Main building of Priest's Station circa 1920
 

Pine Mountain Lake News, March 28, 1975

Historic Stop
HOSPITALITY RETURNS TO PRIEST STATION
By Jean McClish
Widely known and highly regarded by travelers and sojourners in the olden days, Priest's was a favorite stopping place on the Big Oak Flat Road.

The history of the old stage stop with its charming and hospitable service began in the early 1860's.

There had been a store on Priest hill before Alexander Kirkwood came in 1855. He bought the "Rattlesnake Store" and soon went back to Scotland to marry his young sweetheart, Margaret Dick. He returned with her by way of the Isthmus of Panama, where he contracted fever. Upon leaving the ship at San Francisco, they got as far as Chinese Camp where they stayed for several days while he recuperated sufficiently to make the arduous journey up the hill. They came up the trail back of the hill and through the gap, Mrs. Kirkwood riding a white mule.

Travelers would arrive at their store at the top of the hill, many on foot, exhausted and desperate for a place to rest before journeying further. So rooms were added, and the famous station was founded.

After Mr. Kirkwood's untimely death in 1870, hastened by the ravages of the fever suffered at Panama, his pretty young widow married William Priest, a mining man and engineer from Kentucky.

Through the years other buildings were added: a second hotel building, larger than the first, a deluxe cottage across the highway, a carriage house, livery stable, barns and sheds, and an annex to house the miners. There were 22 buildings in all.

Priest's Station was a famous and favorite stopping place for all who traveled the Big Oak Flat Road. Teamsters and stage drivers changed horses here or stopped to rest their teams. Motor cars, when their day came, filled steaming radiators from the water pump in front of the hotel.

Dan Corcoran, born at Deer Flat, came as a lad in 1880 to work, as handyman at Priest's to care for the horses and do the chores. In the course of events he married Mrs. Priest's niece, and following Mrs. Priest's death in 1905, the two of them conducted the hotel perpetuating its excellent reputation.

The hotel was remodeled to include a Ladies' Parlor. Daughter Margaret Corcoran Anker described it. "The Parlour" had a big wood stove in the middle of the room. Mother kept a pot of tea warm on the top of it. She drank tea any time of the day when she felt tired. It would pep her up." Margaret Anker remembers that on Wednesdays her mother would have a tea party. Mrs. Dron and her sister, Mrs. Anderson would walk from their hillside homes in Big Oak Flat to Priest's picking their way daintily along the dusty ruts of the road, parasols over their shoulders.

In the early days local women did the cooking. After the 1890's there was always a Chinese cook. He lived at the hotel, getting up early to get the fire going and breakfast on the table. The Chinese cook made bread, pies, cakes - nothing was bought in those days. Margaret Anker has fond childhood memories of cream puffs for dessert at dinner, made with genuine cream.

On Friday the menu always included creamed codfish. Dinner meals usually offered chicken and beef and port. In the early days the hotel raised its own meat. Hogs were butchered in the fall as soon as the weather was cool enough. It was served as roast pork, chops, and of course, they put down salt pork. There were sheep, with lambs in the Spring. Cows were kept for milk and steers were butchered. There were chickens for eggs and for eating. During the Hetch Hetchy days meat was purchased at Sal Ferretti's meat market in Groveland.

Young girls were hired to help with the work. They made beds. Cleaned the rooms, served the meals. Before the day of the vacuum cleaner, the girls swept the rooms. They spread strips of wet newspaper, torn into shreds, over the carpets to keep the dust down. Every Spring and Fall the carpets were taken up and put over a line strung from one tree to another and the boys that worked around the place would beat them. Before they were replaced and tacked down, sheets of newspaper were put on the floor for padding.

One day in 1926 fire swept over the hill and burned all that was Priest Station. The fire had started the day before when a gasoline drum exploded where a contractor was working down the gulch. A crew frantically backfired and thought they had successfully stopped the spread of the flames. But the next day winds blew embers across the line - and Priest was lost.

The famous station never regained its former reputation and popularity. Corcoran built the small house that stands today at the top of the hill by the road. It included a small store. There was a service station. It was enough to keep them busy. Margaret Anker says, "My father was the type that liked to meet the public. He liked to keep in touch with what was going on."

Margaret and Joe Anker operated the little store and motel until several years ago, maintaining the friendly spirit that signified Priest's service since the beginning.

Priest Station 1970's