June Morrall

Who is June Morrall?

June Morrall was a writer and San Mateo County [northern California] historian. The native San Franciscan authored two books, "Half Moon Bay Memories: The Coastside's Colorful Past" and "The Coburn Mystery", an historical account of murder and mayhem in the quaint little village of Pescadero, California. She was considered a "popular historian" who strives to make local history fun to read as well as accessible.

June wrote and produced The Mystery of Half Moon Bay, a one-hour historical documentary for KCSM-TV. At the time agricultural Half Moon Bay was suddenly discovered, growing and changing from a rural landscape to a suburban setting, igniting controversies between environmentalists and subdivision builders. Some of the interviews with locals, now gone, have been reproduced on her website.

In the early 1980s she worked for Time Magazine's bureau chief, Bill Doerner, in the San Francisco bureau--initially as an office manager/photo editor, later as a stringer when both high tech and AIDs became the big stories of the day. She was also a stringer for Newsweek.

For seven years [1997-2004] she wrote "Other Times", a full page historical column for the San Mateo County Times, that covered every corner of San Mateo County, including the early extraordinarily talented group of people behind the growth of Silicon Valley.