I believe these cottages were intended for the colony of Victor Emanuel. “One so called historian says the Tanforan Cottages were built by ships carpenters from ships that were abandoned in the Gold Rush by 49ers, sailors who jumped ship to look for their gold mine, that were in want of experience carpenters, who were not paid much. One citations said portable houses were built on the east coast where labour was cheap thanks to the Irish immigration. As to the idea that the Tanforan cottages were moved from Belmont to the Mission, after the San Francisco, consider ‘The Vans’ a structure that was moved to Belmont from San Francisco.” https://rosamondpress.com/2014/11/26/the-turns/
I suspect the Tanforan Cottages are two of the six portable houses that Carl Jake brought about the cape on a Clipper Ship and set of up south of San Francisco. I assumed they were erected in Belmont, but, I just read there was a theme park called ‘The Willows’ in the Mission Dolores that was a retreat as well. With the establishment of the Turnverein on Bush, and another in Redwood City, I believe Janke was part of a movement to bring Forty-Eighter Revolutionaries to the Bay Area in order to make a Utopian State. During, and after WW1, when anti-German hatred was at its peak, these pioneers lost their dream, and all the work they had done. Tanverien became Tanforan, and alleged Spanish name, but, there is nothing Spanish about it. The story of Toribio Tanforan is hogwash. I suspect the old schoolhouse in Belmont is one of the…
View original post 1,536 more words
Rosamond Press 
Leave a comment