Managing a Land in Motion: 

An Administrative History of 

Point Reyes National Seashore

Prepared for 

National Park Service 

Point Reyes National Seashore 

Bear Valley Road 

Point Reyes, California 94956 

by 

Paul Sadin 

Historical Research Associates, Inc. 

1904 Third Avenue, Suite 240 

Seattle, Washington 98101 

October 2007 

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................................i 

PREFACE ......................................................................................................................ix 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................xi 

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 

CHAPTER ONE

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (PREHISTORIC–1930S).....................................................11 

 Coast Miwok Indian Communities on Point Reyes Peninsula ............................................11 

 Euroamerican Contact and Settlement ....................................................................................12 

 Portus Nova Albiones.........................................................................................................13 

 Shipwrecks ............................................................................................................................14 

 Spanish Mission Period.......................................................................................................15 

 Mexican Land Grants, 1842–1846 ....................................................................................17 

 Land Disputes ......................................................................................................................18 

 The Dairy Industry......................................................................................................................19 

 The Steeles ............................................................................................................................20 

 The Shafters..........................................................................................................................21 

 Tenant Ranches....................................................................................................................22 

 Early Marin County and Point Reyes Peninsula Tourism ....................................................24 

 Hunting Clubs ......................................................................................................................25 

 Navigation and Communication on Point Reyes...................................................................27 

 Point Reyes Lighthouse ......................................................................................................27 

 Marconi and RCA Wireless Stations.................................................................................29 

 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................31 

CHAPTER TWO

THE CAMPAIGN TO CREATE A NATIONAL SEASHORE .............................................. 39 

 Origins of the National Seashore Concept (1929–1958) ......................................................39 

 The Changing National Park System................................................................................40 

 Loss of Shoreline and Beaches ..........................................................................................42 

 America’s Outdoor Recreation Movement .....................................................................43 

 Point Reyes Site Study.........................................................................................................44 

 Cape Hatteras National Seashore......................................................................................44 

 Conrad Wirth’s Influence ...................................................................................................45

 NPS Seashore Surveys, 1954-1955....................................................................................46 

 Point Reyes Seashore Survey .............................................................................................47 

 Conservation Movement in the Bay Area and Marin County..............................................48 

 Bay Area Conservation Movement History.....................................................................49 

 Marin County Conservation Movement History............................................................51 

 Marin County Growth and Development .......................................................................53 

 Development Threats at Point Reyes...............................................................................53 

 Point Reyes National Seashore Campaign ..............................................................................57 

 Outgrowths of the Conservation Movement..................................................................57 

 Campaign Field Trips..........................................................................................................57 

 Island in Time.......................................................................................................................60 

 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................62 
Table of Contents 

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CHAPTER THREE

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE ACT,

1958–1962......................................................................................................................71 

 First Steps toward Authorization..............................................................................................71 

 Key Figures in the Seashore Campaign............................................................................72 

 Initial Legislation..................................................................................................................75 

 Concurrent Seashore Legislation.......................................................................................77 

 State and Local Political Strategies....................................................................................78 

 NPS National Seashore Agenda ........................................................................................78 

 The Legislative Battle Intensifies ..............................................................................................79 

 Public Opposition................................................................................................................80 

 “People and Cattle Don’t Mix” .........................................................................................81 

 Media Coverage....................................................................................................................82 

 Debating Costs and Land Acquisition..............................................................................83 

 New Legislation and New Strategies ................................................................................84 

 Kennedy’s Conservation Agenda ......................................................................................86 

 Compromises and Completion .................................................................................................87 

 The Hole in the Doughnut.................................................................................................87 

 Private, Commercial, and Federal Inholdings .................................................................89 

 Marin County Board of Supervisors.................................................................................90 

 New Development Threats................................................................................................90 

 Congressional Debate and Enactment.............................................................................92 

 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................94 

CHAPTER FOUR

SHAPING THE NATIONAL SEASHORE, 1962–1972 ......................................................103 

 Building a New Seashore..........................................................................................................103 

 Acquisition of Heims and Bear Valley Ranches ...........................................................104 

 Land Acquisition Phase Two: Lake Ranch....................................................................105 

 Lost Opportunities ............................................................................................................107 

 Defining the National Seashore.......................................................................................109 

 1964 Master Plan................................................................................................................112 

 Limantour Estero Development .....................................................................................114 

 Entrance Road Construction ...........................................................................................117 

 Beginning the Seashore’s Management, Infrastructure, and Visitor Operations............118 

 First Park Managers and Employees ..............................................................................118 

 Initial Seashore Operations ..............................................................................................119 

 Visitor Safety.......................................................................................................................120 

 Law Enforcement ..............................................................................................................121 

 Recreational Use.................................................................................................................121 

 Visitor Services...................................................................................................................123 

 Early Interpretive Operations..........................................................................................123 

 Maintenance........................................................................................................................124 

 Beginnings of Natural Resource Management .....................................................................125 

 Fisheries...............................................................................................................................127 

 Johnson Oyster Company ................................................................................................127 

 Hunting................................................................................................................................129 

 Land Acquisition Crisis and the “Save Our Seashore” Campaign ....................................132 

 A “Patchwork Park”..........................................................................................................133 

 Marin County Involvement..............................................................................................134 

 New NPS Plan for Point Reyes.......................................................................................135 

 Save Our Seashore.............................................................................................................136 
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iii

 “Cancel a Space Shot”.......................................................................................................137 

 Congressional Hearings and Debates .............................................................................138 

 The Ryan Amendment......................................................................................................139 

 Significance and Legacy of the SOS Campaign ............................................................141 

CHAPTER FIVE

PARK PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT, AND MAINTENANCE, 1972–2000........................153 

 Administering the National Seashore as an Integrated Unit ..............................................154 

 San Francisco Oil Spill ......................................................................................................156 

 Golden Gate National Recreation Area.........................................................................157 

 Citizens’ Advisory Commission.......................................................................................159 

 Organizational Changes ....................................................................................................161

 Staffing.................................................................................................................................162 

 Volunteer Programs...........................................................................................................163 

 Internal Reconfigurations .................................................................................................164

 Defining the National Seashore Anew...................................................................................164 

 Developing a General Management Plan ......................................................................165 

 Wilderness Debate and Legislation.................................................................................168 

 Point Reyes Wilderness Act .............................................................................................170 

 1980 General Management Plan......................................................................................171 

 Other Planning Programs.................................................................................................172 

 Park Infrastructure and Facilities Management....................................................................172 

 Roads and Trails.................................................................................................................173 

 Buildings and Grounds .....................................................................................................174

 Point Reyes Lighthouse ....................................................................................................175

 Bear Valley Visitor Center ................................................................................................176

 Utilities.................................................................................................................................176 

 Dairy and Cattle Ranching................................................................................................177 

 Wilkins Ranch Controversy..............................................................................................178 

 New Management, New Strategies.........................................................................................180 

 Increased Emphasis on Resource Management ...........................................................181 

 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................182 

CHAPTER SIX

VISITOR USE, VISITOR SERVICES, AND PARK PROTECTION OPERATIONS................ 191 

 Accommodating Visitor Use at Point Reyes National Seashore .......................................191 

 Beach Recreation and Boating.........................................................................................192 

 Hiking and Camping..........................................................................................................195 

 Public Transportation........................................................................................................197 

 Whale Watching .................................................................................................................198 

 Clunkers of Marin..............................................................................................................202 

 Point Reyes Lighthouse ....................................................................................................206

 Search-and-Rescue and Emergency Services.................................................................208 

 Visitor and Resource Protection: Law Enforcement...........................................................210 

 NPS Law Enforcement.....................................................................................................211 

 Jurisdiction ..........................................................................................................................211 

 Kenneth C. Patrick ............................................................................................................214 

 The Trailside Killer............................................................................................................216 

 Marijuana Cultivation ........................................................................................................217 

 Visitor Protection for the 21st Century..........................................................................218 

 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................219 
Table of Contents 

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CHAPTER SEVEN

ADMINISTERING A STOREHOUSE OF RICHES: 

THREE DECADES OF NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT .................................... 227 

 Defining Natural Resource Management at Point Reyes....................................................228 

 Initial NPS Management Strategies at Point Reyes ......................................................228 

 Collaboration with California Fish and Game ..............................................................229 

 Creating Management Plans and Objectives .................................................................230 

 1976 Natural Resource Management Plan.....................................................................231 

 Nonnative Deer Species ...................................................................................................233 

 Marine Mammal Management Plan ................................................................................234 

 Natural Resource Management in the Organization....................................................235 

 Management Planning in the 1990s ................................................................................236 

 Science and Research................................................................................................................238 

 Critical Natural Resource Issues at Point Reyes...................................................................240 

 Nonnative Plants and Animals ........................................................................................240 

 Tule Elk Reintroduction ...................................................................................................243

 Coastal Systems ..................................................................................................................246 

 Range Management ...........................................................................................................248 

 Fire Management ...............................................................................................................250 

 Mount Vision Fire..............................................................................................................251 

 Endangered and Threatened Species..............................................................................253 

 Habitat Restoration and Salmon Fisheries.....................................................................254 

 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................255 

CHAPTER EIGHT

EXPLORING AND TELLING THE POINT REYES STORY: INTERPRETATION AND 

EDUCATION FOR PARK VISITORS AND THE LOCAL COMMUNITY............................ 263 

 Initial Interpretive Efforts........................................................................................................263 

 Interpretive Planning.........................................................................................................265 

 NEED and Education Programs at Point Reyes .........................................................266 

 “Living History” ........................................................................................................................267 

 Morgan Horse Farm..........................................................................................................267 

 Living History Programs in the NPS..............................................................................270 

 Growth of Morgan Horse Farm......................................................................................271 

 Kule Loklo Construction and Development.................................................................273 

 Redefining Kule Loklo......................................................................................................278 

 Expanding Interpretive Services amid the Growth of Recreational and 

Environmental Tourism .........................................................................................................279 

 Reorganizing Interpretation in the 1970s.......................................................................279 

 Interpretation in the 1980s...............................................................................................281

 Bear Valley Visitor Center ................................................................................................281

 Environmental Education ................................................................................................284 

 Cooperating Association...................................................................................................285

 1989 Interpretive Prospectus ...........................................................................................286 

 Enhancing Interpretation in the 1990s...........................................................................286 

 Extending the Reach of Interpretive Programming.....................................................288 

 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................289 

CHAPTER NINE

A HERITAGE LOST AND REGAINED: UNDERSTANDING AND PRESERVING THE PARK’S 

CULTURAL RESOURCES............................................................................................. 297 

 Cultural Resource Management in the National Parks .......................................................298 
Table of Contents 

v

 Antiquities Act of 1906.....................................................................................................299 

 National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 ..................................................................300 

 Evolution of Cultural Rersource Management at Point Reyes ..........................................301 

 Resistance and Pragmatism: The 1970s..........................................................................302 

 Sansing's D-8 Policy ..........................................................................................................303 

 Historical Structures ..........................................................................................................304 

 Archaeological Resources.................................................................................................306 

 Toogood's Civil History....................................................................................................307 

 The Turning Tide: 1980-1995..........................................................................................309 

 Submerged Cultural Resources........................................................................................311 

 Cultural Landscapes...........................................................................................................311 

 A Sea Change: 1995–2002 ................................................................................................313 

 Federated Tribe of Graton Rancheria ............................................................................316 

 Assessing Cultural Resource Management ....................................................................317 

 Into the Twenty-first Century..........................................................................................318 

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 329 

APPENDICES

 A. KEY PERSONNEL...............................................................................................................333 

 B. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY TIMELINE, 1935-1962 ............................................................337 

 C KEY LEGISLATION............................................................................................................341 

 Public Law 87-657, September 13, 1962, 76 Stat. 538 .................................................341 

 Assembly Bill No. 1024, July 9, 1965..............................................................................345 

 Public Law 89-666, October 15, 1966............................................................................347 

 Public Law 91-223, April 3, 1970....................................................................................349 

 Public Law 93-550, December 26, 1974, 88 Stat. 1744 ...............................................351 

 Public Law 94-389, August 14, 1976, 90 Stat. 1189 .....................................................353 

 Public Law 94-544, October 18, 1976, 90 Stat. 2515...................................................355 

 Public Law 94-567, October 20, 1976, 90 Stat. 2692...................................................357 

 Public Law 95-625, November 10, 1978, 92 Stat. 3467...............................................359 

 Public Law 96-199, March 5, 1980, 94 Stat. 67.............................................................363 

 Public Law 99-68, July 19, 1985, 99 Stat. 166................................................................365 

BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................... 369 

INDEX.........................................................................................................................391 
Table of Contents 

vi

ILLUSTRATIONS

Earth torn open along San Andreas Fault during 1907 earthquake. ............................................ 4 

Satellite image of Point Reyes. ............................................................................................................ 7 

Archeologist James Delgado supervises the excavation of the “S.S. Pomo”............................14 

Photograph of “I” Ranch (McClure Dairy)....................................................................................22 

The schooner “Point Reyes”.............................................................................................................23 

Interior view of the Pacific Union Hunting Club in Bear Valley................................................25 

American Shore and Beach Preservation Association logo .........................................................42 

Golden Gate Bridge ...........................................................................................................................51 

Drakes Bay Estates realty sign, Point Reyes National Seashore..................................................55 

Bird’s eye view of Bonelli’s plans for subdividing the Drakes Bay Estates property. .............56 

Participants in a promotional field trip, November 1960 ............................................................59 

California Representative Clem Miller, official portrait, ca. 1960. ..............................................72 

Sign at Point Reyes advertises a new residential subdivision at Drakes Beach.........................76 

Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation letterhead.................................................................77 

Congressional investigation party brought by helicopter to Bear Valley, April 16, 1960........80 

San Francisco Chronicle headline, September 17, 1958...............................................................80 

San Francisco Chronicle editorial, March 22, 1961.......................................................................83 

New house in the Drakes Beach Estates development, January 1962.......................................91 

Political flyer promoting the Point Reyes bill, ca. 1962................................................................92 

The Authorizing Legislation..............................................................................................................94 

First Lady Mrs. Johnson speaking at the Point Reyes National Seashore dedication 

ceremony.....................................................................................................................................108 

Mrs. Johnson on Point Reyes National Seashore establishment day. ......................................108 

Family at the Bear Valley trailhead preparing for a hike, 1966..................................................119 

Original Bear Valley Information Center, 1966...........................................................................120 

A group of backpackers at Point Reyes. .......................................................................................122 

An interpretive ranger talks with a family at the Bear Valley trailhead, June 1968. ...............124 

Maintenance crew moves a house from Limantour Spit............................................................125 

Employee at Johnson Oyster Company........................................................................................129 

Fred Cushing poses with a string of downed birds at Duck Cabin, Point Reyes 

‘N’ Ranch....................................................................................................................................132 

Automatic milking machines on the McClure Ranch .................................................................140 

Aftermath of the San Francisco oil spill, January 20, 1972........................................................157 

Meeting of the GGNRA/PRNS Citizens’ Advisory Commission ...........................................160 

1966 PRNS staff photo....................................................................................................................162 

Diane Skiles, GS-11 Interpretive Specialist, holding Ming Dynasty pottery sherds ..............163 

A volunteer YCC crew performs trail repairs at Point Reyes, ca. 1980 ...................................164 

Two residences on Limantour Beach, prior to removal, 1970 ..................................................175 

Point Reyes lifeguards on duty at unknown beach. Point Reyes National Seashore, 

ca. 1960s......................................................................................................................................193 

Visitors sunbathing at Drakes Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore ....................................194 

Campsites at Coast Camp, 1985 .....................................................................................................196 

Whale-watching from bluff at Point Reyes Light Station, 1981................................................199 

Parking back-up on route to lighthouse and Chimney Rock, 1981..........................................201 

Poster for 1978 Repack Downhill race on Mount Tamalpais ...................................................203 

Bicyclists on the Bear Valley Trail in the pre-mountain bike era, 1966 ...................................204 

Evacuation of victims by helicopter from Point Reyes back country, 1982 ...........................209 

Lee Roy Brock, Point Reyes National Seashore chief ranger from 1974 to 1995..................213 

Kenneth C. Patrick, ca. 1973...........................................................................................................215 

Local news headlines announced the end of the trailside killing saga......................................217 

Detail of small squid, one of the marine inhabitants of Point Reyes National Seashore......237 
Table of Contents 

vii

Tule elk in enclosure pen; deformed antlers show signs of Johnes disease ............................244 

Point Reyes staff conducts research and monitoring on tranquilized elk................................245 

Point Reyes ranger performs prescribed burn for park fire management...............................251 

Students arrive at NEED camp to attend the environmental education program ................267 

Rangers at Morgan Horse Farm .....................................................................................................269 

Rangers at the Morgan Horse Farm ..............................................................................................272 

Ranger Strong demonstrates blacksmithing at Morgan Horse Farm .......................................273 

Interpretive ranger Lanny Pinola with MAPOM founders at Kule Loklo.............................274 

Reconstruction of a Coast Miwok sweathouse at Kule Loklo ..................................................275 

Kule Loklo visitor brochure produced by the Point Reyes Cooperating Association, 

1982 .............................................................................................................................................277 

Promotional brochure for Kule Loklo Big Time Festival..........................................................278 

Interpretive specialist Diana Skiles.................................................................................................280 

Rear view of new Bear Valley Visitor Center...............................................................................283 

A visiting school group on the Woodpecker Trail at Bear Valley, May 1971 .........................284 

Dilapidated barn on the Nunes Ranch..........................................................................................304 

Point Reyes Lighthouse ...................................................................................................................305 

Interpretive ranger Margaret Johnson at Drakes Beach.............................................................307 

NPS staff on a diving trip for the Submerged Archaeological Inventory Survey ..................311 

Aerial view of the Pierce Ranch on the upper Point Reyes peninsula .....................................314 

Park maintenance staff performs rehabilitation work on a building at upper Pierce 

Ranch...........................................................................................................................................315 

Lanny Pinola at Kule Loklo ............................................................................................................317 

The renovated 1870s Red Barn at Bear Valley.............................................................................319 

MAPS

Map showing primary travel routes to Point Reyes National Seashore from nearby cities...... 5 

Diagram showing possible development plans for the proposed Point Reyes National 

Seashore. .......................................................................................................................................85 

1963 PRNS Master Plan sheet .......................................................................................................113 

Location and construction schedule for proposed developments at Limantour Spit. ..........115 

TABLES

 Table 1. Total Recreation Visits, 1966-2005 .........................................................................192 

 Table 2. Backcountry Overnight Visits, National Seashores, 1979-2004.........................196 

 Table 3. Summer Shuttle Bus Passengers, 1972-1981 .........................................................198 
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ix

PREFACE

rowing up in central Connecticut during the sixties and seventies, I relished the trips to 

the beach that were the highlight of our muggy summers. Outings to the Connecticut or 

Rhode Island shore promised cool water, gentle breezes, and a variety of entertainments. 

This was especially true when, as teenagers armed with someone’s family station wagon, 

my friends and I made Sunday trips to one of the few state park beaches available nearby. 

The scene that greeted us, however, might be unfamiliar if you grew up in a lesspopulated coastal area. A sea of bodies, lying or sitting upon a seemingly unbroken quilt 

of beach blankets, stretched from one end of the state park to the other. A long string of 

people stood at the water’s edge, while the heads of a multitude of swimmers and waders 

bobbed in the meager wave action of Long Island Sound. There was a ritualistic air about 

these outings; I recall the familiar smells of suntan oil and cigar smoke, the sounds of 

shrieking kids and Red Sox games on portable radios, the feel of gritty sand on hot, damp 

skin. But the sheer number of people who flocked there created a population density that 

necessitated a ban on many typical beach activities. There were no Frisbees, no volleyball 

games, and no boogie boards. Beach recreation was reduced to its simplest formula: 

sunbathing, swimming, sand castles, and socializing over food and drink. 

If we strolled along the water’s edge, trying to escape the boundaries (both literal and 

figurative) of the public beach, we encountered a wooden fence that marked the 

beginning of private property. The fence blocking our path extended across the sand and 

into the surf, down to a point below the low-tide marker. If we had climbed over that first 

fence and continued walking, we would encounter another one at the next property line, 

and so on, for miles and miles along the Connecticut and Rhode Island shores. Those few 

crowded state parks offered the only public beach access in our area. 

Once every summer, from high school through college, my friends and I took a weekend 

trek to the Cape Cod peninsula, which offered more beaches, bigger waves, and greater 

adventure. Despite the larger selection of beaches to choose from, we always returned to 

Cape Cod National Seashore after discovering the place on our first trip. Those beaches 

were different: the sand stretched for miles, uninterrupted by fences, jetties, or beach 

houses. When we crossed the dunes to get down onto the beach and looked landward, the 

backdrop was free of the glaring windshields and tacky souvenir stands that marked the 

crowded beaches closer to home. Although my recollections may be clouded by the years 

that have elapsed, I remember sensing something about the national seashore beaches—

intangible qualities of openness, breathing space, elbow room—something we knew we 

could not capture anywhere else. 

Thirty years later, the chance to work on this project for the National Park Service has 

explained why those Cape Cod National Seashore beaches seemed so appealing. They 

offered a slice of beauty, wildness, and freedom from restrictions amid the vast stretches 

of private property and crowded public beaches along the eastern seaboard. It was why 

the NPS designed and Congress set aside the national seashores. As I researched and 

wrote this history, the summer outings of my youth helped me understand the urgency 

that leaders in the campaign to create Point Reyes National Seashore must have felt, as 

development began to threaten those spectacular shores. 

G 
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

project of this magnitude would not be possible without assistance from all corners. The 

author would like to thank David Louter, Gordon White, Sarah Allen, Don Neubacher, 

and several other staff at Point Reyes National Seashore for the many valuable 

comments, corrections, and insights they provided while reviewing this work for the 

National Park Service. Thanks, also, to Gordon and Don for their support of this project 

throughout its long gestation, and to Ann Nelson for her ready welcome and her guidance 

with the park’s central administrative files. Special thanks to Point Reyes archivist Carola 

DeRooy and her former assistant Anna Lyons, for uncovering a wealth of source 

materials, performing extensive copying and scanning jobs, and providing excellent 

company during the weeks spent researching at the Point Reyes archives. 

Primary source materials used in this history also came from other locations, including 

the National Archives and Records Administration–Pacific West Region branch in San 

Bruno, the National Archives–II in College Park, Maryland, the NPS History Collection 

Archives in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the archives of the NPS Pacific West–Great 

Basin Support Office in Oakland, California, the Anne T. Kent California Room of the 

Marin County Library in San Rafael, California, and the Bancroft Library at the 

University of California, Berkeley. I am very grateful to their staffs for their time and 

attention. Thanks should also go to Tom, Rod, Scott, and Tim for joining me on those 

national seashore “research” trips of years ago. 

Textual documents by no means represent all of the sources tapped for this project; 

because much of the park’s administrative history took place in the recent past, the author 

conducted more than thirty oral history interviews, almost all of them in-person. Thanks 

to all those who shared their time, their thoughts, and in some cases, their homes, during 

those interviews. The tapes are now part of an oral history collection in the Point Reyes 

Archives. Three of the interviews, with Stewart Udall, William Duddleson, and Harold 

Gilliam, were transcribed and are included in an addendum volume to the administrative 

history, also available in the park archives. I also want to acknowledge Mr. Duddleson 

for giving generously of his time in reviewing and offering helpful recommendations on a 

draft of the manuscript. 

I especially appreciate the efforts of Lisa Mighetto, Pamela Cobb, Dawn Vogel, Leigh 

Cutler, and Heather Lee Miller of Historical Research Associates, Inc., to help bring this 

work to completion. Leigh stepped in without hesitation to assist with editing, and to help 

collect and format many of the images used in this history. Pam did her usual excellent 

work with the formatting and layout of the text and images, and was always available to 

answer my many style and editing questions. Lisa, who served as the initial project 

manager, contributed to the writing, read several drafts of the manuscript, and patiently 

shepherded the first draft to completion. I owe much to Heather, who wrote the bulk of 

two chapters, did superb editing of each draft, and provided constant encouragement that 

helped this work become a reality. Finally, I thank Susie and Louisa for their love and 

perseverance during my time away from home while on research trips and throughout my 

long journey to finish this project. 

Paul Sadin 

Seattle, 2007 

A 
xii
1

INTRODUCTION
2
3

INTRODUCTION

uring the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Point Reyes Peninsula, forty miles farther 

north along the San Andreas Fault, shook loose from its temporary moorings to the 

California coastline and lurched to the northwest by some twenty feet. The powerful 

quake that terrorized the city also tore through the land and jarred the rural inhabitants of 

Point Reyes. It was another abrupt step in the peninsula’s slow creep from southern to 

northern California, yielding a piece of land quite divergent from the California mainland 

to which it is now affixed. Although pressure along the San Andreas Fault continued to 

build for the remainder of the century, there were no other geologic events of a 

magnitude that could so drastically alter the land’s surface. By contrast, human events 

since 1906 have significantly altered the peninsula’s landscape. In the century following 

the earthquake, economic, cultural, and political forces gradually reshaped Point Reyes. 

Possibly the biggest tremor took place in 1962, when Congress created, and President 

John F. Kennedy signed into law, the Point Reyes National Seashore. At that juncture, the 

political geography of the land, as a new unit of the National Park Service (NPS), was 

about to change dramatically. This volume, Managing a Land in Motion: An 

Administrative History of Point Reyes National Seashore, traces, explains, and analyzes 

the ideas and events that produced the national seashore and transpired in the forty years 

that followed. 

Congress created Point Reyes National Seashore in September 1962, making it the third 

of the fourteen national seashores and lakeshores eventually added to the park system. 

The seashore’s exterior boundaries encompass more that 71,000 acres, or roughly fourfifths of the Point Reyes Peninsula. Park headquarters at Bear Valley, the former site of 

Bear Valley Ranch and the main point of visitor entry, is a one-to-two hour drive from 

the San Francisco–Oakland metropolitan area. Proximity to this large urban population, 

combined with the unique qualities and aesthetic beauty of the peninsula, have resulted in 

an average visitation of more than two million per year. Although the peninsula itself is 

in motion, this story, in its function as an NPS administrative history, necessarily tracks 

the movement of people and ideas, particularly those people in Congress, the National 

Park Service, conservation organizations, regional government, local businesses, and 

nearby communities that had a hand in shaping the way visitors, park officials, and 

residents came to view and use that land. 

Point Reyes Peninsula is a geologic anomaly produced by the strike-slip movements 

along the San Andreas Fault. Passengers on southbound flights heading into the San 

Francisco or Oakland airports get a view of Point Reyes, when not obscured by fog, 

which gives evidence to the peninsula’s displaced character. From that overhead 

perspective, Point Reyes looks to be a loose appendage sutured onto the main body of 

Marin County. The mountains and swales of the peninsula often look greener than those 

to the east across Tomales Bay, adding to the peninsula’s dislocated appearance, and 

indicating that the tumultuous passage to its present location shaped the land’s surface in 

several important ways. 

Running approximately eight hundred miles in length, the San Andreas Fault demarks the 

place where two tectonic plates, the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, come 

together. The northward migrating Pacific Plate, on which Point Reyes sits, stays locked 

to the North American Plate for decades or centuries, creating tremendous strain along 

the line of the fault. Eventually, that strain is released at by a fracture at a weak point in 

D 

Point Reyes 

Peninsula: 

Land and 

People 
Introduction

4

the fault line, allowing the Pacific Plate to “slip” northward along the edge of the 

continent. This process, repeated over and over during the course of the last fifteen to 

twenty million years, has shifted the Point Reyes Peninsula to its current position, at 

roughly the north-south midpoint of the state of California. Geologic forces thus gave rise 

to many of the peninsula’s unique qualities. Point Reyes straddles the diffuse boundary 

between the Oregonian and Californian bioregions. As is often the case with “verge” 

environments, these overlapping ecoregions create a diverse biological palette. In 

addition, the composition of the peninsula’s bedrock is unrelated to the West Marin rock 

it presses against, producing distinctive hydrologic patterns and soil chemistry. 

The peninsula’s distinctive geology 

and geography promoted extensive 

biological diversity. Point Reyes 

contains four (or more) separate 

physiographic provinces. Moving 

across the peninsula from east to 

west, there are grasslands, forested 

ridges, chaparral, and coastal zones, 

each with their own ecological 

characteristics and niches. The 

coastal zone, for instance, includes 

estuarine, dune, tidal, and marine 

ecosystems. Moreover, because the 

peninsula’s outer reach, the Point 

Reyes headlands, extends seaward 

roughly ten miles beyond the 

westward edge of the Marin 

mainland, it intersects the migration 

routes of numerous marine and 

avian species. The combination of 

ocean reach and numerous ecological zones help make Point Reyes home to or a wayside 

for 460 bird species, 876 plant species, and a variety of different terrestrial and marine 

mammals. This biological abundance increases the popularity of Point Reyes as a 

destination for sightseers, scientists, and many types of recreationists, from bird- and 

whale-watchers, to backpackers and bicyclists, to mushroom hunters and clam diggers. 

The level of diversity prompted UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere program to single 

out Point Reyes and its surroundings as an international biosphere reserve. 

A range of historical and cultural legacies at Point Reyes also contributes to its 

significance and popularity as an NPS site. Coast Miwok Indians once made the 

peninsula and adjacent lands their home and larder. The abundance of wildlife supported 

a large Coast Miwok population, until exotic diseases brought by European explorers and 

missionaries decimated the Indian tribes of the area. Coast Miwok inhabitants of Point 

Reyes became displaced from their aboriginal homeland on the peninsula under the rule 

of the priests and governors of the Spanish missions at San Rafael.1

 But the national 

seashore still holds countless burial sites, shell middens, and other archaeological 

evidence of the earlier Coast Miwok presence at Point Reyes. A century after the 

religious zeal and diseases of the missionaries dispatched the Coast Miwok, market rather 

than subsistence agricultural patterns took hold at Point Reyes. Cattle grazing and 

individual dairy farms appeared on the peninsula, followed by larger-scale commercial 

dairy ranches that eventually became the predominant land use of Point Reyes. A railroad Record No. 8370. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives. 

Earth torn open along San Andreas Fault during 1906 earthquake. 
Introduction

5

link to Point Reyes gave logging companies, and then Bay Area tourists, access to the 

area. New commercial centers and residential communities sprung up at Olema, Point 

Reyes Station, and Inverness. Some of the people who came to live in these towns and to 

love the peninsula later became instrumental voices in the campaign to create the national 

seashore. Others became its most ardent opponents. 

Map showing primary travel routes to Point Reyes National Seashore from nearby cities in Marin County and the San 

Francisco Bay Area. 

Several themes wind their way through this administrative history. Foremost, the history 

of administering, managing, and visiting Point Reyes National Seashore has been a story 

of people defining and redefining an idea, a physical landscape, and a geographic place 

over time. In the course of writing and revising the history, two subthemes also emerged. 

First, Point Reyes has gradually become less of a social and political “island in time” as 

the administrators and staff of the national seashore built connections with other NPS 

sites, outside organizations, and the local communities that surround it. In 1962, Sierra 

Club Books published Harold Gilliam’s Island in Time, a lavishly illustrated and 

eloquently written volume that brought significant attention to Point Reyes, and became 

an important medium in the campaign to create the national seashore. Gilliam’s “Island in 
Introduction

6

Time” moniker for Point Reyes has continued to resonate as valid and accurate for 

residents, national seashore staff, and other writers. The phrase effectively captures the 

relative isolation of the seashore's flora, fauna, and geology, and, in that sense, is as 

relevant today as it was when Gilliam penned it forty years ago. But while the "Island in 

Time" moniker fit its early Euroamerican history, when the remote location of the Point 

Reyes Peninsula isolated it from mainland California for centuries, the story of the 

creation and development of the national seashore has been marked by the park's 

geographical, political, and social connections to a variety of communities, which 

redefined Point Reyes according to their connections to it. Point Reyes National Seashore 

history became less about isolation, and more about connection. 

Second, while the public and the Park Service engaged in redefining such issues as 

natural resource management, recreational access, and the NPS designations of natural 

area versus recreational area, the very nature of these concepts and terms evolved. In 

particular, the very notion of “nature” as a separate, self-evident, identifiable place 

became, as the decades passed, increasingly problematic for historians and park 

managers. In fact, the initial development and administration of Point Reyes National 

Seashore [PRNS] evolved hand-in-hand with the growth of the American environmental 

movement and the shifting conception of nature during the 1960s and 1970s. Because the 

development and redefining of PRNS during the last half of the twentieth century 

frequently centered on the area’s natural beauty and natural resources, addressing those 

issues became more complicated due to the changing nature of “nature” itself. When the 

NPS and local conservationists launched the campaign to create a national seashore at 

Point Reyes during the late 1950s, they uniformly praised the peninsula’s “natural” 

features and attributes. Their conception of the natural was apparently self-evident and 

unambiguous to them. Most significant, the nature they alluded to did not include the 

imprint of human society, although it did recognize the presence of people as transient 

elements of that scene. By contrast, by the 1990s, resource managers, ecologists, and 

historians viewed humans as a widely recognized element of any landscape they once 

inhabited or visited. 

Nature went through a transformation during the entire course of PRNS history; it went 

from an unambiguous, concrete reality that most people thought needed little defining, to 

a half-century later, a term so ambiguous and laden with bias that some scholars and 

scientists believed it had lost its usefulness altogether. If human activity is fully part of 

nature, what, then, is left on the planet that is not natural? During the 1990s, the academic 

exercise of “deconstructing nature” became the stock-in-trade of many environmental 

historians. Even biology, says feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway, is not “a culture-free 

universal discourse,” because the field of biology has “considerable cultural, economic, 

and technical power to establish what will count as nature throughout the planet Earth.”2

Haraway, in fact, began employing the term “naturecultures” to encompass the ways 

human perceptions and the physical world intermix in scientific study.3

 For those of us 

who admire an “out there” nature of rocks, plants, and animals, at the very least we must 

acknowledge that, as environmental historian Richard White puts it, “the boundaries 

between this world of nature and the world of artifice, the world of things we have made, 

are no longer very clear.”4

 Although NPS administrators and resource managers at Point 

Reyes did not have to delve to this extent into the philosophical underpinnings of the 

term, their views and the concurrent public notions of “nature” significantly affected park 

planning, management strategy, and administrative actions throughout PRNS history. 

The Changing 

Nature of 

“Nature” 
Introduction

7

Satellite image of Point Reyes, revealing the peninsula’s dislocation from the mainland California coast that gives 

Point Reyes National Seashore its distinctive geological and biological characteristics. 

This history is organized into three parts. Chapter 1 summarizes the peninsula’s 

prehistory and history prior to the creation of the national seashore, highlighting the 

events and processes most relevant to the NPS presence at Point Reyes. Chapters 2 

through 4 make up part 2; they provide a chronological narrative that covers the time 

from the earliest national seashore proposals in the 1930s up until 1972, when the 

Department of the Interior officially established Point Reyes National Seashore. Chapters 

5 through 9 constitute the third part of the history; they are topical and thematic in 

structure, each covering different areas of the national seashore’s administrative history. 

Chapter 5 describes general management and planning, personnel and interagency issues, 

maintenance, and construction. Chapter 6 details the extensive and varied history of 

Organization 
Introduction

8

recreational activity at Point Reyes, the park’s efforts to accommodate and protect 

visitors, and law enforcement operations. Chapter 7 summarizes the vast extent of the 

peninsula’s natural resources, and describes how the NPS and PRNS administrators have 

attempted, successfully and unsuccessfully, to define and manage those resources. 

Chapter 8 covers the park’s interpretive and educational programs, while chapter 9 

describes the cultural resources of the peninsula and the park’s relatively recent attempts 

to adequately manage them. 

 

ENDNOTES: INTRODUCTION

1

 With the creation of the Kule Loklo Coast Miwok village replica in Bear Valley in 1975, some 

Coast Miwok tribe members began to returning to Point Reyes to commemorate their geographic 

and spiritual origins. 

2

 Emphasis added. Donna J. Haraway, “Universal Donors in a Vampire Culture: It’s All in the 

Family: Biological Kinship Categories in the Twentieth-Century United States,” in Uncommon 

Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon (New York: W. W. Norton 

& Company, 1995), 323. 

3

 Lisa H. Weasel, “Feminist Intersections in Science: Race, Gender and Sexuality through the 

Microscope,” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 19 (Winter 2004): 183–93. Weasel’s 

essay discusses Donna Haraway’s How Like a Leaf (New York: Routledge Press, 2000). 4

 Richard White, “‘Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?’: Work and 

Nature,” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon 

(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), 173. 
9

CHAPTER ONE
10
11

CHAPTER ONE

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (PREHISTORIC –1930S) 

You’d better know how people feel about Drake when you’re making out your guest 

list for a dinner. . . . Piedmont “matron”

umans have inhabited what is now known as Point Reyes National Seashore and its 

environs for millennia. From the early presence of Coast Miwok people, through the 

Spanish missionaries, Mexican land grantees, dairy farmers, and cattle ranchers, to the 

contemporary influx from the San Francisco Bay Area and federal ingress of the National 

Park Service, people in the region have left their mark on the local landscape. Each of 

these groups, in succession, defined and redefined the peninsula’s environment of 

beaches, estuaries, forests, and grasslands, each time determining new meanings for and 

uses of the land. In turn, the particular way each new population chose to organize their 

presence on the peninsula, to some degree, reshaped the Point Reyes environment. Some 

groups left more distinctive and lasting signatures on the land than did others, but all 

became part of the Point Reyes story. In simple terms, this chapter outlines who lived at 

Point Reyes and how those people survived and thrived on the land. It is a historical 

overview of a place and its people, and also of the evolution of the human idea of that 

place. 

COAST MIWOK INDIAN COMMUNITIES ON POINT REYES PENINSULA

Although the native people who populated Point Reyes before European settlement left 

no written record, extant material culture remains and oral traditions provide evidence 

about daily life of the peninsular Coast Miwok. As well, Europeans who briefly visited 

the region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries penned descriptions of their first 

contacts with these people, offering glimpses of what coastal life may have looked like 

before European settlement in the region began in earnest. The earliest of these records 

come from noted English seafarer Captain Francis Drake and the crew of his Golden 

Hind, who in 1579 spent six weeks somewhere on the western coast of what is now the 

United States (possibly at Drakes Beach), and Portuguese ship captain Sebastian 

Rodriguez Cermeño, under whose command the Spanish galleon San Agustín became in 

1595 the first ship wrecked off the Point Reyes shore. According to these one-sided 

reports, the Coast Miwok, who lived in what are now Marin and the southern part of 

Sonoma counties, were initially friendly to their European visitors. Both Drake and 

Cermeño related similar accounts of a lone Indian man paddling out to greet the ship; 

both also noted that once the whites disembarked, native men and women alike offered 

gifts and practical assistance to the strangers.1

 

Point Reyes provided the Coast Miwok abundant resources for food and shelter. To 

maximize access to these plentiful stores, they divided their time between two main areas 

of settlement. The seashore offered fish, crabs, abalone, limpets, mussels, kelp, and other 

edible marine life. Additionally, the beach provided Coast Miwok with their main source 

of currency, clamshells, from which they fashioned circular disks with holes in the 

middle that were then strung together and traded throughout Northern California.2

 Inland 

enclaves located in and around the Olema Valley provided milder weather and protection 

H 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

12

from stormy coastal weather. Surrounding forests teemed with small game such as deer, 

rabbits, and birds, and various biomes nurtured the many endemic herbs, seeds, bulbs, 

and roots that comprised a significant part of the Coast Miwok diet. An important source 

of nutrients was the area’s plentiful supply of acorns, from which the natives first leached 

tannins and then pounded flour to be stored in family granaries for future use.3

 

Abundant food and the mild climate of Point Reyes allowed Coast Miwok enough leisure 

time and comfort to develop sturdy infrastructure and complex social and cultural 

practices. Larger settlements contained various buildings with different uses, such as a 

sweathouse, single-sex secret society lodge/dance house, sun shelter, and grinding lodge, 

in addition to the typical conical dwelling made of interlocking willow or driftwood poles 

and covered with grass. A large assembly hall served as gathering place for the entire 

village, and people collected there to gamble, dance, exchange food, and drum on the 

five- to ten-foot-long hollowed-out log stretched across a pit.4

 

Oral histories taken in the 1930s from two of three remaining Coast Miwok descendants 

describe a community that possessed a well developed monetary system and wherein 

there was a strong regard for property—not in land, but in the form of certain foodproducing trees or hunting, fishing, and clam-digging claims. Men and women divided 

leadership duties, with a male chief at the top of the hierarchy and at least two women in 

positions of power under him. Men and women both functioned as healing “doctors,” 

others were known as poisoners, whose services could be had for a predetermined price 

in shell currency. Aside from poisoning and some intertribal rivalries, the Coast Miwok 

were apparently a peaceful people and evidence of organized warfare among them cannot 

be found.5

 Women used leisure time to devise elaborate hair designs, in which they used 

shells, bones, and feather as ornaments.6

 Furthermore, the Coast Miwok observed 

numerous elaborate birth, death, menstruation, childbirth, and rite-of-passage rituals. 

Archaeologists have estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 Coast Miwok lived in the 

region prior to extended European contact. By 1851, 10 percent of this original number 

remained; in the early 1930s, just three Coast Miwok could be documented. The 

population today of people who lay claim to Miwok ancestry and have been organized 

into the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Tribe has climbed close to 500, but 

remains a fragment of what it once was.7

EUROAMERICAN CONTACT AND SETTLEMENT

Many scholars and amateur historians contend that Captain Francis Drake and his crew 

aboard the Golden Hind were the first Europeans to encounter the Coast Miwok of Point 

Reyes. Whether Drake and his men entered the waters of Drakes Bay, careened their 

small ship in Drakes Estero in order to repair and outfit it for the trans-Pacific journey 

ahead, or ever set foot on Point Reyes peninsula in June 1579, however, remains open to 

debate. Historians and scientists have used explorers’ written accounts of native dress, 

customs, and their apparent perception of Drake and his crew as the living dead to 

determine that the Indians Drake encountered were likely Coast Miwok, thus narrowing 

the stretch of coastline on which they could have alighted to that of Marin and Sonoma 

counties.8

 The “stinking fogges” of which the Golden Hind’s chaplain complained in his 

journal certainly bring to mind the frequent summer fog at the Point.9

 Others have argued 

for or against alternative locations, such as a site based on descriptions of islands, thought 

to be the Farallones, that the Golden Hind briefly visited to acquire further provisions 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

13

before its long voyage ahead.10 Only limited evidence has surfaced, however, and thus, 

over the past century, much debate and speculation revolved around three items: a map, a 

brass plate, and a collection of Chinese porcelain shards. 

The cartographic image of “Portus Nova Albionis” is a small inset on the global map 

Dutch cartographer Jodocus Hondius drew of Drake’s global voyage. Drawn more than a 

decade after Drake landed in California and designated the western coast of America 

“Nova Albion,” Hondius’s map depicted Drake’s landing spot as a horseshoe-shaped 

cove with a peninsula on one side and an island beyond. Researchers have matched the 

Hondius rendition along with maps drawn much later, with contemporary maps.11

Proponents of competing Drake landing sites have proposed San Francisco Bay and 

Bolinas Lagoon to the south, Bodega Bay to the north, and assorted other inlets up and 

down the west coast.12 Despite such speculation, many scholars of maritime history favor 

the sheltered cove, now know as Drakes Cove, just inside the entrance to Drakes Estero 

at Point Reyes. 

A missing piece of evidence that researchers agree would help answer the question is the 

plate Drake reported he erected at the landing spot, claiming Nova Albion in Elizabeth’s 

name.13 In early summer 1936, a young shop clerk named Beryle Shinn found a brass 

plate in Marin County that many believed, for at least the next four decades, to be a relic 

from the landing site. Shinn took the plate in February 1937 to University of California 

history professor Herbert E. Bolton, who had for years been telling his students to be on 

the lookout for just such a find. To Bolton, the plate culminated a lifetime of searching 

for evidence of Drake’s landing in California. He quickly accepted the relic as authentic 

and, in doing so, unwittingly perpetuated a hoax for the next four decades.14

Bolton and California Historical Society president Allen L. Chickering rushed headlong 

to trumpet the find without substantiating the plate’s authenticity, stating with great 

certainty, based on a comparison of the plate’s inscriptions with Drake’s original record, 

that it was indeed authentic.15 Less than one week after Bolton’s triumphant presentation, 

William Caldeira, a chauffeur, came forward to claim that he had found the plate in 1933 

at Point Reyes’ Drakes Bay, and later discarded it near the site where Shinn found it. 

Caldeira’s report seemed to substantiate arguments that Drakes Bay was indeed the 

location of Drake’s “lost harbor.” Although rumors also circulated about the plate being a 

hoax, the debate appeared to have been settled.16

The debate reopened in 1974, when Harvard professor Samuel Eliot Morison, a renowned 

scholar of exploration history, reviewed early evidence and called the plate a hoax. In 

response to Morison’s incendiary claim, new metallurgical tests and documentary 

comparisons were done in the late 1970s and again in 1991. Both rounds of reinvestigation declared the plate to be a forgery. Recently, historians have identified the 

California historical club, E Clampus Vitus, which was known for playing jokes on its 

members, as the perpetrators of the hoax. Several club members conspired to 

manufacture and hide the mock plate in order to spoof Bolton, one of the organization’s 

prominent members. The perpetrators later tried, through publications and conversations 

laced with veiled warnings, hints, and clues, to notify those who had fallen for the hoax 

that they should investigate the matter further, but to no avail.17 Although a few of the 

original pranksters told their story to those who would listen, no one followed up the 

leads and they took their secret to the grave. 

Portus Nova 

Albionis 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

14

Although an authentic plate may never surface, researchers’ conclusions (compared to 

Bolton’s assertions) about the Drakes Cove site have given a significant amount of 

historical cachet to Point Reyes and Point Reyes National Seashore. That the brass plate 

hoax could be perpetuated with little question for as long as it was or that in 1972 a 

dubious hostess was reputed to have seated dinner guests according to their feelings 

about the debate over the Drake landing site attests to the deeply held significance of the 

matter in the region.18 More importantly for this administrative history, when California 

legislators proposed the national seashore site and as their colleagues debated the area’s 

national significance, Congress gave credence to Point Reyes’ claim to have been the 

Drake landing site.19 Meanwhile, the Golden Hind’s sojourn lives on at Point Reyes in 

the many peninsula place names bearing his name. 

Whether or not Drake set foot on the peninsula, Point Reyes’ treacherous coastline and 

unpredictable weather led numerous other seafarers to make landfall there, as the area 

collected the remains of over seventy shipwrecks between 1849 and 1940.20 The first 

known shipwreck at Point Reyes occurred in 1595, when Portuguese captain Sebastian 

Cermeño and his crew reached the California coast in the ill-fated San Agustín. Spanish 

officials in Mexico had commissioned Cermeño with a dual purpose. He was first to load 

the ship with goods from Asia (as part of the Acapulco-Manila trade route) and then to 

explore the California coast, looking for safe harbors in which other Manila galleons 

could shelter during the 

return journey to Mexico. 

When it reached Point Reyes 

during the stormy month of 

November, the ship was in 

poor shape. Battered by its 

recent Pacific crossing and 

weighed down with a 

reported 130 tons of Asian 

goods, the San Agustín took 

on water, forcing its nearmutinous crew to 

continually man the pumps. 

Seeking a sheltered spot, 

Cermeño and his men were 

able to use a launch to enter 

Limantour Estero, where 

they set up camp and began 

exploring the area with the 

crudely fashioned but 

shallow-bottomed launch. 

The San Agustín itself was left anchored and sparsely manned in Drakes Bay. When a 

strong southeasterly gale arose, the crew was unable to keep the San Agustín from 

running aground, where the surf quickly pounded the already rickety vessel into pieces 

and took the lives of several sailors and a priest.21 The remaining crew sailed, and when 

necessary, rowed home to Mexico in their longboat.22

If Drake and his Golden Hind crew did not make landfall at Point Reyes, it may be that 

the San Agustín crew’s stay on the peninsula was the first extended European visit to the 

area. Just a few years later, Spanish explorer Sebastian Vizcaino sighted the peninsula on 

January 6, 1603, mapped the area, and named it “la Punta de los Reyes,” after the Roman 

Shipwrecks 

Record No. 19330. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives.

Archeologist James Delgado supervises the excavation of the “S.S. Pomo” on a 

Point Reyes beach, March 1983. 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

15

Catholic feast day celebrating the three wise men.23 The name has been with the 

peninsula and its surrounds ever since. 

For the better part of the two centuries following the wreck of the San Agustín and 

Vizcaino’s naming of the area a decade later, coastal California natives located near the 

mouth of the San Francisco Bay had little or no direct contact with Europeans. As was 

the case with many North American tribes, European diseases transmitted via Indian 

trade routes likely intruded upon the Coast Miwok well before settlement took place 

within their territory. Occasional sailors traded goods for Miwok baskets,24 but white 

incursion into the area was sluggish until the late eighteenth century. In 1769, however, 

Gaspar de Portolá’s Spanish overland expedition reached the San Francisco Bay, opening 

up the frontier to Spanish frontiersmen and Franciscan missionaries, who erected Mission 

San Francisco de Asís (commonly known as Mission Dolores) in 1776 near what would 

become the small, but growing, pueblo of Yerba Buena (later San Francisco). The only 

other significant European presence in the area was a bit to the north of the Coast 

Miwok’s main settlements; a Russian fur colony operated at Fort Ross between 1812 and 

1841, taking advantage of the plentiful sea otters to be found there.25

When Spanish priests founded Mission Dolores in 1776, the land south of the San 

Francisco Bay narrows (now referred to as the Golden Gate) was home to the Ohlone 

people.26 To the modern mind, the area in which they lived, now the city of San 

Francisco, and Marin County, home of the Coast Miwok, appear very close to one 

another. In the eighteenth century, however, the Coast Miwok and Costanoan people 

apparently had little contact. Perhaps this was because the San Francisco Bay’s 

formidable waters separated them, or it might owe to the apparently light concentration of 

Costanoans at the northernmost reach of their region and/or their orientation southward 

toward the larger group, which stretched as far south as the Salinas Valley.27 Whatever 

the case, the coming of Mission Dolores in 1776 portended eventual removal of the Coast 

Miwok from Point Reyes. In 1793, an expedition led by Spanish explorer Lieutenant Don 

Felipe de Goycoechea marched into Olema Valley, the heart of Coast Miwok territory, 

ensuring the demise of the Coast Miwok way of life.28 

By 1793, the friendly, relaxed manner with which the Coast Miwok originally greeted 

Drake and Cermeño had turned to suspicion and mounting fear.29 Although they had no 

way of anticipating the true outcome of this contact, the Coast Miwoks, startled by De 

Goycoechea’s arrival, fled into the forest. Only the lieutenant’s use of an interpreter and 

apparently nonthreatening intentions ultimately coaxed them out into the open. Impressed 

by both the abundant wealth of natural resources and a goodly number of native souls to 

bring to Christianity—he estimated there to be around 150 living in the village—De 

Goycoechea recommended the Catholic Church erect a mission at the site.30 The Church 

ignored his recommendation at the time, giving the Coast Miwok a brief reprieve; but, in 

1817, Mission San Rafael was established, opening the doors wide to white settlement of 

the region and closing the door on the Coast Miwok’s dominance of the area.31

Under the direction of Father Junipero Serra and with the support of the Spanish viceroys 

of New Spain and colonial military forces, Franciscan friars founded 154 missions in 

what are now Mexico and the states of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Three of 

these missions were in the immediate vicinity of the Coast Miwok people of Marin and 

Sonoma counties: San Francisco de Asís, San Rafael Arcángel, and San Francisco 

Solano. Mission Dolores, as the San Francisco de Asís mission is commonly called, was 

an early addition to the mission infrastructure; San Rafael and Sonoma (the location of 

Spanish 

Mission 

Period 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

16

San Francisco Solano) came much later in the missionizing process, 1817 and 1823, 

respectively. Conversion (and subsequent baptism in the Roman Catholic Church) was 

the friars’ main goal, but “civilization” of the Indians—material and cultural 

“improvement” of the “savage” way of life—was also of primary significance. The 

civilizing impulse of the missions would indeed transform the native lifestyle almost 

beyond recognition in the short period of time that Indians interacted with Spanish 

missionaries.32

The missions’ twin goals of conversion and civilization resulted in removal of Indians 

from their cultural and historical lands to the mission site, where they were expected to 

renounce their cultural heritage and life ways. For reasons not quite clear, the northern 

California missions were especially hard on neophytes. Costanoans, for example, were 

forced to live in sex-segregated buildings.33 Much to the dismay and detriment of native 

people, but unsurprising given the Catholic religion of the friars and material needs of the 

ostensibly self-sufficient missions, sexual contact was prohibited, conversion was forced, 

and daily labor was expected. The labor Indians were pressed to do was not always 

onerous, but the unremitting daily workload certainly conflicted with their traditional 

approach to labor, which was intermittent and conducted on an as-needed basis. Mission 

doctrine as a whole called for tempered responses to perceived Indian misbehavior and 

padres attempted to consider cultural and social background in their religious teachings. 

Nonetheless, complaints of abuse on the mission belie the paternalistic model, speaking 

more clearly to the regimentation and often-harsh discipline that prevailed.34 

Mission conditions for native Californians were bleak. A combination of the stress and 

trauma of dislocation and rampant diseases took huge tolls on Indian populations, both 

decreasing birth rates and increasing deaths. While epidemics waxed and waned 

throughout the mission period and mortality rates had begun to level off by the end of the 

period, a measles outbreak in 1806, for example, killed fully one-third of the juvenile 

Indian population.35 Of those Indians who survived disease, fugitivism was a serious 

issue on the missions. Because missions’ proximity to and close relationship with 

military outposts precluded violent resistance by natives, they resorted instead to 

desertion. Missions did not take such departures lightly, sending out recapture parties and 

leveling harsh punishments on those who were returned. Such blandishments failed to 

stem the tide of runaways—in the last three decades of the mission period, fully 10 

percent of the mission population was listed as being fugitive at any one time.36

Founded toward the end of the mission period as an outpost or asistencía for Mission 

Dolores, San Rafael ended its missionizing period just seventeen years later in 1834. 

During that short period, however, according to Gilliam, Spanish recruitment of the Coast 

Miwok was “extraordinarily successful,” with villagers leaving their settlements on the 

peninsula en masse and quickly taking up agriculture under the Franciscan padres.37

According to later reports, the Coast Miwoks who first inhabited the mission moved there 

after several miserable years at Mission Dolores, where they had been impressed into 

duty when it was first established. By comparison, the conditions at and location of San 

Rafael was far preferable to the San Francisco mission.38

Mexican Independence in 1821 and the formation of the Mexican republic in 1824 

signaled the demise of the mission system. Padres were replaced with laypeople and the 

missions lost their religious mandate. At the outset, this shift might seem to have been a 

boon for the native people who had been forced to live on or interact regularly with the 

missions. However, in reality, secularization carried with it a mixed blessing. Missions no 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

17

longer exploited Indian labor, but Indians were also no longer supported as part of the 

larger mission complex. The new overseers of missions and pueblos no longer considered 

the neophytes and converts to be their responsibility; instead, the Indians became full 

citizens of the communities, with all the rights and duties such inclusion entailed. 

Mission-born Indians mostly stayed near the missions, others moved to nearby pueblos 

and ranchos where they attempted to gain employment but were often reduced to begging 

for food and shelter. In some parts of California, natives returned to what small 

settlements remained in their traditional lands, but for the most part such communities 

had disappeared.39 

Whether the Coast Miwok became, in author Harold Gilliam’s words, “helpless” without 

mission guidance at the close of its seventeen-year presence is debatable. What is 

unquestioned, however, is that arrival of the missions decimated not only Native 

Americans’ traditional way of life but also their numbers. Furthermore, mission life 

encouraged dependence on the friars for subsistence, spiritual guidance, and community. 

The missions’ subsequent departure thus removed Native Americans’ material safety net, 

sending them penniless back to a world that no longer resembled the one they had left. As 

with other native Californian groups, the Coast Miwok of Point Reyes’ never returned to 

their traditional ways of living once they had engaged with the Spanish people and 

culture that took control of their land.40

The period of independent Mexican rule at Point Reyes was short, but set the stage for 

future land-use patterns on the peninsula, most notably the dairy industry, whose 

precursors were the longhorn cattle that missionaries, then Mexican ranchers, grazed on 

Point Reyes land. The period also laid the groundwork for a series of legal disputes over 

land that would shape the peninsula for the next two centuries. 

In the early 1800s, the missions owned large tracts of land in California. Mission San 

Rafael, for example, encompassed the entirety of what is now Marin County, well over 

300,000 acres. In response to calls for secularization that were part of the independence 

movement of the early century, the new Mexican republic began developing what is 

known as the land-grant system pursuant to the 1824 and 1828 Mexican Colonization 

Laws.41 Under these laws, petitioners requested land grants from the government using 

crude maps called diseños to outline the lands they wanted title to and then awaited, often 

for years, the official decision of the Mexican bureaucracy. The fuzzy boundaries 

Mexican land grants created, however, had significant consequences for landowners once 

the American government took over in 1846. The first Marin County rancho was granted 

to John Reed, a naturalized Mexican citizen of Irish birth. Prior to American rule, seven 

more would be granted in the boundaries of what is now Point Reyes National 

Seashore.42 The most pivotal of these were Rancho Tomales y Baulines and Ranchos 

Punta de los Reyes and Punta de los Reyes Sobrante. 

In 1835, Rafael Garcia received what he named “Rancho las Baulines.” He soon vacated 

the property to his brother-in-law Gregorio Briones and moved north to what would be 

his home for almost thirty years, Rancho Tomales y Baulines, which Garcia named for its 

location between Bolinas Ridge and Tomales Bay just east of Olema Creek.43 Garcia 

built the ranch into a bustling enterprise staffed by mission Indians (likely Coast Miwok 

he brought to the peninsula with him from San Rafael, where he had earlier been 

stationed) that included extensive livestock grazing and which served as a stopover for 

travelers and destination for hunters. In the 1830s, it was reported that Garcia’s holdings 

Mexican 

Land 

Grants, 

1842–1846 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

18

included 3,000 head of cattle, 400 horses, and numerous sheep and swine.44 Garcia lived 

on the property until his death in 1866.45

The other significant ranch at Point Reyes followed a different route than Tomales y 

Baulines. Rancho Punta de los Reyes was first occupied in 1836 by James Richard Berry, 

another naturalized Mexican of Irish descent who had served in the Mexican army and 

then moved to land in the Olema Valley just north of Garcia’s ranch to take up cattle 

ranching.46 In 1838, Berry sold (without authorization) a parcel of land to Joseph E. 

Snook, who, after a legal battle to secure title to the land, turned it over to Antonio Maria 

Osio. Osio, not satisfied with the small tract then applied to the Mexican government for 

an additional 11,000 leagues (approximately 49,000 acres) on the peninsula, which he 

was granted in 1843. This additional parcel gave the rancho its name, Punta de los Reyes 

Sobrante (literally, surplus). Osio and his family lived on Point Reyes until the American 

takeover began; in 1852, after they had resettled in Baja California, Osio sold the land to 

Andrew Randall, who moved his family to the peninsula soon thereafter.47 

A geologist with medical training, Randall had served as customs inspector and 

postmaster at Monterey and went on to serve in California’s first legislature and found 

the California Academy of Science. By 1854, Randall owned large tracts of land in the 

newly minted state in addition to what appeared to be his highly successful ranch on 

Point Reyes. Records reveal that at that time there were more than 5,500 animals grazing 

on Randall’s ranch. His prosperity, however, was to be short-lived; as it turned out, 

Randall had overextended himself and was deeply in debt. The Point Reyes ranch was 

foreclosed upon and then, in July 1856, an enraged creditor gunned Randall down in a 

San Francisco hotel. Elizabeth Randall, his pregnant widow, with four other children to 

support, found herself responsible for Andrew’s $237,000 debt and with a serious legal 

battle brewing over her land.48 As one historian has described it, Randall’s credit woes 

not only killed him but also created a legal situation out of which was to come “a series 

of events that helped to write California legal history.”49 On a smaller scale, it also 

formed the basis of future land-use and ownership patterns at Point Reyes. 

The first land dispute on the peninsula had occurred in 1844, when Osio filed suit against 

Berry, who, in response to Garcia’s northward expansion to Rancho Tomales y Baulines 

(and likely beyond), was grazing his stock on part of Osio’s land.50 Complex legal 

wrangling followed in the 1850s, when California statehood and the creation of Marin 

County revealed deep confusion (based in laxity in early boundary delineations and the 

fact that most landowners had not occupied the land) over who exactly owned what on 

the peninsula.51 The sheer volume and complexity of lawsuits over land that followed 

Osio’s initial claim in the 1850s makes it impossible to cover them here in any detail. 

Litigation that occurred in the wake of Randall’s foreclosure and disputes over Garcia’s 

land that began with the Osio/Berry dispute, however, provides good examples of the 

tenor and outcome of the cases. 

For reasons that remain somewhat unclear, Garcia (and Point Reyes landholder Briones) 

suffered serious economic downturns during the 1850s. Property records reveal that 

Briones, who owned more than 13,000 acres in 1850, had sold or ceded the entirety of his 

land by 1860. Garcia, similarly, had lost the vast majority of his movable goods and 

livestock by that time, although he retained title to his ranch lands. In 1854, it was 

recorded that the 3,000 cattle Garcia was reputed to own in the 1830s had dwindled to no 

more than 350 (only 150 of which were “tame”), and only 20 of his 400 horses remained. 

Between 1852 and 1865, Garcia was constantly embroiled in lawsuits over his land.52

Land 

Disputes 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

19

Likely the result of escalating legal costs, Garcia began selling property in 1856 for a 

fraction of what it was worth. Although he won many of the early battles and by 1858 

held free title to all his Point Reyes land, subsequent sales of parcels greatly reduced the 

size of his real estate by the time he died. In 1866, he left less than half of his original 

holdings to his wife and heirs.53

Around the same time Garcia began selling off his land, a series of events brought the 

Ranchos Punta de los Reyes and Punta de los Reyes Sobrante to the attention of the 

Shafter, Shafter, Park, and Heydenfeldt law firm of San Francisco. Robert McMillan, a 

lien holder on Randall’s foreclosed property, had hired the firm to represent him against 

Marin County sheriff G. N. Vischer, who had duped McMillan and four others (who had 

collectively retained another lawyer) in the foreclosure proceedings and pocketed $2,000 

of their money. At the time, senior partner Oscar Lovell Shafter was a renowned 

California title lawyer and McMillan was a wealthy man. The combination proved 

unbeatable. After two years of litigation, McMillan, with Shafter’s expertise behind him, 

won a California Supreme Court decision that conveyed most of the disputed property to 

McMillan, and, by extension, the Shafters. Having given to the law firm a two-thirds 

interest in the land nearly a year and a half earlier, the firm paid McMillan $50,000 for 

the property once he won his case in 1858. In quick succession, the Shafters also 

purchased Point Reyes property from Elizabeth Randall (at one-tenth the price Andrew 

Randall had originally paid) and then McMillan’s remaining one-third interest. 

Thus, by 1858, after successfully fighting off a handful of additional claims to the 

property and then evicting the remaining people living on the land, the Shafter firm under 

brothers Oscar and James McMillan Shafter controlled almost the entire Point Reyes 

peninsula. In total, the Shafter holdings comprised well over 75,000 acres, or one-third of 

what is now Marin County.54 They now possessed what they had been looking for: a 

large land tract on which to begin a dairying enterprise. 

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

Franciscan missionaries and Mexican land grantees introduced cattle ranching to the 

Point Reyes peninsula in the early 1800s. Mexican and early American rancheros added 

to the livestock population, first expanding their beef cattle herds and then branching out 

into dairying. In the last half of the nineteenth century, under the litigious maneuverings 

of the Shafter brothers, who consolidated vast acreage on the peninsula, Point Reyes 

became home to the largest dairy operation in California. To this day, dairying remains 

an important industry at Point Reyes. Most important to the context of the development 

and implementation of the Point Reyes National Seashore, though, is how the dairy 

industry impacted land distribution and use on the peninsula as well as created 

perceptions of the land as a pastoral idyll. 

The influx of people to San Francisco that resulted from the Gold Rush and California’s 

subsequent statehood created a demand for fresh dairy products. Whereas miners in the 

Sierra foothills had access to the milk, butter, and cheese small dairies in the San Joaquin 

Valley produced, Bay Area residents initially relied instead on South American or East 

Coast butter and cheese, which was of distinctly poor quality mostly due to the methods 

used to preserve and transport it.55 By 1854, however, small dairies near San Francisco 

had begun to produce local butter and cheese, most notably in Sonoma County, which 

was the region’s largest supplier of such goods until Marin County surpassed it in 1862.56
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

20

Two families in particular can be credited with developing the dairy industry at Point 

Reyes: the Steeles and the Shafters. 

POINT REYES BUTTER 

An 1880 writer described the quality of the local butter after a captivating visit to a Point Reyes dairy: “It is 

thus that this elegant golden delicacy is prepared for our table, and among all the choice products of the glorious State 

of California none stands out in bolder relief, non [sic] strikes the visitor to our coast more forcibly, none affords more 

real pleasure to the consumer than the wonderfully excellent butter which finds its way to the city markets from Marin 

county. In quality, color and sweetness it is not excelled by the famous butter producing sections of Goshen in New 

York, or the Western Reserve of Ohio. Nor is it equaled in any other part of the United States. What a field for 

contemplative thought: The verdant fields of grass, toyed with by the winds, bathed in a flood of sunshine and 

shrouded in folds of lacelike and fleecy mists fresh from the ocean with herds of kind feeding upon them; driven at 

eventime into the corral and, while thoughtfully ruminating, yielding the gallons and gallons of rich, pure, sweet milk; 

again we see it in great cans of yellow cream, fit for the use of a king; and then the golden butter, and such a delicious 

butter; Ready for the market and for the table of the epicure. The grass growing in the fields on Monday is the butter 

on the city tables the following Sunday!” 

— D.S. (Dewey) Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula: A History of the Dairy and Beef 

Ranches Within Point Reyes National Seashore, 1834–1992.” 

On July 4, 1857, brothers Edgar, George, and Isaac Steele, originally from Ohio, along 

with their cousin Rensselaer Steele, who hailed from upstate New York, leased from 

Thomas G. Richards land on Point Reyes Peninsula, the ownership of which was still 

unresolved as part of litigation surrounding Randall’s ranch. The Steele family was 

already successfully producing cheese and butter at their Two Rock farm in Sonoma 

County, but had decided to scout out another opportunity. They became sold on Point 

Reyes. A business partner told the Steeles about Point Reyes, which he called a veritable 

“cow heaven,” and Edgar Steele went on to note that on the peninsula there existed “an 

abundance of rich grass and clover, with many springs of cold water, and the prevalent 

fogs gave encouragement of maintaining fresh feed.”57 Steele noted that naysayers 

dismissed the possibility of Point Reyes grasses pasturing the needed number of dairy 

cows to support a successful dairy industry. However, the Steele family soon proved 

them wrong, establishing a bustling dairy enterprise on the land with three separate 

dairies, each of which supported four or five workers in addition to Steele family 

members.58 

By 1861, an observer reported with astonishment that one of the Steele dairies, Muddy 

Hollow, was daily producing 640 pounds of cheese and 75 pounds of butter, all of high 

quality.59 That year, the schooners by which they shipped products to San Francisco made 

the round trip approximately every ten days, delivering dairy products to the city and 

returning to the peninsula with such items as fresh vegetables, liquor, clothing, and, in 

1866, a Steinway piano.60 Despite obvious success at Point Reyes, the Steeles were 

dissatisfied with the lease agreement they had with the new owners, Oscar and James 

Shafter, who had taken control of the land in 1858. In 1866, the Steele family moved 

south to ranches in San Mateo and San Luis Obispo, where they parlayed the wealth and 

experience accumulated on Point Reyes into the penultimate position (after the Shafters) 

in the California dairy industry.61 

The Steeles 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

21

Although they ran the largest operation in the late 1850s, the Steeles were not the only 

successful dairying folks on the Point Reyes peninsula. Josiah H. Swain, the Laird 

family, Carlisle S. Abbott, Rufus T. Buell, and others leased property on the point, 

producing butter and cheese. For a time, the Lairds’ operation rivaled the Steeles’. 

Indeed, at the 1859 State Fair, Lairds’ cheese won first-place over Steeles’. Following the 

Steeles’ lead, most of these dairy families moved elsewhere in California after the 

Shafters took over Point Reyes Peninsula. Similarly, most of them also went on to great 

successes throughout the state in the dairy industry.62

The Steeles and others led the way in the dairy industry at Point Reyes, but the Shafters 

can be credited with creating on the peninsula the largest and most successful operation 

in California over the next seventy years. The law firm technically owned the land until 

1865, when Solomon Heydenfeldt and Trenor Park sold their interests in the land to the 

Shafters and Charles Webb Howard, Oscar’s son-in-law by marriage to his daughter 

Emma.63 In 1869, partly in response to Oscar Shafter’s ill health, the three partners 

partitioned the land into six sections, with each gaining control over two parcels. In 

addition to his own lands, Howard contracted with his ailing father-in-law to oversee the 

elder Shafter’s property.64 Aside from a tract at the northern end of their holdings, which 

the firm sold early on in 1858 to a friend (and, like the Shafters, Vermonter) Solomon 

Pierce, no land was sold outside the family until 1919.65 

Over the next decade, the Shafters and Howard worked hard developing the operation. 

Their plan was to create a network of tenant-operated dairies and beginning in 1858, they 

leased property to the Steeles and the other aforementioned ranchers, as well as many 

others over the next two decades. The brothers negotiated lease arrangements and 

conducted other aspects of the business, while Howard managed construction and 

oversaw operation of the dairies, nearly doubling their number in a few short years. The 

family devised a system by which leased ranches on the property were named after letters 

of the alphabet, starting with “A” at the southwesterly tip of the point and then first 

arcing northeast then back to the southeast.66 The “alphabet ranches” corresponded 

primarily to dairy operations. Named ranches (Wildcat, Glen, Lake and South End) south 

of Bear Valley ran beef cattle once the numerous sheep that had been grazing there when 

the Shafters first arrived in the late 1850s and early 1860s had been removed in response 

to predation and plummeting wool prices.67 As early as 1866, the Shafters and Howard 

considered establishing a large, experimental cheese factory on Point Reyes. To that end, 

Howard traveled east, visiting factories and even buying equipment. Although cheese 

making would eventually gain prominence as a pioneer industry in the area, the idea was 

scrapped for the time being when the Shafters decided instead to concentrate on butter, 

for which they had come to believe their land was better suited.68 Oscar Shafter began 

suffering from mental illness in 1867 and died six years later, leaving Howard in charge 

of his estate.69 By the late 1860s, James had apparently semi-retired to an estate he built 

near Olema, which he named “The Oaks.”70

The Shafters 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

22

NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Photograph of “I” Ranch (McClure Dairy), one of the original Oscar Shafter ranches on the upper peninsula, taken 

in the 1950s. Hay barn (left foreground) dates to 1880s, farm house (center) built in 1925. McClure photograph. 

Thereafter, the surviving Shafter and Howard continued to devote all of their energy to 

upgrading operations, including the development of a utilitarian system of tenant ranches 

at Point Reyes.71 In 1870, the tenant ranch system included twenty dairies operating on 

Shafter-Howard land, with between 150 to 170 top-grade cows on each ranch, and the 

industry was still expanding. The tenant system differed from single-owner operations in 

their efficiency and uniformity. The types of structures and the pattern of built 

environment followed a standardized model, varying little from ranch to ranch. In a draft 

“National Register of Historic Places Nomination: Point Reyes Ranches Rural Historic 

District,” the author described these ranches as “purely functional in nature,” to the extent 

that they seemed “analogous to an industrial landscape.”72 In exchange for their labor and 

their maintenance of the ranch in good condition, tenants, usually with three-year leases, 

gained the use of the ranch buildings and land, which they could use to raise their own 

hogs. The lease agreement limited ranch sales to only two products: butter and hogs.73

But the opportunity to work a piece of land and raise one’s own animals attracted tenants 

from a broad cross-section of California society. During the 1870s, Point Reyes tenant 

ranchers were of American, Swedish, Swiss, German, Irish, and Portuguese descent.74

Shafter and Howard had achieved widespread fame as overseers of the largest dairy 

operation in the state.75 As early as 1866, a Vermont newspaper reported that Marin 

County dairies were giving those on the East Coast (which had, up until then, been a 

large supplier to California) a run for their money. The article implied that Vermont 

dairies might soon be in trouble, as it was expected that California would quickly be 

entirely self-reliant.76 Not only was Marin supplying the greatest quantity and highest 

quality of butter in California by 1870, Marin County’s production of more than two 

Tenant 

Ranches 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

23

million pounds of butter easily bettered the output of any single western state.77 That 

level of butter production, however, still paled in comparison to the yields of such eastern 

dairy states as Pennsylvania (60 million pounds) and New York (107 million pounds). 

Nonetheless, Marin County and particularly Point Reyes butter operations had grown into 

a dominant role in the California market. And the so-called gilt-edged Point Reyes butter 

commanded a higher price than butter produced even just on the other side of Tomales 

Bay.78 The Point Reyes butter empire was on the rise. 

At least ten different schooners traveled regularly between San Francisco and Point 

Reyes between 1870 and the 1920s. In 1870, for example, the steamer Monterey made 

the trip weekly with stops at Drakes Bay and Tomales; the gasoline-powered Point Reyes 

operated during the 1910s until the end of the Point Reyes butter schooner days in the 

early 1920s.79 Just as would be the case a century later when proponents of the national 

seashore were campaigning to create a park at Point Reyes, dairying on the peninsula was 

successful because of both its remote seaward location and its proximity to San 

Francisco. The peninsula’s isolated grasslands and moist climate provided perfect fodder 

for dairy cows on large, unbroken land tracts; yet the bays and coves of the peninsula and 

short distance via the sea to San Francisco’s wharves provided an ideal combination of 

sheltered harbors and a route by which schooners could transport perishables like butter 

and cheese. This combination of near and far was the key to more than a half-century of 

milk-based prosperity on Shafter-Howard land. 

Despite their outwardly 

phenomenal successes in land 

acquisition and the dairy industry, 

and their prominent social and 

political connections in the state, 

neither James Shafter nor Charles 

Howard apparently managed their 

finances with much capability. 

Shafter died in 1892 with 

enormous debts, which his 

daughter tried unsuccessfully for 

years to pay off. In 1929, to 

defray the debts, unpaid taxes, 

and mortgage payments left by 

her father, Julia Shafter Hamilton 

was ultimately forced to sell 

Home Ranch to Leland S. 

Murphy. Hamilton felt taken 

advantage of and was initially 

bitter about selling the property to 

Murphy; she even accused him of 

wanting to “ruin” her ranch. 

Nonetheless, Murphy, who was 

surprised that Hamilton accepted what he considered to be the “ridiculous offer” he had 

made on the property, worked hard to continue the tradition, initiating farming 

experiments—cattle, hogs, artichokes, and peas—and a hunt club on the property in 

addition to maintaining dairy cows there.80 Murphy owned the property until the Park 

Service purchased the land in 1968.81 Similarly, when Howard died in 1907, his land and 

dairy assets were almost all he had left to his name. When his wife Emma died a decade Record No. 58400. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

The schooner “Point Reyes,” ca. 1920s 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

24

later, her four children quarreled over what to do with the property. Each ultimately sold 

their share to John Rapp in 1919, the first major land sale on the peninsula since the 

Shafters first gained control sixty years earlier in 1858. The remaining Shafter heirs 

followed suit, selling their inheritance properties over the next two decades. By, 1939, all 

of the land originally owned on Point Reyes by members of the Shafter-Howard family 

belonged to other owners, many of them ex-tenants on the land.82 Dairying continued on 

much of the land, with the ranchers incorporating new technologies and following new 

dairy regulations in their operations.83 Although the southern ranches succumbed to 

subdivision after the estates began to sell, in the northern areas of the peninsula, the 

property boundaries of the former alphabet ranches for the most part remained intact.84

Although the Shafters and Howard no longer dominated the land, they left an indelible 

imprint on the peninsula. When the National Park Service surveyed the peninsula in the 

early 1960s, fifteen dairy ranches and ten cattle ranches still operated on Point Reyes.85

Despite the legacy of dairying on the peninsula that persists today, Point Reyes’ heyday 

in the industry was over by 1920. The tenant system was abandoned in stages between 

1919 and 1939.86 A number of factors contributed to this decline. Growing concern over 

food safety linked contaminated dairy products with such illness as tuberculosis and the 

cost of implementing new sanitary methods the government began to require was costly 

and time-consuming. Alfalfa, which gained prominence as a superior feed product for 

cows, was not suited to the cool, damp coastal region, thriving instead in the hot, dry 

valleys. Trucking, too, took its toll on the Point Reyes dairy industry. Whereas schooners 

and trains had been effective in the nineteenth century, in the twentieth century, 

refrigerated trucks traveling paved highways quickly became a much more efficient and 

flexible means by which to convey perishable dairy products to the market. By 1922, 

Marin County did not even make one top-ten list of butterfat producers in the State of 

California.87 Dairy production in the county continued throughout the establishment and 

history of the national seashore, but on a much, much smaller scale than in its heyday. 

Timber and fishing also played essential roles in the area’s economy, especially in its 

relationship to more urban areas of the state. Historian Robert S. Lange documented for 

the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) the F. E. Booth Company Pier, 

constructed in 1919, which was determined to be “the oldest and least altered of the four 

commercial fishing piers erected at Point Reyes.” Although the pier was at that time 

slated for demolition and the era of shipping goods by sea had long since passed, the pier 

represented nonetheless an important feature of local industrial history.88

EARLY MARIN COUNTY AND POINT REYES PENINSULA TOURISM

Despite its isolation from the growing urban ring around the San Francisco Bay, small 

communities evolved on Point Reyes over the nineteenth century to support first the 

timber industry and then the dairy operations on the peninsula. Alongside growing local 

industries, a small tourist trade eventually became established. Marin County was on its 

way to becoming a premier destination not only for businessmen and ranchers, but also 

for Bay Area pleasure travelers. Olema, one of the original white settlements on the 

peninsula also had a long history as a favored village site for the Coast Miwok people. At 

first the seat of Rafael Garcia’s rancho, Olema grew in importance as a stop on the 

overland stagecoach route. In 1857, Benjamin Winslow erected the Olema House, which 

served as a store, saloon, and hotel.89 Olema’s importance diminished, however, once it 

was bypassed in favor of the newly platted town of Point Reyes by the newly 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

25

incorporated narrow gauge North Pacific Coast Railroad, which wound its way north 

from the new ferry landing at Sausalito to Tomales (its last stop in Marin County), with 

its terminus at Cazadero in Sonoma County.90 Bolinas, located at the far southern end of 

the peninsula and which had for years served as a timber port. also became a destination 

spot. 

The new Sausalito ferry provided a convenient means by which Bay Area residents could 

access Marin County before construction of the Golden Gate Bridge; similarly, the North 

Pacific Coast Railroad simplified the overland journey to Point Reyes. Soon thereafter, 

San Franciscans began using the ferry and train to take day outings to the county. Local 

media publicized the growing trend: in 1878, the San Francisco Argonaut reported, 

“There is not any portion of our State more picturesque and romantic than the county of 

Marin.”91 By the late 1800s, travelers were making the journey via the railroad, often 

alighting at Tocaloma, located just east of Olema, and making their way to Tomales Bay, 

Point Reyes, or Bear Valley, which Howard had made available to the public as a park.92

Of all the destinations, Bear Valley was, and remains today, a jumping-off point for Point 

Reyes visitors. The valley was home to beautiful vistas, and boasted a lush, walkable path 

to the ocean that attracted picnickers and sportsmen alike.93 

Hunting and sport fishing also became desirable outdoor activities at Point Reyes during 

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Prominent San Francisco lawyer (and 

Shafter cousin) John Orr leased Howard Cottage in 1887 as a hunting lodge and summer 

cabin. Hunting clubs soon followed. Members of the elite Pacific Union Club of San 

Francisco founded a country club on 1,000 acres they leased in Bear Valley in 1890. 

They also leased from the 

Shafters and Howard the right to 

hunt on 76,000 acres adjoining 

the club grounds. The country 

club was elegantly appointed, 

with a Victorian clubhouse, 

stables, and barn, as well as 

accommodations for thirty-five 

hunters and their vehicles, horses, 

and dogs. The club employed 

three game wardens who patrolled 

for poachers and monitored the 

exotic game animals that were 

introduced to the area; seven 

coastal lakes on club property 

were stocked with trout, salmon, 

and bass. Although it was a 

mostly male preserve, during the 

off-season, women were invited 

to attend social events and 

outings.94 

During the 1890s, a handful of sporting clubs peppered the Marin County countryside. So 

many hunters used the area over the next decade that the native deer population was 

severely decimated. In 1907, the county supervisors responded, imposing a two-deer limit 

per-person and prohibiting the use of hunting dogs.95 Although the country clubs 

continued to operate once the limits were imposed, the two prominent Point Reyes 

Hunting 

Clubs 

Record No. 52610. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives.

Interior view of the Bear Valley Country Club in Bear Valley, date 

unknown. The largest of the trophy heads belongs to an animal (moose) 

not found, historically or currently, at Point Reyes. 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

26

establishments—Bear Valley County Club and Point Reyes Sportsmen’s Club—folded 

during the Depression Era.96 

Other small communities in Marin County or on the peninsula itself either were created 

as or over time became tourist destinations. In 1889, James Shafter set aside 640 wooded 

acres on the west side of Tomales Bay. Shafter may have been motivated by a desire to 

preserve the peninsula’s scenery as Harold Gilliam emphasized in his 1972 Island in 

Time. More likely, he subdivided the land in order to offset railroad losses. Whatever the 

reasons, or combination thereof, the town of Inverness—named after the Scottish town 

from whence his family had come—was built on the site as a resort village for campers 

and fishermen and summer spot for Bay Area socialites.97 Inverness was reckoned a 

prime spot for sailing, fishing, and swimming beaches on Tomales Bay, and has indeed 

served as a summer retreat for a handful of San Franciscans and other Bay Area residents 

since it was first established. However, the thriving resort area Shafter envisioned never 

blossomed. When he died, leaving his heirs the burden of his many outstanding debts, his 

daughter and executrix Julia Shafter Hamilton desperately and unsuccessfully tried to 

subdivide and sell off some of the Inverness acreage.98

Many historians have pointed to the impact the coming of the automobile had not only on 

the physical landscape of America but on social relations and the cultural landscape as 

well.99 Twentieth-century Point Reyes was no exception. When the Sausalito ferry first 

brought cars to Marin County in the early twentieth century, residents had mixed 

feelings. In 1903, anxious citizens organized an anti-auto campaign, which, although it 

failed, spurred strict speed and access restrictions in the county. Cars were thus initially 

thwarted on Point Reyes Peninsula and visitors continued to come by rail, many of them 

taking the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway.100 Automobiles would not be kept 

away for long, though. In an apocryphal story, presaging the coming dominance of cars 

and demise of trains, a car solidly trounced a train locomotive in a race to the top of 

Mount Tamalpais in 1916.101 The car’s speed and flexibility were its best assets, 

shortening the trip from the ferry dock to the peninsula to under two hours and allowing 

travelers to stop and look around at will. Backers of the proposed Golden Gate Bridge 

further crowed that the bridge would shorten that time by an hour, making a Point Reyes 

outing possible in even just an afternoon.102 

By 1920, car travel to the peninsula was growing steadily, especially to Bolinas and 

Stinson Beach, beyond the southern end of what is now Point Reyes National Seashore. 

By that time, Bolinas and Stinson Beach boasted hotels—one with an anticipatory 120-

space automobile parking lot—grocery stores, restaurants, and rental cottages for people 

who preferred more luxurious accommodations. Others simply parked their cars where 

they could and camped on the sand dunes or in woods near the beach.103 The decade 

before the Great Depression witnessed a dramatic increase in car traffic to Marin County. 

Between 1922 and 1925 alone, the number of cars that visited Muir Woods, for example, 

more than doubled from 12,000 to 27,000.104 Although well-graded roads crisscrossed the 

peninsula by the end of the nineteenth century, increased car traffic in the first two 

decades of the twentieth century spurred the development of surfaced roads on the 

peninsula. The first paved roads on the peninsula were poured in the late 1920s, starting 

with the lighthouse road and Sir Francis Drake Highway, which runs east-west between 

what are now highways 101 and 1, ending at Olema. The car/train race up Mount 

Tamalpais proved to be prophetic, for the railroad closed in 1930. Indeed, by the 1950s, a 

good number of roads on the peninsula were paved and cars had become as ubiquitous in 

Marin County as they were nationwide. The days of stagecoaches, horse and carriage, 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

27

schooners, and railroads may be long past, but remains of the pre-automobile age still 

exist. Many of the original footpaths and dirt roads on Point Reyes now serve as trails 

through the national seashore.105 

NAVIGATION AND COMMUNICATION ON POINT REYES

Capricious currents, seasonal fog, terrible winds, submerged rocks, and heavy surf, as 

well as its geographic location jutting far out into the Pacific Ocean, have made Point 

Reyes a natural hazard for sailors since 1595, when Cermeño’s ill-fated San Agustín met 

with disaster in the pounding waves off Drakes Beach.106 Over the next three centuries, 

numerous ships foundered and sank off its shores. The peninsula’s proximity just thirtyfive miles northwest of the growing seaports in San Francisco Bay and its protrusion 

along the increasingly well traveled commercial route off the California coastline, made 

navigation around the point essential. Point Reyes’ isolation from those destinations in a 

period lacking any form of radio ship-to-shore communication meant that running 

aground there was a solitary event that often ended in death and destruction. It was clear 

that some form of navigation aid was essential to safe maritime travel. 

Plans for a lighthouse at Point Reyes began immediately upon American acquisition of 

California from Mexico. President Zachary Taylor authorized a survey of the coastline, 

which recommended sixteen sites. Although Point Reyes was ranked second on the list, 

the site was overlooked in favor of eight others. In 1854, however, responding to what 

had become an obviously crucial need for a lighthouse on the point, Congress 

appropriated the necessary funds to build a station on the peninsula and the site soon 

appeared on maps of the area.107 Construction was scheduled to begin in 1855, but an 

important detail had been overlooked. The United States government had no title to the 

land and another fifteen years would pass before they could secure it. In the meantime, an 

estimated three-quarters of a million dollars in maritime losses occurred.108

In 1856, a by-now familiar story was playing out on the peninsula. The planned site on 

which the Point Reyes light was to be built was currently under dispute as part of the 

Randall foreclosure debacle. Just as the Steeles had leased land from Thomas G. 

Richards, a party to the as-yet-unsettled suit, the Lighthouse Board also negotiated with 

Richards for sale of the desired lighthouse site. However, while the details of the 

transaction were being ironed out, the Shafters gained control of the land, negating the 

deal with Richards. Thus, in 1858, the U.S government entered into a protracted battle 

with the Shafter family to gain title to the property at the westernmost tip of the point, 

land that had originally been part of Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante.109 Shrewd land 

speculators, the Shafters offered the parcel to the government at an “exorbitant” price, 

which it refused at first to pay. By January 1869, however, an agreement had been 

reached, and construction of the lighthouse got underway.110 In August 1870, John C. 

Bull became the first lighthouse keeper on the point. Soon thereafter, notice was posted to 

mariners that the light, flashing white on a five-second interval, would begin operation on 

December 1, 1870. The fog signal went into operation the following summer.111

Over almost the next half century, the lighthouse station at Point Reyes was beset by 

problems. Whereas the first-order Fresnel lens worked flawlessly from the beginning, the 

fog signal caused continual headaches for the Coast Guard. The steam signal depended 

on rainfall to fill its tanks, and the cistern from which the steam signal drew water was in 

constant danger of running dry, causing spotty operation in the first few years of use. 

Point Reyes 

Lighthouse 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

28

Further complaints surrounded the inconsistency with which the horn could be heard 

from different points offshore, especially to the north of the light, where most shipwrecks 

had occurred. Some captains reported that even just one mile off the point they were 

unable to hear the signal.112 The Point Reyes light and signal were universally recognized 

to be among the most important on the coastline and yet problems continued to beset the 

station. Unforgiving natural forces on the point beleaguered the buildings and low rainfall 

made keeping the cistern full an ongoing concern. Furthermore, ships continued to wreck 

at Point Reyes even after the light and signal were implemented, spurring increasingly 

negative publicity. In response to perpetual problems with the lighthouse and foghorn, 

work began in earnest in the 1880s to improve the station.113 In 1890, two twelve-inch 

whistles were installed, and the station received good reports over the next decade. 

Nonetheless, by the early twentieth century, with continued water shortages and battering 

winds and then the structural damage the 1906 earthquake caused, the lighthouse was 

again in trouble. Mariners persisted in their complaints that the fog signal’s notorious 

unreliability endangered their crew and cargos, and the government continued to work on 

improving the station’s performance. It was not until 1915, almost fifty years after it was 

originally constructed, that the installation of a powerful new fog signal indicated 

acceptance of the lighthouse as a success.114

Although the erection of the lighthouse at Point Reyes and the foghorn, however spotty 

its record, made the coastline safer for sailors, the waters off the peninsula remained 

dangerous and shipwrecks continued to occur on its beaches and reefs. A lifesaving 

station was necessary to rescue mariners who, despite the precautions, foundered at Point 

Reyes and other such coastal locations. In response to this ongoing peril to lives and 

commerce, in 1878 Congress authorized the formation of the U.S. Life-Saving Service. 

Perhaps the most important job the highly disciplined lifesaving station crews performed 

was their perpetual patrolling of beaches, staying alert to distress signals from ships and 

sending up flares to warn vessels that were too close to shore or in dangerous waters. 

When wrecks could not be prevented, the lifesaving crews used various means by which 

to rescue passengers and, if possible, salvage cargo. The station provided dry, clean 

clothes to survivors, lodging, and meals until arrangements were made to convey the 

passengers and crew to their destinations.115

Final authorization was given for a Point Reyes lifesaving station in 1886.116 Once again, 

though, the Shafter clan held up transfer of land for the project. Charles Howard “played 

fast and loose” with the buyer’s agent and caused a “great deal of trouble and vexatious 

delays” in acquiring the 3 1⁄2–acre site north of the lighthouse on which the Point Reyes 

lifesaving station was to be erected.117 Howard caused further delay by refusing to allow 

transport of materials across his land but eventually construction began. By July 1890, 

operations at the station commenced.118 

Hardship and tragedy plagued the station’s early years. Treacherous surf, which made 

regular drills and rescue operations inordinately risky, and an extremely remote location 

on Great Beach no doubt contributed to the death of four crewmen and demoralization of 

others. Desertion and drunkenness were rife. The lifesaving station underwent changes 

over the next seventy-five years, but continued to save lives and property by warning 

ships of the dangers off Point Reyes’ coast. The Life-Saving Service became part of the 

U.S. Coast Guard in 1915. In 1927, the lifesaving operations were moved to Chimney 

Rock, located at the opposite tip of the point from the lighthouse. That year the Coast 

Guard built, on the Drakes Bay side of the headlands, a new lifeboat station and marine 

railway that enabled crews to launch larger rescue boats directly into the surf. The Point 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

29

Reyes Lifeboat Station remained in operation for forty years, until the Coast Guard 

deactivated it in 1968; in 1969, the NPS took over the station property.119 The station is 

now the only intact lifeboat facility of its type remaining on the west coast. Accordingly, 

in 1990 the lifeboat station was designated a National Historic Landmark, the only 

structure with this status in the national seashore. 

Point Reyes’ location and isolation, which proved so dangerous for the maritime trade, 

was a boon to other industries that located there in the twentieth century. Perhaps the 

most noted of these are the wireless communications transmitting/receiving stations that 

Guglielmo Marconi and then the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and American 

Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) erected on the peninsula. Remnants of these 

operations remain a visible part of the landscape at Point Reyes today. 

On December 12, 1901, Marconi was the first to transmit a transatlantic wireless signal. 

Although that first signal was both weak and brief, Marconi’s primary triumph that day 

was in proving that the curvature of the earth need not prevent a wireless signal from 

traveling great distances as had previously been thought. This revelation opened the 

entire globe to wireless transmission; as Marconi stated after the event, “wireless 

telegraphy is possible everywhere.”120 The new technology soon proved its worth, aiding 

in several high profile rescues at sea, including the collision of the luxury liner Republic

and Italian steamer Florida off Nantucket in 1909 and the infamous Titanic tragedy in 

1912.121 In 1909, Marconi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Physics (which he 

shared with Karl Ferdinand Braun) for his groundbreaking contributions to wireless 

technology. As historian Dewey Livingston summarizes: Marconi’s “wireless systems 

saved hundreds of lives, brought important news to governments and people, helped the 

military forces of countries across the globe, and brought radio messages into homes; 

Marconi had started a revolution like the world had never seen.”122

Searching for a prime West Coast location for its expanding business, Marconi and his 

engineers settled on Point Reyes in 1912. The peninsula provided not only a “clean” (in 

other words, free of interference) location for receiving and transmitting, but also 

proximity to the company’s western headquarters in San Francisco. By 1914, the Marconi 

Wireless Telegraph Company of America had constructed a transmitter at Bolinas and 

receiver at Marshall.123 The Marconi station at Point Reyes and its counterpart at Kahuku, 

Hawaii, opened on September 24, 1914, with a ceremonial message shared between 

dignitaries of San Francisco and Hawaii.124 Marconi’s powerful wireless telegraph 

station, known as “KET,” provided essential point-to-point communications until 1919, 

when the U.S. Navy forced Marconi to relinquish control over the company under a 

wartime law that outlawed foreign ownership (Marconi was British-owned) of radio 

companies in the United States.125 RCA was formed soon thereafter out of a merger of 

General Electric and Marconi Wireless, supported by a consortium that also included 

AT&T, Westinghouse, and the United Fruit Company.126

RCA grew rapidly after the war and during the 1920s, controlling the high-power circuits 

and marine service at Marshall and Bolinas from its San Francisco office, while 

developing its home entertainment apparatus, vacuum tubes, and radio receivers, among 

other pursuits.127 In 1920, RCA inherited from the Navy and reopened at Marshall station 

KPH, first run by the American DeForest Wireless Company and located in San 

Francisco’s Palace Hotel (thus the call letters PH), then acquired by United Wireless and 

moved to Russian Hill and then Hillcrest in Daly City after the 1906 San Francisco 

earthquake.128 The 1920s and early 1930s were a time of significant expansion of RCA’s 

Marconi and 

RCA Wireless 

Stations 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

30

West Coast operations. RCA created subsidiary RCA Communications (RCAC) in 1929 

to focus on this aspect of the company’s many wings and deeded its Marshall property to 

the new branch the next year. In 1930, David Sarnoff took over the helm at RCA, 

bringing his sharp business sense and boundless energy to the company, which 

blossomed and prospered under his direction over the next three decades. At the same 

time, RCAC made plans to expand its transmitters at Bolinas and build a new receiving 

station along Sir Francis Drake on the west side of the peninsula near “G” Ranch.129 The 

distinctive Art Deco stations and related buildings were online by 1931. Station KPH 

continued to transmit from the Bolinas transmitter (in the old Marconi powerhouse, 

renamed Building 1 after the new facility was constructed) and continued its ship-toshore receiving operations at the Marshall station.130

Although the Great Depression slowed RCA’s business somewhat, by the mid-1930s 

RCA communicated from its Marin County stations with stations in forty-seven foreign 

countries, from where messages could then be relayed to just about anywhere on the 

earth. Services included landline transmission via Western Union, radio programs such as 

“Hawaii Calls” which featured music and talk from the Pacific islands, and a 

“photogram” service that enabled transmission of photographs, maps, handwritten 

material, signatures, and fingerprints.131 

RCA’s Point Reyes facilities’ prominence increased during the 1940s, especially during 

World War II. Early December 7, 1941, station KPH, with longtime employee Frank 

Geisel monitoring the equipment, was the first to receive intercepted radio calls about the 

impending attack on Pearl Harbor from Japanese transmitters and reports from nearby SS 

Lurline of a submarine threat. News of the bombing followed, confirming Geisel’s, and 

soon the nation’s, worst fears and Geisel relayed the information to ships at sea and RCA 

headquarters. Sarnoff, a strong patriot, immediately offered RCA’s services to President 

Franklin D. Roosevelt via a telegraph message that read: “All our facilities are ready and 

at your instant service. We await your orders.”132 Roosevelt quickly took Sarnoff at his 

word. Because of the perception of Point Reyes as vulnerable to attack, the army took 

over RCAC properties on the peninsula as headquarters for military operations; 

furthermore, station KET (KPH was put out of service) played a prominent role in 

fostering wartime communications, monitoring Japanese transmissions, and providing 

daily information to the FBI.133

After the war, KPH resumed operations under the direction of Frank Geisel, who worked 

hard to reestablish the station’s prominence. By the mid-1950s, KPH was back to speed 

and employed anywhere from ten to twenty employees at a time. Many of these 

employees saw this era as the station’s golden years.134 KPH played important roles in 

information gathering during the Cold War (a covert role for which RCA would come 

under sharp criticism in the 1970s) and also during the Vietnam War as a contract radio 

station for hundreds of ships at sea. KPH staffing increased during the 1960s to handle 

war-related communications, which consisted mostly of communications with freighters 

hauling supplies and ammunition to Vietnam, and peaked in the early 1970s.135

Despite its prominent role throughout at least fifty years of global communications, 

RCA’s hold on the industry began to falter during the 1970s as wireless technology 

advanced and changed. The company, now known as RCA Globcom, switched from 

point-to-point technology to satellite in the mid-1970s, and by 1977 had sold all of its 

Bolinas property and most of its Point Reyes property to the Trust for Public Land (TPL 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

31

then leased the Bolinas property to Commonweal and resold its Point Reyes land to the 

NPS, which leased it back to RCA).136 

Although the company limped along after David Sarnoff’s death in 1971, RCA’s fortunes 

declined dramatically, failing to compete in the satellite business (RCA [later GE] 

Americom, which closed its doors in 1991) and falling from one of the country’s most 

successful and well-managed corporations to one of the worst. In 1985, RCA sold out to 

its original parent company and later nemesis GE, which had ironically paid only 3.5 

million dollars for controlling stock in Marconi Wireless in 1919. GE’s ownership of the 

marine stations was brief and after twenty-three months of neglect at KPH, GE sold RCA 

Globcom to MCI International, Inc., in May 1988, to be operated by MCI’s wholly 

owned subsidiary, Western Union International.137 MCI’s announcement in the mid1990s that it was merging with international communications giant British Telecom 

signaled the imminent doom of KPH, which sent its last transmission and officially 

closed its doors on June 29, 1997.138

Today, the communication facilities are closed; the NPS purchased the MCI site in 1999. 

But the Marconi and RCA stations, which made their mark in the radio communications 

industry, also left their stamp on the Point Reyes landscape. The “maze of poles and 

wires,” which Harold Gilliam described at the RCA and AT&T receiving sites in 1962 

still stand at some of sites today, reminders of the once-isolated peninsula’s connections 

to far-flung lands.139

Prior to creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore, the area had been home to a 

number of different people, cultures, and industries. Successive and overlapping human 

residence and the cultural conflicts and compromises it fostered along with the imposition 

of geographical boundaries, new species, and the development of a thriving dairy 

industry forever altered the face of the land. Historical developments on Point Reyes left 

a relatively open, sizeable parcel of coastline that enabled the establishment of the 

national seashore during the late twentieth century. And yet, what seemed at the outset to 

be a relatively easy task, turned out to reflect more the battles surrounding distribution of 

Randall’s property or the government’s fight to erect a lighthouse than a simple matter of 

consolidating a few parcels of land. Indeed, very literal and more tenuous boundaries had 

been indelibly imprinted on the peninsula as the process of defining and redefining the 

peninsula—as a native home, mission outpost, system of ranches, and tourist 

destination—continued over centuries of human use of the land. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER ONE

1

 Anna Coxe Toogood, “Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes 

National Seashore,” 2 vols., Historic Resource Study, Historic Preservation Branch, Pacific 

Northwest/Western Team, Denver Service Center, National Park Service, Department of the 

Interior, 1980, 1:2–3. 

2

 National Park Service, “History of the Coast Miwok at Point Reyes,” Point Reyes National 

Seashore official website, National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/pore/history_miwok.htm 

(accessed March 10, 2005); Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:3–4; and Michael J. Moratto, California 

Archaeology (Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1984), 272. 3

 Toogood, “Civil History,” 3–4; and Harold Gilliam, Island in Time (New York: The Sierra 

Club/Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962), 39. 

Conclusion 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

32

4

 Toogood, “Civil History,” 4; and Isabel Kelly, “Coast Miwok,” in Handbook of North American 

Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant, Vol. 8, California, ed. Robert G. Heizer (Washington, D.C.: 

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978), 417. 

5

 Isabel Kelly, “Coast Miwok,” in Handbook of North American Indians, 419. Americans, 

especially in the last three decades, have somewhat romanticized the idea of the “natural” and 

“peaceful native.” Harold Gilliam claimed that “in at least one respect their civilization surpassed 

our own: there was no pattern of organized warfare.” Gilliam, Island in Time, 39. 6

 Gilliam describes these hairdos but does not cite his source. Gilliam, Island in Time, 40. 7

 The 1851 and 1920 figures are taken from the compiled table provided in Isabel Kelly, “Coast 

Miwok,” in Handbook of North American Indians, 414. Contemporary numbers are provided on 

the National Park Service website for Point Reyes National Seashore. 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/history_miwok.htm (accessed March 10, 2005). The Point Reyes website 

refers to the band as the “Federated Coast Miwok,” but the tribe now goes by the Graton 

Rancheria moniker. For more information on the tribe and its nationally recognized fight to be 

recognized by the federal government, see “Federated Tribe of Graton Rancheria,” 

http://www.gratonrancheria.com/; and “California Miwok Indians Fight To Reclaim Official 

Tribal Status,” http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/07/12/miwok.reservation (both accessed June 8, 

2005). 

8

 The Coast Miwok believed that the dead lived beyond the ocean’s western horizon. Thus white 

men coming from that direction seemed to have come from beyond the grave. For a detailed albeit 

dated description of the many theories and different pieces of evidence in the debate, see Gilliam, 

Island in Time, 14–25. 9

 National Park Service, “History of the Early Exploration of Point Reyes,” Point Reyes National 

Seashore official website, National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/pore/history_explorers.htm. 10 Gilliam, Island in Time, 19–22. 11 Raymond Aker and Edward Von der Porten, Discovering Francis Drake’s California Harbor

(Palo Alto, California: Drake Navigators Guild, 2000), 35–50. A good outline, albeit out-dated, of 

the theories and evidence can be found in Gilliam, Island in Time, 14–19. Other maps have been 

used to try to determine the location of the “lost harbor.” For example, a preparatory sketch of the 

harbor at New Albion with sounding marks that Robert Dudley, son of a financial backer of 

Drake’s journey, drew for his 1647 world atlas. 

12 For instance, one amateur historian has recently placed the landing much further north at Whale 

Cove, Oregon, in part based on another historian’s assertion that Drake and Queen Elizabeth I 

conspired after the voyage to deceive the Spanish into believing that the Northwest passage Drake 

claimed was farther south than he thought. Arthur Davies, “Drake and California,” Pacific 

Discovery 34 (November–December 1981): 14–24, and Davies, “The Golden Hind and the Tello 

on the Coasts of California,” Geographical Journal 148 (July 1982): 219–24; and Little Whale 

Cove, “Drake,” http://www.whalecove.com/drake2.html (accessed March 11, 2005). 13 For a detailed discussion of the fake plate, see Edward Von der Porten, Raymond Aker, Robert 

W. Allen, and James M. Spitze, “Who Made Drake’s Plate of Brass? Hint: It Wasn’t Francis 

Drake,” California History 81, no. 2 (Spring–Fall 2002): 116–33. 14 “Who Made Drake’s Plate of Brass?” esp. 121–23. 

15 “Who Made Drake’s Plate of Brass?” quotation on 121. 16 “Who Made Drake’s Plate of Brass?” 121. 

17 “Who Made Drake’s Plate of Brass?” 123–28. 

18 Harold Gilliam quoted “a Piedmont matron” as saying, “‘You’d better know how people feel 

about Drake when you’re making out your guest list for a dinner.’” Gilliam, Island in Time, 14. 

19 “Point Reyes: Picturesque Peninsula in the Pacific,” Newsweek 131, no. 20 (May 18, 1998), 13. 20 PRNS, “Shipwrecks on the Point Reyes Peninsula, 1849–1940,” map, 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/pdf/shipwreck (accessed March 7, 2006). 21 Gilliam, Island in Time, 33. 22 PRNS, “History of the Early Exploration of Point Reyes,” 

http://www.nps/gov/pore/history_explorers.htm (accessed March 14, 2005). 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

33

23 PRNS, “History of the Early Exploration of Point Reyes.” 

24 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:5. 

25 California Department of Parks and Recreation, “Fort Ross SHP,” 

http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=449 (accessed March 17, 2005). 26 The Ohlone people are also known by the name the Spanish gave to them, Costanoan. 

27 The actual number of Costanoans in the region is not known. A 1774 expedition found none 

north of Lake Merced to the Golden Gate area; but in 1776, a substantial village was found 

approximately a mile and a half southwest of the present location of Mission Dolores. Toogood, 

“Civil History,” 1:11. See also United States Army Corps of Engineers San Francisco District, 

“Maritime Archaeology Study in Support of the San Francisco Bay Rocks Removal Project,” 

http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/archaeology/rockremoval/4.0historicbkrd.htm (accessed June 8, 

2005). 

28 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:5–6. 

29 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:6. 

30 Don Felipe de Goycoechea quoted (in translation) in Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:6. 

31 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:6–7. 

32 This summary is taken mostly from Sherburne F. Cook and Cesare Marino, “Roman Catholic 

Missions in California and the Southwest,” in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William 

C. Sturtevant, Vol. 4, History of Indian-White Relations, ed. Wilcomb E. Washburn (Washington, 

D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), 472–78. 33 Cook and Marino, “Roman Catholic Missions in California and the Southwest,” in Handbook of 

North American Indians, 475. 34 Cook and Marino, “Roman Catholic Missions in California and the Southwest,” in Handbook of 

North American Indians, 474–76. 35 Cook and Marino, “Roman Catholic Missions in California and the Southwest,” in Handbook of 

North American Indians, 477. 36 Cook and Marino, “Roman Catholic Missions in California and the Southwest,” in Handbook of 

North American Indians, 478. 37 Gilliam, Island in Time, 40. 38 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:13–14. 

39 Cook and Marino, “Roman Catholic Missions in California and the Southwest,” in Handbook of 

North American Indians, 478. 40 Gilliam, Island in Time, 40. 41 The story of the ranchos is too detailed and complex to cover here. For close coverage and 

analysis, see Dewey S. Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula: A History of the 

Dairy and Beef Ranches within Point Reyes National Seashore, 1834–1992,” Historic Resource 

Study, National Park Service, Point Reyes National Seashore, 1993, 1–11; and Toogood, “Civil 

History,” 1:28–75. Most of this discussion is summarized from these two comprehensive sources. 

42 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:33. 

43 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:33–38. 

44 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:38; and Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 67. 

45 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 5. 

46 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:40. 

47 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:42–43. 

48 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:69–72; and Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 

7–9. 

49 Jack Mason quoted in Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 9. 

50 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:44; and Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 4. 

51 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 5. 

52 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:64–69; and Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 

6. 

53 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:69. 

54 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 9–11. 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

34

55 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 11–12. 

56 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 12; and Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:96–

97. 

57 The quote is relayed as both “cow heaven” and “cow haven,” depending on the source. See, 

respectively, Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 14; and Toogood, “Civil 

History,” 1:135. The Steele quotation is from the former. 

58 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 16. 

59 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 17. 

60 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 16. 

61 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 19–20; and Toogood, “Civil History,” 

1:136–38. 

62 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 20–23. 

63 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 31; and Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:140. 

64 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 33–35. 

65 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 30; and Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:145. 

66 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 31. 

67 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 33, 31. 

68 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 33, 61–62. 

69 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:140–41. 

70 The property is now part of the Vedanta Society estate. 

71 Veerkamp, “National Register of Historic Places Nomination: Point Reyes Ranches Rural 

Historic District,” draft, n.d., File NR-Ranches, Box 14, PORE 8062 Historian’s Records, Point 

Reyes National Seashore Archives (hereafter cited as PRA), 4; Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:142–

43. 

72 Veerkamp, “National Register of Historic Places Nomination: Point Reyes Ranches Rural 

Historic District,” 7. 

73 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:153–54. 

74 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:154. 

75 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 35–37. 

76 Quoted in Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 36. 

77 Department of the Interior, Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Industry and Wealth, 

compiled by the Superintendent of the Census (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1872), 106, 594. In 1870, 

Marin County’s 2,107,755 lbs. of butter production outdistanced Oregon’s total statewide 

production of 1,876,189 lbs. 

78 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 37, 62–64. Contemporaries of the 

Shafters complained that this reputation was unwarranted. Livingston has speculated that it might 

have been more a result of Shafters connections in San Francisco and savvy marketing that 

fostered the prominence of Point Reyes butter, even to the point of other dairies’ counterfeiting the 

“PR” stamp or filling Point Reyes butter boxes with “common” products. Ibid., 64. See also 

Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:158. 

79 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 51–52. 

80 Leland S. Murphy, interview by Diana Skiles, June 15, 1977, Guerneville, California, transcript, 

Point Reyes National Seashore Archives (hereafter PRA). 81 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:167–68. 

82 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:144–45. 

83 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 65–68. 

84 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 68–72. 

85 NPS, Report on the Economic Feasibility of the Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore, 1961 

(San Francisco: NPS Region Four Office, 1961), NPS Denver Service Center Library, Denver, 

Colorado, 2. 

86 Veerkamp, “National Register of Historic Places Nomination: Point Reyes Ranches Rural 

Historic District,” 4. 

87 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:195–96. 
Historical Background (Prehistoric–1930s) 

35

88 Robert S. Lange, “F. E. Booth Company Pier, Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, 

California,” HABS Report, CAL. 21-BOLI, 1-, HABS No. CA-2073, September 1980. 

89 Gilliam, Island in Time, 47. 

90 Marin County Free Library, “Riding the Railroad in Marin County, circa 1900,” 

http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/lb/main/crm/photoalbums/ridingrailroadalbum/ridingrailroadmai

n.html (accessed March 16, 2005); and Toogood, “Civil History,” 2: 1. 

91 Quoted in Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:3. The San Francisco Argonaut was founded in 1877 by 

Frank Morrison Pixley, whose wife, Amelia Van Reynegom, had inherited a Marin County ranch 

(which was apparently part of John Reed’s original Mexican land grant—the first granted in Marin 

County). Although Pixley’s true motivation for promoting the peninsula’s attractions is unknown, 

his wife’s long-held attachment to the land may have influenced him. In addition to the 1878 

article, an 1891 piece described the Van Reynegom/Pixley ranch, Owl’s Wood, in some detail. 

Catharine Pixley Robson, interview by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent, September 10, 1975, transcript, 

http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/lb/main/crm/oralhistories/cpixleyrobsonft.html (accessed March 

17, 2005). 

92 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:5. Note: Toogood appears to have misspelled Tocaloma, as it is 

represented on current maps—her text mistakenly represents the town as Tacoloma. 

93 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:5. 

94 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:5–6. 

95 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:6. 

96 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:7. 

97 Gilliam, Island in Time, 47; and West Marin Chamber of Commerce, “Inverness,” 

http://www.pointreyes.org/inverness.html (accessed March 15, 2005). Gilliam may have 

emphasized Shafter’s latent environmental sympathies because they reflected the tenor of his own 

times, which witnessed a dramatic resurgence of environmental concern that contributed greatly to 

the creation of Point Reyes National Seashore. 

98 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:7. 

99 See for instance John B. Rae, The Road and the Car in American Life (Cambridge, Mass.: The 

MIT Press, 1971); John Jakle, The Tourist: Travel in Twentieth Century America (Lincoln: 

University of Nebraska Press, 1985); James Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, MA: The 

MIT Press, 1988); Warren J. Belasco, Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910–

1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1979), among others. 100 For a timeline of the railway that explains name changes during the period, see Mill Valley 

Public Library, “Mill Valley Digital History Project,” 

http://millvalleylibrary.org/history/exhibit.html (accessed March 18, 2005). 101 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:34. 102 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:34–35. 103 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:12–13. 104 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:35. 105 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 49–51. 106 Dewey Livingston and Dave Snow, “The History and Architecture of the Point Reyes Light 

Station,” Historic Structures Report, Point Reyes National Seashore, National Park Service, 1990, 

5–6. 

107 Livingston and Snow, “History and Architecture of the Point Reyes Light Station,” 6–7. 108 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:244; and Livingston and Snow, “History and Architecture of the 

Point Reyes Light Station,” 7. 

109 Livingston and Snow, “History and Architecture of the Point Reyes Light Station,” 8. 110 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:240–45; and Livingston and Snow, “History and Architecture of 

the Point Reyes Light Station,” 8–10. 

111 Livingston and Snow, “History and Architecture of the Point Reyes Light Station,” 13–17; and 

Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:245–53. 

112 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:256–57. 113 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:257, 260. 
Historical Background (Prehistoric-1930s) 

36

114 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:265. 115 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:276, 279, 292–93. 116 Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:275–82. 117 Quoted in Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:289. 118 Quoted in Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:289–90. 

119 Quoted in Toogood, “Civil History,” 1:296–97. 120 Quoted in Dewey Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific: A History of the Marconi and 

RCA Radio Stations on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” draft manuscript submitted for review, May 5, 

1998, chapter 1, page 11, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives.

121 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 1, 12–14. 122 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 1, page 1. 123 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 3, page 1. 124 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 3, page 9–10. 125 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 3, page 19; National Park Service, “History 

of the Coast Miwok at Point Reyes,” Point Reyes National Seashore official website, National 

Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/pore/history_comm.htm (accessed March 17, 2005). See also 

Maritime Radio Historical Society, “Jack Martini’s Journals, Part 2” 

http://www.radiomarine.org/journals-2.html (accessed March 17, 2005) for a more detailed history 

of the early development and location of the radio station, whose call letters were originally “PH” 

because it operated out of San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. 126 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 3, pages 24–27 and chapter 4, pages 1–2; 

and “Jack Martini’s Journals, Part 3,” http://www.radiomarine.org/journals-3.html (accessed 

March 17, 2005). 

127 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 4, page 3. 128 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 2, page 7 and chapter 4, pages 5–6. 

129 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 4, pages 20–24. 130 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 4, page 26. 131 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 4, page 29. 132 Quoted in Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 4, page 32. 133 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 4, pages 34–35. 134 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 5, pages 1–2. 135 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 6, page 7. 136 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 6, pages 6–7. 137 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 7, pages 1–2. 138 Livingston, “Wireless Giant of the Pacific,” chapter 7, pages 7–8. 

139 Gilliam, Island in Time, 45. 
37

CHAPTER TWO
38
39

CHAPTER TWO

THE CAMPAIGN TO CREATE A NATIONAL SEASHORE

We need the sea. 

We need a place to stand and watch and listen— 

to feel the pulse-beat of the world as the surf rolls in. 

. . . David Brower, Island in Time

number of separate but eventually convergent processes and events led to the creation of 

Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS). It began with the initial formulations of the 

national seashore concept in the 1930s and the National Park Service survey of Point 

Reyes as a potential site for a national seashore. During the 1950s, threats of commercial 

and residential development on the peninsula and a second NPS survey of Point Reyes, 

prompted conservation groups and politicians to launch the campaign that culminated in 

the authorization of PRNS in September 1962. 

During this span of roughly three decades, two themes emerged to presage issues that 

future park administrators would have to tackle. First, the changing definition of the 

seashore itself—the process whereby individuals and organizations have conceptualized 

and configured the park as a natural, cultural, and political landscape—began during this 

period and continued throughout the seashore’s history. Second, an increasing number of 

social, economic, and political connections have tied the formerly isolated peninsula ever 

closer to the local communities, regional and national governments, and citizen’s 

organizations involved with it. Just as the land mass of Point Reyes Peninsula continues 

to gradually edge its way northward along the California coast via the San Andreas fault, 

during the four decades covered in this history, the Point Reyes area gradually shifted 

away from its former geographic, cultural, and political isolation toward greater 

interconnection with the world around it. The story of the origins and campaign to create 

PRNS is covered here in two parts. The first describes the origins of the national seashore 

idea, and the original NPS recommendations for designating Point Reyes as one of 

several potential national seashore sites. The second section describes the work of the 

conservation movements in Marin County and the San Francisco Bay Area to promote 

the Point Reyes proposal. These forces intersect in the late 1950s to launch the legislative 

battle to gain National Seashore designation for Point Reyes. That piece of the park’s 

history will be covered in the next chapter 3. 

