Meadowsweet Rich wrote:

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So that must be the area by HandyCup, where the train tracks went ?

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Yep, that's how I figure it. What's confused me up to this point is that there are two somewhat similar islands in that area showing in old photos. Below is a portion of another slide from the Cushman Archive, from 1954. I've numbered the island we're talking about as 1.



It's the one in the 1956 shot on this page of my Larkspur site, the one I mis-identified as having been "shaved down" for Redwood High.

The smaller island I've labeled 2 on the Cushman image is the one seen in 1945 in this shot on my Larkspur site. You'll note it's gone by 1956. It looks like that was the one they cut down for Redwood High. It makes sense that they'd construct the buildings on solid ground rather than fill.

Another interesting thing about the area. There was, at least up until the late 1940s, a working farm there. A Redwood High classmate (class of '64), a nephew of the owner, recently sent me a 1948 photo of a hay-baling operation there, and in the background is what appears to be hill number 2; there's a building on the crest that appears to correspond with the one in my 1945 photo. I'll see if he'll let me post the photo here.

Comparing the Google satellite pics and the Cushman Archive views from Mt. Tam, you can see that the island/hill was in the area now bounded roughly by Nellen, Fifer, Lucky, and Tamal Plaza. You can see it from another angle in this pic from the Greenbrae 1950s album here:
http://www.marinnostalgia.org/slideshow36.html#5

That Cushman Archive shot of Redwood High under construction shows that I was wrong, wrong, wrong when I said on this page of my Larkspur site that the wooded island in the center of the picture was soon "shaved down for Redwood High," as the Cushman pic clearly shows it was still there. What Redwood was built on was fill from the ex-hill visible in the Cushman pic at the center right, just below Madera Gardens. What's left of it is the gray bedrock. The rest of it got graded away in the 70s or 80s for the Meadowood development.

Now I need to find out when that wooded island actually did go.

ps: Well, the school buildings themselves don't appear to have been built on fill from that hill, but it looks like it was used for the football field and other surrounding areas. You can see an access road leading to the excavation.

-- Edited by Paul Penna at 03:28, 2007-04-14

Yeee-owwww! Fabulous! Love the top one of Puerto Suelo hill, 101 with no center barrier. Latest model cars visible are 1955. I'm off to the archive to root around!

ps: Thank God the guy was using Kodachrome - the color is amazing!

-- Edited by Paul Penna at 01:42, 2007-04-14