View from Residence Hall towards the school entrance, ca. 1930's. Note the young blue cedar tree on the right, which now towers over the campus.

Although the official date for the establishment of The Branson School is 1920, its roots go back to 1916, when 15 Marin families combined forces to start a local school for their children. In 1917, The Little Grey School opened its doors on the Cochrane Estate in San Rafael, California, next to what is now the San Rafael Public Library.

In April 1920, Miss Katharine Fleming Branson, a teacher at Miss Beard's School in Orange, New Jersey, was appointed headmistress, and the trustees renamed the school in her honor. The Katharine Branson School officially opened on September 6, 1920, with 51 students enrolled in grades 1 to 11. The next year the school added a kindergarten and a 12th grade, and in 1922 moved to its present campus in Ross. At its inception the school included boys in the lower grades, but in the ensuing years the lower grades were discontinued, boys were no longer enrolled, and the residential campus grew until finally, in 1959, The Katharine Branson School became a secondary school for both day and boarding students.

 

 

In 1972, the Board of Trustees established Mount Tamalpais School, a day school for boys on the Katharine Branson School campus. MTS, with the same academic standards and basic philosophy as KBS, also shared a common board of trustees, faculty, and administrative staff. In January 1978, after extensive deliberation, the trustees decided to accept no further applications from resident students. In recognition of the fully coeducational nature of The Katharine Branson School and Mount Tamalpais School, the trustees, in July of 1985, united the two schools under the name The Branson School.