Place Names

 

Visitors to Point Reyes are often curious about how their favorite beaches, trails, or places got their names. If you are one of those visitors—or even if you don't get the opportunity to visit but you are interested in learning more about the park's history—this page was created for you.

From time immemorial, the Coast Miwok have lived on the lands that now comprise Marin County and southern Sonoma County, including the Point Reyes Peninsula, which the Coast Miwok called Tamál-Húye (Coast Point). Some of the names one currently finds on maps are derived from Coast Miwok words (such as Olema and Tomales), but the names the Coast Miwok used for most sites within the Point Reyes area have been replaced by words and names from European languages.

The National Park Service recognizes that some of the individuals after whom some of these locations are named might not be honored today by having a bay, a beach, a road, etc., named after them. Please keep in mind that the purpose of this page is simply to provide—for those who may be curious—the etymology of the current place names one finds in the Point Reyes area and to provide, when known, a bit of history about the people and places listed.

The names of Oscar Lovell Shafter, James McMillan Shafter, and Charles Webb Howard, while not included in any of the names on the park's official map (and hence not found in the list of place names below), are, in essence, often the names behind the names. Many of the sites at Point Reyes and their history tend to lead back to or involve the Shafter brothers and Howard. Their story is told, in part, on our Ranching History at Point Reyes page.

The names below are listed alphabetically. After the name is a brief explanation of the name's origin. Clicking on a name will expand the accordion to reveal more details and history.

 

Abbotts Lagoon through Bull Point

 

Abbotts Lagoon: Named after Carlisle S. Abbott, an early rancher.

Carlisle S. Abbott was a pioneer dairyman at Point Reyes who built a dairy above today's Abbotts Lagoon after obtaining a lease for "the old Foster place" from Shafter, Shafter, Park, and Heydenfeldt. After leaving Point Reyes in 1865, C. S. Abbott developed the third largest dairy in the state on his Salinas River ranch.

A three-mile-long-roundtrip hike leads from the Abbotts Lagoon Trailhead along the shores of Abbotts Lagoon to Abbotts Lagoon Beach.

Alamea Trail and Alamere Creek and Falls: Maybe a made-up name or a misspelling of alameda.

Alamea and Alamere may be made-up names, or they might be misspellings of the Spanish word alameda, which is a public promenade bordered with trees. Alameda is derived from the word álamo, which is the Spanish word for cottonwood and poplar. The red alders lining most of the creeks of Point Reyes may have been misidentified by early settlers as cottonwoods or poplars. A map dated 1899 labels the current Alamere Creek as "Alamea Creek."

Visit our Alamere Falls page for more information, including how to plan for the 13-mile-roundtrip hike to view the falls.

Alan Sieroty Beach: Named after a former California state legislator.

Alan Sieroty served as a California Assemblymember from 1967 until 1977 and as a California State Senator from 1978 until 1982. The Gottshalk-Sieroty Co., a corporation run by Alan Sieroty, was the last owner of the Randall Ranch. The National Park Service purchased the Randall Ranch on May 6, 1974, for inclusion in Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In the 1980s, the California Legislature named a beach in Tomales Bay State Park's Millerton Point section after Sieroty for his efforts to protect the coast.

The Alphabet Ranches: The Shafters and Howard used letters to name their Point Reyes dairies.

In 1857, the San Francisco law firm of Shafter, Shafter, Park, and Heydenfeldt acquired ownership of almost the entire Point Reyes peninsula. Oscar Lovell Shafter and James McMillan Shafter bought out Park's and Heydenfeldt's interest in the Point Reyes with the intent of creating their own dairy district. Shortly thereafter, the Shafters began leasing different sections of the peninsula. In 1865, Charles Webb Howard (Oscar's son-in-law) became a full partner of the project and managed the creation of the large dairy district, composed of 31 ranches. In 1869 and 1870, the Shafters and Howard divided the 31 dairy ranches between themselves. Oscar Shafter and Howard utilized the letters of the alphabet to name their individual ranches. "A" Ranch was located closest to the Point Reyes headlands; "J" Ranch was the northernmost ranch, just south of Tomales Point; and "Z" Ranch was located at the summit of Mt. Wittenberg. (A few letters were left unused.) James Shafter bequeathed his ranches more poetic names like Drakes Head, Muddy Hollow, Oporto, and Sunnyside. (Download the "Historic Alphabet Designations of Point Reyes Ranches, 1860–present" map. [275 KB PDF])

In 1962, Congress passed and President Kennedy signed legislation authorizing the creation of Point Reyes National Seashore. Over the next 10+ years, the National Park Service purchased the ranches and issued the ranchers 25–30 year reservations of use and occupancy leases, and special use permits for cattle grazing.

