Granada, a Synonym for Paradise: The Ocean Shore Railroad Years [Paperback]

Barbara VanderWerf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1992

Granada, A Synonym for Paradise: The Shore Railroad Years tells the story of what it was like to live in suburban tracts on the San Mateo County Coast, south of San Francisco, in the early 1900s. Californians by the thousands bought lots in newly laid-out tracts along the line of the Ocean Shore railroad, whose motto was "Reaches the Beaches." But few lot buyers moved to the Coastside. This is the story of the few who did, the Coastside Pioneers. Granada, the most magnificent of all tracts along the line of the Ocean Shore Railroad, was designed by the famed landscape architect Daniel H. Burhnam. Advertised to San Franciscans as "the future playground of the greatest good-time-loving people in the world," its curving tree-lined streets, proposed beachfront amusements and hillside pleasure parks attracted thousands of potential lot buyers, but few homebuilders. In 1920, the Ocean Shore Railroad, unable to compete with Ford automobiles and to keep its trains running along the sliding cliffs of Montana Mountain at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, stopped running. Farmers then bought the well-sidewalked, but empty, suburban tracts along its line and planted them with artichokes and Brussels sprouts. The book's historical and recent photographs, aerial photographs and old maps will guide you on journeys of discovery through the Coastside landscape as you seek out the traces of the Ocean Shore Railroad and the suburban tracts. The railroad with its roadbed and its depots and the tracts with their sidewalks, snug bungalows and eucalyptus trees shaped the Coastside landscape we move about in today. --- from book's back cover

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Gum Tree Lane Books; First Edition edition (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 096329220X
• ISBN-13: 978-0963292209
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,249,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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