ORIGINS OF THE NATIONAL SEASHORE CONCEPT (1929–1958) 

During the 1930s and the 1950s, NPS officials, acting in response to several national 

trends, formulated the national seashore idea and laid the groundwork to create this new 

type of operating unit. The national seashores, as envisioned at the outset, would serve 

the dual purposes of aesthetic preservation and public recreation at selected sections of 

America’s beachfronts and lakeshores. The national seashores were not a direct 

outgrowth of the national outdoor recreation movement and did not arrive on the coattails 

of the Park Service’s heavyweight “Mission 66” project. The national seashores traced a 

historical course of their own from the changes in American conservationism during the 

1930s through the rise of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. 

A 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

40

The idea of including a seashore area as a site within the national park system went 

against the traditional notions that had defined the first generation of national parks. 

These parks—Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, and Crater Lake—were 

established to set aside and protect grand scenery and natural “curiosities,” such as hot 

springs, rock formations, giant trees, active glaciers, and ancient volcanoes. These early 

parks, established prior to 1916, shared common characteristics. Each featured aweinspiring scenes associated with their rugged, vertical topography. The mountain 

summits, deep valleys, sheer cliffs, cavernous holes, and exquisitely carved landscapes—

what historian Alfred Runte has termed the “monumental” qualities—of these parks were 

the primary attractions that lured visitors and convinced legislators of their scenic value.1

The early parks also were characterized as having national significance: they either were 

unique or were the best example of their kind. In addition, almost all of the pre-1930 

parks shared locations in the western states, geographically isolated from the country’s 

urban centers.2

Aside from monumental features and western locations, all of the early parks shared 

another commonality: Congress created them from land already within the federal or 

public domain, and they thus required no funding for land acquisition. This zero-cost 

formula was often the key element that helped move each park’s founding legislation 

through the gauntlet of a frequently resistant Congress. In some cases, another public 

land agency, such as the U.S. Forest Service, held the land; in other cases, steep 

mountains or deep canyons rendered the land uninhabitable and thus it had remained 

unclaimed. In instances where private land had been involved, private philanthropy or 

state funding financed land acquisition for a new park. A few smaller areas, such as Muir 

Woods National Monument, had been created entirely from lands donated for that 

purpose.3

 Congress did not appropriate funds to obtain the land for these parks. 

Eventually, exceptions to the historic pattern emerged. The most noteworthy example 

was Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine. Initially tabbed Sieur de Monts National 

Park when established in 1916, Acadia was the first park east of the Mississippi River.4

Accordingly, the park was also much closer to a populous area, the urban corridor of the 

northeastern states. Much of the park’s territory was already in private hands prior to the 

campaign to create a park there. After Congress passed, and the president authorized, the 

founding legislation, the private land, including acreage held by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 

was donated to the U.S. government and handed over to the NPS. Sieur de Monts was 

also the first park to include a coastal area within its boundaries. Nevertheless, it would 

be a mistake to call Acadia the first seashore park, or even the forerunner of such park 

units. Although Acadia’s rugged coastal features were valued as scenic resources, the 

park’s centerpiece attraction was Mount Desert Island—yet another piece of vertical 

topography. The park was cast in the same mold as the western mountain parks, albeit on 

a smaller scale. 

The National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 brought the national parks and certain 

other sites under the organizational umbrella of the new agency, and spelled out a 

common mission statement and set of management objectives for the parks.5

 The creation 

of the new agency signaled that the park system would expand, as the agency sought 

more land and responsibilities to help bolster its place in the public eye, and more 

importantly, within the federal hierarchy. This push to enlarge NPS jurisdiction resulted 

in a larger number and also a greater variety of national park sites entering the system.6

The Changing 

National Park 

System 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

41

The addition of other national park sites in the eastern United States—Shenandoah, Great 

Smoky Mountains, and Mammoth Cave joined the system in 1926—entailed creating 

units from private, as well as public, land. Congress did not change its stance about 

appropriating federal funds for land acquisition. Instead, Congress added stipulations that 

park land be acquired with private or public donations. Rockefeller contributed more than 

$5 million to obtain land for Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains. The states of 

Virginia and North Carolina also donated land they had previously owned or had 

acquired for this purpose. 

The first national monuments were added to the park system in 1906.7

 Under the terms of 

that year’s Antiquities Act, the president could directly authorize the creation of new 

national monuments without concurrent congressional action. The initial intent was to set 

aside land to protect prehistoric ruins and historic structures, archaeological sites, 

historical landmarks, and other “objects of historic or scientific interest,” in order to 

prevent souvenir hunters, museum collectors, and run-of-the-mill vandals from pillaging 

them.8

 National monuments encompassed federal lands that were under the jurisdiction of 

the Department of the Interior, War Department, and Department of Agriculture. The 

agency that ran a particular national monument was usually part of the department from 

which its land was set aside. Thus when President Theodore Roosevelt, using a broad 

interpretation of the Antiquities Act, established Grand Canyon National Monument in 

1908, the job of protecting and managing it fell to the Forest Service, a branch of the 

Department of Agriculture. Likewise, when a 1910 presidential order created Big Hole 

Battlefield National Monument in Montana, the site remained the responsibility of the 

War Department.9

 While debating the legislation that led to the Antiquities Act, Congress 

moved—with much the same sentiment and motivation—to establish Mesa Verde 

National Park. The Mesa Verde Act followed the Antiquities Act of 1906 into law by just 

three weeks. Mesa Verde set the precedent for establishing national parks with the 

primary intent to protect cultural features rather than natural ones. 

The legislative intent, authorization process, and typically smaller size of the monuments 

set them apart from the early national parks.10 But distinctions between national parks 

and national monuments gradually became fuzzier; establishment by presidential order 

rather than congressional action remained the chief difference between the two. Even that 

distinguishing characteristic did not always prove valid: in 1929, Badlands National 

Monument became the first unit of its type established by an act of Congress rather than a 

presidential order.11 By the time the NPS underwent reorganization in 1933, the national 

park system included a significant number of national monuments, and had embraced a 

variety of other types of operating units as well. The latter included national memorials, 

national battlefields, national military parks, the national capital parks, national historical 

parks and sites, and national reserves. Most of the military/battlefield sites were 

transferred intact from the War Department to the Park Service during summer 1933. 

The authorization of Isle Royale (1931) and Everglades (1934) national parks during the 

1930s challenged old standards used to determine national park status. Viewed from our 

twenty-first century conception of natural beauty, these two parks might well be 

considered places with spectacular scenery. But when Congress founded them, the visual 

scenery of Isle Royale and the Everglades was considered less compelling than what 

visitors could see at the other early parks. The two clearly diverged from the verticallandscape framework that had been the gold standard for inclusion in the park system. 

Not only did they have a different look but the legislative intents of their authorizations 

were also quite different. The Isle Royale and Everglades founding acts called for the 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

42

preservation of such ephemeral and abstract qualities as nature and, most notably, 

wilderness. Congressional authorization of Everglades National Park thus established 

precedents within the national park system that smoothed the way for subsequent creation 

of national seashore and lakeshore sites. Public and private support for protection of 

seashore areas, however, began well before Roosevelt signed the Everglades National 

Park bill. 

As the national park system was evolving during the 1920s, several organizations and 

individuals in the United States began to express concern about the ongoing loss or 

destruction of America’s shorelines and beaches. At the beginning of the decade, the 

National Research Council’s Committee on Shoreline Investigations portended that 

automobile travel would quickly open the country’s coasts and shorelines to the 

multitudes and result in their eventual disappearance. The committee called for officials 

from the coastal states to meet and discuss the problem. One result was the formation of 

the American Shore and Beach Association (ASBA) in 1926, organized to coordinate the 

protection and utilization of America’s coasts and shores. The ASBA published 

brochures and a quarterly magazine, Shore and Beach, which highlighted the nation’s 

most spectacular coastlines and beaches. One brochure argued that the country’s ocean 

coasts, lakeshores, and riverfronts were “important assets for promoting the health and 

physical well-being of the people of this nation . . . an opportunity for wholesome and 

necessary rest and recreation not equally available in any other form.”12

American Shore and Beach Preservation Association logo used 

on their publicity brochures, RG 79, National Archives. 

 A decade later, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes renewed the argument for 

protecting America’s seashores: 

When we look up and down the ocean fronts of America, we find that 

everywhere they are passing behind the fences of private ownership. The 

people can no longer get to the ocean. . . . I say it is the prerogative and 

the duty of the Federal and State Governments to step in and acquire, not 

a swimming beach here and there, but solid blocks of ocean front 

hundreds of miles in length. Call this ocean front a national park, or a 

Loss of 

Shoreline and 

Beaches 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

43

national seashore, or a state park or anything you please—I say the 

people have a right to a fair share of it.13

The State of California, with its long stretches of unspoiled coastline, 

commissioned its own study of the problem in the late 1920s. Frederick L. 

Olmsted, Jr., presented his report on the Point Reyes Peninsula to the state in 

1929. Included in the report was the first plan for setting aside the Point Reyes 

area as a site for public use and enjoyment. 

Paralleling the growth of the seashore protection movement during the 1930s, the federal 

government began a concerted effort to promote outdoor recreation. An executive order 

created the National Resources Board (NRB) in 1934.14 That year, the NRB produced A 

Report on National Planning and Public Works in Relation to Natural Resources and 

Including Land Use and Water Resources and with Findings and Recommendations.

15

The NRB’s call for the creation of public beaches in that report emphasized the 

importance of protecting public access to beaches and shores amid concerns about 

industrialization’s impact upon that same public. The board’s language in the report 

revealed vestiges of Progressive Era thinking regarding the value of outdoor recreation in 

maintaining the health and vigor of the American people.16 Recreation Use of Land in the 

United States, an addendum to the original report, laid out these “fundamental reasons” 

for a nationally sponsored recreation movement and the reservation of lands and waters 

for recreational use: “Some of the fundamental requisites for . . . well-being are an 

abundance of fresh, pure air and sunlight, pleasurable physical activity—especially out of 

doors—and periods of rest, relaxation, and repose in environments of natural beauty, free 

from too close human contacts, and from the harsh noises and the high-speed tempo of 

this machine age.”17

Two years later, the Park, Parkway, and Recreation Study Act of 1936 extolled the 

message of the earlier NRB report and further validated the outdoor recreation 

movement.18 The act authorized a thorough study of existing public parks, parkways, and 

recreation areas in the United States. The government would use data from the study to 

plan new or revitalized park and recreation programs and facilities that were adequate to 

meet future needs of the American public. One purpose of the studies was to “identify 

opportunities for conserving portions of natural or historically important shores for park 

or recreational use.”19 The study results were published in The Study of the Park and 

Recreation Problem in the United States (1941).20 The creation of the Outdoor Recreation 

Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) in 1958 helped renew the government’s 

outdoor recreation agenda, and produced the National Recreation Survey and resulting 

publication, Outdoor Recreation for America (1962). Although the outdoor recreation 

movement did not give birth to the national seashore idea, it affirmed the NPS aim to 

create national seashore sites. 

Using the funding made available to federal relief agencies under the New Deal, the NPS 

launched its own seashore studies during the Great Depression. Working through its 

regional offices charged with monitoring Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) work and 

other projects in the state parks, the Park Service began surveys of remaining 

undeveloped seashore sites on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in 1934. It extended the 

survey process to include the Pacific Coast in 1935. The seashore survey program availed 

itself of expertise and assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard and other government agencies 

seeking ways to keep their personnel employed. The surveys recommended fifteen sites 

America’s 

Outdoor 

Recreation 

Movement 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

44

for inclusion in the national park system and revealed approximately thirty other 

locations that would make valuable additions to park systems of coastal states.21

Conrad L. Wirth, who would later direct the NPS and oversee the creation of Point Reyes 

and several other national seashores, led the Point Reyes survey team. At that time he 

was assistant director of the NPS branch of planning, stationed in San Francisco, with 

responsibility for surveying potential seashore or recreation area sites along the west 

coast. The survey team produced Study of a National Seashore Recreation Area, Pt. 

Reyes Peninsula in 1935. Wirth and Emerson Knight, an NPS regional landscape 

architect, were the principal authors. The study described the objectives, potential uses, 

and suggested boundaries for a future NPS site there. Although this was one of many 

coastal sites the survey would include, the Park Service “felt that this region assumes 

prime importance, not particularly due to its extent, but because of its exceptional 

qualities, manifold interests, and principally its quickly convenient accessibility to the 

concentrated population of central California. Its miles of superb beaches alone insure it 

significance of interstate and national scope.”22 Wirth’s team recommended the peninsula 

be set aside as a “National Seashore Recreational area,” based upon three important 

qualities, namely the rich biological resources found there, the recreational opportunities 

the peninsula’s seashore offered, and the area’s close proximity to San Francisco. The 

study concluded, in language that mirrors the “preserve and protect” precepts of the NPS 

Organic Act, that Point Reyes should gain NPS status for “the purposes of conserving 

these biological resources and to utilize the ocean front, the bays and their shores. Both 

functions will be possible without interfering with the other.”23

Boundaries of the proposed national seashore were to encompass the entire peninsula, 

less small set-asides to allow for future growth around the town of Inverness and other 

small settlements on the western side of Tomales Bay. Other than these parcels, all of 

Point Reyes would be included to make a “true comprehensive unit with an arm 

extending southward along the ocean to within three miles of Bolinas Point and eastward 

to approximately the ridge margin of agricultural lands along Olema Valley.”24 A unit of 

that size—approximately 56,000 acres of the peninsula—would include, in addition to 

the fifty-mile stretch of scenic coastal beachfront, a large portion of the current dairy and 

range lands. The study narrative gave little attention to the ranches, noting only that the 

private holdings of the larger ranches “prevented the public from gaining any conception 

of the physical beauty of the region.”25 NPS officials, the authors acknowledged, might 

encounter “difficulties” trying to convince ranch owners to sell their property, but 

concluded that they would overcome any objections when the various parties paused “to 

think of the great need of this breathing spot generations hence.”26 Granted our luxury of 

hindsight, the rose-tinted predictions about surmounting the rancher’s resistance to 

surrendering their land seem now as unreasonable as the report’s estimate that the total 

purchase price for all 56,000 acres would amount to less than $2.4 million. 

Of the fifteen seashore sites recommended for protected status in the Depression Era 

seashore studies, only Cape Hatteras, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, became a 

national seashore at that time. In 1937, Congress created Cape Hatteras National 

Seashore Area, the first national seashore unit in the park system. Regardless of its status 

as a new type of park, Congress used its traditional formula for the creation of a park; it 

made no appropriations to purchase land in the designated area. In fact, the authorizing 

bill specifically stipulated that the land must be obtained by donation, whether from 

private individuals, organizations, or the state of North Carolina. Nearly twenty years 

Point Reyes 

Site Study 

Cape 

Hatteras 

National 

Seashore 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

45

passed before the NPS was able to obtain adequate acreage to officially establish the 

seashore.27

In just a few years after the founding legislation designated Cape Hatteras as a national 

seashore the mission of the area shifted. Despite the emphasis in 1937 on protection, 

three years later an amendment to the founding act added “Recreation Area” to the park’s 

official name. In keeping with the name change, the 1940 amendment also opened Cape 

Hatteras to hunting. But the original language of the Cape Hatteras Act clearly indicated 

that the primary mission of the seashore was the protection and preservation of the unique 

and inspiring natural landscape of the Outer Banks. Any momentum gained with the 

authorization of Cape Hatteras toward creation of an entire system of national seashores 

was soon lost with the onset of war in Europe. Nonetheless, several NPS administrators, 

especially Wirth, kept the national seashore idea alive until it could be resurrected in the 

postwar period. 

For most Park Service personnel and national park historians, Conrad Wirth is best 

known for his initiation and leadership of Mission 66, the massive, Park Service–wide 

building and tourism development campaign that spanned much of his directorship 

(1951–1964). Wirth took an equally central, but lesser-known role, in conceptualizing 

and promoting the national seashore idea within the NPS. George Palmer, who served as 

assistant regional director during Wirth’s tenure, recalled that the national seashore idea 

originated “pretty much in-house, a Connie Wirth contribution.”28 Douglas Doe 

observed, in an article about the origins of Cape Cod National Seashore, that the 

conceptual development of national seashores was “closely entwined” with Wirth’s 

career in the federal government.29 It might be tempting to view the creation of national 

seashores as simply another aspect of Mission 66 and the tourism development agenda of 

the 1950s and 1960s. But a closer look at this piece of Park Service history and Wirth’s 

role in it tells us otherwise. 

After receiving his educational training in landscape architecture, Wirth began his 

government career at the Washington, D.C., offices of the National Capital Park and 

Planning Commission in 1928. Three years later he took a job with the NPS Land 

Planning Department.30 Wirth’s involvement with the national seashore concept began 

when, as assistant director of the NPS branch of planning, he led the first NPS survey of 

the Point Reyes Peninsula in 1935. In his landmark work, Preserving Nature in the 

National Parks, Richard Sellars sums up Wirth’s career, noting that Wirth clearly 

emphasized “recreational tourism and public enjoyment of majestic landscapes,” and 

sought the “preservation of a semblance of wild America” within the national park 

system.31

Wirth believed that the most significant elements of these sites were their natural 

qualities. This attitude was clearly revealed in his 1954 comments about Cape Hatteras 

National Seashore, in which he foreshadows the 1963 Leopold Report’s “vestiges of 

primitive America” concept: 

We hope to preserve the Cape Hatteras Area in its natural state insofar as 

possible. The several nearby towns . . . will provide accommodations. 

Visitors then, will be able to roam the beach, explore the marshes and 

woods, and, in time, observe plant and wildlife such as conditions were 

before the coming of the white man to the American continent.32

Conrad 

Wirth’s 

Influence 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

46

In regard to the rationale for creating a national seashore at Point Reyes, Wirth 

emphasized, first and foremost, the superb biological and scenic values of the Point 

Reyes Peninsula. In his official statement before the 1960 Congressional Hearing in 

Kentfield, California, he pointed out that the peninsula was home to an “extraordinary 

diversity of forest, beaches, grasslands, dune vegetation and marshes,” and to a 

corresponding diversity of wildlife that ranged from an amazing array of coastal sea birds 

to the animal species of thick forests and mountains. He stated that the biological richness 

and spectacular scenery of the peninsula were “the prime qualities” the seashore had to 

offer. Wirth acknowledged that the Point Reyes area also offered a “vast variety of 

recreation outlets.” If the area were set aside, carefully planned, and administered as a 

national seashore, he reasoned, thousands of people could enjoy the available recreational 

opportunities “without disturbing the natural values” he had outlined.33 In his conception 

of the “natural” at Point Reyes, Wirth seems to have been looking around, or beyond, the 

working ranches that covered the majority of the peninsula. He may have perceived them 

in much the same way as did local resident Bertram K. Dunshee, one of Wirth’s most 

stalwart supporters in the campaign to create the national seashore. Dunshee authored a 

brief addendum to the 1957 NPS Point Reyes Seashore Survey, in which he 

acknowledged the role the private ranches played in preserving the peninsula’s open 

spaces, and added that one need only “replace the cows with elk and the scene would be 

that which met the eyes of the adventurers of the sixteenth century.”34 Dunshee, and 

likely Wirth as well, anticipated that the ranches that had “saved” the day for the creation 

of a national seashore at Point Reyes would eventually go away once that process was 

completed. 

From Wirth’s perspective, public recreation would be an excellent use of the area, as long 

as recreational activities did not detract from the peninsula’s biological diversity and 

scenic beauty. These characteristics, combined with the historic significance of Drake’s 

landing site on the peninsula, “far outweighed the value of the area for subdivision and 

unintegrated commercial uses.”35 Wirth’s take did not become the standard NPS 

framework for gauging the national significance and potential use of a prospective 

national seashore, but his views provide considerable insight in to the original intent of 

the national seashore idea. Moreover, Wirth’s advocacy for adding national seashores to 

the park system helped carry the NPS seashore agenda through the war years into the 

1950s, when the agency was ready to embark on a new round of seashore surveys.36

With national seashore–proponent Wirth at the helm of the Park Service and with private 

funding in hand, the NPS began conducting new seashore surveys of the Atlantic, Gulf, 

and Pacific coasts, and of the shoreline areas of the Great Lakes, in the mid-1950s. The 

NPS performed surveys of the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico first, in 1954; the 

agency then commenced surveys of the Pacific Coast, including Point Reyes, and the 

Great Lakes in 1955. Andrew Mellon’s Old Dominion and Avalon Foundations funded 

the new survey work.37 Point Reyes was one of several sites selected—along with Cape 

Cod, Padre Island, Cumberland Island, Oregon Dunes, and Indiana Dunes—as the ideal 

locations and best candidates for national seashores. The Department of the Interior’s 

Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings, and Monuments 

recommended a more highly select group of five sites (the above-mentioned minus 

Cumberland Island) to be forwarded to gain congressional authorization for national 

seashore status.38

In June 1955, NPS published its summary of the shoreline studies of the Atlantic and 

Gulf coasts. Our Vanishing Shoreline described the rapid deterioration and loss of 

NPS Seashore 

Surveys, 

1954–1955 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

47

America’s undeveloped coastlines and seashores during the previous thirty years, a 

pattern that continued to escalate while the survey work was underway. A summary of 

the survey data, which in some cases used the 1930s surveys as a baseline, revealed that 

“only a fraction of our long seacoast is left for public use, and much of this small portion 

is rapidly disappearing before our eyes.”39 Our Vanishing Shoreline made the case for 

preserving and protecting coastal areas because “the seashore is a priceless scenic and 

scientific resource for which there is no substitute,” and which “is lost forever” when 

subdivided and developed.40 The report urged preservation of still-intact seashore areas, 

in order to begin dealing with such problems as erosion control, recreational access, and 

the “protection of biological and historical values.” As outlined in the report, protected 

seashore sites should serve three primary purposes: land conservation, wildlife 

preservation, and recreation.41

Of six “recommendations for action” the NPS proposed in Our Vanishing Shoreline, two 

related to the acquisition process, two referred to providing for Americans’ recreational 

needs, and two aimed at preserving the ecological and scientific values of potential 

seashore sites, regardless of their recreational potential. Of the latter recommendations, 

one called for the acquisition and preservation of “ample quantities of hinterland of 

marsh and swamp, which provide a valuable habitat for a large and interesting variety of 

bird and animal life.” The other stressed that seashore plant and animal communities of 

greatest ecological interest “be acquired and preserved regardless of the desirability of 

the adjoining beach; and that consideration be given to such communities now in a 

modified condition which might return to a more natural condition if permitted to remain 

undisturbed.”42

Although Point Reyes and the other authorized national seashores were lumped into the 

“Recreation Area” category of the NPS system during the mid-1960s, individual seashore 

surveys and the language in Our Vanishing Shoreline clearly pointed to a different 

mandate. The Park Service’s initial steps to locate, evaluate, and protect such sites 

focused equally on protecting the aesthetic, scientific, and historical qualities of seashores 

as on the mere recreational potential of recommended areas. 

The NPS Pacific Coast Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula, California, Seashore 

Area, likewise recommended the area for national seashore status because it offered 

outstanding biological value, scenic qualities, and recreational opportunities. At the 

request of conservation leaders in Marin County, who wanted national recognition for the 

peninsula as soon as possible, the planning team pushed the Point Reyes survey ahead of 

its scheduled performance date and quickly completed their reconnaissance work and 

documentation for the project.43 The Region Four (western region) Division of 

Recreation Resource Planning, of which national seashore enthusiast George Collins was 

chief, produced the preliminary report on June 30, 1957. 

The survey emphasized the significance and variety of the peninsula’s unique 

combination of environments—forests, grasslands, dunes, freshwater marshes, and 

coastal estuaries—and the abundance of wildlife found in each. The report concluded that 

the presence of these biological riches “most assuredly would justify every reasonable 

effort toward protection and preservation permanently as a public duty.”44 This diversity 

of environments also added to the pleasing aesthetic qualities noted by the survey team. 

In fact, the unusual combination of scenic, biological, and recreational resources in one 

coastal location, all in close proximity to an urban metropolis, created “significance” for 

the area that was greater than the simple sum of those parts. 

Point Reyes 

Seashore 

Survey 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

48

In addition to the biological and scenic values, the report praised the peninsula’s 

abundant recreational opportunities. Among the “diversified and extensive” recreation 

possibilities at Point Reyes, the survey listed “active recreation” pursuits including 

hiking, boating, riding, swimming, fishing, and golf, along with “passive recreation” such 

picnicking, sunbathing, painting, sketching, and other “less strenuous interests.”45

The report made no recommendations for preserving the agricultural tradition or the 

active dairy operations on the peninsula. Their contribution to the significance of the area 

surveyed for NPS status was purely scenic. As in a Vermeer painting, the barns and 

ranches along the coast had “a value in adding character to the foreshore of the 

seascape.”46 The report made a similar assessment of the existing fishing and oyster 

industries on the peninsula, noting the “one or two old shipwrecks, and fishing boats 

lying offshore, all having individual distinction and splendid collective scenic quality.”47

The potential historic value of the peninsula, mainly related to the Drake landing, fell into 

the report’s “additional considerations” but was clearly not a primary consideration in 

evaluating the area as a national seashore.48

After reviewing the survey, in April of 1958 the Advisory Board on National Parks, 

Historic Sites, Buildings, and Monuments recommended Point Reyes be considered for 

NPS status as a national seashore.49 The advisory board made their recommendation 

known in a May press release, but the local press did not pick up the story at the time. In 

June 1958, the NPS mailed copies of the preliminary report on the Point Reyes proposal 

to the Marin County Board of Supervisors and to select local and conservation 

organizations, such as the Marin Conservation League.50

On June 29, 1958, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a front-page article about the “U.S. 

Seashore Park” proposal, the first newspaper coverage of the NPS plan for Point Reyes.51

After the Chronicle broke the story, other news outlets quickly picked up and reported 

the details.52 Just two weeks later, editors of the Marin Independent Journal remarked 

that the NPS seashore proposal was much talked about, and noted that, already, “lines 

[were] being drawn both for and against the project.”53 The newspaper and several other 

organizations, including the California State Park Commission, the Marin County 

Planning Commission, and the National Parks Advisory Board, called for a more 

comprehensive study of Point Reyes to determine its suitability for national seashore 

status.54 Several weeks later, on July 16, 1958, U.S. Representative (soon to be Senator) 

Clair Engle introduced House Resolution 634, which called for congressional funding of 

a more detailed study of the Point Reyes Peninsula. The campaign to create Point Reyes 

National Seashore was underway.

CONSERVATION MOVEMENT IN THE BAY AREA AND MARIN COUNTY

Although local resistance sprung up as soon as the Chronicle released news of the NPS 

plan, the Point Reyes seashore proposal fell on fertile ground in the wider San Francisco 

Bay Area, where the PRNS campaign would take root. Conservationists had already been 

active in San Francisco for more than a half century; by the late 1950s, the movement 

was well established and staffed with veterans of other land preservation and park 

authorization campaigns. Their presence enabled park supporters, outdoor club members, 

and political activists to mobilize quickly and effectively to promote the proposal for 

Point Reyes National Seashore. 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

49

The conservation movement flourished in the Bay Area during the late nineteenth and 

early twentieth centuries for several reasons. First, early conservationists tended to be 

prosperous urbanites—and San Francisco and Oakland supported a thriving economy and 

population. By the turn of the twentieth century, San Francisco had long been established 

as a commercial center that attracted railroad, shipping, and banking interests. 

Surrounding cities, including Oakland, combined to form the most populous urban area in 

the far west. The Bay Area also served as the region's intellectual center, supporting 

several large, prominent universities that produced many of the professionals who 

became advocates of conservation and promoters of national parks.55 The Bay Area 

offered a critical mass of supporters as well as a community of articulate, vocal activists 

necessary for conservation campaigns. 

Second, the Bay Area's appealing topography encouraged appreciation of scenery—and 

its proximity to the coastal mountains and the Sierra Nevada Range fostered interest in 

the outdoors.56 Like many American cities, San Francisco and Oakland witnessed a 

"back-to-nature" movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as 

urban residents, fearing they had grown physically and spiritually weak, sought to 

reconnect with the natural world. Outdoor recreation would allow them to develop 

physical skills while cultivating self-reliance and hardiness. This trend pointed to the 

need for natural, open spaces within as well as outside the city, where residents could 

escape the confines of urban life.57

San Francisco's Bohemian Club exemplified the city's genteel interest in the outdoors. 

Formed in the early 1870s, this organization of journalists and other professionals 

referred to its convivial meetings as "High Jinks." By the late 1870s, wealthy and 

influential Bohemian Club members gathered in the redwoods north of the city for the 

annual "Midsummer Jinks." Members included scientist Joseph Le Conte and writernaturalist John Muir.58 Additional organizations promoting contact with the outdoors 

soon developed in the Bay Area. The Sierra Club, formed in San Francisco in 1892, also 

promoted excursions, frequently to Yosemite National Park. By that time, Muir, who 

served as the Sierra Club's first president, had become widely known as a promoter of 

national parks—and he was particularly associated with the Bay Area and California. The 

Sierra Club, which remained based in San Francisco, quickly became one of the nation's 

leading advocacy organizations for conservation.59

A third reason the Bay Area proved fertile ground for conservation sentiment was its 

strong support of the Progressive political movement that swept the nation in the late 

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Progressives were reformers who condemned 

monopoly, corruption, waste, and inefficiency, seeking to expand the government's role 

in protecting social welfare. Protecting the nation's natural resources became a key 

concern. Unregulated harvesting of fish and wildlife populations and timber had reached 

such staggering proportions by the late nineteenth century that historians have 

characterized this era as the "Great Barbecue."60 

Progressive conservationists countered this practice by advocating the wise use of natural 

resources through scientific management. Many were civic-minded individuals who 

sincerely believed in Progressive ideals of democracy and economic justice. Some were 

primarily concerned with ensuring prosperity for present and future generations, while 

others focused on preserving opportunities for recreation and aesthetic appreciation of 

nature.61 The Bay Area became a focal point for both perspectives, and, at the beginning 

Bay Area 

Conservation 

Movement 

History 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

50

of the twentieth century, according to historian Hal K. Rothman, "claimed the title of the 

urban area most thoroughly devoted to national parks."62

One obstacle to establishing national parks in the vicinity was that most reserves had 

been drawn from the public domain—and much of the land in the Bay Area was already 

privately owned in the early twentieth century. William Kent, a Progressive 

conservationist and businessman with considerable wealth, provided a solution. At a 

1903 meeting in Mill Valley, he formed the Mount Tamalpais National Park Association, 

hoping to establish a national park similar to Yellowstone in the redwoods. The 

Tamalpais Land and Water Company, which owned the redwood stand, offered to sell it 

to Kent. These ancient trees had escaped the nineteenth-century logging boom owing to 

their inaccessibility, provided by a steep ridge and poor sea landing at the cove at the 

mouth of Redwood Creek. By the early twentieth century, development had already 

surrounded this lovely grove. "The beauty of the place attracted me," Kent remarked, 

"and got on my mind." In 1905 he purchased the property.63

The redwoods were threatened the following year, when a devastating earthquake in San 

Francisco prompted the city's residents to look with interest at the potential lumber and 

dam site in the forest. Recognizing the vulnerability, Kent offered several hundred acres 

to the federal government as a national monument. Using the Antiquities Act, President 

Roosevelt declared it a national monument in 1908, suggesting that the new reserve be 

called "Kent Woods." Kent, however, successfully promoted the name "Muir Woods," in 

honor of the famous conservationist. "Seeing my name in the tender and deed of the 

Tamalpais Sequoias was a surprise of the pleasantest kind," Muir wrote Kent in 1908. 

"This is the best tree-lover's monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of 

the world." Muir ended his letter by wishing Kent, "immortal Sequoia life."64

A few years later, the friendship between Kent and Muir turned tense. San Francisco, a 

growing metropolis in need of water, had considered damming Hetch Hetchy Valley in 

the Sierras even before it became part of Yosemite National Park in 1890—and the need 

for water became more urgent after the 1906 earthquake. For the next decade, 

conservationists debated this question, bitterly dividing the movement. Muir, representing 

the preservationist perspective, viewed Hetch Hetchy in spiritual terms, praising its 

wilderness virtues and condemning the proposed dam as a violation of a natural temple as 

well as national park. Kent, who became a congressman in California in 1911, believed 

the practical need for water overshadowed aesthetic and recreation interests, and, as a 

Progressive, he preferred a publicly owned supply. Although the preservationists 

ultimately lost the fight for Hetch Hetchy, they learned how to wage a national campaign 

and how to rouse public support. These skills proved useful later in promoting the 

National Park Service, established in 1916 in large part owing to the efforts of Sierra 

Club and Bay Area activists.65

Their momentum continued into the 1920s with a campaign to protect the redwoods in 

northern California. Kent persisted in his efforts to accord national park status to more of 

the trees, focusing on the redwood groves and oak woodlands of Mount Tamalpais above 

Muir Woods National Monument. Just before his death in 1928, Kent donated land that 

became Mount Tamalpais State Park. 66 Protecting land on Mount Tamalpais, the 

dominant landmark of east Marin and a favorite destination for hikers throughout the Bay 

Area, had also fired the sentiments of the blossoming conservationist movement in Marin 

County, and in the 1930s, became the first battleground of the fledgling Marin 

Conservation League. 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

51

Land conservation took on a new urgency in Marin County when its geographic isolation 

from San Francisco ended on May 28, 1937, the day the Golden Gate Bridge opened to 

the public. The bridge immediately became a tourist icon of the San Francisco Bay area, 

and, more important in the context of this discussion, signaled that Marin County’s 

history, and that of Point Reyes, would thereafter be built on connections rather than 

isolation. Several years before that ribbon-cutting ceremony, however, a few prescient 

individuals foresaw with trepidation that the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge 

would bring rapid growth and development to Marin’s pastoral environs and rural 

communities. They launched a preemptive conservation movement in Marin County. 

“This new bridge has been fifteen years in the planning and is scheduled for completion by 1937, at which time a 

new era will open for Marin County—an era that will be dominated by the automobile . . . Changes will occur in 

this tranquil county which few people can envision.” 

--Hugh Pomeroy, 1934

Historic American Buildings Survey, Image no. CAL, 38-SF, 140-29 

Marin County 

Conservation 

Movement 

History 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

52

In a 1934, city planner Hugh Pomeroy described the need to establish a conservation 

agenda in the area: “Thus far [Marin County] has remained a sparsely settled playground, 

beloved of hikers, a godsend to city people anxious to escape quickly and completely into 

rural and mountain loveliness . . . Now is the time for Marin to begin planning.”67

Pomeroy went on to say that four women, “who have the foresight to look ahead to a 

future when houses will spill over the hills and traffic will strangle the arterials,” were 

then taking steps to protect their county, “which abounds in hills, streams, vistas, forests, 

and beaches.”68

He was referring to four members of the Marin Art and Garden Club—Caroline 

Livermore, Sepha Evers, Helen van Pelt, and Portia Forbes, who came together in 1934 

to discuss how they could save the open spaces they cherished in Marin from threats they 

saw on the horizon. The resulting Citizens Survey Committee raised money to survey the 

county and produced a report and planning maps to guide the preservation of the county’s 

open space. They responded not only to concerns about future growth and development, 

but also to a golden opportunity that came knocking at Sepha Evers’ door. Through her 

husband’s business partner, Evers had learned that a crew of unemployed surveyors and 

drafters were looking for work and that the state’s Emergency Relief program could 

finance the crew’s payroll. Evers and her conservation-minded colleagues took advantage 

of this bit of serendipity to launch the Marin planning study.69 

For Livermore, this was just the first in a lifetime of forays into the political and social 

struggle to protect the Marin environment. She launched the Richardson Bay Foundation, 

a nonprofit group of well-to-do Marin County and San Francisco residents. The 

foundation aimed to purchase, when and where it could, tidal lands that would have 

otherwise been opened to dredging. Livermore, along with Elizabeth Terwilliger, David 

Steinhardt and others, had formed the Marin Audubon Society as an organizational 

vehicle they could use to further the campaign to purchase and set aside threatened areas 

of Richardson Bay.70 In 1957, the local Audubon group, which later played an important 

role in the creation of PRNS, purchased Canyon Ranch on the southern tip of Point Reyes 

Peninsula. In 1958, the Richardson Bay Foundation helped broker a deal that had the 

county purchase 900 acres of land surrounding Richardson Bay, which the county then 

leased to the National Audubon Society. The Richardson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary was the 

result. 

Proponents of open space in Marin County were not limited to conservation groups. 

Individuals, most notably Bertram and Verna Dunshee, also became involved in 

conserving land on the Point Reyes Peninsula. Bertram believed his wife Verna was “one 

of the first two or three people to recognize the value of the seashore as a park area.”71

The couple had moved to Marin County in 1922, and spent much of their time riding and 

walking up and down the peninsula’s grassy and wooded hills. They gradually became 

well acquainted with the foremen on many of the ranches, who opened gates to let the 

Dunshees pass through. Verna became so enamored of the area that she attempted to 

interest the State of California to create a park out of some of the ranch land. She also 

helped initiate efforts to turn a former ranch house into a youth hostel. Eventually, the 

Dunshees brought their idea to the attention of George L. Collins, then director of 

recreational planning for the NPS Western Division. Bertram related that, on one 

occasion, he and Verna personally took Collins out to visit Point Reyes, where “he just 

went bust about it.”72 Collins used his pilot’s license to make several subsequent airborne 

reconnaissance trips over Point Reyes, fueling his own enthusiasm for setting aside the 

area as a national seashore. 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

53

Individual ranchers and other Marin County residents also began to make independent 

conservation gestures, as they turned over small parcels of peninsula land to Marin 

County, opening new portals for public use. In 1938, the San Rafael Pirates Club, whose 

members included rancher Joe Mendoza and Judge Edward Butler, purchased fifty-two 

acres of lagoon and marshland just inland from Drakes Beach. The ownership group then 

deeded the land to Marin County to serve as a public beach and park. In 1942, Margaret 

McClure “sold” 2.9 acres of the family’s Pierce Point beachfront property to the county 

at the price of one dollar. The county built an access road and parking lot on the site. 

These small tracts were eventually incorporated into the National Seashore lands during 

the mid-1960s.73

As real estate developers began to reach across Marin County to the Point Reyes 

Peninsula in the immediate postwar years, and as investors began purchasing Tomales 

Bay waterfront properties, members of the local conservation community took more 

substantial steps to protect portions of the seashore area. Livermore, Bert Dunshee, and 

the Marin Conservation League purchased 185 acres of Tomales Bay property called 

Shell Beach in 1945. In 1951, Livermore, then League president, and Verna Dunshee, a 

member of the League’s Board of Directors, obtained $150,000 from individual donors, 

and collaborated with Marin County and the California Division of Beaches and Parks to 

purchase an additional 840 acres of Tomales Bay property north of Shell Beach.74 Both of 

these parcels became part of Tomales Bay State Park, dedicated in 1951, which has 

remained under state jurisdiction.75

The growth of Marin County’s population, commerce, and traffic in the postwar period 

was due to more than the marvelous strands of wire and roadway arching across the 

Golden Gate. San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, and, consequently, East Marin, 

experienced tremendous development booms during World War II and in the postwar 

decade that followed. One result of the flush of federal wartime spending in the area was 

an influx of workers to new shipyards at Marin City, making Sausalito an instant 

boomtown.76 The postwar population of the Bay Area continued to expand at a 

phenomenal rate, to the extent that its growth, and a similar population surge in the Los 

Angeles basin, helped California pass New York as the nation’s most populous state in 

1962.77 

On Point Reyes Peninsula itself, however, growth was slow and steady. Local 

communities, such as the town of Inverness on the west side of Tomales Bay, 

intermittently sprouted new houses and residents. But ranches had locked up most of the 

available land, and the ranches themselves offered decreasing job opportunities as 

mechanization and market changes affected management and labor practices. In addition, 

the rich dairy industry of Marin County was already fading. Dairy farmers in East Marin 

were selling off their farms quickly to developers. Although this divestment process was 

retarded in the more isolated areas and richer grasslands of West Marin, even there, 

ranchers questioned how long dairying would remain a viable industry in the county.78

There was little doubt that the growth of San Francisco and East Marin would eventually 

intrude into the peninsula’s quiet agricultural setting. The first portents of large-scale 

intrusion came with the notice that the State Highway Commission had developed plans 

for a four-lane freeway up the coast to Point Reyes Station. 

The anticipated commercial development of Point Reyes Peninsula began in the mid1950s. Realtor and builder David S. Adams purchased land on the east side of Inverness 

Ridge, where, in 1955, he began selling lots in a residential housing development dubbed 

Marin County 

Growth and 

Development 

Development 

Threats at 

Point Reyes 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

54

Paradise Ranch Estates. A promotional brochure described, “429 acres of pine-studded 

Inverness peninsula property that rivals any of the famous California seaside recreational 

areas for sheer charm, view and ground contour.”79 Congress did not include Paradise 

Ranch within the external boundaries of the national seashore it authorized in 1962. The 

area fell within the “zone of expansion” around the town of Inverness, a stipulation 

legislators had inserted into the founding act to ensure the national seashore would not 

strangle the natural growth of the area’s existing communities. Nonetheless, Paradise 

Ranch Estates signaled the beginning of large-scale commercial/residential development 

on the peninsula. 

A bigger threat appeared when Adams and Benjamin P. Bonelli, an attorney and 

developer from San Rafael, incorporated the Drakes Bay Land Company on February 24, 

1960, with the intent to purchase land at several Point Reyes locations, which they would 

subdivide into residential tracts.80 Their first purchase was a 1,000-acre parcel of the 

Ottinger Ranch on the west side of Inverness Ridge that included waterfront views of 

both Drakes and Tomales bays. They acquired the deed to the land on March 30, 1960. 

Later in the year, a lawsuit compelled them to divide the property into two tracts; Adams 

took one, withdrew from the corporation, and eventually sold his holdings on the 

peninsula. Bonelli, however, stayed in the game, and what would become Drakes Bay 

Estates remained one of the largest threats to the natural integrity of Point Reyes up to 

and beyond the final days of the authorization battle (see chapter 3).57 

Drakes Beach Estates, Inc., a separate corporation owned by Bonelli and several partners, 

began subdividing land in 1960 along Drakes Bay and Limantour Estero that would 

become the centerpiece of Bonelli’s development plans. The corporation released their 

plans for a large conglomeration of housing tracts called Drakes Bay Estates, and began 

initial preparation of the sites. They put the first lots up for sale that same year, much to 

the alarm and dismay of many Marin County and Bay Area residents who sought or 

sympathized with the creation of a national seashore encompassing that area. Particularly 

disturbing to the conservation community was the housing development’s intrusion into 

what they considered one of the most beautiful and secluded pieces of the entire 

peninsula. The original 1935 NPS study of Point Reyes highlighted the “striking 

character” of Drakes and Limantour esteros, the type of scenic values to be incorporated 

within the proposed national seashore.81

Early national seashore advocates recognized that Drakes Bay Estates threatened the 

entire area. If the development scheme were successful, it would quickly attract similar 

development to Point Reyes. Indeed, Bonelli had filed plans in February 1961 for another 

subdivision called Drakes Bay Pines, on his half of the Ottinger Ranch purchase.82

Conservationists worried that the accumulating number of residential developments 

would rapidly escalate real-estate prices. The increased value of the land and its ensuing 

elevated tax burden could invite or push still other ranchers to sell all or part of their land 

to private enterprises. The subsequent boom in land values and house construction would 

mean the end of the peninsula as most residents and visitors knew it. Each jump in realestate values, and each parcel converted into commercial or residential use, would make 

it increasingly difficult for the NPS to acquire the land needed to create a national 

seashore. 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

55

Record No. 34550. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Drakes Bay Estates realty sign, Point Reyes National Seashore, January 1962. Photograph by R. Budlong. 

While Adams and Bonelli laid groundwork for Drakes Bay Estates in 1956, another 

threat to the peninsula environment appeared. The Sweet Timber Company purchased the 

timber rights of the Tevis and Stewart ranch lands, and began cutting the existing trees in 

1958. Bertram Dunshee wrote to Wirth with the “bad news”— Sweet was planning to 

“clear-cut” all of the timber on the Stewart Ranch, including a mature stand of Douglas 

fir on Inverness Ridge.83 If the logging was part of Sweet’s strategy to maintain his 

extractive rights on the peninsula, the tactic backfired: the tree felling further galvanized 

seashore supporters to push for federal protection of the entire peninsula. When logging 

continued, Representative Clem Miller and Senator Clair Engle, the California legislators 

who introduced the initial Point Reyes National Seashore bill, added halting the cutting to 

their list of reasons why Congress should move quickly to pass the national seashore 

legislation. Sweet Timber Company logging operations on Inverness Ridge continued 

until 1963, when the federal government instituted condemnation proceedings to halt 

cutting, and annexed the timber rights via a declaration of taking.84
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

56

Record No. 19910. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives.

 Bird’s eye view of Bonelli’s plans for subdividing the Drakes Bay Estates property.
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

57

POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE CAMPAIGN

In response to these serious threats of commercial/residential development on the Point 

Reyes Peninsula, and spurred by the NPS national seashore proposal, dedicated segments 

of the Marin conservation community began to mobilize. Drawing from their well of 

already established resources and talent in the Bay Area as well as Marin County, new 

organizations sprang up to promote and lobby for the establishment of Point Reyes 

National Seashore. These nascent organizations, particularly the Point Reyes National 

Seashore Foundation and the Point Reyes Task Force of the Sierra Club, joined the 

preexisting conservation groups to play a significant role in the national seashore 

movement. A Sierra Club Task Force on Point Reyes, chaired by Sonya Thompson, also 

played a watchdog role regarding the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s designs on 

building a power plant—possibly nuclear—at Bodega Head, just north of the Point Reyes 

Peninsula. One of the established organizations in Marin County, the Inverness 

Improvement Association, was among the first to support the Point Reyes National 

Seashore proposal. After the initial news reports in summer 1958 revealed the results and 

recommendations of the NPS seashore studies, attendees at the association’s summer 

membership meeting passed a motion approving the NPS recommendations.85 Barbara 

Eastman, chair of the association’s Parks Committee, took the leadership mantle of this 

effort and attended the first public meeting held to address, inform, and discuss the issues 

raised by the NPS proposal. 

Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation was a Marin County organization founded by 

Barbara Eastman, Margaret Azevedo, and others. Though it is quite likely that a group 

such as this would have come together eventually, the foundation was launched in 

response to a request from Clem Miller’s D.C. office. In a 1991 oral history interview, 

Azevedo recalled that the foundation was a “paper organization” at first, begun so Miller 

could demonstrate strong local support for the seashore proposal.86 In light of this, the 

campaign within Marin County to create a Point Reyes National Seashore can hardly be 

called a “grassroots” movement. Local support and activism existed and contributed to 

the eventual success of the campaign. But the impetus for the campaign—the driving 

force that started and maintained the movement toward national seashore status—came 

from NPS officials in D.C. and San Francisco. The sequence of events that launched the 

PRNS Foundation underscores the point that the creation of the national seashore did not 

occur in isolation; the campaign to establish the seashore went forward in step with the 

national political agenda. 

The constellation of conservation groups involved in the Point Reyes National Seashore 

campaign utilized two tried and true strategies from previous battles for environmental 

causes. One tactic was the carefully organized “field trip,” or sightseeing excursion, to a 

proposed or endangered area to raise awareness of the landscape’s unique features and 

resources. Another tactic was the use of print resources, particularly the publication of 

glossy coffee-table books on a particular subject or cause, to help conservation groups 

inform the public and sway legislators. Conservationists also marshaled new technologies 

in their campaign, releasing a documentary film that highlighted the beauty, biological 

richness, and scientific and historical values of the proposed seashore area. 

The field trip strategy generally involved taking members of Congress and their staff, 

Department of the Interior officials, media representatives, and leaders of sponsoring 

organizations on an outing that hit the highlights of a particular conservation site. Sierra 

Club-sponsored rafting trips during the Echo Park controversy were perhaps the most 

Outgrowths 

of the 

Conservation 

Movement 

Campaign 

Field Trips 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

58

famous use of this tactic during the 1950s. But field outings to promote park preservation 

dated to a much earlier period of national park history. Railroad companies of the late 

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of which were forceful proponents for the 

new national parks because of the dollars tourism generated for their coffers, sponsored 

rail trips to and through areas targeted for national park status. Congressmen, federal 

officials, news reporters, and business leaders were ushered west in the sponsoring rail 

line’s luxurious Pullman cars. After reaching the nearest trail station, guides took 

sightseers in coaches or by pack train to view majestic scenery and “curiosities” that 

abounded in the mountains, canyons, and deserts of the American West. Decades later, 

Stephen T. Mather, the first director of the NPS and a grand promoter in his own right, 

organized similar productions to bolster support for his new national park policies.87

In November 1958, the first organized field outing to Point Reyes took place. A group of 

park supporters, NPS administrators and scientists, and other “interested parties” spent a 

day touring the Point Reyes Peninsula. The highlight was a walk along a windblown 

beach and on the sandy bluffs above it. One particular photo captured the pleasure and 

enjoyment of the moment in the smiles and laughs of the participants, while also 

revealing the typical coastal weather through their wind-tossed hair and flapping clothing. 

NPS biologist Adolf Murie, who was part of the group, was impressed by the beauty of 

the peninsula and the fervor of his fellow participants: 

I was also impressed by the zeal, and idealistic thinking of the members 

of the little expedition. The uppermost thought was to preserve the 

quality of naturalness of the area, the opportunity to watch a hundred hair 

seals sleeping on the beach, as we did from a high, rocky point. All 

seemed anxious lest the very action for preservation would result in the 

destruction of the area’s charm. . . . there was a feeling of urgency in the 

group concerning the project, knowing the need to acquire the land 

before it was subdivided and settled beyond practical reclamation.88

Aside from the seals, Murie did not spell out exactly what pieces of the peninsula’s 

“naturalness” the group desired to preserve. Did it include the range lands they had 

passed through on their drive to the beaches? For some Bay Area conservationists of that 

period preserving natural landscapes meant first, preventing development. In San 

Francisco, activists began rising up to stop industry and developers from filling the bay 

and to halt the advance of a superhighway that would score the heart of the city. They 

were active witnesses to the suburban grid developments taking place along the 

shorelines south of the city, and to the rapid residential booms in places like San Jose, 

where city manager A. P. Hamann sought to build his community into a second Los 

Angeles.89 Compared to those places, Point Reyes—the beaches, the bluffs, and the open 

rangeland too—appeared free from intrusive human construction, or contrivance. People 

and rural industry were present, but the open space, the vistas of sky and sea, the fogs and 

wind, gave the outward appearance that on the peninsula nature held sway over the 

manmade. The abundance of marine and terrestrial wildlife lent further credence to that 

perception. 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

59

In a 2004 interview, Harold Gilliam explained that today’s Bay Area residents and 

seashore visitors may not grasp the significance that the construction and development 

boom of the 1950s and early 1960s had in the impulse to save places like Point Reyes: 

It's hard for young people now to imagine what it was like at that time 

because the developers had all the power, and I grew up in Hollywood, 

when the Hollywood Hills were first being developed. . . . And while I 

was there, the bulldozers and steam shovels were going at it, chopping 

off the hills. . . . I was sure when I came to the Bay Area the same thing 

was going to happen here. I looked across the bay at those open hills and 

thought wow, how have those hills lasted that long? They won't last 

much longer. There was no real opposition to urbanization at that time.90

Indeed, he remembered specific plans in the works to “amputate” San Bruno Mountain, 

which sits south of the city, by scouring and leveling the mountaintop for a housing 

development and trucking away the dirt to use as fill material in the bay. Gilliam noted 

that they were the kinds of plans which most people would now consider “outrageous,” 

but at that time were simply considered inevitable. As western historian John Findlay 

indicated in the opening of Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture after 

1940, the “watchword” among the politicians, business leaders, and citizenry of postwar 

western cities was unrepentant, unbridled “growth.”91 But as urban and suburban 

Record No. 31660. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Participants in a promotional field trip to Point Reyes gathered on beach, November 1960. From left to right: 

Martha Collins, Barbara Eastman, Doris Leonard, Bob Luntey, and Joe Penfold. Photograph by George 

Collins. 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

60

development continued unabated into the 1960s, the associated social, economic, and 

environmental costs of growth began to convince more Bay Area urban dwellers that the 

gouging and paving of their communities could not continue without severe 

repercussions. Activists, particularly in San Francisco, found a wider audience for their 

calls to prevent expansion in their city and to protect the undeveloped “natural” areas 

around it. 

Supporters of the national seashore likely had other motivations as well. Environmental 

historian Samuel P. Hays has suggested that Americans in the 1960s adopted new 

conceptions of “natural” that derived from the country’s rising standard of living and 

increased consumerism. He explains that the increased valuation of “natural areas” was 

not a “throwback to the primitive,” but rather a search for new amenities and aesthetic 

values reflecting their higher standard of living and inflated sense of self.92 Nature, 

whether sought for recreation, intellectual exploration, or spiritual awaking, had become 

another consumer commodity, especially relished for its uniqueness and limited supply. 

Some local conservationists expressed their intent to preserve the human landscape of the 

peninsula under the auspices of the NPS. Caroline Livermore, while president of the 

Marin Conservation League, wrote, “as true conservationists we want to preserve 

dairying in this area and will do what we can to promote the health of this industry which 

is so valuable to the economic and material well being of our people and which adds to 

the pastoral scene adjacent to the proposed recreation project.”93 However, her suggestion 

of purchasing the entire peninsula and then leasing back the land to the ranchers would 

not turn out to be a compromise that suited the ranchers. 

During the 1950s and early 1960s, conservationists and park promoters honed successful 

strategies to promote their causes, improving on methods that a prior generation of 

activists had utilized in the earlier part of the century. Timely distribution of print 

resources—particularly magazine articles, full-page campaign advertisements in local 

and national newspapers, and photograph-filled books—heightened public and 

congressional interest in their cause. John Muir’s articles calling for preservation of 

western wild lands and the creation of national reserves, published in Century Magazine 

and other periodicals of the time, were an early, successful example of this strategy.94

During the 1950s, conservation organizations renewed the strategy of using publications 

and advertisements in various forms of print media to halt the construction of dams on 

the Colorado River and promote preservation of Dinosaur and Grand Canyon National 

Parks. Alfred A. Knopf’s 1955 publication of This Is Dinosaur: Echo Park Country and 

Its Magic Rivers, a full-length book of essays and nature photographs, marked the launch 

of higher-profile media campaigns aimed at protecting the environment.95 The Sierra 

Club likewise began publishing books filled with superb photography to support their 

conservation campaigns; This is the American Earth, a black-and-white publication in a 

standard size format by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall, was the first used in this 

fashion.96

Island in 

Time 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

61

PUBLICIZING POINT REYES

As the letter below demonstrates, National Park Service Director Conrad L. Wirth attempted to enlist Walt 

Disney's help in the campaign to protect Point Reyes. 

______________________________________________________________________________ 

 L58-RR 

Mr. Walt Disney 

Walt Disney Productions 

2400 West Alameda Avenue 

Burbank, California 

Dear Walt: 

There are enclosed copies of reports of our seashore surveys, made with donated funds, in an attempt to locate the best 

remaining opportunities to preserve outstanding segments of the seashore and the shores of the Great Lakes for public 

enjoyment, as State and National Seashores. There is widespread public interest in the need to acquire and preserve the 

areas described in our reports, with more than 30 bills to authorize such action now pending the in the Congress. It 

seems doubtful, however, that comprehensive legislations will be enacted during this session of the Congress. 

I believe that a motion picture of the type you so successfully produce, showing some of these remaining seashore 

opportunities, explaining the need for early action to acquire them before the opportunity is lost, would have wide public 

appeal and might result in conservation achievements of lasting benefit to the people of the United States. You series on 

wildlife had a tremendous impact and the results helped the national conservation efforts beyond words. 

You are recognized as a leader in conservation as a result of your efforts and this seems like the next logical step. 

I urge that you or somebody on your staff give careful considerations of this suggestion. I will be only too happy to 

have a member of my staff call and discuss this proposal further. 

 Sincerely yours, 

 Conrad L. Wirth 

 Director 

Enclosures 

Copy to: Recreation Resource Planning 

BRThompson:LLW;aet, rewritten 8/15/60 

Building upon the momentum and experience of these earlier battles, conservation groups 

employed these strategies in the effort to create Point Reyes National Seashore. The 

Sierra Club devoted an entire issue of its monthly Bulletin, to the Point Reyes plan, 

aiming to spark more interest in and gain greater support for the seashore proposal. 

Entitled “Shoreline Park for the Future,” the issue featured an editorial pitch, a map of the 

proposed site, photographs, and a Harold Gilliam article that began, “The Point Reyes 

Peninsula is an island in time.”97 The phrase Gilliam coined—“Island in Time”—

captured the unique qualities of the peninsula and became a valuable shorthand 

description conservationists and legislators used during the authorization campaign. 

Laurel Reynolds and Mindy Willis used the phrase as the title for a documentary film 

about Point Reyes: “An Island in Time” also aided the final push for the national 

seashore campaign.98
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

62

Another Sierra Club publication, Gilliam’s 1962 Island in Time, made an even greater 

impact in the struggle to create a national seashore at Point Reyes.99 The book came 

about when Sierra Club Executive Director Dave Brower, having had read many of 

Gilliam’s conservation-minded articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and having 

contracted with Gilliam to write an article for the Sierra Club Bulletin, asked him to do a 

book on Point Reyes using the “island in time” phrase as the title. The book’s objective 

was to help bring publicity to the authorization campaign and to give people (especially 

legislators) who could not travel there a glimpse of the peninsula’s rugged beauty. 

Brower, as with most of his preservation work, threw himself wholly into the publication 

effort. He designed it, recruited Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall to write the 

foreword, and wrote a poetic epigraph of his own without attaching his byline.100

As Gilliam acknowledged in his preface to the book’s second edition, the first edition had 

been a “campaign book” meant to demonstrate the need for federal protection of the 

peninsula. Fittingly, the Sierra Club made the book’s initial distribution onto the desks of 

every member of the 87th Congress.101 The book was effective as a campaign device 

because Gilliam used clear, nontechnical prose to tell the geologic, natural, and human 

stories of the Point Reyes Peninsula, while Philip Hyde’s spectacular photographs 

complemented the text. When Island in Time came out it also set a precedent: while This 

is the American Earth was a black-and-white publication, Island in Time was the first 

Sierra Club conservation-battle book to use color photography. After that, Sierra Club 

publications of this ilk quickly evolved into the large format, color photograph, coffeetable books for which Sierra Club became known.102

A combination of Park Service proposals, citizen support, and legislative action helped 

launch the campaign to create a Point Reyes National Seashore and bring it to realization 

in 1962. Three features in this process bear repeating. First, the NPS introduced the 

national seashore idea and transformed it into a nationwide agenda to create new NPS 

units at America’s coasts, lakesides, and beaches. The PRNS proposal was part and 

parcel of this process; the NPS was the driving force behind it. Second, the campaign 

bore fruit because it found fertile ground in the established conservation movement in the 

Bay Area, and specifically in Marin County, where dedicated preservationists and openspace activists foresaw the destructive consequences that commercial and residential 

development would have at Point Reyes. Third, as the NPS and conservation 

organizations linked up and pushed towards their mutual goal, a dialogue ensued about 

the character and meaning of the new national seashore they sought to create. They began 

the process of defining and then, redefining, the land, resources, and management goals 

of the developing national seashore. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER TWO

1

 Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, 3rd ed. (Lincoln: University of 

Nebraska Press, 1997), chaps. 2 and 4. 

2

 After Stephen T. Mather stepped in as Director of the Park Service, he fostered the creation of 

the National Parks Association to promote and lobby for a set of national park standards that any 

proposed site should have to meet. 

3

 Hal K. Rothman, The Park That Makes Its Own Weather: An Administrative History of Golden 

Gate National Recreation Area, online rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 

2002), http://www.nps.gov/goga/history/history.htm, 7. 

Conclusion 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

63

4

 Sieur de Monts was subsequently designated Lafayette National Park in 1919, and then Acadia 

National Park in 1929. Barry Mackintosh, The National Parks: Shaping the System, 3rd ed. 

(Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, Division of Publications, 2001), 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/mackintosh1/index.htm (accessed October 6, 2004). 5

 Congress, An Act To Establish A National Park Service, August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. 535). 6

 For a discussion of the competitive nature of departmental quarrels within the federal system, see 

Hal K. Rothman, “A Regular Ding-Dong Fight: Agency Culture and Evolution in the Park 

Service-Forest Service Dispute, 1916–1937,” Western Historical Quarterly 26 (May 1989): 141–

60. 

7

 The first four national monuments were Devils Tower, Wyoming, which President Roosevelt 

authorized on September 24, 1906, and El Morro, Montezuma Castle, and Petrified Forest 

National Monuments, authorized on December 8, 1906. One national monument site—in 

conception and intent, if not in name—predated the Antiquities Act: President Benjamin Harrison 

created the Casa Grande Ruin Reservation (Arizona) in 1892. It was redesignated Casa Grande 

National Monument in 1918. 

8

 Mackintosh, National Parks, 1: 6–8. 9

 Theodore Catton and Ann Hubber, Commemoration and Preservation: An Administrative 

History of Big Hole National Battlefield, prepared for the National Park Service, Columbia 

Cascades Support Office (Missoula, Mont.: Historical Research Associates, 1999). 

10 Grand Canyon National Monument, at 800,000 acres, was a huge exception to the general rule 

of smaller national monuments. 

11 For the most thorough examination of national monuments policy and history, see Hal K. 

Rothman, Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments (Urbana: University of 

Illinois Press, 1989). 

12 The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, brochure (Washington, D.C.: 

American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, n.d.), Folder American Shore & Beach 

Preservation Assoc., Box 3, Office Files of Conrad L. Wirth, Records of the Office of the Director 

(hereafter Wirth Files), RG 79 Records of the National Park Service, National Archives and 

Records Administration-II, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NARA-II). 

13 Harold L. Ickes, quoted in Congress, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Point 

Reyes National Seashore, California: Report to Accompany S. 476, 87th Congress, 2d

 sess., 1962, 

H. Rept. 1628, 1. 

14 Executive Order 6777, June 30, 1934. The forerunner of the NRB was the National Planning 

Board, established under the authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 

195. Executive Order 7065, June 7, 1935, replaced the NRB with the National Resources 

Committee. 

15 National Resources Board, A Report on National Planning and Public Works in Relation to 

Natural Resources and Including Land Use and Water Resources and with Findings and 

Recommendations (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1934). 16 Douglas Doe, “The New Deal Origins of the Cape Cod National Seashore,” Historical Journal 

of Massachusetts 26 (Summer 1997): 142. The NRB also released an addendum to the 1934 

report, Recreation Use of Land in the United States, in 1938. 17 National Park Service, Recreation Use of Land in the United States, prepared by the National 

Resources Board (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1938), 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/recreation_use/chap2-2.htm (accessed May 17, 

2005). 

18 Congress, An Act To Authorize A Study Of The Park, Parkway, And Recreational Area 

Programs In The United States, June 23, 1936 (49 Stat. 1894); Ronald A. Foresta, America’s 

National Parks and Their Keepers (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, Inc., 1984), 45. 

19 National Park Service, Compilation of the Administrative Policies for the National Recreation 

Areas, National Seashores, National Lakeshores, National Parkways, National Scenic Riverways 

(Recreational Area Category) of the National Park System (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968), 12. 20 National Park Service, The Study of the Park and Recreation Problem in the United States

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1941). 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

64

21 Conrad L. Wirth, Parks, Politics, and the People (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 

1980), 192. 

22 Department of the Interior, National Park Service Branch of Planning, Study of a National 

Seashore Recreational Area, Point Reyes Peninsula, California, prepared by Conrad L. Wirth and 

Emerson Knight (San Francisco, 1935), PRA, unpaginated, foreword. 

23 Study of a National Seashore Recreational Area, section 2, n.p. 24 Study of a National Seashore Recreational Area, General Information, n.p. 25 Study of a National Seashore Recreational Area, General Information, n.p. 26 Study of a National Seashore Recreational Area, Land Costs, n.p. 27 The Mellon Family Foundation was the primary donor for Cape Hatteras land acquisition. 

Mackintosh, National Parks, 5: 20. 28 George Palmer, Interview by Robert F. Gibbs, Francis P. Burling, and Charles H. W. Foster, 

October 10, 1975, 6–7, quoted in Doe, “New Deal Origins of the Cape Cod National Seashore,” 

145. Palmer was the Assistant Regional Director, Mid-Atlantic Region, from 1955 to 1966, and 

later became Associate Director of the NPS, serving from 1970 to 1973. 

29 Doe, “New Deal Origins of the Cape Cod National Seashore,” 142. 30 Doe, “New Deal Origins of the Cape Cod National Seashore,” 145. 31 Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven, Conn.: 

Yale University Press, 1997), 204. 

32 Conrad L. Wirth, “Draft of Speech to be Delivered before American Shore and Beach 

Preservation Association,” January 19, 1954, Folder American Shore and Beach Preservation 

Association, Box 3, Wirth Files, RG 79, NARA-II. 

33 Emphasis added. Department of the Interior, “Statement by Conrad L. Wirth, Director, National 

Park Service, Before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, On a Proposal to 

Establish a Point Reyes National Seashore, Kentfield, California, April 14, 1960,” Information 

Release, Conrad Wirth Folder, Box 1, Administrative History Files, PRA, 2. 

34 B. K. Dunshee, “A Non-Professional Look at Point Reyes Peninsula,” in NPS, “Pacific Coast 

Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula, California, Seashore Area,” Preliminary report, June 30, 

1957, prepared by Region Four Division of Recreation Resource Planning, Point Reyes Library, 

58. 

35 “Statement by Conrad L. Wirth,” April 14, 1960. 

36 Wirth demonstrated that his attention to the national seashore concept had not wavered by 

attending the annual meetings of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association during 

the 1950s, and serving, for a time, on that organization’s Board of Directors. Wirth to Peter J. 

Gannon, Secretary, American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, February 23, 1954, 

Folder American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, Box 3, Wirth Files, RG 79, NARAII. 

37 Mellon had also donated money to purchase large tracts of land for inclusion in Cape Hatteras 

National Seashore. Lary M. Dilsaver, Cumberland Island National Seashore: A History of 

Conservation Conflict (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004), 79–81. 38 Clair Engle, Press release, July 23, 1959, Box 4, Clem Miller Papers, The Bancroft Library, 

University of California, Berkeley, 15. 

39 National Park Service, A Report on Our Vanishing Shoreline (Washington, D.C., publisher 

unknown, 1955), 7. 

40 Our Vanishing Shoreline, 15. 41 Our Vanishing Shoreline, 15–21. 42 Emphasis added. Our Vanishing Shoreline, 34. 43 NPS, “Pacific Coast Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula, California, Seashore Area,” 

Preliminary report, June 30, 1957, prepared by Region Four Division of Recreation Resource 

Planning, Point Reyes Library, 45. 

44 NPS, “Pacific Coast Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula,” 1. 45 NPS, “Pacific Coast Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula,” 25. 46 NPS, “Pacific Coast Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula,” 9. 47 NPS, “Pacific Coast Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula,” 13. 48 NPS, “Pacific Coast Seashore Survey, Point Reyes Peninsula,” 47. 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

65

49 National Park Service, “Questions and Answers Concerning the Proposed Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” press release (San Francisco: NPS Region Four Office, ca. 1960), Box 2, Accession CA 362, Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation Records 1959–62, The Bancroft Library, 

University of California, Berkeley, 4. 

50 “Questions and Answers Concerning the Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore,” 4. 

51 “Point Reyes: U.S. Seashore Park Urged,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 29, 1958, A1. 52 Barbara Eastman, Inverness Improvement Association, to George Collins, Regional Chief, 

Division of Recreation Resource Planning, October 26, 1958, Folder NPS Correspondence, Box 2, 

Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation Records (hereafter cited as PRNSF), Accession PORE433, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives (hereafter PRA), Point Reyes, California. 53 “Is Anyone Doing Anything about Point Reyes Park?” Marin Independent Journal, editorial, 

July 12, 1958, 4. 

54 “The Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore,” Joint statement of Senator Clair Engle and 

Representative Clem Miller, July 23, 1959, Box 2, NSFR, BAN, 1. This joint statement introduced 

the partner bills S. 2428 and H.R. 8358 to Congress. 

55 For a discussion of San Francisco's prominence in the Far West, see Earl Pomeroy, The Pacific 

Slope: A History of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada (New York: Alfred 

A. Knopf, 1965), 124–25. For a discussion of early appreciation of nature, see Roderick Nash, 

Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). 56 Rothman, The Park That Makes Its Own Weather, 2. 57 Peter J. Schmitt, Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America (1969; reprint, New 

York: Oxford University Press, 1990). See also Terence Young, Building San Francisco's Parks, 

1850–1930 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). 58 Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915 (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1973), 246. See also John W. Caughey, California: A Remarkable State's Life History

(Inglewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970), 374. 

59 Michael P. Cohen, The History of the Sierra Club, 1892–1970 (San Francisco: Sierra Club 

Books, 1988), 17. 

60 V. L. Parrington characterized the late nineteenth century as the "Great Barbecue" for its 

extensive rate of resource consumption. See Stephen J. Pyne, America's Fires: Management on 

Wildlands and Forests (Durham, N.C.: Forest History Society, 1997), 4; and William G. Robbins, 

Lumberjacks and Legislators: Political Economy of the U.S. Lumber Industry, 1890–1941

(College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1982), 16. 

61 Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation 

Movement, 1890–1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959); and J. Leonard Bates, 

"Conservation as Democracy," in The American Environmental: Readings in the History of 

Conservation, ed. Roderick Nash (Menlo Park, Calif.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 

1976), 79–82. 

62 Rothman, The Park That Makes Its Own Weather, 2. 63 John Hart, Muir Woods: Redwood Refuge (San Francisco: Golden Gate National Park 

Association, 1991), 27–28. 

64 Hart, Muir Woods, 30. 65 Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 161–81. 66 Susan R. Schrepfer, The Fight To Save the Redwoods: A History of Environmental Reform, 

1917–1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983); and Hart, Muir Woods, 33. 67 Marin [San Rafael] Journal, October 11, 1934, quoted in Wise, Marin’s Natural Assets, 2. 68 Hugh Pomeroy, untitled Marin County planning document, 1934, quoted in Nancy Wise,

Marin’s Natural Assets: An Historic Look at Marin County (San Rafael, Calif.: Marin 

Conservation League, 1985), Marin Conservation League File, Clipping/Pamphlet Files, Anne 

Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, California, 2. Wise was likely 

quoting from Pomeroy, “Land Use Planning: a Paper Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the 

California Planners’ Institute, Bakersfield,” June 2, 1934. 

69 Marin Conservation League, “Marin County’s Green Pioneers,” San Rafael, California, 

www.conservationleague.org/history.html (accessed October 7, 2004, updated October 10, 2004). 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

66

70 L. Martin Griffin, Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast; The Battles for Audubon Canyon Ranch, 

Point Reyes, and California’s Russian River (Healdsburg, Calif.: Sweetwater Springs Press, 

2000), 20–22. 

71 Interview with Bertram K. Dunshee, interview by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent, November 15, 

1979, Marin County Free Library Oral History Project transcript, Anne T. Kent California Room, 

San Rafael, California, 18. 

72 Dunshee Interview, 18. 

73 Jack Mason, Point Reyes: The Solemn Land (Point Reyes Station, Calif.: DeWolfe, 1970), 157–

59. 

74 “Conservation League Efforts Successful: Picturesque Coast of Tomales Bay Becomes 

Recreational State Park,” Marin Independent-Journal Magazine, July 14, 1951, reprint, News 

Clippings 1958–69, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA. 

75 Mason, Point Reyes, 158–59. 76 Gerald D. Nash, “World War II and Economic Transformation,” in Major Problems in the 

History of the American West, Clyde A. Milner, ed. (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Company, 

1989), 562–73, 570. 

77 According to Stewart L. Udall, when California Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown heard that 

the state had become the nation’s most populous, he said, “I don’t know whether I should laugh or 

cry.” Stewart L. Udall, interview by Paul Sadin, February 3, 2005, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 

audiotape and transcript, PRNS Administrative History Oral Histories, PRA. 

78 John Hart, Farming on the Edge: Saving Family Farms in Marin County, California (Berkeley: 

University of California Press, 1991), 9–10. 

79 “Paradise Ranch Estates,” advertising brochure, untitled folder, Carton 5, NPS Administrative 

History, PORE-8053, PRA. 

80 Drakes Bay Land Company v. The United States, 424 Federal Reporter, 2nd ser. (U.S. Ct. of 

Claims 1970), 575–76. 

81 Study of a National Seashore Recreational Area, 1935. 82 Bonelli resubmitted a plan to subdivide 168 acres into 76 lots of Drakes Bay Pines in March 

1962. Drakes Bay Land Company v. The United States, 576. 83 Bertram T. Dunshee to Wirth, March 9, 1959, NPS Correspondence File, Box 2, PRNS 

Foundation, PORE-433, PRA, 2–3. 

84 United States v. Timber cutting rights on 3,693 areas of land in Marin County, California, Trio 

Lumber Company, Sweet Timber Company, et al., Declaration of Taking, October 23, 1963, U.S. 

District Court of Northern District, California, Point Reyes Files, Box 333, Parks and Sites, CCF 

1959–1963, RG 48 Records of the Secretary of the Interior, NARA-II. 85 Eastman to Collins, October 26, 1958. 

86 Margaret Azevedo, “Civic Leader and Save Our Seashore Board Member,” Oral history 

interview by Ann Lage, 1991, in Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 1969–1970: An Oral 

History of Citizen Action in Conservation (Berkeley: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft 

Library, 1993), 171. 

87 Robert Shankland, Steve Mather of the National Parks (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), 77–

79. 

88 Adolf Murie, untitled memorandum, n.d., Box 2, PRNS Foundation Records, Accession PORE433, PRA. 

89 John M. Findlay, Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940 

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 20–21. 

90 Gilliam, interview. 

91 Findlay, Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture after 1940, 14. 

92 Samuel P. Hayes, “From Conservation to Environment: Environmental Politics in the United 

States Since World War II,” Environmental Review 6 (Fall 1982): 14–29. 

93 Caroline Livermore quoted in Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 73–74. 

94 Study of a National Seashore Recreational Area, 1935, “scenic values” section. 

95 Wallace Stegner, ed., This Is Dinosaur; Echo Park Country and Its Magic River (New York: 

Alfred A. Knopf, 1955). 
The Campaign to Create a National Seashore 

67

96 Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall, This Is the American Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 

1960). 

97 Sierra Club, “Report on Point Reyes: Shoreline Park for the Future,” Sierra Club Bulletin 43 

(September 1958). 

98 Harold Gilliam, interview by Paul Sadin, December 1, 2004, San Francisco, California, 

audiotape transcription. 

99 Harold Gilliam, Island in Time (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1962). 100 Gilliam, interview. 101 Gilliam, interview; and Harold Gilliam, Island in Time, 2nd revised ed. (New York: Sierra 

Club/Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), 6. 

102 Gilliam remembered that Ansel Adams was unhappy with the decision to use color photos. 

Gilliam himself acknowledged that although the pictures were well done, because the technology 

was still quite new they still had “a picture postcard” quality about them. Gilliam, interview. 
68
69

CHAPTER THREE
70
71

CHAPTER THREE

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE 

ACT, 1958–1962 

It is clear Point Reyes will not long remain undeveloped unless it is acquired for public use. 

. . . Clair Engle 

he legislative history of a national park—or, in this case, a national seashore—helps 

explain how and why that National Park Service site came into existence. The ideals, 

objectives, and language of the authorization process form the legislative intent of Point 

Reyes National Seashore’s establishment that provides park managers, politicians, and 

the public with a fuller understanding of the seashore’s mandated goals, mission, and 

meaning. The legislative story of the Point Reyes Act reveals that Congress intended to 

preserve and protect three different elements, namely, recreational opportunities, natural 

beauty, and the scientific and historic merits of the Point Reyes Peninsula. Congressional 

bills, committee reports, and floor debates did not single out one element as the 

paramount justification for creating the national seashore. Point Reyes was never 

intended to be a one-dimensional park, even though the NPS soon placed it in the 

recreation area category of park management. Legislators also paid keen attention to the 

property rights of these landowners; but, as the following discussion reveals, the ranches 

and dairies were not elements that the NPS, most seashore supporters, and legislators 

initially sought to protect within the scope of the national seashore premise. 

Events that led up to and resulted in congressional authorization of the national seashore, 

show that there were two forces at work—eventually working together—to bring about 

congressional action on Point Reyes National Seashore. The local and regional 

conservation groups that worked hard to support the seashore legislation helped convince 

Congress that Marin County residents, in particular, and Californians, in general, wanted 

an NPS site at Point Reyes. The authorization of PRNS was also part of an overarching 

NPS strategy to enact legislation that would eventually create twelve different national 

seashore areas around the country. 

FIRST STEPS TOWARD AUTHORIZATION

In July 1958, U.S. Representative from California Clair Engle took the first legislative 

action in the campaign to create a Point Reyes National Seashore, introducing House 

Resolution 634 (H. Res. 634). Engle’s resolution called for the Department of the Interior 

to prepare a report on the proposed Point Reyes National Seashore Recreation Area. In 

the brief committee report that followed, Engle stated his case for authorizing the national 

seashore. He described Point Reyes Peninsula as an “unspoiled, undeveloped, and 

relatively isolated historic area,” which offered Congress a superb opportunity to acquire 

and protect coastal land for public use.1

 Miller urged his colleagues and Interior 

Department officials to move swiftly to complete the report, because “it is clear Point 

Reyes will not long remain undeveloped unless it is acquired for public use.”2

 He added, 

as a case in point, that surveying and planning for commercial development were already 

underway there. 

T 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

72

Engle’s resolution was one of a half-dozen such proposals in 1958 to study or authorize 

new national seashores along America’s coastlines. The campaign to create a national 

seashore at Point Reyes was one among many legislative tracks radiating from a common 

hub: the studies and recommendations of the National Park Service. Indeed, when 

President John F. Kennedy signed the bill creating Cape Cod National Seashore in 

1961—the first of the proposed seashores authorized in this period—he voiced the hope 

that Cape Cod would be but one of “a series of great seashore parks which will be for the 

use and benefit of all of our people.”3

 The NPS director at the time, Conrad L. Wirth, 

likewise explained that the Cape Cod legislation was “only a small part of a much larger 

picture.”4

 Point Reyes would become the next in a line of twelve national seashores and 

lakeshores established between 1961 and 1972.5

Regardless of the countrywide NPS agenda to create new national seashores at its 

recommended sites, without the leaders and supporters who worked at the local (West 

Marin) and regional (Bay Area) level, the Point Reyes campaign could never have come 

to fruition. Their efforts to create Point Reyes National Seashore involved surpassing a 

number of difficult hurdles that were absent when Congress established the older national 

parks. Congress simply carved land for those late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century 

parks and monuments from territory already in the public domain. By contrast, the 

government had to craft Point Reyes 

National Seashore from a composite 

landscape of private, county, state, 

and federal property. To win 

authorization for a national seashore, 

legislators and supporters had to 

accomplish two substantial tasks. 

First, they had to work out an 

arrangement with the peninsula’s 

ranchers and other residents that 

would encourage and enable them to 

transfer private property into federal 

hands. Second, politicians who 

championed the proposal would have 

to find the millions of dollars needed 

to purchase acreage as it became 

available. 

The key individuals who helped 

propel the seashore bill from its 

introduction in 1959 to enactment in 

1962 included Congressman Clem 

Miller, Senators Clair Engle and 

Thomas H. Kuchel, legislative 

assistants William “Bill” Duddleson 

and Philip Dickinson, field 

representative William “Bill” Grader, 

NPS administrators Conrad Wirth 

and George L. Collins, Secretary of 

the Interior Stewart L. Udall, 

journalist and author Harold Gilliam, 

Sierra Club leader Edgar Wayburn, 

Key Figures 

in the 

Seashore 

Campaign 

Record No. 8670. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

California Representative Clem Miller, official portrait, ca. 1960. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

73

and such local citizen-activists as Barbara Eastman, Richard and Doris Leonard, and 

Bertram and Verna Dunshee, to name just a few. Many of these people brought to the 

seashore campaign personal, as well as political, attachments to Point Reyes. Miller, 

Eastman, Collins, the Leonards and the Dunshees had all lived or spent considerable 

amounts of time in West Marin. Others, including Wirth, became enchanted by the 

beauty and uniqueness of Point Reyes early on, and remained dedicated to the cause 

thereafter. 

Clem Miller represented California’s First District, which extended from the San 

Francisco Bay to the Oregon border. Voters elected him on his second try for the post in 

1958. Although born and raised in Delaware, the scenic beauty of the western United 

States captivated Miller and his wife Katy when they moved there in the late 1940s.6

They took up residence in Marin County in 1948, and began exploring Point Reyes soon 

thereafter. They eventually purchased a summer cottage in Inverness, on the eastern edge 

of the peninsula. Miller’s former assistant, Bill Duddleson, recalled that Miller’s idea of a 

good time was to gather up his daughters, climb into the car, and head out to the beach at 

Point Reyes.7

 In a 1961 speech, Miller revealed what had long been his uppermost 

priority: “the preservation of space, Open Space.”8

 Soon after taking office, Miller 

identified the creation of a Point Reyes National Seashore as his top objective.9

Clair Engle, a lifelong state resident, served as a Representative to Congress from 

California’s Second District from 1943 through 1958. In November 1958, he was elected 

to the U.S. Senate, where he served from January 1959 until his death in July 1964. 

Engle, who grew up in Northern California, was well known for his affinity for the 

outdoors, and for sponsoring or supporting many reclamation and conservation bills, 

particularly in his home state. Engle joined Miller in cosponsoring the first Point Reyes 

bill, introducing an identical version of Miller’s House bill in the Senate. Duddleson 

called the working relationship between the two legislators “an absolutely perfect 

partnership.” During the Point Reyes campaign, Engle generally tackled the political 

dealings with Governor Pat Brown and other key members of the state government, while 

Miller “handled everything else, including, of course, the local people, local Marin 

County government and Bay Area people.”10 Miller had quickly become adept at working 

the committee system in Congress, where he used his winning personality to court 

members of the House Interior Committee.11

Miller and Engle also wanted the support of Senator Thomas Kuchel.12 Kuchel served as 

a Republican Senator from California from 1953 until January 1969. He was an elected 

member of California politics from 1936 through 1952, serving in the state assembly, the 

state senate, and as the state controller. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate on January 

2, 1953, to fill the vacancy created by Richard M. Nixon’s resignation from that post. 

California voters subsequently elected him to the Senate position that November, and 

reelected him in 1956 and 1962.13 Kuchel grew up in Orange County, attended college 

and law school in the Los Angeles area, and began his law practice in Anaheim. 

Accordingly, his primary base of political support was Southern California. Engle and 

Miller, Democrats who hailed from Northern California, knew they needed Kuchel’s 

Southern California base and Republican constituency on board to push through the Point 

Reyes legislation as a bipartisan bill with statewide support. Kuchel eventually joined 

Engle as cosponsor of the subsequent Point Reyes bills, and used his “very likable and 

personable” demeanor to muster support for the Point Reyes proposal among Republican 

colleagues in the Senate.14
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

74

Other individuals from the California delegation played important roles in the Point 

Reyes campaign. They included Harold T. Johnson of California’s Second District, and 

Jeffery Cohelan, who represented the Berkeley area. These legislative champions of the 

seashore bills employed much of their personal time and political leverage in garnering 

the support to keep the bills moving along—with frequent phone calls, letter writing, and 

person-to-person contacts. 

The Point Reyes campaign also had its torchbearers in the Department of the Interior. 

Gilliam wrote that it was George Collins, regional chief of the NPS Recreation Resource 

Planning Division, who “suggested the idea [for a national seashore] to his friend Miller, 

and guided the project to success locally.”15 Margaret Azevedo, a Democratic Party 

activist in Marin County, attributed to Collins the very “idea” of a Point Reyes National 

Seashore, and credited him with marshalling government officials and local residents to 

get behind the NPS proposal for a national seashore in Marin County.16 When Miller 

finally succeeded in obtaining $15,000 in congressional funding for the land use and 

economic surveys, Collins realized the allotment would not cover all the costs of a proper 

survey, and apparently paid for some of the work himself.17

Collins’ notions about a potential seashore diverged from most of the other seashore 

supporters in the Bay Area and Marin County. Befitting his position as NPS chief of 

recreation resource planning, Collins pushed for recreation-oriented national seashores, 

e.g. parks with boat marinas, swimming facilities, horseback riding, golf courses, the 

works. Collins believed that facilities such as golf courses could be developed “without 

any ethical disturbance whatever of other values or resources.”18 But there could be no 

doubting his commitment to the seashore campaign. After Collins retired from 

government service, he, Doris Leonard, and Dorothy Varian formed Conservation 

Associates, a nonprofit foundation with the aim of mediating environmental struggles 

between conservation groups and industry heads.19 From the outset, one of their main 

goals was to purchase Point Reyes ranch lands and hold them until Congress could 

authorize the national seashore. 

On the national level, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall helped shepherd PRNS and 

other national seashores and lakeshores through the authorization process during the 

1960s. When President John F. Kennedy appointed Udall to the cabinet post in January 

1961, Udall, a three-term Democratic congressman from Arizona, had already established 

his reputation as an active voice in environmental issues and a supporter of conservation 

policies, as well as an active legislator on labor and American Indian issues.20 He served 

on the House Interior Committee throughout his tenure in Congress (1955–1961). As was 

the case with many other western politicians of his era, his notion of natural resource 

conservation included water reclamation. Thus Udall worked to pass legislation to create 

the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. 

In a paper presented at the First World Conference on Parks in 1962, Udall wrote about 

the importance of setting aside undeveloped seashore and coastal areas around the globe. 

He called for “every sea-touched country . . . to preserve for its people portions of 

shoreline with the unique opportunities which they hold for human refreshment and 

restoration of the soul.”21Environmental activist David Brower remembered Udall as the 

first public official in a position of such stature to “come out strongly against mindless 

growth, population growth and development.”22 In several instances during the struggle 

for PRNS authorization, Udall stepped in to deal with significant problems, and helped 

smooth the way for the establishment of the national seashore. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

75

On July 23, 1959, Miller and Engle jointly introduced identical bills, H.R. 8358 and S. 

2428, which sought authorization of a “national seashore park” on Point Reyes Peninsula. 

The proposed seashore would “save and preserve for the inspiration, benefit and use of 

the people of the United States certain unspoiled shoreline areas . . . which possess 

scenic, scientific, historic and recreational values of national significance.”23 The bills 

emphasized the varied natural environment of Point Reyes that ranged from tidal 

estuaries to forested mountains, and was home to an equally wide range of animal and 

plant species that flourished in those environments. That biological diversity and the 

geologic history of the Point Reyes area held tremendous scientific value and provided a 

rich source for future research. Miller and Engle also emphasized that Sir Francis Drake’s 

1579 landing made the Point Reyes shoreline a significant piece of America’s history, 

matching the importance of such historical sites as Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. 

After praising the qualities that made Point Reyes a logical choice for designation as a 

national seashore, Miller and Engle urged their colleagues to act now, rather than later, to 

set the land aside. In a joint public statement that accompanied the introduction of the 

bills, they reminded their constituents that Point Reyes stood directly in the way of 

“accelerating pressures from one of the Nation’s fastest growing metropolitan areas.” It 

was not a case, they argued, of choosing between creating a federally managed 

development on the one hand, and keeping the area in its present “undeveloped and 

pastoral state,” on the other. Point Reyes was “going to be ‘developed’—one way or 

another.”24 Miller and Engle asked the public and Congress to establish an NPS site 

before the peninsula succumbed to the impending private development. If the American 

public and Congress failed to set aside this remarkable piece of “our yet-remaining native 

California landscape as ‘breathing space’ for family outdoor recreation,” then, they 

warned: 

We will leave our children a legacy of concrete treadmills leading 

nowhere except to other congested places like those they will be trying to 

get away from. Seashores suitable for family recreation are a uniquely 

limited part of out natural-resource legacy. We have seen too many 

examples—particularly on the East Coast—of houses, resorts and other 

businesses crowded together to destroy or bar access to the very 

attractions most people go to the beach to enjoy and on which highest 

recreation values depend.25

The Miller/Engle bills called for a seashore area of 28,000 to 35,000 acres of Point Reyes 

land, but did not propose boundaries or suggest an appropriation figure for land 

acquisition. Miller and Engle acknowledged that management of the seashore would need 

to include “certain compatible exceptions” to the usual NPS policies governing existing 

parks, in order to provide a wider range and greater number of recreational opportunities. 

They cited, as examples, small-craft boating and sailing, sport fishing, swimming, and, 

possibly, golf.26 They mentioned ranch land only in relation to possible recreational 

opportunities. The sponsors suggested that agricultural uses of the land, such as grazing, 

could be allowed under permit in certain areas of the seashore. They did not, however, 

offer protection of dairy and cattle ranches as an objective in establishing the national 

seashore. 

Initial 

Legislation 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

76

 NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Sign at Point Reyes advertises a new residential subdivision at Drakes Beach, ca. 1962. 

Because they did not yet have the support of the Marin County Board of Supervisors or 

the ranching community, Miller and Engle temporarily postponed congressional action 

on their bills. They wanted to wait until the Park Service had completed the land use and 

economic impact surveys before the respective committees evaluating each bill 

proceeded. The two Californians made clear that they were in favor of the PRNS 

proposal, but indicated that they would not press for enactment until they had found an 

approach that also protected the community and economic interests of Marin County 

residents. As they would soon find out, they had an uphill battle to convince some local 

residents that the government would adequately safeguard their privacy and property 

rights. A key sticking point in these original bills was the government purchase of Point 

Reyes ranches, via negotiations or condemnation proceedings, to form a 21,000-acre 

pastoral zone within the national seashore boundaries. The government could then lease 

the land in that zone back to the existing ranchers, so long as they continued the same 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

77

type of industry and land use.27 This particular strategy immediately alienated ranchers 

and many other local residents. 

Although the Miller/Engle bill was the first to propose, specifically, the establishment of 

a Point Reyes National Seashore, an earlier bill, S. 2010, called for Congress to create 

three new, as-yet-unnamed, national seashores. The bill gave the Secretary of the Interior 

the power to select the three sites from those recommended in the NPS seashore surveys. 

The bill also called on Congress to spend $15 million to acquire land for these proposed 

locations. John P. Saylor, Representative from Pennsylvania, also introduced H.R. 7407, 

a companion bill to S. 2010. At that time, the Secretary of the Interior’s advisory board 

on parks was recommending that new seashore units come from a select group of five 

sites: Oregon Dunes, Indiana Dunes (a National Lakeshore), Cape Cod, Padre Island, and 

Point Reyes.28 Miller and Engle introduced their Point Reyes bill when they did to insure 

that Point Reyes would be on the “eligible list” of the seashore proposals considered 

during the congressional hearings on S. 2010 and H.R. 7407 that coming summer. 

A group of joint sponsors—Senators Richard L. Neuberger of Oregon, James E. Murray 

of Montana, Clinton P. Anderson of New Mexico, and Paul H. Douglas of Illinois—

introduced a similar, but more expansive bill, S. 2460, in July 1959. The proposed 

legislation called for Congress to establish ten new national seashore sites and to 

appropriate $50 million for studies and land acquisition at those areas. They called it the 

“S.O.S” (Save Our Shorelines) Bill, the first of several instances in which that acronym 

would be used in connection with Point Reyes. The sponsors tabbed the five sites noted 

above as targets for federal acquisition, along with seashore areas at Cumberland Island 

(Georgia), Channel Islands (California), Pictured Rocks (Indiana), and Huron Mountains 

and Sleeping Bear Dunes (Michigan).29 By that time, there were also five individual 

seashore bills on the House and Senate floors.30 Legislation for Cumberland Island, one 

of the most highly prized sites described in the Atlantic Coast seashore survey, had since 

moved onto a back burner of the national seashore campaign.31 As discussed in the first 

section of this chapter, each particular seashore bill—including the Point Reyes 

proposal—was part of a larger national campaign to make the national seashore concept a 

permanent part of the national park system. 

Neuberger, one of the many sponsors of S. 2010, noted that the bills offered Congress 

three different avenues to rescue “from oblivion and destruction some of the beauty 

which exists where the shoreline meets the sea.”32 Neuberger revealed more than a simple 

desire to create public beaches for boating and swimming. He saw the new shoreline sites 

as complements to the existing mountain parks of the American West, observing, “There 

is beauty along the seacoast as well as in the uplands.” He lamented that this marine 

grandeur had been largely neglected, even though seacoasts could appeal equally to 

tourists and recreation seekers, as could the mountaintops. Because of their long period of 

neglect, many fine seashore areas had been “desecrated, exploited, and spoiled.”33

The combination bills (S. 2010, H.R. 7407, and S. 2460) did not result in the creation of 

any new NPS units. But they succeeded, as one national park historian has framed it, in 

“putting the seashore park on the legislative table.”34 Those bills announced the idea that 

congressional funding for land acquisition would be part of the discussion in future 

seashore legislation. Moreover, the combination bills further demonstrated how the 

legislative campaign to create Point Reyes National Seashore was one segment of a 

national strategy aimed at protecting the nation’s dwindling supply of undeveloped 

shoreline. 

Concurrent 

Seashore 

Legislation 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

78

Early in 1959, Miller recognized that in order to move forward with the Point Reyes 

campaign he needed to drum up more support from Marin County residents. He had 

already tabbed Bill Duddleson, his legislative assistant and a former newspaper reporter 

for the San Francisco Chronicle, to spearhead the Point Reyes campaign. With the 

assistance of Collins in the NPS Western Region Office and Bill Grader, another staff 

assistant, Miller also set out to orchestrate—one might even say, to instigate—a local 

(Marin County) support organization from behind the scenes. After one particular talk 

with Collins, Miller outlined the political strategy he had in mind: 

It is necessary that we begin to take some steps in our office to push this 

matter if the local people are unable to or unwilling to do it. At the same 

time, I want to retain the concept of local autonomy particularly West 

Marin local autonomy. We want to give the impression that everything is 

emanating from there. I am afraid, however, that McCarthy [attorney for 

the ranchers] sees through this.35

Margaret Azevedo recalled that the initial impetus for organizing the Point Reyes 

National Seashore Foundation was to create leadership and a political face for local 

public support where it had yet to coalesce. Grader urged local leaders to do something 

more tangible, because there was “no evidence of support” for the seashore proposal 

within Marin County.36 Azevedo and activist Barbara Eastman formed the foundation, 

and recruited local conservation leader Caroline Livermore to become the temporary 

chairperson. They announced the foundation’s formation on July 13, 1959, and made 

their first public act a letter to Miller, approving his Point Reyes bill.37 Within two years, 

Joel Gustafson, associate director of the California Academy of Sciences, had taken on 

the chair of the PRNS Foundation, which had expanded to over five hundred members.38

Miller also needed the support of the Marin County Board of Supervisors. Upon learning 

in July 1959 that the board of supervisors planned to oppose his authorizing bill, Miller 

wrote to Walter Castro, 

the board’s chair, to 

explain that his support of 

a Point Reyes bill was 

“appropriate and 

necessary at the present 

time,” owing to 

“everything that is 

happening here [in 

Congress] relative to the 

other four proposed 

national seashore 

recreation areas.”39

NPS officials involved in the seashore surveys and proposals did not take a back seat 

once the legislative process was underway. They continued to push their national 

seashore agenda, although, in some cases, they tried to maintain a less conspicuous role, 

using backdoor communication channels with legislators or campaign organizers. In 

1960, for instance, Collins wrote to the Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation Board, 

suggesting that they use surplus money accrued from the “Island in Time” film fund to 

hire or pay for an expert to study possible land exchanges. At that point, the Park Service 

State and 

Local 

Political 

Strategies 

PRNS Archives

Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation letterhead. 

NPS National 

Seashore 

Agenda 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

79

was already negotiating, secretly, with landowners to obtain Point Reyes properties via 

purchase or exchange.40 Collins was particularly interested in land that could be offered 

to A. W. Sweet in exchange for the land the Sweet Timber Company was logging on 

Inverness Ridge.41 The foundation board expedited this process by obtaining a loan from 

the Sierra Club, and then directed that money to the Park Service. The board planned to 

repay the loan with money from the film fund, just as Collins had suggested.42 

After Congress approved Miller’s request to fund the Point Reyes studies, Collins helped 

shape the work on the NPS land use and economic surveys. He realized that the largest 

share of the appropriation would have to go into architectural evaluations and surveys of 

properties targeted for acquisition. To make sure the report addressed other significant 

issues, Collins recruited Paul Wilson, a College of Marin professor, to lead the survey of 

the peninsula’s scientific and historic resources. Collins told Wilson that the 

congressional funding would not come close to covering actual costs involved in 

conducting all aspects of the two surveys.43 But it was a start. Collins, in fact, apparently 

paid for Wilson’s work out of his own wallet.44 The Park Service also filled the funding 

gap by assigning its own technical experts to the survey and obtaining help from 

dedicated conservationists and local seashore supporters, including Mary Summers, Jim 

Hammond, Verna Dunshee, and Doris Leonard.45 The resulting report supplied evidence 

that the proposed seashore area was of national, not just regional, significance. 

Wirth himself continued to throw his personal enthusiasm for the national seashore into 

the effort. After a personal visit to Marin County in February 1959, one of the many 

seashore supporters he met thanked him for his personal involvement with the seashore 

project. Bertram Dunshee later wrote that Wirth’s “infectious enthusiasm” had enabled 

the seashore supporters to “see the path ahead more clearly” and had “strengthened our 

determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the project an actuality.”46

During this time, NPS officials submitted alternate versions of the initial bills. In August 

1960, NPS staff prepared and submitted the Department of the Interior’s report on the 

two Point Reyes bills, recommending that the seashore encompass 53,000 acres of the 

peninsula. Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton presented House Interior Committee 

chair Wayne N. Aspinall with the NPS draft of a Point Reyes bill that included the new 

acreage figure, and which mimicked the language of the earlier H.R. 7407, the 

combination bill that had sought to create three national seashores. Seaton’s action 

underscored two important points prominent in this legislative history. The National Park 

Service, perhaps more than any grassroots effort in Marin County, was the driving force 

behind the national seashore idea and the unified NPS agenda linked the separate 

seashore bills as part of one political continuum.47

THE LEGISLATIVE BATTLE INTENSIFIES

Just prior to introducing his legislation that called for a Point Reyes study, Miller 

received a telegram from the Marin County Board of Supervisors, informing him that the 

board was opposed to his planned legislation. It was the first of what would become a 

short but intense barrage of public opposition to the national seashore proposal. The 

board of supervisors made its stance official in September 1958, when it voted, four to 

one, to oppose any plan for a national seashore at Point Reyes. The Supervisors took the 

quick, unplanned vote after hearing from a delegation of Point Reyes ranchers.48 They 

made their decision without holding an open hearing and before they heard from any 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

80

proponents of the bill. The one dissenting voter, Vera Schultz, argued that the board 

should hear both sides of the issue before making any decisions.49 Although the board of 

supervisors’ vote placed no legal or governmental restriction on any NPS actions, it was 

an important piece in the political chess match that would ensue. 

Record No. 31660. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Congressional investigation party brought by helicopter to Bear Valley, April 16, 

1960. Pictured, from left to right, are Senators Robert Byrd and Frank Moss, 

Representative Clem Miller, and Superintendent James Marshall. Photograph by 

Bob Angle. 

Soon after the supervisors’ ad hoc vote, other private landholders and residents of West 

Marin County joined the ranchers in opposition to the NPS plans. The paramount issue 

for Marin residents who did not live on the peninsula was potential loss of county tax 

revenue when private property at Point Reyes became public (i.e., nontaxable) land. 

Adolph Oko, an Inverness resident who went by the moniker “Captain Oko,” made 

himself the most vocal local opponent to the Point Reyes plan. When Gilliam interviewed 

him for a piece in the Chronicle, Oko was a “colorful character,” who worked as a local 

realtor and was president of the Marin County Chamber of Commerce. Whenever he 

found a public forum for his views or the news media arrived on a scene, Oko “waxed 

eloquent about . . . the evils of government and how the government would use . . . a 

cookie cutter [approach] to try to 

come in and make everything 

identical.”50 At one public meeting, 

Captain Oko read aloud the 

Declaration of Independence to 

emphasize his opposition to what he 

called the government’s “blanket 

grab” of private property, which “cast 

a cloud over the title of every man’s 

land.”51

Company representatives for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and the American 

Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) radio sites also stated their opposition to the 

Public 

Opposition 

San Francisco Chronicle headline, September 17, 1958. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

81

national seashore proposal. The corporate stance was a response to one particular 

concern: noise from automobiles, specifically auto ignitions, would significantly interfere 

with their signals. AT&T spokesman R. R. Pool explained that the company moved its 

radio-telephone equipment to the peninsula in 1930 (shortly after RCA arrived) because 

the site offered a shorter distance to transmission stations in Asia and provided isolation 

from man-made noise.52 An NPS unit on the peninsula was sure to increase the number of 

cars traveling there, creating more noise of all types. Their reasoning, however, did not 

take into account the increased auto traffic that private residential development also 

would produce at Point Reyes. 

When the Point Reyes proposal started to gain momentum in the late-1950s, according to 

local rancher Boyd Stewart, the area’s ranchers “didn’t catch on in time to oppose it 

much. . . . They didn’t think anything would come of it.”53 Once the details of the Point 

Reyes proposal were released to the public, however, dairy ranchers raised an outcry and 

pledged to fight the seashore’s establishment. They complained that an NPS seashore 

located in their midst was sure to destroy the dairy industry of Point Reyes and West 

Marin County and argued that government seizure of their land would be an 

unconstitutional intrusion on their private property rights. In July 1958, thirty-five 

ranchers formed the West Marin Property Owners Association.54

At the time, sixteen dairy ranches operated on 18,797 acres of the peninsula along with a 

number of cattle ranches.55 Most NPS officials and legislators involved in the Point 

Reyes proposal believed that allowing ranching to continue was a way to maintain the 

rural flavor of the peninsula. For many seashore proponents, the grassy fields and 

pastures of the ranch properties added to the peninsula’s aesthetic appeal. Nevertheless, if 

cattle and dairy ranches remained in private ownership, they would likely obstruct public 

beach and recreation access. In addition, purchasing the ranches during the land 

acquisition phase was likely to be very costly, not only in the money it would take to buy 

the parcels, but also in the political fallout from the government’s dealings with resistant 

property owners. Already, George Nunes, a dairy rancher who was president of the West 

Marin Property Owners Association, had railed against the anticipated government 

“seizure” of private land to create the national seashore.56

The initial legislative approach to the ranchers and their property was for the government 

to purchase the 21,000 acres of dairy ranches, then lease those lands back to the ranchers, 

allowing them to continue living and working on their family farms after they had sold 

the property to the government. The NPS had used this approach in the founding 

legislation for Grand Teton National Park in 1950, but, in that particular case, the 

ranchers were already leasing the land.57 The Grand Teton legislation guaranteed 

ranchers the right to continue leasing the same land for twenty-five years and beyond, for 

the lifetimes of the each rancher’s heirs or successors, as long as they were immediate 

family members.58 An alternative approach, which the Park Service proposed for Point 

Reyes in 1960, involved allowing dairy ranchers to maintain ownership while the 

government purchased scenic easements to ensure the land would remain rural open 

space.59 

For Point Reyes ranchers, a prime point of contention regarding the proposed seashore 

was the leaseback arrangement. Most of the ranchers wanted to continue their operations 

and remain on their land, but they did not want to work and live under a lease agreement. 

One Point Reyes Station resident, pointing out the constant costs of upkeep for equipment 

People and 

Cattle Don’t 

Mix 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

82

and structures on any ranch or farm, asked, “Would any rancher in his right mind 

improve land, buildings and fences that did not belong to him?”60

In July 1959, ranchers, residential property owners, state, county, and federal officials 

came together at a meeting of the West Marin Property Owners Association. Most of the 

day’s speakers voiced opposition to the park proposal, none more vociferously than 

rancher James Kehoe, who exclaimed: “Well, what the hell! We as a dairy group don’t 

want to give this land away and we are opposing this bill in a big way.”61 Other ranchers 

attempted to be more persuasive by referencing their familial ties to the land. Joe 

Mendoza offered this account: 

We have a large business—a dairy business—out in this area, plus all of 

our neighboring ranchers out there who also have. We have raised our 

families out there and our fathers before us. We all have children. We 

require that property to make a living. We don’t want anybody to come 

over there and take it away from us. We have lived there all of our 

lives.62

Public sentiment against the national seashore plan at this and other meetings centered on 

several issues, including the necessity, safety, cost, and legal propriety of the NPS 

proposal. A number of ranchers, reflecting on their experience of living on the peninsula, 

criticized the selection of Point Reyes as a venue for recreational activities. They argued 

that the weather was too cool and foggy, the terrain too brushy and tangled, and the 

waters too rough and dangerous to be suitable for a seashore recreation area. Strong 

currents, cold water, and high waves made swimming, and even wading, dangerous 

pursuits. They also warned that the combination of thick fog, high brush, and unfamiliar 

terrain would lead hikers astray, where they could become lost or abruptly find 

themselves teetering on the cliff edge of a coastal bluff.63 Many ranchers also worried 

about the inevitable impacts of human contact with livestock. They noted that visitors and 

their dogs would spook cattle, or that fence gates left open would allow some of the herd 

to escape. Kehoe was again succinct: “It is impossible. You can’t mix cattle and 

people.”64

Opponents also argued that there was no need for more public-use land in West Marin. 

Don McIsaac, a West Marin rancher and local representative for the Farm Bureau, 

sounded a familiar refrain: “in Marin County, there is so much in the park area now, the 

road district, the Army installation, and I wonder how far this can go and the rest of us 

live in the county.”65 Oko argued that existing parks in West Marin, such as Samuel 

Taylor State Park were underused, so why pull even more private land out of owner’s 

hands and off the county tax rolls. He thought it was time to stop government acquisition 

of Marin lands, before the parks “accumulate and accumulate until some day we are 

going to vomit with the tax load we are going to carry on our land.”66 

Local media’s coverage of the NPS plans, particularly in Marin County, added fuel to the 

slowly growing protest over the Point Reyes proposal. The West Marin newspaper, the 

Baywood Press, began its coverage of the national seashore campaign with a July 1958 

article that highlighted the opposition views of the newly formed property owners 

association. The article led off with one rancher’s opinion that federal park acquisition 

would “rip the backbone out of Marin County’s $12,000,000 a year dairy industry.”67

Three years later, the Marin Independent-Journal ran a commentary entitled, “Pt. Reyes 

Media 

Coverage 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

83

Seashore? No!” reflecting that most of the remaining opposition to the authorization 

campaign sat in Marin County.68

In the meantime, a San Francisco radio station aired, “A Shrub by Any Other Name,” an 

editorial broadcast that opposed the seashore bill and questioned whether Point Reyes 

was really worth the effort. KCBS Radio general manager Jules Dundes began, “If man 

cannot turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, neither can he, by merely passing laws, turn 

shrubland into desirable parkland.”69 He explained that most of the peninsula was 

 San Francisco Chronicle editorial, March 22, 1961. 

covered in shrub and brush, which he considered “undesirable for hiking, camping or 

picnicking . . . and not attractive enough to be worth preserving.” The editorial also 

challenged whether the California legislators’ “hue and cry to hurry up and vote for the 

park” before the land was sold, subdivided, and bulldozed was warranted. Dundes had 

been out to the area, where he saw only one new house in the proposed development, and 

claimed that the government was using a “specious argument” in order to obtain large 

tracts of land from private citizens.70 Regional news media also had proponents of the 

Point Reyes proposal. In a September 1959 editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle called 

local Marin opposition to the NPS proposal at the very least “shortsighted,” if not “costly 

and tragic.”71

As mentioned in the previous chapter, congressional funding for national park land 

acquisition was a new phenomenon. There were, however, a few exceptions to this 

general no-spend policy. Congress granted money to acquire land at Independence 

National Historic Park and Manassas National Battlefield. More significant, since World 

War II, Congress had appropriated funds to purchase private in-holdings within 

established parks.72

In a 1969 interview, Secretary of the Interior Udall explained how from the 1930s 

through the 1950s the Interior Department operated under an unwritten policy that 

frowned upon buying land for parks: 

Debating 

Costs and 

Land 

Acquisition 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

84

The attitude had been very strong and very profound that we were so rich 

as a big continent, had so many lands still in public ownership that we 

didn’t need to buy land. . . . Yet here were these great seashore areas 

[Point Reyes and Cape Cod] that were on the verge of being overdeveloped and spoiled for all time. So it was clear that we had to have a 

new policy.73

In 1961, Udall himself began talking with congressional colleagues and with Budget 

Bureau staff about creating a conservation fund that would earmark monies with which to 

purchase land for new national park units. The budget office was initially “very reluctant 

about this,” and Udall was unable to gain enough support for the concept to make a 

difference in the Point Reyes legislative battle.74 Although the legislation did not pass in 

time to use in the Point Reyes authorization, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act 

of 1965 would eventually help provide funding to complete all of the major land 

acquisitions for the national seashore in the following decade.75

Soon after the first session of the 87th Congress began in January 1961, Miller introduced 

H.R. 2775, his latest version of a Point Reyes authorization bill. The following day, 

January 17, Senators Engle and Kuchel introduced S. 476, an identical version of Miller’s 

bill. The Miller/Engle/Kuchel bills upped the total acreage of the proposed Point Reyes 

National Seashore to the 53,000 recommended by the NPS, adding approximately 20,000 

acres to the boundaries proposed in the 1959 bills. Newly armed with the land use and 

economic feasibility studies completed in 1960, Engle bolstered his arguments for 

creating the seashore by reiterating the studies’ findings that Point Reyes was an area of 

national significance.76 Furthermore, the economic feasibility study indicated that 

securing NPS status would advance the social and economic interests of the local 

communities.77 In announcing the new bills, the trio of sponsors said that development 

and recreational activities within the new seashore would include a wider range of 

activities than currently permitted in traditional national park sites.78 These activities 

might include charter-boat fishing, sailing, and golf. In addition, Engle related, their bill 

was amended to take into account the interests and stake and “sentiments of the present 

residents” in the creation of the national seashore. As a result, the exact boundaries of the 

proposed seashore remained undefined: final determinations would come after future 

congressional hearings and deliberations with landholders. 

The bill contained four new features that were designed to protect the interests of the 

ranchers and other Point Reyes residents: 

1. Of a total area not to exceed 53,000 acres, the government would 

designate at least 20,000 acres as a ranching area or “pastoral zone.” 

Commercial dairy and cattle ranching could then continue under 

lease agreements with the government. 

2. Other residents who owned property with improvements that were 

begun before September 1, 1959, could, upon the selling that 

property to the government, retain the “right of use and occupancy” 

under one of three sets of terms. They could occupy the land for their 

lifetime, or for the life of their spouse, or until their youngest child 

reached the age of 30, whichever allowed the occupancy to last the 

longest. 

New 

Legislation 

and New 

Strategies 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

85

PRNS Archives 

Diagram showing possible development plans for the proposed Point Reyes National Seashore. Source: NPS Land Use Survey: Point Reyes National Seashore, 1961. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

86

3. The external boundaries the seashore would be configured to allow 

for the future expansion of the towns of Inverness and Bolinas. 

4. The government could obtain Point Reyes land by offering owners 

an exchange for property of equal value from the public domain 

within California, Oregon, Nevada, or Arizona. 

President Kennedy gave a tremendous boost to the Point Reyes campaign when he 

spelled out his new national conservation plan in a February 1961 special message to 

Congress. White House aides David Bell and Phillip (Sam) Hughes prepared the initial 

draft of Kennedy’s speech, which aimed to introduce two new conservation policies in 

the United States: the adoption of national seashores as new units within the national park 

system, and the creation of a nationwide wilderness measure. The original draft of the 

speech included Kennedy’s recommendation to create Cape Cod National Seashore. 

Then-Senator Kennedy, and his Massachusetts colleague Senator Leverett Saltonstall, 

had cosponsored the first Cape Cod bill in 1958, and he dearly wanted to see the 

legislation pass. Udall recalled that as he and his staff read over a draft of the speech in 

his office, they saw with it problems, and began suggesting possible alterations. The 

group worried that it would appear “rather narrow and selfish for the President to 

recommend Cape Cod, in his own state,” but no other areas.79 As the discussion 

continued, according to Udall, they decided, “let’s make it national, let’s have him 

recommend two others, one on the Gulf Coast and one on the Pacific Coast.”80 As a 

result, speechwriters inserted the Padre Island and Point Reyes national seashore 

proposals into Kennedy’s message to Congress. 

Udall wrote that Kennedy’s February 1961 message “bore seeds of change” that took root 

and “galvanized the conservation movement.”81 Kennedy’s seeds of change were the two 

new conservation policies he announced: his call for creation of a national wilderness 

protection system, and his proposal that Congress appropriate money to acquire seashore 

areas such as Cape Cod and Point Reyes.82

Point Reyes was, in several ways, the Pacific Coast counterpart to Cape Cod. Both were 

beautiful scenic areas, with tremendous recreational potential, located close to a major 

metropolis. Both peninsulas are distinctive landforms that extend far beyond the nearby 

coastlines into the open ocean, island-like in their geological and geographic separation 

from the mainland. But neither area was an untrammeled wilderness in the traditional 

sense, since settlement and agricultural activity first took place more than a hundred years 

prior at Point Reyes and close to four hundred years prior on Cape Cod. Of course, 

important differences existed, some of which made Cape Cod an easier sell to Congress 

and in the local community. Agricultural and fishing industries based on the cape were 

already well in decline by the late 1950s, while the dairy industry on Point Reyes (though 

not throughout West Marin County) was still active and economically viable.83

Development pressures at Cape Cod were much more obvious than at Point Reyes, and 

almost every other patch of shoreline within easy driving distance of the Northeast’s 

urban corridor had already been chopped up into private lots or inundated with (often 

gaudy) commercial tourist development. The message was clear: the Cape Cod 

legislation was the last chance to preserve a significant stretch of wild, undeveloped 

dunes and beaches. 

Kennedy’s 

Conservation 

Agenda 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

87

THE THIRD WAVE OF CONSERVATION

In a February 1961 message to Congress, President John F. Kennedy focused the political spotlight onto 

two new conservation agendas: creation of national seashores, including Point Reyes National Seashore, and adoption 

of the Wilderness bill. Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall saw these as two key elements of the “third wave” of 

the American conservation movement. 

“We called it the Third Wave, and the older I get, the more I believe it was a powerful third wave of the 

conservation movement. But it also wrapped in the environmental ecological concerns raised by Rachel Carson... 

There were two giant figures out at the grass roots – David Brower and Rachel Carson were very influential.” 

--Stewart L. Udall, interview by Paul Sadin, February 3, 2005, Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

That the Cape Cod and Point Reyes bills were part of one nationwide campaign was 

further demonstrated by the coordinated strategy used to move each of the seashore bills 

through the House Interior Committee. Udall informed Miller that the Cape Cod National 

Seashore bill would go through first, because it had full congressional support and, of 

course, the backing of President Kennedy, who had been the bill’s initial sponsor in 

1959.84 Udall outlined a plan for the Point Reyes bill to go through the House Interior 

Committee next, followed, in turn, by the Padre Island legislation.85 The legislative 

process played out in just that order. After Congress passed and the president signed the 

Cape Cod Act during the first session of the 87th Congress, the Point Reyes and Padre 

Island bills were considered during the second session. President Kennedy signed the 

Padre Island National Seashore Act into law just one week after he signed the Point 

Reyes Act. 