As of 2023, five historic Shafter/Howard era dairies are operating in the park by same families who were ranching at Point Reyes before 1962. An additional nine occupied historic ranches and former ranch sites run beef cattle.

Arch Rock: Named for a small natural bridge that formed along Drakes Bay.

Named for a small natural bridge that formed where Coast Creek cut through a thin wall of rock along Drakes Bay at the south end of Kelham Beach. The arch collapsed in March 2015.

Arroyo Hondo: Spanish for deep stream.

In Spanish, arroyo means stream and hondo means deep. Arroyo Hondo is a 3-mile-long perennial stream that drains south off of the western side of Inverness Ridge. Arroyo Hondo appears on a hand-drawn map from 1854. Its headwaters are deep within the Phillip Burton Wilderness near the junction of the Ridge and Lake Ranch Trails, and its mouth is below Point Blue Conservation Science's field station at Palomarin.

Avalis Beach: Considered to be a misspelling of "Avila's Beach."

A family named Avila leased the Pierce Ranch sometime between 1906 and 1910.

Baldy Trail: Named after a nearby hilltop that was bald, i.e., not tree-covered.

A 1,034-foot-high hill near the Baldy Trail's junction with the Sky Trail was named Baldy because it was covered by no or few trees. As of 2023, Baldy is mostly covered by trees.

Barries Bay: Named for rancher Lindo Berri, but with the name misspelled.

Lindo Berri, a member of a pioneer Tomales Bay dairying family, and Leo Bartolotti purchased the E Ranch at the head of what is now called Barries Bay in 1919. The partners occupied the ranch in the early 1920s along with five family members and three Swiss milkers. It appears that Berri sold or lost his share in the E Ranch during the Great Depression.

Bass Lake: Named for the fish that were stocked in the lake.

This small lake was created when an ancient landslide dammed a stream drainage. Fish were absent from the lake before ranchers stocked the lake with bass and other fish.

Hike six miles roundtrip to Bass Lake from the Palomarin Trailhead.

Bayview Trail: A descriptive name.

Descriptive name, i.e., when constructed, this trail offered many views of Drakes Bay. As of 2023, the views are blocked by trees.

The Bayview Trail may be accessed from the Sky Trailhead, Bayview Trailhead, and the Muddy Hollow Trailhead.

Bear Valley: A descriptive name due to the black and grizzly bears found in the area.

Given this descriptive name because of the black and grizzly bears found in the area. The namesake bears, however, were extirpated by ranchers and hunters.

Bear Valley Ranch may sit on the site of the adobe rancho occupied by Rafael Garcia, the individual who acquired the first Mexican land grant for this area. The Shafters acquired this property in 1857, developed a ranch and assigned it the letter W in the Shafter dairy organization of the 1860s. After the partition of 1869–1870, Charles Webb Howard owned the W Ranch. The ranch, located less than a mile west of Olema, was one of the largest and most famed Point Reyes ranches. The W designation was dropped from use around 1900 and eventually the name "Bear Valley Ranch" was used to refer to the whole area covered by the U Ranch (current site of Coast Campground), the W Ranch, the Y Ranch (above Kelham Beach), and the Z Ranch (current site of Sky Campground). Three rodeos were held at the ranch in the area south of today's picnic area and parking lot in 1946, 1947, and 1948. The rodeos drew competitors from all over the state. Occupied by various families over the years, the National Park Service purchased Bear Valley ranch on October 1, 1963. The ranch now serves as the administration headquarters, the site of the park's primary visitor center, and a major trailhead for visitors to the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Bird Rock: A descriptive name.

Named for the sea birds that roost and nest on this sea stack.

Bodega Bay: Named after Spanish explorer Lieutenant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Cuadra.

Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, a Spanish Peruvian explorer with the Spanish Navy, is the first known European to chart Bodega Bay and Tomales Bay. He sailed his 30-foot-long schooner, the Sonora, into Tomales Bay and set anchor overnight in the lee of Tomales Point on October 3, 1775. He apparently thought Tomales Bay was a river, giving the long narrow point and bay the names of Pto y Rio del Capitan Vodega ("Point and River of Captain Bodega") on his official map.

Over thirty years later, Russians hunting sea otters with the Russian-American Company came across Bodega Bay aboard the Peacock in 1807. Two years later, Ivan Kuskov, the Commerce Counselor of the Russian-American Company, sailed the Kodiak into Bodega Bay on January 8, 1809, built a number of temporary buildings, and departed in October 1809, returning to Alaska with more than 2,000 sea otter pelts. Kuskov returned to the area in 1811 and 1812 onboard the Chirikov. In 1812, Kustov named present-day Bodega Harbor and Bodega Bay "Zaliv Rumyantsev" (Rumyantsev Bay) in honor of the Russian Minister of Commerce, Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev. Russan charts identify present-day Tomales Point as "Point Great Bodega" and Tomales Bay as "Great Bodega Bay," reflecting Bodega y Quadra's original naming.

The body of water now named Bodega Bay has retained that designation since the publication of U.S. Coast Survey charts in 1851.

Bolema Trail: Named after the Bolema Club.

Bolema is likely a portmanteau of Bolinas and Olema.

During the 1950s, Douglas Hertz established the Bolema Club, a pheasant hunting camp, at the Wildcat Ranch site. Hertz initially leased the land from William Tevis before ultimately purchasing the property. The National Park Service bought Wildcat Ranch from Hertz in 1966 and developed the site into Wildcat Campground.

The Bolema Trail ascends the east side of Inverness Ridge to the Ridge Trail from the Olema Valley Trail 1.2 miles of the Five Brooks Trailhead.

Bolinas: Maybe based on the Coast Miwok word Wauli-n or a misspelling of the Spanish word ballenas.

The name Bolinas maybe based on the Coast Miwok word Wauli-n or maybe is a misspelling of ballenas, the Spanish word for whales.

The name Bolinas apparently originates from an Indigenous or Spanish word and has seen many spellings: Baulenes, Baulines, Baulinas, Ballenae, Bolanos, and Bolemus. The American historian and ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft was convinced it was derived from ballenas, the Spanish for whales. The American cultural anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber thought the name was based on a Coast Miwok geographical designation and that the native word was Wauli-n.

The earliest record of the use of Baulenes comes from an 1834 official document describing the boundaries of the pueblo of San Rafael. The name La Cañada que llaman los Baulenes ("The Valley they call the Baulenes") is shown on the document and an accompanying map. In July of 1835, Rafael Garcia petitioned for a grant of two leagues in the "Cañada de Baulenes", and in March 1836, he received his grant. Garcia called his rancho Tomales y Baulenes, a name which probably described Olema Valley between Tomales Bay and Bolinas Bay. In 1843, Gregorio Briones filed a correction deed with the local government declaring that Garcia had transferred much of the land around Bolinas Lagoon to him some seven years earlier (1836) and that he had been living there about that length of time. Not until February 11, 1846, however, did Briones officially receive title to two leagues of land (8,911 acres), which he called the Rancho Las Baulines. When a U.S. post office was assigned to the community on the west side of the lagoon, the spelling “Bolinas” was used and has been used since. After the passing of Rose Briones of Dogtown in 1983, no known member of the Briones family or their descendants lives upon the Rancho las Baulines.

Names derived from Bolinas

Bolinas Bay: The bay to the south of Bolinas.

Bolinas Lagoon: An estuary to the east of Bolinas.

Bolinas Point: A headland/point at the west end of Bolinas.

Bolinas Ridge: A ridge stretching along the east side of Bolinas Lagoon, Olema Valley, and Tomales Bay.

Bolinas Trail: An 11-mile-long multi-use trail (former ranch road) stretching along the crest of Bolinas Ridge between Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and the Bolinas-Fairfax Road.

Bucklin Trail: Named for Harold and Winona Bucklin.

Named for Harold (b. 1908, d. 1993) and Winona Bucklin (b. 1912, d. 1993), who lived on Vision Road in Inverness from 1980 until their deaths.

