Railroad & Ferry Depot Museum

Life in a Railroad Town

More than a pretty waterfront town, Tiburon has a rich railroad and maritime history, which is captured in the Railroad & Ferry Depot Museum. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Museum rests on Shoreline Park with priceless views of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Angel Island.

1920 Paradise Drive
Tiburon, CA 94920
View Rental Info
Google Map

Spanish explorers named the area Punta de Tiburón (Point Tiburon) in 1775. One hundred years later, due to its the proximity to San Francisco, Point Tiburon became a major railroad and ferry terminus, maintenance yard and industrial town. In 1884, Peter Donahue, Irish immigrant and industrial tycoon, completed the extension of the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad to Tiburon with a ferry fleet to provide faster passenger and freight service between the City and Northern California. Twenty-three years later, the Donahue Line merged with competitors to become the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The last train left Point Tiburon September 25, l967.

With trains no longer running, Southern Pacific deeded its shoreline property and the depot building to the Town of Tiburon for open space and a museum as a condition of redevelopment. In 1995, Tiburon and the Landmarks Society entered into a 99-year lease, and Landmarks became responsible for the care and preservation of the building and installation of a museum. By 1999, the structural work was complete and construction of permanent exhibits began.

The lovely restored gray building at Shoreline Park captures the past in two museums. On the ground floor, a detailed operating HO-scale model shows Tiburon, the railroad town c.1900 to 1910. The model’s scale (1:87) is accurate so sizes of landscapes, buildings, trains and boats are accurate when compared to one another. The only exception to authenticity is the palm tree, which was planted twenty years later. It is included in the model as a point of reference.

The three ferryboats in the model were part of a large fleet that operated between San Francisco and Point Tiburon. The Ukiah was built at the local yard and the Donahue was named for Peter’s son, who succeeded him as president of the railroad company. The Ukiah originally carried railroad cars but was rebuilt after World War I to ferry automobiles across the bay — although not to and from Tiburon. Later renamed the Eureka, it is preserved at the San Francisco Maritime Museum’s Hyde Street Pier.

Upstairs is the Depot House Museum, where the stationmaster’s family lived. Restoration was based on the memories of Florence Bent Palmer, the daughter of the last stationmaster, William Bent, who served from 1913 to 1940. Bent’s family included three children and a dog, as well as his wife, Ann, who sometimes milked cows that had to spend the night in the railroad yard before continuing the journey to San Francisco. School children frequently visit the museum to learn about typical middle-class life in the early 20th century. Among the period details are hanging light bulbs and a coal/wood-burning stove in the kitchen, an ice box and wringer washer in the pantry, a gramophone and several original pieces of furniture from the Bent family.

Items in the museums are donations to the Landmarks Society’s History Collections. Donors also underwrite the cost of scale models, which is based on the square footage of the footprint of original full-size buildings.

Become a member. Be a docent. Make a donation.