118 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM the San Mateo Coast as the villain. For some, it acted as an ally. In the era of rum runners, it cloaked a thriving illegal trade—and a different kind of spirit. In 1920, the same year Prohibition took hold, the Ocean Shore Railroad shut down, stranding the coast’s up-and-coming beach towns. For places like Princeton, Moss Beach and Half Moon Bay, tourism might no longer be lucrative… but smuggling alcohol could earn you a pretty penny. Basements were converted into distilleries, and establishments like Ocean Beach Hotel (now Miramar Beach Restaurant), Mori’s Point Inn, Patroni House and Princeton Hotel began running speakeasies. Farmers hid cases of alcohol under crates of vegetables while fishermen and mobsters carved out their own piece of the action. Under the cloak of night and Mother Nature’s shroud, bootleggers sailed out to meet larger ships at “rum row,” an area a few miles offshore in the safety of international waters (just outside of the United State’s jurisdiction). After stowing deliveries of Canadian whisky supplied by our neighbors up north, they slipped stealthily past coastguard rum ABOVE: (clockwise, from top left) This monument marked the grave of 16-year-old Edward J. Church of the Franklin, buried with other drowned sailors in the dunes. The marker, left by his loving parents, was later lost and the gravesite forgotten—until one very suprised hiker stumbled across the bones; Pigeon Point Lighthouse; Prohibition agents examine barrels on a rum runner's boat. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: SAN MATEO COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION COLLECTION (426.9) / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS seems to be very evident that it is the duty of the proper authorities to put a light on the point,” wrote jurors in their statement at the Coya’s inquest. The last straw came two years (almost to the day) after the Coya’s demise when the Hellespont split in half on the cruel coastal rocks. “No other place on the Pacific Coast has proved so fatal to navigators as this locality,” wrote H.A. Scofield, editor of the San Mateo County Gazette. He encouraged the outraged public to continue putting pressure on government officials. “Our delegates in Congress are expected to make it their business to look after this matter,” he declared. Finally, in 1868, Congress greenlit a 115-foot lighthouse with a $90,000 budget. The tower’s first-order Fresnel lens would be comprised of 1,008 separate lenses and prisms and weigh roughly 4,000 pounds, shining a 70,000-candlepower beam for all to see. Construction took several years, but the fog signal became operational in 1871. The following year, this beacon of hope was lit. Pigeon Point Lighthouse remains the tallest of its kind on the West Coast. At long last, the restless spirits of those departed ships and their crew could find rest. SEASIDE SMUGGLERS Not everyone viewed the fog of Fog phantoms in the
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