A Dynamic History: From Coast Guard Station to Marine Biology Lab

The ghostly state of the historic Coast Guard Station on Wharf Road in Bolinas belies its lively story, told in this exhibition with historic documents and photographs. Born from dramatic maritime rescues and shipwrecks, its lineage goes back to the Bolinas U.S. Lifesaving Station, which burned down in 1883. Shipwrecks continued, but it was the terrible wreck of the ship Hanalie in 1914 that made it essential to have a professional rescue team nearby. The new U.S. Coast Guard Station at Bolinas opened in 1917. The guardsmen and their activities were an energetic element in the town. Decades later, the building served as the College of Marin’s dynamic Marine Biology Lab, where hundreds of students studied—not in a distant classroom, but right at the edge of the sea—until the program closed in 2004.