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Looking Back
That’s Attilio himself, in the
foreground, talking to an
unidentified occupant of the
horse-drawn buggy.
JUDGING BY THE clarity of this photo, one could think, “How nice: a modern-day reenact- ment of life in the early 1900s.” Not so. “This is the real McCoy,”
says Laurie Thompson, librarian at
the Marin Free Library’s Anne T. Kent
California Room. “This photograph of
Attilio Martinelli’s Inverness Store was
taken in 1909, and that’s Attilio himself,
in the foreground, talking to an unidenti-
fied occupant of the horse-drawn buggy.”
According to West Marin historian Dewey
Livingston, the Inverness Store opened
in 1900, collapsed in the 1906 earth-
quake, and was rebuilt and “reopened
for business within a couple of months.”
Note the front porch sign indicating that
a telephone, newfangled at the time, is
available inside. “Mr. Martinelli’s build-
ing in Inverness still stands,” Livingston
adds, “and the street in front of it is
today’s Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.”
Why is this photo so clear? “It’s from a
glass plate negative donated to the library
by history aficionado Jeff Craemer,”
Thompson says, “and we developed it on
our Epson flatbed scanner.” M
DATED 1909
Downtown
Inverness
Is this a reenactment,
or the real thing?
BY JIM WOOD