COMPROMISES AND COMPLETION

A key juncture in the course of the Point Reyes legislative struggle arrived in late-July 

1961, in a series of communications between legislators and Department of the Interior 

officials. Engle realized that interested parties would need to make difficult compromises 

in order to keep the bill moving forward. On July 21, he warned Department of the 

Interior undersecretary John Carver, Jr., that the NPS had to either reduce the cost of the 

Point Reyes proposal or reduce the amount of proposed acreage.86 One week later, Wirth 

wrote to Udall in response to this new legislative dilemma. He advised the secretary that 

the department should consider a new strategy: the bill should be amended to include the 

dairy and cattle ranches within the exterior boundaries of the seashore, but allow the 

ranchers to retain title to their lands for a designated period of time. Wirth called it the 

“hole in the doughnut” approach, similar to the strategy that the NPS had worked out in 

securing land for the creation of Everglades National Park. Wirth explained the precedent 

in his July 28, 1961 memo to Udall: 

We went ahead with the establishment of Everglades leaving a tract of 

agricultural lands comprising approximately 33,000 acres in the center 

which was referred to informally as the “hole in the doughnut.” We 

agreed with the State that this use of the land would be allowed to 

continue, but made it perfectly clear that we would have to retain 

authority to acquire the lands if they were later diverted to 

nonagricultural purposes. We are still living with the situation today.87

The Hole 

in the 

Doughnut 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

88

Wirth argued further that if the strategy was applied to Point Reyes it would help the 

seashore realize the recommended size of 53,000 acres, and could reduce the initial 

acquisition cost of the dairy ranches by as much as $5.5 million. If this approach were 

applied to other proposed private inholdings (Lake, Stewart, and Bear Valley ranches and 

Vedanta Society and Church of the Golden Rule lands) as well, the total savings could 

total as much as $15.5 million, cutting in half the expected asking price in the seashore 

bill.88

The new strategy would accomplish in one fell swoop several important goals. First, the 

NPS and the public would get the complete seashore package, creating immediate 

protection and future preservation for the most threatened areas. Second, it reduced the 

initial overall cost of the project, making the bill an easier sell to Congress. Third, the 

terms of the agreements with ranchers would help prevent intrusive commercial 

development within the boundaries of the new seashore. Though ranchers would maintain 

ownership, the NPS could exert future control over how that land was used, retaining the 

rural appearance of the landscape. Furthermore, the plan would minimize, or possibly 

eliminate, ranchers’ antipathy for the leaseback proposals. Finally, the strategy would 

stabilize the county’s property tax base for several decades, a boon to Marin County 

government and residents. 

Accordingly, when the Senate Committee of Interior and Insular Affairs (hereafter Senate 

Interior Committee) reported the bill on the Senate floor, it proposed amendments that 

increased the amount of land in the designated pastoral zone to not less than 26,000 acres, 

in which the “existing open space and pastoral scene shall be preserved.”89 The 

government could not acquire the land within the pastoral zone without an owner’s 

consent, unless he or she failed to keep the land in its natural state or shifted the 

commercial use to something other than ranching or dairying.90

Miller, the primary architect of the Point Reyes bill, reported that Wirth’s pastoral zone 

compromise was designed with three objectives in mind. The objectives were to respond 

to (and hopefully mollify) the objections of Point Reyes ranchers, to lessen the county tax 

burden created by sudden federal land acquisition, and to reduce the cost—at least the 

initial cost—of government land acquisition. He did not mention the preservation of a 

working agricultural landscape or the protection of the scenic values of the pastoral 

landscape, as goals of this compromise. The legislators and supporters of the Point Reyes 

bill were more interested in the doughnut (the seashore lands surrounding the ranching 

area) than the doughnut hole. 

During the floor debate that same day, September 7, 1961, Kuchel termed the pastoral 

zone strategy “an equitable solution in preserving the local economy.”91 Kuchel reiterated 

that all of the inholdings (the 26,000-acre pastoral zone plus the 2,000 acres 

encompassing the RCA and AT&T facilities) greatly reduced the acquisition costs of the 

seashore proposal. The strategy’s benefit lay in the smaller price tag and reduced 

disruption of the local economy. Other legislators couched the pastoral zone amendment 

in simple and pragmatic terms. Representative H. Allen Smith of California commented 

during final debate on the bill in 1962 that it would give ranchers control of their land, as 

long as they did not alter their operations so as to “upset the pastoral scenic effect of this 

particular area.”92 Thus, if ranchers made changes in their land use that promoted their 

dairy or ranch business but detracted from the area’s scenic effect, the NPS could 

challenge those changes and thus open the door to government condemnation of the 

property. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

89

Nevada senator Alan H. Bible, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands (a 

subdivision of the Senate Interior Committee) and another conservation-minded 

westerner, described the amendment as a means of reducing acquisition costs and 

“fostering of long established ranching and dairying activities which, in the committee’s 

judgment, will not interfere with the public enjoyment and use” of Point Reyes’ 

recreational resources. Texas representative J. T. Rutherford, chair of the House 

Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation (a subdivision of the House Interior 

Committee), likewise regarded the language of the pastoral zone amendment as a useful 

protective measure for the landscape within the authorized seashore. He reasoned that as 

long as they were maintained as ranches, they would “contribute to the beauty of the 

area.”93 Rutherford favored supporting continued agricultural use of peninsula ranch 

lands because they enhanced the aesthetic or scenic value of the place. Bible and 

Rutherford were among the few senators to speak out for protection of the ranching 

industry itself as an objective. Even so, Bible prefaced his advocacy for the pastoral zone 

by noting that it should be maintained only where it would not interfere with the public 

recreational opportunities. 

Legislators paid close attention to property owners’ rights, but the ranches and dairies 

were not elements that the NPS, park supporters, or legislators sought to protect as part of 

the larger national seashore idea. The terms vernacular landscape or working landscape

were not yet part of the NPS lexicon in the early 1960s.94 The focus on ranchlands as 

cultural landscapes worthy of attention and protection did not emerge until years later. 

NPS policies formally identifying cultural landscapes did not appear until 1988.95 During 

debates regarding the authorization of Point Reyes National Seashore, many members of 

Congress described the ranches either as obstacles to overcome in gaining congressional 

authorization, or opportunities for obtaining the most territory without incurring an 

insurmountable price tag. 

Certain pieces of the land acquisition process and future administrative policies had to be 

worked out before Congress would carry the final legislation through to enactment. 

Property arrangements were negotiated with the Vedanta Society, the AT&T and RCA 

radio transmission facilities, and the U.S. Coast Guard lighthouse and lifesaving stations. 

One controversial point to be resolved involved a sixteen-acre tract of waterfront property 

on Tomales Bay known as Duck Cove. Kuchel inserted an amendment to S. 476 that 

provided the Duck Cove landowners with an exception: the amendment would allow 

them to hold their property as a permanent seashore inholding. Miller, Engle, and others 

did not consider it fair or feasible to offer an exemption to one group of landowners, and 

not to all of the others. The Duck Cove amendment did not make it into the final bill.96

Legislators dealt with the AT&T and RCA properties in a similar fashion as they did with 

the ranch lands. The terms of the agreement were based on an “understanding” between 

the two companies and the Secretary of the Interior. Commercial fishing and oystering 

operations, including the Johnson Oyster Farm, were allowed to continue because their 

operations were seen to be “compatible with the national seashore concept.”97 Likewise 

for the Coast Guard lighthouse and lifesaving stations. Finally, the Park Service reached 

an agreement on an inholding with another organization, the Vedanta Society, in April 

1961. The Vedanta Society, a religious group, was allowed to retain ownership of a 

retreat area within the proposed boundaries of the seashore. 

Private, 

Commercial, 

and Federal 

Inholdings 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

90

As the time for legislative enactment on the Point Reyes National Seashore bill drew 

nearer, Miller wrote to the chair of the Marin County Board of Supervisors on January 9, 

1962, asking for their support of the bill, which they had previously opposed. Miller 

expressed his reluctance to push through legislation that ran contrary to the wishes of the 

majority of the county’s leadership. He urged the board members to review his summary 

of recent changes made to the bill that would bring greater relief to the county’s tax base 

and which also allowed the West Marin dairy industry to remain intact. Miller included 

copies of key documents with his letter and expressed his hope that the board would “see 

fit to reconsider its position and support my bill.”98 The personal entreaty was successful: 

within a week of posting the correspondence, Miller received word that the board had 

reversed its previous position and voted three-to-one in favor of supporting the national 

seashore bill.99

Although Miller’s personal influence was no doubt important, the vote turnaround was 

primarily due to the election of a new supervisor to the board. Peter Behr, an attorney and 

Republican politician who had recently served as mayor of Mill Valley, favored the NPS 

proposal and became one of the seashore’s strongest advocates. He would eventually 

spearhead the 1969 Save Our Seashore campaign to acquire the remaining acreage to 

complete PRNS. Notwithstanding Behr’s arrival, the board of supervisors’ new position 

regarding NPS authorization also represented changing attitudes in the community. Over 

time, more Point Reyes and Marin County residents dropped or lessened their resistance 

to the national seashore proposal. Margaret Azevedo recalled that some of the proposal’s 

staunchest opponents eventually changed their position when they realized that if they 

chose not to sell their land, authorizing the seashore would still enable them to maintain 

ownership for their lifetimes.100 

Moving in accord with public opinion, almost all of California’s elected officials stood in 

favor of the seashore proposal by the time the second round of congressional hearings 

were held in 1961. One of the few exceptions to the trend was California State Senator 

John McCarthy, who held up a vote on a joint legislative resolution that urged Congress 

to pass the Point Reyes bill. 

In April 1962, the House Interior Committee reported favorably on S. 476, readying the 

bill for House consideration.101 The Point Reyes legislation was progressing, but not fast 

enough for many of its supporters. In May, Kuchel, who may have been grandstanding as 

he prepared for a reelection battle for his Senate seat, implored the House to move more 

quickly on S. 476, citing a San Rafael Independent-Journal article revealing new 

development proposals aimed at undermining the integrity of the national seashore.102

A year prior, Udall had sought to prevent another, potentially greater, threat to the 

integrity of the peninsula’s environment. The owners of the Drakes Bay Estates 

development intended to dredge a channel or channels through Drakes Estero to a smallboat harbor they planned to build on private land. Udall made personal pleas to Secretary 

of Defense Robert S. McNamara and to California governor Edmund G. Brown, in May 

1961, requesting they take steps to prevent the dredging. Udall explained to McNamara 

that the developers were about to apply to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for approval 

of channel modification within the boundaries of the proposed seashore. Udall 

emphasized that the dredging would cause significant damage to this prized natural area, 

and thus would diminish the recreational and aesthetic values offered by the seashore 

legislation. He told McNamara that the Interior Department would “greatly appreciate 

any action that you may be in a position to take, through the Chief of Engineers or 

Marin County 

Board of 

Supervisors 

New 

Development 

Threats 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

91

otherwise, to deny or defer approval of any application that may be submitted to dredge a 

channel or channels.”103

Udall likewise asked Brown personally to step in to help protect the estuary area from the 

potentially disastrous dredging plan. In his letter to Brown, Udall pointed out that a 

portion of the planned dredging would take place in tidelands owned by the State of 

California. The developers would thus 

have to lease those lands that the 

channel passed through from the state. 

Udall reminded Brown of the recent 

helicopter tour he and Brown made 

over Point Reyes, and reminded Brown 

of the “great interest” the governor had 

shown in the seashore proposal during 

that ride. Udall asked that Brown take 

whatever action he could to “deny or 

defer” leasing state lands to the 

developers in order to avert damage to 

the sensitive tidal areas of Drakes 

Estero.104 

In spring 1962, Miller joined the antidredging effort. He too worked political 

angles to head off what was by then the 

developers’ last-ditch attempt to renew 

construction work. By that time, 

Drakes Bay Estates had followed 

through with its application to the 

Corps of Engineers for a dredging 

permit. However, the owners did so after the Senate had passed the Point Reyes bill, 

making the application appear to be an act of desperation on their part. The San Francisco 

district engineer posted Public Notice No. 62-54 in reference to the dredging plans, 

alerting Miller to the potential catastrophe.105 Miller sought help from the State Lands 

Commissioner Francis J. Hortig, who held jurisdiction over a portion of the tidelands 

targeted for dredging. He urged the commissioner to engage in whatever procedural steps 

might slow down the dredging plans, possibly by forcing the developers to undertake a 

separate application process at the state level. Miller hoped his entreaties would give him 

enough time to head off the new development scheme.106

This political maneuvering proved effective in halting the dredging and other 

construction activities at Drakes Bay Estates. So effective, in fact, that in 1970 the United 

States Court of Claims ruled in Drakes Bay Estates v. NPS that the Department of the 

Interior and the NPS had engineered an “inverse taking” of the Drakes Bay property.107

The Washington, D.C., court found that government officials had engaged in actions to 

scuttle the development, putting the owners in an untenable position. The realtors could 

not develop the property or obtain a fair price if they tried to sell to an outside party. The 

court ordered the NPS, who by then owned the land, to pay the former owners the going 

fair-market value for the property.108

Record No. 31950. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

New house in the Drakes Beach Estates development, January 1962. 

Photograph by R. Budlong. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

92

When, in July and August 1962, members of Congress took up the final floor debate on 

the PRNS bill, overcoming lingering resistance to the national seashore hinged on several 

elements, not all of which directly involved Point Reyes. The last voices of dissent raised 

the following concerns: 1) the overall cost was too high and the method used to fund land 

acquisition was unproven, 2) Congress would be setting precedents, particularly 

following on the heels of the Cape Cod Act, in defining new NPS sites and policies, 3) 

the bill created large inholdings within the national seashore boundaries, and 4) the 

authorization infringed on the property rights of ranchers and other residents. 

Representative John H. Kyl of Iowa 

argued that the initial appropriation 

would prove inadequate to cover the 

costs of acquiring the recommended 

amount of land. He suggested that the 

market value of the Point Reyes 

acreage was three times as much as the 

$14 million price tag written into the 

bill. Kyl was on target: the final cost of 

land purchases to complete the national 

seashore eventually totaled $57 

million, four times the amount 

proposed in S. 476. However, Kyl’s 

concern went beyond the specific cost 

of the Point Reyes site. The larger 

issue, as he addressed it, was initiating 

a “new concept” in the established 

practice for park appropriations, and 

thus creating an ongoing problem for 

Congress in financing new NPS 

units.109 Moreover, Kyl contended, the 

bill would create large inholdings 

(specifically, the ranch lands), which 

had proven to be a difficult problem for 

Park Service officials to address in 

other contexts and which his present 

colleagues admitted were a problem 

inherent in the current draft of S. 476. 

He argued that before proceeding, the 

House should work out a different 

strategy for purchasing land at Point 

Reyes. Kyl anticipated another problem 

that was likely to arise after the 

national seashore was authorized. He 

cited, as an example, the situation at Cape Cod, where some landowners had decided to 

sell but the government did not have money available to buy the property. Because these 

owners did not have the option to subdivide their land or develop it for other 

(commercial) uses, Kyl argued, the language of the Cape Cod Act placed them in a spot 

that, “if it does not violate traditional American property rights, is at least grossly unfair 

to the property owners in these areas.” Now was the time, Kyl concluded, to prevent a 

similar situation from taking place at Point Reyes. Clem Miller reminded Kyl that a 

Congressional 

Debate and 

Enactment 

Record No. 8053. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

93

procedural impediment existed that prevented them from making “prospective 

appropriations” to safeguard Point Reyes landowners.110

Wayne N. Aspinall of Colorado, in his pivotal role as chair of the House Interior 

Committee, also expressed concern about precedents Congress might set with the Point 

Reyes bill. His conception of the national seashores and their purpose did not include 

aesthetic preservation of the natural landscape. He recounted that the House 

Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation, while considering the three seashore 

proposals before them during the 87th Congress, recommended that proposed sites should 

meet three requirements in order to gain national seashore status. First, the prospective 

areas should be close to large population centers; second, they should provide for the 

public use and enjoyment of the site in addition to conserving the area’s unique natural 

resources; and third, they needed to encompass a shoreline or the lands immediately 

adjacent to one.111 Aspinall argued that members of Congress were not paying adequate 

attention to these priorities. Previous congressional action to protect natural or scenic 

areas of the United States within the national park system had addressed preservation 

rather than active use of an area’s natural resources. He believed Point Reyes legislation 

gave them an opportunity to set a new course, which would respond to the wider 

recreational interests of the American public. 

Despite the problems many members saw in the legislation, there were few outright 

opponents of the bill. The House passed S. 476 by a voice vote on July 23, 1962, adding 

only one significant amendment. The House proposed noncommercial residential 

landowners be given a fifty-year period of holding title after the seashore bill was 

authorized. This differed from the Senate proposal, which would have allowed residents 

to maintain ownership for their lifetime or until their last surviving child reached age 

thirty. The House also deleted the Duck Cove amendment that Kuchel had inserted into 

the bill during previous Senate debate. These last two pieces of the legislation were 

ironed out in the final floor debates.112

On August 31, the Senate voted its agreement on the House amendments, and sent the 

bill on to the president. On September 13, 1962, President Kennedy signed the Point 

Reyes National Seashore Authorization Act, in an oval office ceremony attended by 

Miller, Engle, Udall, and Sierra Club executive director David Brower, among others.113

Public Law 87-657 authorized the Secretary of the Interior to take appropriate action to 

establish Point Reyes National Seashore “in order to save and preserve, for purposes of 

public recreation, benefit, and inspiration, a portion of the diminishing seashore of the 

United States that remains undeveloped.”114 Passage of the law marked the end of a brief, 

but intense, struggle to make the PRNS a legal entity. Ahead, however, was the much 

longer journey of making the national seashore a complete reality. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

94

THE AUTHORIZING LEGISLATION

President John F. Kennedy signing the bill authorizing Point Reyes National Seashore on September 13, 1962. 

Flanking Kennedy and holding copies of Island in Time are California Representative Clem Miller (right) and 

Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall (left). California Senator Clair Engle looks down over Miller’s right shoulder, 

while Sierra Club Executive Director David Brower looks on from far right.

 Record No. 8710. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives. 

The creation of Point Reyes National Seashore was part of the NPS strategy to establish 

national seashore and lakeshore sites around the country. As Miller, Engle, and Kuchel 

moved the Point Reyes bill through Congress, bolstered by presidential and cabinet 

support, it was managed as part of an overall strategy to create as many as ten different 

national seashores in the early 1960s. Congress, and the NPS officials, conservation 

groups, and local citizens whose interests they represented, imbued the final bill with 

intent to preserve and protect three different realms: the natural environment, recreational 

opportunities, and the scientific and historical merits of the Point Reyes Peninsula. 

Congress also built protection of many of the ranches into the bill, primarily as a means 

of cutting costs, respecting the rights of property, and maintaining the rural character of 

the peninsula landscape inside and outside of the NPS boundaries. 

Conclusion 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

95

The final word in the S. 476 debate came from Iowa Representative Harold R. Gross. His 

parting shot at the bill used as ammunition the same fodder that members of Congress 

had used to oppose national park legislation for the past century: the cost to the federal 

government. He finished his harangue by pointing out, “the question that confronts all of 

us is how much deeper is it proposed to dig the grave of debt to finance projects that 

should be delayed?” The answer, as it turned out, was quite a bit deeper. It would 

eventually require more than $33 million in additional appropriations to secure the land 

for the national seashore. Because of the inadequate budget, the NPS, California 

legislators, and seashore supporters would have to face, at the end of the decade, another 

political and legislative battle before it could give final shape to the national seashore. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER 3 

1

 House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Calling For the Preparation of a Report on the 

Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore Recreational Area, Marin County, Calif.,” 85th Cong., 2d

sess., August 5, 1958, H. Rpt. 2463. 

2

 House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Calling For the Preparation of a Report on the 

Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore Recreational Area,” 2. 

3

 Kennedy quoted in Francis P. Burling, The Birth of Cape Cod National Seashore, rev. ed. (n.p.: 

Eastern National, 2000), 54. Kennedy made these remarks upon signing the Cape Cod National 

Seashore Bill into law on August 7, 1961. 

4

 Conrad Wirth, “Parks Are for All the People,” article prepared for publication in Think 

Magazine, submitted April 28, 1959, Box 8, Wirth Files, RG 79, NARA-II, 4. 5

 The eight National Seashores established between 1961 and 1972 were, in order of authorization, 

Cape Cod, Point Reyes, Padre Island, Fire Island, Assateague Island, Cape Lookout, Gulf Islands, 

and Cumberland Island. 

6

 Katy Miller Johnson, “Catalyst and Citizen Lobbyist in Washington,” interview by Ann Lage, 

1990, in Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 1969–1970: An Oral History of Citizen Action in 

Conservation (Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, 1993), 4–5. 7

 William Duddleson, interview by Paul Sadin, October 28, 2004, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, 

audiotape recording, HRA files, PRA. 

8

 Clem Miller, “The Conservationist and Congress,” speech delivered at the 25th Annual Meeting 

of the National Wildlife Foundation, March 3, 1961, Washington, D.C., Box 2, Point Reyes 

National Seashore Foundation Records (hereafter cited as NSFR), Bancroft Library, Manuscripts 

Division, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter cited as BAN). 9

 Johnson, “Catalyst and Citizen Lobbyist,” 15. 10 Duddleson, interview, 6. 

11 Stewart L. Udall, interview by Paul Sadin, February 3, 2005, Santa Fe, New Mexico, audiotape 

recording, HRA files, PRA. 

12 Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation, Minutes of Board of Directors’ Meeting of January 

27, 1960, held in San Francisco, Foundation Minutes Folder, Box 1, PRNSF, PRA. 

13 “Clair Engle,” in Biographical Directory of the U. S. Congress, 

http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp (accessed September 30, 2004). 14 Udall, interview. Udall remarked that Kuchel had an equally important role in creating 

bipartisan support for the Wilderness Bill in the Senate. 

15 Harold Gilliam, “Three Men Who Made It Happen,” preface to Island in Time, 1967 ed., 

reprinted in special “Save Our Seashore” section of the San Rafael Pacific Sun, October 1, 1969, 

SOS Campaign File, Box 1, PRNSF, PRA, 9. 

16 Margaret Azevedo, “Civic Leader and Save Our Seashore Board Member,” interview by Ann 

Lage, 1991, in Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 1969–1970: An Oral History of Citizen 

Action in Conservation (Berkeley: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, 1993), 

170. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

96

17 Hal K. Rothman, The Park That Creates Its Own Weather: Administrative History of Golden 

Gate National Recreation Area, online rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2002), 

http://www.nps.gov/goga/history/history.htm, 1:10. 

18 George Collins, Regional Chief Recreation Resources Planning Division, San Francisco, to Joel 

Gustafson, President, Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation, February 25, 1960, Box 1, 

NSFR, BAN. 

19 Michael P. Cohen, The History of the Sierra Club, 1892–1970 (San Francisco: Sierra Club 

Books, 1988), 279. 

20 Udall won his election for a fourth term, but did not serve it when Kennedy tabbed him for the 

cabinet post. 

21 Stewart L. Udall, “Address of the Secretary of Interior Stewart L. Udall at the First World 

Conference on Parks at Seattle, Washington, July 4, 1962,” University of Arizona Library, 

www.library.arizona.edu/branches/spc/homepage/index.html (accessed September 7, 2001), 20–

21. 

22 David R. Brower, “Environmental Activist, Publicist, and Prophet,” interview by Susan 

Schrepfer, 1980, Regional Oral History Office, Berkeley, California, in Cohen, History of the 

Sierra Club, 272. 23 “The Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore,” Joint statement of Senator Clair Engle and 

Representative Clem Miller, July 23, 1959, Box 2, NSFR, BAN, 1. This joint statement introduced 

the partner bills S. 2428 and H.R. 8358 to Congress. 

24 Engle and Miller, “Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore,” 2. 

25 Engle and Miller, “Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore,” 2. 

26 Engle and Miller, “Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore,” 3. 

27 Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Hearing on 

S. 2428, a Bill to Establish the Point Reyes National Seashore in the State of California and For 

Other Purposes; Kentfield, California, 86th Cong., 2d

 sess., 1960 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1960), 

8. 

28 “Seashore Plan Gets Administration O.K.,” Eugene Register-Guard, May 14, 1959, reprinted in 

Congressional Record, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 1959, 105, pt. 7: 8558. 

29 The NPS singled out Cumberland Island as an ideal site for a national seashore early in the 

survey process, but the complications of negotiating with various members of the Carnegie 

Family, who owned much of the island, put off the introduction of a separate Cumberland Island 

bill until 1970. Cumberland Island National Seashore was authorized in 1972. See Lary M. 

Dilsaver, Cumberland Island National Seashore: A History of Conservation Conflict 

(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004), 81–110. 

30 By 1959, legislators had introduced individual bills to create the Cape Cod, Oregon Dunes, and 

Padre Island national seashores and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. 

31 When the seashore surveys were first completed, Cumberland Island appeared to be one of the 

most likely areas to quickly attain national seashore status. Complexities in working with the local 

landowners, including a number of Carnegie family heirs, commercial resort developers, and the 

state of Georgia stalled the seashore campaign there. It was finally established in October 1972. 

See Dilsaver, Cumberland Island National Seashore, chap. 3. 32 Congressional Record, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 1959, 105, pt. 7: 13289. 33 Congressional Record, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 1959, 105, pt. 7: 13289. 34 Theodore J. Karamanski, A Nationalized Lakeshore: The Creation and Administration of 

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 2000), 1, and 

chap. 2. 

35 Miller to Bill Grader, March 5, 59, memorandum, Box 4, Clem Miller Papers, Bancroft Library, 

University of California, Berkeley, 15. 36 Azevedo, interview by Ann Lage, 171. 

37 “Group Organized to Campaign for Pt. Reyes Park,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 1959; 

“Foundation to Boost Park at Point Reyes,” Baywood Press, July 16, 1959, News Clippings 1958–

69, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA. 

38 Anna Coxe Toogood, “A Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point 

Reyes National Seashore,” 2 vols., Historic Resource Study, Historic Preservation Branch, Pacific 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

97

Northwest/Western Team, Denver Service Center, National Park Service, Department of the 

Interior, 1980, 2: 197. 

39 Miller to Castro, Marin County Board of Supervisors, July 9, 1959, Box 4, Miller Papers. 40 Notes of Meeting with Bruce Kelham, et al., at NPS Office on June 8, 1960, Folder Bruce 

Kelham et al., Mtg. Notes, Box 1, Administrative History Files, PRA. 

41 Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation, Minutes of Board Meeting of January 27, 1960, 

PRNSF, PRA, 2. 

42 Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation, Minutes of Board of Directors’ Meeting, February 

17, 1960, Kentfield, California, Foundation Minutes Folder, Box 1, PRNSF, PRA. 

43 George Collins to Paul Wilson, College of Marin, June 19, 1959, NPS Correspondence, Box 2, 

PRNSF, PRA, 1–2. 

44 Rothman, The Park that Creates Its Own Weather, 1:10. 45 Collins to Wilson, 3. 

46 B. K. Dunshee to Conrad Wirth, March 9, 1959, NPS Correspondence, Box 2, PRNSF, PRA. 

47 Fred Seaton to Wayne Aspinall, August 10, 1960, Box 2, PRNSF Files, PORE Archives. Udall 

strongly emphasized the view that a continuum of government agendas, legislative efforts, and 

political forces under-girded the creation of the national seashores, lakeshores, and wild and scenic 

rivers, as part of a “new wave” of American conservationism. Udall, interview. 48 “Pt. Reyes Park Plan: Hasty Marin Vote Protested,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 

1958, News Clippings 1958–69, NPS Administrative History, PORE 8053, PRA. 

49 “Surprise Marin Action: Pt. Reyes Park Plan Opposed,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 

17, 1958, News Clippings 1958–69, NPS Administrative History, PORE 8053, PRA. 

50 Harold Gilliam, interview by Paul Sadin, December 1, 2004, San Francisco, California, 

audiotape transcription, 9. Gilliam reported that Oko had been a captain of commercial vessels; he 

once sailed a load of Jewish refugees from Poland . . . into Israel.” 

51 A. S. Oko, quoted in “Meeting of the West Marin Property Owner’s Association,” July 9, 1959, 

Olema, California, transcript, Pt. Reyes Park File, Box 4, Clem Miller Papers, The Bancroft 

Library, University of California, Berkeley, 15. 

52 Statement by R. R. Pool, RCA, “Meeting of the West Marin Property Owner’s Association,” 

39–40. 

53 Boyd Stewart, “Point Reyes Rancher and Seashore Supporter,” interview by Ann Lage, 1990 in 

Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 236. 54 David Perlman, “Point Reyes Park Proposed,” Sierra Club Bulletin 43 (September 1958), 

editorial. 

55 Department of the Interior, Land Use Survey, Point Reyes National Seashore Proposal, prepared 

by NPS Region Four Office (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1961). 

56 “Coast Chamber Lines Up Against Park Plan,” Marin Independent-Journal, Aug. 13, 1958, 

News Clippings 1958–69, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA. 

57 Robert W. Righter, Crucible for Conservation: The Struggle for Grand Teton National Park 

(1982; reprint, Moose, Wyo.: Grand Teton Natural History Assoc., 2000), 140. 

58 Righter, Crucible for Conservation, 140. 

59 Conrad Wirth, “Statement Before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, on a 

Proposal to Establish a Point Reyes National Seashore,” Kentfield, California, April 14, 1960, Box 

2, NSFR, BAN, 4. 

60 Esther Hankins, quoted in “Pt. Reyes Seashore,” Marin Independent-Journal, August 23, 1961. 61 James Kehoe quoted in “Meeting of the West Marin Property Owners Association,” 7. 

62 Joseph Mendoza quoted in “Meeting of the West Marin Property Owners Association,” 29. 

63 As it turned out, the ranchers’ dire warnings about the potential dangers of the beach areas were 

quite accurate. See discussion in chapter 4. 

64 Kehoe quoted in “Meeting of the West Marin Property Owners Association,” 38. 

65 Don McIsaac quoted in “Meeting of the West Marin Property Owners Association,” 37. 

66 Oko quoted in “Meeting of the West Marin Property Owners Association,” 16. 

67 “Nunes Heads New Property Owners Association,” Baywood Press, July 31, 1958, News 

Clippings 1958–69, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA. The newspaper changed 

its name to the Pt. Reyes Light in 1966. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

98

68 “Pt. Reyes Seashore? No!” Marin (San Rafael) Independent-Journal, August 23, 1961, Folder 

Pt. Reyes Park, Carton 4, Miller Papers. 

69 Jules Dundes, “A Shrub by any Other Name . . . ,” transcript of editorial aired on KCBS Radio, 

San Francisco, July 26, 1961, Box 2, Accession C-A 362, Point Reyes National Seashore 

Foundation Records 1959–62, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 

70 Dundes, “A Shrub by any Other Name,” 2. 

71 “Save Pt. Reyes for Recreation,” San Francisco Sunday Chronicle, September 9, 1959, 

editorial, News Clippings 1958–69, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA. 

72 Secretary of Interior to Hubert B. Scudder, U.S. House, September 1958, Correspondence File 

Herbert Scudder to Conrad Wirth, Box 1, Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA. 

73 “Stewart L. Udall Oral History Interview II, June 19, 1969,” interview by Joe B. Franz, 

transcription, Lyndon B. Johnson Library Oral History Collection, 

www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/oralhistory.hom/Udall.asp, 16. 74 “Stewart L. Udall Oral History Interview II, June 19, 1969,” 17. 

75 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965, U.S. Code, vol. 16, sec. 4601. 76 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 1st sess., January 17, 1961, 107, pt. 1: 873. 77 Department of the Interior, NPS, Report on the Economic Feasibility of the Proposed Point 

Reyes National Seashore, 1961 (San Francisco: NPS Region Four Office, 1961), 10–11. 78 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 1st sess., January 17, 1961, 107, pt. 1: 873. 79 Udall, interview. 

80 Udall, interview. 

81 Stewart L. Udall, “The History-Making Upsurge of Conservation in the 1960s,” unpublished 

manuscript, February 2003, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Udall generously shared some of his recent 

writings with Sadin during a break in an oral history interview. 

82 President John F. Kennedy, “Special Message to Congress on Natural Resources,” February 23, 

1961, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, reprinted in “The American 

Presidency Project,” University of California at Santa Barbara, 

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index (accessed February 9, 2005). 83 Charles H. W. Foster, The Cape Cod National Seashore: A Landmark Alliance (Hanover, N.H.: 

University Press of New England, 1985), 64. 

84 Massachusetts senators Kennedy and Leverett Saltonstall cosponsored S. 2636, to authorize 

Cape Cod National Seashore, on September 3, 1959. Burling, Birth of Cape Cod National 

Seashore, 20. 85 Clem Miller to Joel Gustafson, PRNSF, February 20, 1961, Box 1, NSFR, BAN. 

86 Ben Thompson, Chief Division of Resource Planning, to Director Wirth, July 24, 1961, General 

Correspondence–1961 file, Box 9, Office Files of Conrad Wirth, RG 79, NARA-II. 

87 Wirth to Secretary Udall, July 28, 1961, Parks & Sites Files, CCF 1959–1963, Accession 

666A140, RG 48, NARA-II. 

88 Wirth to Udall, July 28, 1961, 2. 

89 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 1st sess., September 7, 1961, 107, pt. 14: 18460. 

90 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 1st sess., September 7, 1961, 107, pt. 14: 18460. 

91 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 1st sess., September 7, 1961, 107, pt. 14: 18463. 

92 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess., July 23, 1962, 108, pt. 2: 14409. 

93 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess., July 23, 1962, 108, pt. 2: 14413. 

94 One of the first publications to guide NPS practices with agricultural landscapes did not appear 

until 1984. Robert Z. Melnick, with Daniel Sponn and Emma Jane Saxe, Cultural Landscapes: 

Rural Historic Districts in the National Park System (Washington, D.C.: NPS Park Historic 

Architecture Division, 1984). 

95 Park Historic Structures and Landscapes Program, “Cultural Landscapes Program,” Department 

of the Interior, NPS, http://www.cr.nps.gov/phscl/cl.htm (accessed February 17, 2005). 96 “Report on Legislative History of Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 87th Congress,” prepared 

for Congressman Don Clausen’s office by Mima R. Pollitt, Atty., Washington, D.C., January 29, 

1971, Folder PRNS History, Box 2, PRNSF, PRA. 

97 John A. Carver, Jr., Asst. Secretary of Interior, to Robert L. Condon, Attny., Martinez, 

California, March 26, 1962, Point Reyes Files, Box 333, CCF 1959–63, RG 48, NARA-II. 
Legislative History of the Point Reyes National Seashore Act, 1958–1962 

99

98 Clem Miller to Walter R. Castro, Chair, Marin County Board of Supervisors, January 9, 1962, 

Box 4, Miller Papers. 

99 Miller to Rep. J. T. Rutherford, Chair of House Subcommittee on National Parks, January 18, 

1962, Box 4, Miller Papers. 

100 Azevedo, “Civic Leader and Save Our Seashore Board Member,” 171. 101 Congress, House Committee On Interior and Insular Affairs, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

Report to Accompany S. 476, 87th Congress, 2d

 sess., 1961, H. Rept. 1628. 102 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess., May 16, 1962, 108, pt. 6: 8501. Includes reprint of 

article in the San Rafael Independent-Journal, April 14, 1962. 103 Udall to Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, May 1, 1961, Parks & Sites Files, CCF 

1959–1963, Accession 666A140, RG 48, NARA-II. 

104 Udall to Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sacramento, May 1, 1961, Parks & Sites Files, CCF 

1959–1963, Accession 666A140, RG 48, NARA-II. 

105 Miller to Francis J. Hortig, State Lands Division, Los Angeles, January 24, 1962, Box 4, Miller 

Papers. 

106 Miller to Hortig, January 24, 1962. 107 Drakes Bay Land Company v. the United States, 424 Federal Reporter (F.) 2d

 (U.S. Ct. of 

Claims 1970). Under the authority of the Tucker Act, inverse condemnation cases such as this are 

filed before the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington D.C. 

108 Drakes Bay Land Company v. the United States, 587–88. 

109 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess., July 23, 1962, 108, pt. 2: 14410. 110 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess., July 23, 1962, 108, pt. 2: 14411. 111 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess., July 23, 1962, 108, pt. 2: 14411. 112 Robert C. McConnell, Assistant to the Secretary for Congressional Liaison, to Secretary Udall, 

July 24, 1962, Parks and Sites–Point Reyes, Box 333, CCF, RG 48, NARA-II. 

113 Carola DeRooy, “Balancing Preservation and Use: The Creation Story of Point Reyes National 

Seashore, 1935–1972,” Under the Gables (Winter 2002–2003): 1. According to Bill Duddleson, 

Senator Kuchel was invited to the signing but could not attend because of another commitment. 

Duddleson, correspondence with Gordon White, June 22, 2006. 

114 An Act to Establish the Point Reyes National Seashore in the State of California, Public Law 

657, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess. (September 13, 1962); U.S. Code, Vol. 16, secs. 459c-459c-7 (1962). 
100
101

CHAPTER FOUR
102
103

CHAPTER FOUR

SHAPING THE NATIONAL SEASHORE, 1962–1972 

A bright star in the galaxy of conservation achievements of the 1960s. 

. . . “Lady Bird” Johnson 

We must now join to eliminate the grave danger that the Park will not be completed or . . . 

its future will continue to totter precariously in the winds of uncertainty. 

. . . Douglas J. Maloney

hile the ink dried on the 1962 Seashore Act, NPS officials began the formidable job of 

administering Point Reyes National Seashore. Foremost among the necessary tasks was 

acquiring land to build an operational park unit where visitors could come to enjoy the 

peninsula’s tidal pools, sand dunes, grasslands, and forests. As they went about accruing 

the land base for the national seashore, Department of the Interior and Park Service 

officials also began hiring staff to oversee seashore operations, building basic 

infrastructure for employee and visitor use, assembling rudimentary visitor services, and 

installing visitor and resource protection operations. All these objectives would have to 

be accomplished through connections with area residents, conservation groups, 

politicians, and government officials, all of who held different stakes in the seashore’s 

management practices and outcomes. 

Administration of PRNS during its first decade thus involved on-the-ground 

construction—patching together the land base, building infrastructure, developing visitor 

services, and installing the ranger staff. The first park managers—in concert with local 

residents, park visitors, and the ever-growing environmental community—also engaged 

in a much more ephemeral process to define the very nature of a national seashore at 

Point Reyes. What kinds of visitor services should they provide? Swimming beaches or 

hiking trails? Golf courses or grassy meadows? Brochures on sportfishing or on birdwatching? 

On the heels of the PRNS authorization act, the NPS created policy that lumped Point 

Reyes and other new national seashores into the broad category of national recreation 

areas (NRAs). The NPS issued one set of management guidelines for NRA designees, 

and a different set of directives for the older, “traditional” national parks, monuments, 

and historic sites. During the 1960s, the NPS, working from its recreation area mindset, 

attempted to introduce developments to PRNS that local park supporters, conservation 

advocates, and, eventually, some PRNS administrators found unacceptable. Conflict and 

delays in building the seashore’s facilities and management strategies resulted. Protests 

regarding planned NPS and private developments, along with the continuing struggle to 

acquire land for the seashore, eventually launched the Save Our Seashore (SOS) 

campaign, which aimed to ward off various threats to the integrity, and possibly even the 

existence, of the national seashore. 

BUILDING A NEW SEASHORE

Less than one month after President Kennedy signed the Point Reyes bill, Assistant 

Secretary of the Interior John Carver wrote to George Collins that there was, “real 

W 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

104

immediacy in the matter of land acquisition, about which we have had so many 

discussions and communications.”1

 The NPS, in fact, had initiated the land acquisition 

process well before Congress passed the PRNS bill. Park Service officials, or 

representatives of NPS working through conservation organizations, began negotiating 

with landholders as early as 1960. One objective was to avoid paying inflated land prices 

for all of the seashore acreage. But uncertainties about the final language in the 

legislation and disagreements regarding the assessed value of the land left the 

negotiations in a state of flux until the PRNS bill became law. 

Once the Point Reyes authorization was official, the NPS employed various means of 

seashore land acquisition. The three primary avenues were outright purchase, acquiring 

title with reservations for ranchers to continue working the land, and exchange for federal 

lands of equal value elsewhere in California or an adjacent state. The task that lay ahead 

of them was daunting: in early 1963, there were 116 private parcels of land on the 

peninsula, as well as 115 lots at Drakes Beach already sold to owners. Of the nineteen 

parcels the government had appraised (the Drakes Beach lots were assessed as single 

parcel), NPS officials set their sights on three tracts in particular. They designated Heims, 

Bear Valley, and Lake ranches as key properties that could form the core land base for 

the new park. 

With the purchase of the Edward H. Heims Ranch, the government achieved the first of 

its objectives. The NPS acquired 1,115 acres of the former “N” Ranch for $850,000 on 

July 24, 1963.2

 The ranch sat on a small peninsula projecting into the middle of Drakes 

Estero, bordered by Schooner Bay to the west and Home Bay to the east. Heims had 

purchased this piece of the former Oscar L. Shafter estate in 1939, and ran a dairy farm 

and grazed sheep on the site for the next two decades.3

 In 1951, he sold five acres on 

Schooner Bay to Larry Jenson, who began an oyster raising operation on the site (current 

location of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company). Unlike most other ranchers on the 

peninsula, by 1962, the then-seventy-seven-year-old Heims and his family wanted to get 

out of the dairy business, and they saw the proposed national seashore as an opportunity 

to sell the property.4

 Conrad L. Wirth called the Heims Ranch a very important 

acquisition because it was part of the Drakes Estero biological province, and because it 

might provide a “break in [the ranchers’] apparently solid opposition” to selling their land 

to the government.5

The NPS accomplished the second of its land acquisition goals when it purchased 1,485 

acres of the Bear Valley Ranch from Bruce and Grace Kelham on October 1, 1963. As 

with the Heims parcel, the NPS had commenced negotiations with Bruce Kelham as early 

as 1960, believing the land to be of utmost importance to the seashore’s land base. 

Collins met with him on several occasions, with the initial thought that some kind of land 

exchange might be possible. The Kelhams, however, had no interest in an exchange; they 

were ready to move off the peninsula once they sold but wanted to ensure that their ranch 

would remain undisturbed by commercial development.6

 

The Kelhams had purchased the Bear Valley property, part of the “W” Ranch, from Gene 

Compton in 1949. Under Compton and an earlier owner, John Rapp, Bear Valley had 

been one of the more productive dairy farms on the peninsula; but the new owners did not 

intend to continue dairying. They quickly sold off the herd and tore down the dairy barn, 

and began a large beef cattle operation.7

 Aside from the dairy barn, they left intact most 

of the remaining ranch buildings, which dated from the 1880s to 1948. In addition to its 

eight decades as a dairy, the Bear Valley Ranch was also well known as a jumping off 

Acquisition of 

Heims and 

Bear Valley 

Ranches 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

105

point for treks to the beach. Bear Valley was a main access point for the long-used road 

that ran from the town of Olema to the coast. This made it a key acquisition in order to 

provide public access to the seashore. 

The Kelham purchase also incorporated the site of the former Pacific Union (Bear 

Valley) Country Club, which sat astride Divide Meadow on Inverness Ridge, along the 

road to the coast. The country club had been in use from the 1890s until the 1940s, and 

represented one of the historic patterns of tourist and recreational use of the peninsula.8

Had the NPS gone forward, within the framework of the recreation area category, with 

the full-bore development plans for PRNS, the agency might have put the golf course 

back into operation for public use. Instead, all that exists there today is an open, grassy 

knoll, reached in a relatively easy, mile-and-a-half hike up the old road from Bear Valley. 

Thick forest surrounds the area, which includes exotic plants and trees introduced in the 

early 1900s.9

The remaining ranch structures became government property as well, including the house 

that today serves as the park’s administration building and the red barn that houses the 

park library, archives, and administrative offices of the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration’s Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. The NPS 

wasted no time in making use of the structures: PRNS headquarters and staff housing 

were set up at Bear Valley Ranch soon after its purchase in 1963. In 1963, the 

government also purchased parcels of Drakes Beach Estates and Church of the Golden 

Rule land. The seashore acquired 148 acres of another key property, Limantour Spit, and 

1,200 of Bolema Palisades via government taking. At the end of the year, the new 

national seashore comprised 7,109 acres of the Point Reyes Peninsula.10

The NPS acquired approximately 11,396 more acres in 1964–1965, including the 

remaining two parcels of the Bear Valley Ranch. The total cost of the 7,772-acre ranch 

was $5.725 million.11 In 1965, PRNS also assumed title to 10,410 acres of tidal lands 

donated by the State of California. The only other significant acquisition during those two 

years was a 958-acre portion of Thomas Gallagher’s “F” Ranch, which sat across 

Schooner Bay from the Heims Ranch. The Gallaghers used the property as grazing land 

for beef cattle, which they continued to run after the sale via an NPS special-use permit.12

The NPS purchased the remaining 1,714 acres of the “F” Ranch in 1965 and 1967. By the 

end of 1965, the first stage of land acquisition had ended. The NPS had obtained 

approximately 18,500 acres of former ranch or residential land and 10,400 acres of tidal 

fringe to build the new national seashore. But the government had spent almost the entire 

$14 million appropriation in acquiring them. More than 30,000 acres of the proposed 

seashore remained to be purchased (including Lake Ranch), but acquisitions stalled until 

Congress made more funds available in 1970. 

The NPS attempted to acquire the third of its three target properties, Lake Ranch, via an 

exchange process such as that offered early on to the Kelhams for Bear Valley. The 

ranch’s two parcels included 3,050 acres of forests, lakes, grassland, and beachfront at 

the southern end of Point Reyes. Its nearly two miles of coastal bluffs and beaches were 

very scenic and an active breeding area for seals. Furthermore, Lake Ranch was one of 

only a few properties that stretched the width of the peninsula, from the ocean to Olema 

Valley; failure to acquire it would thus cut the proposed national seashore into north and 

south sections. The NPS and local conservationists believed the ranch to be one of the 

most valuable pieces of the entire (proposed) seashore and also recognized that it was 

Land 

Acquisition 

Phase Two: 

Lake Ranch 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

106

highly desirable private real estate. Acquiring the property thus became crucial to 

creation of the seashore. 

Lake Ranch, which William Tevis purchased in 1940, was one of two ranches in the 

southern parcel of Shafter’s 1939 estate. Tevis incorporated Lake Ranch and some other 

peninsula properties to form the Tevis Land and Livestock Company, which operated the 

property as cattle range during the 1940s and 1950s.13 Although the Tevis Company 

owned the property, the NPS had begun negotiating a possible land exchange with A. H. 

Sweet, who held the timber rights, as early as 1960, with the idea that Sweet would 

purchase the ranch from Tevis, then sell it back to the NPS. The government could make 

equal-value exchanges under authority of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Section 8(b) of 

the act allowed federal agencies to make land exchanges for surveyed public land of 

equal value in the same state or in a fifty-mile radius within an adjoining state.14 The 

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) generally took the role of realty broker in these 

exchanges. 

In February 1961, Sweet filed an application with the BLM to exchange Lake Ranch 

parcels for timberland elsewhere in California. BLM and NPS appraisers, however, 

differed in their estimates of the property by more than one million dollars. A third party, 

the chief appraiser for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, reviewed both estimates and agreed 

with the higher NPS valuation of $2,026,550. A second conflict arose over the value of 

the public domain timberland that Sweet had selected for the exchange. This time, Sweet 

hired his own appraisers, who came up with an estimate that again differed dramatically 

from the BLM figures. The discrepancy could not be resolved before the terms of the 

proposed agreement expired in August 1963.15 These events showed how complicated 

and contentious the land exchange process could become, and cast doubt on the NPS 

strategy to acquire land via this method. Assistant Secretary of Interior Carver, in fact, 

had foreseen some of these difficulties, and warned Collins in 1962 not to get his hopes 

up regarding potential land exchanges at Point Reyes.16

Although early rounds of negotiation failed to produce results, Sweet went ahead and 

purchased Lake Ranch from the Tevis Company, and entered an agreement to purchase 

546 acres of Boyd Stewart’s adjacent property. Sweet also arranged for the Sweet 

Lumber Company, a partnership in which he held a 14 percent stake, to purchase the 

timber rights to the two pieces of acquired property.17 Although Sweet made these 

purchases anticipating an exchange for public domain lands elsewhere, he was also 

willing to sell all of his holdings, with the timber rights included, to the government for a 

total of $2.5 million. The price represented property values of $660 an acre for 

pastureland and $810 an acre for forestland.18 The NPS also explored the possibility of 

finding an intermediary landholder such as The Nature Conservancy to purchase lands 

most at risk for development, and hold them in trust until the government released 

sufficient funds to buy those properties. In the meantime, the county could provide a tax 

exemption to the nonprofit organization. 

Collins believed Sweet was genuinely determined “to save this opportunity for the public 

to acquire the property he now controls” at a more reasonable cost to the government 

than other options would offer.19 Nonetheless, Collins also recognized that Sweet had put 

himself in a situation where, should the government fail to come to a purchase agreement 

with him soon, his good intentions would be no match for tremendous financial pressure 

to sell the property elsewhere. At that point, Collins well knew, land speculators would 

swoop in and buy the property at higher prices. The government would then be left with 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

107

the dismal prospect of buying the same property Sweet was offering them, but at highly 

inflated prices. 

In July 1964, Sweet proposed another exchange for Lake Ranch, this time under the 

terms of the PRNS Authorization Act. NPS realty officers had already approached BLM 

officials in Oregon regarding properties that might be available for exchange. Sweet filed 

to exchange his land for selected BLM forest acreage in Northern California and in 

Southern Oregon. As word of the proposal spread, it generated opposition from the 

BLM’s Oregon state office and some elements of the Northwest timber industry. Further 

conflict erupted over the value of the proposed lands, the allowable harvest rates, and the 

propriety of the government’s role in such exchanges. Overt arguments and invectivefilled correspondence ensued between the BLM director in Washington, D.C., and the 

local BLM chief in Oregon.20 By mid-fall 1964, it was clear the chances for the NPS to 

negotiate a successful exchange for Lake Ranch had become nil. 

Moreover, problems that beset the Sweet proposal soon roiled the waters for other 

potential exchanges. The Portland Oregonian ran a divisive piece about the 

government’s land acquisition policy for Point Reyes and other NPS sites. As more 

controversy gathered around the Sweet proposal in Oregon, the likelihood that the NPS 

could facilitate other exchanges further diminished. Despite numerous applications, only 

two exchanges were consummated in three years.21 Only one of these, a 1964 exchange 

of 1,407 acres of peninsula land for 6,800 acres in Arizona, added significantly to the size 

of PRNS.22

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the $14 million figure for Point Reyes land 

purchases was deemed adequate only if three general presumptions held true: 1) the land 

would be purchased quickly, 2) a sizable amount of land would be obtained through 

exchanges, and 3) the ranchers would hold onto their land in the “doughnut hole” until 

future funding became available. By 1966, it was apparent that none of these had worked 

out as planned. By that time, $13.8 of the 14 million to purchase land was gone, yet the 

majority of the planned acreage remained to be acquired. In July, the Department of the 

Interior requested that Congress raise the ceiling on Point Reyes land acquisition costs 

from $14 to 57.5 million.23 

This failure to execute land acquisition strategies lay, in part, at the feet of the 

congressional construction of the founding Act. However, it should not be construed as 

evidence of congressional ignorance or naïveté. As evidenced by Kyl’s vocal resistance 

to hidden costs in the original bill, some legislators knew they had not allocated enough 

to purchase all of the land for the seashore. Clem Miller knew that $14 million would not 

be nearly enough. In a 1961 Senate subcommittee hearing on the authorization bill (S. 

476), he pointed out the “ridiculous nature” of the early estimates, noting that “$35 

million would not be too great a sum to pay for this invaluable area.”24 As Representative 

J. T. Rutherford argued during the final rounds of House floor debate on S. 476, should 

the $14 million figure turn out to be too small, “We will come back to the House and ask 

for more. This is substantially the way it should be.”25 In other words, the 87th Congress 

intentionally left responsibility in the hands of future legislators. They expected, if the 

three assumptions that the $14 million estimate rested upon did not work out, that 

Congress and the Interior Department would have to continue the struggle to raise money 

to acquire land, as well as establish guidelines, regulations, and management plans, for all 

of the new seashore units. Which leaves historians and other interested parties to ask: 

Why did Congress then drop the ball after the seashore was authorized? 

Lost 

Opportunities 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

108

There were many reasons 

the struggle to obtain land 

and appropriations seemed 

to lag so much during the 

following five or six years, 

a key time for any new unit 

of the park system. Part of 

this process was the 

inevitable inclination to 

ease up after achieving a 

long-sought goal. In the 

case of Congress, attention 

immediately shifted to the 

next round of national 

seashore and national 

recreation area proposals. 

However, unlike the 

scenario that other new 

parks faced, a series of 

tragic events robbed the 

Point Reyes National 

Seashore campaign of much of its strength, fortitude, and leadership soon after S. 476 

became law. Within two years, the primary champions of Point Reyes legislation in the 

House, Senate, and White House had all died. Though it is impossible to measure the 

effect these untimely deaths had upon the development of Point Reyes National Seashore, 

it would likewise be hard to 

underestimate the impact they had on the 

new park and its supporters. 

Clem Miller, the prime mover in the 

legislative effort to create the seashore, 

died in a private plane crash in October 

1962, just three weeks after the Point 

Reyes Act became law. Among the 

initial acquisitions at Point Reyes was a 

small parcel along the coast that became 

Miller’s gravesite, an unusual action on 

NPS land, but one that honored the 

legislator who sponsored the first PRNS 

bill.26 President Kennedy, of course, was 

assassinated in Dallas in November 

1963. This left Clair Engle, Miller’s 

partner in the Point Reyes campaign and 

sponsor of the seashore legislation in the 

Senate, to continue the task of 

advocating and securing funds for the 

proper development of PRNS. Engle, 

however, suffered a partially debilitating stroke in spring 1964. Although he returned to 

his office and began preparations for a reelection campaign, Engle could not tackle all the 

Senate work he had performed before his illness. A second stroke in 1964 did additional Record No. 8820. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

First Lady Mrs. Johnson speaking at the Point Reyes National 

Seashore dedication ceremony, 1966. Record No. 12020. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS.

Mrs. Johnson on Point Reyes National Seashore establishment 

day, 1966. 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

109

damage from which he never recovered; Engle died that summer. Several years passed 

before another group of California legislators took up the Point Reyes cause. 

Nonetheless, the NPS had successfully acquired a portion of the envisioned seashore 

acreage. In acknowledgement, the NPS held the official dedication ceremony for Point 

Reyes National Seashore on October 20, 1966. Lady Bird Johnson performed the official 

dedication duties. In her dedication speech, Johnson called Point Reyes "a bright star in 

the galaxy of conservation achievements of the 1960s."27 Bright, indeed, but not yet fully 

achieved. 

The national seashore was a new type of operating unit within the national park system, 

and few precedents existed for the operations of PRNS. Congress had authorized Cape 

Cod National Seashore just one year earlier. Although the NPS would adopt some of 

Cape Cod’s operating strategies for other seashores, the tasks and management objectives 

initiated there were not always applicable to the situation at Point Reyes. The regional 

office and the first superintendents had to determine which areas of the peninsula were 

appropriate for visitor use and facilities development, and which resources were best left 

undisturbed. The key to their struggle lay in the question of whether PRNS was to be 

primarily a natural area, a recreational area, or a unique combination of the two. 

The NPS hierarchy was quick to weigh in on this question. Just two weeks after PRNS 

was authorized, Secretary of the Interior Udall sent a letter to the NPS Advisory Board on 

National Parks, Monuments, and Historic Sites, asking them to come up with a plan that 

would delineate between the management of the older parks and monuments and the 

newer NRAs and national seashores. The advisory board formed a special committee to 

address his directive. The special committee, which included Conrad Wirth and Harold 

Fabian (chair of the main advisory board), met on December 5, 1962.28

In his opening statement, Stanley A. Cain, chair of the special committee, explained that 

the body’s charge was to respond to Udall’s idea of reorganizing the National Park 

Service “to make very clear the distinction between the traditional functions of the 

Service and the newer and often very different ones that are primarily recreation 

related.”29 Cain emphasized that the Park Service should make every effort “to keep the 

concept of the national parks clean and uncluttered if their prime values are to be 

guarded.” He reiterated the point that there were major differences between the qualities 

and objectives of the traditional (in other words, pre-1961) park sites and those of “newtype” NPS sites such as recreation areas, national seashores, and national parkways. The 

central difference, according to Cain, lay in the fact that whereas older units were 

“resources-oriented under a basic policy of preservation of natural and original 

conditions,” the new areas were “activity-oriented.”30

The special committee’s recommendations encompassed a wide range of strategies. The 

committee proposed that new NRAs be placed within the NPS, as the Park Service was 

the agency “most appropriate” to manage these areas. The committee called for a 

reorganization of the Park Service into two administrative lines, representing the older 

and newer generation of parks. The recommendations were to be submitted to the 

advisory board for final approval at its next meeting. Cain concluded the committee’s 

recommendations by noting (bemusedly) that they had the effect of “converting the 

National Park Service to a National Park and Recreation Service, and might as well be 

called such.”31 The advisory board essentially affirmed the core of the special 

committee’s proposals at its annual meeting in March 1963. There likely was little 

Defining the 

National 

Seashores 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

110

suspense about the outcome given that the special committee had included Wirth and 

Fabian. 

At first glance, Udall, Wirth, and the advisory board appeared to be reacting to the influx 

of new seashore and recreational sites in the same way nativist groups historically called 

for separation and purity whenever a large tide of new immigration hit their shores. Thus, 

Cain’s imperative to the NPS that the national park concept remain “clean and 

uncluttered.” But Udall, Wirth, and other Interior Department administrators had 

responded mainly to the recent creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (BOR). 

Changes in the federal bureaucracy at that time help explain what prompted the NPS to 

adopt such a black-or-white strategy for managing its diverse palette of operating units. 

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the work of the Outdoor Recreation Resources 

Review Commission (ORRRC)—a 1958 manifestation of the outdoor recreation 

movement—led to the establishment of the BOR. Although the authorizations of Point 

Reyes and Padre Island national seashores were contemporaneous with the publication of 

the ORRRC’s 1962 report, Outdoor Recreation in America, the former were not an 

outcome of the latter. The NPS seashore studies of the 1950s, which laid the groundwork 

for the creation of the seashores, were already completed by the time President Dwight D. 

Eisenhower signed the act creating the ORRRC in 1958, and well before the commission 

launched its National Recreation Survey.32 Nonetheless, Outdoor Recreation in America

would have a large impact on the management of this new “category” of NPS sites during 

the 1960s. The ORRRC report called for the creation of a new entity, independent from 

the existing land management agencies, to oversee recreational resource planning in the 

United States. The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (BOR) was the result. The NPS and 

Wirth suddenly found themselves in a position of having to compete with another federal 

organization for new recreation areas and limited recreation dollars. This prompted the 

NPS to widen the scope of its recommendations for new seashore and lakeshore 

recreation sites.33

Ronald A. Foresta has pointed out that the BOR’s creation was a political “blow” to the 

Park Service, which believed ORRRC’s proposal was a “thinly veiled condemnation of 

the agency for failing to discharge its recreation responsibilities.”34 As a new agency 

within the Department of the Interior, BOR began to compete with the NPS for potential 

recreation area sites and for recreation-related appropriations. The ORRRC also 

proposed, and President Kennedy subsequently created in April 1962, a Recreational 

Advisory Council that was to coordinate the outdoor recreation policies of all federal 

agencies.35 For Wirth and his staff, this was an obvious intrusion into an area where the 

Park Service had long held jurisdiction. But the political heft of the advisory council, 

which included half of the president’s cabinet, meant that its recommendations required 

the attention, if not the full cooperation, of the NPS.36

In March 1963, the Recreational Advisory Council released “Policy Circular No. 1.” In it, 

the council laid out a new outdoor recreation policy for all agencies, with the key 

stipulation that all national recreation sites (including NPS national seashores) be 

accessible at all times for “all-purpose recreational use.”37 To make the point even 

clearer, it asserted that agency management of NRAs should be more responsive to 

recreational demands than to other such considerations as “preserving unique natural or 

historical resources.”38 The NPS was left with little choice but to heed these stipulations, 

even if they seemed to violate congressional mandates found in the recent national 

seashore acts. In response, the advisory board decided to create separate operating units 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

111

and management goals for NPS natural and historic areas, on the one hand, and for the 

broad category of recreation areas, on the other. 

Udall made official the new categories in his July 10, 1964, memorandum to new NPS 

director George B. Hartzog, Jr. Udall outlined the prescribed management policies for the 

recreational area category: “Outdoor recreation shall be recognized as the dominant or 

primary resource management objective.” Resource use would emphasize “active 

participation in outdoor recreation in a pleasing environment.”39 Hartzog, who had 

stepped into the director post earlier that year, heartily approved of the changes. Soon 

after his appointment, Hartzog announced the new policy directive that lumped parks into 

one of three different categories—natural, historic, and recreational—and created 

separate management guidelines for each. In his Battling for the National Parks, Hartzog 

wrote that the NPS started developing a divergent set of management practices for 

recreation areas in the 1930s. He was referring to the NPS management of public 

recreation at the Bureau of Reclamation reservoir sites. At that time, Hartzog pointed out, 

the NPS did not even list these recreation sites as part of the national park system, 

making the jurisdictional identification confusing for the public. Accordingly, Hartzog 

thought the move to create a separate category with different management principals for 

NRAs was “a brilliant solution to a real dilemma.”40

In 1964, the NPS produced three management manuals that corresponded with each new 

category. One of the manuals, with the cumbersome title of Compilation of the 

Administrative Policies for the National Recreation Areas, National Seashores, National 

Lakeshores, National Parkways, National Scenic Riverways (Recreational Area 

Category) of the National Park System, spelled out the official NPS line for managing the 

new Point Reyes National Seashore.41 Because of the long titles, NPS staff began to refer 

to each of the three Administrative Policies handbooks by the color of their covers; thus 

PRNS administrators dealt with management directives from the “blue book,” referring to 

the cover of Administrative Policies for the National Recreation Areas. In addition to the 

long-winded title of the book, the recreation-area policies would also prove unwieldy for 

the first generation of PRNS administrators to implement. 

Unfortunately, instead of clarifying management planning the Administrative Policies

guidebook created additional ambiguities. It spelled out what were supposed to be 

uniform management strategies for all parks in the recreation-area category, but also 

contained statements that, in the case of Point Reyes, appeared quite contradictory: “The 

policies laid down by the Congress for the management of any particular recreation area 

may be found in the legislation establishing that area . . . . Of direct relevance, too, is the 

intent of Congress as disclosed in the hearings and reports on the legislation.”42 Even 

though the new nomenclature put Point Reyes and other national seashores in the 

“recreational area” category, the PRNS founding legislation made clear that the 

seashore’s purpose included protection and preservation of the significant natural and 

historic values found on the peninsula. 

In Our National Park System, historian Dwight F. Rettie has observed that as NPS 

personnel gained increased knowledge and understanding regarding “resource 

interdependencies” and ecological relationships they gradually gave less credence to the 

three categories and felt less restricted by their management guidelines.43 Doug Nadeau, 

team leader in planning the 1972 PRNS general management plan (GMP), remembered 

that the team paid little attention to the dictates of the recreation area category in 1970 as 

they prepared the new management plan.44 Although it did not do away with the manuals, 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

112

the General Authorities Act of 1970 began the legal unraveling of the three management 

categories. In the act, Congress mandated that the various types of NPS units, “though 

distinct in character, are united through their inter-related purposes and resources into one 

national park system as cumulative expressions of a single national heritage; that, 

individually and collectively, these areas derive increased national dignity and 

recognition of their superlative environmental quality through their inclusion jointly with 

each other in one national park system preserved and managed for the benefit and 

inspiration of all the people of the United States.”45 Within a decade of their introduction, 

park officials had little use for the three management manuals. 

In 1975, the NPS issued a new policy manual that framed park management based on a 

more nuanced understanding of the specific resource types and management zones within 

each park unit, instead of the previous three-sizes-fits-all classification of NPS sites. 

Director William J. Whalen officially dismantled the three-category distinctions in 

1977.46 Congress bolstered his decision in the Redwoods Act of 1978, which included an 

amendment to the General Authorities Act declaring the “regulation of the various areas 

of the National Park System, . . . shall be consistent with and founded in the purpose 

established by the [Organic Act] to the common benefit of all the people of the United 

States.”47 Finally, the 1980 NPS Management Policies produced a systemwide change in 

overall policy and management. 

But during the 1960s and early 1970s, the NPS recreation area policies made a significant 

impact at Point Reyes, as well as at the other new seashores, in part because the agency 

introduced the categories just as the seashore was building its administration and 

developing its management plans. As NPS historian Stephanie S. Toothman has pointed 

out, the tripartite administrative categories could “obscure from both NPS personnel and 

the general public the diversity of resources—natural, cultural, and recreational—that 

each of these areas contains.”48 Moreover, at Point Reyes, the management objectives in 

the new administrative manuals did not reflect the legislative intent of the PRNS Act. 

This dichotomy explains some of the management conflicts that took place at PRNS in 

the 1960s. National and regional NPS officials often spoke from the recreation-area 

mindset when they announced directives for the national seashore. In implementing those 

directives, however, Point Reyes administrators gradually began to display a more 

complex understanding of the seashore’s original mission and objectives. Moreover, the 

development objectives outlined in the initial NPS master plan for Point Reyes bore the 

stamp of the recreation area designation. 

Master plans had been a standard element of administering national park units since the 

early 1930s.49 Usually, a planning team composed of a regional landscape architect, an 

NPS regional planner (often an engineer), the park superintendent, and sometimes other 

officials, surveyed an area and produced the master plan (MP) without public or staff 

review of the document. The seashore’s first MP, released in 1964, was typical of the 

generic “package” plans that veteran NPS planners and landscape architects produced 

during the 1950s and early 1960s.50 In this case, the “package team” that prepared and 

reviewed the plan included PRNS project manager James E. Cole and incoming 

superintendent Fred W. Binnewies. 

1964 Master 

Plan 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

113

Drawing NS-PR 3019, PRNS Archives 

1963 PRNS Master Plan sheet showing planned developments for Bear Valley, Limantour Estero, and Drakes Beach. Also note proposed road running along 

Drakes Bay from Limantour to Double Point. 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

114

Designs included in the Point Reyes MP also manifested the new NPS recreation area 

rubric, leading Bill Duddleson to conclude that it was, “essentially a set of development 

blueprints oriented to conventional recreation activities and the automobile.”51 The 

master plan’s “Visitor Use Plan” featured seven central recreational developments, 

roughly in order of location from north to south, at Tomales Beach, Bear Valley, 

Limantour Estero, Drakes Beach, Point Reyes Cove, “Highland” (near the site of current 

Glen Camp), and Double Point.52 It also designated McClures Beach and Point Reyes 

Beach as underdeveloped recreation sites for beach activities. In 1964, a five-year 

projection of park construction activities, based on the master plan’s development 

objectives, called for building fifty miles of new roads, and reconstructing or widening 

twenty-two miles of existing roads on the peninsula.53 The projected budget for the 

roadwork, which would take place from 1966 to 1968, came to more than $3 million. 

The central piece of the NPS plan for Point Reyes eventually became its most 

controversial element, revealing the underlying tension between NPS recreation area 

policies vs. the legislative intent and public conception of the PRNS Act. The plan called 

for construction of an extensive recreational center for swimming, boating, and other 

recreation at Limantour Spit. The spit is a two-and-a-half-mile-long finger of sand that 

lies in an east-west orientation, parallel to the peninsula headlands. Ocean waves from 

Drakes Bay break upon the southern side of the spit, while the still water of Limantour 

Estero laps at its northern (inland) shore. Sand dunes, beach grasses, and a few pine trees 

comprise its visual landscape. In a few places, ocean storm waters had breached the spit, 

leaving areas of low-lying sand flats, hummocks, and marshes in their wake. A lone 

roadway to the area served residents of the seven private homes built upon the spit prior 

to PRNS authorization. 

NPS planners sought to make Limantour the primary visitor use site for the national 

seashore, targeting it for “intensive recreational use.”54 As such, the MP for the 

Limantour Spit and Estero included a large beach/recreation center, boardwalk 

promenades, concession facilities, multiple parking lots with spaces for 2,400 vehicles, 

boat dock, fishing pier, and operations facilities. The architectural design for the project 

called for facilities that reflected “the holiday mood of the recreation functions of the 

area.”55 The plan suggested, on the one hand, that facilities would blend in with the 

surrounding environment, but, on the other hand, that new structures would “dominate 

the area” and handle great crowds of people. Depending upon the final scale of the 

development, the NPS estimated the Limantour recreation facilities could accommodate 

from 25,000 to 50,000 visitors at a time.56

The most expansive, expensive, and controversial piece of the Limantour development 

involved a plan to dredge a major portion of the estuary, construct a dam at its inlet, and 

use the dredged material to fill a portion of the marshlands and mudflats for a large 

parking area—all to create a warm-water swimming and boating area with a 2,300-footlong sandy beach. Planners anticipated that the beach alone would provide room for a 

“beach population” of 5,000 people.57 The 1966 Point Reyes budget included more than 

half a million dollars to complete the Limantour dredging and dam construction. From 

today’s perspective it seems astounding that the first major NPS development at the 

seashore involved dredging the Limantour Estero, when just two years earlier Clem 

Miller and Stewart Udall fought, via multiple political channels, to stop a dredging 

project at Drakes Bay because it posed a threat to the natural qualities of Point Reyes. 

The Limantour proposal reveals the awkward juxtaposition of NPS recreation area 

Limantour 

Estero 

Development 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

115

policies and the congressional intent of the PRNS Act. Indeed, the MP included an 

alternate, but similarly intrusive, plan drawn up for Drakes Beach.58

Fortunately for conservation groups and environmental activists who opposed the 

Limantour development, there were immediate project delays due to public access and 

land acquisition issues. The NPS first delayed the project in mid-1965, to await the 

outcome of a condemnation proceeding over land at the far end of the spit, where five 

privately owned lots and one house stood. The NPS further delayed the project because 

the private road to the area was not yet open to the public. The road built for Drakes Bay 

Estates residents was the public’s only means of reaching the beach by car. The 

government sought to purchase a larger ownership share of the right-of-way, but some 

residents opposed opening the road to public use. Seashore staff, in fact, often found the 

road chained shut. In one case, a resident went so far as to chain the road closed and post 

an “armed guard” to prevent further public access.59

Although a total of $517,400 was already in the budget for the Limantour dredging 

project in 1966, the acquisition and right-of-way problems forced the NPS to push back 

the dredging operation until 1967.60 PRNS administrators shifted some of the Limantour 

project money to cover a wider range of basic, but much needed, facilities for visitors 

who were arriving “by the thousands” at Drakes Beach and Point Reyes Beach.61 The 

new facilities included a water-supply system and restrooms at the two beaches, as well 

as an access road, campground, and trailhead parking lot in Bear Valley. PRNS 

Superintendent Leslie P. Arnberger suggested that the NPS use the additional time to 

engage a study of the “feasibility and desirability of dredging the lagoon.”62 The seashore Drawing NS-PR 3019, PRNS Archives

Blowup of sheet from 1963 PRNS Master Plan, showing location and construction schedule for proposed developments 

at Limantour Spit. 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

116

contracted with the newly established Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO) to prepare 

the study, the first of much collaboration between PRNS and PRBO. 

The Limantour project was again postponed and eventually halted by disparate forces at 

work in the mid- to late 1960s. Protests by conservationists who cherished the seashore as 

a pristine natural area, growing political awareness within the conservation community, 

and changes in federal laws that mandated more stringent protection of the coastal 

environment all contributed to the delays. In addition, Point Reyes administrators began 

to recognize that the biological and aesthetic values of the Limantour area might outstrip 

its potential for recreational use. In fact, between 1965 and 1970, three different 

superintendents made comments about the Limantour project that revealed a gradual shift 

toward understanding first the biological, and then the ecological value of the Limantour 

area. These statements represent changing perspectives within the entire agency during 

that short time span. 

When PRBO released its first Limantour study in summer 1966, it made a significant 

impact among PRNS administrators and staff, casting doubt on the suitability of such a 

large-scale development project at the site. Citing the PRBO study, Arnberger told the 

regional director to question “the wisdom and propriety of dredging a portion of the 

estero.”63 He noted the study had revealed “the outstanding avian resources of the area 

and the importance of protecting the habitat if this resource is to be preserved.” 

Moreover, the study showed the highest concentration of bird activity was in the upper 

end of the estuary, the very section that would be dredged and altered under the present 

plan.64 Arnberger suggested the regional office prioritize a new planning study for the 

Limantour Spit. 

The regional office adopted Arnberger’s suggestion, and a year later produced a report 

entitled, “Ecological Evaluation of the Limantour Spit and Estero.” New Superintendent 

Edward Kurtz commented that the report made it clear that if the NPS dammed the 

estuary, “the ecological loss would be of major proportions,” an assessment which Kurtz 

thought overstated the potential for environment damage.65 An NPS special program 

paper that came out in 1967 informed him that it seemed “unwise to destroy estuaries, at 

least at this time.”66 Accordingly, Kurtz recommended the NPS postpone construction 

work at Limantour for several more years. R. B. Moore, the assistant regional director in 

San Francisco, agreed with Kurtz’s decision, but was more vociferous in his arguments 

against the project. Moore reiterated the ecological evaluation’s conclusion that the 

project would destroy much of natural habitat, and added, “in the case of the black brant, 

one more area ruined [by human development] as natural habitat could conceivably alter 

the total brant population by a considerable percentage, their numbers being so small.67

The Limantour development was still under consideration when the park began work on a 

new master plan in 1970. However, the lens through which planners viewed the 

development showed that a growing environmental consciousness and new 

environmental regulations had infiltrated NPS study and planning. A study done in 

preparation for the GMP inquired, “How can the importance and vulnerability of the 

ornithological marine communities of Limantour Estero be reconciled with the intensive 

development the plan proposes for that location?”68 Moreover, the study questioned 

whether “expansion of seashore facilities [should] continue ad infinitum to meet 

demand?”69 In response to public concern about potential disturbance to the beauty and 

biological integrity of the Limantour area, Superintendent John L. Sansing believed the 

NPS would eventually remove all roads and houses from the spit, in order to provide 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

117

greater protection for the “estuary ecosystem.”70 Sansing’s statement represented a 

different approach to public use of the estuary than the NPS had originally conceived. His 

use of the term ecosystem to define the value of this resource also reflected a different 

understanding of the natural world at Point Reyes. 

In the midst of discussions regarding the new Point Reyes GMP, Robert S. Luntey, NPS 

resource planning chief, stated the NPS objective should be a plan that encouraged broad 

public use and recognized “the outstanding natural features and our responsibility to 

preserve this quality and character of Point Reyes.”71 The new GMP, in fact, could reflect 

“a pre-planned balance between preservation and development.”72 Luntey saw the new 

GMP as an opportunity to manage the seashore according to the recreational and natural 

values of each particular area within its boundaries, rather than a one-size-fits-all 

category to determine future management of the peninsula. To simplify the planning 

process, however, he suggested the NPS “visualize” visitor use as falling into two broad 

categories, which he called active and passive recreation.73 The recreation area 

framework was no longer the sole source used to guide NPS management and 

administration strategies for Point Reyes. 

The federal government’s recreation area mindset also manifested itself in planning road 

development of the seashore area. The Bureau of Public Roads, with assistance from the 

NPS Western Office of Design and Construction, completed an engineering feasibility 

survey of possible entrance roads for the national seashore in June 1963.74 The final 

report recommended a four-lane, divided highway through Haggerty Gulch to the ocean 

beaches. Their design required heavy grading work and a 2,000-foot tunnel through 

Inverness Ridge. The mammoth construction project would cost a projected $5,715,000.75

The price tag and grand scale of the proposed highway matched the expansiveness of the 

Limantour development. The four-lane road would help speed the anticipated 25,000 

thousand beachgoers to the Limantour swimming “pool,” their intended destination. 

Interior Department officials, who historically have held philosophical differences from 

their federal colleagues at Public Roads, questioned the engineering, cost, and 

appropriateness of the highway. 

Edward Weinberg, deputy solicitor of the Department of the Interior, pointed out several 

problems with the road in a 1965 report of his own. He noted the road followed a route 

shown in the 1961 Land Use Survey, laid out without detailed maps or the input of 

engineers.76 Weinberg suggested the 1961 survey on which the Public Roads report had 

based its plan was never intended to designate a specific road location; it only indicated a 

“possible corridor” for a future roadway. He also warned that the proposed tunnel was 

located just a one-half mile from the San Andreas Fault, despite the fact that the Bureau 

of Public Roads had made no geologic studies to determine the composition of Inverness 

Ridge or assess the risk of a tunnel collapse in case of an earthquake. The proposed route, 

he said, would not only be too expensive but would also scar the landscape of Inverness 

Ridge—one of the areas that legislators and conservationists had battled to include within 

the seashore boundaries. Weinberg suggested a longer route that was more economical, 

less damaging, and better suited to construction as a two-lane road.77

Despite the concerns, the NPS continued with its road construction plans. In October 

1966, Congress authorized for acquisition of the right-of-way in Public Law 89–666.78

Seashore administration awarded a construction contract for the roadwork in June 1967; 

construction of the roadbed began soon afterwards. Crews completed the wide, heavily 

engineered first section of the road to the top of Inverness Ridge in 1968.79 Drastic 

Entrance Road 

Construction 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

118

funding cuts in 1969 scaled back and then cancelled any immediate plans for extending 

the new road any farther. For a time, it was called the “road to nowhere,” due to the 

pavement’s abrupt end at the top of the ridge.80 The park eventually linked the new road 

to the old Limantour Road; the completed entrance road from Bear Valley to Limantour 

Beach finally opened to the public on June 15, 1972.81 

BEGINNING THE SEASHORE’S MANAGEMENT, INFRASTRUCTURE, AND VISITOR 

OPERATIONS

While land acquisition and master planning discussions were taking place, the park’s 

nascent administration began developing staff, services, and a rudimentary infrastructure 

to run the park and provide basic visitor services. Western Region Director Joseph C. 

Rumburg, Jr., recounted that the NPS had experienced some early success in acquiring 

land for the seashore, but that it was soon “overshadowed by the slower pace of our 

success in obtaining increases in our operating budgets and consequently the manpower 

and equipment necessary to do the things which need to be done.”82

In the first few years following authorization, regional or national offices directed 

seashore management decisions and longer-term policy. James E. Cole worked out of the 

San Francisco office as PRNS project manager from September 1962 through June 

1963.83 Point Reyes got its first full-fledged resident superintendent in July 1963, when 

Fred W. Binnewies stepped into the post. Binnewies served for nearly two years and 

oversaw the first stage of land acquisition on the peninsula, assembled a rudimentary 

staff, and set up basic ranger operations. Soon after the government purchased the Bear 

Valley Ranch in October 1963, the NPS began to set up offices, housing, and 

maintenance facilities in the existing ranch structures. The regional office named Gordon 

Patterson to be the chief ranger, and added Robert (Bob) Barbee as the first regular park 

ranger at Point Reyes later that year. 

Barbee arrived in December 1964, to join a staff that consisted of Patterson, who he 

described as a “significant character,” a few administrative personnel, and the real estate 

specialists from the San Francisco office. In a 2005 interview, Barbee remembered that 

he was not happy —“my heels were dragging all the way”—to leave his naturalist 

position at Yosemite National Park for Point Reyes. He learned that the regional office 

tabbed him for the post because they wanted someone who had experience in both 

interpretation and visitor protection, and who fit their description of “a ranger who could 

communicate,” as they later explained it to him.84 His Point Reyes position, as it turned 

out, became a stepping-stone in a career that would lead to several park superintendent 

positions and eventually bring him into the national spotlight from 1983 to 1994, as 

superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, and later as the Alaska Region Director.85

Leslie P. Arnberger took over as superintendent in June 1965 and served until January 

1967. The park’s initial interpretive, protection, and maintenance operations were barely 

a year old, and still required additional staff and much more attention. In October 1965, 

Donald Cameron transferred from Yosemite National Park to become the seashore’s first 

maintenance foreman. Arnberger also began hiring seasonal rangers for interpretive and 

protection duties.86 Barbee remembered that Arnberger was “very concerned” about 

setting up a proper organizational structure, with clear divisional and district lines. He 

created the park’s first ranger districts, the Bear Valley and Estero Districts, and hired 

Leslie McBride as the first supervisory/district ranger in March 1965.87

First Park 

Managers 

and 

Employees 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

119

Binnewies and Arnberger were at their posts for less than two years, and did not have 

time to develop long-term management objectives and policies. The next superintendent, 

Edward J. Kurtz, stayed on longer than his predecessors (January 29, 1967 to March 21, 

1970), and managed PRNS during one of the most important periods in the seashore’s 

history. Kurtz also held the position of supervisor of northern sites, Bay Area group. 

Record No. 28410. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Family at the Bear Valley trailhead preparing for a hike, 1966. 

Even though PRNS was not yet a physical actuality in 1963, it was already taking shape 

in the minds of hikers, nature lovers, and tourists.88 Once Bay Area residents and outdoor 

enthusiasts learned about congressional authorization of PRNS—once they had the 

concept of the national seashore fixed in their minds—they flocked to the site to 

experience its rich resources, aesthetic pleasures, and recreational bounties. Barbee 

recalled what happened, on several occasions, when the San Francisco Chronicle or 

another paper would run a big Sunday supplement section highlighting the peninsula’s 

beauty and recreational opportunities. The following weekend a thousand or more people 

would arrive and simply scatter “all over the place.”89 Some visitors may have known 

that the area was not yet operational but perhaps assumed that the seashore’s new legal 

status invited them to be there. Others may have presumed visitor facilities and the like 

were already in place. Armed with their expectations, visitors, curious residents, and 

hikers visited the peninsula in ever-growing numbers, giving rise to the first set of on-theground management issues. 

As with most young organizations, much of the initial management involved reacting to 

emergencies, crises, and surprises, rather than following a planned itinerary. During its 

first half-decade of existence, the predominant concerns at PRNS involved trespassing on 

ranch lands, visitor safety, and resource damage. Phil Ward replaced Patterson and served 

as chief ranger during much of this formative period. The superintendents, Ward, and 

park staff had to address other immediate needs that included visitor information 

services, management of rapidly increasing recreational use, infrastructure, maintenance, 

Initial 

Seashore 

Operations 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

120

concession contracts, cooperative agreements with other agencies, and fostering positive 

relationships with ranchers and local communities. 

During congressional hearings on the PRNS legislation, ranchers and other seashore 

opponents challenged the suitability of Point Reyes for safe and enjoyable public 

recreation. Strong currents and high waves made swimming, and even wading, dangerous 

activities. In addition, the fog and high brush often made it difficult for hikers to ascertain 

the cliff edge of a coastal bluff. As it turned out, ranchers were wrong about Point Reyes’ 

the recreational appeal, because they did not recognize or understand new trends in 

Americans’ recreational choices. They were, however, correct about some of the potential 

hazards Point Reyes held in store for visitors. 

As a result, early ranger operations frequently included searches for lost hikers, rescues 

of injured visitors, and, occasionally, recoveries of drowning and other fatal accident 

victims. An absence of designated trails and directional signage during the first few years 

of visitor use (1964-66) exacerbated these problems. Barbee remembered that those first 

summers at Point Reyes involved spending “night after night after night out looking for 

lost people.”90 Some emergencies and some years were worse than others. Two fatalities 

occurred in spring 1969; one person drowned while swimming at Limantour Beach and 

another died in a fall from a cliff above McClures Beach.91 In March 1970, there were 

three rescues of lost or injured individuals at McClures Beach; the next month, two 

people drowned at McClures Beach; in June that year, three people were rescued after 

their boat sank in Drakes Estero; and, in July, park staff and Marin County Sheriffs 

performed three rescues, including two separate incidents where children were stranded 

on the cliffs above Drakes Beach.92 In just the first three months of 1971, four visitors 

drowned and one committed suicide at Point Reyes.93 Rangers attended various trainings 

Visitor Safety 

Record No. 10650. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Original Bear Valley Information Center, 1966. 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

121

to prepare for these exigencies. Several obtained scuba-diving licenses and specialized 

training to assist in rescues or recoveries of drowning victims. Staff also attended 

trainings in high-angle rope work, boating operations, CPR, first aid, and fire 

suppression. Seashore administrators also began negotiating with the Coast Guard for a 

boat and the use of their lifesaving station for rescue and recovery operations. 

As the number of seashore visitors grew rapidly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, staff 

had to deal with increases in criminal activities, traffic problems, and resource damage. 

Law enforcement personnel attended specialized trainings to tackle these issues. During 

the late 1960s, for instance, chief ranger Phil Ward’s protection staff attended law 

enforcement school at Grand Canyon National Park, received their scuba diving 

certification training at the Scripps Institute, and enrolled in a U.S. Army correspondence 

course on criminal investigations.94 Some problems, such as marijuana growing, were 

already prevalent prior to NPS presence on the peninsula. Illegal drug use, overall, 

accounted for one-quarter to one-third of the citations issued in some years.95 Point Reyes 

law enforcement also involved patrolling the few existing roadways, enforcing state fish 

and game regulations, addressing resource protection issues such as illegal camping, and 

patrolling for poachers. In 1969, rangers caught and cited eleven poachers, six of whom 

went to court and received fines. Some law enforcement duties were less onerous than 

others: staff frequently responded to reports of nude sunbathing on national seashore 

beaches.96

Law enforcement cases increased apace with the seashore’s expanding size and growing 

visitation. The number of cases during the first three months of 1970 equaled the number 

for the entire year of 1969. The majority of cases were citations for illegal camping; one 

ranger cited 127 campers in a six-week period. That spring, PRNS staff cited one hundred 

people for marijuana use/possession, as well as a large number for nudity and dog 

violations.97 By the end of July, staff had handled more than five hundred law 

enforcement cases, one-quarter of them drug violations.98

While ranchers had accurately anticipated the hazards visitors might encounter at Point 

Reyes, they sorely underestimated the peninsula’s potential as a recreation and tourism 

destination. Likely, these older peninsula residents possessed a more traditional, pre1960s conception of beach recreation that included swimming, sunbathing, and 

picnicking under warm, sunny skies. Yet a significant shift was then taking place in the 

country’s recreational patterns. Americans were devoting more recreation and leisure 

time to active outdoor pursuits, such as hiking, backpacking, bicycling, canoeing, and car 

camping. Point Reyes was the ideal destination for these and other types of active 

recreation. Although car camping was prohibited within the national seashore itself, 

automobile tourists could set up camp at nearby private, county, or state campgrounds 

and then explore the peninsula from those bases. Many recreationists may have preferred 

sunny weather, but they were able to enjoy their activities even when the weather was 

cool and cloudy. Summer hikers and backpackers coming to Point Reyes from east of the 

Berkeley hills or from the Central Valley, sought the cooler climate of the peninsula as an 

escape from the scorching summer weather of inland California. 

In addition, participants in what Joseph Sax has termed “contemplative” recreation—

activities such as bird-watching, nature study, photography, and simple scenery 

appreciation—found the trails, beaches, and grasslands of Point Reyes alluring.99 Large 

numbers of outdoor enthusiasts living in the San Francisco Bay Area found Point Reyes a 

convenient location for their favorite pastimes. A burgeoning appreciation among many 

Law 

Enforcement 

Recreational 

Use
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

122

Americans for the beauty and complexity of the natural world, a corollary of the 

environmental movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, also attracted local residents and 

out-of-state travelers to a place like Point Reyes. As a result, Point Reyes administrators 

and staff began devoting more of their time and personnel resources to accommodate and 

manage recreational use. 

Record No. 7650. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

A group of backpackers at Point Reyes, ca. 1970s. 

Barbee and George DiMartini, a maintenance worker for one of the acquired ranches who 

was subsequently hired onto the park maintenance staff, laid out the basic framework of 

the trail system, primarily using the existing ranch roads. They named the trails and 

repaired them as necessary. Jerry Patton, NPS landscape architect in the regional office, 

came out to Point Reyes to help the staff determine suitable locations for three designated 

backcountry campgrounds. Barbee recalled that they built the Coast, Sky, and Glen 

camps, which remain in use today, before NEPA regulations, “so we didn’t have to fool 

around with anything—we decided where they should go, and they went in.”100 The three 

camps quickly filled up every weekend from June through September. 

The surging numbers of hikers and backpackers in the late 1960s seemed to surprise 

Arnberger. In 1968, the demand for campsites was so great the staff installed a 

reservation system for the walk-in sites.101 In July and August 1970, camps were filled 

every weeknight as well as on weekends, and visitors obtained a camping place only if 

they obtained reservations several weeks in advance of their trips. By the end of that 

summer, backcountry use had increased by 35 percent from the previous year. To help 

meet the ever-increasing demand, the park added a fourth walk-in campground, Wildcat 

group camp, in 1971, and established primitive boating campgrounds at beaches along 

the west side of Tomales Bay.102
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

123

Sunny weekends also brought large crowds to the beaches, causing serious traffic jams 

and parking problems. Rangers found cars parked on both sides of the narrow beach 

roads, despite posted “no parking” signs.103 Weekend drives to historic Point Reyes 

Lighthouse also lured ever more tourists, especially in 1966 when the Coast Guard 

opened the lighthouse itself to visitors. In fact, the popularity of Point Reyes increased to 

the extent that, in 1970, PRNS visitation topped one million for the first time.104 To serve 

these visitors, whether they were enjoying beaches and trails or simply driving along 

national seashore roads, NPS staff added new tourist facilities, such as bathrooms, 

parking lots, information services, and road signs. Several of these structures were built 

using money rerouted from the stalled Limantour Beach recreation development. 

The legislative intent of the seashore’s founding act aimed to keep tourist services such as 

overnight lodging, restaurants, and grocery stores outside of the park boundaries. Visitors 

could find these services in Point Reyes Station, Inverness, Bolinas, Olema, and other 

small towns and communities of West Marin County. This arrangement accomplished 

two objectives; it limited further development within the national seashore, and it 

boosted—rather than siphoned from—the local economy. In the mid-1960s, NPS and 

Point Reyes administrators judged this arrangement sufficient, except at Drakes Beach. 

People spending the day there found no water, cold drinks, or food other than what they 

brought themselves. 

Accordingly, the NPS first contracted to provide rudimentary food services at Drakes 

Beach, which consisted of vending machines and a mobile “snack wagon” that sold food 

and hot or cold drinks. In 1972, the contract was conveyed to JackGlo Inc., to continue 

with the same type of services. By that time, however, park officials viewed the set-up as 

inadequate for the number of visitors using the beach. They drew up plans for a new 

structure that would house a food service, bathrooms, and showers. In Bear Valley, 

another popular spot for auto-tourists, hikers, and riders, there was no need for food 

services. Visitors could easily get to Point Reyes Station or Inverness, which were both 

fewer than five miles away. 

Since it was the jumping-off point for travel by foot, car, or horse to other areas of the 

seashore, Bear Valley was the most logical location for a central park information center, 

and for interpretive activities. An old ranch building in Bear Valley housed the seashore’s 

first visitor information center during the 1960s. Rangers in the Division of Interpretation 

and Resource Management (I&RM) staffed the information desk and provided small 

interpretive talks and demonstrations. Because of the small size of the national seashore 

staff, the standard division of park personnel into patrol ranger, law enforcement, and 

interpretive ranger categories did not yet exist. During the course of the 1965 season, 

chief ranger Patterson, district ranger McBride, and ranger Barbee conducted frequent 

naturalist talks and walks for school groups and visitors, along with their resource 

protection, search and rescue, and road patrol responsibilities.105 In June 1966, Harry 

Wills transferred to PRNS to became the first official park naturalist, but also assumed 

the responsibilities of assistant chief ranger, resources management, and visitor 

services.106 The seashore also opened a small information center at Drakes Beach. 

Interpreters began to collect slides, specimens, and other effects for their programs. They 

also erected wayside interpretive displays in the Bear Valley area, including the 

“Earthquake Trail.” This short, meandering trail led visitors from the Bear Valley parking 

lot down to a point where the fault line was recognizable, then looped back to the parking 

area. Interpretive signs erected at points along the trail explained the geologic history of 

the San Andreas Fault and its impact on the Point Reyes Peninsula. 

Visitor 

Services 

Early 

Interpretive 

Operations 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

124

Record No. 28760. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

An interpretive ranger talks with a family at the Bear Valley trailhead, June 1968. 

Swelling numbers of visitors to Bear Valley soon swamped the original information 

center. Without the funds to build a brand-new structure along the lines of the Mission 66 

visitor centers featured in other parks, administrators compensated by converting another 

building, a former residence on Limantour Spit, into the new information center. To 

move the house to Bear Valley, a maintenance crew simply jacked it up, put two I-beams 

under the base, and towed it up and down the winding Limantour Road to its new 

location.107 They then built a set of restrooms adjacent to the structure. The house, 

approximately 1,500 square feet in size, was larger than the first visitor contact station 

but was still a stopgap solution. On busy weekends, visitors quickly overcrowded it. 

At the prompting of the regional office, Kurtz initiated planning in the late 1960s for the 

creation of the “Morgan Horse Living Exhibit,” which would quickly become the 

centerpiece of Point Reyes interpretive operations for the next several decades (discussed 

in chapter 8). 

As more structures were put to use as administrative offices, park housing, and ranger 

activities, the maintenance requirements increased accordingly. Donald Cameron came to 

Point Reyes on a temporary assignment from Yosemite National Park in October 1965, 

becoming the seashore’s first maintenance foreman. His first tasks involved converting 

former ranch structures in Bear Valley into serviceable buildings for NPS use. One was 

converted into the park’s maintenance building and vehicular storage; the other—a horse 

barn—was put into use as the fire cache and fire engine shed. Cameron worked for a year 

or more on his “borrowed” status, and then joined the permanent staff as the park’s 

maintenance foreman in 1966. His position was subsequently converted to chief of 

maintenance. 

Maintenance 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

125

The maintenance division shared 

with Marin County the 

responsibility for upkeep of the 

Limantour Road, the only park 

road open to autos. PRNS entered 

cooperative agreements with 

several other Marin County 

departments to help provide the 

necessary utilities and monitoring. 

A working agreement with the 

North Marin Water District 

supplied drinking water to Bear 

Valley and other administrative 

sites. Park administration entered 

a maintenance agreement with the 

Marin County Public Works 

Department for the repair and 

regular maintenance of the park’s 

utilities during the mid-1960s, 

and renewed it annually. Seashore 

staff also worked in collaboration 

with the Marin County Public 

Health Department. Rangers and county health technicians monitored water and sewer 

systems within the national seashore and tested the water quality of runoff from the 

peninsula’s dairy operations. 

BEGINNINGS OF NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Early natural resource management at Point Reyes focused on areas of the seashore 

where the most overt and intensive damage was occurring. Of most immediate public and 

administrative concern was the tidal zone. In 1965, the State of California granted to the 

federal government title to the entire tidal zone and submerged lands within the external 

boundaries of the national seashore.108 Chapter 983 of the California Act of July 9, 1965, 

reserved mineral and prospecting rights (excluding wells or drilling on surface) for the 

state and the right of California residents to “fish in the waters underlying the lands 

described.”109 The reservation included the right to collect, gather, or harvest shellfish. 

In the process of opening a much wider stretch of beach and headlands to public access, 

the NPS had prompted the overuse and commercial exploitation of marine resources, 

which private property restrictions had, inadvertently, protected. In 1969, Superintendent 

Kurtz reported that improved beach access allowed people to “surf fish, rock fish, dive 

for abalone, and go clamming at will.”110 The biggest problem, however, was 

commercial-scale gathering of ghost shrimp and mud shrimp from the tidal zone. 

Individuals scoured the tidal areas and then sold shrimp harvests to local bait shops. A 

park ranger stopped one fisherman who at the time was hauling over one thousand shrimp 

from a single day’s take. 

Kurtz observed that public and commercial shrimp digging disturbed “the ecology of the 

clams and other animals that live in the tidal habitat.” He cited scientific research to 

emphasize that such harvests had long-term implications for Point Reyes, because the Record No. 19450. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Maintenance crew moves a house from Limantour Spit to its new role as 

Bear Valley Visitor Center, 1971. 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

126

shrimp had a long lifespan and a slow reproduction rate. Bait fishermen were wreaking 

damage that year that could have consequences for decades to come.111 It is noteworthy 

that Kurtz used environmental science terms such as ecology and habitat to explain the 

damage wrought to the tidal area, language NPS officials had not typically used prior to 

that time. As Richard West Sellars has pointed out in his landmark Preserving Nature in 

the National Parks: A History, even in the early 1960s, NPS administrators rarely relied 

on scientific research to help guide their decisions about natural resource management.112

As was common at many NPS sites, PRNS had no biologist on staff until 1970. Scientific 

research throughout the NPS was conducted by the Naturalist (or its new name, 

Interpretation) division, or performed by university professors and their students. Yet 

Kurtz adopted language—and possibly, ethics—representative of a growing 

environmental awareness throughout the United States, and in particular, in the 

environmental hotbeds of Marin County and the Bay Area. 

Although federal regulations prohibited digging for bait on NPS lands, these rules were 

not in wide public circulation.113 Kurtz suggested the state impose a fish and game 

regulation limiting or prohibiting the taking of ghost or mud shrimp in West Marin tidal 

areas, which could be disseminated in the “Fishing Regulations” pamphlets supplied to 

all obtaining fishing licenses. Kurtz also requested that the state or NPS undertake a study 

to determine the actual impact on shrimp population and associated marine life.114

In addition to commercial exploitation, by the early 1970s, the ballooning number of 

seashore visitors was taking a toll on the Point Reyes coastal environment. Senator Alan 

Cranston pointed out in 1971 that while the park administration was engaged in the 

lengthy process of developing its general management plan, thousand of visitors were 

coming to PRNS each day without the protections and services in place that a working 

GMP could provide. He warned Director Hartzog of possible outcomes: 

In a very short time the results can prove disastrous for all wildlife, and 

specifically for the unique marine invertebrate of the tidal areas. Wellmeaning visitors—tourists, uninformed nature lovers, high school 

science students—can with the best of intentions strip a tide pool of its 

irreplaceable life forms in no time. The Pacific moon snails, geoduck 

clams, giant mussels, and giant abalones for which Point Reyes is noted 

can be “collected” out of existence while we await a resolution of the 

arguments about where the public roads are to be located.115

The proximity of Point Reyes to San Francisco Bay Area, once a primary rationale for 

developing the peninsula’s recreational potential, now undergirded the need for greater 

natural resource protection.116

Cranston urged Hartzog to implement an interim wildlife protection plan, in order to 

provide more restrictive management guidelines until the NPS finished the next GMP. He 

also called for the immediate designation of “Research Natural Areas” for those 

peninsula locations that the draft GMP indicated as in need of protection. Cranston was 

responding to his environmentally minded constituents in northern California, including a 

coalition of conservation groups that included the Marin Conservation League, Marin 

Audubon Society, Tomales Bay Association, Inverness Improvement Association, Sierra 

Club, and Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, who petitioned for changes. 

The Environmental Action Committee of West Marin was the newest of these Bay Area 

groups, operating under the spirited leadership of Jerry Friedman.117 The conservation 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

127

groups wanted jurisdiction over the tidal zone handed from the California Department of 

Fish and Game to the NPS, which they hoped would place stricter limits on commercial 

takes.118

Kurtz, Cranston, and the Marin County environmental groups made effective arguments 

that eventually prompted the creation of a cooperative agreement between NPS officials 

at Point Reyes and the state Department of Fish and Game. The two agencies confirmed 

their working agreement in a memorandum of understanding signed on September 3, 

1969.119 The agreement established that each agency would take responsibility for one of 

the principal management functions identified in the memorandum. The NPS would 

oversee protection and management of wildlife habitat, while the state would regulate 

fish and wildlife harvests. As part of their habitat management function, the NPS could 

designate areas where, or periods of time when, hunting and fishing were prohibited, “for 

reasons of public safety, administration, or other public use and enjoyment of the area.” 

The NPS recreation area rubric again influenced the language of the agreement. The 

memorandum drew from the 1965 “Wildlife Management Policy—National Recreation 

Areas,” asserting that public hunting and fishing were “desirable and compatible with 

fulfilling the mission of the National Recreation Areas.”120

The agreement was a first step towards protecting marine crustaceans and other 

organisms in the tidal zone. It also laid the groundwork for future interagency 

cooperation on hunting, control of exotic species, regulation of commercial operations, 

and species reintroduction. Seashore officials also began negotiating with Fish and Game 

to post a patrol boat in the waters of Point Reyes Cove and other vulnerable areas of the 

seashore, in order to prevent, or at least, control another immediate threat: abalone 

poaching.121 Since the NPS did not yet have a patrol boat of their own at Point Reyes, this 

was a particularly important item. Seashore staff also began discussions with the Coast 

Guard regarding the use of one of their boats, and possibly to secure the use of an old 

USCG storage and launching facility.122

Throughout the history of the national parks, park management viewed fish—and, by 

extension, most marine organisms—in a different light than they viewed terrestrial or 

avian species. National parks that prohibited hunting generally allowed and encouraged 

recreational fishing. Moreover, the NPS supplemented it with extensive fish-planting 

projects that, until the 1960s and 1970s, included haphazard introduction of exotic 

species into lakes and streams of the national parks. The NPS did not issue the first set of 

management guidelines for fisheries until 1936, and even then included only the feeble 

directive that park managers should “favor” the protection of native fish species over 

nonnative species. The question of whether sport fishing or harvesting of marine wildlife 

should be permitted in the national parks was not even a consideration.123 That practice 

continued without question. As for the new seashore parks, in 1962, Assistant Secretary 

John Carver wrote that the NPS considered existing oyster production and commercial 

fishing operations at Point Reyes as “being compatible with the national seashore 

concept.”124

Accordingly, seashore administrators also worked with Fish and Game officials in 

monitoring and regulating two commercial shellfish operations: the Johnson Oyster 

Company (also known locally as Johnson’s oyster farm), located on Schooner Bay (an 

extension of Drakes Estero), and the Frank Spenger Company oyster operation at 

Sacramento Landing on Tomales Bay. The saltwater bays and estuaries around Point 

Reyes were historically one of the top oyster-growing areas in the state. Commercial 

Fisheries 

Johnson 

Oyster 

Company 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

128

oystering in California waters required planting the oyster beds in shallow, well-protected 

marine sites, where the young oysters found protection from winter storms and bat 

stingrays, one of their main predators. The calm water in these spots also made it easier to 

manage and access the oyster beds. 

The first commercial oyster operations in California began in San Francisco during the 

Gold Rush years of the 1850s. Maricultural entrepreneurs planted the first oyster beds in 

the Point Reyes vicinity at Tomales Bay in 1907. By that time, pollution was already 

degrading oystering grounds in San Francisco Bay, yet San Franciscans’ yen for oysters 

had not abated. During the 1930s, in an attempt to produce larger and faster growing 

oysters, operators introduced Japanese species to Tomales Bay, Drakes Estero, and 

Monterey Bay’s Elkhorn Slough. Drakes Bay Oyster Company began its enterprise 

harvesting and shipping oysters to San Francisco in 1935, and in 1938, the company built 

and began operation of an oyster-shucking plant on Drakes Estero.125

Charles Johnson ran his oyster-raising operation, including a processing plant, from 1961 

through 2003. Prior to the transfer of state-held tidelands to the PRNS, the State of 

California controlled commercial use of the sea bottom by allocating tidal parcels to 

individual operators. The area where Johnson ran his oyster farm was first allotted to 

David C. Dreier for “oyster growing purposes” in January 1934. California Fish and 

Game designated Dreier’s parcel as Allotment no. 2 of state water bottom, which 

contained roughly six thousand acres in Drakes Estero and Limantour Estero. In April 

1946, Dreier transferred Allotment no. 2 to Larry Jenson, who also ran an oyster business 

at a site on Tomales Bay. The allotment was subsequently transferred from Jenson to Van 

Camp Sea Food Company, Inc. in July 1954, and then from Van Camp to Coast Oyster 

Company (a subsidiary of Van Camp) in August 1955. At that time the state of California 

and Coast Oyster Company agreed to reduce the size of the allotment to 1,175 acres, so 

that the remainder of the of the parcel could be available for clamming and eel grass 

harvests. 

Charles Johnson purchased the title to Allotment no. 2 from Coast Oyster Company on 

November 18, 1960, and incorporated his aquaculture operation as Johnson Oyster 

Company the following year. As noted in the previous section, after the transfer of stateheld tidelands to the NPS took place in 1965, California Fish and Game officials 

continued to regulate the oyster cultivation portion of the operation.126 In early 1965, 

Johnson and the Park Service negotiated a trade of state sea bottom allotments. Johnson 

agreed to abandon the remaining 344 acres of Allotment no. 2 that lay in Limantour 

Estero. In turn, Johnson acquired an additional seventy acres of sea bottom adjoining his 

Schooner Bay oyster beds. California Fish and Game designated this piece of Schooner 

Bay as Allotment no. 72, and issued to Johnson a twenty-five year lease for shellfish 

cultivation, with the option to renew when it expired in 1990. According to a 1972 

appraisal report prepared for the NPS, Johnson believed that, in contrast to the new 

allotment, the older Allotment no. 2 he obtained from Coast Oyster Company should not 

expire until 2034, one hundred years from the date of the original assignment to Dreier. 

But because Allotment no. 2 had been reconfigured in the course of this 1965 exchange, 

the state determined that it too should expire in 1990.127

When Johnson obtained the rights to California Allotment no. 2, he also purchased five 

acres of adjacent land onshore that would subsequently be included within the boundaries 

of the national seashore. In the final Senate report to accompany the Point Reyes National 

Seashore authorization bill (S. 476), the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

129

determined that commercial oyster production and commercial fishing operations on 

Drakes Bay should continue following the authorization of the seashore because NPS 

planners had attested to “the public values” of the seafood operations as part of the site. 

Park Service regional planners revealed their thinking about the oyster farm in the 1961 

Land Use Study, which reported that “the culture of oysters is an interesting industry 

which presents exceptional educational opportunities for introducing students to the field 

of marine biology.”128 Moreover, if a restaurant were added to the site, they believed it 

could “add another recreational attraction” to the proposed seashore. The Department of 

the Interior did not, however, proffer to Johnson a “special agreement” for retention of 

land in private ownership, as it did with two other commercial landowners on the 

peninsula, the AT&T Company and RCA Communications.129

In November 1972, the NPS purchased Johnson’s five-acre parcel for $79,200; in 

exchange, Johnson received a reservation of use and occupancy (ROP) that allowed him 

to continue his enterprise for a thirty-year period.130 By that time, the land-based portion 

of his oyster farm included a processing and bottling plant, shop, warehouse, company 

office, and residence. Whether the maricultural business was an appropriate use of an 

NPS unit was not addressed further at that time, but the issue would become a more 

pressing matter for park administrators twenty years hence. 

Record No. 3870. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Employee at work at Johnson Oyster Company, ca. 1972. 

Hunting of the peninsula’s terrestrial and avian wildlife also became a significant 

management issue during the seashore’s developmental decade. The Point Reyes 

Peninsula had a long history of sport hunting, dating back to the owners of Spanish land 

grants and their guests. The abundant native wildlife of the area provided plenty of fodder 

for their sport. Several hunting clubs had formed during the 1800s, including the Bear 

Valley Country Club described in chapter 1, and including a few that were still active 

when the seashore was created. Among them was a duck-hunting club at Drakes Estero, 

which counted high ranking political figures among its membership.131 For many 

Hunting 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

130

ranchers, hunting went hand in hand with their ranching lifestyle, in addition to providing 

supplemental income or food during rough economic times. 

Conservation groups that pushed to create the seashore designation valued the abundance 

and variety of animal life on the peninsula for different reasons. They hoped to see the 

wildlife undisturbed by hunting, and argued that the noise and potential dangers hunters 

posed would interfere with the recreational and aesthetic pursuits of park visitors. 

Although most NPS sites banned hunting after passage of the 1894 Lacey Act, some 

precedents for hunting were established in particular NPS areas.132 Pursuant to the 

creation of Grand Teton National Park in 1950, the NPS and Wyoming Game 

Commission set up an awkward arrangement that allowed “qualified and experienced 

hunters licensed by the State of Wyoming,” temporarily “deputized” as park rangers, to 

shoot elk within the park.133 Ever since the 1930s, when NPS staff began to cull elk 

populations within national park boundaries to reduce herd sizes, local hunters in the 

Yellowstone and Grand Teton areas had complained that they had the right to shoot elk 

alongside park rangers. Park Service Director Newton Drury finally acceded to their 

demands at Grand Teton, in exchange for the inclusion of Jackson Hole within Grand 

Teton National Park. Public hunting under the guise of elk population control went on in 

the park for more than a decade.134 Not surprisingly, a number of legislators attempted to 

turn the exception to the hunting ban at Grand Teton into the rule for new national parks 

units, including the new national seashores. That strategy bore fruit in 1940, when 

Congress passed an amendment to the Cape Hatteras Act to allow bird hunting within the 

boundaries of the national seashore.135 The next national seashore, Cape Cod, also 

allowed hunting where it was deemed appropriate within the seashore boundaries. 

As with the Cape Cod legislation, the PRNS authorizing act permitted hunting, but did 

not specifically grant hunting privileges. Congressman Clem Miller explained in 1961 

that when Congress created the language of the Cape Cod bill regarding hunting and 

fishing, legislators intended it to become a general policy template that would, once 

enacted, apply to all future national seashores. Attempting to justify the inclusion of the 

hunting clause in his Point Reyes bill to one of his California constituents, Miller wrote, 

“The national seashores are not national parks—a wider range of outdoor recreational 

activities will be permitted, as indeed is already the case at Cape Hatteras.”136 He added, 

however, that “few people believe that hunting will be compatible at Point Reyes,” even 

if it was compatible with the management goals at other national seashores.137

The Secretary of the Interior and NPS officials were thus left to decide whether hunting 

was compatible with other PRNS management goals. As with fishing and marine 

collecting, the California Department of Fish and Game held the responsibility to manage 

game animal populations, and to determine hunting seasons, take limits, and license 

requirements. Of course, as long as private landowners still held title to their property, 

they had the same right to hunt as any other California resident, restricted only by state 

regulations. 

The new NPS category system attempted to toss a blanket federal policy regarding 

hunting over the decision making of individual administrators at Point Reyes. At the 

same time that Udall called for the special committee to work out the new operational 

categories for NPS sites, he also initiated a special advisory board on wildlife 

management to discuss and determine wildlife management policy for the cluster of NRA 

sites. Stemming from the board’s 1963 report, the NPS issued “Wildlife Management 

Policy—National Recreation Areas,” in March 1965, which stated: “Public hunting and 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

131

fishing are resource uses which are desirable and compatible with fulfilling the mission 

of the national recreation areas administered by the National Park Service.”138

The regional office and PRNS’s first managers seemed to understand that the general 

sentiment among seashore supporters and Marin County residents (exclusive of peninsula 

ranchers) was opposed to hunting within the seashore’s boundaries. Growing recognition 

of the biological values of the Point Reyes area, particularly the wildlife found in the 

estuaries, led first to limits and then to bans on hunting in those locations. The initial 

Point Reyes Bird Observatory survey of Point Reyes tidal areas in 1965 helped decision 

making, as it did in regard to the out-of-scale recreational developments proposed for 

Limantour Spit. The administration’s first step in protecting these areas was to prohibit 

hunting of waterfowl and sea birds on estuary lands at PRNS. However, the policy, as of 

1969, still allowed hunting on private tidal land.139

Momentum was building toward a complete ban on hunting at the national seashore. In 

1971, the director of Fish and Game acknowledged that public opinion was opposed to 

hunting there.140 By that time, hunting was prohibited on all federally owned land on the 

peninsula. In an interagency meeting, the state and NPS agreed to make Abbott’s Lagoon, 

Drakes Estero, and Limantour Estero off-limits to waterfowl hunting, regardless of 

ownership status. The agencies also attempted to reach a more comprehensive plan for 

hunting throughout the peninsula. By then, PRNS administrators also had to balance the 

requirements of hunters and other recreational users. The number of hikers had far 

outpaced NPS expectations for this type of recreation. More than 200,000 visitors 

tramped Point Reyes trails in 1970. Much of the hiking took place when the weather was 

at its best at Point Reyes: in the fall, during hunting season. How then, to maintain hiker 

safety if hunting was allowed? Superintendent John Sansing urged that they take concrete 

steps to ensure hikers’ well being during that time of year. He also wanted to begin 

formal studies to determine whether deer hunting would be necessary to keep the deer 

population on peninsula in check.141

Successful discussions at the September meeting with Fish and Game officials produced 

new restrictions. On October 1, 1971, seashore management announced that all federally 

owned waters within PRNS were closed to hunting. The press release emphasized that the 

regulations were meant to protect the outstanding biological values of the coastal area. It 

cited PRBO studies showing that the estuaries and lagoons were sanctuaries for 110 

species of migrating waterfowl, including the world’s largest known population of black 

brant.142 In addition, the announcement noted these shoreline areas provided opportunities 

for such recreational activities as hiking, bird-watching, canoeing, and nature study. 

When the NPS resumed land acquisition in 1971, purchase of ranch lands also put an end 

to most hunting that had taken place on private land. This was, however, a difficult 

proposition for ranchers who had sold their land to the government but reserved the right 

to continue working and living on that land. Since hunting had always been a part of 

ranching life, many ranchers found the restriction irksome. To help soften the immediate 

effect of the ban, Sansing made written agreements with particular ranchers during 

purchase negotiations that allowed them to continue hunting until the end of that year’s 

deer season, even if they sold out before then.143 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

132

Record No. 53510, NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Fred Cushing poses with a string of downed birds at Duck Cabin, Point Reyes ‘N’ Ranch, ca. 1930s. 

Photograph by John Cushing. 

Most ranchers, however, remained dissatisfied with the hunting policy. Leland S. Murphy 

recalled that his father moved the family off the ranch, in part, because he had lost his 

long-held hunting rights. Hunting was part of what originally enticed Leland to buy the 

Home Ranch from Julia Shafter Hamilton in 1929. Friends had taken him to the 

peninsula on a quail-hunting trip; in the midst of the trip, he made his offer to buy the 

ranch, which had a hunt club on its grounds.144 The NPS and California Fish and Game 

department regulation that usurped the senior Murphy’s hunting privileges left him with a 

bitter taste in his mouth.145

New regulations and land acquisition appeared to have resolved the main issues regarding 

hunting within PRNS boundaries by 1972. Hunting would resurface as an important topic 

of discussion (for much the same reason it had in the 1950s at Grand Teton National 

Park) when ungulate overpopulation became a concern in decades to follow. 

LAND ACQUISITION CRISIS AND THE “SAVE OUR SEASHORE” CAMPAIGN

In the midst of tackling a multitude of management tasks during the mid- and late 1960s, 

the single, overriding issue for seashore staff and supporters remained the unfinished 

business of land acquisition. By the end of the decade, several outside threats to the 

seashore had raised the stakes tremendously. The NPS delivered a huge blow to the hopes 

of conservationists and seashore backers when it announced the Park Service plan to sell 

Point Reyes land to developers, who would be allowed to build a private residential 

community within the middle of the seashore’s boundaries. This plan, along with private 

development threats, returned many of the activists and groups involved in the original 

authorization campaign to action, this time to protect the national seashore they had 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

133

helped create. The result was the “Save Our Seashore” (SOS) campaign, a genuine 

grassroots effort to stop private development and prod Congress into appropriating the 

funds necessary to complete the seashore as legislators and supporters had envisioned it. 

By 1969, the entire PRNS, as a viable unit of the national park system, appeared to be at 

risk. Despite garnering an additional $5 million from Congress in 1967 to purchase land 

acquired via condemnation proceedings, a significant percentage of the proposed national 

seashore was still in private hands. Moreover, the long, seemingly futile battle to obtain 

the remaining acreage had emboldened real estate developers seeking to purchase the 

land themselves. As time passed, owners of many of the inholdings began to consider 

subdividing or selling to developers. A 1969 New York Times article aptly described 

Point Reyes as a “Patchwork Park in Trouble,” and explained the many difficulties park 

administrators and supporters faced. The article’s author, Gladwin Hill, observed that 

because of financial and administrative problems, “Its future as one of the nation’s 

choicest preserves hangs in the balance at this moment.”146 Secretary of the Interior 

Walter J. Hickel lamented that chances to acquire seashore land were being missed daily, 

and “once lost, these opportunities can seldom be retrieved.”147

A primary threat to the integrity of the national seashore was the proposed development 

of Lake Ranch. A. W. Sweet submitted to Marin County his plans to subdivide the ranch 

into forty-acre residential tracts, which he planned to sell at approximately $3,000 per 

acre. The purchasers could then subdivide the tracts into ten-acre parcels, with further 

subdivisions possible within the bounds of the Marin County government’s lot-split 

ordinances.148 Sweet had previously attempted to exchange the ranch for out-of-state 

timberland, and later offered to sell the same Lake Ranch property to the government at 

$2,500 per acre. As described earlier, 3,000-plus acres of scenic coastal bluffs, extensive 

beachfront, and thick forests, which stretched over the width of the peninsula, made Lake 

Ranch one of the most valuable pieces of property within the proposed national seashore. 

The creation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1964 gave NPS officials 

and seashore backers hope that the disparate pieces of the seashore, including Lake 

Ranch, could finally be stitched together.149 Congress set up the fund so federal agencies 

could purchase land for new parks. They bankrolled it with money from user fees 

charged at federal recreation areas, sales of surplus government property, and the federal 

gasoline tax. A 1968 amendment to the act infused the Land and Water Conservation 

Fund with revenue from offshore oil and gas leases.150 Nonetheless, the backlog of 

authorized land acquisition meant individual units would still have to “fight” for 

appropriations. 

