Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Sausalito, CA

Sausalito, in Marin County just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, was incorporated on September 4, 1893; its name derives from the Spanish 'sauzalito,' meaning 'small willow grove,' after the willows that grew along its creek banks.

The Coast Miwok people, whose ancestors lived on this shoreline for thousands of years, called the place Liwanelowa, and English seafarer William Richardson received the 19,571-acre Rancho Sausalito land grant in 1838 and laid out the town's first streets.

Before the Golden Gate Bridge opened, Sausalito was the southern terminus for rail, car, and ferry traffic between Marin County and San Francisco, and it remained a bustling ferry hub into the 20th century.

During World War II, Sausalito's Marinship shipyard worked around the clock and had produced 93 Liberty ships and oil tankers by the time operations ended in 1945; the neighboring community of Marin City was built to house its workforce.

During Prohibition, Sausalito was a notorious center for bootlegging, popular with rumrunners — including, reportedly, gangster Baby Face Nelson — who smuggled liquor through its coves to San Francisco speakeasies.

After the war, artists, writers, and musicians colonized Sausalito's waterfront, and its community of floating homes grew so fiercely contested that the clashes between houseboat residents and developers in the 1970s became known as the 'Houseboat Wars.'

Sausalito's population was 7,269 at the 2020 census, spread across just 2.2 square miles — about 0.4 of a square mile of which is underwater.

Census QuickFacts counts about 3,976 households in Sausalito averaging only 1.79 people each, among the smallest household sizes in Marin County.

Sausalito is one of California's priciest small cities: Census QuickFacts puts the median value of owner-occupied homes at about $1,894,600, with about 60% of homes owner-occupied.

Sausalito has reinvented itself from shipbuilding town into a wealthy, artistic enclave and major tourist destination, famous for its hillside homes, waterfront restaurants, and views across the bay to San Francisco.