The Waldos of San Rafael: Who Actually Invented 420

Last verified: April 2026

The Five Names

The five friends who invented “420” in the fall of 1971 at San Rafael High School in Marin County, California, are:

• Steve Capper — “Waldo Steve.” The Waldo who held the treasure map that started the whole story.
• Dave Reddix — “Waldo Dave.” Connected to the Grateful Dead through his older brother, who was friends with bassist Phil Lesh.
• Jeffrey Noel — “Waldo Jeff.”
• Larry Schwartz — “Waldo Larry.” Contacted High Times in 1998 — the call that triggered the magazine’s investigation and public verification.
• Mark Gravitch — “Waldo Mark.” His father was a Bay Area real estate agent who sold houses to Grateful Dead members.

Note on spelling: Some sources render the last name “Gravich” without the “t.” The most common journalistic spelling is “Gravitch,” which is what the Waldos themselves have used in their own interviews.

Why “Waldos”?

The name came from a wall outside the school where they hung out during lunch and between classes. There was no single named reason beyond that — “the wall” became “Waldos.” It had nothing to do with the book Where’s Waldo?, which wouldn’t be published until 1987. It was just a friend group with a place.

The Cannabis Patch That Started It All

In the fall of 1971, a U.S. Coast Guard member named Gary Newman had planted a cannabis patch on the Point Reyes Peninsula, about 30 miles northwest of San Rafael on the Pacific coast of Marin County. He became concerned that his superior officers were about to discover it and decided to abandon the crop. Before doing so, he drew a treasure map to the location and said that whoever found it could keep the harvest.

Through friends of friends, the map reached Steve Capper. Capper brought the news to the rest of the Waldos. They agreed to meet and drive out to Point Reyes to search for the patch.

The meeting time: 4:20 p.m., after football practice. The meeting place: the statue of Louis Pasteur on the San Rafael High School campus, the French chemist memorialized there because the school sat on land once owned by Pasteur’s son-in-law. The original full phrase was “4:20 Louie” — “Louie” being the Louis Pasteur statue. Over time, “Louie” dropped off and only “420” remained.

Their vehicle of choice for the expedition: Steve Capper’s 1966 Chevy Impala. Their soundtrack: a Grateful Dead 8-track. Their method: they smoked joints in the car on the drive out, walked the Point Reyes woods searching, came home empty-handed, and agreed to go back the next week.

They never found the patch. But the phrase “4:20” became their shorthand for cannabis — first for that specific meetup, then for anything weed-related. “Are you 420?” meant “do you have any?” “Let’s 420 later” meant “let’s smoke.”

The Evidence Vault at 420 Montgomery

The Waldos had the foresight — or luck — to write letters to each other using “420” in cannabis context in the early 1970s. Those letters were postmarked, dated, and saved. Decades later, when competing origin stories started circulating, the Waldos retrieved the letters and placed them in a vault at 420 Montgomery Street in San Francisco. The address is deliberate: the bank’s street number is itself a 420 reference.

The vault holds:

• Postmarked letters between the Waldos from 1971–1974 referencing “420” in cannabis context.
• A “420” flag the Waldos flew in the 1970s.
• A letter from one Waldo to another on his way to Vietnam, dated 1975, using “420.”
• A tie-dyed shirt referencing the term.

The High Times Investigation

In 1998, Waldo Larry Schwartz contacted High Times magazine. He had been watching the magazine credit “420” to vague and incorrect sources for years. He told the editors he could prove the term came from him and his friends.

Editor-in-chief Steve Hager, a cannabis culture historian and founder of the Cannabis Cup, flew to San Rafael. He met with the Waldos, examined their postmarked letters, interviewed classmates, walked the campus, and reviewed the physical evidence. He concluded the Waldos’ account was genuine. High Times published the verification.

Competing claims have surfaced over the years — most notably from a group called the Bebes, who claimed they used “420” at San Rafael High School slightly earlier. The Bebes have never produced documentary evidence to support the claim. The Waldos have. That’s the argument.

Why the Waldos Matter

The Waldos are important not because they invented a useful word — plenty of useful cannabis slang has come and gone — but because they preserved the evidence of when and how it happened. In a culture where most of the language was passed orally, underground, through networks that deliberately didn’t write things down, the Waldos documented their own history almost by accident. Those letters turned “420” from folklore into something a dictionary could verify.

They have also been genuinely gracious with the legacy. None of them copyrighted “420” (which likely wouldn’t have been enforceable anyway). None of them demanded royalties from the many commercial uses of the term. They give interviews when asked, maintain the vault, and — in the words Steve Capper has used repeatedly — are glad their inside joke became a global holiday.

What They Said About It

Steve Capper, to High Times: “Of course we never found it! But we had fun searching.”

Dave Reddix, on the Grateful Dead scene: “I was backstage a lot of the time with these guys like Phil, David Crosby, and Terry Haggerty — getting high and using the term 420, and they were all kind of chuckling at it.”

The spread of the term through the Dead scene is the subject of its own page: the Grateful Dead connection. The full origin story is on the what is 420 page. For the commercial and cultural present of the holiday, see festivals and how to celebrate.