Harold was involved in the Inverness Association and Marin Conservation League, and Winona was an artist and was involved with the League of Women Voters. They were part of a trail building group of older hikers and Harold was well known for his work on trails at Point Reyes. In 1983, then the Bear Valley Visitor Center was opened, the new grass around the visitor center was dedicated to Harold as a golden wedding anniversary present.

The closest trailheads to the Bucklin Trail are the Muddy Hollow Trailhead and the Point Reyes Hill Trailhead.

Bull Point: Likely named for the male cattle that grazed in this area.

Likely named for the bulls (cattle) that grazed on this peninsula bounded by Schooner Bay to the east and Creamery Bay to the west. Bull Point was labeled "Indian Point" or "Eastman Point" on some earlier maps.

Park at the Bull Point Trailhead to hike the four-mile-roundtrip Bull Point Trail.

 

Chicken Ranch Beach through Duxbury

 

Chicken Ranch Beach: Named for a chicken ranch located in the valley above the beach.

One of the two old houses that were located above this beach along the west shore of Tomales Bay north of Inverness had white-washed interior or exterior walls, leading to the belief that it had long ago been used as a chicken house. The main house, closest to the beach, was the residence of people such as the Cavalli family who operated the chicken ranch at the turn of the twentieth century.

Chicken Ranch Beach County Park is located along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard about one mile north of Inverness.

Chimney Rock: A descriptive name for a sea stack.

Named c.1850 for a chimney-shaped rock formation rising from a sea stack at the eastern end of the Point Reyes Headlands.

Park at the Chimney Rock Trailhead to hike the 1.8-mile-roundtrip trail to a viewpoint above—but out of sight from—Chimney Rock. Drakes Beach offers a view of Chimney Rock from about 2.5 miles away across Drakes Bay.

Clem Miller Environmental Education Center: Named in honor of U.S. Rep. Clement Woodnutt Miller.

U.S. Representative Clement Woodnutt Miller was the primary sponsor of the legislation authorizing Point Reyes National Seashore.

Clement Miller was born on October 28, 1916, in Wilmington, Delaware. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II and with the National Labor Relations Board from 1948 to 1953, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1956. His campaign in 1958 was successful and he served in Congress from January 1959 until his death on October 7, 1962, in an airplane accident near Eureka, California. Less than a month earlier, on September 13, 1962, President John F. Kennedy had signed Senate Bill 476, An Act to establish the Point Reyes National Seashore in the State of California, and for other purposes, which had been shepherded through the Congress by Clem Miller and Senators Clair Engle and Thomas Kuchel.

The Clem Miller Environmental Education Center is operated by the Point Reyes National Seashore Association. It is not open to the general public; only to registered school groups, teachers, or other guests.

Coast Campground and Coast Trail: Descriptive names.

Coast Campground is located on the coast of Drakes Bay at the site of a dairy ranch which was labeled U Ranch in the Shafter's alphabet naming system.

The Coast Trail parallels the coastline and offers views of the Drakes Bay and the Pacific Ocean for much of its 16-mile length. The Coast Trail's northern terminus is at the Coast Trailhead and its southern terminus is at the Palomarin Trailhead.

Creamery Bay: Named after the creamery built on the F Ranch.

South of the F Ranch, at the head of Creamery Bay, stood a creamery reportedly built by Charles Webb Howard. The Point Reyes Creamery Company manufactured butter at this location under the direction of the Russell brothers during the latter part of the century, but was apparently not a success.

Cross Marin Trail: A semi-descriptive name.

This 5.4-mile-long multiuse trail crosses a part of Marin County. It follows the old North Pacific Coast/Northwestern Pacific Railroad right-of-way along Lagunitas Creek from the Cross Marin Trailhead at the junction of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and Platform Bridge Road to the Shafter Bridge at the east end of Samuel P. Taylor State Park.

Divide Meadow: A descriptive name.

Divide Meadow is a fairly large meadow at the divide between the Bear Valley Creek and Coast Creek watersheds. Bear Valley Creek flows to the north and Coast Creek to the south. The valley carved by these streams is the deepest cut through Inverness Ridge. Rafael Garcia had a corral at this location prior to 1857. It was also the site of a private Country Club from 1890 through the late 1930s. The National Park Service apparently gave this location its current name.

Divide Meadow may be reached by hiking 1.6 miles south from the Bear Valley Trailhead.

