John Daly's city

Drive toward San Francisco Airport, and you’ll see an off-ramp for John Daly Boulevard, one of the main roads through Daly City. It’s fairly obvious that both the boulevard and the city are named for the man who started this community… but that’s only partly correct, as KALW’s Steven Short tells us in this segment of The Source.

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STEVEN SHORT: Have you ever seen the movie “San Francisco,” from 1936? You really should. There’s a scene in that movie, right after the Big Earthquake of 1906, when Clark Gable, the romantic lead, is looking for “someone special.”

WAGON DRIVER:  Want a lift, Brother?

CLARK GABLE (BLACKIE):  Thanks. Where you going?

WAGON DRIVER:  Uh, Daly City, to get some milk for the kiddies.

CLARK GABLE (BLACKIE):  Uh, if you see a redheaded girl in a white dress, tell her Blackie’s lookin’ for her, will ya?

WAGON DRIVER:  Glad to. And God help you to find her, Brother.”

MARK WEINBERGER: Of course, Daly City was not founded until 1911, incorporated then, so it’s a faux pas on the part of the movie, but nostalgic none the less.  

Mark Weinberger knows this because….

WEINBERGER: I’m the president of the Daly City Colma History Guild.

Important remnants of the native Ohlone people have been found in this area, but by the time of Spanish exploration in the late 1700s, Weinberger says….

WEINBERGER: That area, this area, those areas were largely sand dunes. Uh, uninhabited areas where you had native growth – but largely sand dunes.

The Spaniards didn’t name John Daly Boulevard, of course, but they did provide our earliest known place names in the area.  El Camino Real, or The Royal Road, connected the missions up and down the coast. And a gap, or opening, between what is now San Bruno Mountain and the coastal hills, was called La Portezuela, meaning “little door” in Castilian Spanish.  That spot was later called Top of the Hill and is currently the center of Daly City.

Once the Mission Lands were broken up, farmers moved in, calling this place Happy Valley. But during MOST of the 1870s, a ruinous, dense fog smothered the crops. Subsequent growers planted cabbages and artichokes. Others ran dairies … as that wagon driver in the movie knew.

And while this boom and bust situation was occurring, young John Daly...

WEINBERGER: He was about the age of 13 when he came over.

 … young John Daly, was traveling here, by ship, from Boston with his mother.

WEINBERGER: He did travel with his mother, not his father.     

The Panama Canal wasn’t even a dream at this point in time, so instead of going all the way around South America, Mrs. Daly and her son joined a mule train that struggled through the jungles, to Panama City, where they could resume their sea voyage.  No one can say for sure today, but it’s likely that Mother Daly contracted malaria there.  She died along the way.

It was a punishing journey for even the best prepared, and nearly impossible for a grieving orphan with no contacts awaiting him in California. How did Little Johnny manage to get aboard a ship among the hundreds of gold-crazed fortune-seekers?  Again, no one knows, but it’s likely that he signed on as a cabin boy.

WEINBERGER: Being age 13, and not having had an abundance of education, he was thrown into his own, in a new land.  

Thirteen-year-olds couldn’t stake a gold claim, of course, so Mark Weinberger says…

WEINBERGER: He got a job in a local dairy.

…and then another job at another dairy, and a better one at a bigger one, until he eventually took over a successful operation himself.  

WEINBERGER: He had Daly’s farm. He had pastureland. There were hog farms up in the area. Going down toward the coast, there were artichoke fields.

When the Big Quake destroyed homes throughout San Francisco, John Daly – perhaps remembering kindnesses when he had lost everything as a boy – opened his farms to the refugees. Time passed, and a train depot came through here.  Soon, a small settlement developed around it, known as
Vista Grande.  There was talk of San Francisco annexing this part of San Mateo County, something the farming community hoped to avoid.

WEINBERGER:  And so the area decided to incorporate in 1911.

It was a close vote: opposed, 130, in favor, 132. Now that Vista Grande was a New Town, they wanted a new name. 

WEINBERGER: They remembered John Donald Daly, who had done so much for the local community, so much in the aftermath of the Great Earthquake of five years before, and they paid tribute to him.  

And where did John Donald Daly reside?

WEINBERGER: John Daly was a San Francisco resident.

John Daly would be shocked to see his land holdings today, with not a dairy cow within miles.  And many of the residents of present-day Daly City would be equally as shocked to learn that their town’s name derives from a penniless orphan, who became a major landowner, yet never owned a home in the community that bears his name.

In Daly City, I’m Steven Short for Crosscurrents.