Muir Woods National Monument
Muir Woods National Monument is a United States national monument managed by the National Park Service and named after naturalist John Muir. It is located on Mount Tamalpais near the Pacific coast in southwestern Marin County, California. The Monument is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and is north of San Francisco. It protects, of which are old-growth coast redwood forests, one of the few such stands remaining in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Geography
Ecosystem
The Muir Woods National Monument is an old-growth coastal redwood forest in a canyon situated on the western slope of Mount Tamalpais, which rises to 2,571 feet. Because it faces and is in close proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the forest is regularly shrouded in a thick, coastal marine layer fog in the summer, contributing to a wet environment that encourages vigorous plant growth. The fog is also vital for the growth of the redwoods as they use moisture from the fog during drought seasons, particularly during dry summers. During the winter, substantial rainfall soaks the ground, creating the damp environment these trees prefer, as they naturally flourish near rivers and streams.Climate
The monument remains cool and moist year-round with daytime temperatures averaging between 40 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall is heavy during the winter, and summers are almost completely dry, with the exception of fog drip caused by the fog passing through the trees. Annual precipitation in the park ranges from 39.4 inches in the lower valley to 47.2 inches higher up in the mountain slopes.Soils and bedrock
The redwoods grow on brown humus-rich loam, which may be gravelly, stony or, somewhat sandy. This soil has been assigned to the Centissima series, which is always found on sloping ground. It is well-drained, moderately deep, and slightly to moderately acidic.It has developed from a mélange in the Franciscan Formation. More open areas of the park have shallow gravelly loam of the Barnabe series, or deep hard loam of the Cronkhite series.
History
Background
The first fossils of Sequoia sempervirens, also known as Coast Redwood, can be traced back to the Jurassic period, more than 200 million years ago. Redwood forests grew throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Before commercial logging began in the mid-nineteenth century as a result of the Gold Rush, redwood forests occurred naturally, covering an estimated extending from Oregon in the north to south of Big Sur in Monterey County, California. By 2023, only 5% of the historic range of old-growth along the coast remains, shrunk to a strip of 450 miles along the coast. Trees in the coast redwood forests are young.Redwood Canyon
Because of its proximity to San Francisco, in the mid-1880s, redwoods on Mount Tamalpais were heavily logged to build the city and later, in 1906, to rebuild it. The redwood in Muir's woods, in what was then called Redwood Canyon, on Mount Tamalpais' steep slope, were spared because they were too difficult to reach for logging.In 1903, William Kent chaired a meeting attended by the chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Biological Survey. The group discussed a proposal for a 12,000-acre park from the mountain to the sea, on land owned by ranchers and the Tamalpais Land and Water Company. In 1905, using money borrowed from a banker friend, the Kents bought 611 acres of Redwood Canyon within this area on the southwestern side of Mount Tamalpais to thwart logging, protect the redwood forests, and provide visitors’ accommodations. Two years later, their plan to save the primeval redwood groves of Redwood Creek was threatened when the North Coast Water Company began condemnation proceedings on 47 acres of the Kents' private acreage in order to dam the creek and create a reservoir to provide a water supply for Sausalito. But William Kent learned about America’s first preservation law, the Antiquities Act of 1906: it allowed the government to accept gifts from private citizens and gave the president the ability to create national monuments by proclamation. Kent wrote to President Theodore Roosevelt and offered to donate 298 acres to the nation. Roosevelt accepted, and in 1908 Muir Woods became a national monument. Kent insisted that the park be named for John Muir, whose western explorations, political efforts, and writing had so increased our country’s awareness of its natural treasures. With later land acquisi- tions, nearly all of them Kent family gifts, the monument grew and now protects 560 acres, most of it virgin redwood forest. William Kent was elected to Congress in 1910 and served for three terms. During his time in Washington, he helped create the National Park Service.
Concerns about protecting Redwood Canyon had already been raised in the early 20th century with conservationists such as U.S. Congressman, William Kent, his wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent; a banker at Bank of California, Lovell White and his wife, Laura Lyon White; and Canadian-American botanist and conservationist, Alice Eastwood, procurator and Head of the Department of Botany, at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
"By 1904, influential women from the San Francisco Bay Area had organized to purchase more forest, this time owned by the North Coast Water Company, which was under pressure from its shareholders to sell the land to another private entity. A key organizer and advocate was Alice Eastwood, who worked as a curator at the California Academy of Sciences. She and others spearheaded a drive to raise $80,000 to buy the land..."
