Pacifica in San Mateo County, California — The American West (Pacific Coastal)

Mori's Point Inn

A Rollicking Past

— Golden Gate National Recreation Area —

Mori's Point Inn Marker image. Click for full size.

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 19, 2015

1. Mori's Point Inn Marker

Inscription. Click to hear the inscription.

In the late 1800s, Stefano Mori and his family arrived from Italy and farmed this land, grazing cattle and horses. They built a rambling 21-room farmhouse. This building became Mori's Point Inn, a haven for travelers, bootleggers and diners.

Mori's was an oasis on the long road between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay. During Prohibition in the 1920s, Stefano's son Jack turned the inn into a speakeasy, running Canadian whiskey from smugglers' ships off the point. Federal agents arrested Jack Mori and confiscated thousands of cases of whiskey from his farm in 1923.

Stefano's younger son, Ray, and his wife, Marie, rescued the roadhouse in 1932 and revived it as a restaurant, hotel and dancehall. It kept its lively reputation until 1965, when Mori's Inn burned to the ground.

"Before dinner we not only visited the garden where vegetables and herbs are raised for their use and chickens for the table, but we went for a hike over Mori's Point. We enjoyed the music of the dashing sea as it broke against the rocks where mussels are caught."
—San Francisco News, 1937

Erected by

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National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Topics. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Industry & Commerce • Law Enforcement • Parks & Recreational Areas • Settlements & Settlers.

Location. 37° 37.215′ N, 122° 29.575′ W. Marker is in Pacifica, California, in San Mateo County. Marker can be reached from Mori Point Road, 0.1 miles west of Cabrillo Highway (State Highway 1). Marker is located along the Mori Point Trail, about 1/3 mile west of the Mori Point Road trailhead and parking lot. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Pacifica CA 94044, United States of America. Touch for directions.

Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 5 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies. The Enduring Aramai (within shouting distance of this marker); Charles Gust 1888-1969 (approx. 0.8 miles away); The Little Brown Church (approx. one mile away); Discovery of San Francisco Bay (approx. 1½ miles away); Captain Don Gaspar de Portolà (approx. 1.6 miles away); Sanchez Adobe (approx. 2.3 miles away); Cuneo Farm and Produce Market (approx. 4.1 miles away); Leipsic Junction (approx. 4.1 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Pacifica.

Also see . . .
1. Mori Point History. In the 1700s, the Spanish mined a nearby limestone quarry to supply whitewash for San Francisco’s Presidio buildings. An

Marker detail: Peek at the Past<br><i>by C. Urchins and Jack Matsuoka</i> image. Click for full size.

Joe Matsuoka, Courtesy of Pacifica Tribune

2. Marker detail: Peek at the Past
by C. Urchins and Jack Matsuoka

The cove north of Mori Point was an important receiving station for the liquor smugglers of Prohibition years.
People… can recall an auto engine with attached winch which was permanently stationed on the beach and which was used to tow a skiff back and forth between the beach and anchored rum-runners' boats.
There are also people who can remember a horse barn with hay mow on Mori Point which had been converted into a warehouse.
—Bill Drake, Editor, Pacifica Tribune

Italian immigrant, Stefano Mori, purchased 19 acres of farmland here in 1888. Mori built a guesthouse/restaurant, the Mori Point Inn, which developed a notorious reputation during the Prohibition days. Mori Point was a site of gravel and sand extraction during World War II; quarrying and later off-road vehicle use left the landscape scarred. In 2000, with the help of the Pacifica Land Trust, the Coastal Conservancy, and concerned community members, Mori Point was purchased by the Trust for Public Land and added to the Golden Gate National Parks. (Submitted on August 28, 2020, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida.)

2. Mori Point (Wikipedia). Rocks from the limestone quarry were used as track ballast for the Ocean Shore Railroad and to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Highway 1, which divides Mori Point from Sweeney Ridge, occupies a cut first intended to accommodate the Ocean Shore Railroad. (Submitted on August 28, 2020, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida.)

Marker detail: Mori’s Point Inn, 1952 image. Click for full size.

Courtesy of Pacifica Historical Society

3. Marker detail: Mori’s Point Inn, 1952

Marker detail: Mori's Point Inn, 1955 image. Click for full size.

Courtesy of Pacifica Historical Society

4. Marker detail: Mori's Point Inn, 1955

Looking eastward at Mori's Point Inn from the Point. A gap in the dunes permitted overflow from Horse Stable pond to reach the ocean. Much of the beach has since eroded away.

Mori Point Trail image. Click for full size.

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 19, 2015

5. Mori Point Trail

(trail near marker)

Mori Point (<i>looking south from the beach</i>) image. Click for full size.

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 19, 2015

6. Mori Point (looking south from the beach)

Credits. This page was last revised on August 28, 2020. It was originally submitted on August 27, 2020, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida. This page has been viewed 414 times since then and 68 times this year. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. submitted on August 28, 2020, by Cosmos Mariner of Cape Canaveral, Florida.