In the first half of 1967, California Senator George L. Murphy, and Representatives 

Donald H. Clausen and Jeffery Cohelan, introduced bills requesting Congress to 

authorize up to $38 million from the Land and Water Fund to complete the land 

acquisition at Point Reyes National Seashore.151 These bills proved unsuccessful, but, a 

year later, the same cast of players, joined by Senator Cranston, repeated their efforts 

during the 91st Congress in 1969. Clausen, along with his twenty-seven California 

colleagues in the House, introduced the subsequent bill, H.R. 3786. 

The House Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation, under the unwavering 

direction of Chairman Wayne N. Aspinall of Colorado, held hearings on H.R. 3786 in 

May 1969. By that time, legislators and NPS officials knew the financial situation had 

worsened considerably with the new administration in the White House. Several months 

A “Patchwork 

Park” 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

134

earlier, President Richard M. Nixon announced he was slashing, by 40 percent, the 

amount of money to be released from the Land and Water Conservation Fund; and his 

proposed, trimmed-down budget included no funding for Point Reyes. Nixon’s 

announced cut and the expectation of further budget austerity to come indicated that an 

intense struggle to acquire land for the seashore still lay ahead. Despite numerous 

presentations and statements that overwhelmingly supported adoption of the bill, Aspinall 

surmised that any action on H.R. 3786 was moot until the budget deadlock was loosened. 

As the gatekeeper in firm control of the House Interior Committee, Aspinall could 

prevent the bill from ever reaching the House floor. In the meantime, Budget Director 

Robert P. Mayo held tight the purse strings to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. He 

refused to release money for NPS land acquisition, even if Congress should pass 

legislation authorizing the spending. Nixon did not challenge Mayo’s stance. The White 

House, meanwhile, proposed changes to the bill that reduced the amount of money for 

land acquisition at Point Reyes to $28 million, $10 million less than the amount needed in 

the current real estate market. 

Even as the push for funding at the national level stalled, the Marin County Board of 

Supervisors, which had originally opposed authorization of the national seashore in the 

early 1960s, reversed itself and gave its much-needed support to creation and protection 

of PRNS. In the meantime, the supervisors used a bureaucratic vehicle, the 1967 West 

Marin Master Plan, to help slow or prevent new construction and real estate subdivision 

within the unpurchased areas of the park. 

Before the county master plan was amended in 1969, it did not cover areas in the new 

national seashore. But as land acquisition problems continued and developers proposed 

subdivisions and made requests for construction permits, county officials understood that 

they did not have solid ground to stand on in allowing or disallowing permits. To resolve 

this lack of authority, Marin County implemented an “interim zoning plan” for the 

proposed national seashore lands, Ordinance No. 1735, which prohibited new residential 

or commercial development that might conflict with the “contemplated Master Plan and 

zoning proposals” until the plan could be updated.152 Violations were punishable by a 

fine of up to $500, imprisonment for up to 180 days, or both. Structures erected or land 

operated within the “Point Reyes National Seashore Interim Zone” that ran contrary to 

ordinance provisions were subject to abatement and removal. 

But the county could only go so far in limiting private development on the peninsula. 

Although the commissioners favored keeping all private land within the proposed 

seashore in agricultural use or as open space, their legal staff said zoning regulations 

prevented them from acting on the idea. Marin County counsel Douglas J. Maloney 

described the problem when he testified in May 1969 at the House Subcommittee on 

National Parks and Recreation hearing on H.R. 3786: 

The highest and best use of this land is essentially urban; and its fair 

market value reflects this fact. On the other hand, its agricultural value is 

minimal. Any zoning ordinance which restricts the value of private 

property to this severe degree would clearly violate the California and 

Federal Constitutions . . . . Likewise, the law in California is quite 

explicit concerning the conditions which must exist before land use can 

be frozen pending public acquisition.153

Marin County 

Involvement 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

135

Maloney added that within those legal bounds the county had, “gone to the limit of our 

power to preserve this area, and enhance acquisition of the Seashore.” Now it was time 

for the federal government to take action, lest the park continue “to totter precariously in 

the winds of uncertainty.”154

Mounting budget and development pressures eventually prompted the NPS to propose a 

radical solution. At the May 1969 House Interior Committee hearing, Director Hartzog 

presented a plan that would have the NPS purchase land on the peninsula, turn around 

and sell that land to real-estate developers, and then use the recouped money to 

consolidate the remaining patchwork of parcels into a unified, albeit significantly smaller, 

national seashore.155 He estimated the plan would net $10 million, money the government 

would use to purchase holdings adjacent to tracts that were already in government hands. 

Hartzog called for the NPS to sell a total of 9,208 acres of land on Inverness Ridge, all 

within legislated boundaries of the PRNS, and permit developers to subdivide those ranch 

lands into private residential communities and sites for “limited” commercial use.156 In 

effect, Hartzog proposed that the NPS instigate and oversee the creation of the very 

thing—intrusive residential and commercial development—that the Point Reyes National 

Seashore campaign and 1962 Point Reyes Act sought to prevent. 

Hartzog tried to cast the sell-off plan in a positive light, explaining that the private 

development zone would be restricted to “low-density” housing, and that all new 

residential and commercial developments would remain in keeping with the overall 

objectives of the national seashore. The NPS would reconfigure the seashore into three 

zones—each with separate goals and objectives. In place of Wirth’s failed pastoral zone 

concept, Hartzog presented a sugarcoated version of the development zone as a new sort 

of “doughnut hole” within the seashore’s boundaries.157

Outside the NPS hierarchy, however, sketches and designs that landscape architects and 

land planners put to paper looked anything but low-density or compatible with the 

objectives of the national seashore. Katy Miller Johnson, Clem Miller’s widow, and Bill 

Duddleson, Miller’s former legislative assistant, were at the hearing and got a look at the 

plans. Katy Johnson remembered that the visual impact of the drawings, which included 

designs for golf courses, roads, parking lots, and a large housing development, left her 

“staggered.”158 She and Duddleson considered it the beginning of what would become the 

Save Our Seashore campaign.159 She immediately composed a letter to California 

Representative Harold T. Johnson, a longtime friend and supporter of the national 

seashore, to describe her reaction to the new NPS proposal for Point Reyes. She told him: 

“At this exact point of the crisis in the land acquisition program, the Seashore faces a 

wholly new threat posed by its guardian, the Interior Department.”160

From that moment on, Katy Johnson began lobbying members of Congress while 

simultaneously recruiting backers in Marin County and the Bay Area to begin the fight to 

keep Point Reyes National Seashore whole. She launched a letter-writing campaign, 

sending entreaties to each member of Congress and to past and current allies to alert them 

to the danger that lay ahead. She asked Peter Behr, a former member of the Marin County 

Board of Supervisors who was contemplating a run for the state senate, to become 

chairman of the nascent seashore campaign. He agreed and set to work. Other individuals 

in key roles of local conservation organizations also contributed their leadership and 

energy to the campaign. They included Jerry Friedman, head of Environmental Action 

Committee of West Marin, Harold Gregg, president of Marin Conservation League, and 

Mike McCloskey, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.161 

New NPS Plan 

for Point 

Reyes 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

136

Here, connections forged earlier in the campaign to authorize PRNS enabled the creation 

and success of the SOS campaign. Conversations that began in the homes of a few local 

conservation leaders were carried into White House offices and onto the floors of the 

House and Senate. Activists in West Marin, the San Francisco Bay Area, and 

Washington, D.C., all had a hand in turning the tide that threatened to wash away the 

seashore as originally conceived and legislated. Threats the developers and, perhaps 

surprisingly, the NPS hierarchy posed prompted an already organized and dedicated 

group of Bay Area activists to launch a campaign to secure the integrity of “their” 

seashore. 

When Peter Behr took charge in 1969 of the political work in California, he bestowed the 

name Save Our Seashore (SOS) on the Point Reyes campaign, a phrase “stolen from an 

earlier “Seashore off Sausalito” movement in East Marin county. He also borrowed 

political tactics drawn from his experience as chair of the “Alliance to Save San 

Francisco Bay” campaign that had targeted state legislators in Sacramento.162 One such 

strategy—a massive petition-signing operation—was at the heart of the SOS effort in 

California. Behr chose the petition approach because not enough time remained to mount 

an effective letter-writing campaign. He believed (correctly, as it turned out) that a wellpublicized petition-drive would draw needed media attention, heighten public awareness 

about the urgency of the issue, and provide weighty, concrete evidence of broad citizen 

support for completion of the Point Reyes National Seashore as it was originally 

conceived. Because it was a last-ditch effort, Behr decided the petitions should target the 

president himself. Harold Johnson likewise suggested the same strategy to Katy Johnson. 

SOS attempted to appeal to Nixon’s political vulnerability on environmental issues, and 

to his desire for stronger voter support in California, not only for himself, but also for 

Republican Senator Murphy, who faced a tough reelection battle that fall. 

Unlike the original authorization campaign, firm citizen support within Marin County 

bolstered the SOS operation from the outset. Two of the primary opponents to the initial 

proposals for a national seashore at Point Reyes, local ranchers and the Marin County 

Board of Supervisors, supported the SOS undertaking and sent representatives (Boyd 

Stewart and Louis Baar, respectively) to testify at congressional hearings on the landacquisition legislation. SOS was also a bipartisan affair. Behr and Clausen, the county’s 

representative in Congress, were Republicans, as was Murphy, who cosponsored the 

PRNS spending bill in the Senate. On the other side of the legislative aisle, Cranston, 

Cohelan, and many of Katy Johnson’s allies brought strong Democratic backing to the 

Point Reyes campaign. Johnson’s fervent calls to action engendered citizen support on 

local and national levels, culled support from both political parties, recruited organizers 

who were veterans in conservation struggles, and enticed campaign leaders who were 

political insiders and outsiders. Clausen, though not known as a conservationist, became 

a steadfast worker for the new legislation and an important ally in Congress. Point Reyes 

was part of his congressional district, and he knew that conservationists and seashore 

supporters composed a significant segment of his constituency. He also, according to 

Stewart, enjoyed a good rapport with ranchers on the peninsula and in West Marin, based 

on his own ranching background. 

Between May and November of 1969, this collaboration of conservation, environmental, 

and community groups worked tirelessly to secure the appropriations needed to complete 

the seashore and block commercial development. Behr was a master publicist; every 

chance he found to garner media attention, he made the most of it. The iconic image of 

the entire seashore campaign was a photo of an exuberant and astounded-looking Behr, 

Save Our 

Seashore
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

137

standing next to tall stacks of signed SOS petitions.163 The image was used in SOS 

promotional literature and accompanied many of the regional newspaper accounts of the 

campaign. Each new clipping or photo was duly forwarded to Washington, and 

distributed to Congress and the White House. SOS organizers resurrected the Island in 

Time book, film, and poster, making sure that every key legislator received a copy of 

Gilliam’s book. The scenic images of Point Reyes in those media carried added 

importance because, unlike during the authorization campaign, there was not time to fly 

legislators and government officials to California to witness, in person, the beauty and 

unique qualities of the peninsula. 

POINT REYES AND PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT

Probably no park area anywhere has gone through more traumas or has depended more on the work of 

legions of volunteers than this one. Part of the turmoil stems from the fact that Point Reyes and its Atlantic coast 

counterpart, Cape Cod National Seashore, were the first units of the National Park System to be created by 

Government purchase of private property. Previous parks had been carved out of the public domain or, like nearby 

Muir Woods National Monument, had been receive as gifts. Even after the Point Reyes legislation was enacted, 

private activities continued – many of them destructive to the purposes of the park. 

. . . Preface to Island in Time, 1962 

The SOS campaign was based on the notion that there was enormous citizen support—

voter support—behind the Point Reyes legislation (H.R. 3847) and full appropriations 

package. But the campaign faced an uphill battle. Even if Congress and the Budget 

Bureau agreed to make funds available from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 

Point Reyes was but one among many NPS units seeking money to purchase land. In 

1967, more than thirty NPS sites created since 1961 still required additional 

appropriations to complete land acquisition; the total for all of the projected land 

purchases for the park system was an estimated $455 million.164

When Clausen’s office delivered the 450,000 signed SOS petitions to the White House, it 

finally convinced White House staff assistant John C. Whitaker that it was time for the 

administration to change tack on Point Reyes. Whitaker said that the president would get 

“run over by Congress on this one and we should therefore pick up the political credit and 

do it in the most dramatic way possible.”165 Whitaker told John Ehrlichman that of the 

$60 million requested for NPS land purchases in FY1970 (for Point Reyes, Cape Cod, 

and Padre Island national seashores, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area), funding 

a site in California would carry “much more political clout” than in Massachusetts, 

Texas, or Nevada.166 He also emphasized that the “political pressure on this one is 

extremely high,” citing the fact that Clausen alone had thus far received 250,000 signed 

SOS petitions to be delivered to the president. Once the White House decided the 

political benefit was worth the cost, finding necessary funding was no longer an 

insurmountable problem. Whitaker reviewed several possible scenarios that could supply 

the necessary funds in the budget. Indeed, Whitaker by then believed funding for Point 

Reyes was worth such political clout, he suggested that if that year’s $192.9 billion 

budget level was already topped out, “The money should come from some other program, 

e.g. cancel a space shot.”167 Obtaining funding to purchase the additional land for Point 

Reyes had became more politically expedient than financing the next Apollo moon 

mission. 

 “Cancel a 

Space Shot” 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

138

Key players in the spending debate—Murphy, Aspinall, and Clausen—were invited to 

meet with Nixon and Whitaker at the White House, so the administration could float its 

plan to fund the Point Reyes proposal. Once the meeting was underway, Aspinall, with 

the larger interests of the National Park system in mind, balked at a plan that would fund 

land acquisition only at Point Reyes. He proposed, instead, that the White House agree to 

spend $200 million out of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire land at 

several other sites as well as Point Reyes. In other words, Aspinall countered the 

president’s offer: Nixon would have to pay a price to garner desired political plaudits for 

“saving” Point Reyes. The price was funding for the other three sites that topped the NPS 

land acquisition list.168 According to Whitaker, Aspinall warned that he would refuse to 

let his committee authorize any new NPS sites until he received assurances that Cape 

Cod, Padre Island, and Lake Mead also would get their needed appropriations.169 The 

White House soon acquiesced, with the attitude that the budget office would “find [the 

money] somewhere,” held in reserve for some contingency or another.170 The push to 

gain funding for Point Reyes thus helped pry open the vaults of the Land and Water 

Conservation Fund to bankroll spending on other national park sites. 

Even after the White House changed its position on H.R. 3786, there remained the final 

task of persuading the Budget Bureau to release money from the fund, which would, in 

turn, give them Aspinall’s support to steer the bill through the House Interior Committee. 

The spending deadlock was due, in part, to the personality clash between the president 

and the budget director; since taking office, Nixon had become increasingly annoyed and 

exasperated with Mayo. Ehrlichman recounted that by November, as the White House 

raced to make its final budget decisions, Nixon simply refused to deal directly with 

Mayo, freezing him out of the budget-development process.171 Having bypassed Mayo, 

the White House released its federal budget, which included the spending measure for 

Point Reyes and other NPS sites. For seashore supporters, the political tide had turned. 

With White House support secured, SOS backers had cleared what they perceived to be 

the biggest hurdle in their six-month dash to protect Point Reyes. To their surprise, 

however, another obstacle quickly blocked their path. John P. Saylor, Republican 

congressman from Pennsylvania and a supporter of national park legislation throughout 

his career, announced his intention to hold up the spending bill in committee at all costs. 

Saylor, ranking Republican on the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, 

objected to the “deal” struck between the White House and Aspinall, because it seemed 

to be a purely political maneuver. He argued that it set the precedent of making selection 

of new parklands a partisan process. He thought it unseemly for a Republican president 

from California to blatantly support a spending bill for a California park, at a time when 

another California Republican (Murphy) faced a close reelection battle for his Senate 

seat, and when the President’s own reelection campaign looked to California for its 

bonanza of electoral votes.172 Whitaker, in fact, had reminded Nixon and Murphy that 

they should not trumpet the Point Reyes decision as a boost for California’s economy, 

environment, or tourist appeal. Instead, they should focus attention on the rapid 

escalation of real estate prices in Marin County as the reason to put Point Reyes at the top 

of the appropriations list.173 Saylor, for the time being, would have none of it, and wrote 

the minority opinion opposing the legislation in the committee’s report to Congress (H. 

Rpt. 91–785) on H.R. 3786.174

On February 10, 1970, President Nixon’s “Special Message to Congress on 

Environmental Quality” announced his proposal to spend $327 million, the full amount 

available that year, from the Land and Water Conservation Fund on parkland acquisition 

Congressional 

Hearings and 

Debates 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

139

and recreational facilities. The president explained his rationale as though these were 

long-held views of his own: 

Plain common sense argues that we give greater priority to acquiring 

now the lands that will be so greatly needed in a few years. Good sense 

also argues that the Federal Government itself, as the nation’s largest 

landholder, should address itself more imaginatively to the question of 

making optimum use of its own holdings in a recreation-hungry era. 175

Nixon then announced his intent to provide full funding of the $327 million available 

through the Land and Water Conservation Fund in fiscal 1971, “for additional park and 

recreational facilities, with increased emphasis on locations that can be easily reached by 

the people in crowded urban areas.”176

This was the news Saylor needed to hear: he reversed his position opposing spending for 

Point Reyes and got behind the bill. Saylor explained that he had not been against the 

Point Reyes proposal, per se, rather he had objected to “picking out Point Reyes and 

authorizing its acquisition in preference to all the other projects that have been authorized 

by Congresses in years gone by and that also need immediate financing.”177 With 

Saylor’s support, the House debated and passed the bill by a voice vote the same day they 

received the President’s message. 

The House bill included a supplemental funding request of $7 million to acquire 

immediately the two most important and threatened parcels at Point Reyes, Pierce Point 

Ranch and Lake Ranch. It also included an amendment that Representative William Ryan 

of New York had inserted during the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee deliberations 

for their report, which provided “that no freehold, leasehold, or lesser interest in any 

lands hereafter acquired [after April 3, 1970] within the boundaries of Point Reyes 

National Seashore shall be conveyed for residential or commercial purposes,” except for 

public accommodations, facilities, and services of a concessionaire operating under the 

authority of stringent federal guidelines.178 During the subsequent House debate on the 

bill, Ryan explained the purpose of his amendment was, “to insure the integrity of the 

seashore and to prevent the Department of the Interior from selling land within the Point 

Reyes National Seashore for private development.”179

Ryan’s amendment, which remained in the bill’s final version and passed into law, was a 

reaction to Hartzog’s sell-off-for-subdivision scheme of the previous year. Ryan, who 

was present at the subcommittee hearing when Hartzog first broached his plan, railed 

against the audacity of the director’s strategy: 

The proposal to sell the land to private owners for development is clearly 

inconsistent with the intent of Congress when it authorized the Point 

Reyes National Seashore in 1962. It would deplete the seashore by onesixth, allowing for the resale of the land to developers who would build 

homes, shopping centers, and other facilities totally inconsistent with the 

purpose of the park. . . . Congress must neither countenance nor sanction 

the carving out of enclaves of private privilege within the national park 

system.180

By reporting on the bill with his amendment, Ryan believed that the committee had set a 

precedent that would protect not only Point Reyes, but would also “preserve a large part 

The Ryan 

Amendment 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

140

of our land [the national park system] unfettered from commercial development for the 

benefit of everyone, in this decade and in the future.181

The bill moved on to the Senate, where a voice vote passed the bill on March 17, 1970.182

President Nixon signed H.R. 3847 into law on April 3, 1970, signaling the certain 

completion of the entire national seashore and success for the SOS campaign. The 

resulting Public Law 91-223 amended the PRNS Authorizing Act, increasing the 

spending ceiling for land acquisition to $57 million.183

The government began new land 

acquisition later that year. PRNS 

acquisitions thereafter went quickly 

and, in most cases, smoothly. The 

NPS assigned William Kriz, from 

the San Francisco Regional Office, 

to work in San Rafael as the land 

acquisition officer, directing NPS 

land appraisals, negotiations, and 

purchases of property at Point 

Reyes. Negotiations for some 

properties hit a harsh note when 

Sansing, starting at his new post as 

superintendent in the midst of 

acquisitions, mistakenly informed 

several ranchers they would have to 

vacate their property once they sold 

to the government. Brief conflicts 

ensued, mainly because the 

regional office failed to brief 

Sansing comprehensively on the 

acquisition process, and because he 

did not conduct adequate research 

of his own before taking his post.184

Once Sansing understood the 

legislative history behind the 

acquisitions, he defused the 

conflicts. 

Former Department of the Interior 

Regional Field Solicitor Ralph 

Mihan recalled that there generally 

was some resistance to selling 

among the individual ranch owners, 

but they eventually found the rationale to sell their land sufficiently compelling. “When 

they said no,” Mihan said, “invariably they would say yes.”185 He summarized the 

outlook of many Point Reyes ranchers: 

It becomes pretty economically attractive to the rancher . . . when the 

government is saying out there, ‘here’s a check for a million bucks to go 

buy your land.’ [Rancher thinks] ‘I’ve got to get up at 3:00 in the 

morning to milk those cows for the rest of my life. Sometimes I can’t sell Record No. 58560. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Even with automatic milking machines, as shown here on the McClure 

Ranch, the sons and daughters of the peninsula’s dairy ranchers were 

generally not eager to take on the long hours and arduous work of running 

the family business. 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

141

the milk, sometimes there’s a bad year, sometimes there’s a flood on the 

market . . . you know, that’s [the purchase offer] not so bad.186

Mihan noted that many older farmers and ranchers loved their way of life, but their 

children were not “enamored of having to get up at 3:00 in the morning to milk the 

cows,” especially when nearby cities offered more opportunities with less physical toil.187

By choosing to sell and keep a reservation, they could continue farming and ranching for 

up to, and possibly beyond, twenty-five years. They could also put the purchase proceeds 

in the bank and use the interest to pay debts during lean years or to make improvements 

to their facilities. Some Point Reyes ranchers also recognized they could not keep 

competing with larger operations in California and simply quit the business. As a result, 

the government had by 1972 purchased virtually all of the land needed to complete the 

seashore, enabling the Department of the Interior officially to establish Point Reyes 

National Seashore on September 16 of that year. 

Bill Duddleson called the SOS campaign a “citizen-action enterprise that succeeded far 

beyond the dreams of those who set it motion.”188 Likewise, repercussions of the political 

and legislative battles for Point Reyes were felt far beyond the newly secured boundaries 

of PRNS. The push to fund land acquisition for Point Reyes had the immediate 

consequence of unlocking money in the Land and Water Conservation Fund for other 

NPS sites. The SOS endeavor also demonstrated the kind of political power the growing 

environmental movement could wield. The implications included an awareness and 

appreciation for environmentalism—as a political force—in the Nixon White House. It 

helped convince the president and other elected officials that they could make political 

hay if they positioned themselves in the environmental camp. The political payoff from 

the Nixon administration’s decision on Point Reyes helped pave the way to White House 

support for the authorization of Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1972.189

Throughout the ten-year period that followed authorization, the process of defining and 

redefining the seashore—a central theme of this history—was readily apparent. The 

success of the SOS campaign and enactment of P.L. 91-223 capped a decade of events 

that confirmed the status of PRNS as it was originally envisioned. The rejection of both 

the private and government pro-development proposals, which some NPS officials may 

have perceived as being consistent with the directives of the recreation area category, 

confirmed that the seashore’s primary mission was protection and preservation of the 

peninsula’s natural world for aesthetic, scientific, and recreational purposes. The 

recognition that not all recreational and public use developments were appropriate at 

Point Reyes indicated that the tripartite division the Park Service had delineated in 1964 

did not always apply to the management and planning of each unique NPS unit. These 

events and their aftermath pointed to new directions for seashore administrators in the 

decades to come. NPS officials would soon put new definitions of the seashore to paper 

in the development of the seashore’s new general management plan and the creation of a 

designated wilderness area, to be discussed in the following chapter. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER FOUR

1

 Assistant Secretary John A. Carver Jr. to George Collins, Conservation Associates, October 11, 

1962, Parks and Sites–Point Reyes Files, Box 333, Central Classified Files 1959–63, (hereafter 

CCF) RG-48, National Archives-II, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NARA-II). 

Significance 

and Legacy of 

the SOS 

Campaign 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

142

2

 National Park Service, “Tracts Conveyed between 01/01/1950 and 05/20/03 for Point Reyes 

National Seashore,” Table, April 20, 2003, Decimal L1425, Land Acquisition Priority List, Lands 

Files L14-L36, CCF, Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS). Note: PRNS will be used to indicate 

locations of active files or other documents in the current offices of the national seashore. The 

abbreviation PRA refers to the Point Reyes National Seashore Archives, located in the Red Barn 

at Bear Valley. 

3

 D. S. [Dewey] Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula: A History of the Dairy and 

Beef Ranches within Point Reyes National Seashore, 1834–1992,” Historic Resource Study, 

National Park Service, Point Reyes National Seashore, July 1993, 333–36. His stay on the ranch 

was interrupted when Heims, a German immigrant, was arrested and placed in a federal detention 

camp for several years during the war. 

4

 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 335. 

5

 Conrad Wirth to Secretary of Interior, January 10, 1962, Parks and Sites–Point Reyes Files, Box 

333, CCF, RG 48, NARA-II. 

6

 “Meeting with Bruce Kelham and Francis Hutchens (Attorney), Doris Leonard, Dick Leonard, 

and George Collins at NPS Office on June 8, 1960,” Meeting Minutes, Folder Bruce Kelham Mtg. 

Notes, Box 1, Administrative History Files, PORE-8053, PRA. 

7

 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 220–21. 

8

 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 222–23. 

9

 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 223. 

10 National Park Service, “Tracts Conveyed between 01/01/1950 and 05/20/03.” 

11 National Park Service, “Tracts Conveyed between 01/01/1950 and 05/20/03.” 

12 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 179. 

13 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 345–46. 

14 Taylor Grazing Act, U.S. Code, volume 43, section 8(b), 315. 15 United States Comptroller General, Report on Examination into Certain Proposed Land 

Exchanges for the Point Reyes National Seashore in California, prepared for the Bureau of Land 

Management and the National Park Service (Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, 

September 1966), Government Documents Collection, Northern Arizona University, 5–7, 48. 

16 Carver to Collins, October 11, 1962. 

17 Collins to Carl Gustafson, President, American Conservation Association, October 5, 1962, 

Parks and Sites–Point Reyes Files, Box 333, CCF, RG 48, NARA-II. 

18 Collins to Gustafson, October 5, 1962, 2. 

19 Collins to Gustafson, October 5, 1962, 5. 

20 Comptroller General, Report on Examination Into Certain Proposed Land Exchanges, 8–11. 21 Secretary Stewart Udall to Wayne Aspinall, Chairman of House Committee on Interior Affairs, 

November 16, 1965, Point Reyes Folder Pt. 1, Box 214, Parks and Sites, CCF 1964–68, RG 48, 

NARA-II. 

22 Comptroller General, Report on Examination Into Certain Proposed Land Exchanges, 41. The 

only other successful exchange netted 300 additional acres for the seashore. In May 1966, Point 

Reyes landowners had filed twenty-six applications to exchange a total of 9,300 acres of peninsula 

land. 

23 Comptroller General, Report on Examination Into Certain Proposed Land Exchanges, 42. 24 Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Hearings on 

S. 2428, a Bill to Establish the Point Reyes National Seashore in the State of California and For 

Other Purposes; 87th Cong., 1st sess., March 28, 30, and 31, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1961), 

69. 

25 Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess., July 23, 1962, 108, pt. 2: 14414. 26 Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula,” 221–22. 

27 Lady Bird Johnson, Dedication Speech–Point Reyes National Seashore, October 20, 1966. 28 Stanley A. Cain to Wirth, November 7, 1962, General Correspondence Files, Box 8, Wirth 

Files, RG 79, NARA-II. 

29 Stanley A. Cain, Special Subcommittee Chair, to Harold P. Fabian, Chair of Advisory Board on 

National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments, December 6, 1962, with attached 

recommendations of December 5, 1962, Box 9, Wirth Files. 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

143

30 Stanley Cain, “Opening Statement, Special Subcommittee. . . December 5, 1962,” Box 9, Wirth 

Files. 

31 Cain to Fabian, December 5, 1962. 

32 Public Law 85–470. 

33 Hal K. Rothman, The Park that Creates Its Own Weather: An Administrative History of Golden 

Gate National Recreation Area, online rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2002), 

http://www.nps.gov/goga/history/pdf/hist-admin-2nd-edition.pdf., 10–11. Rothman’s revised 

administrative history was subsequently published as The New Urban Park: Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area and Civic Environmentalism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004). 34 Ronald A. Foresta, America’s National Parks and Their Keepers (Washington, D.C.: Resources 

for the Future, Inc., 1984), 176. 

35 President, Executive Order No. 11017, April 27, 1962. 

36 George B. Hartzog, Jr., Battling for the National Parks (Mt. Kisco, N.Y.: Moyer Bell Limited, 

1988), 101. 

37 Hartzog, Battling for the National Parks, 101. 38 Recreation Advisory Council, “Federal Executive Branch Policy Governing the Selection, 

Establishment, and Administration of National Recreation Areas,” Circular No. 1, March 26, 

1963, in Department of the Interior, Administrative Policies for Recreation Areas, National 

Seashores, National Lakeshores, National Parkways, National Scenic Riverways of the National 

Park System, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968), 69–70. 

39 Udall to Director, National Park Service, July 10, 1964, “Memorandum re: management of the 

National Park System,” reprinted in Administrative Policies for Recreation Areas of the National 

Park System, 64–66. 40 Hartzog, Battling for the National Parks, 101. 41 Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Compilation of the Administrative Policies 

for the National Recreation Areas, National Seashores, National Lakeshores, National Parkways, 

National Scenic Riverways (Recreational Area Category) of the National Park System

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968). 

42 Compilation of the Administrative Policies for the National Recreation Areas, 10. 43 Dwight F. Rettie, Our National Park System: Caring for America’s Greatest Natural and 

Historic Treasures (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 42–43. 44 Doug Nadeau, interview by Paul Sadin, December 3, 2004, San Rafael, California, audiotape 

recording, HRA Administrative History Files, Point Reyes Archives (hereafter PRA). 45 National Park System General Authorities Act, Public Law 91–383, 16 USC 1a-1; and Lary M. 

Dilsaver, Cumberland Island National Seashore: a History of Conservation Conflict 

(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004), 152. 

46 Rettie, Our National Park System, 43. 47 Public Law 95–250; 16 USC 1a-1. 

48 Stephanie S. Toothman, “Cultural Resource Management in Natural Areas of the National Park 

System,” Public Historian 9 (Spring 1987): 65–76, quotation on 66. 

49 Until 1972, the park planning document was referred to as a master plan (MP); the term then 

changed to general management plan (GMP). 50 Nadeau, interview. 

51 William Duddleson, “The Miracle of Point Reyes,” Living Wilderness (Summer 1971): 15–24, 

20. 

52 NPS, “Master Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore, California,” Visitor Use Plan, Drawing NSPR 3021, June 7, 1963, PRA Map Collection, sheet 12. 

53 NPS, “Point Reyes National Seashore (Proposed) Construction,” File D22 Construction 

Program 1963–64, Box 2, Accession 76A713, Point Reyes Correspondence Files [hereafter PORE 

Files], RG 79 Records of the National Park Service, National Archives and Records 

Administration-Pacific West Region, San Bruno, California (hereafter NARA-SB), 3. 

54 NPS, “Master Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore, California, Developed Area Narrative To 

Accompany Drawing No. NS-PR-3025-A, Limantour,” prepared by Franklin G. Collins, 

landscape architect, February 10, 1965, File D1815 Suggestions for Master Plan, Box 2, 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

144

Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 3. The original or a copy of architectural drawing 

NS-PR-3025-A has, not been found. 

55 NPS, “Master Plan, Point Reyes,” 3. 

56 NPS, “Master Plan, Point Reyes,” 3. 

57 NPS, “Master Plan, Point Reyes,” 4. 

58 NPS, “Parking, Beach and Picnic Development, Drakes Bay Beach, PRNS,” Preliminary 

Drawing/Site Plan, August 13, 1965, prepared by NPS Branch of Landscape Architecture, PRA. 

59 Leslie P. Arnberger to the Regional Director, Western Region, August 20, 1965, File D1815 

Suggestions for Master Plan, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, RG 79, NARA-SB. Rangers 

found that the chain most frequently appeared where the road crossed the Lockhart property. 60 Stanley Cain, Asst. Secretary of Interior, to Winfield Denton, Chair, House Subcommittee on 

Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations, October 11, 1965, Point Reyes Folder Pt. 1, Box 

214, Parks and Sites, CCF 1964–68, RG 48, NARA-II. 

61 Cain to Denton, October 11, 1965. 

62 Arnberger to Regional Director, August 20, 1965, 2. 

63 Leslie Arnberger to Director, Western Region, August 16, 1966, File D1815 Suggestions for 

Master Plan, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, RG 79, NARA-SB, 2. 

64 Arnberger to Director, Western Region, August 16, 1966. 

65 Edward J. Kurtz to Regional Director, Western Office, December 6, 1967, File D1815 

Suggestions for Master Plan, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, RG 79, NARA-SB. 

66 Kurtz to Regional Director, Western Office, December 6, 1967. 67 R. B. Moore, Western Region Office, to Superintendent Kurtz, December 19, 1967, File D1815 

Suggestions for Master Plan, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, RG 79, NARA-SB. 

68 National Park Service, “Planning Directive, Point Reyes National Seashore,” prepared by the 

Office of Environmental Planning and Design, WSC, May 1, 1970, File D18 Planning Program 

and Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, RG 79, NARA-SB, 2. 

69 NPS, “Planning Directive, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 2. 

70 John Sansing to Mrs. Edgar Wayburn, April 23, 1970, File D1815 Suggestions for Master Plan, 

1965–70, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, RG 79, NARA-SB. 

71 Robert Luntey, Chief, Office of Resource Planning, to Assistant Director, NPS, May 22, 1969, 

D18 File—Planning Progress and Master Plans, 1968–69, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, 

RG79, NARA-SB. 

72 Luntey to Assistant Director, May 22, 1969. 

73 Luntey to Assistant Director, May 22, 1969. 

74 The Bureau of Public Roads report, “Reconnaissance Report on the Feasibility of Access to 

Point Reyes National Seashore,” is summarized in Edward Weinberg, Deputy Solicitor, 

Department of Interior, to Edwin Weisl, Jr., Asst. Attorney General, Department of Justice, 

August 2, 1965, Point Reyes Folder Pt. 1, Box 214, Parks and Sites, CCF 1964–68, RG 48, 

NARA-II, 3–4. 

75 Weinberg to Weisl, August 2, 1965, 2 

76 Weinberg to Weisl, August 2, 1965, 2. 

77 Weinberg to Weisl, 4. 

78 Congress, An Act to Amend the Act of September 13, 1962, Public Law 666, 89th Congress, 2d

sess., October 15, 1966. 

79 Sansing to James W. Moorman, Executive Director, Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, July 3, 

1973, File D30 Roads and Trails, Box 2, Accession 78-0001, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

80 John L. Sansing, unpublished memoir, n.d., Superintendent’s Office Files, Administration 

Building, PORE, 12–13. 

81 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” File A2621 Annual Reports–General, Box 1, 

Accession 79-78-0001, NPS Correspondence 1972–74 [hereafter PORE Files], RG 79, NARASB, 7. 

82 Joseph C. Rumburg, Jr., Western Region Director, to Sen. Alan Cranston, n.d., ca. 1971, Folder 

A44, Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 2. 

83 Cite. 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

145

84 Robert “Bob” Barbee, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, May 24, 2005, audiotape recording, 

HRA Administrative History Files, PRA. 

85 Barbee, interview. 

86 Barbee, interview. 

87 Superintendent’s Monthly Narrative Report – March 1965, memorandum, April 16, 1965, File 

A2615 Monthly Narrative Reports CY 1965, Box 3, Central Alphanumeric Files 1953–1969, 

Records of the Office of the Regional Director, Western Regional Office (hereafter WRO 

Records), RG 79, NARA-SB. 

88 Even when a park has established boundaries, infrastructure, and facilities, it is—in many 

respects—still a concept rather than a physical entity. Even today, visitors approaching Point 

Reyes, particularly those traveling by car, cannot easily tell where the official seashore, as a 

geographic and political entity, begins and where it ends. 

89 Barbee, interview. 

90 Barbee, interview. 

91 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes,” April 14, 1969, File A4023—Staff Mtg. PORE, Box 1, 

Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

92 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” March 9, April 22, June 8, and August 10, 

1970, File A4023—Staff Mtg. PORE, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

93 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” April 12, 1971, File A4023—Staff Mtgs. 

PORE, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

94 “Staff Management Minutes,” October 12, 1969, File A4023 Staff Management PORE, Box 1, 

Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 2. 

95 For example, in the first half of 1970, the park had filed 400 court cases, 100 of which were 

drug related. PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” June 8, 1970, 3. 96 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes,” October 12, 1969, File A4023—Staff Mtg. PORE, Box 1, 

Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 2. 

97 “Minutes SFBAG”, April 20, 1970, File A4023 Staff Management PORE, Box 1, Accession 

76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 4. 

98 “Staff Management Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” August 10, 1970, File A4023 Staff 

Management PORE, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 2. 

99 Joseph Sax, Mountains without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks (Ann Arbor: 

University of Michigan Press, 1980). 

100 Barbee, interview. 101 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” File A2621, Annual Reports—General, Box 

1, Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 5. 

102 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” August 10, 1970 and September 14, 1970. 103 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” August 10, 1970 and September 14, 1970. 104 The year-end attendance figure was 1,086,631. 105 Superintendent’s Monthly Narrative Reports, January–December 1965, File A2615 Monthly 

Narrative Reports CY 1965, Box 3, Central Alphanumeric Files 1953–1969, WRO Records, RG79, NARA-SB. 

106 Superintendent’s Monthly Narrative Reports, June 1966, File A2615 Monthly Narrative 

Reports CY 1966, Box 3, Central Alphanumeric Files 1953–1969, WRO Records, RG-79, NARASB. 

107 Donald Cameron, interview by Paul Sadin, March 10, 2005, American Fork, Utah, handwritten 

notes only. 

108 California, An Act to Convey Certain Tide and Submerged Lands to the United States in 

futherance of the Point Reyes National Seashore (1965), section 3, 983:44. 

109 An Act to Convey Certain Tide and Submerged Lands, 1965. 110 Kurtz to Willard Greenwall, Department of Fish and Game, March 11, 1969, File A44 

Cooperative Agreements–California Fish and Game, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, 

NARA-SB. 

111 Kurtz to Greenwall, March 11, 1969. Kurtz cited Pratt, “Manual of the Common Invertebrate 

Animals.” 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

146

112 Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven, Conn.: 

Yale University Press, 1997), 170. 

113 Title 26, Code of Federal Regulations [hereafter CFR], Chapter 1, Section 2.13 (d). 114 Kurtz to Greenwall, March 11, 1969. 115 Cranston to George Hartzog, Director, NPS, August 26, 1971, Folder A44, Box 1, PORE Files, 

NARA-SB. 

116 Cranston to Hartzog, August 26, 1971. 117 Marin Conservation League, et al., to Marin County Park and Recreation Commission, 

September 8, 1971, A44 File—Cooperative Agreements, Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 118 Corresp., Folder A44—Cooperative Agreements—CA Fish and Game, 1968–71, Box 1, PORE 

Files—Accession 76A 713, RG 79, NARA-SB. 

119 “Memorandum of Understanding between the State of California, Department of Fish and 

Game and the National Park Service Relating to Wildlife Management in the Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” signed September 3, 1969, Folder A44, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, 

NARA-SB. 

120 “Memorandum of Understanding between the State of California, Department of Fish and 

Game and the National Park Service Department of the Interior, NPS.” 

121 Joseph Rumburg, Jr., Western Region Director, to Senator Alan Cranston, n.d., ca. 1971, File 

A44—Cooperative Agreements, CA Fish and Game, Box 1, PORE Records, NARA-SB. 122 Sansing to Ray Arnett, Director, California Dept. of Fish and Game, Se. 7, 1971, Folder A44, 

Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 2. 123 Gerald R. Wright, Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks (Urbana: 

University of Illinois Press, 1992), 55. 

124 Carver to Robert L. Condon, Attorney, Martinez, California, April 6, 1962, Park and Sites–

Point Reyes Files, Box 333, CCF, RG 48, NARA-II. 

125 California Department of Fish and Game, “The California Oyster Industry,” Fish Bulletin No. 

123, prepared by Elinore M. Barrett, 1963, 60-63, in The Online Archive of California,

http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt629004n3 (accessed September 25, 2007). 126 State of California Department of Fish and Game, “Allotment of State Water Bottoms for 

Shellfish Culture No. 72,” March 5, 1965, and “Allotment of State Water Bottoms for Shellfish 

Culture No. 2,” July 30, 1965; Leslie Bigerton, Assistant to the Fish and Game Commission, to 

Johnson Oyster Company, February 23, 1965. Copies of the preceding documents are included as 

appendices to “Appraisal Report & Economic Study: Johnson Oyster Company, Point Reyes 

National Seashore,” PWR Archives. 

127 “Appraisal Report & Economic Study: Johnson Oyster Company, Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” prepared for the NPS by Harding Appraisal Co., California, June 1972, Park Files, 

History Program Collection, NPS-Pacific West Region Office Archives, Oakland, CA [hereafter 

PWR Archives], 10-12. 

128 Department of the Interior, Land Use Survey, Point Reyes National Seashore Proposal,

prepared by NPS Region Four Office (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1961), 16. 

129 Congress, Senate Committee On Interior and Insular Affairs, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

Report to Accompany S. 476, 87th Congress, 1st sess., 1961, S. Rept. 807, 8; the special 

agreements, usually in the form of correspondence from the Department of the Interior, were 

included in the appendix to S. Rept. 807. 

130 NPS, “Tracts Conveyed Between 01/01/1950 and 5/20/2003 for Point Reyes NS,” computer 

table, run date April 20, 2003, 1, File L1425 Land Acquisition Priority List and LWC Fund Calls, 

Land Files, CCF, PRNS. 

131 Sarah Allen, science advisor, interview by Paul Sadin, August 13, 2004, Point Reyes National 

Seashore, audiotape recording, HRA Administrative History Files, PRA. 

132 Congress, An Act to Protect the Birds and Animals in Yellowstone National Park, and to 

Punish Crimes in Said Park, U.S. Statutes at Large 28 (1894): 73. Better known as the Lacey Act. 133 Robert W. Righter, Crucible for Conservation: The Struggle for Grand Teton National Park 

(1982; reprint, Moose, Wyo.: Grand Teton Natural History Assoc., 2000), 149. One of the prime 

reasons for this unusual exception was the expressed need to limit the size of the Jackson Hole Elk 

Herd. 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

147

134 Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks, 196. Much to their dismay after years of 

clamoring for the chance, seven out of every eight “deputies” at Grand Teton failed to bag an elk. 

135 Harlan D. Unrau and G. Frank Willis, Administrative History: Expansion of the National Park 

System in the 1930s (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1983), 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books//unrau-williss/adhi4b.htm. 136 Miller to Jack Nevraumont, San Francisco, December 3, 1961, Box 4, Drakes Estates, Miller 

Papers. 

137 Miller to Nevraumont, December 3, 1961. 138 “Memorandum of Understanding,” September 3, 1969, Folder A44, Box 1, PORE Records, 

NARA-SB, 3. The memo cited the final report of the Special Advisory Board, which Secretary 

Udall approved on May 2, 1963. 

139 Edward Kurtz, Superintendent, Point Reyes National Seashore, memorandum to files, October 

9, 1969, Folder A44, Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

140 Ray Arnett, Director, California Fish and Game, to Supt. Sansing, September 28, 1971, File 

A44, Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

141 Sansing to Ray Arnett, Director, California Fish and Game, September 7, 1971, File A44, Box 

1, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 1. 

142 Point Reyes National Seashore, Press Release, October 1, 1971, File A44 Cooperative 

Agreements, Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

143 Sansing to Domingo Grossi, Inverness, July 16, 1971, Folder Land Acquisition–Confidential, 

Carton 5, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives 

(hereafter PRA). 

144 Leland S. Murphy, interview by Diana Skiles, June 15, 1977, Guerneville, California, 

transcript, n.p., PRA. 

145 Lee Murphy, interview by Paul Sadin, August 10, 2004, Kentfield, California, HRA 

Administrative History Files, PRA. 

146 “Point Reyes in California a Patchwork Park in Trouble,” New York Times, August 5, 1969, 39. 147 “Point Reyes in California a Patchwork Park in Trouble,” 39. 148 Land Investors Research, “Newsletter,” April 1969, Folder Land Acquisition-Confidential, 

Carton 5, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA, 2. 

149 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, Statutes at Large, 78 (1964): 897–904. (16 U.S.C. 

4601-6a(a).) 

150 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, Statutes at Large. 151 Gustav Meuhlenhaupt, Western Region Office, to Mrs. Bill Eastman, June 26, 1967, Box 2, 

PRNSF, Accession PORE-433, PRA. 

152 Marin County Board of Supervisors, “An Ordinance Establishing A Point Reyes Interim Zone, 

Prohibiting Uses Therein, And Providing That Said Ordinance Take Effect Immediately,” County 

Ordinance 1735, December 2, 1969, Folder A44, Box 1, Accession No. 76A713, PORE Files, RG 

79, NARA-SB, 2. 

153 “Statement of Douglas Maloney, County Counsel of Marin County, to the Subcommittee on 

National Parks and Recreation, May 13, 1969,” Hearing on H.R. 3786, Washington D.C., Folder 

A44, Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 1–2. The law prohibiting government entities from 

depreciating private property is found in Griffin v. County of Marin, 157 California Code, App. 2d 

507. 

154 “Statement of Douglas J. Maloney, County Counsel of Marin County, California,” Hearing 

Before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation of the House Committee on Interior 

and Insular Affairs on H.R. 3786 and Related Bills, 91st Cong., 1st sess., May 13, 1969,” Serial No. 

91-5 (Washington D.C.: GPO, 1969), Appendix B, 284. 

155 Hartzog may have been considering this plan for some time. The contents of a 1966 memo from 

Western Region Director to Hartzog suggest that Hartzog was making inquiries about Point Reyes 

land to “eliminate” as early as January 1966. Edward A. Hummel to the Director, memorandum, 

January 4, 1966, Land Acquisition–Confidential file, Carton 5, PORE-8053, PRA. 156 William J. Duddleson, “Introduction,” Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 1969–1970: An 

Oral History of Citizen Action in Conservation (Berkeley: Regional Oral History Office, The 
Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

148

Bancroft Library, 1993), viii. Duddleson’s introduction is an excellent summary account of the 

entire Save Our Seashore movement. 

157 NPS, “Statement: Point Reyes National Seashore,” prepared by George Hartzog, 1969, File 

Land Acquisition–Confidential, Carton 5, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE 8053, PRA. 158 Katy Miller Johnson, “Catalyst and Citizen Lobbyist in Washington,” interview by Ann Lage, 

1990, in Saving Point Reyes, 21. 

159 William Duddleson, interview by Paul Sadin, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 28, 2004, 

tape recording and transcription, HRA Administrative History Project Files (hereafter HRA Files), 

PRA. 

160 Excerpt from Katy Miller Johnson’s letter to Harold Johnson quoted in Duddleson’s 

introduction to Saving Point Reyes, ix. 161 Johnson, “Catalyst and Citizen Lobbyist in Washington,” 24. 162 Peter Behr, “Marin County Environmentalist and Political Leader: Spearheading the Save Our 

Seashore Campaign,” interview by Ann Lage, 1990, in Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 

1969–1970: An Oral History of Citizen Action in Conservation, 117–20. 163 Duddleson, “Introduction,” Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, xiv. 164 National Park Service, “Estimated Additional Authorization Needed to Complete Acquisition 

for Areas Authorized Since 1961,” and “Estimated Cost to Complete Land Acquisition in Areas 

Authorized Prior to 1961,” January 27, 1967, Untitled black notebook, Box A82/4, George 

Hartzog Office Collection, Accession 73-9, Harpers Ferry Center Archives and Library, Harpers 

Ferry, West Virginia. 

165 John C. Whitaker, “Memorandum for John D. Ehrlichman,” November 13, 1969, document 

copy in Saving Point Reyes, Appendix G, 334. 166 Whitaker, “Memorandum,” November 13, 1969, 334. 167 Whitaker, “Memorandum,” November 13, 1969, 335. Whitaker made the “space shot” remark 

just one day before the launch of Apollo 12, the second mission to put people on the surface of the 

moon. The next launch, of the ill-fated Apollo 13, came in April 1970. 

168 John C. Whitaker, “Memorandum for Director Mayo,” November 20, 1969, document copy in 

Saving Point Reyes, Appendix H, 341. 

169 Whitaker, “Memorandum for Director Mayo,” 340. 170 Ehrlichman, “Presidential Assistant with a Bias for Parks,” 382. 171 John D. Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 

1982), 88. Nixon requested, and received, Mayo’s resignation from the cabinet in early 1970. 172 Duddleson, “Introduction,” Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, xviii–xix. 173 John C. Whitaker, “Memorandum for the President,” November 18, 1969, copy in Paul N. 

(Pete) McCloskey, Jr., “An Environmentalist in Congress: Urging Presidential Action of Point 

Reyes,” oral history interview, Saving Point Reyes, Appendix G, 336–37. 174 Congress, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Authorizing the Appropriation of 

Additional Funds Necessary for Acquisition of Land at the Point Reyes National Seashore in 

California, 91st Congress, 1st sess., 1969, H. Rpt. 91-785, 11–19. 175 President Richard M. Nixon, “Special Message to Congress on Environmental Quality,” 

February 10, 1970, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 

1971), reprinted in “The American Presidency Project,” University of California at Santa Barbara 

website, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index (accessed February 9, 2005). 176 Nixon, “Special Message to Congress on Environmental Quality,” February 10, 1970. 177 Congressional Record, 91st Congress, 2d

 sess., 1970, 116, pt. 3:3139. 178 House Interior Committee, Authorizing the Appropriation of Additional Funds. 179 Congressional Record, 91st Congress, 2d

 sess., 1970, 116, pt. 3:3143–44. 180 Congressional Record, 91st Congress, 2d

 sess., 1970, 116, pt. 3:3144. 181 Public Law 223, Sec. 1, 91st Congress, 2d

 sess., April 3, 1970; 84 Stat. 90. Guidelines for 

concession operations found in 16 USC Sec. 20 and 462(h); and Duddleson, interview, 36. 

182 Congressional Record, 91st Congress, 2d

 sess., 1970, 116, pt. 6:7613-17. 183 Public Law 91-223, Sec. 1; 84 Stat. 90. 184 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 11. 
 Shaping the National Seashore, 1962–1972 

149

185 Ralph Mihan, interview by Paul Sadin, April 30, 2004, San Rafael, California, audiotape 

recording, HRA Files, PRA. Mihan served as Regional Field Solicitor in the San Francisco Office 

from 1967 to 2003. His duties included attending to legal issues that arose in PRNS, related to 

PRNS, or involved NPS staff assigned to the seashore. 

186 Mihan, interview. 187 Mihan, interview. 188 Duddleson, Saving Point Reyes, vi. 

189 Duddleson, Saving Point Reyes, xxii. 
150
151

CHAPTER FIVE
152
153

CHAPTER FIVE

PARK PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT, AND MAINTENANCE, 1972–2002 

The development [at Limantour] should reflect the holiday mood of the recreational 

functions of the area. 

. . . PRNS Master Plan 

The developments proposed . . . will seriously impair the ecology of one of the most 

outstanding natural features on the Pacific Coast. 

. . . R. B. Moore, NPS Western Region 

lthough the final land purchases and formal National Park Service establishment of Point 

Reyes National Seashore in 1972 had “completed” the park by defining its geographic 

boundaries, the process of redefining the function and meaning of the peninsula’s natural, 

cultural, and human resources continued over the next three decades of PRNS history. 

Shifts in public perceptions, scientific understandings, and political meanings of park 

resources added to the complexity of administering PRNS for the remainder of the 

twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Debate regarding the definition of several key 

issues played a significant role in shaping the future of the national seashore. Among 

these debates were the long-term viability of agriculture on the peninsula, the extent of 

public participation in the administrative policy-making process, recreational access to 

PRNS land, natural and cultural resource preservation, communication with the park’s 

gateway communities, partnerships with research and education programs, relationships 

with the media, and the value of sound park planning. PRNS administrators began to 

tackle or continued to wrestle with all of these issues from 1972 through 2002. 

A 1972 NPS Operations Evaluation of Point Reyes noted that the seashore had just 

emerged from its “pioneer” stage, when legislative strategies, land acquisition, initial 

staff development and coping with “here and now” problems took center stage.1

 By 

contrast, the report stated, the park’s administration was entering its “ongoing operations” 

stage, which would necessitate a new set of objectives and tasks. It was time for park 

officials to make decisions about long-term management of the seashore, rather than 

simply responding to daily operational brush fires. Park administrators set to work on 

these tasks of developing long-term plans, programs, staff, and equipment needed to 

operate the seashore from 1972 to 1980, when teams fashioned a new general 

management plan, the first resource management plan, and a new interpretive planning 

prospectus for PRNS. 

In 1972, however, most divisions still had a long way to go before they were operational. 

NPS regional office and PRNS staff were developing a new general management plan, 

but the document lacked a comprehensive natural resources management plan to address 

such issues as reintroduction of tule elk, management of the deer population, and 

preservation of marine and other unique ecosystems.2

 The Interpretive Division was also 

due for a new management study and plan that could guide updating and expanding the 

current interpretive exhibits and self-guiding tours. New interpretive facilities were the 

greatest need, but improvements and alterations to overall interpretive programming were 

also in order. In the seashore’s maintenance division, long-term objectives called for staff 

to complete the inventory of all park roads, trails, and buildings, to continue to stabilize 

or remove ranch structures as appropriate, to finish the construction of modern, basic 

A 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

154

facilities (restrooms, parking, and so on) at the primary visitor use areas, to add 

specialized equipment suited to the seashore’s needs, to install safety equipment, and to 

continue improvement work on the park’s roads, trails, and buildings. 

ADMINISTERING THE NATIONAL SEASHORE AS AN INTEGRATED UNIT

Remarkably, in the thirty-plus years since the Department of the Interior officially 

established the national seashore in 1972, only two superintendents have served at Point 

Reyes. John L. Sansing was superintendent from 1970 to 1994; his successor, Donald 

Neubacher, held the position from 1995 through the time of this writing. Sansing’s 

administration focused on facilities development, long-term planning, fostering 

relationships with the ranching community, fund raising, and adapting to dramatic 

changes in federal regulations regarding the environment, cultural resources, and park 

personnel. He also developed a reputation of being somewhat of a maverick when it came 

to working within the NPS bureaucracy. Neubacher devoted much of his time and 

attention to planning, community relations, and fund raising; he also increased the park’s 

emphasis on scientific research, staff development, natural and cultural resource 

management, and has fostered strong connections with the wider NPS community. 

Without a doubt, both superintendents dedicated themselves to the protection of the 

peninsula’s natural resources. Some of the differences between the two reflect their 

respective NPS backgrounds, while other differences, such as increased respect for the 

park’s cultural resources, mirror the dramatic shift in agency attitudes and policies that 

occurred between 1970 and 1995. Both superintendents, in other words, were products of 

their times. 

Sansing’s Park Service background was unusual for someone stepping into a 

superintendent’s post. After serving in the military and earning a degree in accounting, he 

began his NPS career in 1955, as an accounting clerk at the Southwestern National 

Monuments Headquarters in Globe, New Mexico. He sought out work with the NPS 

because it was one of the few employers in the area that offered him a chance for job 

advancement, and because he had developed friendships with the Globe superintendent 

and his assistant. In less than a year, Sansing transferred into the supervisory accountant 

position at Grand Canyon National Park. He subsequently became the supervisory 

accountant at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where he worked for six years.3

 He 

and his wife raised much of their family during those years in Nevada. His position at 

Lake Mead also gave Sansing the opportunity to become acquainted with Nevada Senator 

Alan H. Bible, a relationship Sansing would use to his great benefit when he took the 

reins at Point Reyes. In 1963, Sansing became assistant programs officer at the NPS 

regional office in San Francisco. He was promoted to assistant regional director there in 

1967. During his three years in that position he supervised the planning, budgeting, and 

completion of park development projects, including the last pieces of the Mission 66 

program, and directed the inholdings acquisition program in that region. In the midst of 

position shuffling during the 1970 NPS reorganization, the regional director offered 

Sansing the position that Edward J. Kurtz had recently vacated at Point Reyes. 

Sansing’s Park Service background prepared him for some tasks he would face as 

superintendent, such as handling large budgets, dealing with land acquisition, and 

working with the regional and support offices. But it gave him little experience in 

managing on-the-ground park operations or working with the public. Nevertheless, 

Sansing was quick to develop the political savvy and relationship skills necessary to build 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

155

bonds with staff, local residents, and the ranching community of Point Reyes. Burr 

Heneman, who had a long association with Sansing as a Bolinas resident and as former 

executive director of PRBO, credited him with recognizing that “he had to do some 

adapting.” 4 John Sansing, Heneman said, “was a very political animal. He recognized the 

value of having a local base of support, which started out being, exclusively, the ranching 

community.”5 But as times changed, Heneman noted, he worked to “broaden his base of 

support” in the local community and in the environmental community. Sansing also 

demonstrated a degree of unorthodoxy and unusual autonomy as superintendent, 

especially in his dealings with the agency hierarchy, a predilection that exasperated some 

NPS officials. In a 2004 interview, Sansing acknowledged that although some of his 

actions created enough enmity that, on at least two occasions, he was very close to being 

transferred or demoted, he was able to utilize his political connections to get himself off 

the hook.6

Over time, Sansing also became more adept at working with and listening to local 

residents and conservation groups. Gordon Ashby, a central figure in the Environmental 

Action Committee of West Marin during the Point Reyes wilderness debate of the 1970s, 

observed that Sansing slowly went from being, in the eyes of the conservation 

community, a “bad egg” to “someone who understood” the desires of the various groups 

involved with the seashore, which earned him grudging admiration from some former 

detractors.7

 Nonetheless, Sansing was most effective in his work with the peninsula’s 

ranchers. He noted that his predecessor, Kurtz, had done a good job developing 

relationships with the conservation community but had not paid enough attention to the 

ranchers. Sansing, on the other hand, made it a major objective of his administration.8

From the outset, Sansing went out of his way to foster a positive relationship between the 

park and the agricultural community. In September 1971, he turned the annual end-ofsummer staff picnic into a beef barbeque affair with the dairy and cattle operators 

because “it would be in the park’s best interest to get acquainted” and thus strengthen ties 

with the local ranchers.9

 Sansing also instituted regular meetings with the ranchers; 

several times a year he and Chief Ranger LeeRoy Brock would talk over pertinent dairy 

and grazing issues with the ranchers at one of their homes. Topics included changes in 

the grazing rate, water use, federal regulations, permit processes, and recreationistrancher conflicts. After a very shaky start with them, Sansing gradually gained the 

ranchers’ trust through these informal meetings and by contacting them promptly 

whenever changes or new policies were introduced that would affect their work.10 Likely, 

he also viewed the ranchers as an external base of political power, as several ranchers, 

most notably Boyd Stewart and Joe Mendoza, had strong ties with members of Congress. 

Brock referred to Stewart and Mendoza as the “political entities” of the ranching 

community.11 Both men had testified before Congress on several occasions. Brock helped 

further solidify the relationship between the park and the ranchers by stopping for coffee 

at the ranchers’ morning gathering place each day on his way to work. 

Two events early in Sansing’s superintendency portended the kind of issues he would 

face throughout his twenty-five years in that post. The 1971 San Francisco oil spill and 

the 1972 creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) showed him 

that much of his job would involve working in collaboration (or conflict) with people and 

groups outside the boundaries of PRNS. Sansing spent much of his time as 

superintendent addressing or responding to local communities and residents, 

environmental organizations, politicians, and NPS administrators in the regional and 

Washington, D.C., offices. 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

156

Before dawn on January 18, 1971, two Standard Oil Company of California tankers 

collided beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and began spilling what would total 900,000 

gallons of bunker fuel into the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. Thousands of shore 

birds, seabirds, and innumerable numbers of other marine organisms died in as result of 

the spill.12 Northerly currents pushed large quantities of the oil to the shores of Point 

Reyes. Two shoreline areas, Palomarin Beach and Wildcat Beach, caught the brunt of the 

spill, but the crude oil eventually washed onto the peninsula’s entire southern shoreline 

from Agate Beach to Chimney Rock. 

Soon after news of the oil spill reached him, Sansing drove to Bear Valley headquarters 

to begin organizing a cleanup operation. He was startled to find over three hundred local 

residents packed into the parking area, waiting to go out to the beaches to rescue oiled 

seabirds.13 After a period of some confusion, rangers and volunteer leaders organized the 

assembled crowd into separate work crews and transported them to the beaches. At each 

beach, one group collected the coagulated globs of oil as it washed ashore, another group 

gathered the oil-laden birds for cleaning, and a third group attempted to wash oil off the 

birds. Palomarin and Wildcat became two of the more than dozen similar bird cleanup 

sites established along shores of San Francisco Bay and the Marin coast. At one point 

during the cleanup, more than seven hundred volunteers were pitching in at Point Reyes 

alone.14

The volunteer work crews made an impact by quickly removing some of the oil from the 

beaches before it could soak in and create further damage. Cleaning off the birds and 

other animals already soaked with oil proved to be a much bigger challenge. There were, 

at that time, no established methods for removing oil from seabirds. Solvents used to 

wash some birds may have been as deadly as the oil. Moreover, removing the oil was not 

always the most immediate need: animals rescued from oil spills are often starving, 

dehydrated, and suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia. Little of this information 

was clearly known at the time.15 Despite the massive outpouring of helping hands and 

good will, only a small percentage of the collected oil-slicked birds survived. 

Nonetheless, cleanup work went on for months afterward. Effects of the spill were 

numerous and far reaching. In the most awkward, though less important, circumstance 

resulting from the spill, Point Reyes staff was left with the problem of how to disengage 

some of the dedicated volunteers from their rescue work, and their living quarters, once 

the job was finished. Although the staff may have viewed this as an oddity or a nuisance 

that some volunteers seemed to overstay their welcome, it signaled the kind of 

commitment these individuals had made to the marine environment. That dedication, in a 

few cases, prompted volunteers to create new organizations and networks aimed at 

protecting coastal wildlife. The group of Bay Area volunteers who established the 

nonprofit International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC), for instance, launched it 

as a follow-up to their cleanup work on the San Francisco spill. The IBRRC gradually 

refined and expanded their work, and regularly joined oil-spill rescue efforts elsewhere 

on the West Coast. The length and size of the 1971 rescue effort also allowed scientific 

study and new cleaning techniques to emerge that furthered the field of oiled-bird 

recovery.16 Some of the information gleaned and tools developed during the 1971 spill 

was utilized in subsequent spills or leaks reaching the shores of Point Reyes, such as the 

1997–1998 tar-ball incidents.17 The spill also generated PRBO research in 1971, which 

established the first monitoring effort in the United States for tracking and documenting 

beached birds and oiling of birds along Point Reyes beaches. This program lasted for 

San Francisco 

Oil Spill 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

157

over fifteen years, and became the model for similar beached bird surveys conducted 

around the country.18

The oil spill crisis and 

response were 

representative of two key 

issues—protection of the 

environment and 

cooperation with the 

surrounding community—

that park administrators 

would face at Point Reyes 

over the next thirty years. 

The extent and depth of the 

public response to the oil 

spill was both a surprise 

and a boon to Sansing and 

a park staff unprepared and 

undermanned to tackle an 

environmental catastrophe 

of that scale. The 

overwhelming public 

response said much about 

that particular time, when 

the environmental 

movement caught the attention of the general public. It spoke volumes about the 

seashore’s “neighbors” in Inverness, San Rafael, Oakland, and San Francisco, who were 

familiar with community action, cognizant of their surrounding environment, and willing 

to stand up against threats to that environment. That the Herculean volunteer cleanup was 

mostly futile—one estimate suggests that only 300 of 7,000 oil-soaked birds collected on 

San Francisco Bay and Point Reyes beaches survived—demonstrated the fragility of the 

peninsula’s marine environment, and suggested the paucity of scientific information then 

available about marine wildlife populations and how best to protect them.19 Moreover, 

the fact that the environmental damage came from a source miles distant from PRNS 

showed that the preservation of that environment had become, and would continue to be, 

highly dependent upon conservation efforts, or the lack of them, throughout the Bay Area 

and California coast. Ecologically, Point Reyes was an island no more.

Two years after Sansing arrived at Point Reyes, the creation of Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area (GGNRA) altered the surrounding political landscape to a greater extent 

than any oil spill before or since. Not only did GGNRA authorization put a second, large 

NPS unit in the Bay Area, it also touched seashore management and operations in a very 

tangible way. The northern segment of the new recreation area shared a common 

boundary with the southern portion of the national seashore. This accomplished what 

GGNRA campaigners Edgar Wayburn and Amy Meyer had long sought: a continuous 

corridor of protected park lands stretching from Golden Gate Park to Pierce Point, the 

northernmost reach of the Point Reyes Peninsula. It was a remarkable achievement—a 

seventy-mile-long swath of parkland—that encompassed urban parks, historic sites, an 

engineering marvel, deserted beaches, farmland, forests, and wilderness. Its creation 

foreshadowed the concept of ecological corridors that encompass the territory of more 

than one park or one agency.20

Record No. 27690. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

A young volunteer picks up globs of oil from Wildcat Beach on the east side of 

Drakes Bay, in the aftermath of the San Francisco oil spill, January 20, 1972. 

Golden Gate 

National 

Recreation 

Area 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

158

Wayburn and Meyer launched the advocacy group, People for a Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area, and spearheaded the authorization campaign that followed. The Golden 

Gate campaign was truly a local, grassroots effort, aided by California senator Phillip 

Burton, a political powerhouse. Congress cobbled GGNRA together from lands owned 

by the city, county, state, and private landowners, and from preexisting park sites 

operated by the U.S. Army (the Presidio) and the NPS (Fort Point Historic Site and Muir 

Woods National Monument). Establishment of GGNRA placed the NPS in a new role as 

an umbrella agency that administered and co-managed the various tracts of land under its 

mantle.21 After GGNRA authorization was achieved, the formula was repeated at 

Redwoods National Park, Santa Monica National Recreation Area, and other NPS sites. 

In San Francisco and Marin County, the new complex of NPS-managed lands affected 

the agency environment as much as the natural environment. NPS officials in 

Washington, D.C., linked the administration of these sites, making it possible for one 

park unit to assist in the management of another. From 1971 to 1973, the existing NPS 

sites of Muir Woods National Monument, John Muir House National Historic Site, and 

Point Reyes National Seashore were already part of an informal affiliation called the 

“Bay Area Cluster.” Superintendents or designated staff from each park met monthly to 

discuss major issues of concern in their areas. 

In 1974, the NPS created an official organizational structure that put PRNS, Muir Woods, 

Fort Point, and GGNRA under one administrative umbrella. William J. Whalen, 

superintendent of GGNRA, became the general superintendent in charge of the entire 

park complex in July 1974.22 This “superpark” was divided into north and south units. 

John L. Sansing took charge of the north unit, which comprised Point Reyes, Muir 

Woods, and the northern section of GGNRA. 

Just one year after initiating the new configuration, the NPS began to undo the 

administrative ties that fastened the Bay Area parks together. An NPS review of the 

administrative structure in October 1975 produced changes that included a decision to 

give each unit autonomy in its daily operations. Sansing, Whalen, and the regional 

director worked out an agreement that gave Point Reyes management responsibilities for 

the section of GGNRA north of the Bolinas-Fairfax Road. It was a logical move to 

improve the efficiency of NPS patrol work along the stretch of Highway One through the 

Olema Valley. At that location, PRNS land lay to the west of the road, GGNRA to the 

east. The management agreement avoided the comic scene of PRNS rangers patrolling 

Highway One looking out one window while GGNRA staff traveled the same road 

looking out the other, each monitoring their respective jurisdictions. Eventually, PRNS 

took responsibility for law enforcement, ranch management, natural resource 

management, and road and trail maintenance within the north unit of GGNRA. However, 

Golden Gate administrators remained in charge of planning and policy-making for this 

area. 

During the 1970s, Wayburn began making a case for incorporating Point Reyes and 

GGNRA into a single entity, Golden Gate National Park. Superintendent Whalen got 

behind the proposal and moved to start the legislative apparatus to make the concept into 

a reality.23 Sansing strongly objected to the proposal, and began to curry favor with his 

own political connections to prevent the idea from gaining any political traction. 

Wayburn’s dream never advanced further than the proposal stage, but it significantly 

soured Sansing’s attitude toward working cooperatively with Golden Gate administration 

and staff.24
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

159

Given that PRNS and GGNRA did share several commonalities, and were geographically 

and politically linked, why not, as Wayburn suggested, reclassify them as a single 

national park unit? Put simply, a decision to subsume PRNS within GGNRA would have 

subverted the national seashore’s mission as mandated by its founding act. Although both 

sites were pieces of the government’s outdoor recreation agenda, the origins, national 

significance, and legislative intent of PRNS were quite different from those of Golden 

Gate. On the one hand, PRNS originated in the NPS national seashore campaigns of the 

1930s, and 1950s, in which the objective was to preserve large, undeveloped sections of 

America’s shoreline. On the other hand, Golden Gate arose out of the urban parks 

movement of the 1960s and 1970s, whose goal was to provide huge urban population 

centers with easy access to a park and a “park experience.”25 Point Reyes’ authorizing 

legislation gave equal weight to protecting the peninsula’s natural resources and 

recreation opportunities, while the Golden Gate Act made recreation the primary 

management objective. Point Reyes’ isolation and relatively undeveloped state were its 

prized characteristics; Golden Gate helped protect and provide access to existing 

developments such as Fort Point, Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Combining the 

two units might have created some efficiency of scale, but it also would have diluted their 

primary purposes and disavowed the aims of the people and groups who labored to create 

them. 

Point Reyes remained part of the Bay Area administrative complex for only three years; 

in October 1977, PRNS returned to its prior status as a separate NPS unit. Yet, even after 

the NPS uncoupled formal administrative ties between the two areas, GGNRA’s presence 

immediately adjacent to PRNS continued to have a significant influence on the 

administration of both units. Seashore staff continued their law enforcement, resource 

management, and maintenance responsibilities in the Olema Valley segment of Golden 

Gate Park. GGNRA lands in Marin County increased the recreational opportunities in the 

immediate vicinity of Point Reyes, making it an even more attractive recreation 

destination while also distributing some recreational uses over a wider area. The 

combination of PRNS and GGNRA gave the NPS a much higher profile in the San 

Francisco Bay Area, a favorable factor in obtaining legislative support for park 

appropriations and policy changes. 

Another long-lasting product of the linkage between the two parks was the 

GGNRA/PRNS Citizens’ Advisory Commission, authorized in the GGNRA founding 

act. Clem Miller and Bill Duddleson had discussed the possibility of including a citizens’ 

advisory group in the 1962 PRNS legislation. At that time, however, they put more 

emphasis on getting the bill quickly through Congress, choosing to withhold some pieces 

that might prove to be obstacles to its passage. Ten years later, when Duddleson and 

other Point Reyes supporters saw that Phil Burton was likely to push the GGNRA bill 

through Congress, they saw an ideal opportunity to revisit the idea of a citizens’ group for 

Point Reyes. Duddleson researched the possible benefits and drawbacks by traveling to 

Cape Cod, where the national seashore founding act included a provision for citizen 

oversight and participation, to talk with the park superintendent, the chairman of the Cape 

Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission, and individuals who represented the 

nearby towns. He found that all the people he spoke with, including the superintendent, 

liked the way the commission functioned. Duddleson took the advisory commission 

section in the Cape Cod statute for a model, rewrote some of the language to fit the 

situation at GGNRA and PRNS, and delivered a draft to Burton and Edgar Wayburn. 

After obtaining Wayburn’s approval, Burton inserted what Duddleson called a “barebones” version of the advisory commission language into Section 5 of the GGNRA bill.26

Citizens’ 

Advisory 

Commission 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

160

Even the staunchest supporters of Point Reyes National Seashore favored creating an 

advisory commission via the GGNRA legislation. During a September 1972 

Congressional hearing on Golden Gate authorization, Katy Miller Johnson—widow of 

Clem Miller and founder of the Save Our Seashore campaign—stated that when it came 

to a citizens’ commission, it made sense to view all four NPS units in the area “as a 

whole, as a system rather than as isolated units.”27 Public Law 92–589 authorized the 

charter for the advisory commission, and directed the Secretary of the Interior to appoint 

some members from among the individuals recommended by the Marin County Board of 

Supervisors, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Association of Bay Area 

Governments, and People for a GGNRA. Point Reyes rancher Joe Mendoza became one 

of the first Marin County representatives. 

The initial advisory commission formed a Point Reyes subcommittee that dealt with 

issues on the peninsula. But the selection process, which created disproportionate 

representation by members of People for a GGNRA and other San Francisco groups, 

resulted in a perception among PRNS staff that the commission’s interest and attention 

was skewed toward Golden Gate.28 In reality, Marin County accounted for six of the 

fifteen members sworn in to the inaugural advisory commission, and Edgar Wayburn, 

who filled one of the Bay Area seats, was also a West Marin resident. Moreover, Marin 

County representative Frank Boerger was the commission chair from 1974 until 1990. 

Richard Bartke, an advisory commission member from start to finish (2003), believes the 

group successfully avoided provincialism, to the extent that “it would be hard to find a 

single instance in the record where any member of the Commission took a position that 

was not for the benefit of [PRNS] and its resources.”29

Record No. 19290. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Meeting of the GGNRA/PRNS Citizens’ Advisory Commission at the Point Reyes Administration Building, Bear 

Valley, fall 1980. 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

161

Sansing did not initially welcome the creation of the advisory commission, which he felt 

might slow and complicate administrative decision-making.30 Point Reyes, in fact, 

already had an advisory council, albeit without the authority derived from legislation or 

policy. At the suggestion of the regional director, the NPS had asked Marin County to 

select an advisory group. Sansing found this group, composed of representatives from 

various West Marin organizations, useful as a sounding board for PRNS management 

decisions that might affect the surrounding community. He wrote that the Marin group 

helped “bridge the gap between park operations and the inaccurate public rumors which 

seem to arise frequently.”31 After he had worked with both groups, Sansing believed the 

informal county meetings were more beneficial for Point Reyes than the official advisory 

commission, because all of the participants in the former were county residents and their 

sole focus on the council was PRNS. Nevertheless, Sansing eventually learned to use the 

GGNRA Advisory Commission in a way that benefited the park and the public. He 

assigned a staff person to attend each meeting and give presentations on such subjects as 

endangered species, road closures, prescribed burning, and the like. Brock recalled that 

although the Saturday advisory commission meetings could be “deadly” (boring), he too, 

learned that they were often beneficial.32

Congress inserted a sunset provision for the advisory commission in the initial 

legislation. In 2003, Congress allowed the advisory commission’s legal authority to 

expire; the commission members held their last official meeting in October 2003. 

Attempts to pass Congressional legislation to reauthorize the advisory commission have 

failed to date. Many of the commission’s members, however, continue to meet and to 

share their input with park staff.33

While such elements as GGNRA and the Citizen’s Advisory Commission became new 

external influences on national seashore planning, Sansing and regional office staff also 

made significant changes to the seashore’s internal organizational structure. Some of the 

alterations reflected the administrative shift, mentioned earlier in the chapter, toward 

planning for the long term rather than the short term. Other administrative moves came in 

response to new NPS policies and federal regulations. Agency and staff growth also 

accounted for some organizational changes. 

As is typical of any organization’s growth, greater separation of operational 

responsibilities and increasing role specialization began defining individual job 

responsibilities and each division’s capabilities. The former Interpretation and Resource 

Management Division, which operated with a single, vertical management structure until 

this point, split into two separate divisions in mid-1971. This meant that Interpretive 

Chief Bill Germeraad could spend all—rather than half—of his time on interpretive 

planning and personnel decisions. In the 1980s, the Resource Management Division 

again divided into separate Resource Management and Visitor Protection Divisions. 

Although the NPS had staffed PRNS for seven years prior to Sansing’s arrival, the staff 

he inherited was still quite small and limited, particularly in certain divisions. Whereas 

the maintenance and interpretive staffs grew rapidly, the natural resource and visitor 

protection divisions were slower to expand. Key positions remained unfilled well into the 

1970s. For several years after Sansing came aboard, for example, there was no 

administrative secretary; senior managers typed their own correspondence and reports.34 

Organizational 

Changes 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

162

Sansing and his division chiefs had several things to consider, including new federal laws 

and regulations, in their hiring decisions. By 1970, building an NPS staff entailed making 

it more inclusive as well as more skilled. Whereas the Park Service had been an almost 

exclusively white male domain prior to the 1960s, social reverberations of the civil rights Record No. 20380. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

1966 PRNS staff photo. Front row, left to right: chief ranger Gordon Patterson, Howard Knight, 

Doris Omundson, Ron Autri, Dan Stout, and Lee Otter. Top row, left to right: Harry Wills, 

unidentified, Superintendent Les Arnberger, and Robert Barbee. Note Omundson’s sex-typed 

NPS attire. 

movement and the burgeoning women’s movement began to alter the makeup of NPS 

employee ranks in the late 1960s and early 1970s. New federal regulations mandated that 

the Park Service revise its discriminatory hiring and promotion processes. Although a 

small group of women at various parks had served as naturalists beginning in the 1920s 

and women were hired to fill vacant positions such as fee collector and dispatcher during 

World War II, most of those jobs reflected special conditions or connections rather than 

the opening of a new field of employment for women. Until 1962, only male applicants 

could take civil service exams for prospective Park Service jobs and women thus did not 

claim park ranger positions until the end of the decade.35 When the NPS did make a 

specific effort to hire women at particular park areas—usually historic sites and 

buildings—they were confined to guide, naturalist, or historian-interpreter positions. 

Moreover, women in those jobs could not wear the standard NPS green and gray uniform, 

Stetson hat, or NPS badge. They were confined, instead, to skirts, white blouses, and 

“pillbox” hats.36 

Federal regulations initiated a push for change. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 included a 

provision prohibiting sexual discrimination in all realms of public life. A 1967 Executive 

Order specifically directed that civil rights law should apply to the federal workplace. 

Subsequent presidential orders in 1969 and 1972 reaffirmed this policy and created 

prescribed steps for federal employers, to ensure that the hiring process created a fair 

playing field for men and women. 37 The Park Service response was slow and reluctant. 

In 1964, the NPS admitted women to its primary training program for park rangers, the 

Staffing 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

163

Albright Training Center; however, 

over the next six years only fifty-six 

women went through the program and 

most entered ranger-naturalist or 

similar positions afterward. A 1972 

affirmative action program prompted 

the NPS to open a wider array and 

number of positions to women 

applicants. Nevertheless, acceptance 

of women in traditional park ranger 

and law-enforcement positions came 

slowly, particularly in parks where 

senior managers clung to sexist 

beliefs and attitudes.38 Aspiring NPS 

applicants, male or female, from 

minority ethnic and racial groups 

found the rate of change in the Park 

Service hiring practices equally slow. 

The first group of female employees 

joined the staff at PRNS in sex-typed 

roles; first as secretaries/clerical 

assistants and then as 

interpreters/educators. Although the 

latter were in semi-professional 

positions, they still found themselves 

in a traditional realm for women at 

work: teaching. Nonetheless, park 

technician Doris Omundson, the first 

woman to wear an official NPS 

uniform at Point Reyes, assumed a 

major role in PRNS interpretive 

operations in 1970, running the startup Environmental Study Areas (ESA) program.39 After working for seven years at Point 

Reyes, Omundson used her experience as a springboard to become, in the mid-1970s, one 

of the first female superintendents in the national park system, at John Muir National 

Historic Site.40

The citizen response to the 1971 oil spill was a revelation to Sansing and other NPS staff, 

who saw firsthand the energy and skills dedicated volunteers can bring to any project. 

Just the previous year, Public Law 91-357 established the Volunteers in Parks (VIP) 

program for federal land management agencies. Point Reyes administrators quickly 

engaged volunteers in interpretative, maintenance, and resource management positions. 

VIPs played an especially important role in helping run the demonstration programs at 

Morgan Horse Farm and Kule Loklo Coast Miwok Village. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Diana Skiles, who joined the staff as a GS-11 Interpretive Specialist in 

1975, holding Ming Dynasty pottery sherds. 

Volunteer 

Programs 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

164

Several divisions were already making 

use of other volunteer and job training 

organizations, drawing from the Young 

Adult Conservation Corps (YACC), 

Student Conservation Association 

(SCA), and Youth Conservation Corps 

(YCC). Jack Williams, the park’s civil 

engineer during the mid-1970s, took 

charge of YACC crews of twenty-five to 

thirty participants during his first years in 

the park (1975–1977). Because they 

were older (ages eighteen to twenty-five) 

and had a higher skill level than the other 

groups, YACC members played a 

significant role in the seashore’s 

maintenance operations for several years. 

The YACC crew did construction work 

and helped build the original holding pen 

for the reintroduced elk that arrived in 

1978.41

While the seashore and NPS continued to redefine the PRNS mission and objectives, new 

federal legislation and additional agreements with the state of California reconfigured the 

political boundaries of the national seashore. The National Parks and Recreation Act of 

1978 (Public Law 95–625) added two thousand acres to PRNS and refined the agency’s 

management objectives. The completion of a tideland survey gave NPS title to the tidal 

lands that the state ceded to Point Reyes. 

In 1972, the state of California and NPS established two marine-life reserves within the 

seashore boundaries: Point Reyes Headlands Research Natural Area and Estero de 

Limantour Reserve. The purpose of these reserves was to preserve the natural 

environment and to protect organisms living in them. In order to accomplish these 

objectives, PRNS kept “human intrusions” into the reserve lands restricted to parkapproved research projects. Although the struggle over establishment of a Point Reyes 

wilderness was just beginning to heat up, these two reserves created 1,300 acres of de 

facto wilderness. The act of setting aside the two coastal areas also signaled the direction 

the wilderness and general management plans would take: moving toward heightened 

protection of Point Reyes’ natural environment. 

DEFINING THE NATIONAL SEASHORE ANEW

In the early 1970s, with the immediate work of acquiring land nearly completed, a new 

administrative phase for PRNS began. Managers recognized that much of the long-term 

planning still remained to be accomplished.42 Park administrators and regional NPS 

officials again tackled the task of defining PRNS for themselves and for the public. The 

official process of defining the park involved developing a general management plan 

(GMP). Between 1970 and 1980, NPS staff crafted, with considerable input from the 

public and outside organizations, two management plans that shaped the administration 

of PRNS for the remainder of the century. Administrative planning during the next 

decade also included the crafting of separate wilderness and natural resources Record No. 23250. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

A volunteer YCC crew performs trail repairs at Point Reyes, ca. 

1980. 

Internal 

Reconfigurations
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

165

management plans. In addition, the NPS delivered and Congress affirmed a PRNS 

wilderness bill, which redefined the administrative conception and public perception of 

nearly half the seashore’s land base. 

Work on a new GMP for Point Reyes came on the cusp of major changes for the master 

planning process throughout the national park system. The seashore’s first master plan, 

put together in 1963–1964, was little more than a series of blueprints and brief narratives 

depicting large-scale tourist developments. It included the controversial proposal for a 

high-intensity, recreational-use area on Limantour Spit. NPS landscape planners in the 

Western Office of Design and Construction prepared the plan without seeking input from 

the public or park staff. It was typical of the “package” master plans NPS regional 

planners produced in the 1950s and 1960s, long on detailed landscape drawings and 

construction plans, but short on narrative and context.43

Developing a park master plan became a standard procedure for all NPS areas in the early 

1930s. In the prior decade, the NPS Landscape Architecture Division began producing 

master development plans for new construction projects. The design process bore the 

influence of the then-vibrant urban planning movement in the United States. An NPS 

regional landscape architect generally drew up a plan with input from an engineer, an onsite landscape architect, the park’s superintendent, and, on occasion, Park Service 

Director Stephen T. Mather or his assistant Horace Albright. The thoroughness and 

success of the 1930 master plan for the Yakima Park development in Mount Rainier 

National Park prompted Mather to direct all NPS areas to include master planning as 

standard operating procedure. By the 1960s, veteran NPS planners were punching out 

standardized master plan packages for the ever-growing number of NPS sites.44

Two new developments changed the nature of NPS master planning in the late 1960s. 

First, a younger generation of park planners began to move toward creating “conceptual” 

master plans. Instead of plugging into a standard framework used for all parks, the new 

planning was a process that began with a question or questions about a particular site, the 

answers to which pointed out the direction and outlined the shape of the subsequent 

plan.45 Each step of the planning ladder was geared toward the particular park under 

consideration. In order to accomplish this, planning teams included members who were 

familiar with the prominent natural, historic, or recreational resources of an area. Team 

members studied textual and cartographic records, visited the site, and conducted 

interviews with the public, staff members, and organizations to determine how each 

group perceived a park’s values and significance.46

A second key event that altered management planning, and park management in general, 

was the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. NEPA 

regulations stipulated that federal agencies must invite and obtain public input on projects 

before officials made final decisions to implement them.47 NEPA prompted a radical 

transformation of traditional NPS planning. The requirement for environmental impact 

statements began “driving” the process of public comment periods.48 For PRNS, a team 

of planners from the NPS San Francisco service center joined Sansing and several park 

staff in 1970 to prepare a study for a general management plan—the new term for the 

document—that would take them beyond the sketchy confines of the original Point Reyes 

master plan. Doug Nadeau became the project team leader. They wanted a GMP that 

“encouraged broad public use” and recognized “the outstanding natural features and our 

responsibility to preserve this quality and character of Point Reyes.”49 From the outset, 

the planning team attempted to strike an appropriate balance between environmental 

Developing a 

General 

Management 

Plan
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

166

preservation and recreation, although the scales clearly tipped toward the former rather 

than the latter. 

The task of preserving the environment at PRNS included making a determination in the 

new GMP about the Limantour Project, whose fate was still undecided. An NPS 

“Planning Directive,” which helped steer the course of the team’s study, asked how “the 

importance and vulnerability of the ornithological and marine communities of Limantour 

Estero [could] be reconciled with the intensive development the plan proposes for that 

location?”50 Putting the question more broadly, the document inquired whether the park’s 

long-term goal was to expand visitor facilities “ad infinitum” to meet public demand 

or whether it was to cap the number of visitors in order to protect the natural resources. 

As a tool to obtain balance between preservation and access, the planners introduced 

distinctive public use categories (e.g., active versus passive recreation) into the 

management schema for Point Reyes.51 They also hoped to address such issues as the 

future of Johnson Oyster Farm and the peninsula’s dairy ranches. NPS Director George 

B. Hartzog, Jr., urged the planning team to coordinate their work with representatives of 

the local tourism industry as well.52

Once the planning team completed its study and made its recommendations, the next 

phase of the GMP process was to announce the findings and solicit public comment. This 

step, which reflected new NEPA requirements, was an unfamiliar one for most NPS 

officials. Point Reyes became one of the first NPS sites to incorporate the inclusive 

protocol into its planning process. Expecting seashore staff, government officials, 

conservation associations, community groups, and the public to collaborate in plotting 

out the future path of the seashore was a noble goal. However, it also opened a period of 

contentiousness among the myriad groups involved in the process. Sansing, having 

worked hard with the other planning team members to produce a viable set of initial 

recommendations, reacted defensively when the public heaped criticism on the initial 

NPS proposal. At one point, he forwarded several letters favorable to the NPS plan to the 

regional director and remarked, with obvious sarcasm, that the letters were evidence that 

“we [NPS] may not be as stupid as some would have us believe.”53

Historian Dwight F. Rettie has keenly observed that although “bureaucracies of all sorts 

would rather conduct their affairs without public involvement, Park Service experience 

during the twenty-five years since passage of the National Environmental Policy Act 

certainly suggests the wisdom of an involved constituency.”54 This was particularly true 

for NPS sites like PRNS, where the park and the local community were inextricably 

intertwined. Yet, it took some time for NPS administrators, whether they were on-site 

staff or regional officials, to trust fully the open nature of the process. Sometimes, NPS 

officials even attempted to downplay or bury outside input. Nadeau, for example, recalled 

that his boss (the manager of the service center) “admonished me not to talk to special 

interest groups like the Sierra Club” at the outset of the planning process.55

When park superintendents had proposed new master plans in prior decades, the 

documents needed only pass muster before the regional or national director. By the 

1970s, however, Sansing (and his colleagues at other NPS sites) had to submit his 

proposal to the court of public opinion and address the concerns of what must have 

seemed to him every organization, interest group, and politician in the state of California 

and in Washington, D.C. The momentum and expanded scale of the environmental 

movement had altered the way conservation and environmental organizations responded 

to NPS planning. The National Parks and Conservation Association, the Sierra Club, and 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

167

a coalition of Marin environmental groups spearheaded by the Environmental Action 

Committee of West Marin each submitted their own GMP and wilderness proposals for 

Point Reyes. Conservation groups and outdoor clubs were no longer content writing 

letters and signing petitions, although they continued to do both. In addition to these 

methods, they developed professionally prepared documents like the above-noted 

management plans, spent money lobbying legislators, and made coordinated efforts to 

draw media attention to their agendas. 

As Sansing pointed out, there also were supporters of the initial GMP proposal, 

particularly among long-time residents of the area. An individual from Inverness wrote to 

Sansing in order to put himself “on the record” in support of the plan. The writer noted 

that he and many other Point Reyes residents had been conservation-minded for decades; 

however, their conception of conservation did not adhere to the extremist arguments of 

some newer conservation groups that had recently “proliferated in every clump of 

trees.”56 Bill Duddleson, although disappointed about the amount of acreage allotted to 

wilderness in the plan, lauded the new GMP proposal because it pioneered “using 

ecological knowledge as the basis for planning and in discarding visitor dependence on 

the private automobile.”57 Others indicated their understanding that NPS had to manage 

two very different kinds of seashores at Point Reyes: the tranquil one that visitors and 

residents trickled onto during the week and the raucous one inundated by Bay Area 

residents on the weekends. They urged the NPS to develop a GMP that reflected this split 

personality. A Greenbrae woman suggested the NPS make a distinction between 

weekends and weekdays in determining whether to close the Mount Vision Road to car 

traffic. She pointed out that in four recent weekday trips up the road, she had seen seven 

other cars, hardly the “devastating throng” with which management dealt on weekend 

days.58

On September 22 and 23, 1971, NPS staff and the planning team organized two hearings 

at the San Rafael Civic Center as an initial venue for public comment. Proponents and 

opponents of the GMP and wilderness proposals came together to express their views. 

Nadeau presented an outline of the GMP process and some of the preliminary specifics 

then in draft form. Participants at the meeting spoke resoundingly in favor of preserving 

PRNS as a natural area with very limited or no development. Despite the fact that this 

also was the main thrust of the evolving GMP, reporters framed the public comments as 

generally opposed to the plans. Senator John V. Tunney urged the Park Service to do 

everything in its power to protect the natural environment of Point Reyes.59 California 

Senator Alan Cranston argued that the new GMP and future management decisions 

should “promote a reversion to nature so that Point Reyes will for all time provide a 

unique individual encounter with nature.”60 In contrast to the more measured speeches of 

local politicians, environmental groups turned to such direct action tactics as street 

theatre to register their dismay. 

Some of the opposition centered on a single piece of the proposed GMP, namely the 

designation of a portion of the national seashore as wilderness under the terms of the 

Wilderness Act of 1964. Although the NPS wilderness plan was officially a separate 

document than the GMP proposal, the two elements were linked in the public’s mind. At 

issue was the seemingly small size of the NPS recommendation, five thousand acres of 

peninsula land. But in a larger sense, the debate also revealed how park administrators, 

residents, and the general public continued the pattern of redefining the “natural” world 

of Point Reyes. 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

168

In a February 1961 message to Congress, President John F. Kennedy focused the political 

spotlight onto two new conservation agendas: creation of national seashores, including 

Point Reyes National Seashore, and adoption of the Wilderness bill. Secretary of the 

Interior Stewart L. Udall saw these as two key elements of the “third wave” of the 

American conservation movement.61 Both proposals followed their separate legislative 

courses thereafter, with Congress taking three more years to discern, debate, and pass the 

Wilderness Act, which was the more controversial of the two agendas. But ten years 

later, the two shared the spotlight again when NPS and public proposals to create 

designated wilderness within PRNS were debated in the early 1970s. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law on September 3, 1964. 

Section 3 (2)(c) directed the Secretary of the Interior to review for potential wilderness 

designation all suitable areas of five thousand or more continuous acres in all existing 

NPS units.62 That it took another five or six years for the NPS to make what most 

considered a meager wilderness proposal for Point Reyes was not unusual. It was, in fact, 

a rapid response to federal wilderness regulations when compared to sluggish 

administrative action on wilderness elsewhere in the national park system. Whereas, by 

1970, millions of acres of national forest land were already stamped as federal wilderness 

areas, the NPS was moving at a glacial pace. The first wilderness designations in the 

national parks did not occur until 1970, at Petrified Forest National Park and Craters of 

the Moon National Monument.63

Historian Alfred Runte has pointed out how NPS foot-dragging on the study and 

designation of wilderness—particularly in the older, larger parks—reflected the agency’s 

desire to maintain “bureaucratic autonomy” over its territory.64 Stripped of their 

management authority, Park Service officials feared possible limitations on tourist 

development plans, concession operations, and, ultimately, on park visitation. Udall 

recalled that NPS director Conrad L. Wirth and the rest of the agency’s “old guard” 

thought the Wilderness bill was unnecessary.65 They believed the presence of established 

backcountry-management zones in national parks demonstrated that they were already 

“doing wilderness.” Other superintendents and resource managers considered land in 

their areas unsuitable for wilderness designation.66 When parks did recognize areas as 

potential or designated wilderness, the NPS was still unsure of what it needed to do to 

meet the formal guidelines of the Wilderness Act. Park managers did not know, for 

instance, whether cultural features within designated wilderness were to be maintained or 

removed. Just months prior to public hearings on wilderness designation for Crater Lake 

National Park in 1970, for example, park staff demolished seven historic backcountry 

cabins because of ill-conceived notions about the requirements for compliance with the 

federal legislation.67

Resistance to wilderness designations showed in both the administrative hierarchy of the 

NPS and among division chiefs and park rangers in the field. While upper-level park 

officials saw the question of who held ultimate administrative authority over parklands as 

the primary issue, field staff at sites like Point Reyes had more pragmatic concerns. 

Donald Cameron, chief of maintenance from 1965 until 1980, viewed the wilderness 

designation as an impediment to visitor access, an interruption of required maintenance 

operations, and a crippling blow to the park’s fire-fighting capacity.68 Strict regulations 

regarding use of machinery in designated wilderness restricted operation of the walk-in 

campgrounds, where maintenance used vehicles to haul out garbage, remove human 

waste from vault toilets, and test and repair the water system. But as time went on, 

Wilderness 

Debate and 

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Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

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according to Historian Richard West Sellars, upper-level NPS administrators’ stance on 

wilderness “drifted from outright opposition to reluctant neutrality.”69

At Point Reyes in the early 1970s, however, conservationists, environmentalists, and 

many local supporters of PRNS were not willing to move so slowly. These groups 

opposed and vilified the initial NPS proposal for a Point Reyes wilderness area 

comprising five thousand acres around Mount Wittenberg, the bare minimum amount of 

land needed to qualify as a federally designated wilderness.70 Senator Tunney called the 

wilderness proposal “clearly inadequate” to provide the protection needed at Point Reyes, 

calling instead for a wilderness designation of over thirty thousand acres.71 Senator Alan 

Cranston wanted the park to preserve “a remarkable wilderness . . . to the greatest extent 

possible, to allow Pt. Reyes to be once again as nature made her over the ages.”72

Cranston’s desire to see Point Reyes be “once again as nature made her” reveals some of 

the inherent complexity and, in some cases, confusion involved as different 

constituencies attempted to demark “wilderness” without having a clear agreement on its 

definition. At that time, many wilderness advocates failed to see that Native Americans 

had left indelible marks on the environment for millennia before Europeans entered the 

scene, thus few American landscapes could accurately be considered “untrammeled by 

man,” in the words of the 1964 Wilderness Act.73 Environmental historian William 

Cronon argues, “The myth of the wilderness as “virgin,’ uninhabited land had always 

been especially cruel when seen from the perspective of the Indians who had once called 

that land home.”74 Once again, the shifting definition of “wild” or “natural” had 

complicated the park-public dialogue and the administrative decision making regarding 

Point Reyes. On a more abstract level, the impulse to “return” the land to some prior state 

also revealed the environmental movement’s lasting impacts on public perceptions of the 

national parks. 

Notwithstanding differences in how they each might define wilderness at Point Reyes, a 

number of environmental organizations, community groups, and interested individuals 

came together, as an informal alliance, to push the NPS for a larger wilderness 

designation. Although there was no organizational structure, per se, several individuals 

played key leadership roles. The Sierra Club representative, Sonya Thompson, played an 

active part, as did West Marin resident Jerry Friedman and his Environmental Action 

Committee of West Marin. Jim Eaton, a graduate student in geology at the UC Davis, 

became the primary architect of what became the citizens' wilderness proposal. Former 

Clem Miller aide Bill Duddleson, who was then working with the Washington D.C.-

based Conservation Foundation, served as moderator for their planning meetings. Before 

Duddleson flew out to the Bay Area, he asked Ernie Dickerman, whom Duddleson called 

“one of the grand old men of the Wilderness Society” for advice on winning the 

wilderness debate. Dickerman, a veteran of many previous wilderness battles, advised 

Duddleson to “get all of your troops singing from the same songbook.”75 In other words, 

approach the Park Service and Congress as a unified front, even if individual differences 

existed among the groups in the alliance. Following Dickerman’s advice, the groups 

developed a coalition counterproposal that called on NPS to set aside 32,000 acres as 

wilderness in the Point Reyes National Seashore. 

The Park Service’s public hearing on its wilderness proposal took place at the San Rafael 

Civic Center on September 23, 1971, the day after the GMP meeting. Duddleson 

remembered the meeting as a remarkable event packed with wilderness proponents, a 

smaller number of opponents, and NPS officials. As conservation groups, legislators, and 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

170

NPS officials made presentations or read prepared statements, the room became infused 

with excitement.76 One group of wilderness supporters, led by Environmental Action 

Committee of West Marin member Gordon Ashby, unexpectedly came into the 

auditorium wearing papier-mâché heads of birds and wildlife of Point Reyes, to represent 

the non-human residents of the peninsula who also had a critical stake in the outcome of 

the debate. Duddleson called it “stunning political theater.”77 Joseph L. Rumberg, NPS 

Western Region Director, told the audience that he “had never seen anything like it in his 

career in the Park Service.”78

One reason citizen advocates pushed so vehemently for a larger wilderness designation 

was their distrust of the NPS regarding future development plans for Point Reyes. For 

community and environmental groups, the memory of Hartzog’s seashore sell-off plan—

the key issue in the 1969 SOS campaign—was still fresh in their minds. Even though the 

Ryan amendment to the 1970 SOS legislation prohibited any such sales in the future (see 

chapter 4), park advocates remained hesitant to trust the future use and development of 

PRNS to Park Service planners and administrators alone. Conservationists and residents 

also rued earlier NPS decisions to over-engineer the Limantour Road and to build the 

visitor center parking lot at Drakes Beach, which had filled in a freshwater marsh.79

Those decisions left residents and park supporters suspicious about the intent of the Park 

Service. They believed that creating a thirty- to forty-thousand-acre wilderness, would 

protect the seashore’s backcountry area from such development. 

Testimony in the public hearings on the wilderness plan and GMP ran strongly in favor 

of preserving more of the peninsula in its relatively wild, undeveloped state, and 

advocated alteration of the NPS proposal. Environmentalists and community members, 

not Park Service policies, drove the process by which Congress eventually granted 

wilderness status to close to 32,000 acres of land, guaranteeing legal protection to much 

of the peninsula’s open space and natural character. Even some longtime ranchers 

strongly supported the larger wilderness designation, since they too wished to preserve 

the traditional character of the peninsula. 

Despite the huge outpouring of support and dramatic calls for action in the 1971 public 

hearing, it would take five more years until Congress passed a bill for an expanded 

wilderness designation at PRNS. After the hearings, the NPS did not immediately show 

signs of altering its stance. The Park Service eventually submitted a modification of the 

original proposal, calling for a 10,000-acre wilderness. Environmental groups renewed 

the battle, eventually making a much-needed ally in Congress, John L. Burton, who was 

the driving force behind the creation of GGNRA. Burton worked closely with Jerry 

Friedman and other citizen activists to finally bring the Point Reyes wilderness campaign 

to fruition.80 On October 18, 1976, President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 94-544, 

which designated a 25,370-acre wilderness area as well as 8,003 acres of land and water 

as potential wilderness.81

During the drafting of the wilderness bill, H.R. 8002, an amendment to the PRNS 

founding legislation was inserted into one of the bill’s subsections. The first version of 

the amendment stated that the Point Reyes National Seashore “shall be administered by 

the Secretary as a natural area of the national park system.” When the House Committee 

on Interior and Insular Affairs revised the amendment in its drafting of the final version 

of Public Law 94-544, they replaced the reference to the “natural area” category. 

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According to the committee report on H.R. 8002, the initial language of the proposed 

amendment would have “required by law that the area be managed under the policies for 

the 'natural area’ management category as administratively defined by the NPS, and 

thereby remove the area from the ‘recreational’ area management category under which it 

is currently placed by the Service.”82 The committee chose to delete that specific 

language because its inclusion would “recognize or sanction by statute, the existence or 

propriety of this administrative policy categorization system.” The committee members 

did not want Congress to unintentionally validate an agency policy (the blue book) that 

lacked prior legislative authority. The committee asserted that their rewording of the 

language fulfilled the intended effect of the original amendment, which was to 

underscore, “that the Seashore is to be managed for the protection of its natural 

environment and values."83 It thus provided a legislative basis for defining PRNS as 

primarily a natural preserve. In drafting the amendment, however, the committee did not 

define what specific elements of the peninsula they thought of as “natural,” and which 

might be merely “recreational.” 

Park Service planning for the Bay Area parks, as a single administrative entity, continued 

even after GGNRA and PRNS resumed operations as separate administrative units.84 In 

May 1977, NPS planners published an “Assessment of Alternatives for the General 

Management Plan,” for both GGNRA and PRNS. The joint assessment was a vestige of 

the prior administrative superpark, extant when this particular round of planning began. 

In general, the outlook of the plan specific to Point Reyes echoed the theme voiced by the 

1970–1971 planning team. According to Nadeau, it was essentially the same document 

with a few additions regarding specific issues such as campgrounds. That Point Reyes 

was folded into the same document as GGNRA, however, reflected the intent, during the 

mid-1970s, of the regional office, GGNRA superintendent Whalen, and significant 

members of the citizen’s advisory commission to make PRNS part and parcel of an 

enlarged GGNRA. 

In 1980, a revised "General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore" arrived 

embedded within a joint PRNS-GGNRA publication. The 1980 GMP was a composite of 

the planning team’s work in the early 1970s, the 1976 Wilderness Plan, the 1976 Natural 

Resource Management Plan, and additional input from the 1980 GMP planning team, 

which included Sansing, Nadeau, GGNRA landscape architect Rolf Diamant, GGNRA 

planner Greg Moore, advisory commission liaison Ruth Kilday, Denver Service Center 

ecologist Nancy Fries, and project manager Ron Treabess.85 In general, the 1980 GMP 

for Point Reyes stayed the course that the planning team set out in 1972, but it also 

addressed issues given no mention in the early 1970s. The biggest changes involved the 

attention given to cultural resources, particularly to Coast Miwok culture and to the 

historic dairy ranches, and two natural resource issues not previously emphasized, the 

protection of marine mammals and protected/endangered species. One objective directed 

resource managers to “enhance knowledge of the [Coast] Miwok Indian culture through 

research and investigation” of the area’s potential archeological sites.86 Another objective 

for cultural resource preservation was “to monitor and support productive land uses and 

activities which are consistent with historical patterns,” including closer NPS oversight of 

grazing practices and the “preservation” of ranching as a cultural resource. More 

pointedly, the park needed to “ensure that the agricultural and maricultural activities are 

consistent with the evolution of land and water use at Point Reyes.”87

The stated objectives in the “visitor activities” category communicated how much the 

NPS, Congress, and the public had redefined their conception of PRNS since the first 

1980 General 

Management 

Plan 
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master plan. Seashore managers were to “provide for and permit only those cultural, 

educational, and recreational activities which were compatible with the preservation of an 

undeveloped coastline.”88 The clear directive was preservation first, recreation second. 

This represented a dramatic change of perspective on the value and meaning of the 

national seashore since the 1964 Secretary’s Circular on Recreation Areas was released. 

The new emphasis, in fact, fit more closely with Wirth’s original conception of national 

seashores (see chapter 2). The 1980 GMP’s objectives for seashore development aimed 

for building projects that were only the “minimum necessary for efficient and essential 

management” and which were compatible with natural resource objectives, especially 

special requirements for protecting the coastal environment.89 The document’s 

introduction highlighted this redefinition of Point Reyes, observing that the seashore 

acted as a “sharply contrasting complement to the other public places”—in other words, 

GGNRA and other such recreational areas in the San Francisco Bay Area.90

Organizing the peninsula landscape into separate management zones also reflected the 

GMP’s strong emphasis on natural resource protection. Of the seashore’s 67,684 acres, 

approximately two-thirds were assigned to the natural zone, including 34,000 acres of 

research reserves and designated wilderness.91 Another 20,000 acres were dedicated to 

the pastoral zone. By contrast, the plan limited the development zone to eighty-five acres. 

Despite the shift toward greater protection of the seashore’s natural environment, the 

GMP also included plans to increase visitor access, services, and facilities within 

specified areas of the peninsula. Planners attempted to respond, in particular, to broad 

public desire for more campsites within the boundaries of the seashore. 

Sansing made the development of the natural resource plan one of his highest priorities. 

He assigned research biologist Richard Brown and district ranger B. Brown to study and 

craft the plan.92 Natural resource management at Point Reyes involved scientific 

observation, population monitoring, and habitat protection of more traditional national 

park fauna and flora, and of the peninsula’s dairy and cattle operations. Resource 

managers and staff had to understand and work with native wildlife, domestic plants and 

animals, and human beings (ranchers). Development of the 1976 and 1994 natural 

resource management plans are discussed further in chapter 7. The seashore’s 

environmental education program, which served increasing numbers of elementary and 

high school students from Marin County and the North Bay Area, was the other area of 

emphasis. Although education facilities at PRNS had already been improved and 

expanded since the program was first initiated, ever-greater public demand for this 

service necessitated prioritizing further expansion and improvements in the education 

program over other elements of the seashore’s interpretive program. 

PARK INFRASTRUCTURE AND FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

As was the case in other recent additions to the national park system, numerous roads and 

structures already existed within the boundaries of PRNS by the time Congress 

authorized it. These features were the legacy of the ranching and dairying activity on the 

peninsula dating to the mid-nineteenth century, as well as the vestiges of twentiethcentury residential and tourist use. Initial development of the seashore’s infrastructure 

leaned heavily on conversion of these roads and structures to NPS use. This was 

necessary, in part, because most appropriations for Point Reyes went toward allimportant land acquisition. Rehabilitated ranch buildings became the first structures to 

accommodate administrative, maintenance, and interpretive functions and to house park 

Other 

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staff. The seashore’s first roads and trails were likewise converted for employee and 

visitor use (see chapter 4). 

Donald Cameron became the first member of the maintenance staff when he came as a 

temporary transfer from Yosemite National Park in 1965 (see Chapter 4 for an account of 

Cameron’s early maintenance operations at Point Reyes). By the time he retired as chief 

of maintenance in March 1980, he had a division staff of thirty, including an engineer and 

two foremen. Maintenance division, in the typical NPS organizational structure of that 

time, consisted of two departments: Roads and Trails and Buildings and Utilities. 

In 1972, two roads provided public access to the peninsula interior and the coastal 

beaches. Sir Francis Drake Boulevard was a county road that ran from Olema Valley to 

Point Reyes Lighthouse and the Coast Guard Lifeboat Station, with a spur leading to 

Drakes Beach. An official national seashore “entrance road” from Bear Valley to 

Limantour Beach opened to the public on June 15, 1972.93 This was accomplished by 

constructing a short spur road along the top of Inverness Ridge, between the governmentbuilt “road to nowhere” and an existing ranch road. The opening of this road put an end 

to controversies over visitor use of a preexisting private road, which developer David 

Adams and Lee Murphy built for homeowners in Drakes Bay Estates, and thus 

circumvented potential lawsuits brought on behalf of the private landholders.94 No sooner 

was the latter route opened than severe winter storms flooded culverts, washed out 

several switchbacks, and forced the park to close the road again. When the switchbacks 

washed away, the released water also flooded private residences downhill from the road. 

Repair work required 900 cubic yards of rock and several hundred cubic yards of other 

fill material to stabilize the roadbed. 

Of the many ranch roads on the peninsula, some continued to serve dairy and cattle 

operations while others went into use as hiking trails. Trail work involved bringing 

former ranch roads into adequate shape for hiking and park vehicle travel. The park 

maintenance division shared some of this work with ranchers when old roads traversed or 

led onto their property. This occasionally created problems when ranger staff and 

ranchers did not communicate clearly their expectations about the work to be 

accomplished. A minor furor arose in 1973 when one of the ranch operators ran a 

bulldozer over several trails to “clear” them, as ranchers had traditionally done in the 

past. 

Trail crews also took responsibility for maintaining the backcountry camps that opened in 

the late 1960s. To provide potable water for one of the camps, Cameron first drilled a 

vertical well and installed a hand pump to provide potable running water to the camps. To 

increase capacity to meet the overflowing camps’ demands, Cameron had a maintenance 

crew drill a horizontal well into a nearby hillside. When the drill hit the water table, a 

geyser of water shot straight out of the hillside. It continued sluicing out with such force 

that Sansing worried the water level would drop throughout that section of the peninsula. 

The crew eventually capped the spring and installed piping to bring the water into the 

campground.95 In addition to providing water to the camps, maintenance staff ran weekly 

tests to check the bacterial content and chemical analysis of the water. Garbage collection 

at the camps and on popular beaches was another time-consuming task. 

Trail maintenance became considerably more labor intensive after the creation of the 

wilderness area. The Wilderness Act required that the NPS make every feasible effort to 

eliminate use of motorized equipment in designated wilderness. Since 1982, PRNS staff 

Roads and 

Trails 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

174

members have performed trail maintenance without mechanized equipment, hiking to 

each site and working with hand tools.96 Restrictions pursuant to the Endangered Species 

Act also affect trail crew work at certain locations. 

Following further acquisition of land for the seashore in 1971–1972, maintenance crews 

removed thirty miles of barbed wire fencing to improve access and safety for bicyclists, 

hikers, and horseback riders. Staff also removed “several tons of debris” from recently 

purchased ranchlands.97 Ranchers in turn accomplished significant cleanup and repair of 

their facilities at the prompting of PRNS staff. In 1973, the park demolished (or permitted 

the high public bidder to disassemble and remove) fifteen recently acquired ranch 

buildings deemed “decrepit,” and crews returned the grounds to “natural conditions.” 

Such “restoration” projects typically entailed digging a large ditch near the structure, then 

using a Caterpillar tractor to knock the building down, bulldoze the detritus into the pit, 

and then cover the pit with the removed soil. On some occasions, new seed or plantings 

were used to return the site to natural conditions. Seashore staff similarly disposed of an 

additional nineteen structures in 1974. 

While some ranch buildings were coming down, others were going up. Under the 

guidance of park resource managers, dairy ranchers erected four new “loafing” barns by 

1975 to help keep the ranches within federal pollution control standards. Loafing barns 

are covered areas where cows can shelter, particularly during the oft-stormy weather at 

Point Reyes. The barns have cement floors and drainage systems that ensure appropriate 

chemical treatment of liquid manure before it spills into surface streams. Loafing 

operations also make it easier for the dairy rancher to collect solid waste to use as 

fertilizer.98

Seashore staff oversaw the removal of the seven private homes on the Limantour Spit, 

along with the associated utility poles, wires, and other installations. Park administrators 

set up an arrangement that allowed private individuals to bid for the right to disassemble 

a particular house and take the materials for their own use, as long as they agreed to 

remove all materials from the original site. Property owners constructed several new 

homes on the peninsula (outside PRNS boundaries) in the 1970s using recycled wood and 

fixtures from the Limantour houses. For example, Burr Heneman built his house in 

Bolinas out of materials from one of the Limantour cottages.99 After the houses and 

foundations were completely removed from the spit, seashore crews tore up and hauled 

away the mile length of roadway.100 

Structures that were not demolished or moved were put to use for Park Service staff and 

projects. A barn on the Hagmaier Ranch, for example, served as a horse stable and a 

supply cache for patrols in the north segment of GGNRA. Maintenance staff converted 

other ranch structures around the peninsula for use as administrative offices and staff 

housing. One of the Limantour homes was moved to Bear Valley to serve as a new visitor 

center. Two buildings on the Laguna Ranch became an overnight facility of the American 

Youth Hostel organization, which began accepting guests in 1972. Today, the hostel 

remains the only public overnight accommodations within PRNS boundaries. While the 

buildings and utilities division performed most of this repair or rehabilitation work, the 

seashore administration also contracted with local firms to do some of the structural 

work. For instance, a private construction outfit built new facilities at Drakes, North, and 

South beaches.101

Buildings and 

Grounds 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

175

Record No. 10350. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Two residences on Limantour Beach, prior to removal, 1970. Photograph by William Germeraad. 

While public lodging within the seashore was not essential, because a variety of private 

motels, inns, and guest houses were located just outside the seashore, the opposite was 

true for staff housing. Skyrocketing real estate prices in California (Marin County in 

particular) made it extremely difficult for permanent staff at any level to purchase homes 

near the park. Correspondingly, high tax rates and the small number of vacant homes in 

West Marin resulted in rental prices beyond the budget of most permanent staff and 

virtually all of the term employees or seasonal staff. Thus, park administrators placed a 

high premium on acquiring and maintaining buildings suited for staff housing. 

As the decades passed, fewer and fewer park employees could afford to live in the West 

Marin communities beyond PRNS boundaries. While the size of the seashore staff grew, 

real estate prices in the county continued to climb and the number of affordable homes or 

rental residences continued to diminish. Although some new ranch houses became 

available and were converted to staff housing, they were few in number. Housing 

requirements for seasonal staff locked up many of the remaining spots inside the park, 

and many of these quarters were far from ideal. By 2004, only one-third of PRNS 

permanent and term staff lived in park housing; of the other two-thirds, a large 

percentage lived in east Marin and Sonoma counties and some as far away as San 

Francisco or Oakland.102

Put into operation in 1870, the Point Reyes Lighthouse has long been a symbol of the 

intersection of land and sea, the luminous boundary between ship and shore that 

epitomized the Point Reyes environment. The history and symbolism of the lighthouse, 

and its dramatic, cliff-edge location have made the structure a tremendous tourist 

attraction. In addition to all its attractive attributes, the lighthouse has also been a 

maintenance nightmare. Point Reyes Lighthouse, the most recognizable icon of the Point 

Reyes landscape, became the responsibility of the Park Service when the U.S. Coast 

Guard turned it over to the national seashore in summer 1974. The Coast Guard 

relinquished its role as lighthouse keeper after installing an automated beacon on the 

Point Reyes 

Lighthouse 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

176

bluff below the lighthouse structure. When the Park Service acquired it, the lighthouse 

was a hundred-year-old structure that had been continually subjected to some of the 

harshest climatic conditions in the United States. Before historic survey work, 

interpretive programming, or visitor tours could take place there, maintenance crews set 

to work repairing and stabilizing the buildings and the site. Park administration budgeted 

$52,000 for the initial alterations needed to prepare the site for visitor use.103

Although a former Limantour Spit house had been moved to Bear Valley to serve as a 

visitor center in the early 1970s, the new facility quickly became overcrowded, 

necessitating the construction of a modern visitor center that could serve as a focal point 

for seashore visitors. In 1978, Walter Gray, executor of the estate of William Field, came 

to Sansing with the information that he had “a little money” for the seashore from Bill 

Field, who had recently died. Field, a Nicasio resident who was a strong local supporter 

of the park, had bequeathed approximately $750,000 to PRNS for a new visitor center. 

