You might be wondering where and when this picture was taken. Give up? It’s New Year’s Eve 1971 at the Marshall Tavern. Built in 1902, the property still hangs precariously over Tomales Bay in the West Marin community of Marshall. Don’t you wish you were there?
While folks pictured on the right seem to be taking selfies, they’re actually holding bottles of beer. Meanwhile, bartender Janis Labao, daughter of a longtime Marshall family, is shown smiling on the left. The photo is one of hundreds in historian Dewey Livingston’s recently released book, Point Reyes and Tomales Bay, A History of the Land and its People. Here’s how Livingston describes the setting (by way of background, Web Otis was a young real estate investor in West Marin in the 1970s):
Creating the new Marshall scene was a lark for those involved. As Web Otis recalled, “We were young and had a good time doing it.” The owners rented the building to a variety of operators. The Marshall Tavern had good food and live music. Michael Considine, a restaurateur and owner of the Lion’s Share music venue in Sausalito (and later San Anselmo), went into business with former Marin County Supervisor Thomas T. Storer on the venue in 1969, attracting acts like John Stewart from the Kingston Trio, and Buffy Ford. Others were Mimi Farina (whose sister Joan Baez attended), Jesse Colin Young and Jerry Corbitt. Local musicians had a welcoming venue at and even Colonel Sanders, of fried chicken fame, made an appearance there to film a commercial.
Livingston’s book also notes that in November of ’71 — mere weeks before the epic New Year’s Eve in the photo — the adjacent hotel had burned down. “Miraculously, the Marshall Tavern was saved from the flames,” Livingston writes, adding that in 1973, “top national musicians including Van Morrison and Neil Young were brought in.” Often when that happened, it was “so packed” that people were “dancing in the street” and the owner closed the bar because he sold “every ounce of alcohol in the place.” The Marshall Tavern closed for good in 1982. A concerted effort to rehabilitate and reopen the historic venue, involving millions of dollars, was launched in 2023 but is currently lodged in lawsuits and environmental issues.
