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Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) | Muir Woods
Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA)Timeline:
All together 120,000 acres from the Marin Headlands to northern part of Pt. Reyas came under public ownership.
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Muir Woods | |||
In 1905 William Kent and his wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent, purchase 611 acres of one the last remaining stands of coast redwoods along Redwood Creek north of San Francisco Bay for the discounted sum of $45,000, to protect the redwood grove from development.
Though the Kents are considered wealthy, they do not have much in the way of liquid assets; they secure a loan from a sympathetic banker friend. Elizabeth questions the expense, but is convinced by her husband's (perhaps joking) response: "If we lost all the money we have and saved these trees, it would be worthwhile, wouldn't it?".
In 1907 he donates 295 acres to the Federal Government to keep a Sausalito water company from condemning the land to put a dam on Redwood Creek. 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. |
John Muir (left) and William Kent (center) in front of Muir Woods Inn, c. 1908 | ||
In his 2009 Terrain.org article, Tom Butler wrote: "In 1905 William Kent and his wife, feminist Elizabeth Thatcher Kent, purchased 611 acres of wild forest on Mount Tamalpais, in Marin County. Kent wanted to preserve the stand of unlogged redwoods, but also had considerable business interests in the area. After the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, a private utility offered to buy part of the land with the intent of damming Redwood Creek to create a water reservoir. When Kent refused to sell, the North Coast Water Company started eminent domain proceedings. Capitalizing on the postfire political climate, in which new infrastructure was considered a pressing social need, the developer sought to profit from the virgin grove's timber value as well as to create a local water monopoly. Kent saw the attempt to seize his property as both a threat to the land and bad legal precedent, and politically outmaneuvered his adversary. Knowing that under the 1906 Antiquities Act the president could designate national monuments around "objects of historic or scientific interest," Kent decided to save the forestland along Redwood Creek by giving it away. On the day after Christmas in 1907, he mailed a deed for 295 acres, including the area coveted by the private utility, to the secretary of the interior, and asked that President Roosevelt declare it Muir Woods National Monument in honor of the famous writer and wilderness champion. A few weeks later, Teddy Roosevelt did so. The reservoir scheme was foiled. The redwoods were saved. President Roosevelt sent a letter thanking Kent "most heartily," and suggested that "all Americans who prize the undamaged and especially those who realize the literally unique value of the groves of giant trees, must feel that you have conferred a great and lasting benefit upon the whole country." He also expressed admiration for John Muir, with whom Roosevelt had gone camping in Yosemite a few years previous, but offered that perhaps the new national monument should be named for Kent, as he was the land's donor. In his reply, Kent demurred, saying, "So many millions of better people have died forgotten, that to stencil one's own name on a benefaction seems to carry with it an implication of mandate immortality, as being something purchasable." "By George! you are right," the president responded. "It is enough to do the deed and not to desire, as you say, to 'stencil one's own name on the benefaction.'" In corresponding with Muir about the new protected area, Kent wrote, "I know the dreams we have will come true and that men will learn to love nature. All I fear is that it may be too late." Muir replied with effusive thanks: "This is the best tree-lover's monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world. . . . Saving these woods from the axe and saw, from money-changers and water-changers and giving them to our country and the world is in many ways the most notable service to God and man I've heard of since my forest wanderings began.... Immortal Sequoia life to you."
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