Sansing asked the NPS regional office to obtain a matching appropriation or grant, in 

order to cover the cost of a modern facility. When he received no response from the Park 

Service, Sansing searched for a solution amid his wide circle of personal and political 

acquaintances. Sansing contacted Point Reyes rancher Boyd Stewart to inquire whether 

the Marin Community Foundation might be able to help fund the visitor center. To the 

pleasure of everyone involved, the foundation came up with a donation matching Field’s 

$750,000 bequest. 

Jack Williams, chief of maintenance at the time, and Donald Neubacher, at the time 

education program administrator, hired noted architect Henrik Bull, of the San Francisco 

firm of Bull, Field, Volkman, Stockwell, who designed a barn-like structure to represent 

the peninsula’s ranching tradition. Bull became known for paying attention to the local 

environment of his projects, including his work at Bear Valley, where he realized that 

whatever he came up with “better look like it’s always been there.”104 The resulting 

design mirrored the landscape theme, if not the regional architectural style, of Point 

Reyes. Bull’s impressive creation, with its massive beams and 42-foot-tall ceilings, won 

several design awards and was featured in national magazines. More important, the 

structure has facilitated visitor orientation, provided a focal point for interpretive 

activities, impressed new arrivals, and pleased staff ever since its construction. PRNS 

contracted with Dan Quan Design to design and produce modern interior exhibits 

featuring the marine ecosystems, which by that time had gained recognition as being 

among the park’s most significant natural resources. 

Although much of PRNS is considered wilderness and utilities are nonexistent, the 

maintenance division has had to maintain and construct essential utilities networks for 

park buildings, campsites, and the like. During the first years of PRNS operations, Bear 

Valley utilized a large spring that provided plenty of water. Later, when the county 

installed a water distribution system for homeowners in Olema Valley and the peninsula, 

the NPS tied into that system. Eventually, PRNS entered into an agreement with the 

North Marin Water District to supply drinking water and a fire line to the administrative 

headquarters and visitor facilities in Bear Valley. At Limantour Beach, water pipes were 

laid during the construction phase of Drakes Beach Estates. At Drakes, North, and South 

beaches, PRNS maintenance crews piped well water to the sites. Waste in the park is 

managed by septic tanks, except at Drakes Beach, where the high water table and steep 

bluffs make it impossible to have a percolation field at the site. Instead, a maintenance 

crew constructed a system that pumped waste to a spot higher on the hillside, where it 

went into two holding tanks for evaporation treatment.105 From the mid-1960s on, the 

Bear Valley 

Visitor 

Center 

Utilities 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

177

national seashore had an annual agreement with the Marin Public Works Department to 

perform maintenance tasks at Point Reyes. Seashore staff members have also worked 

with Marin County Public Health Department officials to monitor the sewers and water 

quality of Point Reyes dairies. 

During the past decade of PRNS history, and likely for several decades to come, one of 

the most complicated administrative issues has involved land use in the original pastoral 

zones of PRNS and GGNRA. During the 1961–1962 congressional debates regarding the 

authorization of a national seashore at Point Reyes, legislators discussed and tried to 

resolve some of the land-use problems, which they knew would make life complicated 

for future administrators at the park. They ironed out some of the potential conflicts in 

their construction of the Point Reyes bill, but other problems were only temporarily 

avoided or swept under the rug in order to ensure the bill’s passage. These latent conflicts 

resurfaced at various times during the next four decades, particularly when administrators 

tried to alter arrangements that had become part of the park’s status quo. 

The specific language in the founding act, Public Law 87-657, which states that the 

government may not acquire land in the pastoral zone without the consent of the owner, 

“so long as it remains in its natural state, or is used exclusively for ranching and dairying 

purposes,” was in no way a mandate for the NPS to continue agricultural activity at Point 

Reyes.106 That language described the terms by which a rancher would be allowed to 

maintain property ownership. In other words, if the rancher wanted to keep title to their 

property for a designated period of time, they had to keep the land in its traditional 

agricultural operations; otherwise the government could condemn the property in order to 

ensure that the NPS remained in control of the land. The point was to keep other 

inappropriate land uses—subdivisions, apartment buildings, Ferris wheels, and the like—

from appearing in the center of a national seashore. 

The authorizing act did not mandate the ranch owners, or the NPS, to keep the land in 

agricultural use; they did want to maintain undeveloped open space, the pastoral scene, 

and rights of the original property owners. Many NPS officials and members of Congress 

assumed that once the government purchased the land in the pastoral zone, it would 

eventually be allowed to return to its natural state, as that term was then understood. 

When the government purchased from ranch owners the land needed to create the 

national seashore, the NPS granted reservations of use and occupancy (ROPs), or in some 

cases, life estates, to landholders who wanted to continue their dairy or cattle grazing 

businesses. The ROPs gave the ranchers and their descendants, generally for a period of 

twenty-five years, the right to continue living and working on their former properties, as 

long as they continued their traditional agricultural operations. By the early 1990s, the 

terms of the ROPs began to expire, leaving park administration to determine how to 

proceed. 

Sansing, many of his staff, and a majority of the local population favored a continuation 

of traditional dairying and grazing on the peninsula. In his 1990 “Statement for 

Management,” Sansing suggested that given economic value, public support, and 

legislative backing of ranching activities, they were likely to “continue indefinitely” 

within the national seashore.107 Most, but not all, of the regional environmental 

organizations involved with the park supported continuation of agricultural practices, 

although they wished to see the park place more stringent regulations on those operations 

to prevent overgrazing and soil erosion, and to improve water quality. Most ranchers, of 

course, would have liked to renew their ROPs, but NPS policy did not allow for that.108 

Dairy and 

Cattle 

Ranching 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

178

Sansing, who had been an advocate for the ranchers, began negotiating leases and grazing 

permits with them well before the expiration of eight ROPs in 1991, in order to assure the 

ranchers that they could continue to invest in their operations.109 To smooth the process, 

the NPS hired an outside firm to perform the property appraisals, which were used to 

determine the rental rates and permit fees. Two ranchers entered into lease agreements in 

1991, the six others did so in 1992. Sansing believed that the park’s approach to the 

appraisal process proved beneficial, observing that the rental rates were “accepted by the 

ranchers without as much unfavorable comment as had been expected.”110 Certainly, it is 

possible that any number of these ranchers might have had strong objections to the 

transition from ROPs to lease agreements, but chose not to express them publicly. But 

others may well have come to terms with their tenant status. In a 2001 interview with a 

reported from the San Francisco Chronicle, long-time rancher Boyd Stewart explained 

that over the years, many of the Point Reyes ranchers had come to see the NPS presence 

as helpful to their operations, rather than a hindrance. Stewart noted that Point Reyes was 

“the only major block of land in Marin County” that remained in agricultural use, which 

was only possible “because the park is here.”111

Between 1999 and 2001, nineteen more ROPs expired, requiring the park to engage in 

another round of appraisals and rental agreements. It also represented the completion of 

another transition: the peninsula ranchers were now lessees with five-year rental 

agreements rather than holders of the long-term ROPs.112 Independent contract appraisers 

established the rental rates for the ranch facilities, based on the “prevailing prices in 

competitive markets for goods, resource, or service that are the same or similar to those 

provided by the government,” as authorized in 36 CFR 18.5.113 The park also set new 

grazing permit fees for the ranchers, according to a fair-market-value assessment of 

surrounding, comparable land parcels. Fees were charged per Animal Unit Month (AUM) 

rate, using the Bureau of Land Management average rate for public rangeland in 

California as a point of comparison. 

A Point Reyes rancher’s lease agreement covered only five years, but both the park and 

the rancher entered into the agreement with the understanding that the leases could be 

renewed into the indefinite future, as long as that ranch remained a viable agricultural 

operation. This was not true with special use permits, which were intended to cover a 

discreet period of time without renewal. Conflicts occasionally arose when a permittee 

resisted their required abandonment of a property. In 1998, PRNS began to take steps, 

laid out in the 1980 GMP, to rehabilitate several structures at Rancho Baulines (Wilkins 

Ranch) and convert the entire property into an education center. The first step in that 

process involved notifying longtime tenant Mary Tiscornia that the park would not renew 

her special-use permit to stay on the ranch. For reasons that are still unclear, Tiscornia 

had received and then continually renewed a five-year use permit to stay on the ranch, 

even though it was no longer in full agricultural production. Although the NPS never 

intended the property to remain a residence and small-scale farm, the previous 

administration had allowed Tiscornia to retain her permit while plans for the proposed 

education center were in stasis. 

Tiscornia protested the park’s decision regarding her permit, especially when no other 

tenant was ready to take over the ranch. She argued that she should be able to continue on 

as permittee because she helped keep up the ranch and because she considered the place 

her home after living there for thirty years.114 In other words, she sought squatter’s rights 

to an arrangement that thousands of Bay Area residents would clamor for a shot at—a 

chance to live in the beauty and splendor of the Point Reyes Peninsula, protected from 

Wilkins 

Ranch 

Controversy 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

179

future development. PRNS arranged a different special-use permit that would allow 

Tiscornia to remain on the property until May 2001.115 Instead, Tiscornia sued Secretary 

of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to revoke NPS’s decision to terminate her prior permit. The 

court ruled in June 1999 that Tiscornia held no right to maintain her tenancy, a decision 

congruent with PRNS legislative guidelines, which allowed ranchers to remain on their 

former properties only if traditional agricultural operations continued. Nonetheless, 

Tiscornia continued to protest the NPS decision and found an effective vehicle to air her 

complaints in the local newspaper, the Point Reyes Light.

116

Neubacher believed the rifts that sometimes opened between the park and local 

population, such as the conflict over Rancho Baulines, were not nearly as deep or as wide 

as they might have appeared, and healed over time. He noted, in fact, “If we had a more 

balanced sort of local paper it wouldn’t have been as bad,” a reference to the occasionally 

inflammatory headlines and articles in the Point Reyes Light.117 Biased coverage is 

certainly the prerogative, and possibly the raison d’être, of a community newspaper in a 

locale shared with a large federal entity. But the paper merely contributed to the 

confusion and animosity when, for example, it made vague attributions regarding the 

number and motivation of the objecting parties. The paper regularly used headlines and 

subheads that intimated the entire town of Bolinas was opposed the park’s actions 

(“Bolinas furious at park’s quiet Rancho dealings”) when, in fact, protestors were in the 

minority.118

As news coverage kept the conflict visible, some (it is unclear how many) Bolinas 

residents did join in the clamor over Rancho Baulines. Detractors contended that the 

presence of an education center at the Bolinas “Y” (where the road to Bolinas leaves 

Highway 101) would attract unwanted crowds of tourists to their community. 

Furthermore, they argued, the NPS should have notified the community of their plans 

before negotiating with Tiscornia or with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO), a 

likely tenant for the education center.119 In November 2000, the ad hoc Bolinas 

Committee on Park Planning and the directors of the Bolinas Public Utility District called 

for PRNS to postpone their decision about Wilkins Ranch and institute a process wherein 

the public could participate in the final decision. By that time, however, the NPS had 

already aired their proposals to the Citizens' Advisory Commission and opened the issue 

for public comment, clearly meeting their federal requirements to engage citizen input.120

The controversy brought out park supporters as well, many of who wrote to the Point 

Reyes Light or to PRNS in agreement with NPS decision-making at Point Reyes.121 A 

group of Point Reyes and GGNRA ranchers, for example, wrote a joint letter to 

Neubacher praising their long and positive work relationship with park management and 

stating that they had felt, all along, that the park was committed to keeping the working 

ranches viable and an integral part of the national seashore.122

Public dialogue regarding proposals for the Wilkins Ranch reappeared the next year when 

the NPS released the draft Environmental Assessment (EA) of the property for public 

review. PRNS posted notice of the comment period and the dates for a public meeting of 

the Citizen’s Advisory Commission, via the park’s website, a press release to the Point 

Reyes Light, and mass mailings to individuals and organizations. By the end of the 

comment period, the park had received 106 written communications—including letters, 

e-mail, faxes, and written testimony at the public meeting—nearly two-thirds of which 

supported the NPS recommended alternative.123 Following the May 5, 2000, advisory 

commission meeting, the planning team reviewed the comments, revised the Wilkins 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

180

Ranch EA, and released the new document for a second public comment period in 

October. 

After the thirty-day review period, in which the park received only four additional letters, 

PRNS released the results of the completed EA in a Finding of No Significant Impact 

(FONSI) in April 2002.124 It described the preferred action alternative in the EA that 

directed the NPS to create public access to the ranch building and property, rehabilitate 

buildings in need of repair, upgrade the water and septic systems, and establish a 

conservation and education center that would provide educational and interpretive 

programs.125 The final decision included several small modifications made to the original 

alternative that were ironed out in an informal face-to-face meeting, in the backyard of a 

Bolinas home, between park managers and an ad hoc committee of Bolinas residents. 

One of the modifications included express guidelines that any future group operating at 

the site will be asked to follow.126 The agreed-upon modifications put an end to the 

contentiousness over the ranch’s future. 

NEW MANAGEMENT, NEW STRATEGIES

In his first annual report, Superintendent Donald Neubacher dubbed 1995 the “year of 

change” at PRNS. Not only did Neubacher step in as the first new superintendent in 

twenty-five years, but also LeeRoy Brock retired at the start of the year after serving as 

Sansing’s chief ranger. Neubacher saw the transition period as an opportunity to make 

changes in several key areas of seashore management. Unlike Sansing, Neubacher was 

very familiar with PRNS operations when he took up the administrative reins, due to his 

previous tour of duty as chief of the interpretative division. 

Neubacher initiated a new round of planning activity, beginning with a series of meetings 

in which managerial and field staff provided input for the development of a mission 

statement, a listing of park objectives, and a five-year strategic plan.127 After obtaining 

this initial feedback, he targeted the following operations for changes or improvements: 

natural resource protection, biological research, cultural resource protection (including 

the addition of a CRM division), modernization of the park’s technological capacities, 

partnerships with outside agencies, and interagency connections.128 During his first two 

years as superintendent, Neubacher also initiated new management plans for park 

housing, among other significant reforms to park administration, organization, and 

operations. 

Neubacher was born in Vallejo, California, and grew up in Healdsburg, Sonoma County. 

He attended the University of California at Davis as an undergraduate, then Humboldt 

State University for graduate work in resource management. Neubacher made the 

familiar climb up through the ranks of the Park Service, from summer seasonal field jobs 

(his first position was at Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska during the mid-1970s) to 

his current rung as superintendent. While a graduate student at Humboldt State, he 

worked at Point Reyes through an arrangement with the school’s Cooperative Park 

Studies Unit. After obtaining a graduate degree in resource management, Neubacher’s 

experience through the cooperative studies program enabled him to land his first 

permanent job as an education specialist in the division of visitor services and 

interpretation at Point Reyes. He worked at the Coast Miwok Indian village and with 

environmental education programs in the local community schools. Neubacher quickly 

moved his way up to division chief at PRNS, replacing Dave Pugh. He then transferred to 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

181

the Denver Service Center, where he became the planning team chief and deputy 

manager for the Presidio master plan at GGNRA.129 During that time, Neubacher worked 

closely with Stanley L. Albright, the regional director, in what became an intense, 

politicized planning process that entailed working with congressional leaders, community 

activists, Bay Area environmental groups, and other NPS officials. In this position, 

Neubacher gained recognition for his management and planning skills, and obtained a 

wealth of administrative experience; undoubtedly, the experience paved the way for him 

to return to Point Reyes.130 

Neubacher substantially expanded the park’s resource programs, adding staff and new 

management positions in natural resources, and inaugurating three entire new divisions in 

cultural resource management, fire management, and science and research. Among the 

most significant changes he wrought were making PRNS into a major center (among 

NPS sites) for research in the biological sciences, spearheaded by Sarah Allen, who was 

hired as a GIS Specialist and Wildlife Biologist in 1995 and became Science Advisor in 

1997. Allen’s specialized knowledge in marine ecology helped the seashore obtain 

immediate expertise, which it had been sorely lacking, in one of the seashore’s most 

significant natural resources—coastal ecosystems.131 In a serendipitous quirk of timing, 

the year Allen arrived, the number of elephant seal pups born at the national seashore 

increased by 30 percent and winter storms extended the seals’ pupping territory as well. 

In 1995, the seashore initiated four new research studies: snowy plover monitoring, an 

intertidal inventory, a tule elk population study, and habitat restoration. Under 

Neubacher’s guidance, the PRNS continued to initiate an impressive array of new 

research projects, created a science division, and established the Pacific Coast Science 

and Learning Center. 

Neubacher and his senior staff also set out to increase interdivision harmony and staff 

morale. They introduced an adjustable work schedule that gave employees with families 

or those with long commutes more flexibility.132 Additional training time and funds were 

also provided to employees. The administrative team put an end to the district 

arrangement that had split visitor protection staff into separate fiefdoms. In an extreme 

example of the impact districting could have on personnel, Sansing recollected that a 

district ranger who covered the Pierce Point section of the park in the 1970s had become 

so territorial that he wanted other PRNS staff to obtain passes before they entered his 

province.133

Neubacher saw that new connections and working relationships were needed outside the 

park as well as within it. Between 1995 and 2002, the administration established new 

partnerships, or reaffirmed prior collaborations, with a wide variety of organizations. 

New partnerships included Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO, now called PRBO 

Conservation Science), Marin Conservation Corps, the National Biological Survey, 

Marin County Resource Conservation District, the Sonoma State University Academic 

Foundation, and others.134

Neubacher’s skills in building connections with groups outside the agency and his 

strengths in fostering interrelationships within the NPS did not immediately carry over to 

his work with the Point Reyes ranching community. Local ranchers had grown 

accustomed to the close ties they had with Sansing and Brock and were very familiar 

with their management style. While Neubacher sought to foster good relationships with 

the ranchers themselves, he directed changes in the park’s range and dairy management 

regulations and protocols, which some ranchers protested. Range management at Point 

Increased 

Emphasis on 

Resource 

Management 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

182

Reyes became more systematic, and resource management staff initiated new range 

conservation plans for each operating ranch. In reality, Sansing himself had spurred some 

of these changes, starting with his establishment in 1985 of a range conservationist 

position at the seashore.135 During Neubacher’s first year as superintendent, the park held 

seven workshops on range conservation planning for Point Reyes ranchers. The more 

systematic approach to range management was demonstrated with the introduction of a 

ranch-planning workbook, a software application for dairy waste management, and 

greater attention to residual dry matter measurement (RDMs) transects to determine the 

condition of grazing lands.136 Neubacher, however, moved more quickly to implement 

changes in ranch procedures and instituted a greater number of them. One of his first 

steps, after obtaining input from the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, was to decrease the 

stocking rates (the number of cattle allowed on a particular parcel of land) in 1996; soon 

thereafter, he okayed an increase in ranchers’ grazing fees.137

Moreover, Neubacher challenged the appropriateness of some former ranch practices to 

which ranchers felt entitled. For instance, ranchers continued to use borrow pits located 

within the national seashore to extract gravel and fill materials for road repairs and the 

like. Although the authorizing act and subsequent legislation allowed a continuance of 

agricultural operations in general, it was very rare for the NPS to allow extractive activity 

in any of its units. NPS national policy directed in-park residents or lessees to avoid this 

kind of resource exploitation within an NPS site by obtaining materials outside the park 

boundaries. Neubacher ordered a halt to the quarrying, aiming eventually to restore the 

sites. But he later changed his tack somewhat, deciding to hold public hearings regarding 

the fate of the borrow pits, with the idea of consenting to continued use at one site while 

the ranchers, in turn, agreed to assist in or help pay for restoration of the other gravel 

quarries. Although no agreement had been worked out at the time of this writing, the 

process indicates the type of difficult compromises Neubacher learned to make in 

working with Point Reyes ranchers.138 The conflict also reveals the complexity of 

managing economically viable agricultural operations within an NPS unit that was 

established primarily as a natural and recreation area. 

Several individuals interviewed for this administrative history described a perception that 

there was less harmony between the park and the community under Neubacher than had 

existed in prior decades. Whether perception or reality, the shortage of staff housing in 

and immediately outside PRNS by the 1990s might have contributed to this change. 

Fewer staff lived among the park’s neighbors than in earlier decades. Of the one hundred 

permanent employees on staff in 2004, two-thirds lived outside the park, mainly in east 

Marin and Sonoma counties.139 With fewer staff living in the immediate vicinity, PRNS 

administration and managers have had to take a more deliberate approach to develop 

open and effective relationships with community members. Neubacher acknowledged 

that at times the effort he put into making those connections, such as conducting three or 

four consecutive meetings in different towns in the space of one morning, were “simply 

exhausting.”140

Several issues discussed in this chapter convey some of the complexities that PRNS 

administrators have faced over the past thirty years, including the long-term viability of 

agriculture on the peninsula, public participation in the administrative policy-making 

process, recreational access to PRNS land, natural resource preservation, cultural 

resource preservation, communication with gateway communities, partnerships with 

research and education programs, relationships with the media, and the value of sound 

park planning. All were topics that PRNS administrators would be dealing with in the 

Conclusion 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

183

decades to come. In fact, one of the contributing factors in the controversy over the use of 

the Wilkins Ranch was the lack of an up-to-date management plan to help define and 

direct such decisions. Park managers were still relying on the twenty-year-old GMP as 

the basis for policy and decision making. Accordingly, in the late 1990s, Neubacher set in 

motion planning for a new GMP, which was nearing completion at the time of this 

writing. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER FIVE

1

 National Park Service, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” May 1972, Box 

1, Accession 78-0001, PORE Correspondence Files, RG 79 Records of the National Park Service, 

National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Region, San Bruno, California (hereafter 

PORE Files, NARA-SB), 1. 

2

 “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1972, 1–2. 

3

 John L. Sansing, unpublished memoir, n.d., Superintendent’s Office Files, Administration 

Building, PORE. 

4

 Burr Heneman, interview by Paul Sadin, November 30, 2004, Bolinas, California, audiotape 

recording, HRA Administrative History Project Files (hereafter HRA Files), Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives and Library (hereafter PRA). 

5

 Heneman, interview. 

6

 John L. Sansing, interview by Paul Sadin, April 29, 2004, San Rafael, California, audiotape 

recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

7

 Gordon Ashby, interview by Paul Sadin, November 30, 2004, Point Reyes Station, California, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

8

 Sansing, interview. 

9

 Sansing, memorandum to all employees, August 1971, File Land Acquisition–Confidential, 

Carton 5, NPS Administrative History Files, Accession PORE-8053, PRA. 

10 LeeRoy Brock, interview by Paul Sadin, August 12, 2004, Point Reyes Station, audiotape 

recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

11 Brock, interview. 

12 “Tanker Collision in San Francisco Bay Spurs Demands for Stiff Harbor Controls,” New York 

Times, February 14, 1971, S9. 13 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 16. 

14 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 16. 

15 International Bird Rescue Research Center, “Just Little Bit of Oil Can Be Deadly,” International 

Bird Rescue Research Center website, Fairfield, California, 2005, 

http://www.ibrrc.org/oil_affects.html. 

16 International Bird Rescue Research Center, “The Genesis of IBRRC,” International Bird Rescue 

Research Center website, Fairfield, California, 2005, http://www.ibrrc.org/f_perspective.html. 17 Harry R. Carter and Richard T. Golightly, eds., “Seabird Injuries from the 1997–1998 Point 

Reyes Tarball Incidents,” report prepared for the NPS by Department of Wildlife, Humboldt State 

University, Arcata, California, under Cooperative Agreement No. 1443-CA-8530-99-003, July 

2003. 

18 Sarah Allen, written communication with Paul Sadin, December 11, 2005. 

19 International Bird Rescue Research Center, “A Long History of Saving Oiled Wildlife,” 

International Bird Rescue Research Center website, Fairfield, California, 2005, 

http://www.ibrrc.org/history.html. 

20 Conservation and environment groups, for instance, pushed for the adoption of a Greater 

Yellowstone Ecosystem in the late 1970s, as a means to protect the migratory corridors of 

endangered wildlife populations; James A. Pritchard, Preserving Yellowstone’s Natural 

Conditions: Science and the Perception of Nature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 

254–57. 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

184

21 For a thorough description and analysis of GGNRA establishment, see Hal K. Rothman, The 

Park that Creates Its Own Weather: An Administrative History of Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area, online rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2002) 

http://www.nps.gov/goga/history/pdf/hist-admin-2nd-edition.pdf. Rothman’s revised 

administrative history was subsequently published as The New Urban Park: Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area and Civic Environmentalism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004). For 

primary sources, see oral history interviews with selected participants in the GGNRA campaign in 

the Bancroft Oral History Project, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and the 

collected papers of the Sierra Club and individual club members in the Bancroft Library’s archival 

holdings. 

22 Rothman, The Park that Creates Its Own Weather, 70. 23 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 34–35. 

24 Doug Nadeau, interview by Paul Sadin, December 3, 2004, San Rafael, California, audiotape 

recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

25 Ronald A. Foresta, America’s National Parks and Their Keepers (Washington, D.C.: Resources 

for the Future, 1984), 173–81. 

26 William Duddleson, interview by Paul Sadin, October 28–29, 2004, Harper’s Ferry, West 

Virginia, HRA Files, PRA. Duddleson made the “bare-bones” description in review comments on 

this chapter sent to Gordon White, July 29, 2006. 

27 Congress, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on National Parks 

and Recreation Hearing on H.R. 9498, a Golden Gate National Recreation Area, May 11 & 12, 

1972, 340. 

28 Duddleson, interview. 

29 Richard Bartke, correspondence with Paul Sadin, June 9, 2006. 

30 Sansing, interview. 

31 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 27. 

32 Brock, interview. 

33 Bartke, correspondence. 

34 Sansing, interview. 

35 Polly Welts Kaufman, National Parks and the Woman’s Voice: A History (Albuquerque: 

University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 124–25, 131. 

36 Kaufman, National Parks and the Woman’s Voice, 124. 37 Kaufman, National Parks and the Woman’s Voice, 130. 38 Kaufman, National Parks and the Woman’s Voice, 136. 

39 Point Reyes National Seashore (hereafter PRNS), “Staff Meeting Minutes SFBAG,” April 20, 

1970, File A4023 Staff Mtg., Box 1, Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 4. 

Omundson joined the staff in 1969 or early 1970. 

40 Doris [Omundson] Bowen, interview by Paul Sadin, Tulelake, California, March 28, 2007. 

41 Jack Williams, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, April 27, 2005. 

42 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 11. 

43 Nadeau, interview. The Western Office of Design and Construction was the predecessor of the 

regional service center. 

44 Nadeau uses this particular term to categorize the master plans of that period. Nadeau, 

interview. 

45 Nadeau, interview. 

46 Nadeau, interview. 

47 Dwight F. Rettie, Our National Park System: Caring for America’s Greatest Natural and 

Historic Treasures (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 106–7. 48 Nadeau, interview. 

49 Robert S. Luntey, Chief of Resource Planning, to Assistant Director, Cooperative Activities, 

May 22, 1969, Folder D18 Planning Program and Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE 

Files, NARA-SB. 

50 NPS, Office of Environmental Planning and Design, “Planning Directive, Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” May 1, 1970, Folder D18 Planning Program and Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 

76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 2. 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

185

51 Luntey to Assistant Director, Cooperative Activities, May 22, 1969, 2. 

52 Fred J. Novak, Western Region Office, to all Superintendents, Western Region, April 21, 1970; 

Hartzog to Regional Directors, memorandum, March 9, 1970, Folder D18 Planning Program and 

Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

53 Sansing to Director, Western Region, September 30, 1971, Folder D18 Planning Program and 

Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

54 Rettie, Our National Park System, 107. 55 Nadeau, interview; and Nadeau to Gordon White, personal correspondence, May 30, 2006. 

56 R. L. Bruckman, Inverness, to Sansing, September 25, 1971, Folder D18 Planning Program and 

Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

57 William Duddleson, “The Miracle of Point Reyes,” Living Wilderness 35 (Summer 1971), 20. 58 Mrs. Bruce Johnson, Greenbrae, California, to the Superintendent, September 21, 1971, Folder 

D18 Planning Program and Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

59 John V. Tunney, “Statement by Senator John V. Tunney, NPS Hearings, September 22–23, 

1971, Marin Civic Center,” presented by Clarence C. Kent, Field Representative, File D1815, 

Suggestions for Master Plan, 1971, Box 2, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

60 Alan Cranston, “Statement by United States Senator Alan Cranston, California, on the Point 

Reyes Master Plan, Before National Park Service Hearing, Marin County Civic Center, 

Wednesday, September 22, 1971,” File D1815, Suggestions for Master Plan, 1971, Box 2, PORE 

Records, NARA-SB. 

61 Stewart L. Udall, interview by Paul Sadin, February 3, 2005, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 

transcription, HRA Files, PRA, 5–6. 

62 Legislators introduced the first version of wilderness bills in 1956; Roderick Nash, Wilderness 

and the American Mind, 3rd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967, 1982), 221. 63 Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, 3rd ed. (Lincoln: University of 

Nebraska Press, 1997), 241. 

64 Runte, National Parks, 241. Runte is only one of the many national park historians who have 

made this argument. 

65 Udall, interview. 

66 Rick Harmon, Crater Lake National Park: A History (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 

2002), 179. 

67 Harmon, Crater Lake National Park, 180–81. 68 Donald Cameron, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, March 10, 2005, American Fork, Utah, 

unrecorded, notes in HRA Files, PRA. 

69 Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven, Conn.: 

Yale University Press, 1997), 193. As of 2004, the Park Service was still delinquent on studies 

required for 39 NPS units, and tardy on sending wilderness recommendations for an additional 2.7 

million acres to the White House. The Wilderness Act Handbook; 40th Anniversary Edition, rev. 

ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Wilderness Society, 2004), 35. 

70 NPS, “Wilderness Study: Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1971, Carton 2–loose materials, 

Administrative History Files, PRA. 

71 Tunney, “Statement by Senator John V. Tunney, NPS Hearings, September 22–23, 1971, Marin 

Civic Center.” 

72 Cranston, “Statement.” 

73 An Act to Establish a National Wilderness Preservation System, Public Law 88-577, 88th

Congress, 2d

 session, September 3, 1964, 2(c). To understand some of the complexities of 

evaluating prehistoric land use patterns and their long-term effects, see these two scholarly 

landmarks in the field of environmental history, Richard White, Land Use, Environment, and 

Social Change: The Shaping of Island County, Washington (Seattle: University of Washington 

Press, 1980, 1992), and William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indian, Colonists, and the Ecology 

of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), for starters. 74 William Cronon, “The Trouble With Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” in 

Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. Cronon (New York: W. W. 

Norton & Company, 1995), 79. 

75 Duddleson, interview. 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000 

186

76 Department of the Interior, “National Park Service Hearing on Point Reyes National Seashore, 

San Rafael, California, September 23, 1971, prepared by Schiller’s Reporting Service, San 

Francisco, Carton 2–loose materials, Administrative History Files, PRA. 

77 Duddleson, interview. 

78 Duddleson, interview. 

79 Nadeau, interview. Nadeau contrasted the 1963 and 1972 management plans by observing that 

“all of the frightful things that were done at Point Reyes,” took place prior to the second master 

plan. 

80 Duddleson, interview. 

81 An Act To Designate Certain Land In The Point Reyes National Seashore, California, As 

Wilderness, Public Law 544, 94th Congress, 2d

 sess. (October 18, 1976). 82 H. Rept. 94-1680, 

83 H. Rept. 94-1680, 2–4. 

84 Rothman, The Park that Creates Its Own Weather, 91. 85 NPS, “General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, 46. 

86 NPS, “General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, 2. 87 NPS, “General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, 2–3. 

88 Emphasis added. NPS, “General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, 3. 

89 NPS, “General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, 3. 

90 NPS, “General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, iv. 

91 NPS, “General Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, 9. 

92 Although district ranger Brown was mentioned in several documents, his first name, 

unfortunately, was not. 

93 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” File A2621 Annual Reports–General, Box 1, 

Accession 79-78-0001, NPS Correspondence 1972–74 (hereafter PORE Files), NARA-SB, 7. 

94 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 7. 

95 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 20. 

96 PRNS, “Trail Inventory and Condition Assessment with Recommendations, Point Reyes 

National Seashore and the North District of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, November 

2003,” PRNS website, http://www.nps.gov/pore/home_mngmntdocs_trailinventory2003.htm, 6. 97 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 7. 

98 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” shelved materials, Pacific West Regional 

Office, Oakland, California (hereafter PWRO), n.p. 99 Burr Heneman, interview by Paul Sadin, November 11, 2004, Bolinas, California, audiotape 

recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

100 Heneman, interview. 101 Cameron, interview. 102 Lynn Fosbender, PORE administrative assistant/housing officer, e-mail communication with 

Paul Sadin, April 11, 2005. 

103 NPS, “Point Reyes National Seashore Management Consultation Report,” March 1974, 

prepared by the Operations Evaluation Team, Western Region Office, San Francisco, File A5427 

Inspection for Appraisals, Investigations, and Studies, Box 1, Accession 78-0001, RG 79, NARASB, 55. 

104 David Weinstein, “Signature Style, Henrik Bull: Buildings that Belong,” San Francisco 

Chronicle, September 16, 2006. 105 Cameron, interview. 106 An Act to Establish the Point Reyes National Seashore in the State of California, Public Law 

657, 87th Cong., 2d

 sess. (September 13, 1962). 107 PRNS, “Statement for Management, Point Reyes National Seashore, 1990,” rev., Planning and 

Management Documents, PRA, 10–11. 

108 NPS, “Briefing Statement: Expiration of Residential Reservations of Use and Occupancy,” 

February 18, 1999, File A2623 Situation Rpts - Briefing Statements, Administrative Files, CCF, 

PRNS 

109 NPS, “Western Region, 102d Congress Issues Briefing Statement,” January 1992, File A2623 

Situation Rpts - Briefing Statements, Administrative Files, CCF, PRNS 
Park Planning, Development, and Maintenance, 1972–2000

187

110 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1991,” File A2621 – Superintendent’s Annual 

Reports, CCF, PRNS, 10. 

111 Bill English, “Preserving Paradise: Point Reyes Cattle Ranchers and Park Service Work 

Together to Keep Alive a Way of Life,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2001. 112 NPS, “Briefing Statement: Expiration of Residential Reservations of Use and Occupancy,” 

1999. 

113 NPS, “Grazing Permits, Lease Length, and Fees at Point Reyes National Seashore,” Briefing 

Statement, 2004.. 

114 “Residents Blast Park over Rancho Baulines Evictions,” Point Reyes Light, October 26, 2000. 115 Gordon White, correspondence with Paul Sadin, received April 29, 2005. 116 “Park Service To Drop Lease at Rancho Baulines,” Point Reyes Light, December 16, 1999. 117 Neubacher, interview. 118 “Bolinas Furious at Park’s Rancho Dealings,” Point Reyes Light, January 25, 2001; and 

Gordon White, telephone discussion with Paul Sadin, April 22, 2005. 

119 “Bolinas Scolds Park for Rancho Baulines Plans,” Point Reyes Light, November 22, 2000. 120 “Bolinas Scolds Park for Rancho Baulines Plans.” 121 “Letterwriter Defends Park Service,” Point Reyes Light, November 9, 2000. 122 “Residents Blast Park over Rancho Baulines Evictions.” 123 PRNS, “Staff Report, Point Reyes National Seashore Wilkins Ranch Public Use and 

Rehabilitation Plan, Rehabilitation of Septic and Water Systems,” April 2002, Cultural Resources 

Management administrative files, PRA, 1. 

124 PRNS, “Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) Wilkins Ranch Environmental 

Assessment,” March 18, 2002, Cultural Resources Management administrative files, PRA, 1–2. 125 PRNS, FONSI, 2. 126 PRNS, FONSI, “Appendix J: Additional Guidelines for Use of Wilkins Ranch,” 28. 127 “Point Reyes National Seashore, 1995,” Annual Report, File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual 

Reports, Central Classified Files, Administration Building (hereafter CCF), PRNS, 1. 

128 Neubacher, interview. 

129 For more details on the Presidio project, see Rothman, The Park that Makes its Own Weather. 130 Neubacher, interview. 131 “Point Reyes National Seashore, 1995,” Annual Report, 4. 132 “Point Reyes National Seashore, 1995,” Annual Report, 4. 133 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 22. 134 “Point Reyes National Seashore, 1995,” 2; and PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 

1996,” File A2621, CCF, PRNS, 8. 

135 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1985,” shelved materials, PWRO, 1. 136 “Point Reyes National Seashore, 1995,” 5. 137 PRNS, “Briefing Statement: Continuation of Ranching in Point Reyes National Seashore,” 

January 29, 1996, File A2623 Situation Reports, Briefing Statements, CCF, PRNS. 

138 Neubacher, interview. 

139 Fosbender email, April 11, 2005. 140 Neubacher, interview. 
188
189

CHAPTER SIX
190
191

CHAPTER SIX

VISITOR USE, VISITOR SERVICES, AND PARK PROTECTION 

OPERATIONS

In the early days, we’d just fly down and I probably ran over five or six people, plus a few of 

my best friends. I didn’t mean to, but I’d get in a power slide and, you know, just scoop ‘em 

up, like a cow catcher.

. . . “reformed” Marin County mountain biker 

he proximity of Point Reyes National Seashore to a major urban center, and thus the ease 

of public access to its most popular recreational features, has been the park’s bounty and 

its burden. On the one hand, millions of potential visitors within a one- or two-hour drive 

made it easy for park managers to meet part of the NPS mission, to provide resources 

“for the enjoyment . . . for the benefit and inspiration of all the people.” On the other 

hand, those same millions made it more difficult to keep the seashore’s resources 

“unimpaired for the use of future generations.”1

 PRNS administrators’ attempts to strike 

an appropriate, complicated balance between visitor use and resource protection at Point 

Reyes thus recapitulated the long saga of debate over this question in other national 

parks, dating to conflicts that arose soon after Yellowstone National Park’s establishment 

in 1872. Although the park’s resources are still center stage, this chapter reveals to a 

greater extent how the park and the public define and redefine human activities, 

particularly in regard to such issues as public access, safety, comfort, and whether there is 

a “place” for particular types of leisure and recreational activities within a national 

seashore. In one case, involving the appropriateness of bicycle use in designated 

wilderness, the process of defining was not just an abstraction. NPS policy making came 

down to determining the specific definition of the term machine, as used in the 1964 

Wilderness Act, and debating whether a bicycle fit that definition. 

Regardless of which particular attraction or activity drew visitors to PRNS, park staff had 

the responsibility to accommodate and protect them, and to respond to any emergencies 

they might encounter. The seashore’s authorization act and the NPS organic act likewise 

charged the staff with protecting the park’s resources from visitor overuse or abuse. In 

the course of fulfilling these duties, ranger staff also had to protect visitors from each 

other and, at times, to protect themselves. 

ACCOMMODATING VISITOR USE AT POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE

Between 1970 and 2002, an average of roughly two million people visited PRNS each 

year.2

 People came to Point Reyes for the very reasons park campaigners and Congress 

envisioned when they established the national seashore: beach recreation, hiking, 

sightseeing, photography, and peace and quiet. As the inclinations and technologies of 

outdoor recreationists evolved, visitors also came to pursue activities legislators and 

conservationists may not have foreseen, including trail running, mountain biking, whale 

watching, and “collecting” lighthouses for their “passports.”3

 During the first decades of 

park operations, visitor activities included sightseeing, hiking, backpacking, horseback 

riding, photography, nature study, bicycling, fishing, bird-watching, historical tourism, 

sailing, kayaking and canoeing, motorboating, and a variety of ocean beach activities that 

T 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

192

included swimming, sunbathing (clothed or nude), tide pooling, shellfish gathering, 

picnicking, surfing, and various and sundry other pursuits. 

Table 1. Total Recreation Visits, 1966-2005 

Year Point Reyes 

NS Total 

Recreation 

Visits

Year Point Reyes 

NS Total 

Recreation 

Visits 

1966 411,300 1986 2,053,399 

1967 521,200 1987 2,126,790 

1968 574,500 1988 2,241,850 

1969 973,100 1989 2,204,407 

1970 1,089,200 1990 2,369,083 

1971 1,347,700 1991 2,396,904 

1972 1,123,790 1992 2,579,949 

1973 1,231,500 1993 2,561,234 

1974 1,307,900 1994 2,466,532 

1975 1,466,700 1995 2,208,369 

1976 1,620,200 1996 2,272,398 

1977 1,785,200 1997 2,505,547 

1978 1,919,989 1998 2,477,409 

1979 1,489,135 1999 2,300,631 

1980 1,408,810 2000 2,325,336 

1981 1,322,449 2001 2,222,762 

1982 1,344,582 2002 2,395,693 

1983 1,424,751 2003 2,224,882 

1984 2,032,238 2004 1,960,055 

1985 1,991,615 2005 1,988,585 

When Congress designated Point Reyes a national seashore, that status immediately 

advertised it as a place to go and enjoy the beach. Local residents had long known and 

enjoyed the pleasure of walking or relaxing on the peninsula’s ocean beaches, such as 

those at Limantour Spit and Drakes Bay. The first NPS survey of Point Reyes praised 

Drakes Beach for its “majestic stretches of gently sloping, sandy beaches of warm tan 

color guarded by tawny bluffs.”4

 Not coincidentally, a windswept walk along the beach 

highlighted the first conservation field trip for the authorization campaign. Bay Area 

newspapers frequently ran articles featuring the waves, bluffs, dunes, and ocean views of 

the peninsula. As a result, the beaches became popular before park staff had time to 

ensure that adequate facilities were in place. Unlike other recreational activities, beach 

recreation was not the domain of a specialty-use group like mountain bikers or kayakers. 

Rather, the beach offered a wide range of activities, from the most leisurely to the most 

active. Point Reyes beaches attracted visitors who sunbathed, picnicked, fished (for 

example, there were 33,900 salt-water-angler use days in 1974), and dug for clams.5

Boaters also utilized the seashore’s recreational opportunities, primarily plying the calm 

waters of Tomales Bay. The maintenance division established two primitive beach 

campgrounds, accessible only by water, on the bay’s western shore. With minimal 

facilities and nearby camping available at Tomales Bay State Park, the camps were 

Beach 

Recreation 

and Boating 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

193

lightly used; for example, approximately twenty visits per month were recorded in 1972.6

Ranger staff used a twenty-one-foot outboard Boston whaler obtained in 1974 to patrol 

these camps and keep in contact with boaters in Tomales Bay and on the ocean coast.7

The boat was also a key piece of equipment in search and rescue operations, including 

cliff rescues and drowning recoveries. 

During the first years of staff operations, chief ranger Gordon K. Patterson was sure that 

swimming in Drakes Bay would be a big recreational activity at Point Reyes. He hired 

lifeguards, erected lifeguard towers, and sent all of the ranger staff through a statecertified life-saving course. In a 2005 interview, early Point Reyes ranger Bob Barbee 

recalled that the staff jokingly referred to themselves as Patterson’s “swim and fin club,” 

because of his unrealistic effort to make swimming the central recreational activity at the 

national seashore.8

 As the ranchers and ranger staff had already surmised, the cold water 

and often-cool summer weather kept the swimmers away from the ocean beaches. But the 

beaches were a popular destination for a wide range of other activities. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, a time when 

personal liberties (free speech, free 

love, and so on) were emphasized, 

beaches—with their open expanses 

of sand and sea suggesting the 

ability to move about at will—

offered a powerful sense of freedom 

from the built environment and 

motorized America. These were, in 

essence, the qualities the NPS 

sought to preserve within the 

national seashore schema. They 

were also qualities that lured a 

sizable portion of the San Francisco 

and Berkeley counterculture 

movement to visit Point Reyes. 

Barbee recollected that in the days 

of the free speech movement in 

Berkeley and hippie culture in 

Haight-Ashbury, Point Reyes was 

“inundated with people on their 

spiritual quests, all strung out [on 

drugs],” whose presence and 

behavior was a “real mystery to the 

staff.”9

 Donald Cameron, chief of 

maintenance at PRNS from 1966 until 1980, likewise noted “there were a lot of hippies in 

those days, you know . . . they really loved those beaches.”10 Many 1970s beachgoers, 

whether hippies or not, felt free to skip clothes, camp wherever and whenever they 

pleased, and operate, in general, as though they had free reign from authority. 

These groups brought their own definition of the national seashore with them, a definition 

that conflicted with that of park staff and rules but which posted regulations and NPS 

policies did little to reshape. As a result, ranger duties at Limantour, Drakes, and South 

beaches were heavy, with numerous citations issued for illegal campfires, illegal 

camping, and parking violations. When weekend beach use through the 1970s rose from Record No. 38060. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Point Reyes lifeguards on duty at unknown beach, Point Reyes 

National Seashore, ca. 1960s. Rangers at that time joked about chief 

ranger Gordon Patterson’s “Swim and Fin Club.” 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

194

hundreds to thousands of visitors, vandalism and parking lot “car clouting” (smashing 

windows in order to burglarize the vehicle) became regular problems. 

Fundamental problems arose when a particular beach became the destination for a large 

gathering. In April 1971, for instance, approximately two thousand unexpected visitors 

traveled to Point Reyes for a Sunday “happening” at Palomarin Beach.11 Because the 

organizers advertised the event through the Bay Area’s underground newspapers, park 

personnel were unaware of the impending impromptu rock festival until it was too late to 

keep the affair manageable. Rangers found cars backed up to a half-mile outside the park 

boundary, and the crowd at the beach ten times larger than they first realized. It was too 

late to call in additional help from the county and the staff had no means to control the 

crowd. Fortunately, the party ended peacefully: there were no criminal activities reported 

and the organizers agreed to clean up the beach afterward.12 But the incident was an eyeopener for the park’s administration and staff, coming on the heels of the “riot” just one 

year earlier in Yosemite’s National Park’s Stoneman meadow, as discussed later in this 

chapter.13 The happening at Palomarin had the potential, no matter how “copasetic” the 

participants, to result in injured people and damage to shoreline resources. 

Weekend beach parties have been a popular activity and management problem 

throughout PRNS history. A July 4th celebration in 1991 that drew huge crowds to the 

beaches erupted into “alcohol related altercations,” other illegal activities (particularly 

fireworks), and a “near riot of unruly crowds” by the end of the evening.14 To prevent a 

reoccurrence of this debacle, the park closed Limantour and Drakes beaches at 6:00 P.M.

the following Fourth of July holiday. The closure was successful in avoiding excess 

partying, without alienating many visitors or local community members. The park 

Record No. 5190. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Visitors sunbathing at Drakes Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, ca. 1980s. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

195

handled the public relations effectively, in part by publicizing the closure ahead of time 

in the local newspapers.15

In 1996, PRNS staff got word of a planned gathering of the Rainbow Family at 

Limantour Beach.16 Worried that the large crowd would damage dune habitat, block the 

roadway, and severely overtax existing restroom facilities, staff blocked off the 

Limantour Road and turned back participants. Although a small number of early arrivals 

stayed the weekend quietly at the temporarily closed Limantour Beach, the park turned 

away hundreds or possibly thousands more who wished to participate in the festivities. 

By acting swiftly, though perhaps without adequate authority, the administration defused 

a potential problem, and did what they believed best to protect Limantour from the 

possible damages such a large number of people could inflict. 

Although such instances of restrictions on recreational use were rare, park officials felt 

they were sometimes necessary to protect visitors and the environment. For the most part, 

however, park administration focused on efforts to make the beaches more, rather than 

less, accessible for its myriad uses. Completion of the Limantour Road in 1974 (and its 

reconstruction in 1984) was an important step in opening shoreline areas to public use. 

Providing access, however, entailed more than simply building roads to a destination. 

When PRNS added and improved on its concession facilities at Drakes Beach, it enabled 

casual tourists who had not planned ahead by bringing food or water to spend more time 

enjoying the beach. In 1975, maintenance crews built a designated parking space and a 

wheelchair ramp down to the beach path for disabled visitors. Even before passage of the 

Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 (which went into effect in 1992), these efforts 

provided access a wider range of the population, albeit often on paper only.17 In this era 

before uniform specifications were available, not all “handicapped” trails and ramps were 

negotiable for wheelchairs or walkers. In the past three decades, however, PRNS has 

worked to increase accessibility to its resources. Today, although many of the trails 

remain inaccessible for those in wheelchairs, six trails, three beaches, and all of the 

park’s visitor facilities (with the exception of the second floor of the lifeboat station), are 

accessible.18 Additional trails were in the process of being made more accessible. In 

2005, for example, the Coastal Conservancy gave over $80,000 to PRNS and the Marin 

Conservation Corps to widen and regrade the Elephant Seal Overlook Trail to provide 

disabled visitors better access to the trail’s views.19 

For those with physical mobility, Point Reyes quickly became a popular destination for 

hiking and camping. Park managers were surprised by the amount of interest in 

backpacking and the heavy demand for campsites. The park established three walk-in 

backcountry sites in the 1960s, and, as the park acquired additional property, added a 

fourth, Wildcat Camp, in 1971. The camps filled quickly, with the number of campers 

increasing by 35 percent between the years 1969 and 1970 alone.20 Backpacking’s 

popularity had increased so much by the late 1960s that the administration established a 

reservation system for walk-in camps in 1968, decades before some of the national park 

system’s renowned backpacking/hiking parks took the same step.21

Hiking and 

Camping 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

196

Record No. 19930. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Campsites at Coast Camp, 1985. 

Crowded PRNS backcountry camps testified to a redefinition of the American 

recreational landscape in the 1960s and 1970s. In this case, a larger portion of workingand middle-class Americans viewed “wild” lands as a place to spend a night, a weekend, 

or a week, challenging their physical boundaries and taking satisfaction in their selfsufficiency. Technological improvements and reawakening of a back-to-nature sensibility 

prompted the change. Lightweight tents and backpack frames that significantly improved 

on the back-breaking rucksack frames of earlier eras helped ease more Americans into 

the woods and mountains. In addition, nearby San Francisco and Berkeley—often at the 

forefront of new trends and societal changes—provided a large cohort of people who 

sought out Point Reyes to enjoy the “freedom of the hills” with their lodging, kitchen, 

and meals strapped to their back.22

Table 2. Backcountry Overnight Visits, National Seashores, 1979-2004 

Assateague Island 68,754

Cape Canaveral 41,832

Cape Cod 0

Cape Hatteras 0

Cape Lookout 187,168

Cumberland Island 129,852

Fire Island 867

Gulf Islands 84,314

Padre Island 236,570

Point Reyes 577,652

Total 1,327,009
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

197

Park staff realized that because many of the backpackers came from urban or suburban 

areas, a good percentage of them would be on their inaugural overnight outing. This was 

both an opportunity and an obstacle. Because it was easy to get to the seashore and hike 

the relatively short distance to a camp, staff realized the park had become a training 

ground for backpackers who would later graduate to longer, tougher trips in other 

national parks. Staff had the opportunity to teach wilderness ethics, survival essentials, 

and backcountry courtesy. But playing host to backcountry “student drivers” also placed 

a higher demand on ranger and maintenance personnel. Despite education efforts, 

information boards, printed materials, and orientation talks, many campers headed out 

still oblivious to backcountry ethics and regulations. Campgrounds suffered the impact: at 

the end of a weekend, staff more often than not found garbage strewn about, latrines 

filled with unwanted refuse, and still-smoldering fires.23

Part of the problem lay in a central premise of the backpacking movement: no longer 

tethered to an automobile and its accoutrements, backcountry travel and camping offered 

the freedom of a simpler, less-cluttered, less-regulated experience. But the preservationminded language of the seashore’s authorizing act and the “preserve for future 

generations” construction of the NPS organic act directed PRNS managers and staff to 

regulate campground use in order to protect seashore habitat and the wilderness 

experience of other campers. On a positive note, the cleanup task was easier at PRNS in 

the 1960s and 1970s than it was in other national parks. The old farm roads that 

constituted the hiking trail system provided rangers and maintenance crews with 

vehicular access to the walk-in sites, enabling them to haul out garbage, monitor water 

systems, repair damage, and clean the vault toilets. 

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area Act of 1972 included a section calling for 

evaluation of public transportation to and within GGNRA and PRNS. The timing of the 

legislation meant that the NPS could not incorporate the transportation mandate into the 

GMP planning process, which the park had just completed that same year. Nonetheless, 

in 1972, the park began shuttle bus service, which operated on weekends and holidays 

during the summer, from Bear Valley to Limantour and Palomarin beaches. Hikers could 

disembark at any point along the route. Marin County financed the $5,000 cost of the 

shuttle system during its inaugural year run.24 Two economy vans provided transportation 

for approximately 2,500 round-trip passengers. The experiment was so popular that 

Superintendent John Sansing decided to continue, with bigger buses, the following 

summer. Synanon, a residential drug treatment facility located in West Marin that 

neighbors would later consider a cult, provided two larger buses and bus drivers, enabling 

the park to run a summer shuttle to Limantour Beach that accommodated 2,800 

passengers.25 PRNS operated the shuttle to Limantour on its own in 1974 and restored 

service to Palomarin Beach. Usage increased again, to 3,300 passengers.26

In 1975, funding from an alternative-transportation program kept the shuttle service at 

approximately the same level of operation as the preceding year, with added service to 

Drakes Beach.27 Visitor use of the Limantour shuttle from 1974 to 1975 increased by 18 

percent; the increase included the Drakes Beach shuttle that carried 3,039 passengers 

during that route’s first summer.28 Significant problems appeared in 1977 when the 

schedule and the small size of the buses created as long as two-hours waits for visitors to 

board a bus for their destination.29 Vehicle size restrictions on the western (old) portion of 

Limantour Road limited the type of buses the park could use. Three buses, all GSA 

(General Services Administration) vehicles, were put into shuttle use in 1978–1979, 

enabling the park to offer bus departures every half-hour for Limantour.30 Staff matched 

Public 

Transportation 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

198

the bus schedules to arrivals of Golden Gate Transit System buses from Larkspur and San 

Francisco.31

Successful implementation of a winter whale-watching shuttle in 1981 necessitated 

cutbacks in the summer shuttle program to weekend-only service.32 Flooding from the 

January 1982 rainstorms that demolished a portion of Limantour Road kept the road and 

the shuttle closed down until the Bureau of Roads finally repaired the road in 1986. By 

that time, the summer shuttle’s time had passed and park staff no longer saw the bus as 

necessary. It had, nonetheless, served its purpose, as the shuttle service averaged 

approximately 4,000 passengers per year during a decade of operation (see Table 3). In 

the meantime, the burgeoning number of whale watchers who came to Point Reyes each 

winter insured continuation of winter bus service to Point Reyes Lighthouse. 

Table 3. Summer shuttle bus passengers, 1972-1981 

Year Passengers 

1972 2,500 

1973 2,800 

1974 3,300 

1975 5,364 

1976 3,371 

1977 5,000 

1978 5,139 

1979 5,200 

1980 5,298 

1981 2,964 

Total 40,936 

In the early 1970s, PRNS staff noticed a significant increase in the number of people who 

traveled to PRNS during winter months, specifically to catch a glimpse of migrating 

whales as they passed by the Point Reyes headlands. Point Reyes became a popular 

whale-watching point because the peninsula extended so far into the Pacific Ocean 

beyond the mainland coast of California that it literally inserted itself into the migration 

routes of many Pacific avian and marine species, including gray whales. On their return 

journeys, whales often lingered around Point Reyes, feeding on the rich resources caused 

by the upwelling currents. Someone wanting to watch whales at close range, without 

renting or chartering a boat, could find few places better than the Point Reyes headlands. 

Newspaper and magazine articles began publicizing the whale migration past Point Reyes 

in the 1970s, prompting further increases in the number of whale watchers.33 Larger 

crowds necessitated additional safety precautions, including the installation of more 

warning signs and barriers to keep visitors clear of the headlands’ precipitous cliff-edges. 

Point Reyes hosts a great number and variety of cetaceans (the order that includes 

whales, porpoises, and dolphins), including the earth’s largest creature, the blue whale, 

the familiar harbor porpoise, and the most commonly seen migrant in Point Reyes waters, 

the California or Pacific gray whale.34 Gray whales are most visible during their southern 

migration from the Bering Sea to waters off Baja California, where cows bear their 

calves. During this journey, between late November and early February, most whales stay 

close to shore. Gray whales and other migrants are also visible during their return trip 

Whale 

Watching 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

199

north, generally from late March until early June, although they often swim along routes 

farther out to sea. Gray whales are more likely to linger to feed in local waters during the 

northward leg of their annual journey. 

Whale watching grew out of American’s growing environmental awareness of the 1970s 

and a particular fascination many people had with cetaceans. The endangered status of 

some species, widespread belief that their high intelligence might make them sentient 

individuals, and research indicating their complex underwater communication patterns, 

generated public interest that ranged from casual curiosity to passion. Even though the 

education curriculum used in the 1970s at PRNS and other NPS sites emphasized the 

ecological interconnectedness of living things and the value of every member of a living 

community, no matter how large or small, when it came to visitor attractions, 

“charismatic megafauna” remained the stars. Visitors wanted to see such animals as elk, 

mountain lions, sea lions, and the most “mega” of all the world’s fauna, whales. 

Record No. 48420. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Whale watching from bluff at Point Reyes Light Station, 1981. 

The same feature that made Point Reyes an excellent whale-watching location—the jut of 

the peninsula into Pacific migration routes—and the large number of diverse 

environments on the peninsula also made Point Reyes a popular destination for 

birdwatchers. “Birders,” whether casual or avid, hobbyists or professional researchers, 

flocked to Point Reyes to catch a glimpse of particular species or to observe unique 

species groupings found there.35 Because NPS interpretive services at large deemed 

nature study to be a significant visitor use of Park Service sites, PRNS provided trails, 

trailhead access, publications, and interpretive displays that helped birders use and enjoy 

the park. However, the possible locations for bird watching encompassed virtually every 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

200

square meter of the peninsula, which meant birders, no matter how great in number, 

rarely received the attention (from staff or media) as did whale watchers, who gathered in 

large groups at one or two popular spots. 

Throughout the 1980s, the number of whale-watching visitors increased each year, 

creating enormous weekend traffic and parking congestion.36 To counter the expanding 

problem, the park initiated a winter shuttle-bus service. Shuttle service operated from 

January 12 through March 9, 1980 with three twelve- to sixteen-passenger GSA vans 

ferrying visitors from the Drakes Beach parking area to the lighthouse every fifteen 

minutes.37 After the success of that first winter—3,900 visitors were served—staff 

expanded the shuttle schedule in 1981 to include the Christmas/New Year’s holiday 

period and employed a twenty-eight-passenger bus during the busiest weekends. That 

year, PRNS interpreters also began giving thirty minute “whale programs” three times 

per day on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays.38 Due to winter storm damage to Limantour 

Road in 1981, shuttle buses ran on a limited schedule in 1981–1982, yet 4,400 visitors 

still used the service, for a total of nearly nine thousand visitors utilizing the shuttle 

during the first two winters of service.39 Grants of $10,000 per year from Chevron U.S.A. 

supported the shuttle program from 1985–1991. Staff also instituted a “number and hold” 

system in winter 1984–1985 to accommodate visitors who wanted to drive their own 

vehicles to the lighthouse. Once the lighthouse parking lot was full, rangers held traffic in 

the Drakes Beach or South Beach lots, and gave each car a number reflecting its place in 

line. As parking spaces opened up at the lighthouse, the duty ranger released cars from 

the remote parking areas to drive to the point.40

With whale watching established as a major visitor use, park administrators considered 

contracting the services of a boat to run whale-watching tours out of PRNS. In 1983, NPS 

prepared a concessions study of possible boat launch sites, but found that none were 

adequate without investing money to repair the existing facilities.41 Park administration 

apparently did not pursue the idea, possibly because PRNS had undergone in 1983 some 

of its sharpest budget cuts ever. Spending money on a questionable concession service 

during a budget shortfall was likely low on the park’s priority list. 

Whale-watching visitation dropped off during 1989 and 1990, and then remained at 

roughly the same level for a number of years thereafter. Sansing attributed the drop-off to 

decreased public interest in whale watching, but it is more likely that the increasing 

number of commercial whale-watching boat operators made a dent in the park’s winter 

visitation rates.42 In the meantime, PRNS rangers continued to run the successful but 

labor-intensive number-and-hold parking arrangement at South Beach for whale watchers 

visiting the seashore. 

The arrival of another marine mammal to Point Reyes—northern elephant seals—

complicated winter visitor-use patterns at the lighthouse, and forced PRNS staff to find 

an alternative transportation plan. Elephant seals, once common to the area but hunted to 

the brink of extinction in the nineteenth century, began to reappear on Point Reyes 

beaches in the 1970s. The first elephant seal colony, located at the base of a cliff below 

Chimney Rock, formed in the early 1980s, and within several years began to increase 

rapidly in size. By the early 1990s, visitors could view the colony of huge elephant seals 

sprawled together on the sand from Chimney Rock, which was only a short drive from 

the lighthouse. The raucous seals quickly became another natural attraction at Point 

Reyes and began to share feature billing with the whales during the winter months.43
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The proximity between the two wildlife viewpoints created problems for the old parking 

system. Typically, visitors left the holding lot to drive to the lighthouse, parked, and 

looked for whales. Instead of heading back home via Sir Francis Drake Highway when 

they were done whale watching, as people had done in the past, many visitors began to 

drive the short distance to Chimney Rock to view the elephant seals and then returned to 

the lighthouse to check again for whales. Driving this circuit became a common practice 

among visitors, especially those who did not see any whales on their first try. 

Record No. 20950. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Parking back-up on route to lighthouse and Chimney Rock, 1981. 

Although it provided Point Reyes visitors with a wonderful opportunity to view two 

unique species from virtually the same location, the traffic created a management 

problem. Cars released from the South Beach holding lot and cars returning from 

Chimney Rock arrived at the lighthouse at the same time, with both drivers expecting to 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

202

find open parking spaces. The resulting traffic snarls at the lighthouse became a familiar 

scene on winter weekends, and forced PRNS staff to develop a new strategy. 

Beginning in 1996, PRNS created a shuttle-bus system that all whale and seal watchers 

were required to use on designated weekends. When the weather was fair, the park called 

in large passenger buses, which ran from the Drakes Beach parking area to the lighthouse 

and Chimney Rock viewpoints and back on a frequent schedule. If poor weather was 

forecast or blew in during the morning, the buses did not operate. Of course, in a place 

with weather as variable as at Point Reyes, that part of operation did not always work out 

as planned. Nevertheless, this solution eliminated traffic jams and long waits in the 

parking lot, and provided a more enjoyable experience for most visitors. Maintenance 

crews built a bus shelter at Chimney Rock for those waiting in cold or wet weather. 

Moreover, the new system was more efficient than the old one: one ranger and two 

traffic-control aides easily ran the shuttle operation. Ranger Gus Conde called the 

creation and operation of the shuttle system, “one of the best things we’ve done,” during 

his years at Point Reyes.44

Management decisions that restricted visitor use—installing a shuttle system for whale 

watchers or prohibiting mass gathering on PRNS beaches—were grounded in policy 

created to prevent adverse visitor impact on the environment, or, in park terminology, 

visitor-resource conflicts. During the 1980s, a new recreational pursuit forced the 

administration to make decisions based on one user group’s impact on another 

recreational group, a visitor-visitor conflict. 

In January 1979, Bicycling magazine ran an article by Charlie Kelly entitled “Clunkers 

among the Hills,” introducing American recreational enthusiasts to a new breed of 

bicycle, and at the same time identifying Marin County as the ideal place to ride them.45

Over the next few years, other outdoor-oriented popular magazines published similar 

articles about bicycles alternately called clunkers, ballooners, cruisers, or bombers that a 

group of off-beat bicycle enthusiasts were riding on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais and 

other Marin hills and ridges. Thus Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly and their Marin 

pals who tinkered with old balloon-tired Schwinn bicycles to ride down (and eventually 

up) Mount Tamalpais brought revolutionary change to the sport of bicycling, which had 

until then stuck primarily to paved roads. Not only did they take the first step in making 

the most dramatic change to the configuration of the bicycle in nearly a hundred years, 

their new bikes eventually created the largest influx of public participation in recreational 

bicycling since the turn of the twentieth century. Although the articles tended to single 

out one particular trail, “Repack” on Mount Tamalpais, bicycling enthusiasts lured to the 

area after reading about riding clunkers began to see the hills and valleys around Marin 

County as prime territory for pursuit of their new hobby. 

Propelling the sport were technological innovations, first tested and improved on Marin 

County trails, which eventually made riding a bike easier and more comfortable for 

racing and recreational cyclists alike. Kelly, Breeze, Fischer, and their cohorts, many of 

whom came together to form Velo Club Tamalpais in the early 1970s, pushed the 

envelope of existing bicycle technology to bring the sport into the American recreational 

scene. Tinkering with components borrowed or adapted from older bicycles and 

motorcycles, Breeze and the others began to hand build bikes specifically for bombing 

and cruising dirt roads and fire trails. When Kelly and Fisher began selling Ritchey-built 

frames they coined the term Mountainbikes for their original line, introducing the term 

that was eventually applied to all the bikes built for off-road use. Commercial bicycle 

Clunkers of 

Marin 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

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manufacturers Puch and Univega produced the first mass-produced mountain bikes in 

late 1970s, but Specialized Bicycle Components, a San Jose, California, company, 

pushed the product farther into mainstream awareness when it put its initial line of 

“Stumpjumpers” on the market in 1980.46 By 1983, 200,000 mountain bikes of various 

makes had been sold in the United States.47

The upright position, longer wheelbase, wide 

tires, and brake position gave bicyclists a bike 

that was easier and more comfortable to ride. In 

addition, lower gearing for climbing hills, and 

strengthened frames, wheels, and other 

components enabled bikers to traverse virtually 

any type of terrain. Mountain bikes changed 

the geography of bicycling. An article by Amy 

Meyer in a 1985 issue of National Parks 

Magazine carried the apt title, “This Bike Can 

Go Anywhere: That’s What Worries 

Wilderness Lovers.”48 Therein lay the source of 

a growing user-conflict and park management 

issue. The proximity of Point Reyes National 

Seashore to, at that time, the “center of the 

universe” for mountain biking, as the new 

endeavor was tabbed, ensured that the park 

would soon have to determine how to manage 

this new cohort of seashore recreationists. The 

trails of the seashore, ranging from smooth 

farm roads to steep narrow paths on the slopes 

of Mount Wittenberg, perfectly suited the first 

generation of riders. Initially, the 

administrative focus fell on how to 

accommodate, guide, and educate mountain 

bikers. Before long, however, user conflicts and resource damage shifted the park’s 

attention to regulations and restrictions. Few staff, if any, foresaw the conflicts and 

acrimony that would eventually arise in response to mountain biking. PRNS thus became 

an early testing ground for the compatibility of bikers and hikers, and for the ability of 

NPS park management to deal effectively with the budding controversy. 

While bicyclists had pedaled along PRNS trails in the 1970s, they arrived in small 

numbers, kept to the widest, flattest trails, and, most significant, did not “bomb” down 

the trails at twenty miles per hour. Doing so on 1970s-era road bikes would have quickly 

demolished both bike and rider. But the creators of mountain bikes devised them for that 

very purpose and suddenly multiple-use trails became untenable for some hikers. The 

most common concerns, at least initially, were the speed and “gonzo” qualities of some 

riders, most of who came from the ranks of bicycles and racing. Not only did hikers see 

the peace, relaxation, and quiet of the traditional trail experience usurped, but they also 

witnessed a less frequent but more dangerous problem: descending riders who zoomed 

around blind corners and collided with hikers.49 Courtesy of Charlie Kelly

Poster for 1978 Repack Downhill race on Mount Tamalpais. 

Drawing by Pete Barrett. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

204

Record No. 28420. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Bicyclists on the Bear Valley Trail in the pre-mountain bike era, 1966. 

Indeed, part of nascent spirit of mountain biking resided in the no-holds-barred qualities 

of sailing down a hillside or mountain slope. One, supposedly “reformed,” mountain 

biker who was once “the archetypal Hiker’s Nemesis,” described his early Marin County 

trail-riding experiences to a Los Angeles Times correspondent: “In the early days, we’d 

just fly down and I probably ran over five or six people, plus a few of my best friends. I 

didn’t mean to, but I’d get in a power slide and, you know, just scoop ‘em up, like a cow 

catcher.”50 It was exactly this type of encounter that prompted an opponent of bike use on 

Point Reyes trails to complain, “You take your life in your hands trying to walk a trail.”51 

The core of the conflict at Point Reyes involved a scenario often encountered in the 

national park system: the desires, actions, and consequences of one user group 

challenging those of another. To cast the conflict as generational obscures the importance 

of the mountain biking-hiking dichotomy.52 In The Park that Makes Its Own Weather, 

Hal K. Rothman has pointed out that certain qualities of the two activities do not mesh; 

the pace, amount of noise, and degree of technology involved in each pursuit are very 

different. 53 But such differences are at the heart of many other user-group conflicts in 

national parks, conflicts whose etiology did not derive from generational schisms. Two 

classic cases are snowmobilists vs. cross-country skiers and motorboaters vs. kayakers. In 

these instances, the recreationists who are faster, noisier, and more technology-dependent 

generally are the ones of an older average age. The biker-hiker controversy at Point 

Reyes shared similarities with other historical user-group debates in the national parks. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

205

Hikers and environmentalists noted that another issue was at stake at Point Reyes, 

namely, the appropriateness of mountain bikes in the Phillip Burton Wilderness. The 

Wilderness Act of 1964 mandated that no form of “mechanical transport” be allowed in 

designated wilderness. Debate in the Bay Area ensued over the intent of the Wilderness 

legislation as it pertained to mountain bikes: Did a self-powered, nonmotorized vehicle 

constitute mechanized transport? The answers divided cleanly between opposing sides: 

hikers said yes, bikers said no. As these dividing lines were drawn and the struggle 

became intensely politicized, middle ground became increasingly difficult to find. In 

August 1984, acting associate director J. Thomas Ritter delineated the NPS position: 

mountain bikes were a type of mechanical transport and thus were prohibited from use in 

wilderness areas of the national parks. 

Ritter’s proclamation did not end the debate, however. Indeed, the uproar in the Bay Area 

following his bicycle-policy announcement prompted the NPS to give a public airing of 

the issue at a series GGNRA/PRNS Advisory Commission meeting. Mountain bikers, 

hikers, conservation groups, and park supporters gathered at each meeting. Advisory 

commission members asked the Department of the Interior solicitor’s office to make a 

ruling on the issue. NPS director Russell Dickenson instead asked the advisory 

commission to make their recommendations, which he would then pass on to the 

solicitor’s office for review.54 To no avail, commission members continued to protest that 

the mountain-biking issue would soon be of consequence in all the parks nationwide and 

should be decided at the national level. 

In June 1985, the advisory commission finally recommended that the two parks should 

allow bicycle use on trails in nonwilderness areas, but prohibit biking in designated 

wilderness. They also asked the NPS to explore ways to invite and increase mountain 

bike use on nonwilderness trails in both parks, and sought to work out a compromise over 

use of the Bear Valley Trail at Point Reyes. Part of the Bear Valley Trail, which had been 

used extensively by bike riders in the pre-mountain bike era of the 1960s and 1970s and 

had become the most popular bicycling trail in the park, ran through designated 

wilderness lands.55 Cyclists, advisory commission members, and sympathetic park 

supporters and conservationists hoped a compromise might allow continuance of what 

was, in essence, a preexisting use of the land. NPS officials did not, however, see a way 

to allow bicycles to travel the length of the trail without undermining their argument 

based on the no-mechanical-transport restriction. Although mountain bikers and cycling 

organizations protested the outcome, the local decision-making process served mountain 

bikers better than would a blanket national policy for national parks, which might have 

excluded them from any trail use whatsoever. Indeed, whereas the majority of NPS units 

“IT WAS A MOONLIGHT RIDE ON POINT REYES . . . 

and about nine of us were descending from a favorite peak—we came zooming down from the top, careening 

along the fire trails. . . . We came flying down and there was this bunch of sleeping bags laying out on the fire road. 

We didn’t see the bags until we were right on top of them, so we zipped right between a couple, and they all woke 

up, scrambling about, wondering what the hell was coming through their camp. Those guys rolled clean off the trail 

in their sleeping bags—right off the side of the road.” 

--Bike builder and shop owner Erik Koski 

Quoted in Cyclist Magazine 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

206

eventually banned mountain bikes from all trails, Point Reyes has retained mountain 

biking as an appropriate use of its nonwilderness trails. 

The advisory commission’s recommendations and subsequent NPS management 

decisions did not settle the issue; it simply moved the primary battleground outside PRNS 

boundaries to adjacent state, county, and water-district lands, where these other agencies 

continued to struggle to solve the conflict. There, the hard lines between the user groups 

prompted some individuals and subcultures within the competing groups to escalate the 

conflict into what a Los Angeles Times reporter entitled the “Pedal Wars in Marin 

County.”56 Because Point Reyes was one of the first sites popularized as a mountainbiking destination, and because of its federally designated wilderness area, park 

management and the NPS were forced to resolve the issue during the early phase of the 

mountain-bike revolution. This initial conflict may have helped Point Reyes 

administrators avoid the fray as it intensified during the 1990s. Illegal bike use on 

wilderness trails has continued to pose an enforcement challenge at Point Reyes—in 

2004, chief ranger Colin Smith said that illegal biking was still “fairly rampant,” but it 

was no longer a major political confrontation.57

The drive along Sir Francis Drake Highway to the Point Reyes Lighthouse had long been 

a favorite outing for many Bay Area residents, even though the U.S. Coast Guard only 

opened the lighthouse to the public once (1966) prior to 1977. Most visitors enjoyed 

simply going to the lighthouse overlook, where they could drink in dramatic vistas, view 

stunning wildflower displays, and watch for migrating whales. When the Coast Guard 

turned the lighthouse complex over to the NPS in mid-1974, maintenance crews began 

repairing and rehabilitating structures and adding safety features that would enable public 

access to the light structure and a small visitor center in one of the outbuildings.58 When 

the park opened the structures for visitor use, the trip to the lighthouse became more 

popular than ever. In its first full year open to the public, 181,000 people traveled to the 

lighthouse area, with 53,000 of them making the steep descent and ascent to and from the 

lighthouse itself.59 Visitor travel to the lighthouse has subsided very little since then, even 

though its location withstands the worst of Pacific storms that can generate winds of more 

than one hundred miles per hour. 

Several elements have made the lighthouse particularly attractive to PRNS visitors. 

American automobile tourism fosters the adoption of sites such as lighthouses as symbols 

of a particular place. Because drivers can sweep through PRNS or other national park 

units often in a matter of minutes, landscapes viewed out car windows tend to become an 

undifferentiated blur. Amid the tumbled hills, open grassland, and wide expanses of 

beach and ocean at Point Reyes National Seashore, the verticality of the lighthouse 

perched atop the sheer-sided Point Reyes cliffs presents dramatic counterpoint to the 

visually undifferentiated (to a motorist) landscape. In his sociological analysis of modern 

tourism, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, Dean MacCannell has called 

certain well-known attractions “symbolic markers.”60 These sights provide travelers with 

a mental representation of a particular tourist area; the Golden Gate Bridge, for example, 

has become a symbolic marker for San Francisco. When travelers see a symbolic marker, 

they get the sense that they have truly seen or arrived at a sought-out destination.61

Indeed, the built landscape of the lighthouse in its natural setting is an apt representation 

of PRNS, for it stands at the literal intersection of earth, sea, and sky. 

Point Reyes 

Lighthouse 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

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THE LIGHTHOUSE

At the Point Reyes Light Station, the 1870 lighthouse is the most recognizable part of the larger nineteenthcentury landscape that incorporated the adjacent equipment and transformer buildings, foghorn apparatus, the former 

lightkeeper’s residence now used as a visitor center, and the water collection cisterns. 

Just as the lighthouse for the past century has shined and called out a warning signal to 

seafarers, telling them that landfall is near, the lighthouse signaled to tourists that their 

“landfall” (in other words, arrival at their desired destination) was at hand. Seeing the 

lighthouse confirms that a visitor has “really” encountered Point Reyes National 

Seashore. Because no grand entrance gate greets visitors arriving at PRNS, as is the case 

at many of the more traditional national parks, the lighthouse has gained further value as 

tourist marker. The park has generally endorsed this status, featuring the lighthouse on 

publications, and, more recently, on the home page of the PRNS website. Moreover, 

lighthouses across North America have been adopted as collectors’ items: lighthouse 

aficionados travel along coastlines, adding an ink stamp or postcard image of each 

lighthouse to “passports” provided by the United States Lighthouse Society, collecting 

photos for personal collections, or writing descriptions in their travel journals. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

208

The iconic status of the Point Reyes Lighthouse has been reflected in its visitation when 

compared to the nearby lifeboat station. The station’s uniqueness was accentuated when 

PRNS obtained an operational boat from the Coast Guard that had once operated at Point 

Reyes. The station received national historic landmark status in 1990, a level of 

recognition the lighthouse has not received. Despite its National Historic Landmark 

designation and unique historic qualities, visits to the lifesaving station pale dramatically 

compared to the lighthouse. 

When the first rangers began patrolling national parks a century ago, their responsibilities 

included fighting fires, tracking poachers, and, most pertinent to this history, engaging in 

search-and-rescue duties. Ever since visitors to the earliest parks tumbled into thermal 

pools, fell into crevasses, and got lost in the woods, park rangers have responded to the 

call. With the advent of seashores as a unit of the national park system, rangers at Point 

Reyes and other national seashores have tackled more water-related emergencies than 

their counterparts in more traditional national parks. Accordingly, search-and-rescue 

work has played a large role in ranger operations at PRNS, particularly on busy 

weekends. 

When Point Reyes ranchers spoke in opposition to the initial PRNS proposals in 1959 

and 1960, they argued that the peninsula was unsuitable for public recreation because the 

weather was often cool and foggy and the area was unsafe for swimming, boating, and 

hiking. Although many of the ranchers’ assumptions about the nature of recreation were 

uninformed, when it came to understanding the peninsula’s dangers they knew whereof 

they spoke. In certain conditions, the ocean waters, rocky headlands, and tangled brush 

posed very serious threats to any visitor. Problems were accentuated on weekends, when 

the national seashore became, in essence, an urban park, where many visitors set out onto 

trails or beaches unprepared for conditions they might encounter. The resulting 

emergencies and accidents over time have fallen into four general categories: 1) falls, 2) 

drowning and near drowning, 3) lost or stranded hikers, and 4) vehicular accidents. 

The waters and bluffs of Point Reyes have been the areas of biggest concern for visitor 

safety. At the ocean beaches, strong currents, powerful surf, and cold water make 

swimming, and sometimes even wading, treacherous. Between 1970 and 1977, fifteen 

people drowned off Point Reyes beaches: at least one each year and an average of more 

than two per year. Rangers began to undertake specialized training to respond to such 

emergencies. One necessity, a staff scuba team, organized in 1974; they received NPS 

certification and completed the minimum number of dives in January 1975.62 That year, 

the park also added two boats for use in rescues, recoveries, and other park operations. 

For ocean rescues and boating accidents, the park stationed a twenty-eight-foot surfboat 

at Drakes Bay. A twenty-one-foot Boston whaler was used for rescues and patrol work in 

Tomales Bay.63 An inflatable rigid-hull craft from the Coast Guard was put to use as well. 

Staff constructed a rescue cache at the Bear Valley fire station to increase response speed 

to emergencies.64 In 1976 alone, staff responded to eleven boat accidents or strandings, 

which resulted in two drownings.65

Although search-and-rescue activities provided adrenaline-pumping adventure and egoboosts for some (mainly younger) staff, the duties involved could also be traumatizing, as 

must have been the case during the 1971 Easter Sunday search for a mother and her fouryear-old daughter who drowned at South Beach.66 Search-and-rescue operations also 

created dangers for staff; five rangers were injured during rescues in 1974 alone.67 In 

Search-andRescue and 

Emergency 

Services 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

209

order to prepare staff for the potential risks, the park held or enrolled protection rangers 

in search-and-rescue trainings. By the 1980s, the park also established search-and-rescue 

cooperating agreements with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Marin County police and fire 

departments, the Bay Area Mountain Rescue Association, and the California Rescue Dog 

Association.68

Record No. 20300. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Evacuation of victims by helicopter from Point Reyes back country in a search-and-rescue 

operation, 1982. 

The beaches, seaside bluffs, and ocean waters were always the most dangerous spots on 

the peninsula, and thus where much of the rescue work took place. Among the twenty 

search-and-rescue incidents in 1980 were three accident fatalities: two drownings at 

McClures Beach and a fatal fall from a cliff at Sculpture Beach.69 A 1983 incident 

illustrates some of the technical complexities of rescue work at Point Reyes. In a 1983 

rescue operation, a boat accident occurred just off of the peninsula’s shoreline. One 

member of the party drowned, but seven others made it to the rocks at the foot of a steep 

cliff. With the sea pinning them in on all sides but one, park staff staged a steep-angle 

rescue up the five-hundred-foot high cliff to evacuate all seven accident survivors. The 

number of boating accidents, including the above incident, increased from twenty-three 

accidents in 1970–1979, to a total of thirty-seven accidents in 1980–1989.70

During the 1990s, the protection division continued to bolster their search-and-rescue 

capabilities by enrolling staff in specialized trainings and upgrading their equipment. By 

2001, the park had acquired three boats for shoreline patrols and search and rescue, in 

addition to the boats, helicopters, and fixed-wind aircraft engaged through the park’s 

cooperating agreements with the county, state, and Coast Guard. Of the PRNS boats, two 

stay in the calmer waters of Tomales Bay, while the other—a twenty-nine foot “safe 

boat”—is used for open ocean operations. Restitution money from oil companies, paid as 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

210

compensation for the costs of oil spills, enabled the park to purchase the safe boat in 

2001.71

In 1974, rangers and Marin County firefighters received training in helitack firefighting 

skills during an eighteen-hour course at PRNS. At that time, the resource 

management/visitor services division had eighteen permanent staff positions, of which 

three were purely administrative positions, and two were tethered to information center 

duty. That left only thirteen staff to respond to problems and emergencies in an area that 

had reached more than fifty thousand acres. 

VISITOR AND RESOURCE PROTECTION: LAW ENFORCEMENT

Two events profoundly influenced law enforcement at PRNS over the last quarter of the 

twentieth century. In 1973, park ranger Kenneth C. Patrick was murdered while on patrol 

duty, one of the first such instances in NPS history. Ten years later, California’s “trailside 

killer” murdered four people on the trails of Point Reyes, the grim specter of which 

frightened visitors and preoccupied staff until the killer was finally identified and 

arrested. Both events permanently impacted visitor protection operations at PRNS. 

Law enforcement struggled with several impediments to becoming an effective operation 

as the PRNS staff developed in the 1960s. The first protection rangers with the Division 

of Interpretation and Resource Management were few in number, sometimes unarmed, 

and did not own a clear delineation of their enforcement responsibilities. Problems of 

staff size and coverage became more acute when the second major round of land 

acquisitions nearly doubled PRNS acreage and added significantly more beach access in 

the early 1970s. When Limantour residents continued to chain and lock the private access 

road to the spit and beach, Superintendent Leslie P. Arnberger saw it as a help rather than 

a hindrance. When the road was open, the park simply did not have “the manpower or 

facilities to take care of the public” that used it.72 Indeed, by summer 1971, weekends 

were bringing more than a thousand beachgoers to Limantour alone. 

PRNS staff shared law enforcement responsibility with the Marin county sheriff’s 

department; eligible Point Reyes rangers received deputy sheriff status in June 1971, in 

conjunction with receiving and signing the western region weapons use policy. Two 

weeks of LE training ensued that month. In addition, Point Reyes arranged with the 

sheriff’s office for permission to use the sheriff’s pistol range. To give indication of the 

changing nature of NPS law enforcement, the San Francisco Bomb Squad and 

Demolition Squad came to Point Reyes to hold training sessions for park staff and other 

area agency employees.73

A 1972 Operations Evaluation of PRNS, prepared by regional office staff who spent 

several weeks at the park, disclosed that while the quality of visitor protection patrols in 

the park had improved since a 1970 evaluation, patrols remained short-staffed and too 

few in number.74 The operations evaluation team also noted that park administration 

failed to carry out two 1970 recommendations, one of which was an important protection 

tool for LE staff. PRNS had yet to install a remote radio monitor in the county’s 

communications center, in order to provide better radio response capability for rangers, 

particularly during after-hours patrol duty.75 Finally, the evaluation suggested the park 

needed to add technician-level rangers to ensure adequate patrol coverage of all PRNS 

roads, trails, and lands.76
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

211

The NPS began to take steps to improve the training, professionalism, and legal authority 

of its law enforcement (LE) rangers in the early 1970s. Until then, the Park Service had 

had no agency-wide organizational framework in which to oversee, support, and evaluate 

law enforcement rangers in the field. After 1971, the NPS required LE staff to attend the 

new Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Washington, D.C. 

(subsequently moved to Georgia). Although the NPS made progress in professionalizing 

its ranger LE force with the establishment of FLETC, the agency made little headway in 

creating standard qualifications, policies, and appropriate authority for rangers. In 1971, 

the NPS established a separate Law Enforcement (LE) Division, headed by Franklin A. 

Arthur, who was also the chief inspector of the park police organization.77 The action 

attached NPS LE rangers to the previously separate park police agency. Park police had 

previously served almost exclusively in Washington, D.C. In 1971, however, a park 

police captain was assigned to each regional office, and some forty park police officers 

were organized into a “mobile law enforcement unit” that could respond to crisis 

situations at NPS sites in or near urban centers.78 Driving this move were urban riots of 

the late 1960s and the wave of public and congressional criticism heaped on Yosemite 

National Park rangers for their handling of the Stoneman Meadow “riot” in summer 

1970. 

On July 4, 1970, a huge gathering of counterculture youth took over the Stoneman 

Meadow area in the heart of Yosemite Valley. In attempting to clear the crowd, mounted 

Yosemite National Park LE rangers began haphazardly horse-whipping some of the 

people in the meadow, exacerbating an already volatile situation. The Stoneman “riot,” as 

it was dubbed in the media, emphasized how much “the NPS law-enforcement emphasis 

conflicted with the antiestablishment attitudes of the times.” 79 Richard Sellars describes 

how Park Service law-enforcement authority William R. Supernaugh observed that “the 

critical factor was that park rangers did not understand the youth of this era—their 

concerns for free expression and their challenge to authority. The rangers were ‘separated 

in years and point of view’ from the youth of the 1960s and 1970s.”80

The Secretary of the Interior authorized park police units to respond to specific NPS sites, 

including GGNRA and PRNS and the park police became an important element of LE 

operations in the GGNRA. They apparently were never called into duty at Point Reyes, 

although if they had been mobilized at the time, they likely would have been called to 

respond to the events that took place at Palomarin Beach on Easter weekend 1971.81 As 

mentioned in chapter 5, approximately two thousand partygoers flocked to Point Reyes to 

hear rock bands play at a “happening.” PRNS staff did not anticipate the magnitude of the 

event because underground newspapers, not the mainstream media, publicized it, and 

because the promoters themselves had little clue about the number of participants it might 

draw. Expecting two hundred attendees, the few staff on hand were quickly overwhelmed 

by the two thousand that actually arrived, backed up traffic for a half mile, and descended 

onto the beach area. In assessing the situation afterward, Sansing called it “potentially 

dangerous” because the small staff presence could not have effectively controlled the 

crowd if major problems arose.82 Fortunately, they did not have to try. Sansing must have 

breathed a sigh of relief afterward, perhaps envisioning a recapitulation of Stoneman 

Meadow in his own park. 

During a 2005 interview with Robert (Bob) Barbee, who became the first PRNS park 

ranger in December 1964, he summed up the initial jurisdictional arrangement at Point 

Reyes as simply, “all screwed up.”83 Uncertain jurisdictional responsibilities complicated 

resource management, visitor protection, and law enforcement from the mid-1960s until 

NPS Law 

Enforcement 

Jurisdiction 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

212

the late 1970s. Until 1975, LE rangers operated within a proprietary jurisdictional 

arrangement shared with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office and, to a lesser degree, the 

California Highway Patrol.84 This shared authority meant that from 1963 to 1974 

enforcement rangers had to be deputized by the Marin County Sheriff in order to enforce 

NPS regulations and county, state, and federal laws. That jurisdiction did not extend 

throughout the peninsula, however, since much of the land was still privately owned. A 

number of drawbacks complicated this arrangement. Patrol officers could not 

immediately respond to traffic violators or criminal activity within the road corridor, even 

when the crime or violation was blatantly apparent. They first had to contact the sheriff’s 

office to obtain their consent to act. When an accident occurred on a park road, LE 

rangers could investigate only until a California State Patrol unit arrived. Sansing pointed 

out that visitors who witnessed such events, being ignorant of this legal division of 

authority, wondered why rangers on the scene did not take charge.85 

More confusion ensued after the state of California transferred title to the tidal and 

submerged lands surrounding the peninsula to the NPS. Superintendent Arnberger 

became concerned that the acquired tidal lands fell under exclusive jurisdiction, meaning 

law enforcement staff would have to work within two different systems of legal authority 

when they patrolled the peninsula’s beaches and inner shoreline.86 Secretary of the 

Interior Stewart L. Udall had accepted the lands on the government’s behalf via an 

informal letter to California governor Pat Brown in 1965, which did not specify whether 

the national seashore was also accepting jurisdiction from the state.87

Beginning in 1971, the park’s authority to enforce regulations and issue citations was 

pursuant to a magistrate system, wherein a county magistrate decided the disposition of 

each case. Unfortunately, one of the magistrates who handled the NPS cases, the 

Honorable David Urban, seemed little inclined to support the park’s law enforcement 

efforts. Although some of the cases might have been considered minor by a busy 

magistrate, others were critically important for the administration of seashore lands. 

Sansing complained that Urban’s rulings left the park in a “quandary” as to how to 

proceed with enforcing NPS regulations.88 Of the fifteen cases Urban handled in the first 

half of 1971, eleven were dismissed outright, one remained unresolved, one was 

suspended, and the violators in the remaining three cases were fined a total of twenty 

dollars. Sansing concluded that if the magistrate continued to deal with violators in this 

manner, “we must ask ourselves whether it is worth the time and effort to issue citations.” 

If the legal authority that upheld each citation or warning continued to be stripped away, 

the seashore’s staff and resources would become overwhelmed.89

An illustrative case involved a Point Reyes rancher named Lundgren, who let his cows 

roam unhindered on the peninsula. Rangers delivered multiple warnings to Lundgren, 

then cited him numerous times, until he had accrued over $1,500 in fines.90 At that point, 

the park cited him to appear in court. Much to their dismay, Urban not only dismissed the 

case, he also directed the park to desist from issuing Lundgren further citations. The 

conundrum for Sansing and his law enforcement staff was apparent: amid the 

complicated management of ranchlands, which included reservations of use, special 

permits, and leased lands, the park’s inability to enforce simple grazing regulations, and 

the blatant disregard of those regulations by both a rancher and a judge, threatened to 

undermine administration of the entire pastoral zone. As Sansing pointed out, even if 

Lundgren paid the $1,500 fine, that was “a very economical rate to pay for free 

grazing.”91 If Lundgren felt no compunction to follow regulations, why should the other 

ranchers continue law-abiding operations? On several occasions, over a three-year span, 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

213

Sansing asked Ralph Mihan, the regional solicitor, to discuss the issue with the chief 

magistrate.92 Sansing was understandably eager to see the park switch to a different type 

of jurisdiction. The issue remained unresolved until Lundgren died in 1991, after which 

the park purchased his two-acre parcel.93

In late 1973, NPS officials sought concurrent jurisdiction for all parks in the western 

region except Yosemite, Sequoia, and King’s Canyon, which would remain areas of 

exclusive jurisdiction.94 NPS acting regional director Fred J. Novak sought from the state 

lands commissioner concurrent jurisdiction for the United States within the following 

five California NPS units: Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and Pinnacles National 

Monuments, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, and PRNS.95 In 1975, Point Reyes 

staff began meeting with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office to prepare for the shift to 

concurrent jurisdiction.96

With concurrent jurisdiction, the LE staff could pursue and prosecute both state and 

federal violations on NPS lands, and could share that responsibility with state police or 

state fish and game officials. This provided the park with jurisdictional authority on all 

roads within the national seashore’s boundaries, which meant rangers could pursue illegal 

activities using California highway, 

penal, agricultural, and fish and 

game codes, without having to be 

deputized by the county sheriff. 

Sansing was pleased with the 

change; he thought proprietary 

jurisdiction had put park staff in the 

awkward position of operating as a 

federal authority subordinate to a 

local authority. Moreover, the 

“political” nature of the earlier 

arrangement meant it was always 

possible for the county to revoke LE 

rangers’ deputy status.97

Concurrent jurisdiction clarified and 

simplified LE operations on PRNS 

lands, but, in 1975, the park also had 

responsibility for patrolling Muir 

Woods National Monument and the 

northern segment of GGNRA. 

Despite the switch of almost all 

Western sites to concurrent 

jurisdiction, LE ranger’s legal 

authority in GGNRA remained in 

proprietary jurisdiction. A ranger 

driving through the Olema Valley on 

Highway 1 had to keep a mental 

register of both U.S. and state code 

to know which illegal activities they 

could pursue on one side of the road (PRNS land) or the other (GGNRA land). A 

memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the county sheriff’s office helped simplify 

the LE process somewhat, giving NPS rangers temporary authority to respond to eighteen Record No. 20340. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

LeeRoy Brock, Point Reyes National Seashore chief ranger from 1974 

to 1995. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

214

federal felonies, such as arson, felony assault, or murder, on GGNRA land until county 

officers arrived. Another cooperative agreement with the county sheriff allowed PRNS 

staff to pursue criminal activity in state jurisdiction, after they called the sheriff and 

requested state patrol. Marin County Sheriff’s Office could ask the LE rangers to 

intervene or make the arrest themselves; if the situation seemed to present imminent 

danger LE staff could take action, then call to report it to sheriff’s to determine how the 

county would like to follow up.98

The MOU working agreement, the installation of after-hours radio monitoring in the 

county dispatch office, and training opportunities that joined park staff to sheriff’s office 

staff, contributed to a more effective, efficient, and amicable collaborative operation 

between the two forces. When LeeRoy Brock transferred to the chief ranger position in 

1974, he made working relationships with other agencies, including the sheriff’s office, 

state police, fish and game officials, and the Coast Guard, a high priority. Fostering the 

connection were meetings begun in 1970 and continued for decades thereafter, of the 

West Marin Peace Officers Association.99 Brock recounted that those meetings and the 

working relationships with his colleagues in other agencies was one of the most 

satisfying parts of his position at Point Reyes. Marine operations, in particular, required a 

high level of cooperation with state fish and game staff and the Coast Guard. These 

relationships provided improved resource protection, more efficient response to visitor 

emergencies, and more effective poaching patrols. On occasion, they also provided 

material benefit for PRNS. For example, Brock was able to work out an arrangement with 

the Coast Guard to obtain the historic surfboat that had once operated out of the PRNS 

lifeboat station.100

During an early morning patrol on August 5, 1973, park ranger Kenneth C. Patrick pulled 

up behind a vehicle parked on the side of a park road. As the ranger approached the car to 

investigate, one of the vehicle’s occupants shot and killed him. The murderers drove 

away, leaving Patrick lying on the road where he was found around noon that day. 

Patrick’s murder devastated his family and friends, and sent shock waves through the 

park community and the national park system. An intensive FBI investigation led to the 

arrest of Veronza Bowers, Jr., Jonathan Shoher, and Alan Veale, all members or former 

members of the radical Black Panthers Organization, who were the three occupants in the 

car that day. A San Francisco federal court found Bowers guilty of first-degree murder in 

April 1974, and gave him a life sentence.101

Apprehending the murderer and his accomplices in no way brought closure or resolution 

to Patrick’s family, his coworkers, and his cohort of LE ranger staff around the country. 

A death within the park community, where employee camaraderie and close working and 

living connections are part of the workplace culture, spreads pain and grief in invisible, 

unknown, and unpredictable ways. It can alter the closeness of work relationships, 

confidence levels of staff, and even the career trajectories of some individuals. These 

reactions are usually intensified when the death is sudden or violent, or when it occurs in 

the line of duty. The resulting period of disruption can be a time when significant 

workplace or operational changes occur. This was the case at Point Reyes following 

Patrick’s murder. 

Kenneth C. 

Patrick 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

215

An NPS official inquiry of the 

murder identified the absence 

of radio monitoring during off 

hours as relevant to the 

murder and recommended the 

park remedy the gap in 

coverage. Sansing and the 

NPS moved to address two 

elements of law enforcement 

operations that the 1972 

operations evaluation 

suggested were insufficient at 

Point Reyes: staffing levels 

and radio communications. 

The park quickly purchased 

and put to use five new 

handheld radios and one 

“voice activated recording 

device.”102 Sansing also added 

a dedicated dispatcher 

position to the staff and 

established a shared dispatch 

system with the county 

sheriff’s office in order to 

improve radio communication 

capabilities. In conjunction 

with the dispatch service, 

Point Reyes rangers also 

began to receive additional 

LE training from county sheriffs. The installation of a park-net receiver and the 

agreement with the sheriff’s office to provide emergency after-hours dispatch service 

were activated in October 1974. 

Other, less tangible repercussions from Patrick’s murder were more difficult to address. 

When a team of regional staff arrived to follow up on the 1972 Operations Evaluation, 

they found a level of suspicion or distrust among many of the field staff, who thought 

Sansing could and should have dealt with the LE patrol deficiencies before Patrick and 

other staff went out on their patrols that summer. The team’s PRNS Management 

Consultation Report of March 1974, noted: 

The lingering effect of this sustained shock tends to dominate any 

discussion about law enforcement. Consequently, it was not surprising to 

encounter what may be an over-reaction to the alleged lack of support of 

the law enforcement function by the superintendent. A superintendent’s 

memorandum dated May 4, 1971, from the same incumbent clearly 

indicates understanding of the function and certainly seems to indicate 

support.103

The consultation team found it “disturbing” that there remained a “belief among Ranger 

personnel that the superintendent does not support the law enforcement function.”104 The 

unfortunate use of the phrase “over-reaction” and their surprise that staff might still 

Record No. 19950, NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Kenneth C. Patrick, ca. 1973. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

216

harbor these feelings suggests either a lack of sophistication in their understanding of the 

situation or a desire to see the park’s personnel “move on” from the murder without 

additional “disturbing” reflections. 

Washington, D.C., officials in the new protection division built on this momentum to pull 

together agency-wide standards for LE ranger activities. The eventual outcome was 

“NPS-9,” a policy statement outlining methods for commissioned rangers.105 Congress 

codified these changes in the 1976 General Authorities Act, P.L. 94-458, (16 USC 1a-6). 

Another apparent in-house result of Patrick’s murder was the lateral transfer (trade) of the 

chief rangers at GGNRA and PRNS in April 1974. Ray Murphy, who was chief from Phil 

Ward’s departure, transferred to Golden Gate, while LeeRoy Brock took the chief ranger 

post at Point Reyes. One of Brock’s most important initial tasks was dealing with the 

distrust and lack of support his staff held for Sansing and improving communications 

between the administration and the field staff.106 Over the long term, Patrick’s murder 

created a heightened awareness of the potential dangers of a ranger’s job. Gus Conde, a 

Point Reyes LE ranger since 1995, recalled approaching a vehicle during an early 

morning patrol and remembering that it was a similar scenario to the one Patrick had 

stepped into when he was killed.107 Because an organization like the Park Service prides 

itself on the esprit de corps (whether real or idealized) among its staff members, Patrick’s 

murder reverberated through the ranks of the entire agency. 

Substantial media coverage of the murder, the violence involved, and the notion that this 

was the first instance of a ranger gunned down while performing his duties, grabbed the 

attention of NPS personnel, from field staff to administrators, across the national park 

system. 

Patrick’s murder, coming on the heels of the Stoneman Meadows riot, helped propel 

changes in the new protection division, which still lacked coordinated goals and 

standardized methods for the multitude of LE ranger training and operations in the 

national park system. According to one historian of the period, Patrick’s death “fueled 

interest in the development of national standards for law enforcement training and related 

policies.”108 Ten years later, another tragic series of events sharpened the park’s focus on 

law enforcement. 

Although the circumstances of Patrick’s death were unique, his murder also portended 

much about the future of law enforcement at PRNS. Despite Patrick’s murder, the park 

had typically been a tranquil setting for patrol activity. However, by the 1980s, yearly 

attendance of more than a million and the park’s proximity to the ever-growing 

metropolitan core of the Bay Area increased the potential for any type of human or 

criminal behavior to manifest. This proved true when the bodies of four homicide victims 

were found at Point Reyes in 1980. The deaths were soon linked to the “Trailside Killer,” 

who was believed responsible for the sexual assault and murder of as many as ten people 

in the Bay area. PRNS LE Rangers were put on alert.109 Whereas the murder of Patrick 

might have been cast as a singular event borne out of the racial tensions of the early 

1970s or as a preemptive strike on an authority figure by people committing some kind of 

crime, the serial-killer characteristics of the 1980 homicides had a potential impact on 

anyone hoping to enjoy the park. One of the victims was a park employee who was 

attacked while on an off-duty hike up Mount Wittenberg, which had a tremendous effect 

on park personnel.110 The nature of the crimes made park staff and visitors 

understandably wary and overall park visitation and attendance at various programs 

The Trailside 

Killer 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

217

dropped.111 Police arrested David Carpenter in 1981 and he was later charged with and 

found guilty of seven murders, for which he received a death sentence.112

The Carpenter murders that 

took place within and just 

beyond the park’s boundaries 

effected a redefinition of the 

relationship between urban 

center and national seashore, 

and in doing so, also forced 

PRNS protection division staff 

to reframe their patrol 

responsibilities. As with the 

Ken Patrick murder, the 

trailside killings made 

shockingly clear to those who 

lived and worked on the 

peninsula that Point Reyes, 

despite its protected status as a 

unit of the national park system, 

could not and would not be 

secluded from the very worst of 

the nation’s urban ills. 

Although visitors and resident 

ranchers might feel that Point Reyes offered a semblance of quiet isolation, that 

perception veiled the close proximity of a huge urban center, whose population easily 

found its way into the park for a wide variety of reasons. In this social context, Point 

Reyes was not an island that could raise a drawbridge to exclude itself from the 

onslaughts of the outside world. 

PRNS law enforcement also received a jolt in the aftermath of the killings. Not only had 

an unforgettable tragedy occurred in their midst, but protection rangers also saw that their 

level of attention to the details and protocols of law enforcement responsibilities was 

insufficient. One deficiency came to light when someone discovered that the vehicle of 

one of the murder victims was parked in the Bear Valley lot, where it had sat unnoticed 

for nearly a month.113 Thereafter, patrol rangers made regular sweeps of all parking areas 

looking for vehicles belonging to overdue or missing parties. 

Protection division operations during the two decades after the Trailside Killer murders 

generally did not make the headlines. Park staff continued to make regular arrests and 

issue citations for poaching, illegal camping, canine violations, mountain biking on trails, 

and the like. They also continued to involve what people perceived to be urban problems, 

spurred on by the park’s proximity to the Bay Area. While PRNS rangers have had to 

deal with minor drug offenses in the park since its inception, one of the more serious 

types of criminal activity has been large-scale marijuana cultivation on parklands.114 The 

history of marijuana cultivation on the Point Reyes peninsula is likely older than the 

history of PRNS itself. The peninsula’s brushy hillsides and valleys have long made it 

good location to hide away illegal crops, ranging in size from “single use” plots of area 

residents to the multimillion-dollar crop discovered in September 2002.115 

Local news headlines announced the end of the trailside killing saga. San 

Francisco Chronicle, May 16, 1981. 

Marijuana 

Cultivation 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

218

As early as August 1970, PRNS sent three rangers to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics 

agency in San Francisco to learn how to assess and gather evidence from marijuana crops 

in order to provide effective evidence in prosecuting the offenders.116 However, effective 

policing of marijuana cultivation has remained a persistent problem at the park 

throughout the past four decades. One way park rangers attempted to enhance their crop 

detection and law enforcement activities was through collaboration with the Marin 

County Sheriff’s Office and other state and federal agencies. 

Collaborative operations with Marin County led to periodic confiscations of unharvested 

marijuana crops. In 1984, a combined effort with other state agencies resulted in seizures 

of 814 plants valued at $1.5 million.117 During the 1990s, collaborative efforts became 

even more elaborate, with aerial surveillance for marijuana fields carried out by 

California Highway Patrol and Coast Guard helicopters, and Marin County Sheriff’s 

Office fixed-wing aircraft. In 1991, their combined efforts resulted in seizure of a halfmillion dollars worth of plants and the arrests of three growers.118 Park rangers found 

additional plots that had already been harvested, which were estimated to have produced 

crops worth $400,000. The largest single seizure of a marijuana crop took place in 

September 2002, soon after Colin Smith became chief ranger.119 A visitor’s tip pointed 

rangers to a farm where members of a reportedly “Mexican drug-controlled operation”

had cleared lands, and built dams and irrigation lines. One or more managers lived at an 

on-site camp, tending to the crop.120 Park staff ran an all-night stakeout that resulted in 

the arrests of two “low-level” helpers and 2,750 plants valued at $1.5 million. 

Special drug-program funding allowed staff to work on these surveillance and 

apprehension tasks without taking away from the division’s budget for more 

straightforward seashore protection operations. Following the discoveries and seizures, 

PRNS anticipated receiving funding from federal drug control programs, and over the 

next few years, the park and participating state agencies were aided by the military, as 

well as the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.121 A 1992 Briefing Statement for 

Congress related the position of constituencies in the Point Reyes area: state, local federal 

officials, law enforcement agencies, and “most” citizens were opposed to marijuana 

cultivation. Interestingly, while illegal cultivation has remained a perennial problem at 

PRNS, illegal drug trafficking has never been a major issue because Point Reyes lies off 

the main travel routes between urban areas.122 

Drug operations, violent crimes, and life-saving rescues attracted media attention and 

provided rangers with hair-raising job experiences. Nevertheless, the core work and dayto-day operations of the LE and ranger division involve the more mundane tasks related 

to resource protection. Preventing illegal camping is one such essential duty of the ranger 

staff that might (on the outside) seem less interesting than busting pot growers. However, 

without this daily level of enforcement, the seashore area would be inundated with 

campers covering every desirable patch of meadow, beach, and forest. 

The visitor services and protection division evolved considerably as it entered the twentyfirst century, becoming a more professional, technologically astute, and integrated 

operation. Neubacher initiated some of the changes, individual rangers introduced 

alterations based on their experience at other NPS sites, and unforeseen events brought 

opportunities for change. The transition from a district arrangement to a single operation, 

for instance, was a gradual process, inaugurated by a series of rangers in the late 1990s. 

Visitor 

Protection for 

the 21st

Century 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

219

One of the first planned steps to enhance the effectiveness of LE rangers was a complete 

upgrade in 1995 of the law enforcement computer system, the lynchpin to ranger safety 

while out on patrol.123 The park also contracted with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office 

for after-hours dispatch coverage, which, remarkably, had remained incomplete despite 

the recommendations made after Patrick’s murder. In 1995, dispatcher hours were 8:00 

A.M. to 5:00 P.M.; after-hours patrols had to call the sheriff’s department to give locations 

or request assistance. When Gus Conde first got there, the lack of a coordinated dispatch 

arrangement meant that the sheriff’s office and the ranger staff “weren’t talking to each 

other . . . we didn’t have that [radio] capability.”124 In 1997, the two West Marin law 

enforcement entities entered into a more cooperative relationship. 

Another agent of change in 1995 was the Mount Vision Fire. Following the devastating 

blaze (see chapter 7), the NPS and other federal and state agencies helped the park 

modernize their fire technology, fire ecology research, fire-related staff positions, and 

equipment. PRNS continued to receive research money, resource management staff, and 

equipment for years after the conflagration, prompting some to call it the “fire that keeps 

on giving.”125 Visitor protection staff have also invested more time working with resource 

managers on operations that included biological survey work (utilizing the PRNS boats, 

for instance) and blocking trail access to pinniped beaches during pupping season.126

A significant intradivisional change transpired when new staff gradually supplanted the 

district system in favor of a single, unified visitor protection division. When Conde 

arrived from Redwood National Park in 1995, the visitor services and protection division 

comprised very distinct north and south districts. Over the years, that distinction had 

become so rigid that, by the time Conde arrived, he found it, “almost like two smaller 

parks rather than a larger park.”127 The two district rangers, Russ Case and Steve Wolff, 

ran their separate districts like small fiefdoms, with little cooperation between the two. 

When Wolff retired, Cliff Spencer became the south district ranger. Because Spencer had 

worked for Case earlier in his stint at Point Reyes, the two found it natural to work 

together on more operations. When Case subsequently retired and Spencer moved on to 

another park, Marc and Karyl Yeston, a husband and wife team, arrived to become 

district rangers, effectively putting an end to any degree of exclusivity between the 

districts operations. Steve Stinnett and Colin Smith succeeded the Yestons as north and 

south district rangers. After chief ranger Frank Dean departed in 2002, Smith served as 

acting chief, while Stinnett’s position became supervisory ranger, leaving the district 

system behind. It was a gradual process that first required individuals who broke free 

from the fixed mindset of separate divisions. In 2003, Smith was elevated to chief ranger, 

and in 2004 Dan Habig became the supervisory ranger.128

The Yestons played another significant role, as they began increasing the professionalism 

of the protection division. They started, and others continued, making such specific 

changes as ensuring the confidentiality of files and data, standardizing weaponry, and 

creating consistent standard operating procedures for law enforcement staff. In a 2004 

interview, Smith observed that the park had been “out of the mainstream of the park 

service,” but began to change when Neubacher arrived.129

With one to two million visitors a year coming to Point Reyes, Sansing, Neubacher, and 

their management teams faced the challenge of coordinating and training a ranger staff 

that would protect and accommodate visitors, provide opportunities for recreation and 

relaxation, establish guidelines and safety regulations, protect the seashore’s natural and 

cultural resources, and uphold the professional standards of the Park Service. In addition 

Conclusion 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

220

to all of these requisites of NPS ranger duty, the proximity of Point Reyes to a major 

urban center also made the national seashore vulnerable to urban social issues, including 

violent crime. Although Congress “set aside” the area to protect and preserve its 

resources and recreation opportunities, the park was not an island separated from 

American society; its boundaries were permeable to all of the difficulties that existed 

around it. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER SIX

1

 Congress, Act of August 25, 1916 [National Park Service Organic Act], 39 Stat. 535. 2

 National Park Service, National Park Service Statistical Abstract, 2002 (Washington, D.C.: 

Public Use Statistics Office, 2002), http://www2.nature.nps.gov/Npstats/dspAnnualVisits.cfm. 

Point Reyes recorded 1,089,200 visitors in 1970, 2,032,238 in 1984, and 2,395693 in 2002. 

3

 The United States Lighthouse Society runs a program wherein people can get a “passport” 

stamped at each lighthouse they visit. For a brief description of the program, see Long Island 

Chapter, United States Lighthouse Society, passport program, 

http://www.lilighthousesociety.org/passportprogram/default.htm (accessed June 12, 2005). 4

 National Park Service, “Study of a National Seashore Recreational Area: Point Reyes Peninsula, 

California,” prepared by Conrad Wirth, NPS Branch of Planning, 1935, Point Reyes National 

Seashore Archives and Library (hereafter PRA), Point Reyes, California, foreword. 5

 Point Reyes National Seashore, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” File A2621 Annual 

Reports–General, Box 1, Accession 79-78-0001, NPS Correspondence 1972–74 (hereafter PORE 

Files), National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific West Region, San Bruno, California 

(hereafter NARA-SB), 8. 

6

 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 5. Note that this figure does not distinguish 

overnight visits from day use, so the number of boat campers was likely fewer than twenty parties 

a month. 

7

 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1974,” shelved materials, Pacific West Regional 

Office, Oakland, California (hereafter PWRO, n.p. 

8

 Robert (Bob) Barbee, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, May 24, 2005, audiotape recording, 

HRA Administrative History Project Files (hereafter HRA Files), PRA. 

9

 Barbee, interview. 

10 Donald Cameron, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, March 10, 2005, unrecorded. 

11 NPS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Group,” April 12, 1971, File A4023, Staff Mtg.–PORE, 

Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 3. 

12 “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Group,” April 12, 1971, 3. 

13 Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven, Conn.: 

Yale University Press, 1997), 208–9. 

14 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1992,” File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual Reports, 

Central Classified Files, Administration Building (hereafter CCF), PRNS, 2. 15 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1992,” 2. 

16 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Narrative Report, 1996,” File A2621–Superintendent’s 

Annual Reports, CCF, PRNS, 1. 

17 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

18 Point Reyes National Seashore, “Accessibility at Point Reyes National Seashore,” 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/visit_accessibility.htm (accessed June 12, 2005). 

19 [California] State Coastal Conservancy, Public Meeting Minutes, January 27, 2005, 

http://www.coastalconservancy.ca.gov/sccbb/0503bb/0503Board_Minutes_Jan.pdf (accessed June 

15, 2005), n.p. 

20 “Staff Minutes, Bay Area Cluster”, September 14, 1970, File A4023, Staff Mtg.–PORE, Box 1, 

Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

21 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report 1972,” 5. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

221

22 From its first publication in 1960, Harvey Manning’s Mountaineering was the preeminant howto guide for backpackers of that era. Harvey Manning, ed., Mountaineering: The Freedom of the 

Hills (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1960). 23 Cameron, interview. 

24 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 11. 

25 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1973,” shelved materials, PWRO 12. For more on the 

history of Synanon, see Rod Janzen, The Rise and Fall of Synanon: A California Utopia

(Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).

26 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1974,” n.p. 

27 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1974,” n.p. 

28 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

29 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1977,” shelved materials, PWRO, 9. 

30 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1978,” shelved materials, PWRO, 6. 

31 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1979,” shelved materials, PWRO, 8. 

32 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” shelved materials, PWRO, 10. 

33 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

34 Stephen Leatherwood, Brent S. Stewart, and Pieter A. Folkens, Cetaceans of the Channel 

Islands National Marine Sanctuary (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Channel 

Islands National Marine Sanctuary, 1987), 4–7. 

35 Point Reyes Bird Observatory, “Songbird Habitat Associations and Response to Disturbance in 

the Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area,” prepared by 

Aaron L. Holmes, et al. (Stinson Beach, Calif.: Point Reyes Bird Observatory, 1999). 36 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” 10. 

37 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1980,” shelved materials, PWRO, 10. 

38 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” 10. 

39 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1982,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

40 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1985,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

41 National Park Service, Concession Market Study, Whale-Watching Tour Boat, Point Reyes 

National Seashore, (Denver: NPS Denver Service Center, 1983). 42 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1990,” File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual Reports, 

CCF, PRNS, 10. 

43 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1991,” File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual Reports, 

Central Classified Files, Administration Building (hereafter CCF), PRNS, 7. 44 Gus Conde, interview by Paul Sadin, August 10, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

45 Charlie Kelly, “Clunkers among the Hills,” Bicycling, January 1979, reprinted at 

http://www.sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/clunker.htm (accessed August 19, 2005). 46 “Charlie Kelly Interview,” Southerndownhill.com, May 2005, 

http://interviews.southerndownhill.com/html/2005_Charlie_Kelly.html (accessed August 19, 

2005); “The Mountainbike,” Mother Earth News, March/April 1984, 

http://www.motherearthnews.com/library. 

47 The real explosion in sales was just about to begin: just ten years later, Americans owned an 

estimated thirty million mountain bikes, and mountain bikes accounted for 90 percent of all 

bicycle sales. Jennifer Warren, “The Pedal Wars in Marin County,” Los Angeles Times, April 10, 

1994, 12. 

48 Amy Meyer, “This Bike Can Go Anywhere,” National Parks 59 (May/June 1985): 12–13. 

49 Meyer, “This Bike Can Go Anywhere,” 12. 

50 Warren, “Pedal Wars in Marin County.” 

51 Meyer, “This Bike Can Go Anywhere,” 12. 

52 Hal K. Rothman, The Park that Makes Its Own Weather; An Administrative History of Golden 

Gate National Recreation Area, online rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2002), 

http://www.nps.gov/goga/history/history.htm, 122. 53 Rothman describes the mountain bike controversy at GGNRA as a conflict between “Generation 

X” and the older generation of baby boomers. Rothman, The Park That Makes Its Own Weather, 

122.
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

222

54 Meyer, “This Bike Can Go Anywhere,” 12–13. 

55 NPS, “Statement for Management: Point Reyes National Seashore,” May 1993 revision, shelved 

items, PRA Library, 24. 

56 Warren, “Pedal Wars in Marin County,” 12. 

57 Colin Smith, interview with Paul Sadin, December 12, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotaped recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

58 See chapter 4, 39–40. 

59 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1978,” 6. 

60 Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Schocken 

Books, 1976), 131–32. 

61 MacCannell, The Tourist, 112. 62 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1974,” n.p. 

63 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1974,” n.p. 

64 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

65 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

66 NPS, “Staff Management Minutes, Bay Area Group, April 12, 1971,” 2. 

67 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1974,” n.p. 

