
The perennial fire-on-Tamalpais concern, 1966
uces The ‘Sun’ introd d an r ne ow w ne publisher Steve McNamara.
Robert F. Kennedy, in back of convertible, talked civil rights with Fairfax supporters, 1966.
Before exploring those days it’s helpful to follow advice from my favorite cartoon character back then: Bullwinkle Moose. As that TV show’s Mr. Peabody would say, let’s get into the Way-Back Machine. Let’s see what Marin was like just before the Sun arrived on the scene...
In 1940, Marin was a woodsy, bucolic enclave with a population of 52,907. Commuting to the city was a civilized affair often done on a network of electric trains until buses began to take over that year. On the train it took just an hour to go from Fairfax to San Francisco and the round-trip ticket was 50 cents. That covered the cost of the train to Sausalito and then a boat ride to the Ferry Building. And back. Stirrings of concern for the environment were present in certain patrician quarters. Two women,
Feb 19, 1963
UEE SSSSU
SSUUN NAA
IVEERRSSAARRYY NIV II NNN
again, topped the list. The imposing Mrs. Lovell White had pushed to create the Outdoor Art Club in Mill Valley to battle rampant tree cutting. Caroline Livermore in Ross had led the creation of the Marin Conservation League. But the tenor of Marin was mainly reflected in its politics: sturdy, small-town Republicanism; no change wanted. But change was on the way. After World War II ended in 1945, newcomers poured across the 8-year-old Golden Gate Bridge. By 1950 population had soared to 85,619, up 62 percent in 10 years. In the next 10 years it grew by 61,201, up 71 percent. And by 1970 it was up another 40 percent, to 206,038. In 30 years Marin’s population had grown by 153,136; it had basically quadrupled. (In the 42 years afterward, population increased by an average of less than one-half per cent per year.) As for the extra 153,136 people in 30 years, that’s the numbers. Additionally, the kind of people in Marin
Betty Friedan publishes ‘The Feminine Mystique’ 14 PACIFIC SUN JUNE 7 - JUNE 13, 2013
‘Pacific Sun” publishes first issue April 4, 1963
had changed. In the 1956 presidential election Marin voted 66 percent Republican; in last year’s election the vote was 23 percent Republican. Back in 1963 into West Marin came Merril and Joann Grohman and their blended family of 11 children, plus some goats. Merril was an energetic newspaper nut. He liked to start papers; he was long on new ideas. But he was short on attention span, which is needed to keep a newspaper going. Before the Pacific Sun he had started the weekly Carmichael Courier outside Sacramento. After a brief life, it died. In Stinson he and Joann started the Sun and for three years tried one thing after another. Merril’s answer to a money-losing venture was often to start another money-losing venture. At one point in 1964 there was the Pacific Sun in Stinson, the Tamalpais Times in Mill Valley, the Valley Sun in the San Geronimo Valley and the Fairfax News. They all coalesced into Marin County’s Weekly
June 12, 1963 Medgar Evers is murdered
Martin Luther King Jr “I Have a Dream” speech Aug 28, 1963
Pacific Sun and Tamalpais Times and then into Marin County’s Twice Weekly Pacific Sun and Tamalpais Times. Labor costs were modest since family members did everything. But all the papers lost money. At this point, in 1966, I arrived on the scene, eager to do something other than work for the Hearst Corporation. I had graduated from Princeton in 1955 with a degree in history and zero newspaper experience. Somehow I fell into the work and fell in love with it, first at the WinstonSalem Journal, then the Miami Herald, then covering Grand Prix auto racing for Car and Driver magazine in Europe, then at the San Francisco Examiner as assistant news editor, executive sports editor and then Sunday editor. I was living in Mill Valley when I picked up a copy of the Pacific Sun and was intrigued. It was liberal, championed the environment, education and the arts and 16>
Nov 22, 1963 JFK assassinated
The Beatles play ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ Feb 9, 1964
July 2, 1964 Civil Rights Act passes