Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Bolinas, CA

Bolinas is an unincorporated coastal community and census-designated place in Marin County, about 13 miles northwest of San Francisco across the water and 27 miles by road.

Bolinas is famous for wanting to stay hidden: for decades, residents have torn down every road sign on State Route 1 pointing the way into town, and when the county offered a ballot measure on the issue, voters said they preferred no signs at all.

Before European colonization, the Coast Miwok lived in the area, and Bolinas and present-day Stinson Beach were later part of Rancho Las Baulines, a Mexican land grant given to Gregorio Briones in 1846.

The first Bolinas post office opened in 1863, and it served the town for 160 years before closing on March 3, 2023, a closure residents have petitioned to reverse.

In 1927, a 300-acre former dairy farm on the Big Mesa was subdivided into a grid of 5,336 tiny lots, many sold for just $69.50 through a San Francisco newspaper subscription promotion; parts of the mesa have since eroded into the sea.

Bolinas has lived under one of the strictest building limits in California since November 26, 1971, when its public utility district declared a water shortage emergency and imposed a moratorium on new water meters that remains in effect, so the only way to build is to buy an existing meter from another property.

After the 1971 San Francisco Bay oil spill, Bolinas residents famously came together to clean crude oil off their beaches by hand.

The Bolinas Museum, founded in 1983, houses five galleries of contemporary art, photography, and West Marin history in a historic building complex on Wharf Road.

Downtown Bolinas is home to Smiley's Saloon, which is billed as the oldest continually operating saloon on the West Coast.

Bolinas sits right on the San Andreas Fault, which runs the length of Bolinas Lagoon, and the town rides on the Pacific Plate, creeping northward about an inch a year relative to the mainland.