68 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1985,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

69 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1980,” 11 

70 PRNS, “Statement for Management, Point Reyes National Seashore, 1990,” rev., Planning and 

Management Documents, PRA, 83. 

71 Smith, interview. 

72 “Staff Management Minutes,” April 14, 1969, File A4023 Staff Management PORE, Box 1, 

Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

73 “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Group,” June 14, 1971, 2. 

74 National Park Service, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” May 1972, 

Box 1 of 2, Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Correspondence Files, RG 79 Records of the National 

Park Service, National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Region, San Bruno, 

California (hereafter cited as PORE Files, NARA-SB), 4. 75 NPS, "Operations Evaluation: Point Reyes National Seashore," 5. 

76 NPS, "Operations Evaluation: Point Reyes National Seashore," 13. 

77 Barry Mackintosh, The United States Park Police: A History (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1989), 

online edition, http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/police/ (accessed June 15, 2002). 78 “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Group,” April 12, 1971. 

79 Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History, 208–9. 80 Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History, 208–9. 81 Mackintosh, United States Park Police, 1. For more on the mobilization of a park police force at 

GGNRA, see Rothman, The Park that Makes Its Own Weather, 78–80. 82 “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Group,” April 12, 1971, 3. 

83 Robert (Bob) Barbee, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, May 24, 2005, audiotape recording, 

HRA Files, PRA. 

84 NPS, “Point Reyes National Seashore: Management Consultation Report,” 1974, prepared by 

the Operations Evaluation Team, Western Region Office, San Francisco, File A5427 Inspection 

for Appraisals, Investigations, and Studies, Box 1, Accession 78-0001, RG 79, NARA-SB, 57. 

85 Sansing to Regional Director, Western Region, February 22, 1974, File W30 Jurisdiction, Box 

5, Accession 79-78-0001, NPS Correspondence, 1972–74–Point Reyes National Seashore 

Records, RG 79, National Archives & Records Administration, San Bruno, California (hereafter 

cited as PORE Files, NARA-SB). 

86 Leslie P. Arnberger to Regional Director, Western Region, August 1, 1966, File Land 

Acquisition–Confidential, Carton 5, NPS Administrative History Files, PORE-8053, PRA. 87 Arnberger to Regional Director, August 1, 1966. 

88 Sansing to Regional Director, June 18, 1971, File W30 Jurisdiction, Box 5, Accession 79-78-

000, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

89 Sansing to Regional Director, June 18, 1971. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations

223

90 Sansing to Regional Director, June 30, 1974, File W30, Jurisdiction. Box 5, Accession 79-78-

000, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

91 Sansing to Regional Director, June 30, 1974. 

92 Sansing to Regional Director, June 30, 1974. 

93 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1992,” 3. 

94 Lyle McDowell, Regional Director, Western Region, to Superintendents, Western Region, 

January 25, 1974, Memorandum, File W30 Jurisdiction, Box 5, Accession 79-78-0001, PORE 

Records, NARA-SB. 

95 Fred Novak to Framer’s J. Hortig, State Lands Commission, Sacramento, June 10, 1974, File 

W30 Jurisdiction, Box 5, Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Records, NARA-SB. 

96 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” n.p. 

97 Sansing to Regional Director, February 22, 1974, File W30 Jurisdiction, Box 5, Accession 79-

78-0001, PORE Records, NARA-SB. 

98 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” n.p. 

99 The Association included employees of the California State Parks, State Fish and Game 

Department, PRNS, and the local police. “Bay Area Cluster, Staff Management Minutes,” 

September 14, 1970, 2. 

100 LeeRoy Brock, interview by Paul Sadin, August 12, 2004, Point Reyes Station, California, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

101 Ann M. Simmons, “Widow of 1973 Murder Victim Fights Parole Bid,” Los Angeles Times, 

March 15, 2005. 

102 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1973,” 4. 103 NPS, “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 60. 104 NPS, “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 60. 105 Paul D. Berkowitz, U.S. Rangers: The Law and the Land, rev. ed. (Redding, Calif.: CT 

Publishing, 1994), 38–39, excerpted at 61. Note: Berkowitz has put together a useful and 

seemingly accurate piece about NPS law enforcement staff, but he does not cite, in footnotes or 

bibliography, his sources, so it is used here with caution. 

106 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report 1974,” n.p. 107 Conde, interview. 108 Berkowitz, U.S. Rangers, 38. Public Law 458, 94th Congress, 2d sess., 1976; 15 USC 1a-6. 

109 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report 1980,” 11. 110 Sarah Allen, interview by Paul Sadin, August 13, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

111 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report 1980,” 11. 112 For more specifics on the case, see People v. Carpenter (1997) 15 C4th 312, 

http://online.ceb.com/calcases/C4/15C4t312.htm (accessed June 13, 2005). 113 Smith, interview. 114 DOI, NPS Western Region, “102nd Congress Issues Brief Statement,” January 1992, File 

briefing statements Point Reyes, Park Reference and Research Collection–Administration, 

Cultural Resources Records, PWRO. 

115 “Point Reyes: Elaborate Pot Farm Discovered,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 2002, 

A-22. 

116 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” August 10, 1970, File A4023—Staff Mtgs. 

PORE, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 3. 

117 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1984,” 2. 118 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1991,” 7. 

119 “Point Reyes: Elaborate Pot Farm Discovered.” 120 Smith, interview. 121 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1991,” 7; PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 

1992,” 2; PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1993,” File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual 

Reports, CCF, PRNS, 1; and PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1994,” File A2621–

Superintendent’s Annual Reports, CCF, PRNS, 1. 

122 Smith, interview. 123 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1995,” 3. 
Visitor Use, Visitor Services, and Park Protection Operations 

224

124 Conde, interview. 125 Conde, interview. 126 Conde, interview. 127 Conde, interview. 128 Conde, interview; Smith, interview. 

129 Smith, interview 
225

CHAPTER SEVEN
226
227

CHAPTER SEVEN

ADMINISTERING A STOREHOUSE OF RICHES: 

THREE DECADES OF NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT,

1972-2002 

s with other administrative areas of the park, Park Service and public definitions of the 

national seashore shaped the development of natural resource management at Point 

Reyes. Resource managers struggled to make decisions and establish policy against the 

backdrop of the NPS recreation area recommendations, and amid the general lack of 

scientific research and systematic analysis of natural resources throughout the national 

park system. Moreover, for nearly twenty-five years, the park’s administration was 

closely allied with a constituency that generally favored one type of resource 

management (dairy and cattle ranching) over others. Yet the people who first conceived 

of a national seashore at Point Reyes, those who helped create the founding legislation, 

and those who finally fostered its full realization—Conrad L. Wirth, Barbara Eastman, 

Clem Miller, Katy Miller Johnson, and Peter Behr, to name a few—had asserted that the 

rich bounty of the peninsula’s native environment was the most valuable of the myriad 

elements that made up PRNS. From the 1970s through the 1990s, PRNS administrators 

and senior management increasingly emphasized the need to protect the ecological 

features of the peninsula while still maintaining public access to the peninsula’s 

recreational opportunities. But the biggest shift took place after 1995, when an influx of 

new funding and staffing, an administrative reorganization, and the launch of the 

nationwide Natural Resources Challenge helped the park finally give full attention and 

budgetary backing to the monitoring, protection, and restoration of the peninsula’s 

diverse biological realm. The explosive growth of new research and resource 

programming continued into the new century, many of them launched so recently that 

they cannot be addressed within the chronological scope of this history. 

From the outset, the seashore’s founders, along with the bulk of environmental and 

conservation organizations, a majority of local residents, and many of the park’s staff, 

believed that the primary NPS mission at Point Reyes should involve preserving, 

understanding, and protecting the natural environment. Complicating this objective was 

the elusive “natural” itself, a word and concept that was entering, at that outset of PRNS 

history, a half-century of deconstruction and redefinition. Point Reyes administration 

evolved in step with the birth and development of the American environmental 

movement, and parallel to the transformation of nature in the eyes of science, historical 

scholarship, and, to a lesser extent, the Park Service. The very same year that Congress 

authorized the national seashore, Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking Silent 

Spring, igniting a new phase of environmental thought in this country.1

 Carson used the 

term natural in the then-traditional manner, but emphasized that human activity was 

impinging upon and altering every piece and layer of that natural world. A year later, the 

NPS Advisory Board on Wildlife Management released its landmark Leopold Report, 

“Wildlife Management in the National Parks,” which attempted to define the “natural” 

landscape in the national parks and would influence park administrators’ approach to 

nature for several decades. 

A 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

228

Scientific discoveries and advisories certainly informed national park policy and public 

opinion. But the most powerful catalysts for policy change were the public and political 

interpretations of new scientific knowledge. In Preserving Yellowstone’s Natural 

Conditions: Science and the Perception of Nature, James A. Pritchard suggests that 

throughout the twentieth century, national park visitors’ “expectations for experiencing 

nature in the national parks have changed remarkably along the way, guided by 

increasing ecological knowledge.”2

 He asserts that Americans’ “cultural understandings 

of nature,” though at root informed by scientific knowledge, have played a greater role 

than scientific research in developing resource management policies at Yellowstone 

National Park. Although it is certainly not as old as Yellowstone, how visitors and park 

staff have perceived nature at Point Reyes also changed significantly during its forty-year 

history as an NPS site. 

DEFINING NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AT POINT REYES 

Humans had been altering and managing the environment of the peninsula for thousands 

of years before the NPS came on the scene. Coast Miwok manipulated the environment 

with fire, hunting, and collecting, direct attempts to improve the area’s food resources. 

The Spanish dons and rancheros of Rancho Puntos de los Reyes and Rancho Baulines 

altered the land when they introduced to the peninsula cattle and horses, animals that 

brought in their hooves and bowels seeds of new plant species. They also began to kill 

some of the native animals of the peninsula for food or sport. Members of the Shafter 

family and their successors in the dairy business created a substantial built landscape that 

altered the previous organization of plant growth, browsing areas, and wildlife corridors, 

which had existed in the locations where barns, houses, and driveways later stood. Over 

the generations, dairy and cattle ranchers built dams to impound water for their stock, 

impeding the migration paths of salmon, steelhead, and other aquatic species. The dams 

also changed the water flow and sediment load patterns, while cattle grazing in riparian 

areas led to eroded riverbanks and increased sedimentation in streams. Ranchers also 

burned the pasturelands to keep back the growth of brush and nonnative grasses. 

As PRNS grew in size and began operations during the 1960s, a number of specific 

resource issues required administrative attention. The most immediate external threats 

(described in chapter 4) involved damage to the tidal zone from commercial and 

recreational collecting, bird hunting in the estuaries and lagoon areas, and monitoring of 

existing agricultural and maricultural operations. Meanwhile, the size of the PRNS staff, 

even as the ranger force grew larger during the decade, could not keep up with the rapidly 

increasing visitation rates and subsequent expansion and extent of resource damage. 

Internal threats to the park’s natural resources, specifically the multiple 

tourist/recreational developments sketched out in the 1964 PRNS master plan, had the 

potential to damage and disrupt the peninsula environment on an even larger scale. 

Adapted from the Mission 66 planning framework for traditional national parks, which 

were designed to facilitate the growing numbers of American automobile tourists and 

traditional (camping, picnicking, sightseeing, swimming, and boating) recreationists, 

early development plans at PRNS stressed recreation over preservation. NPS landscape 

architects who created the plans ignored the strong preservation theme in the legislative 

history and language of the PRNS authorizing act, did not have biological or geological 

research outlining the areas of greatest environmental vulnerability, and did not initiate or 

pursue scientific studies of their own. The result was a set of construction and landscape 

Initial NPS 

Management 

Strategies at 

Point Reyes 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

229

plans out-of-scale with what most legislators and park supporters had in mind when they 

founded the national seashore. Robert (Bob) Barbee recalled that when Leslie P. 

Arnberger arrived in 1965 to replace Fred W. Binniwies as superintendent, he was 

“horrified at what was planned for Point Reyes.”3

When the Department of the Interior reorganized the national park system into three 

separate administrative lines in 1963, the decision to place Point Reyes and other new 

national seashores in the “recreation area” management category also influenced the 

initial natural resource management plans for the peninsula. In fact, the San Francisco 

regional office planners and landscape architects who drafted the first Point Reyes master 

plan focused solely on the recreation potential of the seashore, listing the following as the 

two primary functions of the Limantour Spit: 1) to provide opportunities and facilities for 

recreational activities, and 2) to provide facilities for community activities, interpretation, 

and ranger operations.4

 Barbee’s observations of early tourist development plans for 

Point Reyes told him that the NPS recreation-area rubric created a much more 

“permissive” attitude in the minds of some park staff and of regional office planners 

regarding what was an appropriate visitor use or recreation facility, than was typical of 

NPS officials in traditional national parks.5

 As a result, the conservation community, 

particularly those involved in the seashore’s authorization campaign, began to protest 

against what they believed was inappropriate development, which would damage the 

beauty and biological vitality of the peninsula. 

During the park’s first decade, management of natural resources was hampered by a lack 

of knowledge about scientific research data about plants, animals, hydrology, historic 

growth patterns, fire ecology, and the other elements of the peninsula’s environment. 

This problem was not unique to Point Reyes. As Richard West Sellars has pointed out in 

Preserving Nature in the National Parks, the NPS had been lacking in that regard for 

much of its history.6

 What research had been accomplished in the national parks 

generally was conducted externally by university faculty and students or internally by 

dedicated but untrained naturalist personnel. The story at Point Reyes was similar, 

although with a few important exceptions, which are discussed later in this chapter. The 

park’s early ranger staff recognized that much more research was needed. Barbee recalled 

thinking that once cattle had ceased grazing large portions of newly acquired land, studies 

of the peninsula’s rangelands would benefit future planning efforts.7

 Barbee realized that 

without setting out and monitoring research plots to observe vegetation growth in 

different range types and under different conditions, future management of the range 

would be based on assumptions, conventional wisdom, and guesswork.8

A cooperative agreement between PRNS and the California Department of Fish and 

Game aimed to protect marine organisms, particularly shrimp and abalone, and establish 

an initial set of wildlife management objectives for Point Reyes. On September 3, 1969, 

the two agencies signed a memorandum of understanding, giving each responsibility for 

specific wildlife management functions on the peninsula and its surrounding waters.9

 The 

NPS recreation-area rubric again influenced the language of the agreement. The 

memorandum drew from the 1965 “Wildlife Management Policy—National Recreation 

Areas,” in asserting that public hunting and fishing were suitable activities in NRAs.10

Park officials could designate areas where, or periods of time when, hunting and fishing 

were prohibited, “for reasons of public safety, administration, or other public use and 

enjoyment of the area.”11 The specific points of the agreement called for PRNS 

administration to take the following steps: 1) jointly enforce California fish and game 

laws, 2) practice appropriate resource management that would benefit wildlife and 

Collaboration 

with 

California 

Fish and 

Game 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

230

increase harvest opportunities, 3) consult with the California Department of Fish and 

Game before issuing rulings or regulations regarding public use of the habitat, and 4) 

permit hunting and fishing in accordance with state laws and regulations and as provided 

for in Section 7 of the PRNS Act. The California Department of Fish and Game and the 

NPS both agreed to hold annual meetings, jointly publish press releases, establish 

working agreements for particular sites, evaluate existing fish and wildlife resources, and 

jointly assess the ecological impacts of various recreational and commercial activities 

upon these resources.12

The agreement was a first step toward protecting marine crustaceans and other ocean 

organisms. It also laid the groundwork for future interagency cooperation on hunting, 

control of nonnative species, regulation of commercial operations, and species 

reintroduction. The MOU called for annual meetings between the agencies; for the first 

few years, the meetings were de facto resource management planning sessions. During 

the February 1971 meeting, John L. Sansing and his senior staff, NPS Western Region 

Director Joseph C. Rumburg, Jr., four California Department of Fish and Game officials, 

and a Marin County resource manager covered the progress on the state’s tule elk studies, 

information on sea otter reintroduction, decisions on public hunting regulations for 

PRNS, proposals for Research Natural Areas, and possible conflicts between elk 

reintroduction and wilderness designation (regarding fence construction).13 With the 

input supplied at the meeting, Sansing made a resource management decision about one 

issue (postpone the proposed sea otter reintroduction indefinitely) and established the 

groundwork for action on at least two (setting hunting regulations and establishing 

research natural areas) of the others. 

Near the end of his three-year stint as PRNS superintendent in February 1970, Edward J. 

Kurtz prepared “Point Reyes National Seashore Management Objectives,” one of the first 

official planning documents to include natural resource issues. Kurtz outlined six major 

objectives: 1) preserve the fragile marine and terrestrial environments in the areas where 

the NPS planned new developments, 2) manage wildlife pursuant to the memorandum of 

agreement with the state fish and game department, 3) consider reintroduction of elk and 

possibly other species, 4) encourage independent research, 5) work cooperatively with 

PRBO on scientific studies of peninsula wildlife, and 6) conduct carrying capacity studies 

of particular ecological areas before developing visitor facilities in those locations.14

Kurtz did not address strategies for range management in his recommendations. 

The 1972 “Operations Evaluation” of PRNS pointed out that Point Reyes “urgently 

needed” a natural resource management plan and recommended that Sansing make it one 

of his highest priorities. The evaluation team believed that several pressing issues, 

including tule elk introduction, preservation of threatened areas, understanding the 

marine ecosystems, and the debate regarding the wilderness plan, made the development 

of a natural resource management plan more important than similar plans in other 

divisions.15 A follow-up to the operations evaluation, the 1974 “PRNS Management 

Consultation Report,” pushed even harder for more effective natural resource 

management and better research to under-gird goals and objectives of the division. The 

report acknowledged that Point Reyes had made significant progress in this direction by 

hiring a research biologist and resource management specialist, but emphasized that 

implementation of resource programs would require the full cooperation of the park’s 

ranger and maintenance staffs as well.16 The report identified five specific problem areas; 

namely, restoration of natural ecosystems, understanding wildlife populations dynamics, 

Creating 

Management 

Plans and 

Objectives 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

231

reestablishment of tule elk, compiling natural resource inventories, and reintroduction of 

wildfire in designated locations. 

In 1973, the park established a resource management specialist position to head up 

natural resource planning and operations, and, to the degree that it was receiving attention 

at the time, cultural resource management. John Aho filled this GS-11 position from 1973 

to 1979.17 Aho and his successors had to do their own clerical work (typing, filing, and 

the like), whereas divisional chiefs were supplied with clerical help. Because resource 

management and visitor protection were part of the same division, the resource 

management specialist also had to be a fully commissioned law enforcement ranger. The 

management consultant team questioned why this position was not part of the 

superintendent’s senior staff (in other words, a divisional chief), when natural resources 

were supposedly a preeminent concern of the administration.18 They recommended 

Sansing separate the visitor protection and resource management divisions, because it 

was “increasingly evident” that these two key operations required very different 

approaches and training. Their report also recommended that the park reconsider the 

organizational status of the resource management specialist, because that individual 

played an important role as the superintendent’s “eyes, ears, and conscience regarding 

seashore resources.”19

Sansing’s responses to the two suggestions were quite different: he oversaw, in relatively 

short order, the completion of the park’s first complete natural resources management 

plan (NRMP) in 1976, but he never converted the resource specialist to the status of 

division chief. Current superintendent Neubacher finally created a chief of natural 

resources position in 1998. Sansing’s rationale for resisting the change remains unclear. It 

may have reflected his early programmatic interests that he made the Morgan Horse Farm 

operation a separate division but did not do the same for resource management. Or it may 

have been due to his close affiliation with the peninsula’s ranching community, some of 

whom were not so keen to see additional environmental regulations placed on their dairy 

or cattle operations. 

Sansing was, however, moving ahead with natural resource issues. Staff selected test 

plots for studying prescribed burning experiments, and began planning with the 

California Department of Fish and Game for a two-year study of deer populations and for 

possible steelhead restoration. The park initiated programs aimed at controlling the 

spread of invasive nonnative plants, particularly thistle and scotch broom.20 In 1974 

alone, the park began or continued natural resource research and survey projects that 

included studies of dune ecology and deer populations, gathered range transect data for 

range monitoring, and completed vegetative mapping of the park’s plant species.21

Moreover, a planning team that consisted of Richard Brown, district ranger Brown, Aho, 

and Sansing began work on the natural resource management plan.22

Research biologist Richard Brown and district ranger Brown had begun a preliminary 

survey of resources and needs to prepare a natural resource plan in 1972. To meet the 

new guidelines laid out by the National Environmental Policy Act, passed in 1969, the 

team first had to prepare a preliminary plan that the park would make available for a 

period of public review. After receiving comments from citizens, other agencies, the 

Citizens’ Advisory Commission, and NPS officials in the regional office, they could 

proceed with a final draft of the report. The park released the preliminary NRMP in May 

1975, and the public review period opened that summer. Sansing described public 

response to the plan as “very supportive,” quite a contrast to the adverse reaction to the 

1976 Natural 

Resources 

Management 

Plan 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

232

1972 GMP/Wilderness Plan.23 The differences suggest that between 1971 and 1975, 

Sansing had a better grasp of the value the park’s constituents placed on environmental 

protection. Public responses to the plan did indicate, however, that the park failed 

adequately to address three resource issues: management of the nonnative deer 

population, control of feral animals, and reintroduction of tule elk.24

In contrast to the public response, NPS Western Region acting director Frank E. 

Sylvester was highly critical of the draft, particularly its emphasis on natural resource 

protection at the expense of recreational opportunities. Sylvester still saw management 

policies for a national seashore according to the NPS “blue book,” Administrative 

Policies for National Recreation Areas. He wanted the overall statement of natural 

resource management objectives to incorporate resource objectives designated for NPS 

units in the recreation area category; in particular, he thought the NRMP failed 

adequately to provide for additional backcountry camps and trails.25 He described his 

overall disagreements with the NRMP: 

The stated objectives in the NRMP appear to inhibit any substantial level 

of recreational use of the seashore, i.e., the stated objectives seem to be 

dominated by preservation rather than use goals. Since the seashore is a 

recreation area by definition, it would be useful to explain to the reader 

how the two purposes are compatible. We suggest that you include a 

discussion of the role of recreation in seashore management and 

administration.26

In preparing the first comprehensive plan for managing the seashore’s abundant natural 

resources, the planning team faced a monumental task. The plan would have to explain 

clearly the significance of the natural environment as part of the entirety of seashore 

operations, list the most important resources in need of protection, delineate the optimal 

and alternative methods of accomplishing those goals, and state the primary mission of 

natural resource management at Point Reyes. The planners not only had to consider the 

mandates of the authorizing act and its subsequent amendments, but also the 1972 general 

management plan (GMP) objectives, the collaborative management agreement with the 

California Department of Fish and Game, recommendations of the Citizens’ Advisory 

Commission, available scientific research, the wilderness proposal and legislation, views 

of environmental, community, and business organizations, legal rights of peninsula 

residents, and a plethora of new federal and state environmental regulations. 

Significant new legislation that had passed in the early 1970s compelled park 

administration to turn more attention than they had previously to understanding and 

managing its marine resources. The Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), Marine 

Mammal Protection Act (1972), National Marine Sanctuaries Act (1972), and 

Endangered Species Act (1973) all directed national park units to pay greater attention to 

the protection of marine species and preservation of marine habitats within their 

boundaries. The Coastal Zone Management Act called for greater protection of coastal 

lands and waters, and provided funding to states, which could then formulate their own 

coastal management programs to meet the federal regulations. That same year, Congress 

passed the National Marine Sanctuaries Act to compel federal agencies to “protect and 

preserve sensitive and ecologically significant marine areas.” It regulated the protection 

of oceanic ecosystems rather than particular species or activities. First, though, PRNS 

officials and staff had to understand exactly what marine resources they were managing. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

233

Of the specific resource issues in the NRMP, the proposals regarding nonnative deer 

control generated the most controversy. At issue were questions of whether to eliminate, 

reduce, or maintain the herds of axis and fallow deer, how best to accomplish population 

reduction (shooting, infertility injections, or physical removal), and who would do the 

reducing. Underlying the last question was the possibility of allowing hunting, on a very 

restricted basis, within the national seashore, a loaded topic for the NPS, 

environmentalists, ranchers, other local citizens, and a relatively new constituency, 

animal-rights activists. A subcommittee of the GGNRA/PRNS Advisory Commission, 

which formed to review the draft NRMP, discussed the subject at length during the 

course of several meetings. 

Sansing laid out three possible options for tackling the problem: 1) allow the public to 

hunt via lottery, 2) have rangers shoot a designated number of deer, and 3) grant 

“depredation permits” to ranchers so they could resume their former practice of shooting 

deer on their ranches.27 Not surprisingly, Point Reyes dairy rancher Joseph Mendoza, 

who would be eligible to obtain one of the permits, encouraged the commission to 

recommend the third option because it would create the least public opposition. Advisory 

commission members initially voted unanimously to recommend the depredation-permit 

method, as long as the ranger staff kept “rigid control” of permit use. During the public 

review period, however, strong community reaction against a sanctioned hunt surfaced. 

In response, the commission altered its recommendation to suggest using depredation 

permits on an experimental basis.28

The final NRMP described research and management actions for six elements of the 

park’s environment, and listed the no-action alternatives for each resource along with the 

potential environmental impact of each. Recommended management activities including 

a range survey, nonnative plant control, prescribed fires, tule elk reintroduction, a study 

of native deer population, control of nonnative deer populations, control of feral animals, 

a mountain beaver study, fisheries management, a pollution study related to estuarine 

protection, and monitoring of visitor-use influences on the park environment.29

Ultimately, the NRMP’s objectives drew primarily from the 1972 GMP, rather than the 

goals stipulated in the Administrative Policies guide for recreation areas. The NRMP 

gave recognition to the importance of incorporating research into resource management, 

declaring, “A combination of research and management actions will bring about desired 

conditions contained in the management objectives.”30 The planning team identified 

several areas where research had been lacking or inadequate, pointing to range 

management and estuarine studies as the most important research targets. 

Natural resource management activities in the half-decade following the NRMP’s release 

demonstrated that the park aggressively pursued three of the recommended action plans 

(nonnative plant removal, exotic deer reduction, and tule elk reintroduction), proceeded 

hesitantly on two others (fire management and expanded research), and, essentially 

ignored the action plans for range management and fisheries habitat restoration. In the 

meantime, the bulk of resource management operations focused, as it had prior to the 

release of the NRMP, on reduction or elimination of nonnative species. William Shook, 

who became chief of natural resource management in 1993, first came to work at Point 

Reyes in 1978. He recalled that most of the resource operations at that time involved 

shooting deer, and pulling, hacking, spraying, or burning thistle, scotch broom and other 

invasive, alien plant species.31 Although the tule elk reintroduction program received the 

most media attention and external funding, the bulk of the workload for resource 

management staff remained culling deer and eliminating nonnative plants. 

Nonnative 

Deer Species 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

234

The 1980 GGNRA/PRNS General Management Plan (GMP) largely incorporated the 

1976 NRMP, and outlined some additional objectives for resource management at PRNS. 

Its directive to “identify, protect, and perpetuate the diversity of existing ecosystems 

which are found at Point Reyes,” included protection of marine mammals, and of 

threatened or endangered species, two groups that the 1976 NRMP had failed specifically 

to address.32 The GMP also recommended more extensive studies of range and tidal areas 

that incorporated resource carrying capacity data, a more comprehensive monitoring 

program for grazing practices with help from the U.S. Soil Conservation Service (now 

the National Resources Conservation Service), and better monitoring of Johnson Oyster 

Farm, in cooperation with the California Department of Fish and Game.33

The absence of a management plan for marine mammals at PRNS was a particularly 

glaring oversight, since Congress had passed both the Marine Mammal Protection Act 

and the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act in 1972. The lack of a strategy 

for protecting marine mammals, which were abundant on the shores and waters of Point 

Reyes, must have been particularly obvious by the time the 1976 NRMP was being 

finalized, as shortly thereafter the resource management division enlisted PRBO to write 

a Marine Mammal Management Plan (MMMP) supplement to the NRMP. David Ainley, 

an advisory member of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, Harriet Huber, marine 

biologist at Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and Sarah Allen authored the 

marine mammal management plan for PRBO, which it delivered to the park in 1979. 

Incorporated as a supplement to the existing Point Reyes NRMP, the new MMMP 

directed resource staff to identify, sign, and patrol the park’s harbor seal pupping sites. 

Furthermore, the plan recommended that northern elephant seals, just beginning to 

recolonize Point Reyes beaches in significant numbers, be protected from human 

harassment.34

Point Reyes had historically been a colony for elephant seals but they were likely 

extirpated by European hunters. Scattered reports of elephant seal sightings came in the 

1970s, with increasing frequency as the decade progressed. Most significant, a female 

pupped at a secluded beach below the Point Reyes Headlands in 1981. Because the 

MMMP had made it unlawful to “harass, hunt, capture, or kill” these animals and placed 

special emphasis on protection of mating and birthing grounds, the park was legally 

mandated to comply.35 At particular issue was public use of Point Reyes beaches during 

harbor seal and elephant seal pupping season, where park visitors—most harboring no ill 

intent—approached the animals, chasing them back into the water. Fortunately for the 

park (and the seals), a research monitoring program was already in place, for the purpose 

of studying harbor seals, when the elephant seals began to “haul out” onto the beaches in 

greater numbers.36 Although severe winter storm seasons in 1981–1982 and 1982–1983 

had resulted high waves that washed all of the pups away, the colony’s viability began to 

seem possible when in 1984, eleven or twelve pups born that year survived to the 

“weaner” stage, the first young seals thus to survive.37 Soon after the first pup made it 

past weaning, the survival and reproductive rates of the colony began to increase. 

When the elephant seals established a new colony, their behavior prompted changes in 

research, visitor use, staffing, and budgeting. Researchers from PRBO and park staff have 

monitored the seals annually since the colony became established, increasing the amount 

of time surveying and patrolling as the colony grew in size. Observation was done mainly 

during the December-March breeding season, but surveys also took place during the fall 

and spring.38 In 1988, PRBO biologists began tagging elephant seals (tags are attached to 

their flippers) in the breeding season in order to learn more about the seals’ dispersal and 

Marine 

Mammal 

Management 

Plan 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

235

colonization patterns, exchanges between colonies, survivorship, and population 

numbers.39 Between 1988 and 1995, PRBO staff flipper-tagged a total of fifty adults and 

more than five hundred seal pups. In the mid-1990s, biologists and students from the 

University of California-Santa Cruz also began performing seal surveys during the 

breeding season.40

Personnel, as well as planning documents, shaped the evolution of natural resource 

management at Point Reyes. The park lost Richard Brown to retirement in 1979, after he 

had served nearly a decade as research biologist at the seashore. When he left, the 

position was not filled; instead, PRNS began to use the services of a biologist from the 

Cooperative Park Studies Unit at the University of California at Davis.41 Aho, the natural 

resource specialist, also departed at that time and was replaced by William Pierce, who 

arrived from Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Shook described Pierce as “very 

dedicated” to natural resources, perhaps more so than Aho had been.42 Pierce made 

substantive changes in the program, first by putting more emphasis on data collecting and 

biological monitoring. Previously, what little research or survey work had been 

undertaken was done haphazardly, usually performed by interns and volunteers. Pierce 

started systematically collecting resource data, using fire-suppression money to fund 

monitoring and data collection projects.43

Pierce also began to initiate changes in preexisting resource management activities, 

developing adaptive management strategies that included protection of marine mammals 

via seasonal closure of pupping areas, education, and monitoring program. Not all of his 

program ideas gained administrative support: Shook recalled that Pierce sometimes 

“clashed swords” with Sansing over resource management decisions.44 One issue Pierce 

raised that Sansing contested was the status of backcountry trails. Virtually all of the 

park’s trails had begun as ranch roads. Visitors could no longer drive on the roads but 

staff continued to use them to haul out garbage, perform trail maintenance, conduct 

monitoring, and so on. When the huge storms of the 1981–1982 winter washed away 

portions of nearly every trail, Pierce saw an opportunity to begin treating those areas like 

true backcountry. He argued that resisting the urge to repair the trails would provide a 

richer wilderness experience for hikers and improved habitat for wildlife. Sansing, 

however, refused to budge on the matter, insisting the trails be returned to their former 

condition. After making a protracted but unsuccessful push for his alternative, Pierce 

decided he was ready to move on. He transferred to Shenandoah National Park in June 

1983.45 

Russ Lesko, who had worked side-by-side with Pierce on many projects, took over when 

Pierce left. During Lesko’s tenure from 1983 to 1987, the administration started paying 

more attention to ranching and its impact on the peninsula environment. According to 

Shook, Lesko played an “instrumental” role in getting a range conservationist on the staff 

and in overseeing the reintroduction of tule elk. In the past, range work was a cooperative 

measure between ranchers and rangers. Shook succeeded Lesko as natural resource 

specialist in 1987. He described the position as “branch chief,” in charge of all resource 

management operations but still a fully commissioned law enforcement (LE) ranger, 

which meant he had to “wear two hats.”46 

Twenty-five years after an NPS management consultation team had recommended 

changing the division’s place in the organizational structure, those circumstances were 

finally remedied. In 1998, administration finally recast Shook’s position as chief of 

Natural 

Resource 

Management 

in the 

Organization 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

236

natural resource management, and in 1999, natural resource management and cultural 

resource management became separate divisions.47

The 1976 NRMP and 1980 GMP guided natural resource management at Point Reyes 

through the 1980s and early 1990s. The superintendent’s “Statement for Management” 

documents, issued in 1985, 1990, and 1993, generally restated the objectives of the 

earlier management plans, but included new directives when significant changes in the 

legal status or research knowledge about a resource had occurred. In 1993, a planning 

team of regional and park staff began work on a new resource management plan. When 

Sansing and regional director Stanley L. Albright signed off on the new Resources 

Management Plan (RMP) in late 1994, it heralded a complete reassessment and a much 

more systematic approach to future natural and cultural resource management activities. 

The sweeping breadth of the plan included both solutions to specific problems, and larger 

theoretical and organizational changes perceived to be prerequisites for accomplishing 

the new resource management goals. 

Four aspects of the 1994 RMP, in particular, stand out. First, the plan gave a scathing 

assessment of prior research and resource management operations at Point Reyes. 

Second, the plan outlined a systematic approach to each specific resource task while 

keeping each task within the context of the whole resource mission, including a 

prioritization of each issue or task. Third, the plan emphasized research and the necessity 

of creating a separate research entity within the organization. Fourth, the plan seemed to 

misinterpret the park’s legislative history in regard to agricultural uses. 

According to the 1994 RMP, the six most significant natural resource management issues 

at Point Reyes were: 1) lack of baseline knowledge, 2) protection of water rights, water 

quality, and riparian and wetland habitats, 3) protection of threatened, endangered, and 

rare species, 4) range management/erosion control and protection of wetlands and 

riparian areas, 5) control of nonnative species, and 6) identification and restoration of 

historic abuses to the Point Reyes environment.48 In assessing the present status of the 

resources and the resource management operations, the NRMP did not pull any punches, 

and its honest appraisals left few topics untouched. In regard to baseline data, the report 

stated that the park vegetation map was outdated, plant inventories were incomplete, and 

there was no accurate count of nonnative species. The 1994 RMP took the park to task 

for the lack of data regarding the extent and distribution of wildlife on the peninsula, and 

noted that despite numerous studies of tule elk since their introduction there was “little 

objective measurement of habitat and range condition.”49 Baseline measures did not exist 

for water quality, quantity, and ownership, and many of the peninsula’s riparian areas and 

wetlands remain undocumented. Moreover, the plan reported that the current natural 

resource management staff was “unable to keep pace with the scope of resource 

management needs or properly address increasing demands upon or threats to 

resources.”50

Surprisingly, the 1994 RMP repeatedly referred to the park’s legislative “mandate” to 

continue agricultural activities within PRNS. The plan’s summary regarding agricultural 

use stated: “Enabling legislation, amendments and the legislative history of the intent of 

Congress indicate that traditional agricultural activities are to continue within the pastoral 

zone of Point Reyes National Seashore.”51 This emphasis on a legislative mandate to 

continue ranching was somewhat inaccurate. Congressional and NPS intent in the 

creation of the pastoral zone in the founding act was twofold. First, the allowance for 

continuing agricultural operations was primarily a means of protecting individual 

Management 

Planning in 

the 1990s 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

237

ownership rights and negotiating enough compromises that would enable Marin County 

residents and the Board of Supervisors to support the seashore proposal. Second, the 

pastoral zone was the “hole in the doughnut” critical to obtaining appropriations for land 

acquisition.52 At a key point in the 1961 authorization debate, the Point Reyes proposal 

had become too expensive for Congress to swallow; but by allowing (not mandating) 

ranchers to retain title to those 20,000 acres, the price tag on the national seashore 

decreased significantly.53 Moreover, it would keep the county’s tax base—a key sticking 

point for some opponents—stable for several decades. Although most backers of the 

seashore proposal certainly wanted to the see the peninsula’s ranching landscape, as a 

visual aesthetic, remain intact, the pastoral zone was originally conceived of political and 

financial expediency (see Chapter 3, pages 86 to 88, for a more detailed discussion of this 

issue). As time passed, however, amendments to the national seashore legislation and 

Sansing’s personal inclinations did begin to redefine the significance of the ranching 

area, a process that is still underway. 

The 1999 “Point Reyes National Seashore Resources Management Plan” continued the 

structure, methodology, and systematic approach to resource objectives found in the 1994 

RMP.54 In the course of five years, however, dramatic changes in PRNS administration, 

more subtle shifts in NPS policy, and natural phenomenon such as the Mount Vision fire, 

have significantly reordered the priorities given to management of many key resources. Record No. 4880. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Detail of small squid, one of the marine inhabitants of Point Reyes National Seashore. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

238

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

One paradox of research in the national parks lies in the fact that resource management 

requires effective research to make sound decisions, but research must remain separate 

from the administrative apparatus of resource management. For decades, the NPS was 

often neglectful and sometimes resistant toward performing and obtaining research. 

When the agency did employ or contract with researchers, it often failed to give 

researchers the authority and autonomy they needed to be effective. Soon after Point 

Reyes National Seashore became a new NPS unit, the National Academy of Sciences 

Advisory Committee’s Robbins Report (1963) gave this no-holds-barred assessment of 

the state of scientific research in the national parks: 

Research by the National Park Service has lacked continuity, 

coordination, and depth. It has been marked by expediency rather than by 

long-term considerations. It has in general lacked direction, has been 

fragmented between divisions and branches, has been applied piecemeal, 

has suffered because of a failure to recognize the distinctions between 

research and administrative decision-making, and has failed to insure the 

implementation of the results of research in operational management.55

Even more ominously, the Robbins Report declared, “Reports and recommendations on 

this subject will remain futile unless and until the National Park Service itself becomes 

research-minded and is prepared to support research and to apply its findings.”56 The 

report called for the Park Service to make a clear distinction between research and 

operational management. Despite a litany of subsequent reports and panels over the next 

forty years calling for this connection/separation arrangement, many NPS sites have 

failed to make the necessary distinction. Only recently has the separation been realized at 

Point Reyes, with the creation of a separate science division headed by science advisor 

Sarah Allen. 

Point Reyes, however, fared better than many of its NPS cohorts when it came to 

obtaining access to scientific research, mainly due to its connections with organizations 

outside the NPS. Several university programs—Stanford, Sonoma State, Humboldt State, 

College of Marin, and the University of California at Berkeley and Davis—were 

conducting research at Point Reyes well prior to the authorization of the national 

seashore. They continued their research work, either as independent studies under NPS 

permit or in direct collaboration with the park, after the seashore became established. 

Biological research at Point Reyes benefited, in particular, from the park’s close 

proximity and long association with the University of California at Berkeley. Starker 

Leopold, who became a major force in scientific policy and direction for NPS, and his 

students at UC Berkeley, used Point Reyes as an outside classroom. Two Leopold 

students working within an early version of a park cooperative studies unit, Reginald 

Barrett and Pete Gogan, made good use of their research training to play key roles in the 

reintroduction of tule elk to Point Reyes. 

Point Reyes also has had a long history of research connections with the Point Reyes Bird 

Observatory (PRBO), the California Academy of Science, and the California Plant 

Society, all of which had been studying various species and habitats at Point Reyes. In 

the 1960s, PRBO became a complete research station that produced the first research 

study conducted for the national seashore, the first of many projects PRBO would 

undertake for PRNS. PRBO’s 1965 study of Limantour Estero was a critical step in 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

239

building evidence to oppose construction of the outlandish beach recreation center 

proposed for that area (see complete discussion in chapter 4). The 1965 PRBO study 

illustrated the benefits to be gained from incorporating scientific research into natural 

resource management decisions. 

In addition to the research work outside organizations performed, PRNS also benefited 

tremendously from long-term connections with a few individual researchers who 

dedicated their efforts to expanding the knowledge base and protecting the habitat of the 

park’s flora and fauna. Several people, in particular, among them Richard Brown, Gary 

Fellers, Sarah Allen, Pete Gogan, and William Shook, conducted or spurred decades of 

monitoring, testing, and disseminating information about the peninsula’s native and 

nonnative inhabitants to park managers, academic scholars, and the general public. Early 

on, the park was fortunate to hire research biologist Richard Brown. From 1970, when he 

was hired, until he departed the park in 1979, Brown spurred new research projects, 

collaborated with PRBO, synthesized research studies and data for management, and 

served as scientific advisor to PRNS administration.57 The 1974 “PRNS Management 

Consultation Report” acknowledged that Point Reyes had made progress in creating a 

research program by hiring a research biologist.58 But it also noted that while PRNS was 

“fortunate” to have Richard Brown on its staff, the seashore’s significant research needs 

were “legion,” making it “folly to think that one biologist will be able to undertake all 

areas in need of investigation.”59

Although Brown departed in 1979, Gary Fellers’s arrival as an in-park scientist enabled 

the PRNS research program to continue to develop. Fellers became assistant chief 

scientist for the Western Region in 1979, which began his affiliation with Point Reyes. 

Fellers assisted Sarah Allen in a harbor seal monitoring project and worked with Pete 

Gogan and Reg Barrett on tule elk reintroduction. From 1981 to 1987, he was also the 

research coordinator for the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, a marine 

reserve west of Point Reyes. Although the offshore Farallon Islands and Cordell Bank 

were the primary focus of that program, Fellers’s research studies on intertidal 

invertebrates, harbor seal ecology, great white shark movements and feeding, humpback 

and blue whale populations, and seabird breeding were a huge step forward toward 

improving the previously paltry fund of scientist knowledge about the park’s marine 

biology. Fellers helped organize a collaborative effort by the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the 

Gulf of Farallones NMS to fund an inventory and study of Point Reyes harbor seal 

colonies from 1982 to 1987.60

In 1983, Fellers moved into his position as NPS research biologist at Point Reyes. 

Although he still worked for regional chief scientist Denny Fenn, Fellers set up his office 

at Bear Valley headquarters, where he has worked under various titles from 1983 until 

the present.61 In 1993, his position was transferred to the National Biological Survey, 

which subsequently became the Biological Resources Division of the United States 

Geological Survey (USGS). Despite jurisdictional changes, Fellers continued to work out 

of his Point Reyes office on local and regional research projects, as well as overseeing 

projects throughout the Western Region. During the course of more than twenty years of 

work at Point Reyes, he published eighty-five professional reports or articles, most of 

them related to his work at PRNS. Fellers initiated studies of the peninsula’s mountain 

beaver, Townsend’s big-eared bats, black brant, red-legged frogs, rare plants, and 

nonnative species. He conducted the first thorough inventory of the park’s small 

mammals, amphibians, and reptiles, and put together the first checklist of PRNS plants, 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

240

mammals, and butterflies.62 His work and his collaborative efforts with other researchers 

and institutions laid the groundwork for the wide-ranging research program that would 

emerge at PRNS.63

Sarah Allen was at the heart of the PRNS marine mammal program even before it 

appeared as part of the park’s organizational structure. She began research at Point Reyes 

in 1976 as a University of California student, performing a study of harbor seals, and 

subsequently moved on to another harbor seal project for PRBO, working as a volunteer 

on the Farallon Islands. But her studies of Point Reyes marine life date to well before 

then. Allen’s family, who lived in Marin County, took trips to Drakes Beach when she 

was a child. She started watching harbor seals there when she was eight years old. While 

in high school, Allen volunteered to work with a teacher from the College of Marin on a 

study of the ecology of Bolinas Lagoon, which got her “hooked on the idea of working at 

the ocean.”64 Allen began the harbor seal study at Bolinas Lagoon in 1977, and worked 

on gathering background and inventory information on marine mammals and seabirds, 

for the proposed national marine sanctuary. She also performed an extensive inventory of 

the entire peninsula in 1982-86. From 1982 to 1986, she worked on a pinniped harbor 

seal and elephant seal study at Point Reyes,65

Allen’s arrival on staff at Point Reyes ensured that the administration and natural 

resource managers would continue to get rigorous scientific analysis and accurate data 

collection, methodologies that were extremely valuable for making decisions about the 

park’s most critical resource issues. Allen’s scientific discipline and professionalism did 

not mean, however, that she was merely a dispassionate observer of the marine resources 

she studied. She has been, in fact, the staunchest possible advocate for marine organisms. 

Allen was the first to urge Sansing to protect the harbor seals, pointing to the legal 

mandate for their protection in the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). 

The National Parks Conservation Association’s 2002 “State of the Parks” resource 

assessment of PRNS gave an “A” to the research program at Point Reyes, a higher grade 

than any other operational or administrative program in the park received. The 

assessment noted, “In recent years at Point Reyes, the Park Service has emphasized 

research to improve stewardship of the park’s natural and cultural resource. The extent of 

the research and the establishment of a new learning center make Point Reyes a model for 

other national parks.”66

CRITICAL NATURAL RESOURCE ISSUES AT POINT REYES 

For the purposes of this administrative history, six key natural resource issues are 

identified here as most representative of natural resource management and scientific 

research at PRNS over a forty-year period. The issues are research and monitoring, range 

management, nonnative plants and animals, species reintroduction, coastal ecosystems, 

fire management, endangered species, and habitat restoration. They were by no means the 

only natural resource issues or always the most important issues administrators and staff 

dealt with during those four decades. 

Natural resource managers at PRNS have, from the very outset, struggled to deal with the 

abundance of nonnative species that inhabit the peninsula. The list is fairly extensive: two 

deer species, feral “pets” (dogs and cats), feral hogs and goats, dairy and beef cattle, 

horses, turkeys, and over 290 species of nonnative invasive plants.67 Two of the 

Nonnative 

Plants and 

Animals 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

241

groupings, nonnative deer and plants, have attracted by far the most staff attention over 

the course of the seashore’s history. Shook recalled that when he began work at Point 

Reyes in 1978, and for several years thereafter, the constant battle to contain spreading 

exotics felt like the proverbial “finger in the dike,” as resource managers tried to hold 

back a building tide of invasive plants and rapidly growing herds of deer. He spent his 

entire first fall in the park shooting deer for the reduction program that was just getting 

underway. 

A local landowner introduced axis and fallow deer obtained from the San Francisco zoo 

to Point Reyes during the 1940s, and the herds have grown in size since then.68 For 

decades, peninsula ranchers kept the size of the population in check until new PRNS 

hunting regulations went into effect in 1967. In the 1960s and 1970s, the nonnative deer 

population boomed, prompting discussions about strategies for controlling the herds. The 

park began an initial, two-year study of deer populations in 1973, conducted in 

cooperation with California Department of Fish and Game. NPS and Fish and Game staff 

killed five to ten deer of each species (including native blacktail deer in the latter half of 

the study) per month to necropsy and determine the food sources, parasites, diseases, and 

reproductive status of the animals. Oscar Brunetti, a Department of Fish and Game 

pathologist, performed the study’s data analysis and recording. A total of 237 nonnative 

deer were collected over the study period for this purpose.69 

The 1976 NRMP, described earlier in this chapter, called for the park to undertake further 

research, including a study to determine optimal carrying capacities on the peninsula for 

deer and other ungulates, and to determine the extent of the reductions. The research staff 

and directors of PRBO, the organization best equipped to speak to the science 

underpinning the question, urged Sansing to remove all axis and fallow deer from PRNS 

because they were a nonnative species whose continued existence was “detrimental to 

both the plants and animals of native ecosystems.”70 At the time, there were an estimated 

950 nonnative deer within the seashore boundaries. PRBO scientists believed that 

introduction of tule elk to the peninsula and the assumed growth of both nonnative and 

native deer would result in severe overgrazing of available forage, which some of the 

peninsula cattle also fed upon. PRBO believed that the potential adverse effects to native 

populations mandated that the park take responsibility to preserve those species; the best 

way to do it, in their opinion, was complete removal of axis and fallow deer.71

Given the history of wildlife management in national parks, it should not be surprising 

that the rationale for deciding the fate of nonnative deer was based on cultural and 

political considerations rather than biological knowledge. Although PRBO recommended 

that complete removal would create the most benefit to the PRNS environment, Sansing 

disavowed that strategy because it would “reduce the aesthetic of the seashore to many 

visitors.”72 The feeding habits, unusual appearance, and abundance of both axis and 

fallow deer made them easy to observe, providing “a memorable experience to almost all 

visitors.”73 Economic factors also played a role in this natural resource management 

decision. While ranchers favored distributing depredation permits, the California 

Department of Fish and Game suggested that a public hunt was the better strategy, 

because hunters would “be willing to pay a higher price to bag” one of the uniquelooking animals.74 tule elk reintroduction also held potential economic benefits for Fish 

and Game, because once the statewide elk numbers surpassed two thousand, the 

department could begin selling hunting tags for elk, pleasing the state’s hunters and 

increasing the size of the department’s coffers. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

242

Social and cultural rationales also influenced decisions about species reintroductions. 

Public opinion was bound to favor elk reintroduction for the same reason it was opposed 

to complete elimination of nonnative deer. Visitors enjoyed the experience of seeing 

large powerful-looking wildlife in a natural setting. Even the NRMP environmental 

assessment was imbued with cultural bias. It gave the following notably unscientific 

evaluation of tule elk impact: “Tule elk are magnificent looking animals, and should 

provide an unforgettable visual and aesthetic experience to park visitors.”75

At the close of the NRMP process, the park set the population reduction target at the level 

of 1973 herd sizes, approximately 350 deer of each species. But resource management 

also contracted with Henry W. Elliot, an independent investigator who in early 1976 had 

done his master’s thesis work on the Point Reyes native deer, to make another census of 

nonnative deer on the peninsula. Resource staff used Elliot’s data to determine the deer 

reduction target number of 178 axis and fallow deer by April 1, 1977.76 In late 1976, park 

staff and Fish and Game personnel began the first phase of the culling process; they 

killed a total of 145 deer by the end of the year.77

The park stepped up the number of deer killed each year as it began the second phase of 

the reduction program in 1980. In 1981, park rangers and Fish and Game staff shot nearly 

450 deer, and three feral pigs.78 The task involved the entire ranger staff in resource 

management and visitor protection, including seasonal staff members. With the number 

of deer being killed daily, the park could no longer perform necropsies on each animal. 

Additionally, disposing of deer carcasses posed a new problem for the resource staff. 

Pierce, then head of resource management, cannily arranged an agreement with the 

directors of St. Anthony’s Farm, an organization that ran a free soup kitchen in 

downtown San Francisco. Pierce told them that if they could have a truck waiting for the 

rangers at a designated spot in West Marin by 10:00 A.M. each day, the park would 

provide the organization with fresh venison for their kitchen.79 Deer carcasses were also 

distributed to tribal organizations. The prolific numbers of animals killed temporarily 

resurfaced the contentious issue of public hunting. Sansing seemed to favor the idea, but 

the public and media opposition to the hunting proposals kept them from gaining traction. 

The Citizens’ Advisory Commission recommended firmly against public hunting at the 

seashore in 1983, just as they had in 1976 and 1981.80 

In order to keep up with the rate of the reduction plan, the park hired a seasonal ranger in 

the late 1980s, whose position was dedicated solely to shooting deer. As a result, 541 axis 

and fallow deer were destroyed in 1989 and 1990. R. Gerald Wright has argued in 

Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks that even with the aggressive 

shooting campaign PRNS conducted during the 1980s, culling activity of this sort 

represented “little more than holding actions, effectively eliminating the current year’s 

production while maintaining the overall population at a relatively constant level.”81

Although this might be an appropriate short-term goal at some NPS sites, for most 

national park units the expense, potential for negative media attention, and demands on 

employees make it a poor long-term management strategy. In fact, resource management 

budget shortfalls and the continued media scrutiny prompted the park to discontinue deer 

culling as a management strategy in 1994, although staff have collected deer 

intermittently for research projects since then.82 

In the meantime, the natural resources planning team also made determinations about the 

park’s exotic intruders to the plant community, but without any of the debate or 

emotional attachment that deer reductions elicited. As R. Gerald Wright has observed in 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

243

Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks, “Changes in plant dominance 

and species composition are factors plant ecologists deal with; they are not things that 

generally alarm the average visitor.”83 Resource staff continued to tackle nonnative plant 

control, with little of the attendant environmentalist or media attention. Wright explains 

that “public support for alien control programs in parks varies considerably depending on 

the species.”84 Removal of nonnative vegetation as a coordinated—rather than 

haphazard—management task began in 1972 with giant plumeless thistle and “gorse” 

(scotch broom) removal projects.85 Resource staff engaged several different methods, 

including mechanical removal (pulling or cutting), burning, spraying with chemicals, and 

introducing natural enemies (insects), with varying degrees of success. After five years, 

the gorse elimination program was pronounced a success. Thistle proved much more 

difficult to eradicate, despite extensive pulling, pesticide application, and burning work 

from 1972 through 1979.86 In 1987, resource staff produced a completed nonnative plant 

management plan, which established categories of nonnative vegetation, ordered 

according to the threat each species posed to the seashore environment. The next year 

they removed 1,300 nonnative plants, including pampas grass, thistle, water hyacinth, 

giant reed, gorse, jimson weed, and kikuyu grass.87 Plant removal crews topped that 

figure in 1989, when they removed 2,412 nonnative plants and began efforts to eradicate 

capeweed and iceplant, the latter of which remained a continuing target through the 

1990s.88

Management of nonnative plants and animals were still listed as high priorities in the 

1999 NRMP, continued to demand sizable management time and budgets, and presented 

park managers with difficult decisions regarding proper actions.89 More thorough surveys 

of the park’s plant communities revealed that nonnative species made up roughly onethird of the park’s vascular plant population, including thirty nonnative species that are 

invasive enough to threaten the survival of native plants. The coastal dune restoration 

project launched in 2001was an effort to eliminate two of these exotics, European 

beachgrass and iceplant, which were taking over large swaths of the peninsula’s dune 

environment. In 2002, the California Exotic Plant Management Team (EPMT) also 

mobilized and set up its home base at Point Reyes. A Natural Resource Challenge-funded 

project, the EPMT tackled invasive plant removal at PRNS and at eleven other NPS sites 

in California. During its first year, the team removed nonnative species from 

approximately 2 million square feet of parkland.90

Management of ungulate species has a long history in the national park system; for 

decades at Yellowstone, Glacier and other national parks, managing deer and elk herds, 

stocking lakes with fish, and killing predators were the basic elements of wildlife 

management. In an irony lost on no one in the NPS today, the ill-fated decision to remove 

natural predators to promote ungulate herds created a much bigger management crisis, as 

those herds increased until they reached limits imposed by disease and starvation, or until 

the NPS was forced to reintroduce humans as predators. 

One of the first wildlife management strategies that involved directly manipulating 

(herding) ungulates was the management of the Yellowstone bison herds. Bison are high 

on the list of America’s charismatic wildlife; they are an icon of the American West, the 

symbol of wanton environmental destruction, and, of course, the emblematic image on 

the NPS arrowhead. Administrators at Yellowstone soon encountered a management 

conundrum with the bison that foretold the problems resource managers at Point Reyes 

and throughout the park system would face for the rest of the twentieth century. Boiled 

down, the question at Yellowstone became whether to keep a small “zoo” herd for public 

Tule Elk 

Reintroduction 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

244

display, or to allow the remaining natural processes to run their course, which could well 

be to the detriment of the herds, park environment, and NPS public relations. Park 

resource managers have, ever since then, wrestled with the pull from one end of this 

continuum to the other.91

The Park Service also had a lengthy history of haphazardly introducing new species, 

native or exotic, to the parks. Rocky mountain elk from the Yellowstone herds were 

introduced to Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, and several other national parks in the 1930s, 

creating herds that still exist today. Although several species, in addition to tule elk, were 

mentioned as possible candidates for reintroduction at PRNS, including sea otter, bald 

eagle, grizzly and black bears, and several insect species for nonnative plant control, none 

received the attention, research, and budget as did elk. Some received more consideration 

than others, which were dismissed outright. In 1989, for instance, Point Reyes began a 

feasibility study and obtained soft financing to begin bald eagle reintroduction. When 

PRBO and some environmental groups protested that the plan was inappropriate, the park 

withdrew the proposal.92

Record No. 4560. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Tule elk in enclosure pen; deformed antlers show signs of Johnes disease. 

In 1971, an interagency task force named Point Reyes as one of four potential sites in 

California for tule elk reintroduction.93 This particular subspecies of elk, Cervus elaphus 

nannodes, once inhabited the Point Reyes Peninsula but had disappeared by the mid1800s because of hunting and habitat loss.94 When discussions regarding the possibility 

of elk reintroduction to Point Reyes began, the biggest concern among locals and park 

staff was the potential for disrupting peninsula dairy and grazing operations. State Fish 

and Game officials wanted the reintroduced elk to remain inside an enclosure, because of 

problems that free-ranging elk had created in the agricultural sector of the Central 

Valley.95 

The park proposed releasing the elk at the north end of the peninsula, where they would 

erect a fence across the approximately three-mile-wide neck of Tomales Point to keep the 

elk from entering the rest of the national seashore. To do this, the NPS had first to evict 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

245

the rancher, a permittee, from the Pierce Point property before the elk were transferred to 

the area. This rancher was not the original ranch owner, but a tenant rancher who moved 

in when the park obtained the property. The rancher, however, refused to leave and took 

the NPS to court, eventually losing the case. Nonetheless, he remained at the ranch until 

the park finally obtained a writ of assistance to have him removed. 

In the midst of the drawn-out legal wrangling in 1978, the state proceeded to deliver the 

first ten elk to the park from the San Luis reservation in southern California. The elk were 

placed in a temporary acclimation pen where staff fed them every day. After the elk were 

introduced, herd growth progressed satisfactorily for the first year. During the second 

year, however, some of the elk started dying, bulls developed malformed antlers, and 

some fetuses were aborted.96 More studies followed and the park found two causes: a 

microbacterial disease, and nutritional deficiencies resulting from depleted vegetation and 

soils, which the ranchers’ overgrazing had caused. Once the park removed the cattle from 

the range, the vegetation began coming back.97

Based on a study by Pete 

Gogan, a graduate student 

of Starker Leopold at UC 

Berkeley, the park 

estimated that the area’s 

carrying capacity for elk 

was 140 animals, and 

theorized that once the elk 

reached that level, the 

population would naturally 

stabilize. The population 

did stay reasonably small 

while the peninsula was in 

the midst of a drought 

period. Once the drought 

ended, and as the range 

recovered further from the 

effects of cattle grazing, the 

elk population soared, 

creating a significant 

problem in need of a rapid solution. PRNS received funding to assemble a blue-ribbon 

scientific panel of experts who came to Point Reyes from all over the country. Shook 

thought the best thing he ever did as department head was to bring the experts together 

and collect their recommendations, which led to major funding for a scientific study and 

a management plan that offered a clear strategy. The study determined that the elk 

carrying capacity could be anywhere between three hundred and five hundred, but 

suggested even more research was needed. In 1998, the elk population had risen to 

approximately five hundred animals. Neubacher and resource management dealt with this 

in a couple ways over the next few years, physically transporting a herd of roughly forty 

elk to a different location within the seashore and implementing fertility control, which 

Shook believed may have contributed to a flattening of the population growth curve since 

2000.98

The 1998 Tule Elk Management Plan and Environmental Assessment stated five 

objectives for managing the peninsula’s elk: 1) maintain “viable” elk herds on the Record No. 20290. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Point Reyes staff and University of California at Berkeley scientists conduct 

research and monitoring on tranquilized elk. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

246

peninsula, 2) use the least intrusive methods to regulate the population or altering the 

habitat, 3) establish a free-ranging elk herd by 2005, 4) continue monitoring and 

researching of elk, and 5) educate visitors and the local communities about the 

conservation biology underpinning the elk program.99 In 2000, following three years of 

research by UC Davis scientists, PRNS staff also began using dart rifles to administer an 

immunocontraceptive to elk cows. The next summer, the park hired a biotechnician to 

track and dart a total of fifty-one cows prior to the fall rut. The biggest difference in the 

1998 elk management plan objectives compared to earlier ones was the park’s aim to 

establish a free-ranging elk herd in the park. Neubacher and Shook took the milestone 

first step to that end in June 1999, when staff released twenty-seven elk from their 

temporary quarantine holding pen into the Phillip Burton Wilderness near Limantour 

Estero.100 By 2001, a herd of thirty elk, including six calves born that spring roamed 

freely, closely monitored by park staff by means of radio transmitter collars attached to 

each animal.101

Biological diversity on the Point Reyes Peninsula is represented not only by the large 

number of terrestrial plants and animals such as the elk mentioned above; the unique 

biological values are also demonstrated in the abundance of marine organisms and the 

pristine quality of the coastal ecosystems found on and around the peninsula’s shoreline. 

Soon after PRNS became operational, science organizations, observant PRNS staff, the 

state of California, and finally NPS administrators recognized the exceptional biological 

richness of the seashore’s ocean, tidal, dune, and estuarine ecosystems. In 1972, the 

California Department of Fish and Game, in collaboration with the NPS, acknowledged 

the importance of the Estero de Limantour and Point Reyes Headlands by designating 

them state marine reserves, in order to preserve them in “a natural condition and to 

protect the aquatic organisms and wildlife found thereon for public observation and 

scientific study.”102 More recently, a council of scientists from North and South America 

identified Drakes Estero a part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, 

indicating its regional importance in maintaining shorebird numbers and diversity. In 

1976, the outstanding natural qualities and scarcity of human developments found in 

Drakes and Limantour areas prompted the NPS and Congress to include them as potential 

additions to the park’s federally designated wilderness area. In 1999, the Department of 

the Interior authorized the inclusion of a portion of Estero de Limantour within the park’s 

Phillip Burton Wilderness, making it the only coastal wilderness in the state.103 The 

scientific and wilderness values of PRNS marine resources have thus steadily grown 

throughout PRNS history, attracting more researchers, greater management attention, and 

keener public interest as they did. By the start of the twenty-first century, it is safe to say 

that this complex of systems that constitute the coastal environment had become the most 

significant natural feature at PRNS. 

Serving as the marine counterpoint to the story of the elk at Point Reyes were northern 

elephant seals, who “reintroduced” themselves to the peninsula’s beaches at roughly the 

same time park administrators began reintroducing the elk. Northern elephant seals were 

once numerous along the California coast from Baja to Point Reyes, until they were 

hunted to near-extinction during the 1800s. By the 1880s, the species was reduced to a 

single breeding colony off the coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.104 As the seal 

population began to multiply, the animals spread gradually northward, returning to many 

of their former terrestrial breeding sites along the southern California coast in the 1950s. 

Point Reyes visitors and staff started reporting scattered sightings of elephant seals on the 

peninsula’s beaches in the 1970s. Elephant seals established a breeding colony, described 

earlier in this chapter, at Point Reyes headlands in the early 1980s. 

Coastal 

Systems 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

247

Fortunately for the park and for the seals, Sarah Allen was already observing harbor seals 

in the same areas. In the course of the next decade, Allen mobilized a cadre of dedicated 

volunteers to monitor the colony from the outset. The National Marine Fisheries Service 

and PRBO, in conjunction with the park, began tagging seals to obtain more data on their 

habits when they leave the colony. With the seals’ recent high reproductive success, it is 

likely the colony will continue to expand to other beaches within the national seashore. 

Elephant seals are another success story at Point Reyes, and they are perhaps the animal 

most emblematic of the national seashore and the coastal environment, living, as they do, 

on the boundary between earth and sea. 

When Allen began working at the park in 1976 at Double Point, she realized that there 

were many human-caused disturbances to animals, particularly from abalone divers. She 

first brought it to attention of Brown, the park’s research biologist. She remembered that 

he was “sympathetic,” but unable to get resource management to support such protective 

steps as closing the area during pupping season. Allen tried to work with the Marine 

Mammal Commission and the National Marine Fisheries Service to get the park to apply 

the MMPA. The park did not make an effort, initially, but Allen began to work with the 

park in 1978 to educate managers and staff about the law and the application of the law. 

Even though the legislative intent of the MMPA was to protect dolphins from getting 

snagged in nets and otherwise harmed by commercial fishing boats, the language of the 

act was very broad, enabling environmental activists and federal agencies to make greater 

protective steps.105

In the late 1980s, kayaks became very popular in the waters around the national seashore, 

with the unfortunate effect of disturbing birthing seals. The seals “haul out” at about nine 

different places, but Double Point and Drakes Estero, in particular, have extremely high 

concentrations of them. Allen and her volunteer crew of observers discovered that the 

approaching kayaks spooked seals into the water. If done repeatedly, this would decrease 

the chances of pup survival and drive seals to find another area to give birth. Allen and 

park scientist Gary Fellers were able to convince park administration to introduce a 

seasonal closure of Drakes Estero from March through June. Volunteer crews were then 

able to document the success of the closure in increasing survival rates.106 Over the past 

twenty-some years, Point Reyes invested considerably more staff time, budget, and 

emphasis into protection of marine wildlife and preservation of the marine environment. 

The park developed a long-term monitoring protocol for pinnipeds and began 

collaborating with the National Oceanic and Marine Fisheries to get better picture of 

marine resources in the quarter-mile offshore zone, which was still relatively unknown.107

 The healthy ocean ecosystem around Point Reyes Peninsula that provided home and 

nutrients for a bounty of marine species also supported the single remaining commercial 

seafood enterprise within the national seashore, the Johnson Oyster Company operation 

in Drakes Estero. In November 1960, Charles Johnson purchased five acres of Schooner 

Bay shoreline from the previous commercial operator, along with the rights to more than 

one thousand acres of sea bottom to run his oyster harvesting enterprise. In 1972, the 

NPS purchased Johnson’s land acreage and granted him a reservation of use and 

occupancy (ROP) that allowed him to continue his enterprise for a thirty-year period.108

In addition to the ROP, Johnson maintained the rights to harvest oysters from two seabottom parcels regulated by the California Fish and Game Department. For several 

decades the Park Service viewed the oyster farm as one of the seashore’s recreational 

attractions and as a benign human element of the tidal environment. The first PRNS 

Natural Resources Management Plan (1976) merely noted that the oyster farm was “a 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

248

For more details on the origins of oyster 

farming and the legal status of sea 

bottom allotments in Drakes Bay, see 

Chapter 4, pages 127-129. 

popular place where visitors can view a unique operation and then buy some oysters, 

bottled or on the shell.”109 Only one issue regarding Johnson’s business surfaced in the 

1984 revised NRMP; resource managers worried that estuarine pollution from dairy and 

cattle ranch runoff might eventually create a public health hazard for visitors eating the 

company’s oysters.110

Up until 1983, Point Reyes administrators addressed how to best manage and monitor 

Johnson Oyster Company operations; thereafter they had to determine whether they 

should or could allow oyster farming to continue with the boundaries of the national 

seashore. Federal regulations prior to 1983 dictated that fishing in national park units 

should proceed in accordance with the laws of the state within which a particular unit was 

located, unless some special regulations further restricted it. In July 1983, however, Title 

36 of the revised Code of Federal Regulations for the first time specifically prohibited 

commercial fishing in all NPS areas, unless a separate federal statute specified otherwise 

for a particular site.111

By the late 1980s and 1990s, a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of 

the coastal environment and complaints about plastic debris from the oyster operation 

spreading throughout Drakes Bay prompted researchers, California Fish and Game 

officials, and park resource managers to attempt to prohibit oystering activities that 

adversely impacted the estuarine ecosystem. A series of research studies published 

between 1990 and the time of this writing reported how the oyster enterprise could 

increase sedimentation rates, restrict the growth of eelgrass beds, introduce and support 

colonization by invasive marine species, reduce the native clam population, and displace 

other wildlife from the tidal flats.112 Pinniped researchers also pinpointed the oyster farm 

as another source of human disturbance to birthing seals, although the park was able to 

work successfully with the operator to reduce that particular problem.113 Park staff and 

administrators had a more difficult time getting Johnson to comply with other restrictions 

the NPS and California Fish and Game placed upon the company. By the late 1990s, 

Johnson Oyster Company faced a Marin 

County court-authorized compliance 

agreement to meet health and safety 

regulations, while also confronting a 

California Coastal Commission cease and 

desist order. In 2005, while this document 

was under review, Johnson Oyster Company sold its leasehold interest in the business 

and the rights to the sea bottom allotments to Drakes Bay Oyster Company. As of this 

writing many of the issues involving the oyster farm remained unresolved.114

Throughout the fairly brief history of PRNS, administrative and legislative decisions 

dealing with the cattle and dairy ranches have been among the most complex issues. The 

topic of ranching cuts across each decade of the park’s existence and is tied to virtually 

every aspect of seashore operations. Natural resource management, cultural resource 

management, maintenance, interpretation, administration, and community relations all 

involve making decisions about the ranches, and each division must take the ranches into 

account when drawing up their management plans. 

At the outset, a large segment of the ranches—the pastoral zone, or “hole in the 

doughnut”—were surrounded by, but excluded from, the national seashore’s boundaries. 

With escalating real estate prices, taxes, and development pressures, the NPS 

reconfigured its design of the seashore’s boundaries, and redefined the legal and 

Range 

Management 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

249

figurative position of the ranches within them. Although government purchase of the 

ranches legally integrated agricultural lands into the seashore, it remained unclear 

whether conveyance of reservations of use and occupancy to ranchers meant that the park 

intended to include commercial agriculture within the seashore's long-term management 

objectives, or whether it was simply a means of respecting the original landowners’ 

property rights. 

As the years passed, several factors weighed toward a new definition of Point Reyes 

ranch lands, a redefinition that eventually made them among the most valued resources 

found within PRNS. Three contextual shifts brought this about. First, as development 

pressures and economic realities whittled away the agricultural base elsewhere in west 

Marin County, local operators, county officials, and open-space advocates saw that the 

NPS arrangement with Point Reyes ranchers was, in effect, “saving” agriculture there. 

Second, PRNS administrators and locals alike began to realize that the so-called natural 

landscape of Point Reyes could not be meaningfully distinguished from its agricultural 

component, despite the Park Service’s early attempts to do so. Both were common 

elements of the peninsula environment. Third, the Park Service began, on an agency-wide 

basis, to define and identify rural agricultural landscapes as significant cultural resources 

within the NPS units where they occurred. As a result, PRNS administrators had to 

reprogram their plans and management objectives for the ranches. 

As for on-the-ground management of rangeland, the 1976 NRMP and the 1980 GMP 

called for more extensive research studies that would incorporate resource carrying 

capacity data of the peninsula’s range areas, and recommended a more comprehensive 

monitoring program for grazing practices. But the park took little action on these 

directives until the mid- to late 1980s.115 When the park did initiate more effective 

monitoring and systematic management planning, it took place only after the park had 

borne consistent pressure from the environmental community. As fisheries (in particular, 

salmon runs) and water quality became larger environmental issues, range management 

became tied up in questions about the impacts of cattle grazing on water quality, erosion, 

and loss of habitat. Researchers and staff began paying more attention to fisheries when 

the populations crashed during the 1970s. The California Department of Fish and Game 

closed the peninsula’s creeks to fishing. A furor erupted among conservation groups and 

many locals about Sansing’s lack of response to the problem, which most of those 

protesting viewed as caused by poor range practices. 

During the mid-1980s, the park began a program of erosion control, started fencing off 

riparian areas from cattle, and initiated work on a ranch management plan. The park 

established standards to determine grazing impacts, using as a measure the amount of 

residual dry matter (RDM) left on the soil to protect it. Resource staff began a long-term 

RDM monitoring program in 1989.116 But when the time came to release the range 

management plan, the title was changed, and they became range “guidelines” rather than 

management plan directives. The range management guidelines called on the PRNS 

range specialist to develop individual conservation ranch plans for all of the peninsula’s 

ranch operations. They established a cooperative program with the University of 

California at Davis to evaluate and monitor range resources based on range transects. 

They also called for monitoring RDM on the range by sampling transects at the close of 

the grazing season. Moreover, the guidelines specified the need for further erosion 

control.117
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

250

When the rancher’s reservations of use and occupancy began expiring in the 1990s, the 

park once again redefined the legal status of the ranchers, making them lessees of land 

they once owned. Although individual ranchers had the stability of long-term leases, the 

long-term future of ranching on the peninsula remained, in some respects, ill defined. 

When a ranch operator retires or dies, and no family member steps in to succeed them, 

the park will have decide whether and how to keep that dairy or cattle operation going. 

As for the future of ranching at Point Reyes, Neubacher believes that the staff, the 

agency, the local community, the agricultural preservation groups, and Marin County all 

have a vested interest in the continuance of these working landscapes. But both 

Neubacher and Gordon White, chief of cultural resource management, clearly indicated 

that the NPS was not interested in creating “boutique ranches” at Point Reyes. Neubacher 

explained that the term referred to an agricultural permit process wherein the high bidder 

obtains a lease to the property, “throws a few cows out there,” and calls it ranching. 

Although this arrangement might maintain some of the pastoral character of the 

landscape, it would not be an extension of the historic working landscape the NPS has 

helped maintain on the peninsula. Instead, the NPS would merely be subsidizing a 

“gentleman farmer’s” lifestyle on a very unique and valued piece of public property. An 

arrangement of this sort would not be an appropriate use of national seashore land under 

its current mission, and would not be in keeping with the original legislative mandate that 

gave legal status to the park. 

Despite its typical cool, foggy, coastal climate, Point Reyes experiences a short period in 

the fall when fire conditions become like those of inland California; that is, dry and 

windy. The combination of warm, dry weather and high fuel loads, after the grasses and 

brush have been curing all summer and through the fall, create optimal wildfire 

conditions. Warm east-wind conditions (known as Diablo winds or northeasterlies), 

which create the extreme fire conditions of quick drying and low humidity, are present 

for only four to five days in September or October. On average, Point Reyes forests 

experience a stand-replacing fire every forty to fifty years; most of these large blazes 

occur in the fall. This historical fire pattern resulted in the growth of some Point Reyes 

species, particularly Bishop pines, that are dependent upon fire for effective reproduction 

and growth. 

Point Reyes staff began experimenting with prescribed fire in 1972 with the 

establishment of test plots to study coastal forest fire dynamics. Plans to proceed with 

managed burns, however, were postponed pending the completion of the 1976 NRMP. 

Because of the understandable wariness among local fire officials and residents regarding 

prescribed burning, the park waited until it obtained the go-ahead from both the NPS 

Western Region Office and from the GGNRA/PRNS Citizens’ Advisory Commission.118

The park did allow human introduction of fire to the peninsula environment before then; 

cattle ranchers resumed their historical practice of burning sections of their range to 

check the growth of several unwanted plant species. As soon as the Point Reyes resource 

staff was able to allay the anxieties of local fire officials, with the support of the Marin 

County Department of Agriculture, several ranchers were allowed to resume this practice 

in 1975.119

Fire 

Management 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

251

Between 1962, when Congress 

authorized the national 

seashore, and 1994, there were 

only two fires of severalhundred-or-more acres at Point 

Reyes, including the 1976 

Kelham Beach fire. These 

burns were in areas along the 

coast, ignited by beach 

campfires left burning that 

spread onto the bluffs pushed 

by westerly winds. There was 

no substantial property loss or 

injuries from those fires. Thus 

local residents, and perhaps 

PRNS staff as well, were not 

overly concerned with the 

possibility that a peninsula fire 

could blaze hot and long 

enough to destroy property or 

threaten human lives.120

On October 3, 1995, an illegal 

campfire at a site in Tomales 

Bay State Park ignited nearby 

vegetation and began burning 

upslope. Forty- to fifty-mileper-hour easterly winds pushed 

the fire into surrounding brush and thick forest, flaring into a major conflagration, which 

eventually burned over 12,000 acres of the peninsula and destroyed forty-eight structures, 

primarily in the Inverness area. Over the course of five days, more than a thousand 

firefighters engaged in suppression activities, finally bringing the fire to the containment 

stage by the night of October 7. Portions of the fire continued to burn for several more 

weeks, although the park declared the blaze controlled on October 16. Almost all (11,598 

acres) of the 12,354 acres that burned were PRNS lands; the other 756 acres were private 

and state land.121 Fortunately, the residents of Paradise Ranch Estates, a small 

development that the fire devastated, had practiced disaster drills with their neighborhood 

association, helping them safely escape the fire.122 Many lost all of their possessions. 

During the fire, the park engaged in a few innovative strategies to help assess and 

suppress the fire’s effects. The Office of Emergency Services tracked the spread of the 

fire daily with helicopters carrying Global Positioning Systems (GPS) data. The park also 

used GPS to quickly document structures in the path of the blaze. All of this information 

was entered into a spatial database subsequently available for display, interpretation, and 

fire-fighting applications.123

The Mount Vision blaze and its aftermath prompted the park to redefine its fire 

management programs and produced numerous new research studies at Point Reyes. In 

order to better understand the causes, dynamics, and outcomes of the Vision fire, the park 

established the Burn Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) team. Before the fire was 

completely contained, the Department of the Interior had organized this multidisciplinary Record No. 20360,.NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Point Reyes ranger performs prescribed burn for park fire 

management. 

Mount Vision 

Fire 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

252

team made up of specialists in natural resources, cultural resources, structures, utilities, 

roads and trails. It included representatives of the NPS, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian 

Affairs. The team quickly launched into its primary objectives to assess the immediate 

effects of the fire, produce a report detailing the fire’s impact on peninsula resources, 

evaluate the fire suppression activities and their effect on park resources, and provide 

recommendations for anticipated mitigation and restoration efforts. The final BAER 

Report laid the foundation for the subsequent boom at Point Reyes in research, resource 

monitoring, and resource restoration, and for the creation of a dedicated fire management 

program at PRNS.124

New fire management strategies emerged in the wake of the Vision fire and BAER 

report. First, the park placed more emphasis on using fire as a management tool, in order 

to reduce fuel loading and vegetation hazards. Second, the park became involved in the 

Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Initiative Program, a category of fire that was 

burgeoning topic of scrutiny nationwide, of which the Vision fire was a classic example. 

From 2001 to 2003, the NPS/Fire Safe Marin Fire Protection Partnership provided 

roughly two million dollars in WUI program funds for fuel reduction work in PRNS and 

the north district of GGNRA.125 The WUI initiative also aimed to foster cooperative 

working relationships between the NPS and neighboring agencies and communities. As a 

result of the initiative and earlier collaborations, PRNS developed mutual aid agreements 

with the Marin County Fire Department, the Bolinas Fire Protection District, the 

Inverness Public Utility District, and the Nicasio Volunteer Fire Department.126 Although 

the NPS had complete jurisdiction of fires on PRNS lands, the mutual aid agreement 

effectively “deputizes” Marin County to begin fire suppression work if they are the first 

on the scene.127 In response to the Vision fire, the NPS and other federal organizations 

funded numerous new research studies and monitoring programs, with the burned area 

serving as their science laboratory. Furthermore, the park stepped up its fire education 

efforts in the local communities, where many of the residents were understandably wary 

about any fires, including NPS management fires, after witnessing the Vision fire. To this 

end, PRNS hired a fire education specialist, which is currently a permanent position split 

between PRNS and GGNRA.128

Finally, the Vision event and the increased funding that it spurred led to an administrative 

reorganization, six years later, of fire suppression and fire management operations at 

PRNS. Whereas fire suppression activities had been, for most of the park’s history, part 

of the visitor protection division, fire management became a separate division in 2002.129

Division staffing included an eight-person hand crew (for mechanical fuel reduction 

crew) and four-person fire engine and suppression crew. Adequate funding usually allows 

the crews to stay on-site. The devastating effects of the fire have kept PRNS committed 

to the policy of suppressing all unplanned ignitions, when possible using minimum 

impact suppression tactics (MIST). Between 1997 and 2002, the park has kept all 

wildland fires—which occurred an average of three times per year—to less than ten 

acres. 

For several years after the Vision fire, staff aimed to set more prescribed burns, which 

they were able to achieve when weather conditions were optimal. Despite the clearly 

identified need for managed burns within the national seashore, events outside of PRNS 

soon made prescribed burning much more difficult to accomplish. In 2000, strong winds 

blew up a prescribed burn in Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, causing the 

fire to roar onto forest service land and eventually into the city of Los Alamos. Public and 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

253

media flagellation of the park superintendent and the Park Service eventually created a 

government backlash against prescribed burning on federal lands. Several consecutive 

summers of television and print media hyperbole about western fires and fire policy 

further exacerbated the political fallout of the Bandelier blaze. Significant changes in 

NPS and federal fire policies soon followed, including a greater emphasis on using 

mechanical removal of down and diseased trees instead of managed burns to reduce the 

fuel loads of federal forestlands. 

Since the Bandelier fire, several factors made it more difficult to conduct prescribed 

burns at PRNS, although they were still part of the management plan. First, the 

administrative workload to complete even a small, low-complexity, prescribed burn 

increased dramatically due to stiffened federal regulations.130 Second, stringent air quality 

restrictions in Bay Area and Marin County laws left only a few windows of opportunity 

to operate a management fire. Roger Wong, chief fire management officer at Point Reyes, 

reported that it was preferable to burn at night—because of cooler temperatures and less 

wind—but regional air quality restrictions do not allow it. That typically allows fire staff 

only six hours to complete a burn during the daytime. Third, restrictions for nesting 

spotted owl and neotropical birds, red-legged frogs, and other endangered or threatened 

species further narrow the opportunities for prescribed burns. As a result, the park faced 

the decision to increase the amount of mechanical fuel reduction (for instance, thinning 

the expanding eucalyptus groves) they perform as an alternative to prescribed burns.131

Endangered and threatened species came into the forefront of natural resource policy 

during the 1970s, culminating in the passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 

1973. Although Congress passed endangered species legislation in 1966 and 1969, the 

amended statute of 1973 proved to be one of the strongest statutes of the environmental 

laws passed during this era. It signaled that preventing extinction and protecting 

biodiversity had become major goals of natural resource policy at the national level.132

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) 

identified as “threatened” those animals and plants whose populations had dropped so 

low that they appeared likely to become endangered, and identified as “endangered” 

those species that appeared in danger of becoming extinct. Called the “pit bull of 

environmental law,” the ESA established a set of regulations preventing the harvesting, 

possession, sale, and delivery of threatened and endangered species. It also required the 

appropriate agencies to develop a plan to recover animal populations listed as threatened 

or endangered. For the first time, natural resource managers in the public and private 

sectors had a federal mandate to give high priority to endangered species and their habitat 

requirements.133

The ESA had far-reaching consequences for the management of natural resources at 

PNRS. Two distinct marine provinces—the Oregonian and Californian—overlap at the 

seashore, resulting in a diversity of species. Also, its location on a peninsula created by a 

fault line has resulted in many rare and endemic species. By 1999, the seashore included 

twenty-three federally listed plant species and forty-seven listed animals, such as the 

brown pelican, northern spotted owl, and western snowy plover. Management of these 

various species affected a wide range of activities, including ranching, sport and 

commercial fishing, and visitor use.134 For several of these species, Point Reyes contains 

the last remaining healthy and dense populations, stimulating a tremendous amount of 

effort and research directed toward their protection and preservation. Species such as the 

western snowy plover required immediate intervention. The Park Service constructed 

enclosures around nests, for example, to protect the eggs and chicks from human 

Endangered 

and 

Threatened 

Species 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

254

activities as well as from predators. Other species, such as listed plants associated with 

grazed lands, required study to determine the best management actions to ensure their 

survival.135

Pacific salmon have migrated from the ocean to the coastal streams of California for 

thousands of years. Every winter at Point Reyes, adult coho salmon and steelhead trout 

return to the streams of their birth to spawn. During the last half of the twentieth century, 

however, human activities and development greatly reduced coho and steelhead 

populations throughout northern California, prompting concern among scientists and 

environmentalists. The two species are federally protected under the ESA. Dams and 

culverts restricted access to spawning areas, while logging, road construction, and 

agricultural practices clogged streams and rivers with sedimentation, choking spawning 

gravels with silt and sand and suffocating eggs.136 Coho and steelhead were species of 

high public interest—and by the 1970s, the Park Service had begun to consider the 

possibility of restoring salmon habitat on the peninsula. 

The 1976 “Natural Resources Management Plan and Environmental Assessment” was the 

first administrative document to address this issue. The NRMP directed resource 

managers to “attempt” habitat restoration by removing earthen dams that ranchers built 

for freshwater impoundment ponds, which had significantly disrupted salmon spawning 

runs.137 Specific streams targeted for return to free-flowing status included Coast, Bear 

Valley, Muddy Hollow, Olema, and Pine creeks. Dam removal, however, would not 

include those streams and impoundment dams “essential to present dairy or beef ranching 

operations.”138 The addition of these restrictions immediately handcuffed the potential for 

significant restoration, and likely reflected Sansing’s alliances with Point Reyes ranchers. 

In fact, by the end of the decade Sansing was fielding increasing criticism from 

environmental groups for his perceived “foot-dragging” on improving stream quality and 

restoration of salmon stocks. His annual reports indicated no dam removal activity for the 

five years following the adoption of the NRMP. Salmon habitat remained a low priority 

Habitat and 

Species 

Restoration 

COHO SALMON AND STEELHEAD TROUT

Salmon are anadromous fish that hatch in freshwater, 

swim to the ocean, and then return as adults to freshwater to 

spawn. The Greek term “anadromous,” which means 

“running upward,” refers to this migratory behavior. Salmon 

start out as pea-sized eggs buried in the gravel of cold, swiftly 

running water. After hatching, juvenile salmon undergo 

smoltification – a process that enables them to adapt to 

saltwater. As they move downriver, smolts imprint on the 

sequence of odors they encounter. After maturing in the 

ocean, they find their way back to the waters of their birth, 

where they spawn, by following the reverse sequence. Once 

they enter freshwater, they do not feed extensively. Salmon 

generally die after spawning, while steelhead can live to repeat 

the spawning cycle. 

Every winter at Point Reyes, adult coho salmon and steelhead – an anadromous rainbow trout – return to 

the streams of their birth to spawn. During the last half of the twentieth century, however, human activities and 

development greatly reduced runs of coho and steelhead throughout northern California, prompting concern among 

scientists and environmentalists. In 1996 and 1997, populations of coho and steelhead in northern California were 

listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, increasing the urgency of the National Park Service's efforts 

to restore salmon habitat. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

255

in the 1980s. The 1985 “Statement for Management” did not list salmon habitat as a 

management objective for natural resources, although that year Sansing reported that 

"public criticism" and "citizen interest" had led to financing a sedimentation and erosion 

control study of Olema Creek.139

During the 1990s, the restoration of fisheries habitat came into prominence at Point 

Reyes as the National Marine Fisheries Service petitioned to list runs of coho and 

steelhead all along the Pacific Coast under the ESA. The 1994 NRMP identified 

restoration of salmon and steelhead as a top-priority natural resource project.140 The plan 

targeted a habitat assessment of historic spawning streams as the recommended action. 

Subsequently, the Park Service, in coordination with the California Department of Fish 

and Game and local volunteers, implemented a monitoring program to evaluate 

restoration and the possibility of supplemental stocking.141 In 1996 and 1997, coho and 

steelhead populations in northern California were listed as endangered under the ESA, 

prompting additional funding for restoration efforts.142 The park launched the five-year 

Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout Restoration Program (CSRP) in 1996, targeting 

Lagunitas Creek, Olema Creek, Redwood Creek, and Pine Gulch Creek watersheds for 

habitat restoration and enhancement.143 By 2002, resource staff had completed numerous 

stream and watershed restoration projects to benefit fish and other rare and sensitive 

aquatic species. A new fish-passage facility constructed on the John West Fork tributary 

of Olema Creek became the first of the project elements completed in 1999. Monitoring 

at the site over the next two years showed that the proportion of adult salmon passing 

through an old culvert there increased from the pre-restoration passage rate of 14 percent 

to a post-restoration rate of 75 percent.144 Fish-passage projects were also underway on 

Cheda Creek and Muddy Hollow Creek, while staff and volunteers continued their 

monitoring of spawning streams. 

Entering the twenty-first century, the definition of the national seashore has shifted once 

more. Since 1995, superintendent Neubacher has devoted an increased level of 

administrative emphasis, funding, and personnel resources toward scientific research and 

resource management, preservation of coastal ecosystems, monitoring, restoration, and 

protection of endangered species and their habitat, managing nonnative species and other 

external biological threats to the peninsula’s environment, and understanding and 

managing the impact of coastal fire regimes. Moreover, the Park Service-wide Natural 

Resource Challenge program, which Neubacher co-chaired, granted $60-80 million for 

research and monitoring programs in all the parks. These achievements have helped 

PRNS “embrace science” as the heart of its mission. In fact, the park’s science, natural 

resource management, and research programs have such variety, breadth, and complexity 

that they are beyond the scope of a single chapter, as attempted here. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER SEVEN

1

 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1962). 2

 James A. Pritchard, Preserving Yellowstone’s Natural Conditions: Science and the Perception of 

Nature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), xix. 3

 Robert (Bob) Barbee, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, May 24, 2005, audiotape recording, 

HRA Administrative History Project Files (hereafter HRA Files), Point Reyes National Seashore 

Archives (hereafter PRA). 

4

 NPS, “Master Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore, California, Developed Area Narrative to 

Accompany Drawing No. NS-PR-3025-A, Limantour,” February 1965, File D1815 Suggestions 

Conclusion 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

256

for Master Plan 1965–70, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Correspondence Files, RG 79 

(hereafter PORE Files), National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Region, San 

Bruno, California (hereafter NARA-SB), 2a. 

5

 Barbee, interview. 

6

 Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks (New Haven, Conn.: Yale 

University Press, 1997). 

7

 Barbee, interview. 

8

 Barbee, interview. 

9

 “Memorandum of Understanding Between the State of California, Department of Fish and Game 

and the National Park Service Relating to Wildlife Management in the Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” signed September 3, 1969, Folder A44, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, 

NARA-SB. 

10 “Memorandum of Understanding,” September 3, 1969. 

11 “Memorandum of Understanding,” September 3, 1969. 

12 “Memorandum of Understanding,” September 3, 1969. 

13 Sansing to Joseph Rumburg, Director, Western Region, February 19, 1971, Memorandum on 

annual meeting with California Department of Fish and Game (February 16, 1971), File A44, 

Cooperative Agreements–California Fish and Game, Box 1, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, 

NARA-SB. 

14 PRNS, “Point Reyes National Seashore Management Objectives,” prepared by Edward J. Kurtz, 

February 1970, File D18 Planning Program and Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE 

Files, NARA-SB, 5. 

15 National Park Service, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” May 1972, File 

A5427 Inspection for Appraisals, Investigations, Studies, Box 1, Accession 78-0001, PORE Files, 

NARA-SB, 3. 

16 NPS, “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 64. 

17 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1979,” shelved materials, Pacific West Regional 

Office, Oakland, California (PWRO), 5. 

18 NPS, “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 65. 

19 NPS, “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 65. 

20 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report,” 1972, 5. 

21 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report,” 1974, n.p. 

22 Unfortunately, district ranger Brown’s first name did not show up in any of the documents 

searched for this project. 

23 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report,” 1975, n.p. 

24 PRNS, “Natural Resources Management Plan and Environmental Assessment, Point Reyes 

National Seashore,” June 1976, PWRO. 

25 Frank E. Sylvester, Acting Regional Director, to Sansing, August 21, 1975, Memorandum, file 

D4215 A14 Special Studies–Point Reyes, Park Reference and Research Collection, PRA. 

26 Sylvester to Sansing, August 21, 1975, 1–2. 

27 National Park Service, Citizen’s Advisory Commission, “Subcommittee Report: Point Reyes 

National Seashore Management Plan,” March 6, 1976, “Natural Resources Management Plan and 

Environmental Assessment, Point Reyes National Seashore,” June 1976, PWRO, 92. 

28 Citizen’s Advisory Commission, “Subcommittee Report: Point Reyes National Seashore 

Management Plan,” 93. 

29 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 3–10. 

30 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, ii. 

31 William Shook, interview by Paul Sadin, April 30, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

32 National Park Service, “General Management Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore, California” 

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1980), 1. 

33 “General Management Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1980, 2. 34 PRNS, “Northern Elephant Seal Management Plan for Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1995, 

prepared by Sarah G. Allen, shelved materials, PRA. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

257

35 Congress, Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, Public Law 522, 92d

 Congress, 2d sess., 

October 21, 1972. 

36 Sarah Allen et al., “Colonization By Northern Elephant Seals of the Point Reyes Peninsula, 

California,” Marine Mammal Science 5 (July 1989): 298–302. 37 “Northern Elephant Seal Management Plan,” 1995, 6. Sansing used the term “weener” in his 

annual reports. 

38 “Northern Elephant Seal Management Plan,” 1995, 6. 

39 Sarah Allen, comments on Paul Sadin, “Managing a Land in Motion: An Administrative History 

of Point Reyes National Seashore,” draft, received September 7, 2006 (hereafter Allen, 

comments). 

40 “Northern Elephant Seal Management Plan,” 1995, 6. 

41 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1980,” 4. 

42 Shook, interview. 

43 Shook, interview. 

44 Shook, interview. 

45 William Pierce, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, June 8, 2005, audiotape recording, HRA 

Files, PRA. At this writing, Pierce is superintendent of Redwood National Park. 

46 Shook, interview. 

47 Shook, interview. 

48 National Park Service, “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1994, 

PRA Library, 2:3. 

49 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1994, 2:1. 

50 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1994, 3:17. 

51 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1994, 3:3. 

52 Ben Thompson, Chief Division of Resource Planning, to Director Wirth, July 24, 1961, General 

Correspondence–1961 file, Box 9, Office Files of Conrad L. Wirth, RG 79, National Archives and 

Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NARA-II). Then-director Conrad L. 

Wirth proposed the enlarged pastoral zone as a political strategy when the authorizing bill’s future 

passage was at stake. 

53 Wirth to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall, July 28, 1961, Parks & Sites Files, CCF 

1959–1963, Accession 666A140, RG 48 Records of the Secretary of the Interior, NARA-II. 

54 National Park Service, “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1999, 

PRA Library. 

55 National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee on 

Research in the National Parks, The Robbins Report: Research in the National Parks, prepared by 

W. J. Robbins, et al., August 1, 1963, abstract, 

http//www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/robbins/robbins3.htm (accessed April 2005), 2. 56 Robbins Report, 2. 57 Point Reyes National Seashore (hereafter PRNS), “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 

File A5427 Inspection for Appraisals, Investigations, Studies, Box 1, Accession 78-0001, PORE 

Files, NARA-SB, 64. 

58 NPS, “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 64. 

59 NPS, “Management Consultation Report,” 1974, 64. 

60 Allen, comments. 

61 Gary Fellers, interview by Paul Sadin, August 13, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

62 “Gary M. Fellers – History at Point Reyes,” biographical sketch provided to the Paul Sadin by 

Sarah Allen, PRNS, received September 7, 2006. 

63 Allen, comments. 

64 Sarah Allen, interview by Paul Sadin, August 13, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

65 Allen, interview. 

66 National Parks Conservation Association, Point Reyes National Seashore: A Resource 

Assessment (Fort Collins, Colo.: National Parks Conservation Association, 2002), 21. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

258

67 National Park Service, “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1999, 

PRA Library, 33. 

68 Anna Coxe Toogood, “Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes 

National Seashore,” 2 vols., Historic Resource Study, Historic Preservation Branch, Pacific 

Northwest/Western Team, Denver Service Center, National Park Service, Department of the 

Interior, 1980, 2: 5–6. 

69 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1973,” 6. 

70 Laurence C. Binford, Chair, Board of Directors, Point Reyes Bird Observatory, to Sansing, May 

29, 1975, reproduced in “Natural Resources Management Plan and Environmental Assessment, 

Point Reyes National Seashore,” June 1976, 99. 

71 Binford to Sansing, May 29, 1975; total number of nonnative deer from ”Natural Resources 

Management Plan,” 1976. 

72 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 54. 

73 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 54. 

74 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 54. 

75 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 45. 

76 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p.. 

77 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” n.p. 

78 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” 19. 

79 Pierce, interview. 

80 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1983,” 2. 

81 Wright, Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks, 93. 82 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1999, 39. PRNS released a new 

nonnative deer management plan as the author prepared the final draft of this study; PRNS, “Point 

Reyes National Seashore Non-Native Deer Management Plan: Protecting the Seashore’s Native 

Ecosystems,” Final Environmental Impact Statement (Point Reyes: NPS/PRNS, July 2006), 1-4. 

83 R. Gerald Wright, Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks (Urbana: 

University of Chicago Press, 1992), 103. 

84 Wright, Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks, 93. 85 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 5. 

86 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1979,” 12. 

87 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1988,” n.p. 

88 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1989,” 8. 

89 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1999, 51–54. 

90 PRNS, Point Reyes National Seashore 2002 Year in Review: A Natural Sanctuary, A Human 

Haven, annual report (Point Reyes Station: NPS/Point Reyes National Seashore, 2002), 11. 

91 See, among others, Wright, Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks, 69–90; 

James A. Pritchard, Preserving Yellowstone’s Natural Conditions: Science and the Perception of 

Nature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), chap. 3; and Sellars, Preserving Nature in 

the National Parks, 91–119, 246–49. 

92 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1989,” 2. 

93 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 135. 

94 PRNS, “Tule Elk Program, Point Reyes National Seashore 1999 Annual Report,” Tule Elk 

Files, Central Classified Files, Administration Building (hereafter CCF), PRNS, 1. 

95 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 23. 

96 Allen, interview. 

97 Shook, interview. 

98 Shook, interview. 

99 NPS, “Point Reyes National Seashore Tule Elk Management Plan and Environmental 

Assessment,” 1998, Tule Elk File, CCF, PRNS. 

100 “PRNS Resources Management Plan,” 1999, 35–36. 101 PRNS, Point Reyes National Seashore 2001 Year in Review, annual report, 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/home_mngmntdocs_archives_yearinreview2001.pdf (accessed October 

2003), 10–11. 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches

259

102 PRNS, “Statement for Management, Point Reyes National Seashore,” revised 1985, shelved 

materials, PRA Library, 12. 

103 Department of the Interior, “Notice of Designation of Potential Wilderness as Wilderness, 

Point Reyes National Seashore,” 64 FR 63057, November 17, 1999. 104 “Northern Elephant Seal Management Plan,” 1995, 5, 105 Allen, interview. 106 Allen, interview. 107 Allen, interview. 108 NPS, “Tracts Conveyed Between 01/01/1950 and 5/20/2003 for Point Reyes NS,” computer 

table, run date April 20, 2003, 1, File L1425 Land Acquisition Priority List and LWC Fund Calls, 

Land Files, CCF, PRNS. 

109 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 30. 110 PRNS, “Natural Resource Management Program, 1984 Revision,” shelved materials, Park 

Files, History Program Collection, PWRO Archives, 17. 111 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, 36 CFR 2.13, revised July 1, 1982 (Washington D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1982), and 36 CFR 2.3, revised July 1, 1983 (Washington D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1983). 

112 See, for instance, Anima Roberto J., “Pollution Studies of Drakes Estero, and Abbotts Lagoon, 

Point Reyes National Seashore,” U.S. Geologic Survey report, 1990. PRNS, “Drakes Estero: A 

Sheltered Wilderness Estuary,” draft report, (Point Reyes: PRNS, 2007), 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/parkmgmt/planning_drakesestero.htm (accessed September 24, 2007), 

10-16. 

113 Allen, S. G., J. F. Penniman and D. G. Ainley, “Movements and Activity Patterns of Harbor 

Seals at Drakes Estero Population, California, 1986-87,” Final Report to the U. S. Department of 

Commerce, Sanctuary Programs Office, 1987. 

114 PRNS, “Briefing Statement: Johnson Oyster Company Operations in Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” prepared for Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, January 29, 1996, File A2623 

Situation Reports/Briefing Statements, CCF, PRNS; PRNS, “Drakes Estero: A Sheltered 

Wilderness Estuary,” 2-4. 

115 “General Management Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore, California,” 1980, 1. 116 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1989,” 9. 117 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1999, 42–45. 118 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1989,” n.p. 

119 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 120 Wong, interview. 121 National Park Service, “Final Fire Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement: 

Point Reyes National Seashore, North District of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Marin 

County, California, 2004,” http://www.nps.gov/pore/pgf/home_mngmntdocs/fmp.2004/ch3txt.pdf, 

88; and Roger Wong, interview by Paul Sadin, August 12, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

122 Lori Eppstein, “How Community Responded to Inverness Ridge Fire,” Point Reyes Light, 

October 5, 1995, online, http://www.ptreyeslight.com/oldstories/firecommunity105.html (accessed 

June 15, 2005), n.p. 

123 Allen, comments. 124 Sarah Allen and William Shook, “Introduction,” in Department of the Interior, “Burn Area 

Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) Report,” 1995, 9-11, 

125 “Final Fire Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement,” viii. 126 Wong, interview. 127 “Final Fire Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement,” xxv. 128 “Final Fire Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement,” viii. 

129 Wong, interview. 130 Wong, interview. 131 Wong, interview 
Administering a Storehouse of Riches 

260

132 Howard P. Brokaw, ed., Wildlife and America: Contributions to an Understanding of American 

Wildlife and its Conservation (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1978); and Robert Paehlke, ed. 

Conservation and Environmentalism: An Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (n.p.: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1995). 133 Brokaw, ed., Wildlife and America; and Paehlke, ed. Conservation and Environmentalism. 134 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1999, 2. 135 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1999, 30–31. 136 Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Muir Woods 

National Monument, Coho Salmon and Steelhead Trout Restoration Project, “The Plight of the 

Salmon,” National Park Service, 1998, online edition 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/curriculum_guides/download/coho/pre_coho_newspaper.pdf (accessed 

June 15, 2005). 

137 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 9. 138 “Natural Resources Management Plan,” 1976, 9. 

139 “Statement for Management: Point Reyes National Seashore/California,” Revised June 1985, p. 

11; and PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1985,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

140 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” September 1994, 4–1. 141 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” September 1994, 4–20, 4–21. 142 “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” December 1999, 51. 143 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1998,” File A2621, CCF, PRNS, 9 144 PRNS, Point Reyes National Seashore 2001 Year in Review, 9. 
261

CHAPTER EIGHT
262
263

CHAPTER EIGHT

EXPLORING AND TELLING THE POINT REYES STORY:

INTERPRETATION AND EDUCATION FOR PARK VISITORS AND THE 

LOCAL COMMUNITY

Those in the regional office who saw his [horse handler’s] job sheet now realize that this 

horse business has more to it than might be first thought. 

. . . John L. Sansing 

nterpretation at PRNS over the past forty years has been distinguished by development of 

a strong environmental educational program, reliance on historical demonstration 

programs, and creation of well-regarded visitor centers, along with an absence of such 

“traditional” national park interpretive activities as ranger-led campfire talks and guided 

walks. These characteristics reflect two important elements of the national seashore’s 

development: time and place. First, the period during which interpretation got off the 

ground at Point Reyes—the 1960s and early 1970s—marked an ebb in Park Service 

interpretative planning and programming nationwide. Second, the peninsula’s location 

near a major metropolis and immediately adjacent to a number of neighboring towns 

created visitor-use patterns, namely day-use and weekend visitation, that lent themselves 

more to certain interpretive activities and less so to others. As PRNS managers 

recognized the significance of these two variables, they set program goals and planned 

the park’s interpretative operations accordingly. 

Whereas the automobile campgrounds of western parks were the usual locations for 

campfire talks and the starting point for ranger-led walks, the NPS built no auto 

campgrounds at PRNS because the day-trip pattern of visitation and availability of 

accommodations in the nearby towns of West Marin made them unnecessary. Early in the 

interpretive program’s history, NPS officials recognized that stationary exhibits 

(including living history demonstrations), information booklets, and self-guiding trails 

would be the types of services most likely to reach the majority of seashore visitors.1

 As a 

result, programs focused on specific sites that lent themselves to such activities, 

particularly Point Reyes Lighthouse, Kule Loklo, Bear Valley Visitor Center, and 

Morgan Horse Farm. By the same token, the education program at PRNS differed from 

typical operations in other parks. In this case, proximity to the Bay Area urban core and 

suburban and farm towns of Marin County quickly boosted the size and extent of 

educational activities at the national seashore. 

INITIAL INTERPRETIVE EFFORTS

Although interpretive operations were not in full swing until the Division of 

Interpretation and Resource Management (I&RM) was split into separate divisions in 

1971, the park began offering interpretive services in the mid-1960s. The nascent 

interpretive program emphasized providing visitor information, orientation, and selfguided exhibits. Early park staff operated the first visitor-information center in a 

converted ranch building at Bear Valley and opened a small information center at Drakes 

Beach. They also erected wayside interpretive displays in the Bear Valley area, including 

the short “Earthquake Trail” where visitors could use self-guided media (waysides or 

guide booklets) to learn about the geology of the San Andreas Fault. After the seashore 

I 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

264

established four walk-in campgrounds, staff experimented with providing campfire talks 

and other scheduled naturalist programs, but had little success attracting enough visitors 

to justify making it part of the regular program schedule. Similar interpretive programs 

given at Olema Ranch Campground (outside the park boundary) and Samuel P. Taylor 

State Park, however, drew much bigger audiences.2

In 1971, a park maintenance crew moved a house from Limantour Spit to Bear Valley 

and converted it into a new, larger visitor information center. Without NPS funds for new 

exhibits in the building, staff and volunteers crafted their own interpretive displays.3

Interpreters and visitor protection rangers of the I&RM division performed information 

desk duties that included orienting visitors, answering telephone calls, making 

reservations for the walk-in camps, and scheduling school-group visits. Arranging 

overnight camp reservations became so time consuming that the park created an 

“information reception” position in the early 1970s to handle this task.4

Development of the interpretive program was hamstrung by several factors: the financial 

emphasis on land acquisition, the poor quality and lack of organizational direction for 

interpretation throughout the national park system, and the NPS recreation area 

management guidelines that designated public recreation as the primary focus for 

interpretation at PRNS. Moreover, since its inception, general ranger staff at most parks 

looked at the NPS naturalist/interpreter job as a lower-status position. 

During the 1960s, when protection division rangers were seeking a clearer identity for 

themselves in the organization, the agency paid even less attention to interpretation. NPS 

reorganization further devalued the interpreter position, by changing their employment 

status to the GS-026 level, the park technician series. Only division chiefs and assistant 

chiefs remained on the former GS-025 scale, but their positions were primarily 

administrative. The job titles of ranger-naturalist and park interpretive ranger were 

removed from the NPS employment lexicon. Technician positions did not require 

applicants to hold a college degree and could not advance beyond the GS-09 level, and 

the professionalism and quality of the average NPS interpreter diminished accordingly. 

Those who did develop significant skills and expertise had little hope of climbing the 

organizational ladder.5

The NPS decision to include national seashores within the recreation area category 

likewise hampered the maturation of interpretive programming at Point Reyes. The 1968 

NPS administrative policy manual outlined the interpretive program’s objective as being 

“to inform visitors of recreational opportunities available, provide them a better 

understanding of, and appreciation for, the natural environment and assist them in their 

quest for a quality outdoor recreational experience.”6

 Suggested activities included 

“programs of instruction in water safety for boaters, swimmers, scuba divers, etc.”7

Although few NPS division managers believed they needed to apply these blue book 

policies across the board, they certainly influenced interpretive planning at PRNS. 

In his 1970 “Point Reyes National Seashore Management Objectives,” Superintendent 

Edward J. Kurtz’s primary objective for PRNS interpretation mirrored those emphasized 

in the 1968 policy guidebook: namely, “Provide information on recreational pursuits such 

as swimming, beachcombing, clamming, birdwatching, etc. in a manner that lends to 

greater visitor enjoyment of these activities.”8

 While the main thrust for interpreters was 

to emphasize the seashore’s many recreational opportunities, interpretive staff members 

were also directed to “take advantage of the important natural and historical resources 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

265

where appropriate.” Perhaps ironically, this objective called for programs that would help 

visitors “discover the many features of the area that truly make it unique.”9

 It seems odd 

that Kurtz and the NPS regional officers who approved the plan did not see the 

contradiction: the elements that made PRNS truly unique were not its recreational 

resources but its geologic story, life-rich coastal zone, and its array of diverse biological 

systems and cultural resources. 

Within these constraints, the division’s first comprehensive planning document, the 1973 

“Interpretive Prospectus, Point Reyes National Seashore,” offered a limited vision for the 

future of interpretation at Point Reyes. Based on studies William (Bill) Germeraad 

performed in fall 1972 and drafted by a planning team in spring 1973, the planning 

document was in keeping with NPS guidelines for interpretive operations management. 

The main objective was to promote beach recreation that was safe for visitors and which 

would have the fewest impacts on park resources. Visitor orientation and information 

services were also highlighted. The prospectus laid out the following objectives for 

interpretive programming at PRNS: 

While a great number of visitors to Point Reyes will be avidly interested 

in history and natural history, the predominant single use will continue to 

be beach-oriented recreation. Interpretation must be kept relevant to 

these visitors. The program will encourage them to extend their 

recreational pursuits into a broader range of activities. At the same time, 

it should instill in them an awareness of their impact on the recreation 

resource.10

The document’s authors apparently confused visitors’ usage preferences with their 

desires for certain interpretive activities. In other words, even though many visitors may 

have reported they came to the park to hike or beachcomb, hiking and beachcombing 

might not have been their first preference in an interpretive program. Hikers may have 

preferred information about the types and habits of animals they might encounter, while 

beachcombers may have been inclined to learn more about the interconnections among 

the multitude of organisms that inhabited the tidal zone. 

In addition to showing little understanding of the park’s audience, the 1972 planning 

document also revealed low expectations for personal interpretive programming, perhaps 

reflecting administrators’ lack of confidence in the interpretive line staff’s ability to 

deliver quality programs. Instead, the prospectus emphasized the need to develop and 

deliver what are now called nonpersonal services. Of the six specific program proposals 

described in the document, three indirect services were given highest priority: 1) the 

increased use of wayside exhibits, 2) the development of static interpretive “shelters” at 

high-use recreation areas, and 3) the use of radio broadcasts to relay up-to-date visitor 

information to motorists. Three lower-priority proposals aimed to improve the two 

information centers, increase park publications, and augment the new “living history” 

demonstration programs. Only one of the six recommendations, the use of interpretive 

demonstrations, was a direct-service activity. 

Interpretive planners called for expanding or establishing several demonstration sites, 

which included the new Morgan Horse Farm, a working (modern) dairy operation, a 

historic dairy demonstration site, and an oyster farm demonstration. For these programs 

to function effectively, they would rely primarily on residents (ranchers and employees of 

the Johnson Oyster Company) and volunteers at the heart of the program, instead of 

Interpretive 

Planning 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

266

interpretive rangers. Only one proposed program—water recreation demonstrations at 

Tomales Bay—would rely primarily on the park’s interpretive employees. The Tomales 

Bay program would include regular canoe, kayak, and sailing lessons, along with classes 

on water safety, lifeguard skills, and scuba diving.11 In his comments on the draft 

prospectus, Superintendent John L. Sansing added, almost as an afterthought, that the 

Tomales Bay program might be hampered by the fact that great white sharks frequented 

the area.12 

During the public hearings on the 1972 GMP, a number of organizations and individuals 

called for a different approach to interpretative activities than the ones the park planning 

team announced. The Sierra Club’s GMP proposal, for example, called for interpretive 

and educational programs at PRNS that would enhance each visitor’s “awareness of 

[their] surroundings” in the natural environment.13 Longtime PRNS advocate Katy Miller 

Johnson urged the planning team to make “teaching about our habitat” the prime 

objective of interpretation, because she believed the Park Service “uniquely fitted” for 

this type of teaching.14 

In contrast to interpretative programming for general park visitors, the national seashore’s 

education program got off to a quick start. Whereas the NPS provided little support to 

interpretive services overall in the 1960s, the agency during that time boosted their 

commitment and resources for park-based environmental education programs linked to 

local school districts. NPS officials and the Educational Consulting Service began 

developing curriculum materials in 1968 for teachers to use in their classrooms and 

during visits to national park sites. The result was the National Environmental Education 

Development (NEED) curriculum, which aimed to give elementary-school teachers tools 

to create greater environmental awareness in students.15 NEED programs applied 

particular themes or “strands” of environmental teaching, including several strands—

interrelation and interdependence, continuity and change, adaptation and evolution—

twenty-first century interpretive rangers would recognize as commonly used themes in 

their programs.16 Indeed, one long-term impact of the NEED program was a gradual 

incorporation of environmental education themes and techniques into general 

interpretative programming throughout the national park system.17

In conjunction with the NEED curriculum, national parks created environmental study 

areas (ESAs) for day visits or overnight camps, to enhance students’ understanding of the 

environment. PRNS became one of sixty-three NPS units to establish an ESA prior to 

1970.18 Two designated ESAs at Point Reyes utilized the Bear Valley and Chimney Rock 

trails, which began to attract school groups from Marin County and the larger Bay Area. 

Park technician Doris Omundson, who helped run the start-up ESA program, attested to 

the immediate popularity of the concept in area school districts. She reported in April 

1970 that she found it difficult to keep up with the demand for the student workbooks and 

teaching manuals for the Bear Valley ESA. Approximately 650 students, in groups 

ranging from 25 to 150 in size, had participated in the program during the first three 

months of the year.19 By the end of the school year in June, more than three thousand 

schoolchildren had traveled to Point Reyes to use the ESA.20 The park revised the Bear 

Valley ESA booklets the following school year and opened the park’s second program 

site, the Chimney Rock Trail ESA.21 With the assistance of the Point Reyes Natural 

History Association, Germeraad began in 1971 planning to expand the division’s 

education program by establishing an overnight Point Reyes NEED camp at Laguna 

Ranch. The park’s creation of the overnight camp and successful expansion of the 

educational program are discussed later in this chapter. 

NEED and 

Education 

Programs at 

Point Reyes 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

267

“LIVING HISTORY”

Amid the lackluster quality of and subsequent lack of enthusiasm for NPS person-toperson interpretation programs during the 1960s, the Park Service seized onto “living 

history” programming as a cure-all for the system-wide malaise in interpretive 

operations. Regional office and Point Reyes administrators eventually established three 

such demonstration sites at the national seashore: the Morgan Horse Farm, the blacksmith 

shop in Bear Valley, and the Kule Loklo Coast Miwok Village. Several other 

demonstration programs were considered but rejected over the next three decades. 

In May 1970, the Morgan Horse Farm living exhibit went into operation at PRNS with 

two loaned mares and one donated stallion on sixty acres of pasture in Bear Valley.22 An 

American breed noted for nimbleness and calm temperament, Morgan horses made 

excellent mounts for NPS patrol rangers. The park’s goals for the Morgan Horse Farm 

included breeding and training horses, which could be kept for patrol duty at Point Reyes 

or sent off for ranger use at other national park sites. The horse farm exhibit, according to 

the 1972 park brochure on the subject, also gave visitors “a chance to see and relive part 

of their national heritage,” and to experience the continuing U.S. government’s 

“tradition” of breeding and using Morgan horses.”23 In 1969, the NPS had established the 

model for this type of demonstration site: the Morgan Horse Farm at George Washington 

Birthplace National Monument, one of several “living farms” within the national park 

system. But there was a major difference between the George Washington Birthplace 

program and the fledgling Morgan Farm at Point Reyes. Raising horses, including Record No. 19860. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Students arrive at NEED camp to attend the environmental education program. 

Morgan 

Horse Farm 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

268

Morgans, was part of the historic fabric of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, whereas 

horse breeding—though undoubtedly an element of ranch life brought to Point Reyes by 

the Shafter family, which was interested in horse breeding—was not a historically 

significant activity at Point Reyes. 

Despite the success of the George Washington Morgan Horse Farm, NPS staff in the 

Western Regional Office clearly doubted whether PRNS could establish a similarly 

successful horse farm, which would have to build upon a combination of private 

organizations, local volunteers, and NPS contributions. Sansing reported, however, the 

hiring of horse handler Bill Streers had convinced naysayers in the regional office “that 

this horse business has more to it than might be first thought.”24 Indeed, by the end of 

1972, the horse farm had an operation budget of $33,000 and the site was home to a feed 

barn, tack room, and exhibit building, as well as a permanent horse trainer on the NPS 

payroll. Just two years after its inception, the horse farm drew 26,000 park visitors and 

4,000 additional guests on group tours.25 Sansing’s “horse business” quickly became the 

central demonstration site at PRNS, a primary point of visitor interpretative contacts, and 

the focus of visitor interest, a distinction that lasted for several decades. 