The Kents purchased of land from the Tamalpais Land and Water Company for $45,000 in 1905 with the goal of protecting the redwoods and the mountain above them. The deal was facilitated by White and his activist wife.
According to the U.S. National Park Service, the Canadian-American botanist and conservationist, Alice Eastwood, worked to protect and maintain numerous redwood forests in California, including in Muir Woods National Monument, Mount Tamalpais State Park, and the Alice Eastwood Memorial Grove, a redwood grove in Humboldt County. Eastwood came to San Francisco in 1893 to work at the California Academy of Sciences as a curator and worked there for over 50 years.
In 1907, a water company in nearby Sausalito planned to dam Redwood Creek, thereby flooding the valley. When Kent objected to the plan, the water company threatened to use eminent domain and took him to court to attempt to force the project to move ahead. Kent sidestepped the water company's plot by donating of the redwood forest to the federal government, thus bypassing the local courts.
The Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway began to carry passengers to the redwood grove in 1907, with trains turning off the mainline track onto a spur at Mesa Junction. This brought the first sightseeing groups to the grove.
Muir Woods
Muir Woods became a national monument on January 9, 1908, before the National Park Service existed, when it was signed into law under the Antiquities Act by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Kents bought Redwood Canyon to protect and preserve it and worked to get Roosevelt to declare it a monument. In legislation written to protect Muir Woods, it was described as, "of extraordinary scientific interest and importance because of the primeval character of the forest in which it is located, and of the character, age, and size of the trees". Once declared a national monument, Muir Woods was immediately protected and placed under the care of the United States Government. The Antiquities Act was the first of its kind to provide protection for natural resources.The original suggested name of the monument was the Kent Monument, but Kent insisted the monument be named after naturalist John Muir, whose environmental campaigns helped to establish the National Park system, and President Roosevelt agreed with this proposition.
Kent and Muir had become friends over shared views of wilderness preservation, but Kent's later support for the flooding of Hetch Hetchy caused Muir to end their friendship.
In December 1928, the Kent Memorial was erected at the Kent Tree in Fern Canyon. This tree, a Douglas fir, not a redwood, was said to be Kent's favorite. Due to its height of and location on a slope, the tree leaned towards the valley for more than 100 years. Storms in the El Niño years of 1981 and 1982 caused the tree to tilt even more and took out the top of the tree. During the winter of 2002–03, many storms brought high winds to Muir Woods, causing the tree to lean so much that a fissure developed in January 2003. This fissure grew larger as the tree slowly leaned more and more, forcing the closure of some trails. On March 18, 2003, at around 8:28 pm, the tree fell, damaging several other trees nearby. The closed trails have since been reconfigured and reopened.
In 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge was completed, and park attendance tripled, reaching over 180,000.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, shortly before he was to have opened the United Nations Conference on International Organization, for which delegates from 50 countries met in San Francisco to draft and sign the United Nations Charter. On May 19, the delegates held a commemorative ceremony in tribute to his memory in Muir Woods' Cathedral Grove, where a dedication plaque was placed in his honor.
By 1962, more than one billion visitors had visited the park. Muir Woods is one of the major tourist attractions of the San Francisco Bay Area, with 776,000 visitors in 2005.
On January 9, 2008, the monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 2023, the U.S. National Park Service undertook a "History Under Construction" initiative, which included re-visiting the history of Muir Woods National Monument's founders and supporters to include the contributions of indigenous peoples and women. This resulted in new signage, for example, that acknowledged that the first movement to save the Sequoia Canyon was the Forestry chapter of the California Club, a women's club in the first decade of the twentieth century. Elizabeth Villano, now a former park ranger, helped create the new version of the sign.
In July 2025, the National Park Service removed this revised history on all Muir Woods National Monument signage that aimed to tell a more complete history of the site, that the Trump administration has referred to as “improper ideology” under a directive targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion -related initiatives that allegedly undermined national unity, from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued earlier that year.