Stivers Lagoon

Greetings family, friends and neighbors!  Today's rambling is about Mission Valley's Stivers Lagoon and it's surprising network of historic connections.....Bill

Historic Ramblings

Stivers Lagoon

Partially hidden by weeds and thick brush at the Southern end of Fremont’s Cental Park is a small plaque dedicated to Simeon Stivers. In 1846 the Stiver’s family boarded the sailing ship “Brooklyn” on the East Coast as part of the first group of Mormon settlers heading to California and beginning a six month journey around Cape Horn with a stop in Hawaii and finally on to San Francisco. After a couple of years and brief and disappointing attempt to find a quick fortune in the gold fields, the Stivers family were among the first settlers in Mission Valley establishing a successful dairy farm and ultimately purchasing more than six hundred acres of land including Open Lake and a two hundred acre fresh water marsh created by the overflow of Mission and Morrison Creeks. The tules that grew in the marsh were originally used by Native Americans to build boats, homes and later were harvested and sold to local nurseries for use in packing plants and trees for shipping. By the late 1800’s Stiver’s Lagoon became a popular destination for boating and swimming, particularly for students and faculty of nearby Washington College. Duck hunters found the lush tule marshes rich in wildlife soon attracting the attention of Oakland’s F.M, “Borax” Smith, owner of Twenty Team Borax, who established “ a great resort for hunters”, gun club at the lagoon in 1883. 

In 1888 San Francisco’ publisher J. Dewing hired John Muir to edit his popular Picturesque California monthly publication featuring hundreds of etchings, photogravures and tinted plates divided into thirty topics. Muir wrote six of the regional pieces while local resident and one of California’s first nurserymen Charles Shinn penned The Tule Region highlighting Stivers Lagoon. Muir commissioned prolific Yosemite landscape painter Thomas Hill to provide an illustration for the article of duck hunters in hiding in the tules and firing into a flock of ducks with Mission Peak in the background.

Borax Smith’s Gun Club moved to Coyote Hills after a few years and a levee was constructed to restricted water flow to the marsh and reduce seasonal flooding. San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy aqueduct passing through the property and the channelization of Mission Creek in the 1930’s hastened the drying of the once lush tule marsh and lagoon. Fremont was incorporated in 1956 and Simeon Stivers granddaughter sold the undeveloped family land that ultimately became part of the cities Central Park.

Today, silent Tesla’s speed by on Paseo Padre Parkway, the gleeful summertime sounds of children can be heard from the nearby water park, BART trains whisk passengers beneath Lake Elizabeth, dual Hetch Hetchy pipes rise above ground long enough to cross over the Hayward fault, and a small nearly hidden plaque tells only a small portion of the story of Stiver Lagoon. 

-Bill   7/23