Sansing described the two objectives of the Morgan Horse Farm at its founding in 1970: 

1) to provide “an interpretive experience for youngsters and adults of the Bay Area and 

the nation of seeing and watching these beautiful animals,” and 2) to raise and provide 

horses for ranger patrols in the other national parks.26 He soon deemed it “the best 

accepted and attended interpretive program we have,” an outcome that bred plans for 

expansion and long-term continuation of the program. Planning and management 

documents over the next two decades continued to emphasize Sansing’s original 

expectations for the operation. In reality, though, neither the “living history” aspect nor 

the operational breeding farm objective fit with the seashore’s overall mission described 

in the founding act and subsequent legislation. 

Viewed from a twenty-first century perspective, the Morgan Horse Farm seems an outof-place and ill-fitting interpretive program for PRNS, given the park’s legislative 

mandate and areas of national significance. A horse ranch is not particularly 

representative of the history, culture, or natural resources of Point Reyes. Of course, 

horses were raised and used for ranch operations during periods of historical significance 

there; but the same can be said about human settlement or agricultural activity in virtually 

every NPS area prior to 1900, because horses were Americans’ primary form of 

transportation before Ransom Olds and Henry Ford came along. Moreover, the 

centerpiece of the peninsula’s agricultural history is dairy farming; an activity that relied 

less on horses than did cattle ranches or other agricultural endeavors of the American 

West. 

Because the Morgan Horse Farm became, for a time, the centerpiece of interpretive 

activities at Point Reyes, the story and meaning underpinning its establishment bears 

further scrutiny. The NPS push for living history programs, which led to the creation of 

the Morgan Horse Farm, derived from a general dissatisfaction with the state of Park 

Service interpretative operations. Throughout the national park system, interpretation 

displayed a paucity of proven and accepted governing principals: it had failed to grow as 

an independent discipline, despite the fact that park rangers and other staff had been 

delivering interpretive programs in one form or another, since the 1920s.27 It speaks 

volumes that Freeman Tilden’s Interpreting Our Heritage, regardless of how the book 

reads now, went through three editions and nine printings between 1957 and 1977. 28 As 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

269

the only published set of guidelines, principals, and goals for NPS interpretive staff, it 

was “the interpreter’s bible.” 

As an organization, the NPS had never really made a full investment in interpretation; 

instead, it had long depended on the donated services of university professors and 

programs. In the 1930s and 1950s, the Park Service relied heavily on the initiative, 

ingenuity, and on-the-job experience of individual rangers to carry on traditional 

naturalist programs. When Congress funded the gigantic Mission 66 project to repair and 

reinvigorate the parks in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the NPS, it funneled most of 

its money and planning into repairing park infrastructure and into constructing new 

tourist facilities, particularly roads, campgrounds, accommodations, and visitor centers. 

In one fell swoop, the construction of more than one hundred new visitor centers 

nationwide shifted the focal point of interpretive activities from outdoors to indoors.29

But Mission 66 provided no corollary in funding or program initiatives for the 

interpretive staff members who would run visitor center operations. Robert G. Johnsson, 

chief of the Division of Planning and Interpretive Services, observed in 1969 that inperson interpretative programs in the NPS had failed to keep pace with technical 

enhancements to visitor centers and upgraded audiovisual equipment. He concluded that 

not only had personal interpretation failed to improve, but it was also slipping further 

behind and “in serious need of attention.”30

In this state of affairs the NPS grabbed for a “bells and whistles” approach to 

interpretation that had proved popular at a few NPS sites and, more so, at private-sector 

tourist destinations such as Colonial Williamsburg. The NPS leaped to fill the void in 

Record No. 27600. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Rangers at Morgan Horse Farm. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

270

interpretive operations with “living history” programs, which agency brass eventually 

mandated for virtually all NPS units.31 In 1966, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall 

and NPS director George B. Hartzog, Jr., proposed a “living historical farm” program for 

NPS sites, based on the proposals of Marion Clawson of Resources for the Future, a 

Washington, D.C., think tank.32 Taking Clawson’s message to heart, Hartzog directed all 

NPS units in 1969 to report their progress on incorporating living history into interpretive 

programming. 

Living history, as the NPS used the term during this period, encompassed several 

different interpretive methods, including costumed demonstrations, living history 

exhibits, and first-person living history. In costumed demonstration, an interpreter 

dressed in period clothing and performed a task related to a period of history or historical 

event, but remained in the “present tense” while speaking and acting. “Living history 

exhibits,” which became ubiquitous at NPS historical sites in the 1970s, also featured 

ranger staff or volunteers in period dress performing traditional trades and crafts, but 

acting “as if” they had stepped out of some ambiguous past, associated with (or in the 

poorest examples, unrelated to) the demonstration site. At the far end of the living history 

spectrum, were individuals who performed “true” or first-person living history, acting, 

dressing, and speaking as though they were specific individuals in the historic past. 

Because this technique required skilled actors, extensive training, and dedicated research, 

it was beyond the scope of all but a few NPS sites. 

These three interpretive methods shared a few common elements. When done well, they 

could be engaging, entertaining, and instructive about a given period of history. When 

done poorly, they were still entertaining, but were also likely to be uninspiring, 

uninformative, and inaccurate. In all cases, whether superbly or poorly done, living 

history risks misleading visitors about the historical reality or significance of a site and 

misrepresenting the meaning and mission of a specific NPS unit. Because of these 

dangers, the least complicated method, costumed demonstration, was determined at the 

time to be the most effective and accurate one for NPS interpretive programs. 

Precedents for living history programs in the national parks date to “living exhibits” 

presented by members of several southwest Indians tribes at Mesa Verde National Park, 

Grand Canyon National Park, and other units in the southwest.33 According to former 

NPS head historian Barry Mackintosh, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes initiated 

a historic demonstration program in 1936 at Pierce Mill, Rock Creek Park, Washington, 

D.C. By the 1950s, “living history” forerunners were in operation at the Chesapeake and 

Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and several 

Civil War National Military parks.34 Of course, costumed reenactments of Civil War or 

Revolutionary War battles had gone on for years, but their abundance and significance 

puts them in a separate category that will not be treated here. 

NPS officials expressed a wide variety of opinions about the new wave of living history 

programs in the parks. Some officials, apparently including Hartzog and western regional 

director Edward A. Hummel, believed that living exhibits could redeem the flagging 

interpretive operations in the national park system. But as the NPS pushed forward with 

its living history agenda, several historians and park staff called for a more thoughtful 

approach. NPS historian Robert M. Utley wrote that he feared that the NPS had “let the 

public’s enthusiasm for living history push us from interpretation of [a] park’s features 

and values into productions that, however entertaining, do not directly support the central 

park themes.”35 In fact, Utley argued, living history programs that did not follow a park’s 

Living 

History 

Programs in 

the NPS 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

271

interpretive objectives were likely to have a “distractive if not actually subversive” effect 

on the park’s message.36 The Park Service’s own 1970 publication, “Keep It Alive! Tips 

on Living History Demonstrations,” declared that living history was not, “the beginning 

and end of interpretation. It is not a panacea for all the ills of anybody’s ailing 

interpretative program.”37

In the midst of the debate surrounding living history exhibits, the Western Regional 

office targeted PRNS as an excellent site to implement the living historical farm concept, 

which they believed would “extend the recreational opportunities at the seashore.”38 A 

1968 “Special Report,” prepared by an interpretive planner in the national capitol region, 

suggested the following four possible living history programs at PRNS: a working 

historic dairy farm at one of the current ranches, a demonstration site at Johnson Oyster 

Farm, a living dairy demonstration at one of operational dairies, and a Morgan horse 

farm.39 Point Reyes superintendent Kurtz drafted a full proposal for a demonstration dairy 

farm, and recommended the Spaletta Ranch as the optimal site. The report pointed to the 

success of two similar demonstration sites in California’s dairy-heavy Central Valley. 

Kurtz’s report favored the Spaletta location primarily because the land was in federal 

hands and James Spaletta, the current lessee, was a willing partner in the plan.40

Given that the other three proposed sites held greater historical significance on the Point 

Reyes peninsula than a horse-breeding farm, it seems surprising that the administration 

decided to launch the Morgan Horse Farm. Cost, convenience, and local politics 

undoubtedly became the deciding factors. Cost was the overriding problem with the 

Pierce Point site; estimates for restoring and operating a living historical ranch there ran 

from $150,000 to $200,000.41 NPS officials also deemed the living modern dairy too 

costly because the park would have to undertake a number of repairs and maintenance 

tasks before the ranch was safe and accessible for visitors. Aesthetics played a role as 

well: there was a general sense that the horse farm would be more attractive to visitors 

because it would be tidier, whereas dairies could become “odiferous quagmires.”42

Implementing the Morgan horse farm, on the other hand, was both economical and 

convenient. The special report cited no large initial expenditures, because current 

structures could easily be converted, and breeding stock could be obtained “on loan” 

from another farm. The site was accessible and in a convenient location for staff to 

manage and protect. Reflecting the emphasis at PRNS on creating interconnections with 

nearby communities and partnerships with local organizations, semen (for artificial 

insemination of the Morgan mares) could be exchanged between Point Reyes and other 

farms to help “strengthen the blood lines” of the new foals.43 

 The horse farm proposal also appeared to have the special-interest backing of two 

important figures; namely, regional director Hummel, and Point Reyes rancher Boyd 

Stewart, who raised Morgans on his property. Stewart’s interest also ensured political 

support for the farm. As a measure of that support, Congressman Donald H. Clausen and 

Senator Alan H. Bible, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, attended the 

Morgan Horse Farm dedication ceremony. Kurtz also favored the horse farm because it 

was feasible to implement quickly and seemed compatible with land use at Point Reyes. 

That a horse farm was incompatible with historic patterns of land use did not carry equal 

weight for him.44

Growth of 

the Morgan 

Horse Farm 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

272

Judged by its popularity with the public and the media, the Morgan Horse Farm was an 

immediate success. The program garnered positive local attention for PRNS when 

Morgan farm staff participated as “color guards” in area parades.45 Precisely because 

living history programs could be entertaining, they often made the strongest impressions 

in the minds of visitors. That, in turn, shaped how visitors defined the park for 

themselves, and how they described it to their friends and neighbors. According to 

Sansing, the most commonly asked question from arriving visitors to Point Reyes in the 

1970s was “where are the Morgans?”46

On the heels of the successful launch of the horse farm, PRNS also established another 

living history exhibit, a blacksmith shop, apparently to complement the horse program. 

Again, volunteers were instrumental in keeping the exhibit “living.” The park also altered 

the shop to function as a self-guiding site, where visitors could read panels about 

blacksmithing and the history of wrought iron.47 As historian Ronald A. Foresta has 

facetiously pointed out, in America’s National Parks, an exhibit’s historical significance 

had become less important for good interpretation than its “potential for a good show.”48

Giving credence to Foresta’s supposition that historic authenticity played but a small part 

in such living exhibits, Sansing reported that the staff enhanced the “historic scene” by 

placing various pieces of old machinery around the shop.49

Record No. 20220. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Rangers at the Morgan Horse Farm. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

273

 Although western regional chief Hummel had proposed the program, his successor, 

Howard H. Chapman, was less than thrilled with the Morgan Horse Farm. Between 1975 

and 1977, the regional office under Chapman’s direction began to “maneuver” to shut 

down the Morgan farm.50

Sansing acknowledged that the 

“ranch,” as it was later called, 

had too many horses, but it was 

popular and had much political 

support.51 Sansing adeptly 

utilized, again, his 

Congressional connections to 

defend the program from 

regional office attempts to shut 

it down. 

During the mid-1970s, the park 

began to put more emphasis on 

interpretation of the horse farm. 

A large expenditure, by division 

standards, went into production 

of a new Morgan Horse Farm 

exhibit with nine full-sized 

interpretive panels that 

chronicled the history of the 

Morgan, from its Vermont 

origins to its place in the current 

PRNS program. As with the live demonstrations at the ranch, the investment in nonpersonal media telling the story of Morgan Horses served to detract visitors from the 

unique qualities of the Point Reyes peninsula. At that time, however, the park placed 

more emphasis on the ranch’s popularity—15,000 visitors in 1977, expectations for 

25,000 in the future—than the site’s usefulness in interpreting the national seashore.52

Although it went through changes in staffing, programming, and its primary objective, in 

other ways Morgan Ranch changed little over the next twenty years. An average of ten 

thousand visitors per year visited the farm, and farm personnel continued to participate in 

parades, training and shipping horses, and informal interpretation. There was no doubting 

the popularity of these programs. Throughout the 1970s, the park’s two major living 

history sites, Morgan Horse Ranch and Kule Loklo, were the highest-use interpretive 

programs and the park’s most visited destinations, attracting more visitors than the 

Visitor Center or the Point Reyes Lighthouse.53

In the mid-1970s, park and regional office staff began formulating plans for a new, more 

fitting living history exhibit at Point Reyes. Development of the Kule Loklo 

demonstration village, a replica of pre-contact Coast Miwok Indian construction, began 

in 1976, as a joint effort of the NPS bicentennial program, Point Reyes staff, and the 

Miwok Archaeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM). The unique arrangement 

proceeded from the continuing NPS-wide push for living exhibits, and the park 

increasing willingness to involve local volunteer support and outside organizations in 

program planning and implementation. Deciding to launch the atypical and complicated 

Kule Loklo project represented another redefinition of the PRNS interpretive mission. Record No. 27610. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Ranger Strong demonstrates blacksmithing at Morgan Horse Farm. 

Kule Loklo 

Construction 

and 

Development 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

274

Creation of Kule Loklo also further defined the importance of the park’s interconnections 

with its surrounding geographic, cultural, and intellectual communities. 

Record No. 26660. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Interpretive ranger Lanny Pinola (center) with MAPOM (Miwok Archaeological 

Preserve of Marin) founders Don Thieler and Sylvia Thalman, and others at Kule Loklo.

Sansing recalled that it was Ron Thoman, chief of interpretation at the time, who kicked 

off Kule Loklo planning at Point Reyes and eventually convinced NPS director Hartzog 

of the project’s value.54 With funding from the federal bicentennial project that, among 

other things, emphasized development of “American Heritage” sites, Thoman began 

organizing the participants and deciding on plans for the site in September 1976; Don 

Thieler and Sylvia Thalman of MAPOM, and Marilyn Licklider-Goudeau, an 

archaeology teacher in the Dixie School District (San Rafael), had already come up with 

a rough design for a recreation of Coast Miwok life. That winter, Thoman met with these 

individuals to devise more detailed plans for constructing and managing the site. 

MAPOM and an advisory group of other experts served as technical consultants. A 

seven-member management board, with seats filled by staff from each of the three 

organizations, assembled to provide guidance on policy and construction decisions. 

Meanwhile, the park and its project partners crafted the formal cooperative agreement for 

Department of the Interior review.55

Sansing and the regional office had to address several administrative issues before giving 

Kule Loklo the final go-ahead. The cooperative agreement with Marin County’s Dixie 

School District and MAPOM covered the planning, construction, operation, and 

interpretation of the replica village.56 Ralph Mihan, the field solicitor for the NPS 

Western Region, reviewed and commented on the legal authority underpinning the initial 

joint operating agreement. He reported that the authority to use park land for the site was 

pursuant to 16 U.S.C. section 1 and 459c, which enabled NPS units to host exhibits that 

“conform to the primary purpose of the seashore, namely, providing for the conservation 

of scenery and natural and historic objects for the purposes of public recreation, benefit 

and inspiration.”57
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

275

Record No. 26490. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives 

Reconstruction of a Coast Miwok sweathouse at Kule Loklo Reyes. Photograph by Richard Frear. 

In creating Kule Loklo, the interpretive division had leapt into a more sophisticated 

approach to interpretive activities. Two primary objectives covered the construction 

phase of the site; both were new steps for the interpretive program. First, the staff would 

use available scientific and historic data to produce an accurate replica of Coast Miwok 

village. The second, more divergent objective was to involve the public in each step of 

the construction process.58 Members of the “Volunteers in the Parks” (VIP) program 

would provide much of the labor and most of the personal interpretation while supervised 

by a staff interpreter on a one-year term of employment. Point Reyes and VIP staff 

dedicated their attention and care to the creation of an authentic village replica. Crews 

used materials native to the peninsula and the equivalent of aboriginal tool technology to 

build the structures. The chosen location, however, did not correspond to a specific 

prehistoric village site; planners decided on a spot that guaranteed easy visitor access, 

staff participation, and security, while avoiding damage to an existing nearby 

archaeological site. 

Interpretive objectives for the operational phase at Kule Loklo were fivefold. First, in the 

broadest terms, the site aimed to present “in a dynamic fashion the rich history of the 

Coast Miwok Indian culture prior to European contact.” Second, the immediate 

educational objectives were to increase “environmental and cross-cultural education” of 

area school children and the general public through live activities and development of 

curriculum materials and interpretive literature.59 Third, the longer-term educational 

agenda included creating a model that “other agencies, communities, or groups could 

follow in developing similar exhibits.” Fourth, Kule Loklo should encourage “further 

historical, anthropological, and archeological research” regarding the Coast Miwok and 

other native tribes of the region. Fifth, the process of constructing and operating the site 

would foster “greater liaison between the National Park Service and professional 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

276

anthropological resources through re-creation rather than excavation of Indian relics and 

structures.”60 

KULE LOKLO

As the first caretakers of Point Reyes, the Coast Miwok people lived in villages with structures similar to the 

one pictured here, for hundreds of years. These people had an intimate relationship with the land; they developed 

village communities of seventy-five to several hundred people in sheltered places near fresh water and plentiful food. 

The Miwok village was a busy place where the daily routine included women pounding acorns into meal with stone 

mortar and pestle, basket weavers chatting as they worked under the sun shade, cooking fires smoking with mussels 

baking or deer roasting, children laughing and playing, new dancers learning songs and steps in the dance house, and 

hunters flaking obsidian for knife blades. Kule Loklo (meaning "Bear Valley") is a recreation of a Coast Miwok village, 

but not the site of a prior village. 

--National Park Service, “History of the Coast Miwok at Point Reyes,” 

Kule Loklo opened to the public on July 11, 1976, and as planned, the ongoing 

construction work became part of site interpretation. Interested visitors could participate 

in the basic steps of working with building materials and construction. By the end of 

1976, four family dwellings, a granary, and a sweathouse had neared or reached 

completion.61 PRNS staffed Kule Loklo daily, providing interpretive services to more 

than 9,000 visitors, including many school groups, during the first year. Ironically, one of 

the most “alive” activities at Kule Loklo, preparation of Indian tacos for public 

consumption, was short-lived. Health department officials eventually ordered the park to 

shut it down because it failed to meet state health standards.62 

Attendance at Kule Loklo skyrocketed to 44,000 in 1977, and interpretive activities 

increased accordingly, including formal talks and demonstrations, continued visitor 

participation in construction, and informal personal contacts with park visitors.63 VIPs put 

in a total of 10,000 hours working at the site that year. Yet, these successes still did not 

ensure the stability of the program. The exhibit coordinator’s term of employment ended 

when funding from the bicentennial program dried up, forcing the division to fill the 

position temporarily with juggling seasonal staff from positions elsewhere in the park. 

MAPOM’s continued sponsorship and the park’s decision in 1978 to create a permanent 

staff coordinator, secured at least the short-term future of Kule Loklo. Among the new 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

277

coordinator’s tasks was the creation of a 

reservation system for visiting groups that would 

help ensure the availability of adequate 

interpretive activities when each arrived.64 The 

Kule Loklo program seemed to stabilize in 1979, 

when volunteers built several new structures and 

repaired or completed others, giving the entire 

village greater visual integrity. PRNS arranged 

two two-day training seminars for VIPs to help 

increase the overall quality and consistency of 

interpretation. That year, volunteers put in a total 

of roughly 2,100 hours working at Kule Loklo.65

Soon thereafter, the San Francisco Foundation 

made a $13,000 grant to PRNS to add another 

employee at Kule Loklo.66 The education program 

continued to use Kule Loklo heavily for school 

groups. In 1979, for example, a total of 375 

schools participated, bringing more than 8,500 

area students to the site.67

Program expansion continued in 1981, a 

watershed year in which staff and volunteers 

completed construction of twelve new structures 

in the village. The interpretive program produced 

and distributed a guide brochure, erected a new 

exhibit sign, and created a traveling slide program 

for teachers.68 Moreover, a San Francisco 

Foundation grant funded a seasonal interpreter 

position at the site. That summer, PRNS, in conjunction with the Coastal Parks 

Association and MAPOM, hosted a multi-day event during Native American Celebration 

Week. The festivities drew more than 1,000 participants and visitors who watched skill 

and craft demonstrations, native dances, and educational seminars.69 Kule Loklo also 

gained recognition as a significant cultural site for local Indian populations when Don 

Jose Matsuwa, a shaman of the Huichol tribe, led a ceremony on the grounds.70

Despite Kule Loklo’s obvious successes—including 50,000 visitors per year, extensive 

media (including television) coverage, special events sponsored by Indian tribes, and 

general recognition of the site as significant for Marin and Sonoma County Indians—the 

program was continually under threat as the pattern of patchwork staffing and underfunding persisted. For a time, in the 1980s, a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employment 

program funded salary and benefits for the equivalent of a full-time position. The BIA 

discontinued its support in 1987, the same time the NPS discontinued the program’s 

supervisory park ranger position. In 1988, regional archaeologist Roger Kelly wrote: 

“Reduction of funds and shifting of operating hours to fewer days will likely result in 

employee stress, lowering of quality of interpretation, lessening of volunteer interest, 

plateauing of program momentum as perceived by public.” 71 Nonetheless, the remaining 

staff involved with Kule Loklo continued to provide in-person interpretation and 

demonstrations at the site. A key staff member at the site during the 1990s was Lanny 

Pinola, an interpretive ranger who worked at PRNS until retiring in 2001. Pinola was a 

Pomo Indian and had married into the Coast Miwok tribe. Pinola, noted one of the staff, PRNS Archives

Kule Loklo visitor brochure produced by the Point 

Reyes Cooperating Association, 1982. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

278

had “a foot in both worlds [Park Service and Coast Miwok],” and as a result he was “both 

helpful and controversial in managing affairs at Kule Loklo.”72 PRNS Archives 

Promotional brochure for Kule Loklo Big Time Festival. 

One of the most significant parts of the Kule Loklo story was its transformation, or 

redefinition, into a site of cultural significance for the descendants of the Coast Miwok 

Indians, who gradually appropriated the site as a place to celebrate their present as well as 

their past. Park Service programs that highlighted the Native American past were not new 

in the park system; programs that accurately and effectively interpreted a particular 

tribe’s culture and history, however, were far less common.73 Even fewer in number were 

places in the park system that became sites of Native American empowerment and ritual, 

as did Kule Loklo. And yet, Kule Loklo served as a prime example of the problems 

inherent in living history exhibits within the Park Service. 

As mentioned earlier, any living history exhibit, reconstruction, or replica risks 

misleading the public about the historical past, no matter how well researched or 

executed. In 1980, Sonoma State University anthropologist David Peri said of Kule 

Loklo: “The village was a mistake . . . I think it leaves the impression of Miwoks as 

undeveloped children. To that extent it contributes to the historic prejudice against 

California Indians as weak-kneed creatures who never got past acorn mush and 

baskets.”74 Peri contended that even the best of such sites generally fail to convey enough 

of the historic context to visitors. In the case of Kule Loklo, there was no way to show 

that many pre-contact Coast Miwoks enjoyed better living conditions and a standard of 

Redefining 

Kule Loklo 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

279

living higher than their contemporaries did in Europe. Although wayside signs and other 

interpretive media could draw such comparisons, there would be no equivalent threedimensional image to counter the impression the mud-and-stick huts made upon park 

visitors. Even diligent adherence to the authenticity and historical relevance of the site 

cannot overcome this problem. In this regard, Kule Loklo and Morgan Horse Farm were 

similar: The NPS, by promoting what they thought would be simple, easy-to-apply 

patches to cover the failings of the park’s interpretive programming in the 1970s, 

introduced to Point Reyes, and a litany of other sites, living history operations that were 

complex and easily misunderstood. 

EXPANDING INTERPRETIVE SERVICES AMID THE GROWTH OF RECREATIONAL 

AND ENVIRONMENTAL TOURISM

In addition to inaugurating development of Kule Loklo, the park administration also 

began to upgrade the overall interpretive program in 1975. Changes initiated that year 

and in 1976 included opening Point Reyes Lighthouse to the public, reorganizing the 

interpretive division, increasing staffing, strengthening financial commitment to the 

program, and instituting a field-seminar program. While these changes immediately 

raised staffing levels and increased visitor information services, the quality of field 

interpretation remained inadequate. Sansing acknowledged that the task of improving the 

quality of personal interpretation would take longer, but implemented steps to start the 

process.75 In the meantime, the division continued to emphasize living history sites 

(Morgan Horse Farm, blacksmith shop, and Kule Loklo) and educational programs as the 

bulwarks of its visitor programs. 

Organizational changes began in early 1975 with division chief William Germeraad’s 

departure and the arrival of his replacement, Ronald G. Thoman, from Carl Sandburg 

Home National Historic Site. Soon afterward, the divisional structure underwent an 

overhaul.76 Until 1975, the division of resource management and visitor protection was 

responsible for running the Bear Valley and Drakes Beach visitor information centers. 

Those buildings also served as district ranger and interpretive division offices. In 1975, 

the park added one full-time position at Bear Valley, and an administrative reorganization 

also helped put more interpretive staff in the centers and in the field. Operations were 

streamlined into two interpretive districts, with each district ranger reporting directly to 

the superintendent.77 Removing a layer of management and adding a position increased 

the number of field staff from one interpreter to five.78 Diana Skiles, the new GS-11 

interpretive specialist who arrived from Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, 

handled cultural resource management, curatorial duties, and provided 

interpretive/technical support. Another staff member, a GS-07 park technician, took 

charge of all cooperating association dealings and coordinated bicentennial planning and 

other special programs. Another park technician was responsible for the environmental 

education program. These positions reported directly to Sansing. The reorganization of 

the interpretive division demonstrated the trend toward specialization within the NPS in 

general and at PRNS in particular; it was also indicative of Sansing’s 

want to remodel the divisional structures into vertical management lines, in which most 

of his upper-level managers reported directly to him rather than to intermediaries. 

With a larger budget and increased staffing, interpretive staff members were able to keep 

the visitor centers open daily and provide field program and roving interpretation that 

previously had been lacking. Staffing levels doubled between 1974 and 1975, and a 

Reorganizing 

Interpretation 

in the 1970s 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

280

unding windfall for 1976 nearly doubled the 

budget, from $80,000 to $140,000.79 Growth 

allowed an expansion of interpretive 

activities: staff provided thirteen guided 

walks and six campfire program at Olema 

Ranch Campground (just outside the park’s 

eastern boundary), in addition to talks at the 

Morgan Horse Farm and visitor centers. 

Moreover, a Youth Conservation Corps 

(YCC) crew, supervised by an interpretive 

park technician and funded by the Coastal 

Parks Association, built an auditorium in the 

Red Barn, which quickly went into use for 

interpretive orientations and programs and 

audiovisual displays in 1977.80 In addition to 

launching Kule Loklo in 1976, the division 

also introduced another new program 

element, the PRNS field-seminar program. 

Modeled on the successful Yosemite 

National Park Program, the seminars 

provided adult-education sessions, often for 

college credit, on many of the peninsula’s 

natural features.81 The Coastal Parks 

Association ran the fee-based, selfsupporting program. Thus, 1975–1976 marked the start of full-fledged interpretive 

division operations at PRNS. 

Anticipating that funding and staffing would not always remain at 1975–1976 levels, 

PRNS used the opportunity to revise interpretive division priorities. The first priority was 

to keep information centers and on-site orientation (usually roving duty) running at full 

capacity. Because these tasks often occupied the full attention of the field staff in some 

years, the second priority became the development of additional self-guiding activities, 

which would enable the staff to meet the first objective, even during lean staffing years. 

For instance, the park built a new self-guiding trail, Bear Valley’s Woodpecker 

Interpretive Trail, which it completed in 1978, In complementary fashion, the NPS 

Harpers Ferry Service Center in 1977 instituted a five-year plan to rehabilitate other 

elements of the interpretive program. In one phase of that project, the NPS hired San 

Francisco's Hayden Productions, Inc., to create a new park film, Something Special, 

which began showing at the old Bear Valley information center in 1980.82 Park staff 

tackled an in-house redesign and fabrication of exhibits, kindly described as 

“homemade,” for the Ken Patrick Visitor Center at Drakes Beach and for the small visitor 

center in the lighthouse compound.83

Opening the lighthouse and the lighthouse visitor center to the public in 1977 created a 

third focal point for Point Reyes interpretive activities. Although limited financial and 

technical resources were available to prepare the lighthouse complex for public visits, 

maintenance staff modified an existing building into a “modest” visitor information 

center, installed a comfort station, and added safety measures that included fences, 

handrails, and signage. The lighthouse immediately became a big draw for visitors, 

significantly increasing visitor travel to the Drakes Bay and Point Reyes Headlands areas. 

Between mid-August and the end of December, 95,000 visitors traveled to the lighthouse Record No. 19940, NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Interpretive specialist Diana Skiles, ca. 1970s. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

281

overlook, including 14,000 who climbed down and back up the 400 steps from the bluff 

to the lighthouse itself.84 In 1978, the first full year of PRNS operation of the lighthouse, 

181,000 visitors came to the site, 54,000 of who descended all of the way to the 

lighthouse.85 The decision to open the lighthouse was a success because it made an 

important historic and scenic resource available to the public, and because travel to the 

lighthouse increased visitor use of the national seashore’s entire north district. The latter 

outcome helped disperse visitation over a wider extent of seashore roads and facilities, 

which administrators hoped would remove some of the load from the highest-use areas at 

Bear Valley and Limantour Beach. 

Interpretation came into its own at PRNS in the early 1980s, when the construction of a 

modern visitor center and changes in management and staffing promoted interpretation of 

a wider range of the peninsula’s ecological systems and historical resources. Additional 

opportunities arose as the NPS and the public redefined the “nature” of nature at Point 

Reyes. Growing visitor interest in whale watching, seal spotting, and the reintroduction 

of tule elk, activities which lent themselves to effective interpretation of the diverse 

seashore environment, made the interpretive program a much larger part of the visitor 

experience at Point Reyes. Meanwhile, the opening of the well-designed Bear Valley 

Visitor center and the subsequent national attention showered on the park signaled that 

PRNS had “come of age” as a nationally recognized unit of the park system. The visiting 

public seemed to agree: visitation soared from 1.4 million in 1983 to 2.2 million in 

1987.86

The division’s emphasis on providing increasingly diverse programming to visitors 

indicated that the demonstration programs, though still important, were no longer the 

primary thrust of interpretation at Point Reyes. Even before the new visitor center opened 

at Bear Valley, the park’s existing centers and interpretive programs were drawing 

190,000 visitors per year, compared to the Morgan Ranch and Kule Loklo, which 

combined attracted 30,000 visitors per year. By 1983, the range of interpretive programs 

had expanded to include history, marine (whale) interpretive talks at the lighthouse, 

ranger-led walks in the Tule elk area, tide pool walks, nighttime hikes, and beach 

campfire programs. The division had responsibility for the shuttle-bus program, which 

that year carried 4,400 visitors to the lighthouse for whale watching in the winter months. 

The successful field seminars program hosted ninety college-level courses, some weeklong seminars, for 1,800 visitors. Environmental education programs continued to grow 

and deliver effective services.87

Opening the new Bear Valley Visitor Center brought more attention to the interpretive 

program and park than any single event since the advent of the Morgan Horse Farm in 

1970. Large visitor centers had become a common element of national park tourist 

landscapes in the 1960s, when they emerged as an important element of the Mission 66 

program. Because PRNS did not come into being until 1962, Mission 66 did not bestow a 

large central visitor center on Point Reyes, as it had done for more than one hundred 

other national park units in the early 1960s. In fact, the Mission 66 project made the 

(modern) visitor center the mainstay of NPS interpretive operations throughout the park 

system. 

The visitor center concept was one of Mission 66’s signature innovations; the Park 

Service built 114 new visitor centers at sites throughout the park system.88 Visitor centers 

gave tourists a place to stop, obtain pertinent travel information, learn about a park’s 

natural features, and then continue on to other locations. Visitor centers gave testimony to 

Interpretation 

in the 1980s 

Bear Valley 

Visitor 

Center 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

282

the ways in which modern motor travel changed NPS management strategies. By the 

1970s, park visitors came to expect the interpretive displays, films, slide programs, and 

ranger talks found in most visitor centers, elements that gave them a brief introduction or 

understanding to a park and its resources. At many national park sites, a large share of 

motorists simply stopped at the visitor centers and their attendant gift shops, perhaps took 

a few photos, and then drove on to another location in or outside of the park. 

Historian Dwight F. Rettie has suggested that park visitor centers gradually gained 

“internal and external significance far beyond their physical features.”89 He added: 

“Superintendents often behave as if they regard the visitor center as critical not only to 

the success of the park but also as a necessary symbol of their own professional 

success.”90 There was no denying the importance of the new central visitor center, 

especially at an NPS site like PRNS, where no clear external boundary set the park apart 

from the surrounding landscape and no grand entrance gate told motorists that they had 

“arrived” at their destination. Bear Valley Visitor Center has served as a symbolic bridge 

between the park and the people living, working, and playing in and around it. Donald 

Neubacher, chief of interpretation when Bear Valley Visitor Center was constructed, 

observed that a visitor center is “like the front door of a national park.”91 Indeed, upon 

entering a visitor center, one quickly apprehends how a park has chosen to represent 

itself. 

Visitors entering the Bear Valley visitor center during the past two decades saw a 

physical representation of the park’s emphasis on the marine environment; few could 

miss the enormous gray whale that for two decades “swam,” suspended, from the beams 

of the forty-two-foot tall ceilings.92 However, the building’s exterior—a barn-like 

structure surrounded by open pastures, reflected the peninsula’s agricultural landscape. 

Part of the center’s effectiveness lay in its ability to convey, via this juxtaposition, two of 

the park’s most unique qualities and important interpretive themes. On the one hand, an 

agricultural landscape long shaped by human activity; on the other, native marine and 

tidal ecosystems thousands of years in the making. Exhibits within and outside the new 

visitor center reaffirmed the 1980 general management plan’s redefinition of PRNS as a 

natural area first, recreation area second, and historical area third, and manifested the 

park’s longstanding emphasis on the coastal environment as its most unique and 

significant element. 

As with the architectural design of the building, PRNS administrators reached outside the 

organization to find an exhibitor that could provide the interpretive imagery they wished 

the new visitor center to project. Neubacher arranged for Dan Quan to design and 

develop materials for the Bear Valley exhibits, which were based on themes the park’s 

planning team had developed. The polished interpretive products Quan delivered for the 

visitor center demonstrated the value of this approach to exhibit design and fabrication. 

The result was so effective, in fact, that it not only paved the way for similar partnership 

approaches to exhibit development elsewhere in the NPS system, it also established Dan 

Quan as a valued contractor who went on to design exhibits for the new Clem Miller 

Environmental Education Center. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

283

It was an unusual step to bypass NPS Harpers Ferry Center planners and exhibit 

designers, who did exhibit work in virtually all the visitor centers NPS built or remodeled 

in previous decades. The Bear Valley Visitor Center was another example of an 

administrative approach at Point Reyes that fostered innovation, ingenuity, and 

connections outside the Park Service family—a style that created both animosity and 

achievement. In fact, PRNS was far ahead of the NPS shift, which came a decade later, to 

developing partnerships with outside organizations, in order to improve quality and 

increase funding options. The entire Bear Valley Visitor Center project—funding, 

architectural design, location, construction, and exhibits—embodied and foreshadowed 

the Park Service trend to recruit and engage park partners. 

During the 1980s, the interpretive division also began to shift toward incorporating and 

utilizing interpretive tools and methods to complement and offer alternatives to the 

established living history sites. At the same time, the park and the regional office 

continued to propose investigating other sites to use as living history exhibits, with Pierce 

Ranch being the most commonly mentioned spot. The 1981 “Cultural Resources 

Management Plan,” for instance, included one possible course of action (though not the 

recommended one) that would create a living history ranch with farm animals, crops, and 

demonstrations on the grounds of the Pierce Ranch.93

Record No. 10300. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Rear view of new Bear Valley Visitor Center. Photograph by Greg Gnesios. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

284

 Interpretive staff began preparing the seashore’s first Environmental Study Area (ESA) 

workbooks and teacher guidebooks in October 1969, making the park one of sixty-three 

NPS units to establish an ESA program prior to 1970.94 The early start of the education 

program at Point Reyes helped it develop into one of the highest-use and most effective 

pieces of interpretive 

programming during the 

1970s. School groups from 

throughout Marin County 

and the San Francisco Bay 

Area utilized the two 

designated ESAs at Point 

Reyes, the Bear Valley and 

Chimney Rock trails. Three 

factors helped the education 

program blossom. In 

addition to the early start 

with NEED, the program 

benefited from geography 

and timing. The seashore’s 

proximity to local and Bay 

Area school districts 

provided a large and easily 

accessible audience. 

Furthermore, in the early 

1970s, an explosion of 

interest in the environment 

and a commitment to educating children about their natural surroundings meant schools 

and teachers in Marin County and elsewhere in the Bay Area were eager to expose 

students to the seashore’s educational resources and varied ecosystems. 

 The NEED camp opened at Laguna Ranch as the Point Reyes Environmental Education 

Center in 1974. During its first year, operating out of a converted military Quonset hut 

from World War II, it hosted 1,085 students, teachers, and chaperones from a four-county 

area.95 Six teacher-training workshops were also held there. In 1975, the center’s first full 

year of operation, thirty-two groups with 1,329 students used the facility.96 Realizing that 

the NEED program was becoming a large piece of the overall interpretive operation, the 

park shifted responsibility for all education programming to one park technician, Doris 

Omundson, rather than splitting the functions among several staff. Park maintenance 

staff, with help from a Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) crew, made much-needed 

improvements to the camp in 1976, constructing five small dormitory buildings to replace 

half of the original tent structures that had housed students.97 In 1976, Congress passed 

legislation naming the environmental center after former Congressman Clem Miller, in 

honor of the “vision and leadership . . . [he] gave to the creation and protection of Point 

Reyes National Seashore.”98

The environmental center’s attendance peaked in 1977, when fifty-nine groups stayed for 

a total of 10,200 “student-use days.”99 Thereafter, California’s Proposition 13 and the 

budget cuts it forced on schools throughout the state began to put a dent in program 

attendance, as several districts cancelled their scheduled camps.100 Nonetheless, the camp 

averaged approximately 9,000 student-use days per year from 1978 through 1980. School Record No. 28610, NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

A visiting school group on the Woodpecker Trail, a designated Environmental 

Study Area (ESA) at Bear Valley, May 1971. 

Environmental 

Education 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

285

participation dipped again the following two years, due to further budget cuts and the 

murders of four people within the park by California’s “trailside killer.” 

The most significant facility development for the environmental program took place with 

the construction and exhibit installation of the Clem Miller Environmental Education 

Center in 1987. Funding, planning, partnerships, and external contracting for the new 

center closely followed the successful approach Sansing, Neubacher, Williams, and other 

senior managers had used to build the Bear Valley Visitor Center five years earlier. 

Repeating that formula, in which the park and the Coastal Parks Association raised 

private donations, financed construction through the association, and hired an outside 

design team, enabled Sansing and Neubacher to obtain the modern, comfortable 

accommodations and classrooms a successful environmental program needed. With two 

large classrooms, full kitchen, office, and sleeping cabin, the new center was a worthy 

replacement of the Quonset hut that had long served the center, well beyond the expected 

call of duty. The Clem Miller Center was completed and opened in 1987. Katy Miller 

Johnson was among those attending the May dedication honoring her former husband.101

When the division produced its 2003 Comprehensive Interpretive Plan, education 

programming was deemed an “essential part” of the park’s interpretive effort. 

Educational activities would continue to incorporate many of the park’s themes and 

features, including Kule Loklo, Point Reyes Lighthouse, marine mammals, and more 

general themes such as habitat or wilderness.102 Staff from each visiting school handled 

the indoor and outdoor classroom teaching, while the park also encouraged school groups 

to join in scheduled ranger talks and walks. In 2002, nearly five thousand area students 

attended education programs at Point Reyes.103

The park’s cooperating association was launched in March 1964, when the board of 

directors of the Muir Woods Natural History Association voted to include Point Reyes as 

a new partner, thus creating the Muir Woods–Point Reyes Association.104 It incorporated 

as a nonprofit organization in 1965.105 Some of the association’s earliest efforts included 

publications of information booklets on Muir Woods National Monument and Point 

Reyes National Seashore, a bird checklist for Point Reyes, self-guiding trail booklets, and 

book sales at both NPS sites. The association’s board of directors also obtained a $1,500 

loan from the Eastern Parks and Monuments Association to help publish a book-length 

field guide to the flowers of Muir Woods.106 The association struggled with its finances in 

the early going, but a 1972 NPS “Operations Evaluation” of Point Reyes commended the 

improvements the association had instituted in its business operations.107

Renamed the Coastal Parks Association in 1973, the association published educational 

materials, sponsored small projects, and bolstered funding for interpretive services. Its 

initial goals were fairly modest: the association aimed to provide publications and other 

visual materials that related to the national seashore’s qualities to visitors, and to “further 

the interpretive program of the park.”108 But that role changed dramatically in 1972, when 

the association board agreed to take on the responsibility of administering the Laguna 

NEED camp. They worked collaboratively with an advisory board of area school 

officials, community members, and PRNS staff to set goals and policies for the education 

center. The association was also able to serve as a conduit for grants and donations made 

to the center, using its own nonprofit status to insure that the gifts were tax exempt.109

Grants totaling $25,000 came in to the association in 1972 for converting Laguna Ranch 

to a NEED camp.110

Cooperating 

Association 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

286

The Coastal Parks Association continued to grow, in membership and responsibilities, 

throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1973, Fort Point National Historic Site, John Muir 

National Historic Site, and Golden Gate National Recreation Area became new 

participants with the association. To help the increased financial and administrative 

responsibilities, the association hired Helen Douglas as its first full-time business 

manager. The number of participating parks continued to fluctuate. By 1985, the Coastal 

Parks Association had five park partners, including Redwood National Park and the U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Refuge at Newark.111 The following year, the four other units withdrew 

their affiliation, leaving the cooperating association dedicated solely to Point Reyes. 

Accordingly, it adopted a new name, the Point Reyes National Seashore Association.112

Since 1964, the association has funneled twenty to thirty million dollars to park projects 

and programs.113 The Point Reyes National Seashore Association, as it is still called 

today, thus ended up playing a much more important role at Point Reyes than many of the 

other cooperating associations in the national parks, becoming a financial and 

administrative partner in a number of large construction projects in the park, including 

the Bear Valley Visitor Center, and becoming full partner with the park in the 

administration of the Clem Miller Environmental Education Center. 

The 1989 “Interpretive Prospectus, Point Reyes National Seashore” heralded the next 

stage in the evolution of the interpretive division at PRNS. It was the division’s first such 

planning document since 1973, and it codified many of the new directions and themes 

established during the 1980s. The Interpretive Prospectus concretely laid out, for the first 

time, the division’s goals, objectives, and interpretive themes. First and foremost, 

interpretive and education activities at Point Reyes should “further an awareness and 

appreciation of the wide diversity of coastal ecosystems their variety and similarity, the 

interdependence, and their fragile nature.”114 Other objectives focused on the preservation 

of park resources, recreational opportunities, Coast Miwok culture, public relations, and 

support of overall park programming, particularly natural and cultural resource 

management. Interpretive themes listed in the prospectus made evident that the planners 

who created the document defined PRNS as primarily an ecological resource, rather than 

a recreational area. Of the thirteen themes, only one was directly related to recreation, 

whereas six pertained to the seashore’s environment and four others addressed the 

cultural resources and human history of Point Reyes.115 The number one theme, “The 

Idea of Ecosystems and Communities,” was tabbed to be “a major focus of the 

interpretive program” because of the diverse plant and animal communities found at the 

seashore.116

The first priority the prospectus outlined was improvement of the park’s interpretive 

media at the two smaller visitor centers at Drakes Beach and the lighthouse, where the 

exhibits fell short of NPS standards and paled tremendously compared to those at Bear 

Valley.117 The plan identified other such needs as wayside exhibits, audiovisual films (in 

particular, the park’s slide program), outreach media, self-guided trails, and publications. 

Two new thrusts for the division in the 1989 plan were, first, the need to develop 

strategies that could increase interpretive presence and activities in the seashore’s north 

district, and, second, the first tangible plan for interpreting the agricultural landscape and 

history of dairying at Point Reyes. 

By the time John Dell’Osso stepped into the position of division chief in 1997, PRNS 

offered visitors superb interpretive facilities and modern interpretive media. Interpretive 

programming offered a balanced collection of demonstration sites, visitor centers, self1989 

Interpretive 

Prospectus 

Enhancing 

Interpretation 

in the 1990s 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

287

guided activities, and environmental education. In 1992, the park completed the 

expansion and installed the new exhibits at the Ken Patrick Visitor Center at Drakes 

Beach, giving the national seashore three effective sites where visitors could obtain 

information, orientation, and interpretation. Dell’Osso recognized that, over the previous 

two decades, these programs had benefited from a decade and a half of investment in 

“nonpersonal” services. The results were impressive; during that twenty-year span, the 

park had poured substantial funding, from both federal and non-profit sources, into the 

creation of the Bear Valley Visitor Center, refurbishment of the Lighthouse Visitor 

Center and rebuilding of the Ken Patrick Visitor Center, expansion and remodeling of the 

Clem Miller Environmental Education Center, and the fabrication of numerous new 

wayside exhibits and trail markers. With the success of these projects, Dell’Osso deemed 

it time to enhance the quality of personal interpretive programming at Point Reyes.118 His 

program objectives dovetailed with a new NPS program that sought to improve the 

quality of interpretive services throughout the national park system. 

For the first time in its history, the Park Service launched a truly comprehensive effort to 

improve the quality and professionalism of its interpretive division. Unlike the quick-fix 

solution the NPS had employed in the 1970s—attempting to plug in living history 

demonstrations as a one-size-fits-all patch for the desultory quality of interpreting 

programming—the 1990s strategy instead went to the heart of the problem, namely 

creating a means to improve the training, expertise, and professionalism of individual 

interpretive rangers. Tabbed the Interpretive Development Program (IDP), the new 

approach aimed to produce no less than “the highest standards of professionalism in 

interpretation.”119 A select group of NPS personnel, operating in conjunction with the 

Ranger Careers Program, had spearheaded creation and implementation of the IDP in the 

early 1990s. They used existing research, survey data, and their own program experiences 

to craft a training program suitable for permanent and seasonal NPS interpretive staff.120

At the center of the program were a set of essential competencies, which constituted the 

basic skills an individual interpreter should master in order to enhance program quality 

and professional growth. Training took place in a series of graduated steps, called 

“modules,” that built one upon the other. As the program entered into wider use 

throughout the park system, many individual parks incorporated module 101 into the 

annual seasonal interpretive training. 

Module 101, the first step in the program, introduced staff to the IDP and to key concepts 

undergirding the core curriculum. This didactic portion of the program pushed 

interpretive managers and staff to understand their primary audience, develop greater 

knowledge of their subject matter, and incorporate universal themes in order to help 

visitors make meaningful connections to a park’s resources. IDP trainers introduce a 

methodology tailored to meet that objective, which involves determining and utilizing the 

tangible and intangible values associated with particular natural, historic, or cultural site. 

Explained David L. Larson, staff member at the NPS Mather Training Center and a 

central figure in implementing the IDP: “When interpreters do their jobs well, they meet 

visitors at the place where resource meanings are relevant to them . . . and then provide 

additional opportunities for personal emotional and intellectual connections” to that 

resource.121

After putting the 101 concepts to use in their own programs, interpretive staff generally 

tackled the subsequent steps of the IDP program independently. Module 103 required 

interpreters to plan, research, develop, and perform a guided activity and full-length 

interpretive program (such as an evening campfire program or slide program), and 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

288

arrange for someone to videotape their presentations to a live audience. Interpreters then 

sent their tapes to IDP trainers for professional assessment of their programs. Point Reyes 

staff began participating in the IDP training between 1995 and 1997; IDP trainings were 

held at Point Reyes and at other Bay Area NPS sites.122

Dell’Osso recognized that understanding the audience at Point Reyes, one of the primary 

components of the IDP training, was key to planning interpretive services for the park. 

Larson emphasized, “What is relevant to the audience determines the starting point for 

successful interpretation.”123 Dell’Osso steered the division along this path during the late 

1990s, and in planning for the future of the interpretive program. Due to the national 

seashore’s geographic location, sitting astride a landscape of dairy and cattle lands, 

within one of the wealthiest counties in California, and a short drive from one of the 

country’s major metropolitan centers, PRNS visitors were certainly a diverse group, but 

tended toward a demographic that was wealthier, more educated, and more 

environmentally aware than the visitors to many national park sites.124

Changing political winds that followed a new administration in the White House, 

eventually forced Dell’Osso to make a pragmatic temporary retrenchment from some of 

his objectives regarding personal interpretive services. All the while, the division 

continued to improve the quality of nonpersonal services, as evidenced such projects as 

the “Coast and Ocean” section of Bear Valley Visitor Center, Earthquake Trail, and 

Lifeboat Station exterior wayside panels, and redesign of the Lighthouse Visitor Center 

interior panels. Budget cuts soon reduced staffing levels to the extent that the division 

had to, once again, depending on such nonpersonal services as Visitor Center contacts, 

information kiosks, wayside exhibits, publications, and electronic media to interpret the 

park’s resources effectively.125

In addition to improving the quality of interpretive programs, throughout the 1990s, the 

interpretive division also utilized mass media technology to expand its audience beyond 

the park’s boundaries. PRNS interpreters hosted a weekly radio show on a local station, 

helping the park reach community members in their homes. Park staff produced new 

audiovisual programs, including a CD-ROM for use in elementary and middle school 

classrooms. The division also began doing all of its own desktop publishing, creating 

brochures and other print materials. Dell’Osso used e-mail as another outreach tool. He 

created a mailing list of the more than one hundred bed and breakfast inns throughout 

West Marin, and sent them e-mail announcements about new or continuing interpretive 

programs, which the owners could use to offer activities for their guests and to promote 

their businesses during the slow tourist seasons.126

In 1998, the division turned to a new interpretive medium, the internet, to further expand 

and educate the park’s audience. Park ranger Lynda Doucette coordinated the design 

work, assisted by a number of interpretive staff that contributed to the writing and the 

overall “look” of the webpages. Dell’Osso funded the website with money from the 

existing staff budget. The park’s website quickly became a popular means for visitors and 

nonvisitors to obtain educational, orientation, and interpretive information before arriving 

at the park. During its first few years in use, the site averaged over one million hits. 

Thereafter, public use of the site leveled off at about 750,000 hits per year.127

Collaboration became a byword for interpretive planning, mirroring the PRNS 

administration’s greater emphasis on community and organizational connections during 

the late 1990s. Dell’Osso and his staff, for example, initiated work on a new interpretive 

Extending the 

Reach of 

Interpretive 

Programming 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

289

management plan by inviting forty-five park partners to participate in a three-day 

workshop to develop new interpretive themes. Dave Dahlen, trainer at the NPS Mather 

Training Center, facilitated the workshop in 2000. During the next phase of planning, the 

PRNS core team of Dell’Osso, Neubacher, Lynne Dominy, John Golda, regional Chief 

Deanne Adams, and Interpretive Specialist Lynn Nakata sponsored another workshop 

that included the interpretive chiefs and specialists from several other NPS units 

(Redwood, Golden Gate, Channel Islands, and Olympic) in the Pacific West Region. The 

three-year effort finally produced the 2003 Point Reyes National Seashore 

Comprehensive Interpretive Plan, the division’s first in-depth management document. It 

catalogued the state of current interpretive operation, and devoted considerable attention 

to future directions for interpretation at PRNS. Interpretive staff produced the entire 

document in-house, including a limited printing of color copies.128

The Point Reyes Peninsula offers a wealth of ecological diversity, an abundance of native 

species representative of coastal California, a complex history of past and current human 

use, and a tumultuous geologic story. Interpretive program managers at the park faced the 

challenge of how best to represent these complex and varied topics in a way that helped 

visitors grasp some understanding of their importance, and spurred visitors to experience 

these features for themselves. After an initial dependence on living history demonstration 

areas, which was a response to an NPS-wide agenda, PRNS interpretive programming 

broadened considerably in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1990s, the NPS finally invested—

via the Interpretive Development Program—the planning, money, and, most importantly, 

training that enabled a much larger percentage of interpretive staff throughout the Park 

Service to provide the public with that sort of experience. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER 8 

1

 National Park Service (hereafter NPS), “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 

May 1972, Box 1, Accession 78-0001, PORE Correspondence Files, RG 79 Records of the 

National Park Service, National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Region, San Bruno, 

California (hereafter PORE Files, NARA-SB), 11-12. 2

 Point Reyes National Seashore (hereafter PRNS), “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” 

August 10, 1970, File A4023 Staff Mtg-PORE, Box 1, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 2. 

3

 NPS, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 11. 

4

 NPS, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 11. 

5

 Barry Mackintosh, “Interpretation in Crisis,” in Interpretation in the National Park Service: A 

Historical Perspective (Washington, D.C.: NPS History Division, 1986), 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/mackintosh2 (accessed May 12, 2005). 6

 Department of the Interior, Administrative Policies for Recreation Areas, National Seashores, 

National Lakeshores, National Parkways, National Scenic Riverways of the National Park System,

rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968), 42. 

7 Administrative Policies for Recreation Areas, 42. 8

 National Park Service, “Point Reyes National Seashore Management Objectives,” prepared by 

Edward J. Kurtz, February 1970, File D18, Planning Program and Master Plans, Box 2, Accession 

76A713, PORE Correspondence Files, RG79, NARA-SB, 6. 

9

 NPS, “Point Reyes National Seashore Management Objectives,” 1970, 6. 

10 Point Reyes National Seashore, “Interpretive Prospectus, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

California,” 1973, prepared by William Germeraad and Ronald Treabess, Western Regional 

Office, NPS Pacific West Regional Office Library, Oakland, California (hereafter PWRO). 11 Point Reyes National Seashore, “Interpretive Prospectus,” 1973, 27. 

Conclusion 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

290

12 Sansing to Regional Director, Western Region, January 16, 1974, File K1815 Interpretive 

Services and Facilities, Box 5, Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

13 Quote by Katherine [Miller] Johnson, Johnson to Sansing, November 12, 1970, File 1815, 

Suggestions for Master Plan, 1965-70, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Correspondence Files, 

RG 79, NARA-SB, 4. 

14 Johnson to Sansing, November 12, 1970. 

15 Barry Mackintosh, “Environmental Interpretation,” Interpretation in the National Park Service, 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/mackintosh2/directions_environmental.htm (accessed 

May 12, 2005). 

16 Interpretive Principles Training session, Module 101, attended by Paul Sadin, June 2000, Mount 

Rainier National Park. 

17 Mackintosh, “Environmental Interpretation.” 

18 Mackintosh, “Environmental Interpretation.” 

19 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes SFBAG,” April 20, 1970, File A4023 Staff Mtg., Box 1, 

Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 4. 

20 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, Bay Area Cluster,” June 8, 1970, File A4023 Staff Mtg., Box 1, 

Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 3. 

21 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” File A2621 Annual Reports–General, Box 1, 

Accession 79-78-0001, NPS Correspondence 1972-74 (hereafter PORE Files), NARA-SB, 2. 

22 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 8. 

23 “Morgan Horse Farm, Point Reyes National Seashore,” tourist brochure (Point Reyes: Muir 

Woods-Point Reyes Natural History Association, 1972), Point Reyes National Seashore pamphlet 

file, Anne Kent California Room, Marin County Library, San Rafael, California. 

24 Sansing, “Staff Management Minutes,” April 20, 1970, 1. 

25 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 9. 

26 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 8. 

27 Dave Dahlen, “Illumination: the National Park Service and Interpretation,” Legacy 15 

(September-October 2004): 14-19. 

28 Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 3rd ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina 

Press, 1977). 

29 Ronald A. Foresta, America’s National Parks and Their Keepers (Washington, D.C.: Resources 

for the Future, Inc., 1984), 54. 

30 Mackintosh, “Interpretation in Crisis,” 2. 

31 Barry Mackintosh, “Living History,” in Interpretation in the National Park Service: A 

Historical Perspective (Washington, D.C.: NPS History Division, 1986), 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/mackintosh2/directions_living_history.htm (accessed 

May 12, 2005). 

32 Mackintosh, “Living History,” 1. 33 Hal K. Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 70-78; and Leah Dilworth, “Tourists and Indians in 

Fred Harvey’s Southwest,” in Seeing and Being Seen: Tourists in the American West, ed. David 

M. Wrobel and Patrick T. Long (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 142-64. 

34 Mackintosh, “Living History,” 1-2. 35 Mackintosh, “Living History,” 1. 

36 Mackintosh, “Living History,” 1. 

37 William K. Kay, “Keep It Alive! Tips on Living History Demonstrations,” National Park 

Service brochure (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1970), File K1817 Interpretive Planning, Box 6, 

Access. 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 3. 

38 NPS, “Special Report – Living Historical Farm, Point Reyes National Seashore,” draft, prepared 

by Interpretive Planner, National Capitol Region, August 6, 1968, File D1815 Suggestions for 

Master Plan, 1965-70, Box 2, Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 1. 

39 “Special Report – Living Historical Farm.” 40 “Special Report – Living Historical Farm,” 4. 41 “Special Report – Living Historical Farm,” 4. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

291

42 PRNS, “Dairy Farm Proposal, November 1969,” Folder Demo Dairy Farm, Box 1, 

Administrative Files, Point Reyes National Seashore Archives (hereafter PRA), 2. 43 “Special Report – Living Historical Farm,” 6. 44 Wayne W. Bryant, chief, Interpretation and Visitor Services, West Region, to Ernst T. 

Christensen, Interpretive Planner, National Capitol Region, October 11, 1968, Living History 

Farm Report–Corresp., Box 1, Administrative History Files, PRA. 

45 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 2. 

46 John L. Sansing, unpublished memoir, n.d., Superintendent’s Office Files, Administration 

Building, PRNS. 

47 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1973,” File A2621 Annual Reports–General, Box 1, 

Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Files, NARA-SB, 7. 

48 Foresta, America’s National Parks, 164. 

49 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1973,” 2. 

50 Gordon Chappell, interview by Paul Sadin, no recording, October 2003, PWRO. 

51 Sansing, memoir, 26 

52 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1977,” 7-8. 

53 Roger Kelly, “Kule Loklo Demonstration Village, Point Reyes National Seashore,” January 8, 

1988, Point Reyes Indian Village, 1978-1992, Accession BF080.C, Tom Mulhern Records, 

PWRO. 

54 Sansing, interview. 

55 PRNS, Kule Loklo Project – Briefing Statement, March 1976, File K1817, Kule Loklo records, 

PORE 8471, PRA. 

56 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

57 Ralph G. Mihan, Field Solicitor, Western Region, to Western Regional Director, April 13, 1976, 

Superintendent’s Files A44: Cooperative Agreement, Kule Loklo Files, accession PORE 8471, 

PRA. 

58 PRNS, “A Proposal: Kule Loklo Coast Miwok Indian Village,” File K1817, Kule Loklo records, 

PORE 8471, PRA. 

59 PRNS, “Cooperative Agreement between Point Reyes National Seashore and Miwok 

Archeological Preserve of Marin to Plan, Construct, Operate, and Interpret A Coast Miwok Indian 

Village at Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1976, File K1817, Kule Loklo records, PORE 8471, 

PRA, 1. 

60 PRNS, “Cooperative Agreement between Point Reyes National Seashore and Miwok 

Archeological Preserve of Marin,” 1. 

61 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” shelved materials, PSO Library, n.p. 

62 Sansing, interview. 

63 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1977,” shelved materials, PSO Library, 8. 

64 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1978,” shelved materials, PSO Library, 5. 

65 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1980,” shelved materials, PSO Library, 8 

66 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” shelved materials, PSO Library, 7. 

67 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1979,” shelved materials, PSO Library, 7. 

68 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” 15. 

69 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” 8. 

70 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” 14. 

71 Kelly, “Kule Loklo Demonstration Village, Point Reyes National Seashore,” January 8, 1988. 

72 Carola DeRooy, PRNS Archivist, email communication with Paul Sadin, October 19, 2005. 73 Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West, 70-78; and 

Dilworth, “Tourists and Indians in Fred Harvey’s Southwest,” 142-64. 74 Rob Baker, “Upholding the Miwok Heritage,” Pacific Sun (March 21-27, 1980), Point Reyes 

Indian Village, Accession BF080.C, PWRO. 

75 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

76 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

77 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

78 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

79 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” n.p. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story 

292

80 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1977,” 14. 

81 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1980,” 9. 

82 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1980,” 6. 

83 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1981,” 7. 

84 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1977,” 7. 

85 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1978,” 6. 

86 See Superintendent’s Annual Reports for 1983-1988 (shelved materials, PWRO) for visitation 

statistics. 

87 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1983,” shelved materials, PWRO, n.p. 

88 Foresta, America’s National Parks, 54. 

89 Dwight F. Rettie, Our National Park System: Caring for America’s Greatest Natural and 

Historic Treasures (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 111. 

90 Rettie, Our National Park System: Caring for America’s Greatest Natural and Historic 

Treasures, 111. 

91 Donald Neubacher, interview by Paul Sadin, December 2, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Administrative History Project Files, PRA. 

92 The park recently replaced the gray whale with a killer whale mock-up. 

93 NPS, “Cultural Resources Management Program, Point Reyes National Seashore,”1981, 

PWRO. 

94 PRNS, “Staff Meeting Minutes, October 12, 1969,” File A4023 Staff Mtg. – PORE, Box 1, 

Accession 76A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

95 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1974,” shelved materials, PWRO, 3. 

96 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1975,” n.p. 

97 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1976,” n.p. 

98 U.S. Statutes at Large 90 (1976): 2515-16. 99 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1977,” 8. 

100 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1978,” 7. 101 Sansing, unpublished memoir, 38. 102 PRNS, Point Reyes National Seashore Comprehensive Interpretive Plan (Point Reyes: 2003), 

17. 

103 Comprehensive Interpretive Plan 104 Superintendent’s Monthly Narrative Report – March 1965, memorandum, April 16, 1965, File 

A2615 Monthly Narrative Reports CY 1965, Box 3, Central Alphanumeric Files 1953-1969, 

Records of the Office of the Regional Director, Western Regional Office, RG 79, NARA-SB. 105 Point Reyes National Seashore Association, “Explore, Discover, Connect,” 

http://www.ptreyes.org/index.html (accessed May 6, 2005). 106 Muir Woods–Point Reyes Association, “Annual Report, 1967,” File A42 Cooperating 

Associations–General, Box 1, Accession 76 A713, PORE Files, NARA-SB. 

107 NPS, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 4. 108 NPS, “Bay Area Cluster,” March 8, 1971, File A4023 Staff Mtg-PORE, Box 1, PORE Files, 

NARA-SB, 2. 

109 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1973,” 3. 110 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1972,” 2. 111 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1989,” File A2621 – Superintendent’s Annual 

Reports, Central Classified Files, Administration Building, PRNS, 7. 

112 “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1989,” 7. 113 Neubacher, interview. 114 PRNS, “Interpretive Prospectus, Point Reyes National Seashore,” Point Reyes Division of 

Interpretation, 1989, Columbia Cascades Library, NPS Columbia-Cascades Support Office, 

Seattle, Washington, 6. 

115 “Interpretive Prospectus,” 1989, 7-8. 116 “Interpretive Prospectus,” 1989, 7. 117 “Interpretive Prospectus,” 1989, 4–5. 118 John Dell’Osso, interview by Paul Sadin, April 30, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Administrative History Project Files, PRA. 
Exploring and Telling the Point Reyes Story

293

119 NPS, Interpretive Development Program, http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp.htm, (accessed May 

18, 2005). 

120 NPS, Interpretive Development Program, http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/index/htm (accessed 

May 18, 2005). 

121 David L. Larson, “Be Relevant or Become a Relic: Meeting the Public Where They Are,” 

Journal of Interpretive Research 7 (2002): 17-23, 20. 122 John Dell’Osso, email communication with Paul Sadin, October 13, 2005. 123 David L. Larson, “Be Relevant or Become a Relic: Meeting the Public Where They Are,” 

Journal of Interpretative Research 7 (2002): 17-23, 20. 124 Dell’Osso, interview. 125 Dell’Osso, email. 126 Dell’Osso, interview. 127 Dell’Osso, email. 128 Dell’Osso interview; and Dell’Osso email. 
294
295

CHAPTER NINE
296
297

CHAPTER NINE

A HERITAGE LOST AND REGAINED: UNDERSTANDING,

EVALUATING, AND PRESERVING THE PARK’S CULTURAL 

RESOURCES

“. . . for God’s sakes let’s get rid of some of these old traps before the historians discover 

them.” 

. . . attributed to Superintendent Les Arnberger 

he rugged, seemingly isolated coastline of Point Reyes peninsula has supported a 

constant stream of human occupation, which has left the park with a rich history. 

Resources in the area range from countless prehistoric Native American middens and 

settlement sites, which attest to the Coast Miwok population that once lived on the 

peninsula, to the grazing lands and barns peppering the countryside, which are the legacy 

of two centuries of dairy and cattle ranching. Historic buildings, such as the iconic Point 

Reyes lighthouse and decaying remains of early extractive industries, such as the Olema 

Lime Kilns, suggest the unique and varied historic resources within the boundaries of the 

Point Reyes National Seashore. Some of the park’s cultural resources, such as the 1595 

wreck of the San Agustín, lie offshore, unseen under the pounding surf; others, such as 

the radio transmitters and receivers of communications companies that once operated 

here, still dot the horizon, giving visual testimony to the complex history of the region. 

When the National Park Service acquired peninsula lands and the historic structures, 

landscapes, and sacred sites on them, park managers and regional officials struggled to 

define the cultural resources that had come under their auspices, and determine how best 

to inventory, preserve, and protect them. As decades passed, federal laws, agency 

policies, and public opinion regarding historic properties and cultural resources evolved, 

forcing Point Reyes administrators to redefine management objectives and strategies in 

order to adequately honor and protect the peninsula’s wide-ranging human history. 

The 1916 NPS Organic Act outlined the Park Service’s mission not only as conservation 

of scenery, wildlife, and natural objects, but also as preservation of historic resources.1

The founding act, however, also set up a dichotomy between preservation and use of 

natural, cultural, and historic features that continues to vex park service administrators 

today. Is the NPS mission to preserve natural beauty and historic structures or to foster 

recreational use? To preserve natural or cultural resources or to promote active human 

use of those sites, which could negatively impact their natural or historic integrity? 

Accordingly, management of cultural and historic resources at Point Reyes National 

Seashore has been inextricably tied to policy developments within the National Park 

Service and federal government, and to the local structures, financial concerns, and even 

the plate tectonics and weather patterns that shape the Point Reyes Peninsula. Over the 

national seashore’s first forty years, the NPS gradually increased its attention to cultural 

resources expanding, redefining, and complicating preexisting management objectives. 

Compliance with federal regulations undoubtedly became the main impetus for the NPS 

to look more closely at its unique historic sites, cultural landscapes, and ethnographic 

resources. However, the growing emphasis on material resources in the park system at 

large and Point Reyes in particular also derived from increasing public awareness of and 

desire to protect the finite number and unique qualities of cultural resources in each park 

unit. Historians, archaeologists, park management, members of local communities, and 

T 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

298

the general public have all had a hand in attempting to define and protect material objects 

and landscapes that are the legacy of the peninsula’s prior inhabitants. 

The NPS master plans, general management plans, and administrative strategies for Point 

Reyes written in the 1960s and 1970s did not overtly address cultural resource 

management (CRM), a phrase that had yet to be applied to parks administration although 

the concept had been in circulation in academic circles for a half century.2

 By the early 

1980s, however, park administrators at every type of NPS unit had begun to change their 

approach to the cultural and historic legacies in their charge, reflecting twenty years of 

slow but inexorable change and a more articulated concern about preserving monuments 

to human history and prehistory in the national park system. Cultural resource 

management gradually became a more important aspect of the Park Service mission, 

prompting park managers to pay closer attention to federal regulations and NPS 

directives. In response to this new emphasis on cultural resources, NPS officials and staff 

built the discipline of cultural resource management on the foundation of the Park 

Service’s Organic Act of 1916, sections 106 and 110 of the National Historic 

Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA), and President Richard Nixon’s Executive Order 

11593 in 1971, all of which placed historic preservation on par with natural resource 

protection and visitor access as essential park functions.3

NHPA, in particular, and the 

subsequent National Environmental 

Protection Act (NEPA), brought 

about a larger focus on cultural 

resources at all Park Service units. 

Even those that had originally been 

set aside to preserve their distinctive 

natural features and outstanding 

recreational opportunities, as the 

national seashores had been, did not 

escape the trend. Understanding how 

redefining the character and value of 

cultural resources in the national 

parks affected the administration of 

Point Reyes requires a summary of 

the national developments in CRM 

in the National Park Service and 

Point Reyes administrators’ 

responses to those changes. 

CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN THE NATIONAL PARKS

Although the organic act outlined historic resources as important to the parks, cultural 

resource management, as we know it today, was not at the top of the list when Congress 

created the Park Service. Yet prior to that, federal legislators and several presidents 

designated a number of sites in the American Southwest as worthy of federal protection 

and admission to the nascent national park system because of their significant 

archaeological or historic qualities. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison created by 

Executive Order the Casa Grande Ruin Reservation, in Arizona. Harrison had established 

the nation’s first archaeological preserve to protect the prehistoric “big house” ruin left 

NATIONAL HISTORIC PRESERVATION ACT OF 1966 

The most comprehensive national policy on 

historic preservation was established by Congress with 

the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 

1966 (NHPA). Amended in 1970 and 1980, this federal 

law defined historic preservation to include districts, 

sites, buildings, structures, and objects significant in 

American history, architecture, archaeology, and 

culture. The act led to the creation of the National 

Register of Historic Places, a file of cultural resources 

of national, regional, state, and local significance. 

NHPA also established the Advisory Council on 

Historic Preservation (the Council), an independent 

federal agency responsible for administering the 

protective provisions of the act. 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

299

by the ancient Hohokam civilization. The Secretary of the Interior held the authority and 

responsibility for managing the site; Department of the Interior reports usually lumped 

Casa Grande Ruin in a category with small national park units, such as Sullys Hill and 

Platt national parks. Casa Grande Ruin Reservation—today Casa Grande Ruins National 

Monument—was thus the first “cultural” resource site in the national park system.4

When President Theodore Roosevelt established the first four national monuments under 

the authority of the recently passed Antiquities Act of 1906, two of them, Montezuma 

Castle and El Morro, gained protection primarily because they contained significant 

prehistoric and historic values.5

 Congress created the Antiquities Act to preserve 

prehistoric ruins and historic structures, archaeological sites, historic landmarks, and 

other “objects of historic or scientific interest” by setting those lands aside under federal 

protection, in order to prevent souvenir hunters, museum collectors, and vandals from 

pillaging and destroying them.6

 In 1907, Congress authorized Mesa Verde National Park, 

the first full-fledged national park site established to protect one of the country’s most 

important archaeological treasures. 

Although these early sites set the precedent for protecting areas of national historic or 

archaeological significance within the park system, by the time Congress established the 

NPS its leadership clearly emphasized recreational opportunities and conservation of 

natural resources over preservation of such resources. Indeed, the first NPS policy 

statement, a 1918 letter written under the auspices of Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. 

Lane (but authored by Horace M. Albright) to NPS director Stephen T. Mather, ignored 

cultural resources altogether when discussing the Park Service’s mission to preserve, 

develop, and expand the national park system.7

Albright was an avid historian with a personal interest in creating parks that highlighted 

historic resources. When he succeeded Mather as NPS director in 1929, he turned 

immediately to incorporate East Coast monuments, memorials, and battlegrounds into the 

park system, supporting a bill to transfer to NPS control sites over which the War 

Department and the Department of Agriculture had previous jurisdiction.8

 Although the 

initial transfer legislation stalled, in 1933, Albright convinced newly inaugurated 

president Franklin D. Roosevelt to use his powers of executive branch reorganization to 

transfer authority over fifty-two areas from other federal departments to the NPS. Of 

these new acquisitions, forty-four were sites established because of their cultural or 

historical significance. As Park Service historian Barry Mackintosh has explained, “what 

had initially been a western park service and system became truly national.”9

Pre-1930s protection of cultural resources was rooted in the 1906 Antiquities Act, but 

little attention was paid to actual preservation or interpretation of such sites. After the 

1933 consolidation, however, the NPS hired historians, architects, archivists, and curators 

to research, document, and preserve cultural resources in the park units. Benefiting from 

Works Progress Administration (WPA) and other New Deal programs, the NPS 

employed out-of-work professionals to engage in much of this early documentation, 

setting the stage for policy and program development throughout the century. Indeed, the 

first significant historical documentation program implemented in the NPS was the 

Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), which was launched in 1933, joined by the 

Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) in 1969, and still functions today.10

Legal authority to continue such undertakings was consolidated in the 1935 Historic Sites 

Act, which declared preservation of historic sites, buildings, and objects a project of 

Antiquities 

Act of 1906 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

300

“national significance for the inspiration and benefit of the people of the United States,” 

and called for a national survey of possible sites in need of preservation as part of the 

park system. For three decades, the focus remained on historic structures, and the NPS 

possessed adequate authority to preserve structures designated as having historical 

significance. The post-World War II era revealed a different milieu, however, in which 

industrial expansion, urban renewal, and technological advancements began leaving 

indelible imprints on the land in the form of interstate highways, dams, airports, and the 

like. While many Americans viewed these new developments as in the nation’s best 

interest, many people also worried that rampant destruction of natural and historic sites 

would result. 

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA) responded to this growing 

concern, reinforcing and expanding not only federal regulations regarding preservation 

but also broadening them to include sites of state and local significance.11 The act created 

the National Register of Historic Places and the Advisory Council on Historic 

Preservation, which the Park Service administered. Section 106 of the NHPA mandated 

the NPS (in concert with state, local, and tribal officials) to identify and evaluate historic 

properties in their jurisdiction for inclusion in the National Register, and to assess and 

attempt to resolve adverse effects proposed federal undertakings might have on those 

properties. In a reversal of usual roles, the NHPA directed the federal agency in question 

to report and respond to the proper state authority. Thus, PRNS or the Western Regional 

Office reported their assessment findings to the California State Historic Preservation 

Officer (SHPO). 

In response to what seemed like foot-dragging on the part of some agencies, President 

Richard M. Nixon in 1971 issued Executive Order No. 11593, reiterating the importance 

of NHPA compliance and requiring federal agencies again to “locate, inventory, and 

nominate to the Secretary of the Interior all sites, buildings, districts, and objects under 

their jurisdiction or control that appear to qualify for listing on the National Register of 

Historic Places.” Furthermore, Nixon’s executive order (made with a keen eye on the 

political cachet to be gained among the growing environmentalist constituency) 

demanded that agencies complete their respective inventories no later than July 1, 1973. 

Administrators were to “exercise caution during the interim period to assure that any 

federally owned property that might qualify for nomination is not inadvertently 

transferred, sold, demolished, or substantially altered.”12 In 1976, Congress made the 

NHPA-originated Advisory Council on the Act an independent agency. Amendments to 

NHPA provided tax incentives for preservation and further honed standards and 

guidelines for effective application of the law. Federal, state, and local agencies have 

worked hard to comply (albeit with varying levels of financial support and at different 

levels of effectiveness) ever since.13 

Both NHPA and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) were changing 

the tenor within the Park Service regarding cultural resources. The changes occurred in 

two distinct stages. First, the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s 

fostered greater awareness of America’s dwindling wild places and rampant destruction 

of natural resources and habitats. This focus on ecology and “wilderness,” which 

influenced a generation of superintendents, among them John Sansing, led many park 

administrators to advocate returning improved and agricultural lands to their “natural” 

state at the expense of valuable cultural resources in their midst.14 Second, the cultural 

and countercultural movements of the 1970s sparked greater interest not only in historic 

monuments and heritage sites pertaining to the history of the nation but also sites of 

National 

Historic 

Preservation 

Act of 1966 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

301

importance to Native Americans both archaeological and extant. This second wave of 

changing perceptions about cultural resources in the national parks helped foster the more 

balanced and integrated approach to natural and cultural resources found in the park 

system today.15

Within these evolving trends in park management, and under the direction of NHPA and 

NEPA, were various restatements of Nixon’s 1971 order that federal officials should at 

all times, “provide leadership in preserving, restoring, and maintaining the historic and 

cultural environment of the nation.”16 Despite grand and no doubt honorable intentions to 

preserve the environment and cultural resources, budgetary and staff shortfalls continued 

to plague park units, making forced compliance often a burden and sometimes a fanciful 

wish. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Point Reyes administrators battled 

constantly to balance federal requirements with local realities. What follows is a short 

history of the growth and evolution of cultural resource management at Point Reyes 

National Seashore. 

EVOLUTION OF CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AT POINT REYES 

Initial debates in Congress and in Bay Area communities about creating a national 

seashore at Point Reyes centered on whether the park should be created in the first place 

more so than whether the park’s mission would be to preserve natural landscapes, 

recreational opportunities, or historic sites. That the seashore was created “in order to 

save and preserve [the area], for purposes of public recreation, benefit, and inspiration,” 

does not mean, however, that people did not recognize the historic value of the 

peninsula.17 Indeed, congressional debate during the authorization campaign invoked the 

importance of Point Reyes as Sir Francis Drake’s probable landing spot.18 Although the 

specific language of the founding act did not emphasize the historic resources of the new 

seashore, the legislative intent of Congress included recognition of the peninsula’s 

historic legacy as a contributing element in the seashore’s creation. The final Senate 

report on the Point Reyes bill (S. 476) called for the NPS to plan seashore developments 

“in a manner which would leave important known historic and archaeological sites 

undisturbed so that specialists would have opportunity to study them further and 

recommend a course of action for preservation of important sites.”19

It took a full decade, from 1963 to 1972, for the NPS to finally secure the park’s land 

base and create boundaries that approximated the parameters outlined in the park’s 

founding legislation. Those decades prior to and following the national seashore’s 

consolidation were groundbreaking years for the development and implementation of 

new cultural resource management policies in the national park system. As the NPS 

struggled to acquire peninsula land, the park’s superintendents watched with increasing 

concern as cultural resource protection policies became manifest in federal law and NPS 

policy. Superintendents like Arnberger, however, were not thrilled at the thought of 

having to manage all of the archaeological and historical sites on the peninsula on top of 

what he believed to be far more pressing management concerns at the time, such as lost 

backpackers, drug-using hippies, fighting fires, and simply trying to organize facilities, 

services, and safety measures for the rapidly increasing numbers of visitors to the 

seashore. According to Robert Barbee, one of the first park rangers to serve at Point 

Reyes, Superintendent Les Arnberger’s response to acquiring old decaying barns on 

properties during the land acquisition period at Point Reyes was “for God’s sakes let’s get 

rid of some of these old traps before the historians discover them.” According to Barbee, 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

302

they did just that: “We burned some of them down,” he reported.20 This pragmatic 

disdain toward historic preservation (and the people who worked in its service) would 

permeate the administration of Point Reyes, and to some extent the entire NPS, 

throughout the 1970s.21

Park Service Historian Stephanie S. Toothman has explained that in parks valued for their 

natural qualities, a number of factors worked de facto to devalue cultural resources: lack 

of park-specific mandates to manage cultural resources, failure to recognize cultural 

resources in the unit, the presence of cultural resources that seem to contradict the park’s 

primary mandate, lack of staff with appropriate CRM training or interest, staff with 

philosophical or professional interests at conflict with CRM goals, and little to no 

budgetary concern for CRM.22 All of these conditions to a certain degree existed at Point 

Reyes National Seashore, as they did in other natural and recreational park units; thus it 

should come as no surprise that cultural resources were not given top priority at the park 

despite national directives that all park units, no matter what their emphasis, to do more 

to protect them. The park administration spent much of the decade in avoidance of the 

cultural resources in the park and the national responsibility to inventory, document, and 

protect those resources. 

Although some resisted these developments, park administrators like Sansing, who came 

to his post in the midst of the transition, knew they would have to confront the realities 

and tough choices compliance would force upon them. It would not, however, be an easy 

period at PRNS. As did many other administrators and Park Service staff who were, as 

one park service official described it, “of a different generation,” Sansing dragged his feet 

where compliance with national historic preservation legislation was concerned.23 This 

was especially true in parks that were established to protect scenic and biological values, 

as opposed to those that preserved areas of historical significance. Although the new 

classification of national seashores initially fell under a recreational rubric, debates about 

how to define Point Reyes’ importance focused on its natural beauty and many people 

both inside and outside the park in the 1970s saw its significance in its “wildness” and 

natural features. 

In 1970, when Sansing and fellow NPS administrators Douglas Nadeau, Glenn O. 

Hendrix, and Joseph C. Rumburg, Jr., formed a General Management Plan (GMP) 

planning team, they addressed questions the 1964 PRNS master plan had raised but never 

answered. Point Reyes possessed unique natural features and yet was a huge piece of 

federal land located within easy reach of millions of Bay Area citizens who wished to use 

the park. Worried that recreation would get prime billing to the detriment of its natural 

resources, the report asked rhetorically, “Is Point Reyes just a place to play?”24 How to 

provide the benefits that access conferred while preserving the park’s singular beauty and 

irreplaceable resources was the issue. The committee worked to create a general 

management plan that would resolve this conundrum and could respond to the problems 

at hand. 

Just as revealing about priorities in 1970 is the absence of cultural resources from the 

final GMP document. The committee was far more concerned with finding a compromise 

between preservation and promoting recreation than it was in melding the two with 

cultural resource management, despite Congress’s recent directive that such should be the 

case in the national parks. The report’s single mention of a historic or cultural resource 

regards the request of the owner of an oyster facility on Drakes Estero who had expressed 

his desire to keep the operation running and had asked that the park interpret the site. 

Resistance 

and 

Pragmatism: 

The 1970s 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

303

Even the ranches, which the committee considered in a full paragraph and explicitly 

recognized as having importance to the seashore for the “pastoral scene” presented to 

visitors, were only referred to as possible lands that might be freed for recreational use.25 

Administrators responded differently to the National Historic Preservation Act based on 

the unique resources of their individual parks and the challenges each faced in terms of 

budgetary constraints and local pressures. In 1972, Sansing was administering PRNS 

with a small budget and limited, deteriorating facilities. He was also trying to reconcile 

the park’s mission to “save and preserve” with the 1960s national recreation area mindset 

and the new administrative shift to greater emphasis on historic preservation.26 A 1972 

PRNS “Operations Evaluation” stated that the seashore administration had prioritized 

(natural) resources management and to aid that effort had hired a “Resource Management 

Specialist” to complement the research biologist already on staff. 27 The report does refer 

briefly to historic resources such as the Coast Guard lifesaving station, but discusses them 

solely within the interpretation rubric.28 

The 1972 GMP’s emphasis on natural resources fit the the NPS administrative thinking 

of the time, which advocated obliterating dilapidated old shacks in favor of returning the 

environment to some “natural” state. In 1970 and 1971, prior to upcoming public 

hearings on the park’s general management plan and wilderness proposal, local citizens’ 

organizations, which included the Bolinas Future Studies Center, Environmental Action 

Committee of West Marin, Inverness Improvement Association, Marin Conservation 

League, and Tomales Bay Association, and national groups (National Parks and 

Conservation Association and Sierra Club), outlined their vision for the park’s future.29

With some variation in their specific recommendations, the position statements were 

uniformly vehement in calling on Sansing and his superiors, as one report stated, “to plan 

and manage Point Reyes with the priority objective of preserving and restoring it as a 

Natural Area.”30 The emphasis on restoration here is worth noting. These groups did not 

simply wish PRNS to preserve the seashore in its current state, they were calling for the 

Park Service to return substantial portions of the peninsula to a “wilderness” state, much 

in the same vein as the 1963 “Leopold Report.”31 Caught between the proverbial rock and 

hard place, as were many of his peers in superintendent positions, Sansing filtered the 

needs and demands of wilderness advocates, federal historic preservation directives, and 

rapidly increasing public use of the park through his own lens of the park’s mission. 

Sansing did what he perceived necessary to maintaining a fiscally sound unit that worked 

in concert with local landowners. In the meantime, historic preservation took a backseat. 

Sansing’s disregard for historic preservation at PRNS is evidenced in his on-the-ground 

management of historic properties governed by section 106 guidelines. Sansing 

implemented or quietly endorsed practices that would make contemporary historic 

preservationists, scientists, and academics cringe even as they pleased environmentalists 

at the time who wished to see nature “restored.” LeeRoy Brock, Sansing’s chief ranger 

from 1974 to 1995, noted that the park took over a lot of old ranches that had “the 

remains of facilities, milking sheds, and buildings, with the remains of falling down barns 

and everything,” which Sansing dealt with by utilizing his “D-8 policy,” referring to a 

particular model of Caterpillar tractor in use at the time. Brock explained: “That was to 

go in, dig a pit, knock ‘em down, and haul ‘em out policy.”32 Gordon Chappell, who has 

been the western regional historian since the NPS reinstated the position in 1974, 

remembered having a difficult time trying to get the Point Reyes administration and staff 

more involved with cultural resource management in the 1970s.33 Thomas Mulhern, who 

Sansing’s 

D-8 Policy 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

304

worked in cultural resource 

management at the San 

Francisco (now Oakland) 

support office in the 1970s, 

similarly perceived that 

cultural resource and historic 

preservation work were not 

well accepted when first 

proposed at Point Reyes, and 

that park administrators 

ignored these elements of 

resource protection for a 

number of years.34 According 

to Chappell, the primary focus 

of cultural resource work at 

Point Reyes during this time 

was the lighthouse and 

lifesaving station, iconic 

features of the park that were 

popular with visitors and 

locals alike.35 

Sansing’s D-8 approach, along with more benign neglect, made sense from an 

administrative and fiscal point of view as a way to deal with structures beyond reasonable 

repair, structures that to the older generation of park superintendents were viewed as 

management problems rather than cultural resources per se.36 Chappell, for example, did 

survey work for a historic resource report on the ruins of the Olema Lime Kilns in the 

mid-1970s. When he informed Sansing of the historic significance of the kilns, Sansing 

suggested they “keep them secret” because the park had no money in the budget to 

manage the site.37 

This is not to say that Sansing entirely disregarded cultural resources in the park. He 

understood the implications of the NHPA legislation and that he would have to consider 

its dictates in his policy toward historical and archaeological resources under his watch. 

As early as February 1973, Sansing approached the Western Region Director asking for a 

team to come out and evaluate a number of recently acquired ranch properties—some of 

which dated to the 1850s. “In the past, the ranchers spent a considerable amount of time 

and money on maintenance of buildings in this damp and windy climate,” he noted. 

Asking for help in determining which structures to save and maintain, he also made clear 

his assessment of the potential financial costs involved. “At this point it certainly doesn’t 

seem practical to save every building and burden ourselves with the heavy maintenance 

costs of preserving all the structures.”38

Immediately upon starting his job with the NPS in 1974, regional archaeologist Roger 

Kelly was called out to Point Reyes as part of just such a team. Again, Sansing wanted 

some advice: Could he tear this particular structure down? Was it historically significant? 

Did it have any restoration or reuse value? Visible from the road and in an obvious state 

of disrepair, anything the Park Service would decide to do to the building would be 

obvious to passersby. According to Kelly, this was the first field problem Sansing 

attempted to address using experts in cultural resource fields as architecture, archaeology, 

and history—a definite step forward for cultural resource management at Point Reyes Record No. 42090b. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Dilapidated barn on the Nunes Ranch. 

Historical 

Structures 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

305

National Seashore. However, to Sansing, there was nothing “exciting” about the building. 

Rather, the potential repercussions he might face because of the high profile of the site 

was what made it problematic. As Kelly explained, “It was a management problem,” as 

opposed to a preservation problem.39 

Certainly, Sansing realized the importance of high-profile historic resources at the park. 

Visible landmarks like the lighthouse, Coast Guard buildings, and intact ranching 

complexes he could appreciate. However, Kelly believes, “He probably had some 

difficulty in trying to understand why some of the more minor things, such as some of the 

not-so-pretty archaeological sites, were so important.” Sansing’s conceptual difficulties 

in seeing the relative importance of high-profile versus seemingly minor resources was 

no doubt endemic in many NPS administrators of his generation. Having begun his career 

many years before the wave of historic preservation, cultural awareness, and 

environmental protection legislation that swept the late 1960s and 1970s, “he was 

probably quite accustomed to not even thinking a lot of things in a pretty run-down 

condition, except as they might be safety hazards or something like that.”40 

By the mid-1970s, maintenance of 

many of the historic buildings in 

the park had simply become 

impossible, yet tearing them down 

had begun to spark debate among 

locals who were concerned about 

these resources. As Brock noted, 

“There’s a certain segment of the 

population that wants to maintain 

and restore . . . these structures, 

but there’s no money. . . . I can 

tell you right now we fought with 

money.” Budgetary concerns were 

no small matter. Mulhern reported 

that while doing survey work to 

create a List of Classified 

Structures (LCS) for the park, 

Sansing asked historians involved 

in the project to keep him up to 

date with new additions to the 

LCS, because of his concerns 

about how much money 

protection of the buildings might cost the park. Mulhern remembered that the projected 

cost to stabilize or repair all of the structures on the preliminary LCS for Point Reyes 

would have been equivalent to 80 percent of the historic preservation resource budget for 

the entire Western Region, which included all the parks in California, Arizona, Nevada, 

and Hawaii.41 

In light of such impossible situations, Sansing performed a sort of cultural resources 

triage. Indeed, these decisions presaged later NPS guidelines that articulated the necessity 

of balancing the relative historical significance of a site with the fiscal impracticality of 

preserving every fifty-plus year old structure or landscape in a given area. NPS-28 states 

that CRM “decisions should recognize variations in meaning, integrity, and threats” but 

“must be integrated with natural resource management, education, and visitor experience Historic American Buildings Survey no. CA 2280-2

Point Reyes Lighthouse. 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

306

as the primary concerns of park management.” In other words, triage is both necessary 

and acceptable in areas where relative values of properties are low or where lack of funds 

and/or staff is a pressing concern.42 

Park administration tried to address public concerns, but often felt that local activists’ 

demands were at best financially impossible and at worst ludicrous. In contradiction to 

voices calling for “restoration” of the peninsula to wilderness, others wanted every 

historic structure in the park inventoried, preserved, and restored. As Brock explained, 

“we had public meetings where certain sectors of the population wanted to turn [these 

ranches] into tea houses or [use them] for backpacking . . . they used the Adirondacks as 

an example.” Brock’s candid assessment of such ideas was that they would prove to be an 

“administrative nightmare,” a characterization that was no doubt also clear in the minds 

of Sansing and other park staff.43 

Given the realities of park finances and simple logistics, park administration realized a 

trade-off must be made. Brock noted that Sansing cleaned up “the old trash and garbage 

from a lot of these old ranches. In return, he . . . together with the interpreters and with 

the advisory commission . . . selected certain ranches to be maintained.”44 The regional 

office supported Sansing’s compromise measures.45 The decision was made to focus 

preservation effort on the Pierce Point Ranch, because it had the largest number of intact 

historic buildings (the barns, schoolhouse, carriage house, and main ranch dwelling were 

still in relatively good shape), it was easily accessible to renovation crews and park 

visitors, and it was not tied up in a reservation of use.46 According to Brock, however, 

there simply was no easy access to many of the other historic ranch sites.47 With funding 

scarce and such divergent views of the park’s mission at hand, Sansing realized that no 

one would be completely satisfied with whatever final policy was decided upon. 

Under Sansing, according to Kelly, historical resources took precedence over 

archaeological, simply because so much work had already been done by outside sources 

and because the historic resources were much more visible and prominent in local 

memory than the prehistoric resources. “The thought at the time was ‘well-look, we can’t 

stop mother nature from eroding these shell middens,’” Kelly recalled. Given the relative 

lack of budget for CRM overall, “the budget went mostly to historic structures.”48 

However, a number of sites at Point Reyes had already been excavated prior to the park’s 

authorization. Excavations in Native American midden sites by University of California 

archaeologists in the 1940s were conducted to develop a prehistoric chronology In 

addition to a wealth of prehistoric finds, sixteenth-century historic artifacts were also 

uncovered that included Chinese porcelain shards and iron spikes. The shards are 

generally attributed to the shipwreck of the San Agustín in 1595, but it has also been 

proposed that many of the shards originated from contact with Drake and his crew in 

1579.49 It is notable that Native Americans chipped and drilled a number of shards for 

their own purposes. Further excavations and field surveys were undertaken in the 1950s 

by archaeologists from the University of California, San Francisco State College, and the 

private Drake Navigators Guild, primarily to find additional artifacts and features they 

might be able to associate with Drake. Robert Barbee, protection ranger during the 

Binniwies and Arnberger administrations, related that in the mid- to late 1960s, a good 

deal of archaeological work was being conducted at Point Reyes. At that time, Aden E. 

Treganza and his students from San Francisco State College, in cooperation with Santa 

Rosa Junior College, were conducting several archaeological excavations and a field 

survey for the National Park Service. According to Barbee, Treganza’s field crews 

Archaeological 

Resources 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

307

uncovered multiple human skeletons during his archaeological surveys, which piqued the 

interest of scientists, staff, and local residents at that time.50

More recent archaeological work at Point Reyes focused on the Coast Miwok people who 

inhabited the peninsula from approximately the first century onward, and probably 

earlier. Faunal remains found at the Limantour Spit in 1970 provide material evidence 

that aboriginal people inhabited the area. Other peninsula sites contained large quantities 

of broken clamshells, bead blanks, and finished beads, as well as numerous chert and 

obsidian tips with which natives drilled the disks. These finds indicate that Coast Miwok 

used Point Reyes extensively as a source for the shell beads used as ornamentation and 

currency.51 

Despite the obvious 

concentration of important 

archaeological sites within 

park boundaries, strong 

indications that numerous 

additional sites awaited 

evaluation, and a large 

number of historic structures 

potentially eligible for 

nomination to the register, 

the 1970s were not an 

especially fruitful period 

where emphasis of cultural 

resources at Point Reyes was 

concerned. In 1979, 

however, Sansing’s annual 

report listed, for the first 

time, historic preservation as 

a separate category 

deserving of mention and 

noted that the park was in 

the first stages of preparing a 

cultural resource 

management plan.52

Moreover, in the late 1970s, 

an NPS historian at the 

Denver Service Center was 

preparing the first extensive report on the archaeological and historic resources of Point 

Reyes. 

In June 1980, Anna Coxe Toogood presented her “Civil History of Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore,” a comprehensively detailed report 

on the history of both areas from prehistoric times to the mid-twentieth century.53

Toogood pointed to a “wealth of historic sites” in PRNS related to commerce, industry, 

and recreation of the Bay Area and the peninsula.54 Although no structures remained to 

represent the periods of exploration, Spanish and Mexican rule, and early American 

occupation, Toogood recommended that the park support excavation and further 

interpretation of areas associated with these time periods, most notably the brief 

incursions on the peninsula by the San Agustín’s crew, Sebastian Vizcaino’s exploration Record No. 253280. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Interpretive ranger Margaret Johnson stands with a couple at the monument 

commemorating the Drake landing site at Drakes Beach. 

Toogood’s 

Civil History 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

308

party, and Rafael Garcia’s rancho, whose site had been located but not yet excavated.55

For the prehistoric period and from the 1850s on, a number of archaeological sites and 

historic buildings and districts were extant and recommended for preservation, 

restoration, and, in rare instances, reconstruction. 

With just a handful of exceptions, Toogood pointed to structures and sites in 1980 that 

fell into one of four overarching groups: Native American, extractive industries, 

maritime, and ranching. As outlined above, archaeologists had located a significant 

number of Coast Miwok sites by the late 1970s and anticipated that hundreds more 

existed on the peninsula. A reconstructed Coast Miwok village, Kule Loklo, had been 

established at the park in July 1976, and was attracting increasing numbers of school 

children (See chapter 8).56 Although no Coast Miwok structures remained, Toogood 

recommended the park work with surviving members of the tribe to assess how best to 

interpret aboriginal archaeological sites (a number of which had been nominated to the 

register) and prehistoric culture, as well as to determine appropriate excavations and 

preservation of native history in the area.57 

Since the first white settlers arrived in Marin County in the nineteenth century, extractive 

industries played an integral role in the area. As Toogood described in 1980, the vestiges 

of these industries pepper the land. The Olema Lime Kilns, first erected in the 1850s, 

were a striking example of pioneer American industry in the area and ruins of three of the 

original four kilns had already been listed in the National Register. Granite quarries were 

also an early industry in the area, and Point Reyes granite apparently had been used to 

construct Fort Point in the mid-1850s. Although no one knew the exact location of this 

quarry, Toogood recommended that park officials be on the lookout for its location for 

future interpretive purposes. Copper mining near Bolinas was also a moderately 

successful, although short lived, venture in the area. Toogood believed that the remaining 

ruins of Copper Mine Gulch were eligible for listing in the National Register.58

In addition to mining operations on the peninsula, timber and fishing have played 

essential roles in the area’s extractive economy, especially in its relationship to more 

urban areas of the state. Although Toogood did not mention it specifically in her 

inventory or recommendations, historian Robert S. Lange documented for HABS in 

September 1980 the F. E. Booth Company Pier, constructed in 1919, which was 

determined to be “the oldest and least altered of the four commercial fishing piers erected 

at Point Reyes.” Although the pier was at that time slated for demolition and the era of 

shipping goods by sea had long since passed, the pier represented nonetheless an 

important feature of local industrial history.59

Of the four main categories of historic sites of importance at Point Reyes, Toogood 

devoted the most attention to those related to the sea and ranching. The maritime 

influence on the human history and cultural landscape of Point Reyes was and still is 

expressed most dramatically in the Point Reyes Lighthouse, which since 1870 has been 

the icon of the peninsula. Located on its original site and still in operation, the lighthouse 

building itself possesses an unusual architectural design, with a squat sixteen-sided iron 

tower and high-powered, first-order Fresnel lens. The oldest first-order light in the U.S. 

Coast Guard’s twelfth district, stretching from San Luis Obispo in the south to 

Washington State in the north, and second oldest on the West Coast, Toogood noted that 

even though many of its original supporting structures had been altered or demolished 

Point Reyes was thus of national significance both architecturally and historically and 

had been determined eligible for register nomination. She recommended complete 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

309

restoration for the lighthouse.60 Additionally, Toogood recommended for preservation, 

interpretation, and nomination to the register six remaining structures of the Point Reyes 

lifeboat station at its Drakes Bay location (it had been moved in 1927 due to the 

dangerous and isolated original Ocean Beach location, erected in 1890).61

Although she was not yet using such terms as rural historic district or cultural landscape

when she authored the Point Reyes historic resources study, Toogood appears to have 

been cognizant of the increased recognition cultural landscapes were receiving in the late1970s. She strongly emphasized the impacts ranching had had on the peninsula and 

surrounding environment. She suggested that the entire Olema Valley was worthy of 

maintenance as a working ranch area, noting that it was “near pristine ranching country in 

its historic setting, [and] a historic district of local significance.” The district Toogood 

proposed stretched eight miles down the valley and encompassed seven individual 

ranches that she thought presented the “best remaining examples of nineteenth century 

dairy ranches” in the area. In today’s parlance, the Olema Valley ranches were to be 

preserved as a vernacular landscape—Toogood recommended that the existing leases to 

ranches be renewed and that, if they were discontinued in the future, the NPS “maintain 

working ranch(es) in the valley.”62

The Park Service had already demolished a number of structures in PRNS, mostly 

dilapidated remnants of Shafter-Howard tenant ranches (quite possibly those that Brock 

referred to having knocked down a few years earlier), and although a number of other 

buildings remained, these were not perceived to have enough historic integrity or 

significance to be worth considering. However, based on the pervasive importance of 

dairying to the area, and the good condition in which certain ranching complexes 

remained, Toogood noted that Home and Pierce Point ranches already had been 

recommended for nomination to the National Register.63

Although a cause-and-effect relationship between the two cannot be proved, the 

September 1980 GMP echoed Toogood’s findings and stressed that increased visitation 

posed a threat to not only natural resources but also prehistoric and historic ones as well. 

For the first time, the administration outlined the park’s goals for and accomplishments in 

“cultural resource preservation.”64 The directive furthermore contained a list of historic 

structures in the park along with management proposals for each.65 PRNS administrators 

were beginning to understand and accept cultural resource management as an integral 

part of park supervision. For Point Reyes’ many long-neglected cultural resources, the 

tide was beginning to turn. 

If federal regulation and public policies in the 1960s and 1970s pushed the NPS to define 

its conception of park resources as inclusive of the historic and cultural, the 1980s saw 

the NPS redefine cultural resources to include additional elements and new 

methodologies. This period ushered in a more nuanced understanding of the varieties of 

cultural resources found in the park system, prompting the study and protection of 

previously “hidden” or ignored features. At Point Reyes, this turning tide introduced new 

programs that included surveys of the park’s submerged cultural resources, investigations 

of Coast Miwok prehistory, and the assessment and documentation of the peninsula’s 

cultural and historic landscapes. On the one hand, the new programs helped the NPS 

further its mission of protecting significant park resources; on the other hand, the changes 

gave park managers a larger and more complex workload in an arena already suffering 

because of administrative inattention and inadequate funding. 

The Turning 

Tide: 1980–

1995 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

310

By 1980, a transformation in cultural resource management was beginning to take place 

at Point Reyes, which was spurred by preservation-minded legislation and reflected larger 

developments throughout the national park system. In 1980, Congress amended NHPA to 

help preserve a broader range of historical and cultural properties. Section 110 of the 

amended act made more explicit the federal responsibilities for historic sites on NPS 

lands. With additional amendments in 1992, section 110 expanded the agency’s 

responsibilities to consult with relevant outside groups and organizations in planning 

preservation efforts, which could include even affected cultural properties beyond the 

boundaries of an NPS unit. The new regulations spelled out specific objectives that 

federal agencies must meet to demonstrate compliance.66

In 1980, a new park General Management Plan emphasized that Point Reyes was “a relic 

of the aboriginal California coast” and as “a last frontier . . . yet unviolated by the 

symbols of contemporary life.” Thus it stressed the prehistoric past and the park’s 

importance as an escape for city dwellers stressed out by modern life. Striking in the 

1980 GMP is obvious distaste for the impact that two hundred of years of non-aboriginal 

inhabitation had wrought on the land. Whether it was a personal belief or not, Sansing 

again emphasized the “save and preserve” mantra he had turned to before. In calling the 

ranch roads “scars” on the earth that rendered the peninsula less than “pristine,” he 

invoked the return to the wilderness that so many local environmentalists wished to see 

occur. By nodding to the park’s prehistoric past he responded to voices calling for 

reemphasis on Native Americans as part of United States history, but by ignoring or 

downplaying European settlement he upheld the decade of pragmatic decisions he had 

made to ignore or thwart attempts to preserve structures on the peninsula. The 1980 GMP 

answered the question posed a decade earlier when Sansing arrived at the park. Sansing 

recognized in 1980 that Point Reyes was “more than simply a place to play,” but it was 

the peninsula’s natural beauty and ecological resources, not its human history, that he 

(and many others) believed distinguished Point Reyes from a playground.67 

The GMP outlined the primary cultural resources at PRNS: five Native American 

archaeological districts with sixty-five significant sites to be nominated to the register; 

the exploration history of European navigators, traders, whalers, and fur traders; shipping 

trade and shipwrecks, and the related lighthouse and lifeboat stations structures, which 

had been nominated to the register; the dairy industry and ranches, some of which 

appeared eligible for register listing; and the fishing industry of the region.68 “All sites, 

objects, and structures of historic or architectural significance will be maintained and 

preserved,” the new GMP promised. However, the administration left itself a bit of 

wiggle room, hedging, “No removal of historic structures is envisioned.”69 Of course, no 

mention was made about the “D-8 policy,” which had already removed many buildings 

that might have qualified for register status, or the compromises Sansing had made in 

determining which properties were most worthy of preservation. 

A year after the GMP was implemented a cultural resource management program was 

published as an addendum to the 1980 report. This document, which was updated in 

1987, outlined a more detailed five-year plan for cultural resources in the park, taking 

into consideration threats to specific resources and providing recommendations for 

stabilization and a budget with which to accomplish the outlined goals.70 Authors of the 

1981 CRMP reported that the park still faced “monumental problems” in trying to 

adequately stabilize and protect the area’s cultural resources, particularly in light of the 

Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. As well as increasing funding and 

staffing dedicated to halting deterioration of known resources, the CRMP observed that 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

311

upgrading the documentation and furthering research on the park’s material culture were 

“essential to responsible management of these resources.”71 Planners of the 1987 CRMP 

identified ten different areas in need of immediate attention, including some locations, 

such as Pierce Ranch, that required more than one maintenance or protection action. 

Recommended projects, in order of priority status, were the following: 1) rehabilitation 

and preservation of lighthouse, 2) stabilization, restoration, and protection of lifeboat 

station, 3) replacement of red barn roof, 4) stabilization, rehabilitation, and protection of 

Pierce Ranch complex, 5) production of historic resource study with National Register 

nominations for unlisted historic structures and sites, 6) upgrade park museum collection, 

7) conduct submerged cultural resources study, 8) conduct oral history interviews, 9) 

conduct or complete archaeological surveys, and 10) conduct archaeological survey of 

the Garcia Adobe site.72

More ephemeral and less visible aspects of Point Reyes maritime cultural resources 

Toogood outlined were the Drake landing and other early contact with the area initiated 

by European sea vessels. By 1980, when Toogood was completing her report, the NPS 

had decided not to pursue 

further investigation of the 

Drake landing at Point 

Reyes. However, the 1595 

San Agustín wreck and 

Vizcaino’s 1602 visit both 

warranted further 

investigation and 

interpretation, according to 

Toogood.73 Research into 

maritime resources 

continued in the early 1980s 

with the “Submerged 

Archaeological Inventory 

Survey” conducted at 

Drakes Bay in 1982 and 

1983. The survey’s special 

attention to locating the 

wreck of the San Agustín 

was unsuccessful, but the 

researchers were able to map a number of other ships that had wrecked in the area.74

In 1980, for instance, the NPS determined that guidelines needed to be developed 

regarding cultural resources in national parks, which many within the service feared were 

being lost along with the archaeological sites. Robert Z. Melnick, a historical landscape 

architect who helped pioneer the field of cultural landscape studies, took leave from his 

academic duties to work with the NPS Chief Historical Architect on developing standards 

and evaluation protocols for park managers and NPS landscape architects to use. The 

collaboration produced Cultural Landscapes: Rural Historic Districts in the National 

Park System, published in 1984 and then updated in 1987 by National Register Bulletin 

#30.75 Melnick described cultural landscapes as places that “clearly represent or reflect 

the patterns of settlement or use of the landscape, as well as the continuum and evolution 

of cultural attitudes, norms, and values towards the land.”76

Submerged 

Cultural 

Resources 

Record No. 10130. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

NPS staff on a diving trip for the Submerged Archaeological Inventory Survey, 

1983. 

Cultural 

Landscapes 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

312

As cultural geography as a field of study gained visibility among park service staff and 

researchers, an increased appreciation began to develop for what are now known as 

vernacular landscapes. Although the National Park Service had been managing 

agricultural landscapes since the 1930s, the farming aspect of most of these early parks 

had taken a backseat to whatever resource was emphasized in the park, most typically a 

battlefield or war memorial of some kind.77 In the late 1970s, though, the National Park 

Service officially acknowledged this aspect of its mandate through the creation in 1978 of 

the first protected working (vernacular) landscape in the national park system, Ebey's 

Landing National Historical Reserve, on Whidbey Island, Washington.78 

By the late 1980s, cultural landscape reports (CLRs) had become the prescribed tool of 

the trade. However, many park service units struggled to comply with the guidelines for 

identifying, evaluating, registering, and managing rural historic districts and other 

cultural resources that Melnick and others outlined.79 This is in part because of the extent 

and complexity of the work involved; they had to take into account a large area and the 

spatial relationships within it, including documenting of such items as buildings, fences, 

trees, walkways, and other related objects.80

During the 1990s, Congress passed new national legislation and cultural resource staffs 

recognized important trends in ideas about the definitions and value of cultural 

landscapes. With passage of the Native American Graces Protection and Repatriation Act 

(NAGPRA) in 1990, for example, much attention in the western regional office of the 

Park Service returned with urgency back to archaeological resources in the park, 

specifically the repatriation of human remains.81 In addition, broader discussions about 

the meaning of cultural landscapes within the park system, focus shifted from 

concentration on static structures to increased awareness of landscapes as dynamic places 

where humans interact with the environment over time. Agricultural and other vernacular 

landscapes were increasingly recognized as dynamic realms, requiring constant change to 

maintain their viability in the marketplace. 

Although it recognized that it needed to update its policies regarding cultural landscapes 

and ethnographic resources under its purview, the need to do so created a conundrum for 

the Park Service, which had previously attempted to maintain historic land use (in a much 

more static fashion—almost “freezing” time in these places) while also protecting the 

natural environment and providing access to the public. How would the Park Service 

provide such stewardship in an agricultural landscape that necessarily needed to respond 

effectively to the vagaries of the agricultural market? This was the dilemma park 

superintendents faced in the late 1980s and early 1990s in such places as Point Reyes, 

where farming and ranching had played an integral role alongside the natural beauty and 

archaeological richness of the place.82 

The answer to the question came in 1988, when NPS formally designated cultural 

landscapes as park system resources. Soon thereafter, in 1992, the Park Service created 

the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation to provide training and technology 

development as a means to enhance the preservation of cultural landscapes in partnership 

with parks, universities, nonprofit agencies, and other federal units.83 Two years later, 

another important step toward recognizing and preserving cultural landscapes was taken 

with Charles A. Birnbaum’s seminal Preservation Brief 36, which provided a detailed 

outline for park administrators about how to manage cultural landscapes in their park 

units.84 A new generation of park administrators has since relied on this comprehensive 

source when creating and implementing cultural resource management plans. 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

313

One of Toogood’s recommendations in her 1980 study was the nomination to the 

National Register of an Olema Valley historic district.85 At the time, Sansing was unable 

at that time to allocate a budget line to such a comprehensive endeavor.86 However, in 

1991, a task directive was issued to evaluate the ranches at Point Reyes and Olema 

Valley, nominate them to the National Register, and create management alternative 

guidelines for preserving the resources “within the context of current ranching needs and 

the historic scene.”87 Although it took longer than originally directed, by 1995, park 

historian Dewey Livingston had completed two voluminous studies of ranching in the 

area.88 In December 1994, the register nomination was submitted and, in April 1995, the 

park received California State Historic Preservation Officer Cherilyn Widell’s 

concurrence with Livingston’s recommendation that the Point Reyes peninsula in its 

entirety be considered eligible for listing in the National Register as a rural historic 

landscape district. Widell noted that the contributing resources in the district “convey to 

the visitor a strong sense of the feeling, setting, and appearance of the Point Reyes area 

during the historical period of significance,” which was determined to be between 1857 

and 1939. Even buildings constructed after that period continued the “architectural legacy 

of their predecessors.” Widell also encouraged park staff to create a map of the district 

with the aid of her office, for future submission to the Keeper of the National Register.89

Although deemed eligible, the park has not yet completed the required submission 

process to get the Point Reyes rural historic landscape listed on the National Register. 

The 1990s continued to be years of transformation regarding cultural resource 

management in the Park Service as a whole and at Point Reyes National Seashore more 

specifically. At PRNS, by the middle of the decade, the old guard was gone, replaced by 

new administrative blood. With Donald Neubacher’s appointment as superintendent in 

1995, a sea change had occurred. Although emphasis on natural resources and recreation 

stayed strong, park administration was increasingly interested in cultural resources, 

especially as they related to new NPS goals of promoting scientific research within the 

park system. 

By 1994, Sansing’s last year at PRNS, cultural resources had moved to a position of 

relative importance in park administration, at least in comparison to where they had been 

twenty years previous. The 1994 Resources Management Plan detailed eighteen specific 

cultural resource projects and listed them in order of their management priority. At the 

top of the list were emergency stabilization of Pierce Ranch (with a budgeted price tag of 

$640,000), updating the archaeological survey and completion of the park administrative 

history and historic resources study of the Olema Valley ranches. Maintenance of historic 

structures was still important but was at the bottom of the priority list in 1994; similarly, 

submerged resources, which had been so important in the 1980s, had also dropped in the 

hierarchy of priorities.90 No matter where each item fell on the list or how many dollars 

they were allocated, however, a significant shift had taken place. 

A Sea 

Change: 

1995–2002 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

314

At Point Reyes National 

Seashore, new superintendent 

Donald Neubacher declared 

1995 to be the “year of 

change” at Point Reyes. After 

almost fifty years of collective 

service, both Sansing and 

Brock retired in January of 

that year; in their stead came 

Neubacher and chief ranger 

Frank Dean, both of who 

brought to the park a very 

different vision of what the 

park should be—a vision that 

specifically included cultural 

resources.91 The 1995 

Superintendent’s Annual 

Report reflected this new 

emphasis and forecast change 

on a number of levels, 

especially where cultural 

resources were concerned. In 

1996, Neubacher created a nascent CRM team, consisting of cultural landscape architect 

Rick Dorrance and historian Douglas “Dewey” S. Livingston, who had completed the 

surveys of the dairy ranches on Point Reyes just three years earlier.92 With Livingston’s 

1993 study came growing interest in and understanding of the importance of the ranches 

as cultural landscapes integral to PRNS, specifically; Dorrance worked for three years on 

an initial cultural landscape inventory.93

With the creation of this new, albeit small, CRM “department,” a flurry of activity 

commenced that centered on inventory, preservation, and management of cultural 

resources in the park. The team quickly completed HABS/HAER reports and section 106 

documentation for a number of structures within PRNS, including the Pierce Ranch horse 

barn, Laird’s Landing, and the former Jensen oyster farm buildings, and secured contracts 

and funding for structure stabilization at a number of the historic ranches. Livingston 

initiated a historic resource study on the Marconi/RCA receiving and transmitting 

facilities and the team accepted responsibility for oversight and coordination of 

compliance with federal guidelines on archaeological and historical sites. More generally, 

but specifically indicative of the new administration’s greater emphasis on CRM, PRNS 

and Golden Gate Recreational Area staff received training in section 106 compliance.94 

It was not until Gordon White arrived at the park in 1999, however, that supervision of 

the seashore’s myriad cultural resources came under the administration of a Cultural 

Resources division. Toogood, Livingston, Dorrance, and others working on specific 

projects and sites in the park had made significant strides toward developing a positive 

administrative atmosphere toward cultural resources there, but their work had always 

come under the purview of other divisions. The submerged cultural resources surveys 

begun at Drake’s Bay in 1982-83 and resumed in 1997-98, for example, were the 

bailiwick of John Dell’Osso’s interpretive division, along with the archaeology and 

museum collections.95 Other kinds of cultural inventories and historical documentation 

fell under the ranger protection division and structural preservation was a concern of the Record No. 55850. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Aerial view of the Pierce Ranch on the upper Point Reyes peninsula shows the 

distinctive layout of a dairy operation, the visible human imprint on the 

“natural” landscape of the ranch. 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

315

maintenance division.96 As such, White’s position as chief of this division had no 

predecessor at PRNS, and the creation of such a post was part of a national trend within 

the Park Service in the 1990s to remove cultural resource management from under the 

rubric of natural resource management or interpretation. 

According to White, before he 

arrived at Point Reyes from 

his post at the Presidio, “there 

had been some criticism for 

how cultural resources had 

been treated in the park.” 

Neubacher hired White to 

establish a full-fledged CRM 

program that would bring 

together the various different 

threads; in addition, White 

was tasked to find some 

money to carry it out. White 

agreed to do this, but expected 

to be given “a seat at the 

table” in terms of park 

management. White was 

quickly able to find and 

develop substantial funding 

sources, not only successfully arguing for a sizeable base fund, but also receiving a 

portion of ranching fees, and continued soft money for CRM projects at the park.97

The first big project conducted under White’s new division was a massive structural 

preservation program. In 1999, PRNS created a historic preservation crew to maintain 

over three hundred historic structures (sixty of which are on the federal register) within 

its boundaries. For the first two years, White reported, he had only one full-time 

employee, Dan Brown, and summer crews.98 Now, the project supports three full-time 

structural crewmembers in addition to Brown. By 2001, the crew had completed thirty 

projects, including repairs at the Spaletta Dairy (“C” Ranch), Pierce Ranch, and 

Giacomini Ranch, as well as hosting fieldwork conducted by the University of Oregon’s 

Historic Preservation Field School. Ongoing was rehabilitation of the Murphy (Home) 

Ranch main house and designs for a major rehabilitation project at the lighthouse. 

