Golden Gate Dairy Ranch

 ranch  Add category

 Upload a photo

Also known as Lopes Brothers Dairy, or M Ranch.

First owner of the property in the 1830s was William Richardson who owned almost 20,000 acres of coastal lands he named El Rancho Del Sausalito. In 1858, ownership changed to Samuel Throckmorton and later to the Tamalpais Land and Water Company (TL&W), in 1889. By 1898, ranch land parcels designated alphabetically on TL&W Company maps were sold, largely to the Azorean Portuguese residents who had been tenant-farming there already. The Golden Gate Dairy was known as Ranch M on the TL&W Company maps, and was first purchased by Azorean Portuguese immigrants in 1898.

The early ranch buildings, including the extant creamery and ranch house, were built soon after possession of the land was secured. The ownership of the dairy ranch changed hands over the years between 1898 and 1953, but was owned consecutively by Portuguese immigrant
farmers who operated a dairy there. By the early 1960s, the dairy business had been abandoned and the ranch site, particularly the Sanitary Barn and Milking Barn began being used to stable horses. In 1972 the Muir Beach Volunteer Fire Department (MBVFD) remodeled the Creamery building into a garage and Fire Station.

The NPS began stewardship of the site in 1974. At that time Richard and Evelyn Purvier were the tenants and had been operating a horse stables on the property since around 1965. The Purviers lived in the Sanitary Barn building at first since the house was at that time occupied by the Caddels who owned the property. The present partner group, Ocean Riders of Marin developed out of the Purvier’s operation and shares the site and Milking Barn with the MBVFD.


www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/upload/Final-GGD_...