Founded in 1869 by San Francisco industrialist Peter Donahue, the San Francisco & North Pacific Railroad first had its southern terminus at Donahue's Landing near Lakeville on Petaluma Creek in Sonoma County. In 1884, Donahue extended the railroad and added ferry service by moving the southern terminus to Point Tiburon, creating Tiburon as a California railroad town on the Mexican land grant held by Hilarita Reed Lyford. In 1907, the line merged with five northcoast railroads to form the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Company. Its 400 miles of track through the Redwood Empire linked Eureka and San Francisco by way of Tiburon. In 1967, the last freight barge arrived from The City and the last train of freight cars departed the Tiburon yard. Afterward, the railroad bed along Richardson Bay was converted into a multi-use pathway, and by 1996 the 42-acre railroad yard from Racoon Strait to Mar West Road had become the site of condominium housing, businesses, and the town center, while the waterfront docks and piers became a shoreline park and only part of the passenger and freight depot remained preserved as a landmark and railroad-ferry museum.