A Rollicking Past

Outdoor exhibit about Mori Point Inn

NPS photo

Mori's Point Inn 

In the late 1800's, Stefano Mori and his family arrived from Italy and farmed this land, grazing cattle and horses. They built a rambling 21-room farmhouse. This 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 1920's, Stefano's son Jack turned the inn into a speakeasy, running Canadian whiskey from the 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.

Images

Image 1: A black and white editorial style cartoon of Mori Point, a cliff overlooking down the beach and water below. A man on a small boat unloads boxes and hands a box to a man on the shore, who is loading it into the back of a moving truck. The caption reads, "People...can recall an auto engine with attached winch which was permanently stationed on the beach and used to tow a skiff back and forth between the beach and anchored rumrunners' boats." - Bill Drake, Editor, Pacifica Tribune.

Image 2 and 3: Two black and white photos show Mori's Point Inn from different angles. One photo was taken in 1952 and the other in 1955. The caption reads, "Mori's Point Inn, 1955. Looking eastward at Mori's Point Inn from the Point. A gap in the dunes permitted overflow from the Horse Stable pond to reach the ocean. Much of the beach has since eroded away."

Image 4: A final image shows a more modern photograph of Mori Point as it looks today. The image is looking up the coast from Mori Point. In the distance, the steep cliffs are overlooking the waves crashing below on the beach. Below the photo, a quote reads, "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