History
Formation
The City of Daly City was officially incorporated by permission of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors on March 22, 1911. The first record of law enforcement efforts in the City began shortly thereafter with the employment of four men under the direction of a Marshal. The four men had plenty to do, as Daly City had become a real boomtown after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. By 1914, Daly City had two saloons where non-residents of Daly City could drink and gamble. Those guilty of over-imbibing were banished from the saloons for thirty days and the City Judge directed the Marshal to enforce such orders.
Chief Jack Doyle
In 1924, the Chief of the Daly City Police Department was Jack Doyle. He had three men under his command, one of whom was Barney Hilton, who would go on to become chief for a short while. According to newspaper accounts, Chief Doyle experienced tremendous luck when a suspect's shotgun shell failed to discharge and he escaped an otherwise certain death. The suspect, oddly enough, had been an officer with the Daly City Police Department for four years before mental illness apparently took hold. Chief Doyle's luck ran out, however, when he was struck and killed by a street car on December 19, 1936.
Communications
According to an article in the Daly City Record, published on September 25, 1963, "communications were 'kind of nil' at the top of the hill" in 1927 and 1928. The article is based on an interview with Otto Schramm, a police officer in Daly City in the 1920's. There was a phone box at Hillside and Mission Streets. This phone box provided the only communication with Daly City Police officers. When an officer wasn't close enough to answer, a local person would help out by telling the police that the phone box was ringing. Otto Schramm went on to a successful career with the California Highway Patrol, eventually working as a sergeant in the Redwood City office.
Police Station
There were numerous championship boxing matches during this era at what is now the corner of Mission and School Streets. The first City Hall and Police Station was in an old wooden building at 75 Wellington Avenue. The Police Department occupied part of the first floor and most of the basement. The total square footage was 3,191. From 1924 to 1928, the Police Department experienced a 25 % increase in staffing, growing from four to five officers.
New Location
1928 brought progress to Daly City with destruction of the old wooden City Hall and Police Station and the construction of a new City Hall. During the eleven years that followed, the police department was based out of a converted plumbing shop on Mission Circle. The officers made many of the improvements. There were two holding (jail) cells in the temporary station.
The depression hit and construction was halted for five years on the new permanent City Hall. Finally, in 1939, the new City Hall opened. The police department had one police car with a radio. The calls for service were handled by radio station KGO. In the words of one police officer, "Everybody else in town beat us to the calls." The Daly City Police Department was soon part of the same radio network as the San Francisco Police Department.