Dogtown: Named for the dogs that accompanied wildlife hunters who gathered at this location.

A settlement and location of the lumber mills, this community a couple miles north of Bolinas was changed to Woodville in 1871, although many locals called it Dogtown for the many dogs that accompanied wildlife hunters who gathered at this location. The Marin County Board of Supervisors designated Dogtown as the official name for this location in 1976, although the name Woodville can still be found on many maps.

Double Point: A descriptive name for two rocky headlands.

In 1883, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey gave this descriptive name to two rocky headlands at the south end of Wildcat Beach.

Drakes: Named after Francis Drake, the English pirate/privateer.

Francis Drake is believed to have spent six weeks in the summer of 1579 at the mouth of what's now called Drakes Estero. During this time, his crew repaired and prepared his ship, the Golden Hind, for the long voyage west across the Pacific during what is now referred to as "The Voyage of Circumnavigation."

Features, places, and routes named for Drake

Drakes Bay: Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño, a Portuguese explorer appointed by the Spanish king Philip II to chart the shores of California in 1595 and 1596 gave today's Drakes Bay the name Puerto y Bahia de San Francisco ("Port and Bay of St. Francis"). This name was later transferred to today's San Francisco Bay. In 1625, English mathematician Henry Briggs published a map that included the name P(uer)to Sr Francisco Draco ("Port of Sir Francis Drake"), although the name was located immediately north of Punta de los Reyes. In 1792, Captain George Vancouver used the name "Sir F. Drake" for what is now called Drakes Bay. In 1793, the Spanish explorers Francisco de Eliza and Juan Martínez y Zayas, during their survey of the northern California coast, designated the bay Pto de Franco Drak ("Port of Francis Drake"). Commander Cadwalader Ringgold, an officer in the United States Navy, used the name “Sir F. Drake” on his chart after a survey of the San Francisco Bay region he led that began in 1849. The U.S. Coast Survey followed suit on their charts in 1851, but shortened the name to just “Drake's Bay” in 1855. Since its inception in 1890, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names has discouraged the use of the possessive form—the genitive apostrophe and the "s"—in place names, so the bay's name is now Drakes Bay, without the apostrophe.

Drakes Beach: A four-mile-long beach along the northwest edge of Drakes Bay. The Kenneth C. Patrick Visitor Center is located near the north end of Drakes Beach.

Drakes Estero: Estero is the Spanish word for estuary. On early U.S. Coast Survey charts from the 1860s and on the 1873 Official Map of Marin County, Drakes Estero is labelled "Limantour." By 1916, U.S. Geological Survey maps label this estuary as "Drakes Estero" and the smaller arm that stretches to the east and then north along the east side of Drakes Head as "Estero de Limantour."

Drakes Head: A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. Drakes Head can be reached by hiking 4.8 miles from the Estero Trailhead.

Drakes View Trail: Named for the views of Drakes Bay, which was frequently visible from the trail when it was constructed. As of 2023, the views are blocked by trees. The Drakes View Trail may be reached via the Inverness Ridge Trail from the Bayview Trailhead, and via the Muddy Hollow Road Trail and Bayview Trail from the Muddy Hollow Trailhead.

Sir Francis Drake Boulevard: The most prominent east-west road in Marin County, which largely parallels the route of the defunct North Pacific Coast Railroad, has long been called Sir Francis Drake Boulevard or Sir Francis Drake Highway. Naming the at-the-time-new highway after Drake was suggested by Bill Scilacci, an active member of the booster organization Marvelous Marin, in a letter to the San Rafael Independent in 1929. Over the next few years, the name Sir Francis Drake Boulevard was subsequently adopted by the county and communities through which the highway passed.

Duck Cove: Name of a subdivision of vacation homes.

Named by families who built vacation houses in the 1940s at this location north of today's Tomales Bay State Park. Many species of ducks may be found wintering on Tomales Bay.

Duck Island: A descriptive name.

Ducks were hunted from Hog Island and Duck Island in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Duxbury Point and Duxbury Reef: Named after a ship that ran aground on the reef.

Named after the ship Duxbury, which ran aground in the fog on the reef west of Bolinas in 1849. The crew was able to pull the Duxbury off of the reef during the next high tide and make their way to San Francisco. Several other ships have wrecked on Duxbury Reef since.

