Meat-packing heir, conservationist, and congressman, William Kent was a US Congressman serving the 2nd district in California which covered the central valley from Sacramento to the Oregon border from 1911 - 1913. And the 1st district which went from Napa to the Oregon border from 1913-1917.
Together with his wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent, he purchased 611 acres of one the last remaining stands of coast redwoods along Redwood Creek north of San Francisco Bay. To protect the redwood grove from development, he donated 295 acres to the Federal Government. President Theodore Roosevelt declared the area a national monument in 1908 and suggested naming the monument after Kent. Kent demurred and suggested the grove be named Muir Woods National Monument, after naturalist John Muir. The William Kent campground on the west shore of Lake Tahoe is named for him.
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