THE LATE GEORGE GEPPERT took this rare color photo of a horse named Blackie sometime in the late 1950s. Geppert and his wife were 50-year residents on nearby Paradise Drive; their daughters, like many children of the era, frequently visited Blackie to feed him apples, carrots, and sugar cubes. And Blackie, while more than a bit swaybacked, was no ordinary horse.
He was born in Kansas in 1926 and brought to California to be a rodeo cutting horse. Following that career, he was acquired by the U.S. Calvary and reportedly saw duty in Yosemite Valley. Then, in 1938, Blackie was “adopted” by a Tiburon resident named Anthony Connell who cared for him in his pasture where, several times a day, Blackie would experience a train passing by (that’s the Tiburon Trestle in the background).
However, Blackie may not have seen the trains: reliable sources say that once he found a comfortable spot, Blackie stood there, day after day, looking in the same direction, until he passed away on February 26, 1966. Now Blackie’s gravesite is close to where he stood. A bronze life-size statue of him, placed there by the Tiburon Peninsula Foundation, attracts young children, and the surrounding land is known as Blackie’s Pasture.