Second in importance was the completion of a cultural landscape inventory (CLI) and a 

cultural landscape report (CLR). Neubacher initiated a project to complete the CLR 

begun by the NPS central office in 1996. Cultural resource staff at the Pacific West 

Regional office (formerly West Region) completed a Point Reyes CLR that another NPS 

landscape architect began years earlier.99 The finished report was under review by the 

park. Other projects included the restoration in 2002 of the Red Barn at Bear Valley 

headquarters and completion of a curatorial facility housing a museum collection, 

archive, and research center in the building. White considers this the division’s biggest 

accomplishment to date.100

One of the most significant new projects in the early twenty-first century has been the 

inventory and preservation of structures, documents, and artifacts related to the historic 

RCA/Marconi facilities at Bolinas and on Point Reyes. Dating back to 1913, these Record No. 40720. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS Archives

Park maintenance staff performs rehabilitation work on a building at upper 

Pierce Ranch, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

316

receiving and transmitting stations (along with the Marshall Marconi receiving station 

outside the park’s boundaries on state park land) are the only remaining intact Marconiera coast stations in the United States. Their historical significance for the earliest days of 

wireless communication is enormous.101 White noted that although a dedicated volunteer 

group supports the project, the park has very little in the way of resources to develop, 

preserve, and interpret the sites. If White has his way, the park will incorporate the 

resource into larger general management plans and provide a base funding increase in 

recognition of the sites’ historical importance. Getting approval for such an increase will 

likely be an uphill battle, though, according to White. Under the current administration, 

and especially since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and 

Washington, D.C., most base funding increases have been granted only for homeland 

security purposes and it is unlikely that the Marconi/RCA sties will find many 

sympathizers on a national level.102 

In the Park Service today, comparatively scant funding exists for cultural resources aside 

from traditional small pots of money set aside, for example, for National Register 

nominations. Money for interpretation or site development is limited. In response to 

ubiquitous budgetary shortfalls, White and his staff have gotten creative, searching for 

outside funding sources, for example, working with nonprofit associations, who apply for 

grants that will then be used in conjunction with pet projects in the park. Local and 

national foundations and nonprofit organizations, such as the National Park Foundation 

and the Marin Community Foundation also have collaborated with White and his 

employees to write grants and further develop outside money streams.103

One of the biggest challenges Point Reyes administrators have faced in the past twenty or 

thirty years has been in negotiating relationships with the Coast Miwok in regards to 

Native American artifacts, remains, and sacred spaces. The relationship between the Park 

and the tribe, which was not federally recognized until the year after White arrived at the 

park, has been an ambivalent one. On the one hand, Kule Loklo has been a resounding 

success. According to White, to its credit, “the Park stuck its neck out ... to ensure [it] 

had a good relationship with the tribe even though [the tribe was not yet] federally 

recognized.” The building of Kule Loklo was “a big community thing in the 1970s” and, 

over time, became a “sacred site for the tribe,” where annual festivals celebrated native 

culture and served as a touchstone to bring together native people. Indeed, when the 

Federated Tribe of Graton Rancheria (Coast Miwok) regained the federal recognition 

they had lost in 1958, they celebrated their victory at the Kule Loklo roundhouse.104 

On the other hand, although Kule Loklo can be considered a success story, a much darker 

story had been playing out simultaneously during the 1970s and 1980s, one about which 

the Miwok people were very disturbed. According to White, park administrators had been 

neglecting reports for twenty-five years that archaeological sites were in need of 

immediate stabilization. Skeletal remains were literally “falling out” of burial sites, many 

of which were located on cliff sides.105 Archaeologists were called out during this time to 

exhume and study the remains, a decision that was subsequently criticized because the 

actions took place without informing tribal members and with little respect for the impact 

such studies might have on Coast Miwok people who viewed these as the burial sites of 

their ancestors.106 This negative history of the park’s relationships created serious 

tensions among park staff, local residents, and members of the newly formed tribe over 

the past three decades.107

Federated 

Tribe of 

Graton 

Rancheria 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

317

Out of this checkered past, the 

park more recently has taken a 

proactive approach to 

fostering communication and 

policy development that 

includes Native American 

input and ensuring the 

protection of Native American 

sites and interests. Under 

White, the Archaeology Site 

Steward program was created 

wherein stewards are 

dispatched to assess different 

archaeological sites and report 

their findings and 

recommendations to 

administrators.108 Coast 

Miwok members Frank Ross 

and Nick Tipon have been an integral link in this program, fostering a better working 

relationship between the tribe and the park. As both a site steward interested in the 

archaeology and a tribal member with spiritual ties to these sites, Ross represents the 

middle ground between tribal members who wish to see no scientific study or park 

intervention with native sites and scientists who may have little sympathy for the 

sacredness of such sites to the native people.109

The management of cultural resources at Point Reyes has proven controversial, perhaps 

because CRM is a relatively recent field—one that has developed and changed rapidly 

during the last two decades. The Park Service has come under fire for failing to realize 

that the post-aboriginal history of the area was as important to understanding and 

interpreting the peninsula as was its geographical location, geological past, or prehistoric 

population. The agency's early emphasis on the distant past of Sir Francis Drake and on 

single structures that reflected maritime history, such as the lighthouse, made its staff less 

inclined to appreciate evidence of recent human activity. Environmental policy scholar 

Laura Watt, for example, views the Park Service as a bureaucracy that has treated 

landscapes as static and unchanging relics of the past, rather than evolving resources. 

Moreover, she claims that under the agency's care, the landscapes at Point Reyes took on 

a homogenous character, losing their local flavor.110 Evidence for her claim, however, 

appears limited to signage the park used to identify the historic ranches. The ranch signs, 

as at all NPS sites, conform to traditional Park Service conventions for wayside signs and 

exhibits. 

In the 1970s, the environment still reigned supreme in the mind of many “progressives.” 

While this emphasis on the environment was gaining momentum in the Park Service, 

however, the tide had turned in society. During the first decade of Sansing’s tenure at 

Point Reyes, a major cultural change was occurring in the United States. Multiculturalism 

sprang from new “progressive” movements, which emphasized the unique heritage of a 

variety of cultural and ethnic identities. Spearheaded by the feminist, black power, gay 

liberation, and American Indian movements, and shored up in the academy by social 

history, archaeological research, and labor and ethnic studies programs, cultural 

differences were becoming something to be valued on par with the natural environment. Record No. 26550. NPS Photo Collection, PRNS

Lanny Pinola, a Pomo Indian who worked as an interpretive ranger at Kule 

Loklo, strips willow for construction of willow kotcha. 

Assessing 

Cultural 

Resource 

Management 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

318

Again, social and academic changes preceded legislation and the response in such 

agencies as the NPS was delayed. 

Because of funding concerns, personal agendas, and the inevitable local variations 

inherent in a large national system, application of and compliance with new legislation at 

the individual park units within that system takes time. On the ground at Point Reyes, 

Sansing paid close attention to local sensibilities and fostered a strong relationship with 

the ranching community, factors that may have led him to resist implementing changes 

coming from what he perceived to be a bureaucratic monolith that did not understand the 

particular vagaries he faced at PRNS. Thus it is not surprising that PRNS’s administration 

came late to the game of protecting cultural resources at the level legislation mandated 

and academics advocated. 

A number of historic structures, collections and archives, archaeological sites, and 

ethnographic and cultural landscapes have been designated at Point Reyes National 

Seashore. As of this writing, Point Reyes administers 197 historic structures within 

seashore boundaries, sixty of which are listed on the National Register of Historic 

Places.111 Another ninety-six historic structures on Golden Gate National Recreation Area 

lands fall under PRNS jurisdiction. The independent NPS watchdog group National Parks 

Conservation Association (NPCA) concluded in 2002 that the Park Service was 

“adequately protecting” its historic structures and commended the work of the 

preservation crew. NPCA, however, also found that at least six of the National Register 

eligible historic structures at the park were being “severely impacted by structural 

deterioration, neglect, and inappropriate use,” in addition to four others that were in poor 

condition.112

In 2000, White hired the park’s first professional museum staff, archivist Carola DeRooy, 

to manage and guide the transformation of the extensive PRNS museum and archival 

holdings. The park completed in 2002 the construction of a state-of-the-art curatorial 

facility inside the renovated 1870s Red Barn at Bear Valley headquarters. When staff 

moved the collections and operations into the new facility, it improved the collection 

conditions greatly, and gave staff, academic researchers, and the public improved access 

to the primary resources held there. The structure now contains a research library, 

reference room, collection processing lab, and staff offices, in addition to housing over 

half a million artifacts and archives in state-of-the art shelving and storage units. 

Additionally, the park commenced a wide-ranging oral history project in 2002 to collect, 

catalog, and foster access to oral histories pertaining to Marin County and Point Reyes 

history housed in various regional repositories.113

To help provide further access to the park’s archival and museum collections, DeRooy 

fostered the development of professional partnerships with Bay Area research institutions 

and a number of universities, including Stanford, Sonoma State, and the University of 

California campuses at Berkeley and Davis. The new facility and research partnerships 

have helped double the number of research requests in a two-year period.114

Although these were long strides in the right direction, the work was just beginning. 

Because the CRM division, and specifically the curatorial program, have only recently 

emerged within the park’s administrative structure, a significant backlog of inventory and 

preservation work remains. In its 2002 assessment of the seashore, the NPCA found that 

Point Reyes staff had cataloged only 35,291 out of 498,648 items held in its collection, 

which has limited researchers’ access to particular records.115 Lack of additional 

Into the 

Twenty-first 

Century 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

319

permanent staff and the recent acquisition of a huge volume of materials pertaining to the 

Marconi/RCA receiving and transmitting stations contributed to this less-than-ideal 

situation.116 

NPCA could not accurately determine the condition of Point Reyes’ numerous 

archaeological sites, but noted that at least 20 percent of the seashore’s 124 known sites 

were threatened by severe erosion and ranching.117 NPCA noted that the Park Service had 

“done well to maintain a working relationship with the Coast Miwok people and preserve 

the cultural resources that reflect occupation and use by others at Point Reyes, including 

the rancho heritage.” Nonetheless, the park’s lack of an ethnographic overview or 

guidance plan served to undermine these important efforts.118

Photo by Paul Sadin 

The renovated 1870s Red Barn at Bear Valley headquarters houses the park archives, library, 

and collections, as well as a research center and conference room. 

Among the thirteen cultural landscapes identified in a recent cultural inventory of the 

seashore are examples of all the various permutations and combinations of cultural 

landscapes, historical, historic designed, vernacular, and ethnographic.119 They range 

from small sites (such as the Olema Lime Kilns) to large districts (such as the 22,000-

acre Point Reyes Ranches Historic District), and include ranches, coastal defense sites, 

and the communications facilities. Vernacular landscapes include the ranching districts, 

comprising well over 20,000 acres of coastal plains, ranch buildings, and supporting 

structures and views. Ethnographic landscapes range from the replica Coast Miwok 

village of Kule Loklo and other archaeological sites that dot the peninsula to structures 

and the lore surrounding them such as they I.D.E.S. Hall of the Portuguese ranching 

community and the cemetery where are buried the remains of four Scandinavian sailors 

who died while serving at the U.S. Coast Guard lifesaving station.120 The former 

Marconi/RCA stations and their transmitters and receivers represent a historic designed 

landscape, while the remaining cabins and bridge spanning Lagunitas Creek, both of 

which are part of the Tocaloma resort district, indicate the development of Marin County 

tourism in the early twentieth century.121 These represent just some of the wide array of 

important cultural resources found within PRNS boundaries. But researching, managing, 

and preserving these sites was not fully possible until PRNS administration and the NPS 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

320

provided adequate funding and recognition for cultural resources at Point Reyes, and 

throughout the national park system. 

 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER NINE

1

 Mackintosh, “National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” 41. 2

 For example, cultural geographer Carl Sauer is thought to have been the originator of the phrase 

“cultural landscape” in the 1920s and spearheaded the study of geographical study and mapping of 

land utilization. Sauer supposedly said, “Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the 

cultural landscape is the result.” Carl Sauer, quoted in a slide presentation given by Arnold 

Alanen, “Cultural Landscapes Preservation in the National Park Service,” videotaped October 7, 

2000, at Point Reyes National Seashore. 

3

 A solid overview of legislation pertaining to cultural resources in the National Park Service 

(NPS) is Barry Mackintosh, “The National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” CRM 4 (1999): 

41–44. For a legislative timeline, see, National Park Service, NPS-28, Cultural Resource 

Management Guideline, Appendix B, “Laws, Regulations, and Orders,” 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/nps28/28appenb.htm (accessed June 1, 2005). 4

 Department of the Interior, “Report on Wind Cave, Crater Lake, Sullys Hill, Platt, and Mesa 

Verde National Parks, and Casa Grande Ruin,” in Reports of the Department of the Interior, 1907, 

Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1907), Serial 5295. President Woodrow Wilson designated Casa 

Grande Ruin National Monument in 1918. It was redesignated Casa Grande Ruins National 

Monument in 1926. 

5

 Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, rev. ed. (Lincoln: University of 

Nebraska Press, 1987), 72. 

6

 Hal K. Rothman, America’s National Monuments: The Politics of Preservation (Lawrence: 

University Press of Kansas, 1992), 34–49. 

7

 Mackintosh, “National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” 41. 8

 Mackintosh, “National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” 41. 9

 Mackintosh, “National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” quotation on 42. 

10 Mackintosh, “National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” 42. 11 Mackintosh, “National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” 43. Additional legislation passed 

over the next decade reflected similar concerns and consolidated federal protection over cultural 

resources in different areas. For example, the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, National 

Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1974 (which 

amended the 1960 Reservoir Salvage Act), Mining in the Parks Act of 1976, Tax Reform Act of 

1976, and General Authorities Act of 1976. For an up-to-date overview and timeline of these laws, 

see “NPS-28: Cultural Resource Management Guideline, Appendix B.” 

12 “Executive Order 11593—Protection and Enhancement of the Cultural Environment,” 

http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/codification/executive_order/11593.html (accessed 

March 24, 2005). 

13 Mackintosh, “National Park Service and Cultural Resources,” 41–44, 43. 14 Melody Webb, “Cultural Landscapes in the National Park Service,” Public Historian 9, no. 2 

(1987): 81–83, as summarized in Rebecca Conard, “Spading Common Ground: Reconciling the 

Built and Natural Environments,” in Public History and the Environment, ed. Martin V. Melosi 

and Philip Scarpino (Malabar, Fla.: Krieger Publishing Co., 2004), 3–22, 7. 15 Conard, “Spading Common Ground,” 7. 

16 “Executive Order 11593—Protection and Enhancement of the Cultural Environment,” 

http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/codification/executive_order/11593.html (accessed 

March 24, 2005). 

17 An Act To Establish the Point Reyes National Seashore, Public Law 657, 87th Congress, 2d

 sess., 

(September 13, 1962); U.S. Code, Vol. 16, secs. 459c-459c-7 (1962). 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

321

18 “The Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore,” joint statement of U.S. Senator Clair Engle and 

U.S. Representative Clem Miller, July 23, 1959, Box 2, National Seashore Foundation Records, 

Bancroft Library, Manuscripts Division, University of California, Berkeley, 1. 

19 Congress, Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

California: Report to Accompany S. 476, 87th Congress, 1st sess., 1961, S. Rept. 807, 4. 20 Barbee, interview. Stephanie S. Toothman sees this perception of historic structures as public 

safety hazards rather than cultural resources as part of a “familiarity breeds contempt” attitude 

toward structures that are seen as difficult to maintain and a drain on park resources. Stephanie S. 

Toothman, “Cultural Resource Management in Natural Areas of the National Park System,” 

Public Historian 9, no. 2 (Spring 1987): 65–76, 68. 21 Such disdain for historians (and history) was not unique to Point Reyes administrators. NPS 

planners and administrators service-wide viewed historians and CRM people as outsiders and as 

obstructionist. For more on this conflicted relationship, see Ronald A. Foresta, America’s National 

Parks and Their Keepers (Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1984), esp. 160–61. 22 Toothman, “Cultural Resource Management,” 66. 

23 Roger Kelly, telephone interview by Heather Lee Miller, May 9, 2005, audiotape recording, 

HRA Administrative History Project Files (hereafter HRA Files), Point Reyes National Seashore 

Archives (hereafter PRA). 

24 Office of Environmental Planning and Design, WSC, “Planning Directive, Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” May 1, 1970, Folder D18 Planning Program and Master Plans, Box 2, PORE Files, 

Accession 76A713, RG 79, National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific West Region, 

San Bruno, California (hereafter NARA-SB), 1. 

25 Office of Environmental Planning and Design, WSC, “Planning Directive, Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” 2. 

26 NPS, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1. Interestingly, Sansing 

emphasized “save and preserve” but downplayed the next phrase “for the purposes of public 

recreation, benefit, and inspiration.” Public Law 87-657, 87th Cong., S. 476, (September 13, 1962). 27 National Park Service, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” May 1972, 

Box 1 of 2, Accession 79-78-0001, PORE Correspondence Files, RG 79 Records of the National 

Park Service (hereafter PORE Files), NARA-SB, 2, 64. 28 NPS, “Operations Evaluation, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 11–12, 62. Indeed, interpretive 

exhibits like the Morgan Horse Farm and blacksmith shop do not fall under the contemporary 

rubric of a cultural landscape or resource because neither played a particularly significant role in 

creating Point Reyes. The proposed lifeboat station is more in line with the current notion, as 

would be a working dairy or “living history” of the receiving or transmitting stations on the 

peninsula in the 1920s or 1950s. 

29 Bolinas Future Studies Center, Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, Inverness 

Improvement Association, Marin Conservation League, and Sierra Club, and Tomales Bay 

Association, “A Joint Statement on the National Park Service’s Master Plan and Preliminary 

Wilderness Proposal for Point Reyes National Seashore,” n.d., D1815 Suggestions for Master 

Plan, 1971, Box 2, Accession 79-76A713, PORE Files, RG79, NARA-SB; National Parks and 

Conservation Association, “Pt. Reyes National Seashore, California, A Preliminary Master and 

Wilderness Plan,” n.d., D1815 Suggestions for Master Plan, 1965–1970, Box 2, Accession 79-

76A713, PORE Files, RG79, NARA-SB; and Marin Conservation League, “Position Statements 

of Marin Conservation League on Preliminary Master Plan for Point Reyes National Seashore,” 

April 1971, D1815 Suggestions for Master Plan, 1971, Box 2, Accession 79-76A713, PORE Files, 

RG79, NARA-SB. 

30 Bolinas Future Studies Center, et al., “A Joint Statement,” n.d., 1. 

31 Marin Conservation League, “Position Statements,” April 1971, D1815 Suggestions for Master 

Plan, 1971, Box 2, Accession 79-76A713, PORE Files, RG79, NARA-SB, 1, 4. In 1963, the NPS 

Advisory Board on Wildlife Management released its landmark, “Wildlife Management in the 

National Parks: The Leopold Report,” that gave A. Starker Leopold, the advisory board chair and 

primary author, and his fellow contributors the political auspices to define the “natural” landscapes 

of the national parks, views which would influence park administrators’ approach to nature for 

several decades. A. S. Leopold, S. A. Cain, C. M. Cottam, I. N. Grabrielson, and T. L. Kimball, 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

322

“Wildlife Management in the National Parks: The Leopold Report,” produced for the Department 

of the Interior Advisory Board on Wildlife Management, March 4, 1963, 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/Leopold.htm (accessed April 2005). 32 LeeRoy Brock, interview by Paul Sadin, August 12, 2004, Point Reyes Station, California, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

33 Gordon Chappell, interview by Paul Sadin, November 18, 2003, NPS Pacific West Region 

Office, Oakland, unrecorded, notes in HRA Files, PRA. 

34 Thomas Mulhern, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, October 8, 2004, Sequim, Washington, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

35 Chappell, interview. 

36 Kelly, interview. 

37 Chappell, interview. 

38 John L. Sansing to Director, Western Region, memorandum, February 2, 1973, Point Reyes–

Evaluation of Historic Structures, 1972–1973, Accession B.F104.E, Park Reference and Research 

Collection–Point Reyes NS, Pacific West Regional Office, Oakland, California (hereafter PWRO). 

39 Kelly, interview. 

40 Kelly, interview. 

41 Mulhern, interview. 

42 “NPS-28: Cultural Resource Management Guideline, Chapter 1,” 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/nps28/28chap1.htm (accessed March 25, 2005). 43 Brock, interview. 

44 Brock, interview. 

45 Mulhern, interview. 

46 Mulhern, interview; Brock, interview. 

47 Brock, interview. 

48 Kelly, interview. 

49 Michael J. Moratto, California Archaeology (Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1984), 270–71. 50 Robert (Bob) Barbee, telephone interview by Paul Sadin, May 24, 2005, Wyoming, audiotape 

recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

51 Moratto, California Archaeology, 272. 52 Point Reyes National Seashore (hereafter PRNS), “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1979,” 

shelved materials, PWRO, 9. 

53 Anna Coxe Toogood, “A Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point 

Reyes National Seashore,” Historic Resource Study, Historic Preservation Branch, Pacific 

Northwest/Western Team, Denver Service Center, National Park Service, Department of the 

Interior, 1980. 

54 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:223. 

55 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:225–26. 

56 Kelly, interview; and Roger Kelly, “Kule Loklo Demonstration Village, Point Reyes National 

Seashore,” January 8, 1988, Point Reyes Indian Village, 1978–1992, Accession BF080.C, Tom 

Mulhern Records, PWRO. 

57 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:226. 

58 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:239–40. 

59 Robert S. Lange, “F. E. Booth Company Pier, Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, 

California,” HABS Report, CAL. 21-BOLI, 1-, HABS No. CA-2073, September 1980. 

60 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:243–45. 

61 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:245–47. 

62 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:230–39. 

63 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:229–34. 

64 United States, Department of the Interior, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Point Reyes 

National Seashore, Assessment of Alternatives for the General Management Plan, (Washington, 

D.C.: GPO, 1977); Point Reyes National Seashore, California, “Statement for Management” 

(1978), PRA Library, esp. 15, 20–21; and National Park Service, General Management Plan: 

Point Reyes National Seashore, California, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1980), esp. iii–iv, 1–3, 15–

17. Roger Kelly felt that no direct connection could be drawn between Toogood’s 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

323

recommendations and the GMP, but he felt certain that the administration knew of her findings 

and recommendations. Apparently, administrators often commissioned such studies before writing 

up a GMP so they understood exactly what resources existed within their park and how they 

should consider them in their planning and management policies. Kelly, interview. 

65 “General Management Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore, California," 1980, 15–17. 

66 Additional legislation passed during this period includes the Archeological and Historic 

Preservation Act of 1974, Mining in the Parks Act of 1976, Tax Reform Act of 1976, General 

Authorities Act of 1976, Public Buildings Cooperative Use Act of 1976, and the Archaeological 

Resources Protection Act of 1979. For more on these laws, see, “NPS-28: Cultural Resource 

Management Guideline, Appendix B: Laws, Regulations, and Orders,” 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/nps28/28appenb.htm (accessed March 25, 2005). 67 “General Management Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore, California,” 1980, iii–iv. 68 “General Management Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore, California,” 1980, 13–14. 

69 "General Management Plan: Point Reyes National Seashore, California,” 1980, 14. 70 Point Reyes National Seashore, California, “Cultural Resources Management Program. An 

Addendum to the Natural Resources Management Plan and Environmental Assessment for Point 

Reyes National Seashore,” 1981 (hereafter CRM Program 1981); and Point Reyes National 

Seashore, California, “Cultural Resources Management Program. An Addendum to the Natural 

Resources Management Plan and Environmental Assessment for Point Reyes National Seashore,” 

1987 (hereafter CRM Program 1987). 

71 CRM Program 1981, 7. 

72 CRM Program 1987, 17–51. 

73 Toogood, “Civil History,” 2:225–26. 

74 “Marine Archaeological Survey, Drakes Bay,” 1982, Tom Mulhern files, PRNS, General 

Correspondence, 1964–, PWRO; Toni Carrell, Submerged Cultural Resources Inventory, Portions 

of Point Reyes National Seashore and Point Reyes–Farallon Islands National Marine Sanctuary: 

Field Research Results, Sessions 1, 1983 (Santa Fe, N.M.: National Park Service, 1984); James P. 

Delgado and Stephen A. Haller, Submerged Cultural Resource Assessment, Golden Gate National 

Recreation Area, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, and Point Reyes National 

Seashore, 1989, Tom Mulhern files, PRNS, General Correspondence, 1964–, PWRO; and Kelly, 

interview. 

75 Robert Z. Melnick, with Daniel Sponn and Emma Jane Saxe, Cultural Landscapes: Rural 

Historic Districts in the National Park System (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, Park 

Historical Architecture Division, 1984); Laura A. Watt, “Managing Cultural Landscapes: 

Reconciling Local Preservation and Institutional Ideology in the National Park Service” (Ph.D. 

diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2001), 104. 

76 Robert Z. Melnick, “Preserving Cultural and Historic Landscapes: Developing Standards,” 

National Park Service, Cultural Resources Management Bulletin 3, no. 1, March 1980, 2. 77 For an overview of agriculture in the park system, see Marla McEnaney, “Working the Land: 

Understanding and Managing our Nation’s Agricultural Legacy,” Cultural Resource Management

24, no. 7 (2001): 41–43. 

78 Although McEnaney points to Robert Melnick’s Boxley Valley (Arkansas) study as the 

beginning of a focus on agriculture in the park system (ibid., 42), Ebey’s Landing should be given 

its proper due as the first working agricultural park unit created in 1978. For a history of the 

creation of Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve, see Laura McKinley, “An Unbroken 

Historical Record: An Administrative History of Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve 

(1993),” http://www.nps.gov/ebla/adhi/adhi.htm (accessed May 31, 2005). 79 Stephen Mark, “Writing Environmental and Park Histories,” 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/hisnps/NPSHistorians/mark1.htm (accessed March 22, 2005). This 

article first appeared in C. Michael Hall and Simon McArthur, eds., Heritage Management in 

Australia and New Zealand: The Human Dimension, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

1996). 

80 Thanks to David Louter, NPS Regional Historian, for pointing this out. 

81 Kelly noted that one of his largest responsibilities during the 1990s at Point Reyes was 

implementing NAGPRA policies and repatriating Native American remains. Kelly, interview. 
A Heritage Lost and Regained 

324

82 McEnaney, “Working the Land,” 41–43. 

83 “Cultural Landscapes Program,” http://www.cr.nps.gov/phscl/cl.htm (accessed March 24, 

2005). 

84 Charles A. Birnbaum, Preservation Brief 36: Protecting Cultural Landscapes: Planning, 

Treatment, and Management of Historic Landscapes (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1994). For an 

updated, online version, see http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/brief36.htm (accessed June 1, 

2005). 

85 CRM Program 1981. 

86 CRM Program 1981. 

87 “Task Directive, Cultural Landscape Evaluation, Nomination, and Treatment Plan/Guidelines, 

Point Reyes and Olema Valley Ranches,” (1991), Point Reyes—Cultural Landscape, 1991, 

Cultural Landscape Inventory Records, Accession O.F044B, PWRO. 88 The task directive called for the historic resource study or studies to be completed by early 

1992. “Task Directive, Cultural Landscape Evaluation, Nomination, and Treatment 

Plan/Guidelines, Point Reyes and Olema Valley Ranches,” (1991), Point Reyes—Cultural 

Landscape file, PWRO; D. S. (Dewey) Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula: A 

History of the Dairy and Beef Ranches within Point Reyes National Seashore, 1834–1992,” 

Historic Resource Study, National Park Service, Point Reyes National Seashore, July 1993, and D. 

S. (Dewey) Livingston, “A Good Life: Dairy Farming in the Olema Valley. A History of the Dairy 

and Beef Ranches of the Olema Valley and Lagunitas Canyon,” Historic Resource Study, San 

Francisco, National Park Service, 1995. 

89 Cherilyn Widell to LeeRoy Brock, April 3, 1995, CLI-PORE-Ranches Historic District, Cultural 

Landscape Inventory Records, Accession O.F044B, PWRO. 

90 National Park Service, “Resources Management Plan, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 1994, 

PRA, 5–1–5–34. 

91 “Point Reyes National Seashore, 1995,” Annual Report, File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual 

Reports, Central Classified Files, Administration Building (hereafter CCF), PRNS, 1. Kelly 

described Dean as being “very interested” in cultural resources. Kelly, interview. 

92 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1996,” File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual Reports, 

CCF, PRNS, 3; Kelly, interview; and Livingston, “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula.” 

93 Gordon White, interview by Paul Sadin, April 30, 2004, PRNS, unrecorded, notes in HRA Files, 

PRA; and, for example, (Rick Dorrance) “‘A’ Ranch” and “‘C’ Ranch,” CLI Coordinator Review 

Reports, 1997, CLI-Point Reyes National Seashore, 1997, Cultural Landscape Inventory Records, 

Accession O.F044B, PWRO. 

94 PRNS, “Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1996,” File A2621–Superintendent’s Annual Reports, 

CCF, PRNS, 3. 

95 John Dell’Osso, “Submerged Cultural Resource Survey of Drake’s Bay,” Press Release, 

October 13, 1997, http://www.nps.gov/pore/Press/1997/19971013_sanagustin.pdf (accessed 

March 22, 2005); and White, interview. 

96 White, interview. 

97 White, interview. 

98 White, interview; and National Park Service, “Point Reyes National Seashore, 2001 Year in 

Review,” (Point Reyes: Point Reyes National Seashore, 2001), accessed April 4, 2005, 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/pdf/home_mngmntdocs/yearinreview2001.pdf. 

99 David Louter, written communication with Paul Sadin, October 6, 2005. 

100 White, interview; and National Park Service, “Point Reyes National Seashore, 2002 Year in 

Review,” (Point Reyes: Point Reyes National Seashore, 2002), accessed June 1, 2005, 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/pdf/home_mngmntdocs/yearinreview2002.pdf. 

101 NPS, “Point Reyes National Seashore, 2001 Year in Review,” (Point Reyes: Point Reyes 

National Seashore, 2001), 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/pdf/home_mngmntdocs/yearinreview2001.pdf. 

102 White, interview. 103 White, interview. 
A Heritage Lost and Regained

325

104 White, interview; “California’s Miwok Indians Fight to Reclaim Official Tribal Status,” 

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/07/12/miwok.reservation/ (accessed March 21, 2005); and “Our 

People,” http://www.gratonrancheria.com/ourpeople.htm (accessed March 21, 2005). 105 At least seven such examples of such exposures were reported and studied between 1982 and 

1991. See, for example, Roger Kelly to Robert Germain [sic], March 18, 1982; Robert D. Jurmain, 

“Osteological Report, Human Cranium from 4-Mrn-232 (Point Reyes National Seashore); Jurmain 

to Kelly, May 6, 1985; Kelly to Chief, Park Historic Preservation, Western Region, Jul 9, 1986; 

Jurmain to Kelly, November 20, 1986; Robert Jurmain, “Report on Human Skeletal Remains, 

MRN-269”; Kelly to Chief, July 27, 1989; Jurmain to Kelly, November 13, 1989; “Assessment of 

Discovery and Recommendations, Exposure of Prehistoric Remains, Tomales Point, Point Reyes 

National Seashore”; and other miscellaneous material in PRNS, General (NAGPRA) 1982–1991, 

Accession B.F132.B, PWRO. 

106 For an interesting exploration of the meaning of sacred places in the Point Reyes area to Coast 

Miwok people, see Greg Sarris, “On Sacred Places,” Bay Nature, April-June 2003, 

http://www.baynature.com/2003apriljune/firstperson_2003apriljune.html (accessed March 21, 

2005). 

107 White, interview. 108 Point Reyes National Seashore, “Historic Preservation Projects Underway,” September 26, 

2003, http://www.nps.gov/pore/pphtml/newseventsdetail8216.html (accessed November 10, 

2003); and White, interview. 

109 White, interview. 110 Watt, “Managing Cultural Landscapes.” 111 National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), “State of the Parks, Resource Assessment, 

Point Reyes National Seashore,” 2002, 

http://www.npca.org/across_the_nation/park_pulse/point_reyes/ptreyes.pdf (accessed June 1, 

2005), 13. 

112 NPCA, “State of the Parks, Point Reyes, 2002,” 14. 113 National Park Service, “Point Reyes National Seashore, 2002 Year in Review,” (Point Reyes: 

Point Reyes National Seashore, 2002), accessed April 4, 2005, 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/pdf/home_mngmntdocs/yearinreview2002.pdf, 9. 114 Carola DeRooy, interview by Paul Sadin, April 29, 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore, 

audiotape recording, HRA Files, PRA. 

115 By 2005, curatorial staff had cataloged 35 percent of the collection. Carola DeRooy, written 

communication with Paul Sadin, October 19, 2005. 

116 NPCA, “State of the Parks, Point Reyes, 2002,” 14–16. 117 NPCA, “State of the Parks, Point Reyes, 2002,” 14–16. 118 NPCA, “State of the Parks, Point Reyes, 2002,” 16. 

119 NPCA, “State of the Parks, Point Reyes, 2002,” 17; and Mark, “Writing Environmental and 

Park Histories.” 

120 I.D.E.S. is the acronym for Irmandade Do Divino Espirito Santo (Brotherhood of the Divine 

Holy Spirit), a Luso-American fraternal organization. For more on the history of this group (and 

other such secret societies) in Marin County, see http://mill-valley.freemasonry.biz/marinfraternities-03.htm (accessed June 8, 2005). 121 NPS, “Point Reyes National Seashore, 2001 Year in Review,” (Point Reyes: Point Reyes 

National Seashore, 2001), 

http://www.nps.gov/pore/pdf/home_mngmntdocs/yearinreview2001.pdf) accessed April 4, 2005), 

7. 
326
327

CONCLUSION
328
329

CONCLUSION

oint Reyes has many faces. The peninsula encompasses shoreline, grassland, estuary, 

forest, pasture, and wetland; the land supports agriculture, tourism, recreation, scientific 

study, and residential living. Despite being a highly manipulated landscape that logging, 

dairy, and cattle operations have shaped since the mid-1800s, Point Reyes also contains a 

designated wilderness area. Although renowned for its scenic beauty and biological 

diversity, Point Reyes also became a local workplace and a national playground. The 

1962 founding legislation, which laid out the legal authority and physical boundaries for 

the new national seashore, left many additional ambiguities. No wonder, then, that much 

of the park's administrative history has involved defining and redefining the meaning and 

proper management of that land. 

The creation of Point Reyes National Seashore and its sister seashores at Cape Cod and 

Padre Island in 1961–62 introduced a new type of unit to the national park system—a 

new name and a new idea within the Park Service’s existing organizational structure. 

PRNS and its sister sites did not fit the mold of the established NPS categories of national 

park, national monument, national recreation area, etc. Because their status diverged from 

the earlier models, and despite the NPS decision to deposit them in the Recreation Area 

management category in the mid-1960s, Point Reyes administrators, NPS officials, local 

residents, the visiting public, and eventually Congress struggled to define the type of park 

PRNS was to become. 

Perhaps because the Point Reyes peninsula is on the move, it is difficult to fix one set of 

definitions to it. While keeping in mind that Point Reyes—the landform and the NPS 

unit—is still in motion, this history has attempted to keep several important processes in 

focus throughout its description of the forty years of NPS management at Point Reyes. 

The most prominent process investigated here involved how and why the park and public 

perceptions and definitions of the peninsula’s “natural” environment evolved and 

management practices changed over the course of those four decades. In a similar vein, 

but perhaps less visibly, NPS officials and Point Reyes staff also transformed their 

definitions, management, and public interpretation of the park’s cultural and historic 

resources. 

While PRNS management responded in different ways to each new construction of the 

Point Reyes landscape, one administrative process charted a steady course throughout the 

park’s history. From the early days of the national seashore, there has been an inexorable 

trend away from the peninsula’s historically isolated and insular character toward an 

organizational motif of collaboration, partnership, and community connections. A 

plethora of events documented in this history, including the first research agreement with 

the Point Reyes Bird Observatory in 1966, the SOS campaign that rescued the park from 

dismantlement, the 1970 San Francisco oil spill, Ken Patrick’s murder, shared 

jurisdiction with sections of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, collaborative efforts 

to create and run the Kule Loklo Coast Miwok site, financial partnerships involved in 

building the Bear Valley Visitor Center and other new facilities, research partnerships 

with universities and institutes throughout California, and ongoing intersections among 

community members and Park Service staff as they share life on the peninsula, gave clear 

notice of that path. 

P 
Conclusion

330

Although future fractures along the San Andreas Fault might yet make Point Reyes an 

island landform, that place is no longer a figurative island from the social, economic, and 

political forces beyond its boundaries. As the park entered the fifth decade of its 

existence, the theme of collaboration and connection has continued to manifest. Several 

recent programs aimed at promoting environmental sustainability on the peninsula, such 

as the Tomales Bay Biodiversity Partnership, the regional urban and wildland fire 

interface, the Pacific Coast Learning Center, and the 2003 Greening Charrette, represent 

the continuation of that pattern. 

Certainly, the redefinition of PRNS—of its meaning, national significance, landscape, 

and purpose—will continue. Just as tectonic forces continue to exert pressure along the 

San Andreas Fault, the buildup of political, economic, social, and environmental 

pressures will eventually create tremors that shift the park’s administrative landscape. 

Future park managers, researchers, local residents, and the public will encounter and 

define the altered features of that landscape, just as they have done over the previous four 

decades. 
331

APPENDIX A 

KEY PERSONNEL
332
333

APPENDIX A 

KEY PERSONNEL

POINT REYES CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE PERSONNEL: 

Superintendents: 

James E. Cole, Project Manager 9/16/62 – 6/30/63 

Fred W. Binnewies, Superintendent 7/07/63 – 5/08/65 

Leslie P. Arnberger, Superintendent 7/12/65 – 1/28/67 

Edward J. Kurtz, Supervisor 1/29/67 – 3/21/70 

John L. Sansing, Superintendent 4/05/70 – 1/04/95 

Don Neubacher, Superintendent 3/05/95 – present 

Chief Ranger: 

Gordon Patterson 1964–1968 

Phil Ward 1968–1971 

Ray Murphy 1971–1974 

LeeRoy Brock 1974–1995 

Frank Dean 1995–2002 

Colin Smith 2002–present 

Chief of Maintenance: 

Donald Cameron (Foreman/Chief) 1965–1980 

Jack Williams 1980–1993 

Larry Harris 1995–2001 

Ed Walls 2001–present 

Chief of Interpretation (Chief Naturalist): 

Art Volz, Acting 

Harry Wills 1966–1969 

William Germeraad 1970–1974 

Ronald Thoman 1975–1977 

Dave Pugh 1977–1985 

Don Neubacher 1986–1992 

John Dell’Osso 1997–present 
Appendix A: Key Personnel

334

Natural Resource Management Specialist/Chief of Resource Management: 

John Aho 1973–1979 

William Pierce 1980–1983 

Russ Lesko 1983–1987 

William Shook (Resource Specialist) 1987–1998 

William Shook (Chief) 1998–present 

Chief of Administration: 

Linda Hahn 1984-1996 

Chief of Cultural Resource Management: 

Gordon White 1999–present 

Science Advisor/Chief of Science Coordination and Research: 

Sarah Allen 1997–present 

Fire Management Officer: 

Roger Wong 2002–present 
335

APPENDIX B 

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY TIMELINE
336
337

APPENDIX B 

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY TIMELINE

POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE ACT - LEGISLATIVE HISTORY TIMELINE,

1935–1962 

1935 NPS Branch of Planning prepares survey of Point Reyes 

1937 Congress authorizes Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North 

Carolina 

1954-57 NPS conducts surveys of Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts 

and the Great Lakes shorelines 

1956 NPS releases Our Vanishing Seashore

April 24, 1958 Dedication of Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational 

Area 

April 1958 Advisory Board on National Parks recommends Point Reyes 

for national seashore status 

June 29, 1958 First public notice of proposed Point Reyes National Seashore 

in local press 

July 16, 1958 Rep. Clem Miller introduces H.R. 634, calling for report on 

proposed Point Reyes National Seashore 

Aug. 5, 1958 House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs reports 

favorably on H.R. 634 

Sept. 30, 1958 1st general meeting of the Point Reyes National Seashore 

Foundation 

Nov. 23, 1958 NPS staff and conservation group leaders make field trip to 

Point Reyes 

Feb. 20, 1959 NPS Director Conrad Wirth makes field visit to area 

May 20, 1959 Senator Richard L. Neuberger (OR) introduces S. 2010 to 

authorize three National Seashore Recreation Areas 

June 1959 Congress grants $15,000 for Point Reyes Land Use Planning 

Survey 

July 23, 1959 Rep. Miller and Sen. Clair Engle jointly introduce H.R. 8358 

and S. 2428, to establish a Point Reyes National Seashore 

July 29, 1959 Senator Murray (MT) et al., introduce S. 2460 to establish ten 

Shoreline Recreation Areas, and fund survey to identify ten 

additional sites 

Feb. 17, 1960 A revised PRNS Act (H.R. 10519) introduced, increases 

national seashore area to 55,000 acres 

April 14, 1960 Senate Subcommittee Hearing on S. 2428, Kentfield, CA 

August 11, 1960 NPS submits an altered Seashore bill to Senate for a 53,000-

acre area 
Appendix B: Key Personnel

338

Jan. 16, 1961 Rep. Miller introduces H.R. 2775 to establish a Point Reyes 

National Seashore 

Jan. 17, 1961 Senators Clair Engle and Thomas H. Kuchel introduce S. 476 

to establish a Point Reyes National Seashore 

Jan. 25, 1961 Rep. Jeffrey Cohelan introduces H.R. 3244 

March 1961 Hearings before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands on 

S. 476 

Mar.-Aug. 1961 Hearings before the House Subcommittee on National Parks 

on H.R. 2775 and H.R. 3244 

August 7, 1961 President Kennedy signs Cape Cod National Seashore Act. 

August 29, 1961 Senate Committee reports favorably on S. 476 (S. Rept. 807) 

Sept. 7, 1961 Senate debates and passes S. 476 with amendments, sends to 

House 

April 19, 1962 House Committee reports favorably on S. 476 (H. Rept. 1628)

July 23, 1962 House debates and passes S. 476, returned to Senate 

August 31, 1962 Senate concurs with House amendments on S. 476, sends to 

President 

Sept. 13, 1962 President Kennedy signs Public Law 87–657, creating Point 

Reyes National Seashore 
339

APPENDIX C 

KEY LEGISLATION
340
341

APPENDIX C 

KEY LEGISLATION
Appendix C: Key Legislation

342
Appendix C: Key Legislation

343
Appendix C: Key Legislation

344
Appendix C: Key Legislation

345
Appendix C: Key Legislation

346
Appendix C: Key Legislation

347
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348
Appendix C: Key Legislation

349
Appendix C: Key Legislation

350
Appendix C: Key Legislation

351
Appendix C: Key Legislation

352
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353
Appendix C: Key Legislation

354
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355
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356
Appendix C: Key Legislation

357
Appendix C: Key Legislation

358
Appendix C: Key Legislation

359
Appendix C: Key Legislation

360
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361
Appendix C: Key Legislation

362
Appendix C: Key Legislation

363
Appendix C: Key Legislation

364
Appendix C: Key Legislation

365
366
367

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368
369

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______. “Preliminary Natural Resources Management Plan and Environmental 

Assessment: Point Reyes National Seashore, California.” Inverness, Calif.: 

The Service, 1975. 
Bibliography 

382

______. “Research Design, Case Study, and Proposed Management Plan: PostContact Coast Miwok Settlement Patterns and Resource Procurement 

Strategies.” Campos, 1998. 

______. Revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Wilderness 

Area, Point Reyes National Seashore, California. San Francisco: U.S. 

Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1973. 

______. “Statement for Management, Point Reyes National Seashore, California.” 

1978. 

______. “Statement for Management, Point Reyes National Seashore.” June 1993 

revision. 

______. “Superintendent’s Annual Report, Point Reyes National Seashore,” 

1974–1998. 

______. Tule Elk Management Plan and Environmental Assessment, 1998. Point 

Reyes, Calif.: Point Reyes National Seashore, 1998. 

______. “Wilderness Study, Point Reyes National Seashore.” Preliminary Draft, 

April 1971. 

General Accounting Office. The Comptroller General. Report on Examination 

Into Certain Proposed Land Exchanges for the Point Reyes National 

Seashore in California. Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, 

September 1966. 

Karamanski, Theodore J. A Nationalized Lakeshore: The Creation and 

Administration of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Washington, 

D.C.: National Park Service, 2000. 

Knight, Emerson. “Studies for a National Seashore Recreation Area, 1935.” Vol. 

2, Point Reyes. Manuscript. Bancroft Library, University of California. 

Leatherman, Stephen P., Paul J. Godfrey, and P.A. Buckley. Management 

Strategies for National Seashores. Harpers Ferry Center, W.V.: National 

Park Service, 1978. 

Leatherwood, Stephen, Brent S. Stewart, and Pieter A. Folkens. Cetaceans of the 

Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration/Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, 

1987. 

Livingston, Douglas S. [Dewey]. “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula: A 

History of the Dairy and Beef Ranches within Point Reyes National 
Bibliography

383

Seashore, 1834–1992.” Point Reyes Station, Calif.: Point Reyes National 

Seashore, National Park Service, 1993. 

______. “A Good Life: Dairy Farming in the Olema Valley: A History of the 

Dairy and Beef Ranches of the Olema Valley and Lagunitas Canyon, 

Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National 

Seashore, Marin County, California.” San Francisco: National Park 

Service, 1995. 

______, and Dave Snow. “The History and Architecture of the Point Reyes Light 

Station.” Point Reyes, Calif.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National 

Park Service, 1990. 

______, and Steven Burke. “The History and Architecture of the Point Reyes 

Lifeboat Station, Drakes Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore, California: 

Historic Structure Report.” Point Reyes, Calif.: U.S. Department of the 

Interior, National Park Service, 1991. 

Mackintosh, Barry. Assateague Island National Seashore: An Administrative 

History. History Division, National Park Service, Department of the 

Interior. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1982. 

______. The National Parks: Shaping the System. Washington, D.C.: National 

Park Service, Division of Publications, 1985. 

______. The United States Park Police: A History. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 

1989. http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/police/. 

______. National Park Service Administrative History: A Guide. Washington, 

D.C.: National Park Service, History Division, 1991. 

Marin County Planning Department. “Can the Last Place Last? Preserving the 

Environmental Quality of Marin.” Council on Intergovernmental 

Relations, State of California, 1971. 

______. “Point Reyes Station Community Plan.” San Rafael, Calif.: Marin 

County Planning Department, 1976. 

McKinley, Laura. “An Unbroken Historical Record: An Administrative History of 

Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve.” 1993. 

http://www.nps.gov/ebla/adhi/adhi.htm 

Melnick, Robert Z. “Preserving Cultural and Historic Landscapes: Developing 

Standards.” National Park Service Cultural Resources Management 

Bulletin 3, no. 1 (March 1980). 
Bibliography 

384

______, with Daniel Sponn and Emma Jane Saxe. Cultural Landscapes: Rural 

Historic Districts in the National Park System. Washington, D.C.: NPS 

Park Historic Architecture Division, 1984. 

Murphy, Larry, et al. “Submerged Cultural Resources Inventory: Shipwreck 

Survey, Point Reyes National Seashore and Point Reyes-Farallon Islands 

National Marine Sanctuary: Phase 1 – Reconnaissance, Sessions 1 and 2, 

1982.” Santa Fe, New Mexico: Submerged Cultural Resources Unit, 

Southwest Cultural Resources Center and Western Regional Office, 

National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1983 [1984]. 

North Marin County Water District. “Point Reyes Station: Archaeological and 

Historical Resource Survey.” Novato, Calif.: The District, 1976. 

Rothman, Hal K. The Park that Makes Its Own Weather: An Administrative 

History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Online rev. ed. 

Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2002. 

http://www.nps.gov/goga/history/history.htm 

Thalman, Sylvia Barker. The Coast Miwok Indians of the Point Reyes Area. 

Illustrations by Edward Willie. Designed by Barbara Evans. Point Reyes, 

Calif.: Point Reyes National Seashore Association, 1993. 

Toogood, Anna Coxe. “A Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area 

and Point Reyes National Seashore, California.” 2 vols. Denver: National 

Park Service, Denver Service Center, 1980. 

Unrau, Harlan D., and G. Frank Willis. Administrative History: Expansion of the 

National Park System in the 1930s. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1983. 

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books//unrau-williss/adhi4b.htm. 

C. ARCHIVES AND DEPOSITORIES

Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, California. Anne Kent California Room. 

Pamphlet files. 

National Archives and Records Administration-II, College Park, Maryland. 

Record Group 79. Records of the National Park Service. 

National Archives and Records Administration-II, College Park, Maryland. 

Record Group 48. Records of the Secretary of the Interior. 

National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific West Region. San Bruno, 

California. Record Group 79. Records of the National Park Service. Point 

Reyes Correspondence Files. 
Bibliography

385

National Park Service. Columbia-Cascades Support Office Library. Seattle, 

Washington. 

National Park Service. Harpers Ferry Center Archives and Library. Harpers Ferry, 

West Virginia. NPS History Collection. 

National Park Service. Pacific West Regional Office. Oakland, California. 

Archives and Library. 

Point Reyes National Seashore Archives and Library. Point Reyes, California. 

The Bancroft Library. Manuscripts Division. University of California. Berkeley, 

California. 

D. AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS

Alanen, Arnold. “Cultural Landscape Preservation in the National Parks: A 

Presentation at Bolinas Museum.” Video recording. Bolinas, Calif.: Fiske 

Video Productions, 2000. 

Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT). “An Abundant Land: The Story of West 

Marin Ranching,” sound recording. Point Reyes Station, Calif.: MALT, 

1999. 

E. DISSERTATIONS AND THESES

Watt, Laura A. “Managing Cultural Landscapes: Reconciling Local Preservation 

and Institutional Ideology in the National Park Service.” Ph.D. diss., 

University of California, Berkeley, 2001. 

F. NEWSPAPERS

Baywood Press 

Los Angeles Times 

Marin Independent Journal 

New York Times 

Petaluma Argus-Courier 

Point Reyes Light 

San Francisco Guardian 

San Francisco Chronicle 

San Francisco Examiner 

San Rafael Independent 

West Marin Star
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386

G. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

Collins, George L. The Art and Politics of Park Planning and Preservation, 

1929–1979. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library. 

Berkeley: University of California, 1980. 

 

Dunshee, Bertram K. Land Planning in Marin County. Regional Oral History 

Office, The Bancroft Library. Berkeley: University of California, 1965. 

 

______. The Carla Ehat Oral History Program for the Anne T. Kent California 

Room. Marin County Free Library, San Rafael, California. 

 “Pacific Northwest Conservationists.” Introductions by Richard Fiddler and 

Harvey Manning; interviews conducted by Susan R. Schrepfer, Ann Lage 

in 1983. Berkeley: Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, 

University of California, 1986. 

“Saving Point Reyes National Seashore, 1969–1970: An Oral History of Citizen 

Action in Conservation.” Oral history interviews with Margaret Azevedo, 

Peter Behr, John D. Ehrlichman, Katy Miller Johnson, William L. Kahrl, 

Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey, Jr., Boyd Stewart; with an introduction by 

William J. Duddleson; interviews conducted by Ann Lage and William J. 

Duddleson, 1990, 1991. Berkeley: Regional Oral History Office, The 

Bancroft Library, University of California, 1993. 

Tennyson, Leonard. “First-Hand Accounts of the Mount Vision Fire: by a 

rancher, a firefighter, a park ranger, a fire strategist, a fire warder, and 

water district manager, inmate firefighters, an observer, home owners 

burned out, a homeowner spared, a naturalist.” Interviews by Leonard 

Tennyson; transcription by Lynne D. Young and Connie Holton. 

Inverness, Calif.: Leonard B. Tennyson, 1996. 

______. People of the Fire: Excerpts from Interviews Taken by Leonard 

Tennyson after the Mount Vision Fire of October 1995. Published in 

conjunction with the exhibit by the same name, presented at the Jack 

Mason Museum of West Marin History in the fall of 1996. Inverness, 

Calif.: Jack Mason Museum, 1996. 

Wayburn, Edgar. “Sierra Club Statesman and Leader of the Parks and Wilderness 

Movement: Gaining Protection for Alaska, the Redwoods, and Golden 

Gate Parklands.” Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library. 

Berkeley: University of California, 1985. 

H. HISTORICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC., ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

Allen, Sarah. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. August 13, 2004. 
Bibliography

387

Ashby, Gordon. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. November 30, 2004. 

Barbee, Robert. Telephone interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. May 24, 

2005. 

Bowen [Omundson], Doris. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. March 28, 

2007. 

Brock, LeeRoy. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. August 12, 2004. 

Cameron, Donald H. Telephone interview by Paul Sadin. March 10, 2005. 

Chappell, Gordon. Interview by Paul Sadin. November 18, 2003. 

Dell’Osso, John. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 30, 2004. 

DeRooy, Carola. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 29, 2004. 

Duddleson, Bill. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording and transcription. 

October 28, 2004. 

Fellers, Gary. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. August 13, 2004. 

Fradkin, Phil. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 28, 2004. 

Gilliam, Harold. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording and transcription. 

December 1, 2004. 

Henemon, Burr. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. November 30, 2004. 

Homrighaugen, Mark. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. August 11, 2004. 

Kelly, Roger. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. May 9, 2005. 

Livingston, Douglas S. [Dewey]. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. 

August 9, 2004. 

Mihan, Ralph. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 30, 2004. 

Mulhern, Tom. Telephone interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. October 8, 

2004. 

Murphy, Lee. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. August 10, 2004. 

Nadeau, Doug. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. December 3, 2004. 
Bibliography 

388

Neubacher, Don. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. December 2, 2004. 

Pierce, Bill. Telephone interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. June 8, 2005. 

Sansing, John. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 29, 2004. 

Shook, Bill. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 30, 2004. 

Smith, Colin. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. December 2, 2004. 

Udall, Stewart. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording and transcription. 

February 3, 2005. 

Walls, Ed. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. August 10, 2004. 

White, Gordon. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 30, 2004. 

Williams, Jack. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. April 27, 2005. 

Wong, Roger. Interview by Paul Sadin. Tape recording. August 12, 2004. 
389

INDEX
390
391

INDEX

A

Abbott, Carlisle S.......................................................................................... 20, 131 

Acadia National Park ...................................................................................... 40, 63 

Adams, David S. ................................................... 53, 54, 55, 60, 67, 173, 289, 369 

Administration, Park...... 3, 5, 6, 7, 13, 39, 45, 58, 72, 89, 103, 105, 109, 110, 111, 

112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 133, 

137, 138, 141, 143, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159, 161, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 

169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 184, 186, 187, 191, 

194, 195, 200, 202, 203, 206, 210, 212, 216, 227, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235, 237, 

238, 239, 240, 246, 247, 248, 249, 252, 253, 254, 255, 264, 265, 267, 271, 274, 

279, 281, 282, 283, 286, 288, 297, 298, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 309, 

310, 312, 313, 314, 316, 317, 318, 319, 321, 323, 329, 330 

administrative history................................ 3, 5, 7, 13, 143, 182, 184, 240, 313, 329 

agriculture .. 4, 15, 44, 48, 53, 75, 86, 87, 88, 89, 98, 134, 153, 155, 171, 177, 178, 

179, 182, 213, 228, 236, 244, 249, 250, 254, 268, 282, 286, 300, 312, 323, 329 

Aho, John ............................................................................................ 231, 235, 334 

Albright, Stanley L...................................................................................... 181, 236 

Albright, Horace M............................................................................................. 299 

Allen, Sarah.... 12, 31, 146, 181, 183, 223, 234, 238, 239, 240, 247, 256, 257, 258, 

259, 334, 369, 376, 386 

American Shore and Beach Association............................................................... 42 

American Telephone and Telegraph Company .................... 28, 30, 80, 88, 89, 129 

Anderson, Clinton P.............................................................................................. 77 

Antiquities Act of 1906..................................................................... 41, 50, 63, 299 

archaeology 4, 32, 41, 274, 275, 277, 298, 299, 301, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 310, 

311, 312, 313, 314, 316, 317, 318, 319 

Arnberger, Leslie P. ... 115, 116, 118, 119, 122, 144, 162, 210, 212, 222, 229, 297, 

301, 306, 333 

Arthur, Franklin A. ............................................................................... 31, 211, 370 

Ashby, Gordon.................................................................................... 155, 170, 183 

Aspinall, Wayne N............................................................ 79, 93, 97, 133, 138, 142 

automobiles.. 25, 42, 51, 58, 81, 114, 121, 123, 167, 194, 197, 200, 201, 206, 228, 

263, 265, 282 

Azevedo, Margaret.............................................. 57, 66, 74, 78, 90, 95, 96, 99, 386 

B

Baar, Louis.......................................................................................................... 136 

Babbitt, Bruce ............................................................................................. 179, 259 

Badlands National Monument .............................................................................. 41 

Bandelier National Monument............................................................................ 252 

Barbee, Robert (Bob). 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 145, 162, 193, 211, 220, 222, 229, 

255, 256, 301, 306, 321, 322, 387 
Index

392

barn .. 21, 24, 48, 104, 105, 124, 174, 176, 228, 268, 282, 297, 301, 303, 304, 306, 

311, 314 

Barrett, Reginald......................................................................... 146, 203, 238, 239 

Bay Area Cluster......................................... 145, 158, 220, 222, 223, 289, 290, 292 

Baywood Press.................................................................................. 82, 96, 97, 385 

Bear Valley .. 3, 8, 20, 24, 25, 80, 88, 104, 105, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120, 123, 

124, 125, 129, 142, 156, 160, 173, 174, 176, 197, 204, 205, 208, 217, 239, 254, 

263, 264, 266, 267, 276, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 315, 

318, 319, 329, 374 

Bear Valley Country Club ............................................................................ 24, 129 

Bear Valley Ranch .................................................................. 3, 104, 105, 118, 374 

Behr, Peter..................................................................... 90, 135, 136, 148, 227, 386 

Bell, David ............................................................................................ 86, 143, 372 

Berkeley ..... 64, 65, 66, 74, 95, 96, 97, 98, 121, 147, 184, 193, 196, 238, 245, 318, 

321, 323, 369, 371, 372, 373, 375, 385, 386 

Berry, James Richard............................................................................................ 17 

Bible, Alan ............................................................................................ 89, 154, 271 

Binnewies, Fred W. .................................................................... 112, 118, 119, 333 

bird-watching .............................................................................. 103, 121, 131, 191 

Bodega Bay................................................................................................... 12, 380 

Bolinas 12, 16, 24, 25, 28, 29, 44, 86, 123, 155, 158, 174, 179, 180, 183, 186, 187, 

240, 252, 303, 308, 315, 321, 385 

Bolinas Fire Protection District .......................................................................... 252 

Bolton, Herbert E............................................................................................ 12, 13 

Bonelli, Benjamin P............................................................................ 54, 55, 56, 66 

Bowers, Jr., Veronza........................................................................................... 214 

Breeze, Joe .......................................................................................................... 202 

Briones, Gregorio/Georgio ............................................................................. 16, 17 

Brock, LeeRoy ... 155, 161, 180, 181, 183, 184, 213, 214, 216, 223, 303, 305, 306, 

309, 314, 322, 324, 333, 387 

Brower, David................................................................... 39, 62, 74, 87, 93, 94, 96 

brown pelican...................................................................................................... 253 

Brown, Edmund G. (Pat) .............................................................................. 73, 212 

Brown, Richard........................................................................... 172, 231, 235, 239 

Buell, Rufus T....................................................................................................... 20 

Bull, John C. ......................................................................................................... 26 

Bureau of Outdoor Recreation............................................................................ 110 

Burton, John L. ................................................................................................... 170 

Burton, Phillip (Phil)................................................................... 158, 159, 205, 246 

Butler, Edward ...................................................................................................... 53 

C

Cain, Stanley A. .......................................................... 109, 110, 142, 143, 144, 321 

Caldeira, William.................................................................................................. 12 

California Academy of Sciences................................................................... 78, 372 
Index

393

California Department of Fish and Game.. 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 145, 146, 147, 

223, 229, 230, 231, 232, 234, 241, 242, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249, 255, 256 

California Exotic Plant Management Team (EPMT) ......................................... 243 

California Highway Patrol .......................................................................... 212, 218 

California, State Highway Commission ............................................................... 53 

Cameron, Donald ........ 118, 124, 145, 168, 173, 185, 186, 193, 220, 221, 333, 387 

camping.. 13, 83, 121, 122, 141, 142, 173, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 205, 217, 218, 

228, 232, 264, 266, 267, 284, 285 

backcountry..................................... 122, 168, 170, 173, 195, 196, 197, 232, 235 

Coast Camp..................................................................................................... 196 

Wildcat Camp ................................................................................................. 195 

Canyon Ranch......................................................................................... 52, 66, 371 

Cape Cod National Seashore ..... 45, 63, 64, 72, 86, 87, 95, 98, 109, 137, 159, 338, 

369, 370, 371 

Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Recreation Area.... 44, 45, 64, 130, 196, 337 

Case, Russ........................................................................................................... 219 

Castro, Walter ........................................................................................... 78, 97, 99 

cattle grazing............................................................................... 177, 228, 245, 249 

Cazadero ............................................................................................................... 24 

Central Valley (California) ................................................................. 121, 244, 271 

Century Magazine................................................................................................. 60 

Cermeño, Sebastian Rodriguez........................................................... 10, 13, 14, 26 

Channel Islands National Park...................................................... 77, 221, 289, 382 

Chapman, Howard H. ......................................................................................... 273 

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park ....................................... 270 

Citizens’ Advisory Commission, Golden Gate National Recreation Area-Point 

Reyes National Seashore ...... 159, 160, 161, 171, 179, 205, 206, 231, 232, 233, 

242, 250, 256, 306 

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) ..................................................................... 43 

Clausen, Donald H........................................................ 98, 133, 136, 137, 138, 271 

Clawson, Marion................................................................................................. 270 

Coast Miwok ...... 4, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 23, 30, 31, 35, 163, 171, 180, 228, 267, 

273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 286, 291, 297, 307, 308, 309, 316, 317, 319, 325, 

329, 372, 376, 382, 384 

Federated Tribe of Graton Rancheria ................................................. 11, 31, 316 

Cohelan, Jeffery ............................................................................ 74, 133, 136, 338 

Cole, James E...................................................................................... 112, 118, 333 

Collins, George L..... 47, 52, 59, 65, 66, 72, 74, 78, 79, 96, 97, 103, 104, 106, 141, 

142, 143, 257, 386 

Compton, Gene ................................................................................................... 104 

concessions ................................................................................................. 139, 200 

Conde, Gus.................................................................. 202, 216, 219, 221, 223, 224 

Congress.... 3, 13, 26, 27, 40, 41, 44, 46, 48, 54, 55, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 71, 72, 

73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 

104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 115, 117, 119, 120, 130, 133, 134, 135, 

136, 137, 138, 139, 144, 146, 148, 155, 158, 159, 161, 165, 168, 169, 170, 171, 
Index

394

172, 177, 181, 184, 185, 186, 191, 192, 211, 216, 218, 220, 223, 227, 232, 234, 

236, 246, 251, 253, 257, 269, 284, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 310, 312, 320, 321, 

329, 337, 378, 381 

House of Representatives... 23, 48, 63, 71, 73, 74, 77, 79, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 

95, 98, 99, 107, 108, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 147, 

148, 158, 170, 184, 185, 288, 337, 338 

House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs . 63, 64, 73, 74, 79, 87, 88, 89, 

90, 93, 95, 96, 97, 99, 128, 134, 135, 138, 139, 142, 146, 147, 148, 170, 184, 

321, 337, 378 

House Resolution........................................................................................ 48, 71 

House Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation .. 89, 93, 133, 134, 147, 

184 

Senate... 64, 73, 77, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 95, 96, 97, 107, 108, 128, 136, 138, 140, 

142, 146, 271, 301, 321, 337, 338, 378 

conservation . 3, 6, 39, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 71, 73, 74, 

78, 79, 84, 86, 87, 89, 94, 103, 104, 105, 109, 115, 116, 117, 126, 132, 135, 

136, 155, 157, 166, 167, 168, 169, 180, 182, 191, 192, 205, 227, 229, 235, 246, 

249, 274, 297, 299, 337 

conservation movement .............................................. 39, 49, 51, 62, 86, 87, 168 

Conservation Associates ............................................................................... 74, 141 

counterculture ............................................................................................. 193, 211 

Cranston, Alan .................................... 126, 127, 133, 136, 144, 146, 167, 169, 185 

Cultural Resource Management (CRM) .... 143, 154, 180, 181, 231, 236, 248, 250, 

279, 286, 298, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315, 

317, 318, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 334, 373, 376, 379 

cultural landscapes.................................... 89, 297, 309, 311, 312, 314, 318, 319 

cultural resources ... 4, 8, 154, 171, 219, 249, 252, 265, 286, 297, 298, 299, 300, 

301, 302, 304, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 

318, 319, 320, 321, 324 

submerged cultural resources............................ 26, 125, 212, 309, 311, 313, 314 

Cumberland Island National Seashore.................. 46, 64, 77, 95, 96, 143, 196, 370 

D

dairying 4, 10, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 30, 32, 33, 44, 48, 53, 60, 71, 75, 81, 82, 

84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 104, 125, 140, 142, 155, 166, 171, 172, 173, 174, 177, 

181, 227, 228, 231, 233, 240, 244, 248, 250, 254, 265, 268, 271, 286, 288, 291, 

297, 309, 310, 314, 315, 321, 324, 329, 377, 382, 383 

dams ........................................................................ 50, 60, 114, 218, 228, 254, 300 

Dean, Frank......................................................... 206, 219, 222, 314, 324, 333, 373 

deer.......................................... 11, 24, 131, 153, 231, 233, 240, 241, 242, 243, 276 

non-native ....................................................................... 232, 233, 241, 242, 258 

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area................................................. 279 

Department of Agriculture.................................................................... 41, 250, 299 

Department of the Interior . 7, 24, 30, 33, 41, 46, 57, 63, 64, 71, 74, 77, 79, 83, 87, 

88, 89, 90, 91, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 103, 106, 107, 110, 117, 128, 135, 138, 139, 
Index

395

140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 154, 170, 184, 186, 205, 229, 246, 251, 

257, 258, 259, 274, 289, 299, 320, 321, 322, 337, 378, 379, 380, 382, 383, 384 

Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and 

Monuments ................................................................................................. 142 

development, residential 

Bonelli, Benjamin P........................................................................ 54, 55, 56, 66 

Drakes Bay Estates ................................................... 54, 55, 56, 90, 91, 115, 173 

Drakes Bay Land Company.................................................................. 54, 66, 99 

Paradise Ranch Estates ....................................................................... 54, 66, 251 

development, tourism.............................................................. 45, 86, 165, 168, 229 

Diamant, Rolf...................................................................................................... 171 

Dickenson, Russell.............................................................................................. 205 

Dickerman, Ernie ................................................................................................ 169 

Dilsaver, Lary M............................................................................. 64, 96, 143, 370 

diseños................................................................................................................... 16 

Divide Meadow................................................................................................... 105 

Doe, Douglas..................................................................................... 45, 63, 64, 370 

Double Point ....................................................................................... 113, 114, 247 

Douglas, Paul H. ......... 45, 55, 63, 77, 103, 134, 147, 286, 302, 314, 370, 382, 387 

Drake, Captain Francis... 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 29, 31, 46, 48, 75, 173, 301, 306, 307, 

311, 314, 317, 324, 369, 370, 376, 377 

Drakes Bay. 11, 12, 13, 22, 27, 54, 55, 56, 66, 90, 91, 99, 104, 113, 114, 115, 128, 

129, 144, 157, 173, 192, 193, 208, 248, 280, 309, 311, 323, 383 

Drakes Bay Estates ....................................................... 54, 55, 56, 90, 91, 115, 173 

Drakes Bay Land Company...................................................................... 54, 66, 99 

Drakes Bay Oyster Company.............................................................. 104, 128, 248 

Drakes Beach . 10, 26, 53, 54, 76, 91, 104, 105, 113, 114, 115, 120, 123, 170, 173, 

176, 192, 194, 195, 197, 200, 202, 240, 263, 279, 280, 286, 287, 307 

Drakes Estero..... 11, 12, 90, 91, 104, 120, 127, 128, 129, 131, 246, 247, 259, 302, 

369 

oyster farming ................................................................................................. 248 

Duck Cove ...................................................................................................... 89, 93 

Duddleson, William (Bill) ... 72, 73, 78, 95, 99, 114, 135, 141, 143, 147, 148, 149, 

159, 167, 169, 170, 184, 185, 186, 371, 386, 387 

Dundes, Jules .................................................................................................. 83, 98 

Dunshee, Bertram and Verna........................ 46, 52, 53, 55, 64, 66, 73, 79, 97, 386 

E

Eastman, Barbara ............................................ 57, 59, 65, 66, 73, 78, 147, 227, 371 

Eaton, Jim ........................................................................................................... 169 

Echo Park controversy .......................................................................................... 57 

Ehrlichman, John D. ................................................................... 137, 138, 148, 386 

Elkhorn Slough ................................................................................................... 128 

Elliot, Henry W................................................................................................... 242 

endangered species...................................................... 161, 171, 234, 240, 253, 255 

Endangered Species Act ......................................................... 174, 232, 253, 254 
Index

396

Engle, Clair .. 48, 55, 64, 65, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 84, 87, 89, 93, 94, 95, 96, 108, 

321, 337, 338 

environment ...... 10, 21, 52, 55, 60, 75, 90, 94, 111, 114, 116, 126, 138, 154, 156, 

157, 158, 164, 166, 167, 169, 171, 172, 175, 176, 183, 193, 195, 202, 227, 228, 

229, 232, 233, 235, 236, 241, 243, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 255, 264, 266, 

281, 282, 284, 286, 301, 303, 309, 312, 317, 329 

Environmental Action Committee of West Marin..... 126, 135, 155, 167, 169, 170, 

303, 321 

Environmental Education 

Environmental Study Areas (ESAs) ............................................... 163, 266, 284 

NEED program ....................................................................... 266, 267, 284, 285 

estuaries....................................... 10, 47, 75, 91, 114, 116, 117, 127, 131, 228, 329 

Everglades National Park................................................................................ 42, 87 

Evers, Sepha.......................................................................................................... 52 

F

Fabian, Harold............................................................................. 109, 110, 142, 143 

Farallon Islands........................................................... 234, 239, 240, 323, 377, 384 

Fellers, Gary................................................................................ 239, 247, 257, 387 

Field, Bill .............................................. 57, 140, 149, 176, 185, 291, 315, 323, 377 

fire...... 121, 124, 168, 176, 181, 202, 205, 208, 209, 219, 228, 229, 233, 235, 240, 

250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 317, 330, 386 

BAER report ................................................................................... 237, 251, 252 

ecology.................................................................................................... 219, 229 

prescribed burning .................................................. 161, 231, 233, 250, 252, 253 

suppression.............................................................................................. 121, 252 

Vision fire ....................................................................................... 237, 251, 252 

wildland................................................................................................... 210, 386 

Wildland Urban Interface ............................................................................... 252 

Fisher, Gary......................................................................................................... 202 

fisheries 

National Marine Fisheries Service.......................................... 239, 247, 253, 255 

salmon............................................................................... 24, 228, 249, 254, 255 

coho .....................................................................................................................................254 

Forbes, Portia ........................................................................................................ 52 

Fort Point National Historic Site......................................................................... 286 

Fort Ross ......................................................................................................... 14, 32 

Friedman, Jerry ........................................................................... 126, 135, 169, 170 

Fries, Nancy ........................................................................................................ 171 

funds... 26, 40, 41, 43, 46, 48, 61, 74, 77, 79, 83, 84, 105, 106, 107, 108, 118, 124, 

133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 181, 197, 218, 227, 232, 233, 245, 252, 255, 264, 269, 

274, 276, 277, 280, 283, 285, 287, 306, 309, 310, 314, 315, 316, 318, 320, 381 

appropriations ............... 44, 92, 95, 108, 110, 133, 136, 137, 138, 159, 172, 237 

G

Gallagher, Thomas.............................................................................................. 105 

Garcia, Rafael ..................................................................... 16, 17, 18, 23, 308, 311 
Index

397

General Electric .................................................................................................... 28 

general management plans (GMP)..... 111, 116, 117, 126, 141, 143, 153, 164, 165, 

166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 178, 183, 186, 197, 232, 233, 234, 236, 249, 256, 

259, 266, 282, 298, 302, 303, 309, 310, 316, 322, 323, 379, 380, 381 

geology...................................................................... 4, 6, 7, 86, 169, 228, 263, 317 

George Washington Birthplace National Monument ......................................... 267 

Germeraad, William Bill..................................... 161, 175, 265, 266, 279, 289, 333 

Gilliam, Harold .... 5, 15, 16, 25, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 59, 61, 62, 66, 67, 72, 74, 80, 

95, 97, 137, 371, 387 

Gladwin Hill........................................................................................................ 133 

Glen Camp .......................................................................................................... 114 

Glen Canyon Dam................................................................................................. 74 

Gogan, Pete......................................................................................... 238, 239, 245 

Gold Rush, California ................................................................................... 18, 128 

Golden Gate Bridge .......................................................... 24, 25, 51, 156, 159, 206 

Golden Gate National Recreation Area ... 30, 62, 96, 141, 143, 155, 157, 158, 184, 

186, 197, 221, 258, 259, 260, 286, 307, 318, 322, 323, 329, 375, 378, 379, 383, 

384 

gorse elimination................................................................................................. 243 

Goycoechea, Don Felipe de ............................................................................ 14, 32 

Grader, William (Bill)............................................................................... 72, 78, 96 

Grand Canyon National Park............................................ 41, 60, 63, 121, 154, 270 

Grand Teton National Park ............................................. 81, 97, 130, 132, 146, 374 

grassroots ........................................................................................ 57, 79, 133, 158 

Great Lakes ............................................................................................. 46, 61, 337 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park ........................................................ 41, 235 

Greenbrae.................................................................................................... 167, 185 

Gregg, Harold ..................................................................................................... 135 

Gross, Harold R. ................................................................................................... 95 

Gulf Coast ..................................................................................................... 86, 380 

Gulf of Mexico...................................................................................................... 46 

Gustafson, Joel.................................................................................. 78, 96, 98, 142 

H

Habig, Dan .......................................................................................................... 219 

Haggerty Gulch................................................................................................... 117 

Hamilton, Julia Shafter ........................................................................... 22, 25, 132 

Hammond, Jim...................................................................................................... 79 

Hartzog, Jr., George B. ...... 111, 126, 135, 139, 143, 146, 147, 148, 166, 170, 185, 

270, 274, 372 

Heims, Edward H................................................................................ 104, 105, 142 

Hetch Hetchy Valley............................................................................................. 50 

Heydenfeldt , Solomon ................................................................................... 18, 20 

Hickel, Walter J. ................................................................................................. 133 

hiking ...... 48, 83, 103, 105, 119, 121, 131, 173, 174, 191, 195, 197, 208, 216, 265 

backpacking ................................ 4, 121, 122, 191, 195, 196, 197, 221, 301, 306 
Index

398

historic sites ........................................ 103, 157, 162, 297, 299, 301, 307, 308, 310 

Pierce Point Ranch.................................................................. 139, 306, 377, 378 

history .... 5, 6, 7, 12, 17, 23, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 45, 51, 57, 58, 62, 63, 65, 66, 71, 

75, 79, 96, 98, 119, 123, 127, 129, 140, 141, 143, 147, 148, 153, 175, 177, 183, 

184, 185, 194, 208, 210, 217, 221, 222, 227, 228, 229, 236, 238, 241, 243, 244, 

246, 248, 252, 257, 263, 265, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 278, 279, 281, 283, 

286, 287, 289, 290, 297, 298, 300, 301, 304, 307, 308, 310, 311, 316, 317, 318, 

320, 321, 322, 323, 325, 329, 373, 379, 380, 383, 384, 386 

Home Bay ........................................................................................................... 104 

home page ........................................................................................................... 207 

Home Ranch.................................................................................................. 22, 132 

Hondius, Jocodus .................................................................................................. 12 

Hortig, Francis J...................................................................................... 91, 99, 223 

Howard, Charles Webb......................... 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 162, 260, 273, 309, 377 

Hughes, Phillip (Sam)........................................................................................... 86 

Hummel, Edward A. ................................................................... 147, 270, 271, 273 

hunting 

Bear Valley Country Club ........................................................................ 24, 129 

Pacific Union Club............................................................................................ 24 

Hyde, Philip .................................................................................................. 62, 371 

I

Ickes, Harold L........................................................................................ 42, 63, 270 

Independence National Historic Park ................................................................... 83 

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore....................................................................... 96 

inholdings........................................................................................ 88, 92, 133, 154 

interpretation 41, 118, 180, 229, 248, 251, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 

272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 279, 281, 282, 287, 288, 289, 299, 303, 307, 309, 

311, 315, 316, 329 

Division of Interpretation and Resource Management ................... 123, 210, 263 

living history .. 263, 265, 267, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273, 278, 279, 283, 287, 289, 

321 

Inverness ...... 5, 25, 34, 44, 53, 54, 55, 57, 65, 73, 79, 80, 86, 105, 117, 123, 126, 

135, 147, 157, 167, 173, 185, 251, 252, 259, 303, 321, 373, 381, 386 

Inverness Improvement Association....................................... 57, 65, 126, 303, 321 

Inverness Public Utility District.......................................................................... 252 

Inverness Ridge........................................... 53, 54, 55, 79, 105, 117, 135, 173, 259 

Island in Time ..... 5, 25, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 39, 60, 61, 62, 67, 78, 94, 95, 137, 371 

film........................................................................................ 57, 61, 78, 137, 280 

J

Jamestown............................................................................................................. 75 

Jenson, Larry............................................................................................... 104, 128 

Johnson, Charles ......................................................................................... 128, 247 

Johnson, Harold T......................................................................... 74, 135, 136, 148 

Johnson, Katy Miller............................. 95, 135, 136, 148, 160, 227, 266, 285, 386 
Index

399

Johnson Oyster Company .................. 127, 128, 129, 166, 234, 247, 248, 265, 302 

K

Kehoe, James .................................................................................................. 82, 97 

Kelham, Bruce and Grace..................................................... 97, 104, 105, 142, 251 

Kennedy, Jr., John F. ..... 3, 72, 74, 86, 87, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 108, 110, 168, 

338 

Kent, William...................................................... 34, 50, 65, 66, 185, 290, 384, 386 

Kilday, Ruth........................................................................................................ 171 

Kriz, William ...................................................................................................... 140 

Kuchel, Thomas H. ................................. 72, 73, 84, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 95, 99, 338 

Kule Loklo ...... 8, 11, 163, 195, 263, 267, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 

281, 285, 291, 308, 316, 317, 319, 322, 329 

Kurtz, Superintendent Edward J. ...... 116, 119, 124, 125, 126, 127, 144, 145, 146, 

147, 154, 155, 230, 256, 264, 271, 289, 333, 381 

Kyl, John H. .................................................................................................. 92, 107 

L

Lake Mead National Recreation Area......................................................... 137, 154 

Lake Ranch ......................................................................... 105, 106, 107, 133, 139 

Land and Water Conservation Fund ....... 84, 98, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 141, 147 

landscape architects ..... 44, 45, 112, 122, 135, 143, 165, 171, 228, 229, 311, 314, 

315 

law enforcement..... 8, 121, 123, 158, 159, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 

218, 219, 223, 231, 235, 280, 287, 290, 329, 370, 373, 377 

Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) .................................... 211 

Marin County 

Sheriff’s Office....................................................................................212, 213, 214, 218, 219 

park police............................................................................................... 211, 222 

Trailside Killer........................................................................................ 216, 217 

law suit.................................................................................................................. 54 

legislation ...... 40, 41, 45, 55, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 79, 81, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 93, 95, 

104, 108, 111, 120, 130, 134, 136, 137, 138, 159, 160, 161, 164, 168, 170, 182, 

197, 205, 227, 232, 236, 253, 268, 284, 299, 301, 302, 304, 305, 310, 312, 318, 

320, 323, 329 

Antiquities Act.............................................................................. 41, 50, 63, 299 

Coastal Zone Management Act....................................................................... 232 

Endangered Species Act ......................................................... 174, 232, 253, 254 

Marine Mammal Protection Act ............................................. 232, 234, 240, 257 

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 122, 165, 166, 231, 298, 300, 301, 

320 

National Marine Sanctuaries Act.................................................................... 232 

National Park Service Organic Act............................. 40, 44, 112, 220, 297, 298 

Padre Island National Seashore Act.................................................................. 87 

Leonard, Richard and Doris.................................. 59, 65, 73, 74, 79, 142, 369, 386 

Leopold Report ............................................................................. 45, 227, 303, 321 

Leopold, Starker.................................................................................. 238, 245, 321 
Index

400

Lesko, Russ................................................................................................. 235, 334 

Limantour Beach................................. 118, 120, 123, 173, 175, 176, 195, 197, 281 

Limantour Estero ............................ 13, 54, 113, 114, 116, 128, 131, 166, 238, 246 

Limantour Road .......................................... 118, 124, 125, 170, 195, 197, 198, 200 

Limantour Spit ... 105, 114, 115, 116, 124, 125, 131, 165, 174, 176, 192, 229, 264, 

307 

Livermore, Caroline...................................................................... 52, 53, 60, 66, 78 

living history ..... 263, 265, 267, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273, 278, 279, 283, 287, 289, 

321 

Livingston, Douglas S. (Dewey)...... 19, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 66, 142, 313, 314, 324, 

382, 387 

Los Angeles ................................................ 53, 58, 73, 99, 204, 206, 221, 223, 385 

Luntey, Robert S. .................................................................. 59, 117, 144, 184, 185 

M

Mackintosh, Barry........................... 63, 64, 222, 270, 289, 290, 299, 320, 373, 383 

Maintenance and facilities management 

maintenance . 7, 21, 118, 119, 122, 124, 125, 153, 158, 159, 161, 163, 164, 168, 

172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 192, 193, 195, 197, 206, 230, 235, 248, 264, 271, 

280, 284, 304, 305, 309, 311, 315 

roads. 25, 114, 116, 117, 122, 123, 126, 135, 153, 172, 173, 182, 195, 197, 202, 

203, 210, 213, 235, 252, 269, 281, 310 

structures.... 7, 21, 28, 41, 82, 105, 114, 118, 123, 124, 153, 158, 161, 169, 172, 

173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 206, 235, 237, 240, 251, 252, 271, 275, 276, 277, 

279, 282, 284, 297, 298, 299, 300, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 

312, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, 319, 321, 329 

trails.. 26, 103, 120, 121, 122, 123, 131, 153, 173, 195, 199, 202, 203, 204, 205, 

206, 208, 210, 217, 232, 235, 252, 263, 266, 284, 286 

Maloney, Douglas J. ................................................................... 103, 134, 135, 147 

Manassas National Battlefield .............................................................................. 83 

Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America ... 28, 29, 30, 35, 314, 315, 319 

Marconi, Guglielmo.............................................................................................. 28 

maricultural......................................................................................... 129, 171, 228 

Marin Art and Garden Club .................................................................................. 52 

Marin Audubon Society................................................................................ 52, 126 

Marin City............................................................................................................. 53 

Marin Conservation League.......... 48, 50, 53, 60, 65, 126, 135, 146, 303, 321, 377 

Marin County ...... 19, 23, 24, 25, 52, 53, 82, 88, 90, 106, 134, 135, 136, 175, 176, 

194, 209, 210, 213, 214, 215, 237 

Board of Supervisors............. 48, 76, 78, 79, 90, 97, 99, 134, 135, 136, 147, 160 

East Marin................................................................................................. 53, 136 

Fire Department .............................................................................................. 252 

Planning Commission ....................................................................................... 48 

Resource Conservation District ...................................................................... 181 

Sheriff’s Office ............................................................... 212, 213, 214, 218, 219 
Index

401

West Marin...... 4, 34, 53, 72, 73, 78, 80, 81, 82, 86, 90, 97, 123, 126, 134, 136, 

160, 161, 169, 175, 197, 214, 219, 242, 263, 288, 371, 373, 385, 386 

West Marin Peace Officers Association ......................................................... 214 

West Marin Property Owners Association ........................................... 81, 82, 97 

Marin Independent-Journal...................................................................... 66, 82, 97 

marine mammals............................................................. 4, 171, 234, 235, 240, 285 

Marine Mammal Protection Act ............................................. 232, 234, 240, 257 

marine organisms................................................................ 127, 156, 229, 240, 246 

abalone .............................................................................. 10, 125, 127, 229, 247 

shrimp ............................................................................................. 125, 126, 229 

Marshall .................................................................................................. 28, 80, 316 

marshland.............................................................................................................. 53 

Master Plan ...... 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 134, 143, 144, 153, 164, 165, 

166, 172, 181, 184, 185, 186, 228, 229, 232, 234, 255, 256, 289, 290, 298, 302, 

321, 381 

Mather Training Center............................................................................... 287, 289 

Mather, Stephen T..................................................... 58, 62, 66, 165, 287, 289, 299 

Matsuwa, Don Jose ............................................................................................. 277 

Mayo, Robert P. .................................................................................. 134, 138, 148 

McCarthy, John............................................................................................... 78, 90 

McCloskey, Mike................................................................................................ 135 

McClure, Margaret.................................................................................. 21, 53, 140 

McClures Beach.................................................................................. 114, 120, 209 

McMillan, Robert.................................................................................................. 18 

McNamara, Robert S. ..................................................................................... 90, 99 

memorandum of understanding .......................................................... 127, 213, 229 

Mendoza, Joseph............................................................... 53, 82, 97, 155, 160, 233 

Mesa Verde National Park............................................................ 41, 270, 299, 320 

Mexican Colonization........................................................................................... 16 

Meyer, Amy ................................................................ 157, 158, 203, 221, 222, 373 

Mihan, Ralph....................................................... 140, 141, 149, 213, 274, 291, 387 

Mill Valley................................................................................................ 34, 50, 90 

Miller, Clement W. (Clem).... 55, 57, 64, 65, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 

84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 107, 108, 114, 130, 135, 

147, 159, 160, 169, 227, 282, 284, 285, 286, 287, 290, 321, 337, 338 

Mission 66....................................................... 39, 45, 124, 154, 228, 269, 281, 377 

Miwok Archaeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM)............... 273, 274, 276, 277 

Moore, Greg........................................................................................................ 171 

Moore, R. B......................................................................................... 116, 144, 153 

Morgan Horse Farm... 163, 231, 263, 265, 267, 268, 269, 271, 272, 273, 279, 280, 

281, 290, 321, 374 

Morison, Samuel Eliot .......................................................................................... 12 

Mount Desert Island.............................................................................................. 40 

Mount Rainier National Park...................................................................... 165, 290 

Mount Tamalpais ............................................................................ 25, 50, 202, 203 

Mount Wittenberg............................................................................... 169, 203, 216 
Index

402

mountain biking .................................. 121, 191, 192, 202, 203, 204, 205, 217, 221 

Muddy Hollow...................................................................................... 19, 254, 255 

Muir Woods National Monument........................... 40, 50, 137, 158, 213, 260, 285 

Muir, John............................................................................... 49, 60, 158, 163, 286 

Murie, Adolf ................................................................................................... 58, 66 

Murphy, George L. ............................................................................................. 133 

Murphy, Leland S. .......................................................................... 22, 33, 132, 147 

Murphy, Ray ............................................................................................... 216, 333 

Murray, James E. .................................................................................................. 77 

N

Nadeau, Doug ..................... 111, 143, 165, 166, 167, 171, 184, 185, 186, 302, 387 

National Academy of Sciences ................................................................... 238, 257 

National Audubon Society...................................................................... 52, 66, 371 

national battlefields............................................................................................... 41 

National Biological Survey......................................................................... 181, 239 

national capital parks ............................................................................................ 41 

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)..... 122, 165, 166, 231, 298, 300, 301, 

320 

national historical parks ........................................................................................ 41 

National Marine Fisheries Service.............................................. 239, 247, 253, 255 

national park system ............................................................................................. 41 

National Park Service (NPS) .... 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 30, 31, 32, 

33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 

61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 

88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 

111, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 

128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 

147, 148, 149, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 

167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 

184, 185, 186, 187, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 

206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 227, 

228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 

246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 263, 

264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 279, 280, 

281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 292, 293, 297, 298, 299, 300, 

301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, 

319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 329, 337, 369, 370, 371, 373, 376, 377, 378, 

379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385 

Mather Training Center........................................................................... 287, 289 

Mission 66................................................... 39, 45, 124, 154, 228, 269, 281, 377 

Organic Act................................................. 40, 44, 112, 191, 197, 220, 297, 298 

national park system 

national military parks ...................................................................................... 41 

national monuments............................................................................ 41, 63, 299 

national recreation areas ................................................. 103, 108, 131, 303, 329 
Index

403

park units...... 40, 41, 84, 109, 112, 138, 158, 206, 232, 242, 248, 266, 267, 281, 

282, 288, 299, 301, 302, 312, 318 

National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA)..... 166, 303, 318, 319, 321, 

325, 374 

national recreation areas ..................... 103, 108, 109, 110, 111, 131, 229, 303, 329 

National Research Council ........................................................................... 42, 374 

National Resources Board....................................................................... 43, 63, 380 

national seashores ...... 3, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 72, 74, 77, 79, 86, 87, 93, 94, 96, 97, 

103, 109, 110, 111, 130, 137, 168, 172, 208, 229, 264, 298, 302 

Cape Cod.. 45, 46, 63, 64, 72, 77, 84, 86, 87, 92, 95, 96, 98, 109, 130, 137, 138, 

159, 196, 329, 338, 369, 370, 371 

Cape Hatteras................................................................ 44, 45, 64, 130, 196, 337 

Cumberland Island............................................ 46, 64, 77, 95, 96, 143, 196, 370 

Oregon Dunes ....................................................................................... 46, 77, 96 

Our Vanishing Shoreline............................................................... 46, 47, 64, 380 

Pictured Rocks .................................................................................................. 77 

Natural Resource Management...... 6, 125, 126, 158, 172, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232, 

233, 235, 236, 239, 240, 241, 255, 305, 315 

Drakes Bay Oyster Company.......................................................... 104, 128, 248 

native deer................................................................................. 24, 233, 241, 242 

natural conditions............................................................................................ 174 

natural resources .. 6, 8, 14, 49, 93, 153, 154, 159, 164, 166, 176, 181, 227, 228, 

229, 231, 232, 235, 242, 252, 253, 255, 268, 299, 300, 302, 303, 309, 313 

Natural Resources Management Plan .... 231, 232, 233, 234, 236, 241, 242, 243, 

247, 249, 250, 254, 255, 256, 258, 259, 260, 323, 381 

non-native deer................................................................ 232, 233, 241, 242, 258 

non-native plants..................................................................... 231, 233, 240, 243 

range management .................................................. 182, 230, 233, 236, 240, 249 

restoration 74, 174, 181, 182, 227, 230, 231, 233, 236, 240, 243, 252, 254, 255, 

303, 304, 306, 308, 309, 311, 315 

Tule elk .... 46, 130, 147, 153, 164, 181, 199, 230, 232, 233, 235, 236, 238, 239, 

241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 281 

wildlife management............................................................... 130, 229, 241, 243 

natural resources 6, 8, 14, 49, 74, 93, 125, 126, 153, 154, 158, 159, 161, 164, 166, 

171, 172, 176, 180, 181, 182, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236, 239, 

240, 241, 242, 252, 253, 255, 268, 298, 299, 300, 302, 303, 305, 309, 313, 315 

Natural Resources Challenge.............................................................................. 227 

nature.... 6, 21, 42, 49, 58, 60, 63, 65, 103, 107, 119, 121, 126, 131, 165, 166, 167, 

169, 191, 196, 199, 208, 210, 213, 216, 220, 227, 228, 281, 286, 303, 306, 321 

natural .... 6, 8, 14, 26, 27, 31, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 54, 58, 60, 62, 

71, 74, 75, 88, 90, 93, 94, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 122, 125, 126, 

141, 153, 154, 158, 159, 161, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 

176, 177, 180, 181, 182, 200, 206, 219, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 

235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 246, 249, 252, 253, 255, 264, 

265, 266, 268, 274, 280, 281, 282, 284, 286, 287, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 

302, 303, 305, 309, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315, 317, 320, 321, 329 
Index

404

NEED program ........................................................................... 266, 267, 284, 285 

Neubacher, Superintendent Donald ... 154, 176, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 187, 218, 

219, 231, 245, 246, 250, 255, 282, 285, 289, 292, 313, 314, 315, 333, 388 

Neuberger, Richard L.................................................................................... 77, 337 

New York Times .......................................................................... 133, 147, 183, 385 

Nicasio ........................................................................................................ 176, 252 

Nicasio Volunteer Fire Department.................................................................... 252 

Nixon, Richard M. ........................................................................ 73, 134, 148, 300 

non-native plants......................................................................... 231, 233, 240, 243 

range management .................................................. 182, 230, 233, 236, 240, 249 

North Marin Water District......................................................................... 125, 176 

North Pacific Coast Railroad ................................................................................ 24 

Nova Albion.......................................................................................................... 12 

Novak, Fred J...................................................................................... 185, 213, 223 

Nunes, George......................................................................................... 81, 97, 304 

O

Oakland....................... 3, 49, 53, 146, 157, 175, 186, 220, 256, 289, 304, 322, 385 

oil spills....................................................... 133, 155, 156, 157, 163, 183, 209, 329 

cleanup .................................................................................... 156, 157, 174, 197 

Oko, Adolph (Captain).............................................................................. 80, 82, 97 

Olema. 5, 10, 14, 16, 17, 20, 23, 24, 25, 44, 97, 105, 123, 158, 159, 173, 176, 213, 

254, 255, 264, 280, 297, 304, 308, 309, 313, 319, 324, 379, 383 

Olema Creek ................................................................................................. 16, 255 

Olema Valley ..... 10, 14, 17, 44, 105, 158, 159, 173, 176, 213, 309, 313, 324, 379, 

383 

Omundson, Doris ........................................................ 162, 163, 184, 266, 284, 387 

Operations Evaluation ...... 153, 183, 186, 210, 215, 222, 230, 256, 285, 289, 292, 

303, 321 

Orange County...................................................................................................... 73 

Oregon Dunes National Seashore ............................................................. 46, 77, 96 

Orr, John ............................................................................................................... 24 

Osio, Antonio Maria ............................................................................................. 17 

Ottinger Ranch...................................................................................................... 54 

Our Vanishing Shoreline................................................................... 46, 47, 64, 380 

Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC).................. 43, 110 

oyster farming ............................... 48, 104, 127, 128, 129, 247, 248, 265, 302, 314 

P

Pacific Coast ................................. 43, 46, 47, 64, 86, 153, 181, 255, 330, 380, 381 

Pacific Ocean ........................................................................................ 26, 156, 198 

Padre Island National Seashore ...... 46, 77, 86, 87, 95, 96, 110, 137, 138, 196, 329 

Palmer, George ............................................................................................... 45, 64 

Paradise Ranch Estates ........................................................................... 54, 66, 251 

park police................................................................................................... 211, 222 
Index

405

park rangers ...... 103, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 130, 156, 158, 162, 163, 

168, 172, 173, 180, 181, 186, 191, 193, 197, 200, 202, 206, 208, 210, 211, 213, 

214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 235, 242, 251, 256, 263, 

264, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 274, 277, 279, 281, 282, 285, 287, 288, 301, 303, 

306, 307, 314, 317, 386 

Patrick, Kenneth C..... 210, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 280, 287, 290, 329, 370, 373, 

377 

Pictured Rocks National Seashore........................................................................ 77 

Pierce Point ................................... 53, 139, 157, 181, 245, 271, 306, 309, 377, 378 

Pierce Point Ranch...................................................................... 139, 306, 377, 378 

Pierce, Solomon .................................................................................................... 20 

Pierce, William ................................................................................... 235, 257, 334 

Pinnacles National Monument............................................................................ 213 

plants.. 4, 6, 45, 47, 57, 75, 105, 128, 129, 172, 218, 228, 229, 231, 233, 236, 239, 

240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 246, 250, 253, 286 

rare .................................................................................................................. 239 

Plymouth Rock...................................................................................................... 75 

Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO) ..... 116, 131, 155, 156, 179, 181, 230, 234, 

238, 239, 240, 241, 244, 247 

Point Reyes Cove........................................................................................ 114, 127 

Point Reyes Lifeboat Station ........................................................................ 28, 383 

Point Reyes Lighthouse ...... 26, 123, 173, 175, 198, 206, 208, 263, 273, 279, 285, 

305, 308 

Point Reyes National Seashore Act ........................................................ 71, 98, 337 

Point Reyes National Seashore Foundation.............. 57, 65, 78, 95, 96, 97, 98, 337 

Point Reyes Natural History Association ........................................... 266, 290, 374 

Point Reyes Peninsula.. 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 

28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 

60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 71, 72, 73, 75, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 90, 94, 103, 104, 105, 109, 

111, 114, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 125, 126, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 

136, 137, 140, 141, 142, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 166, 170, 171, 172, 

173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 182, 192, 198, 199, 208, 209, 212, 217, 220, 227, 228, 

229, 231, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 249, 250, 

251, 254, 255, 257, 263, 268, 275, 280, 281, 282, 289, 297, 301, 303, 306, 307, 

308, 309, 310, 317, 319, 321, 324, 329, 330, 369, 371, 380, 381, 382 

Point Reyes Sportsmen’s Club.............................................................................. 25 

Point Reyes Station...... 5, 53, 66, 81, 123, 183, 223, 258, 322, 371, 373, 380, 381, 

383, 384, 385 

Pomeroy, Hugh ................................................................................. 51, 52, 65, 374 

Pool, R. R........................................................................................................ 81, 97 

Portland Oregonian............................................................................................ 107 

Portolá, Gaspar de................................................................................................. 14 

Progressive Era ..................................................................................................... 43 

Punta de los Reyes .............................................................................. 13, 16, 17, 18 
Index

406

Q

Quan, Dan ................................................................................................... 176, 282 

R

radio ............ 26, 28, 29, 30, 35, 80, 83, 89, 210, 214, 215, 219, 246, 265, 288, 297 

Radio Corporation of America (RCA) ...... 28, 29, 30, 35, 80, 88, 89, 97, 129, 314, 

315, 319 

ranches . 4, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 29, 30, 34, 44, 46, 48, 52, 53, 54, 55, 64, 71, 

74, 75, 76, 81, 82, 84, 87, 88, 89, 92, 94, 104, 105, 106, 107, 118, 119, 122, 

123, 124, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 140, 141, 142, 153, 154, 155, 158, 166, 

171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 187, 227, 231, 

233, 235, 236, 245, 248, 249, 250, 253, 254, 263, 266, 268, 271, 273, 280, 281, 

283, 284, 285, 297, 303, 304, 305, 306, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 

317, 318, 319, 324, 380 

Home Ranch.............................................................................................. 22, 132 

Lake Ranch ..................................................................... 105, 106, 107, 133, 139 

Ottinger Ranch.................................................................................................. 54 

pasturelands..................................................................................................... 228 

Pierce Point Ranch.................................................................. 139, 306, 377, 378 

rangelands ....................................................................................................... 229 

Stewart Ranch ................................................................................................... 55 

Rancho Punta de los Reyes............................................................................. 17, 26 

Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante.................................................................... 26 

Rancho Tomales y Baulines............................................ 16, 17, 178, 179, 187, 228 

Randall, Andrew ............................................................................................. 17, 18 

Randall, Elizabeth........................................................................................... 17, 18 

range management ...................................................... 182, 230, 233, 236, 240, 249 

Rapp, John..................................................................................................... 23, 104 

recreation .... 6, 8, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54, 60, 63, 71, 74, 75, 

77, 78, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89, 90, 93, 94, 103, 105, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 

117, 119, 120, 121, 123, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 133, 139, 141, 153, 155, 157, 

159, 165, 166, 171, 172, 182, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 202, 208, 219, 227, 228, 

229, 232, 233, 239, 247, 264, 265, 266, 271, 274, 276, 282, 286, 297, 298, 299, 

301, 302, 307, 313, 321, 329, 380 

bicycling.......................................................................... 121, 191, 202, 203, 205 

bird-watching .......................................................................... 103, 121, 131, 191 

Bureau of Outdoor Recreation........................................................................ 110 

camping...... 13, 83, 121, 122, 141, 142, 173, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 205, 217, 

218, 228, 232, 264, 266, 267, 284, 285 

hiking .............................................................................. 121, 191, 195, 197, 306 

motorboating................................................................................................... 191 

mountain biking .............................................. 191, 192, 203, 204, 205, 217, 221 

Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC).............. 43, 110 

picnicking............................................................................ 48, 83, 121, 192, 228 

sailing............................................................................ 25, 75, 84, 191, 204, 266 

scuba diving ............................................................................................ 121, 266 
Index

407

sightseeing......................................................................................... 57, 191, 228 

swimming..... 25, 42, 48, 74, 75, 77, 82, 114, 117, 120, 121, 192, 193, 208, 228, 

264 

tide pooling ..................................................................................................... 192 

Redwood Creek............................................................................................. 50, 255 

Redwood National Park ...................................................................... 219, 257, 286 

Reed, John....................................................................................................... 16, 34 

research ...... 75, 126, 140, 153, 156, 164, 171, 172, 180, 181, 182, 199, 219, 227, 

228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 245, 246, 

247, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253, 255, 270, 275, 287, 299, 303, 311, 315, 317, 318, 

319, 329 

National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee ............................ 238, 257 

National Research Council ....................................................................... 42, 374 

Point Reyes Bird Observatory ...... 116, 131, 155, 156, 179, 181, 230, 234, 238, 

239, 240, 241, 244, 247 

research biologist ........................................................ 172, 230, 235, 239, 247, 303 

resource management ...... 111, 153, 159, 163, 172, 180, 182, 210, 211, 219, 227, 

228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 236, 238, 242, 245, 247, 248, 255, 279, 298 

Rettie, Dwight F.......................................... 111, 143, 166, 184, 185, 282, 292, 374 

Reynolds, Laurel................................................................................................... 61 

Richards, Thomas G........................................................................................ 19, 26 

Richardson Bay..................................................................................................... 52 

Richardson Bay Foundation.................................................................................. 52 

Richardson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary...................................................................... 52 

Richmond.............................................................................................................. 53 

riparian areas....................................................................................... 228, 236, 249 

Ritter, J. Thomas................................................................................................. 205 

riverbanks............................................................................................................ 228 

roads... 25, 34, 53, 82, 105, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 122, 123, 125, 126, 135, 144, 

153, 158, 161, 167, 172, 173, 179, 182, 195, 197, 198, 202, 203, 205, 210, 212, 

213, 214, 235, 252, 254, 269, 281, 304, 310 

Limantour Road ...................................... 118, 124, 125, 170, 195, 197, 198, 200 

Robbins Report ........................................................................................... 238, 257 

Rockefeller, Jr., John D................................................................................... 40, 41 

Roosevelt, Theodore ............................................................. 29, 41, 42, 50, 63, 299 

Rothman, Hal K. .... 50, 62, 63, 65, 96, 97, 143, 184, 186, 187, 204, 221, 222, 290, 

291, 320, 375, 384 

Rumburg, Jr., Joseph C............................................... 118, 144, 146, 230, 256, 302 

Rutherford, J. T....................................................................................... 89, 99, 107 

S

Sacramento Landing ........................................................................................... 127 

Salinas Valley ....................................................................................................... 14 

Saltonstall, Leverett ........................................................................................ 86, 98 

saltwater ..................................................................................................... 127, 254 

Samuel Taylor State Park...................................................................................... 82 
Index

408

San Agustín ......................................................... 10, 13, 14, 26, 297, 306, 307, 311 

San Andreas Fault............................................................... 3, 4, 117, 123, 263, 330 

San Francisco .... 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 

39, 44, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 73, 78, 80, 83, 91, 95, 

96, 97, 98, 116, 118, 119, 121, 126, 128, 136, 140, 147, 149, 154, 155, 156, 

157, 158, 159, 160, 165, 172, 175, 176, 178, 183, 186, 187, 193, 196, 198, 206, 

210, 214, 217, 218, 222, 223, 229, 241, 242, 277, 280, 284, 304, 306, 324, 329, 

369, 371, 372, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 382, 383, 385 

San Francisco Argonaut ................................................................................. 24, 34 

San Francisco Bay Area5, 10, 12, 14, 23, 26, 32, 39, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 57, 59, 62, 

73, 74, 121, 126, 128, 135, 136, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 169, 171, 172, 183, 

194, 205, 209, 216, 217, 263, 268, 284, 307 

San Francisco Chronicle ... 48, 62, 65, 78, 80, 83, 96, 97, 119, 178, 186, 187, 217, 

223, 385 

San Francisco regional office.............................................................................. 229 

San Luis Obispo............................................................................................ 19, 308 

San Mateo ............................................................................................................. 19 

San Rafael .... 4, 14, 15, 16, 53, 54, 65, 66, 90, 95, 98, 99, 140, 143, 149, 157, 167, 

169, 183, 184, 186, 274, 290, 372, 377, 379, 383, 384, 385, 386 

Sansing, Superintendent John L. ...... 116, 131, 140, 144, 146, 147, 148, 154, 155, 

156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 171, 172, 173, 176, 177, 178, 180, 

181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 197, 200, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 219, 222, 223, 

230, 231, 233, 235, 236, 237, 240, 241, 242, 249, 254, 256, 257, 258, 263, 266, 

268, 272, 273, 274, 279, 285, 290, 291, 292, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 

310, 313, 314, 317, 318, 321, 322, 333, 388 

Sausalito............................................................................................ 24, 25, 53, 136 

Save Our Seashore campaign (SOS).. 66, 90, 95, 99, 103, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 

138, 140, 141, 148, 160, 167, 170, 329 

Sax, Joseph.......................................................................................... 121, 145, 375 

Saylor, John P. ...................................................................................... 77, 138, 139 

Schooner Bay...................................................................... 104, 105, 127, 128, 247 

Schultz, Vera......................................................................................................... 80 

Science ...................... 8, 17, 181, 183, 228, 238, 255, 257, 258, 334, 369, 372, 374 

scientific research................ 125, 154, 227, 228, 229, 232, 238, 239, 240, 255, 313 

scuba diving ................................................................................................ 121, 266 

sea lion ................................................................................................................ 199 

seabirds ....................................................................................................... 156, 240 

seals 

elephant................................................................... 181, 200, 201, 234, 240, 246 

harbor ...................................................................................... 234, 239, 240, 247 

search and rescue ................ 12, 27, 60, 77, 120, 123, 156, 193, 208, 209, 316, 329 

Seaton, Fred A. ............................................................................................... 79, 97 

Secretary of Defense....................................................................................... 90, 99 

Secretary of the Interior ..... 42, 62, 66, 72, 74, 77, 79, 83, 87, 89, 93, 94, 103, 109, 

130, 133, 160, 168, 179, 211, 212, 257, 259, 270, 299, 300, 384 
Index

409

Sellars, Richard West..... 45, 64, 126, 146, 147, 169, 185, 211, 220, 222, 229, 256, 

258, 375 

Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands........................................... 89, 96, 142, 338 

Serra, Father Junipero ........................................................................................... 14 

Shafter, Oscar Lovell ............................................................................................ 18 

Shafter, James McMillan ...................................................................................... 18 

Shell Beach ........................................................................................................... 53 

Shenandoah National Park.................................................................................. 235 

Shinn, Beryle......................................................................................................... 12 

Shoher, Jonathan................................................................................................. 214 

Shook, William ........... 233, 235, 239, 241, 245, 246, 256, 257, 258, 259, 334, 388 

Sierra Club ... 5, 30, 49, 50, 57, 60, 61, 62, 65, 67, 72, 79, 93, 94, 96, 97, 126, 135, 

144, 166, 169, 184, 266, 303, 321, 369, 371, 376, 386 

Sierra Club Bulletin ...................................................................... 62, 67, 97, 376 

Sir Francis Drake Highway................................................................... 25, 201, 206 

Skiles, Diana ......................................................................... 33, 147, 163, 279, 280 

Sleeping Bear Dunes............................................................................... 77, 96, 382 

Smith, Colin ........................................................................ 206, 218, 219, 222, 333 

Smith, H. Allen ..................................................................................................... 88 

Snook, Joseph E.................................................................................................... 17 

snowy plover............................................................................................... 181, 253 

Sonoma County......................................................................... 18, 19, 24, 180, 277 

Sonoma State University............................................................................. 181, 278 

Spencer, Cliff ...................................................................................................... 219 

sportfishing ......................................................................................................... 103 

Steele, Isaac........................................................................................................... 19 

Steele, Rensselaer ................................................................................................. 19 

steelhead trout ..................................................................................................... 254 

Steinhardt, David .................................................................................................. 52 

Stewart Ranch ....................................................................................................... 55 

Stewart, Boyd.......................................... 81, 97, 106, 136, 155, 176, 178, 271, 386 

Stinson Beach................................................................................................ 25, 221 

Summers, Mary..................................................................................................... 79 

suppression.......................................................................................... 235, 251, 252 

Swain, Josiah H..................................................................................................... 20 

Sweet Lumber Company..................................................................................... 106 

Sweet, A. W. ..................................................................... 55, 66, 79, 106, 107, 133 

swimming.. 25, 42, 48, 74, 75, 77, 82, 114, 117, 120, 121, 192, 193, 208, 228, 264 

Sylvester, Frank E....................................................................................... 232, 256 

T

Terwilliger, Elizabeth ........................................................................................... 52 

Tevis, William............................................................................................... 55, 106 

The Nature Conservancy..................................................................................... 106 

The Oaks ............................................................................................................... 20 

Thoman, Ronald G.............................................................................. 274, 279, 333 
Index

410

Thompson, Sonya ........................................................................... 57, 98, 169, 257 

tidal zone..................................................................................... 125, 127, 228, 265 

Tilden, Freeman .................................................................................. 268, 290, 376 

timber .......................................................................................................... 106, 133 

Tiscornia, Mary........................................................................................... 178, 179 

Tocaloma................................................................................................. 24, 34, 319 

Tomales...... 3, 16, 17, 22, 24, 25, 44, 53, 54, 66, 89, 114, 122, 126, 127, 128, 192, 

208, 209, 244, 251, 266, 303, 321, 325, 330, 380 

Tomales Bay .. 3, 16, 22, 24, 25, 44, 53, 66, 89, 122, 126, 127, 128, 192, 208, 209, 

251, 266, 303, 321, 330, 380 

Tomales Bay Association ................................................................... 126, 303, 321 

Tomales Bay State Park........................................................................ 53, 192, 251 

tourism ... 5, 23, 25, 30, 45, 51, 58, 77, 86, 105, 119, 121, 123, 126, 138, 165, 166, 

168, 172, 175, 179, 191, 195, 206, 207, 228, 229, 269, 281, 288, 290, 319, 329 

trail running......................................................................................................... 191 

trails ...... 26, 58, 103, 120, 121, 122, 123, 131, 144, 153, 158, 164, 173, 186, 191, 

195, 197, 199, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210, 217, 219, 232, 235, 252, 263, 

266, 280, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288 

Trailside Killer............................................................................................ 216, 217 

Treabess, Ron.............................................................................................. 171, 289 

Trenor Park ........................................................................................................... 20 

Tule elk ...... 46, 130, 147, 153, 164, 181, 199, 230, 232, 233, 235, 236, 238, 239, 

241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 281 

Tunney, John V................................................................................... 167, 169, 185 

U

U.S. Army ................................................................................. 32, 82, 90, 121, 158 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ................................................................. 32, 90, 91 

U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) .................................................. 106, 252, 277 

U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ......................... 106, 107, 142, 178, 252 

U.S. Coast Guard ...... 26, 27, 43, 89, 121, 123, 127, 173, 175, 206, 208, 209, 214, 

218, 303, 305, 308, 319, 371, 376 

U.S. Court of Claims..................................................................................... 99, 166 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ................................................................... 252, 253 

U.S. Forest Service (USFS) ...................................................... 40, 41, 63, 252, 375 

U.S. Life-Saving Service ...................................................................................... 27 

Udall, Stewart L... 62, 66, 72, 74, 83, 84, 86, 87, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 

109, 110, 111, 114, 130, 142, 143, 147, 168, 185, 212, 257, 270, 369, 388 

Urban, David......................................................................... 65, 143, 184, 212, 375 

Utley, Robert M. ................................................................................................. 270 

V

van Pelt, Helen...................................................................................................... 52 

Varian, Dorothy .................................................................................................... 74 

Vedanta Society ........................................................................................ 33, 88, 89 

Vischer, G. N. ....................................................................................................... 18 
Index

411

Vision fire ........................................................................................... 237, 251, 252 

BAER team ..................................................................................... 251, 252, 259 

Vizcaino, Sebastian......................................................................... 13, 14, 307, 311 

W

War Department............................................................................................ 41, 299 

Ward, Phil ................................................................................... 119, 121, 216, 333 

Washington, D.C. ...... 31, 32, 33, 45, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 91, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 

107, 136, 137, 142, 143, 146, 147, 148, 155, 158, 166, 169, 184, 185, 211, 216, 

220, 221, 222, 256, 259, 260, 267, 268, 270, 289, 290, 292, 308, 312, 316, 320, 

321, 322, 323, 324, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 

382, 383, 384, 385 

water quality................................................................................ 125, 177, 236, 249 

Wayburn, Edgar ............................................ 72, 144, 157, 158, 159, 160, 376, 386 

Weinberg, Edward ...................................................................................... 117, 144 

Western Region Office, National Park Service ...... 43, 45, 78, 109, 116, 118, 122, 

124, 131, 140, 144, 145, 146, 147, 153, 154, 158, 161, 166, 170, 171, 176, 181, 

185, 186, 210, 211, 213, 222, 223, 229, 230, 231, 232, 236, 239, 250, 256, 263, 

265, 268, 270, 271, 273, 274, 283, 289, 290, 291, 292, 300, 304, 305, 306, 312, 

322, 325, 377, 378, 384 

wetland........................................................................................................ 236, 329 

Whale Cove........................................................................................................... 31 

Whalen, William J. ............................................................................. 112, 158, 171 

whales ............................. 4, 191, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 206, 239, 281, 282, 292 

Gray whale...................................................................................................... 198 

whale-watching........................................................................... 191, 200, 201, 281 

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area ............................................................ 213 

Whitaker, John C. ............................................................................... 137, 138, 148 

Wildcat Camp ..................................................................................................... 195 

wilderness .. 42, 50, 60, 86, 141, 155, 157, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 176, 

185, 191, 197, 205, 206, 230, 232, 235, 246, 285, 300, 303, 306, 310, 329, 377 

Point Reyes Wilderness .................................................................................. 170 

Wilderness Act............................................ 167, 168, 169, 173, 185, 191, 205, 377 

Wilderness Plan .......................................................................... 171, 232, 321, 374 

wildlife ...... 4, 45, 46, 47, 49, 58, 61, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 156, 157, 170, 172, 

183, 201, 228, 229, 230, 235, 236, 241, 242, 243, 246, 247, 248, 297 

habitat...... 47, 116, 125, 127, 172, 181, 195, 197, 230, 233, 235, 236, 239, 240, 

244, 246, 249, 253, 254, 255, 266, 285 

wildlife management................................................................... 130, 229, 241, 243 

Williams, Jack............................................................. 164, 176, 184, 285, 333, 388 

Willis, Mindy ........................................................................................ 61, 147, 384 

Wilson, Paul............................................................................................ 79, 97, 320 

Winslow, Benjamin............................................................................................... 23 

Wirth, Conrad L....... 44, 45, 46, 55, 61, 63, 64, 66, 72, 79, 87, 88, 95, 97, 98, 104, 

109, 110, 135, 142, 143, 168, 172, 220, 227, 257, 337, 377, 380 

Wolff, Steve ........................................................................................................ 219 
Index

412

Wong, Roger............................................................................... 253, 259, 334, 388 

Wright, R. Gerald........................................................................ 146, 242, 258, 377 

Wyoming Game Commission............................................................................. 130 

Y

Yellowstone National Park ......................................................... 118, 146, 191, 228 

Yerba Buena.......................................................................................................... 14 

Yeston, Mark and Sheryl .................................................................................... 219 

Yosemite National Park .......................................... 49, 50, 118, 124, 173, 211, 280