Qualla: Mori Point

Mori Point: Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Panegyrics of Granovetter from Lincoln, NE, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the climactic scene of the 1971 film Harold and Maude, a customized Jaguar E-Type modified to look like a hearse is driven off a bluff and crashes onto the beach below. That bluff is Mori Point, a 110-acre park in Pacifica that is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The car scene is fictional. The speakeasy that once operated here was not. Neither are the endangered frogs that now live in the ponds the National Park Service dug on the hillside.

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Image: Panegyrics of Granovetter from Lincoln, NE, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Mori Point: From Rancho to Speakeasy

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Fraley from San Francisco, US, CC BY 2.0. An archaeological survey in 1969 revealed shell middens at Mori Point, evidence of pre-Columbian Native American habitation. Francisco Sanchez received Rancho San Pedro in 1839, encompassing much of present-day Pacifica. The kitchen built to feed ranch workers eventually became t...

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Image: Michael Fraley from San Francisco, US | CC BY 2.0

Mori Point: Frogs, Snakes, and Quarry Stone

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amadscientist, Public domain. Limestone from the adjacent Rockaway Quarry was used as track ballast for the Ocean Shore Railroad and to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. A 1938 Dorothea Lange photograph shows a fishing village at the base of the point with the quarry visible in the background. ...

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Image: Amadscientist | Public domain

Mori Point: Whales and the View from the Bluff

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Menard from Phoenix, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. In April 2015, a 48-foot sperm whale washed up on the beach below Mori Point. A necropsy ruled out common causes of death. Three weeks later, a 32-foot female humpback whale beached just a quarter mile north on Sharp Park Beach, bearing injuries consistent with a ship strike. Bot...

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Image: John Menard from Phoenix, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0