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MILL VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETYThis week in Mill Valley history: The vote at Grethel's Bakery
On August 25, 1900, voters streamed into the upstairs hall at Grethel's Bakery - today's 18 Miller Avenue, the sole polling place - to decide whether Mill Valley would govern itself. With voting restricted to male citizens, the result was 99 for incorporation and 63 against. Seven days later Mill Valley received its charter as the Town of Mill Valley. It would not become a city until 1935.
Bernard Grethel, left, with Rose Grethel and son Bernard inside their bakery, circa 1900 - known as both the Eastland Bakery and Grethel's Bakery, Mill Valley's first. On August 25, 1900, the upstairs hall served as the sole polling place for the incorporation vote that made Mill Valley a town. (Courtesy of the Lucretia Little History Room, Mill Valley Public Library)
The debate had been running since at least February 1899 - eighteen months before the vote. The Sausalito News reported that "the boats and trains are a-buzz upon the subject, grown men are discussing the knotty question, and even our school boys can tell you all about it." The paper was skeptical: "Would the game be worth the candle?"
The trigger came on May 8, 1900, when the Tamalpais Land and Water Company sent a letter to property holders saying it would no longer maintain the roads, despite promising to do so for 25 years from May 1, 1890. Opponents called this a betrayal. Supporters saw incorporation as the only way to control the saloons that had proliferated since the courts struck down the company's prohibition clause.
The first public meeting to consider incorporation was, by the anti-incorporationists' account, "palpably programmed." By their account, chairs were filled before discussion could begin. A man named D.H. Bibb disrupted the proceedings and forced a more deliberative process. The campaign that followed was fierce enough that both sides purchased and destroyed copies of opposing newspapers to prevent them from reaching voters.
Fifty years later, in September 1950, Mill Valley threw itself a golden anniversary party - a children's parade down Locust, square dancing in Lytton Square, a 150-pound birthday cake. The guests of honor were residents who had lived in Mill Valley for fifty years or more, people who had been there for the vote in 1900. They were driven to Lytton Square in convertibles and introduced to the crowd by the chairman of the county board of supervisors.
The Mill Valley Record called it "a memorable occasion in the history of Mill Valley regardless of what is worn."
Sources: Mill Valley Record, Aug 31, 1950; Sausalito News, Feb 4, 1899, Feb 11, 1899, Jun 30, 1900, Aug 25, 1900; Mill Valley Historical Society, Mill Valley Incorporates (Curt Oldenburg, July 2025).
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