Agate Beach County Park provides access to Duxbury Reef.

 

Earthquake Trail through Horseshoe Lagoon

 

Earthquake Trail: A nature trail focused on seismology.

A short interpretive nature trail that leads to where a surface rupture formed during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.  

Elephant Rock: A descriptive name for a sea stack.

This sea stack located south of McClures Beach has a profile similar to an elephant when viewed from the east due to an arch on its south side.

Estero Trail: The Spanish word for estuary is estero.

The Spanish word for estuary is estero. The Estero Trail winds its way along and past Drakes Estero and Estero de Limantour for nine miles. The northwest terminus is at the Estero Trailhead and the eastern terminus is a short distance south of the Muddy Hollow Trailhead.

Fir Top: A descriptive name for a Dougles fir-covered hilltop.

A descriptive name for the highest elevation (1,324 feet) along the southern end of Inverness Ridge. Douglas fir is the dominant tree on this section of the ridge. Leading up the ridge from the Five Brooks Trailhead, the Stewart Trail skirts around the east, north, and west edges of the hilltop.

Fire Lane Trail: An old fire road.

The Fire Lane Trail follows the route of an old fire road. The Fire Lane Trail provides a 3.3-mile-long connection from near the northern end of the Sky Trail to the Coast Trail just north of Coast Campground. The closest trailheads are the Sky Trailhead and Laguna Trailhead.

Five Brooks: A descriptive name, likely referencing five seasonal tributaries of Olema Creek.

A descriptive name, likely referencing the five seasonal streams that merge with Olema Creek in this area.

Pioneers of European descent settled in this area in the 1850s and the first school in the district was established here in 1862. Several homes were constructed in the area. James McMillan Shafter, who owned the land west of Olema Creek, stationed his portable sawmill at Laurel Grove (the site of today's Five Brooks Horse Camp) between 1883 and 1890. In 1912, landowner Charles N. Post filed a plat for a residential subdivision of 110 lots called Fivebrooks. While dozens of lots sold, with many buyers taking more than one of the tiny lots to provide a reasonable lot size, only a handful of houses were built. The subdivision was abandoned in 1933 and by the 1940s, much of the property came up for auction; Boyd Stewart bought up about 60 lots adjacent to his next-door ranch at a tax sale. The Sweet Lumber Company of Coos Bay Oregon leased land at Five Brooks in 1956 and constructed a sawmill, complete with a three-acre mill pond and "pepper shaker" slash burner. The loggers were hard at it when the National Seashore was proposed and called off operations in good faith after finding themselves perceived as one of the biggest threats in the public eye to the conservation of the area. The last trees went through the mill around 1963. The Stewarts sold 801 acres comprising Five Brooks to the National Park Service in 1971, keeping a reservation on three acres for use as a horse camp. Harold Hart had been operating a horse rental business for Stewart and continued until 1980.

Today, Five Brooks Stables and Horse Camp operates as a park concession, albeit not by the Stewarts or Hart families. And the Five Brooks Trailhead serves as a gateway to the southern section of the Phillip Burton Wilderness.

Giacomini Wetlands: Named for rancher Waldo Giacomini.

Waldo Giacomini (b. 1913, d. 2002), a member of one of Marin County's prominent ranching families, operated a dairy ranch at the western edge of Point Reyes Station for 58 years. His cows grazed pastureland at the south end of Tomales Bay that had been drained and diked during the 1940s. In 2000, the National Park Service acquired the Waldo Giacomini Ranch for the purpose of wetland restoration. The levees were breached in October 2008.

Glen Campground and Glen Trail: Named after the Glen Ranch.

The Glen Ranch was likely given this descriptive name because it is located in a small, secluded valley, i.e., a glen.

Glen Ranch, located in a beautiful oak-studded meadow with a wooded gorge to the east and hills protecting it from ocean winds to the west, was one of the smaller of James McMillan Shafter's ranches. Its origins are elusive. First mention of Glen Ranch was found in a Shafter ranch ledger of 1879, that listed Baptista Miranda at Glen Ranch, using 140 acres. The ranch was abandoned in the mid-1920s and, by the 1930s, the buildings were gone and the land leased for grazing replacement stock. The National Park Service purchased the Glen Ranch property in 1964 and developed the ranch site into Glen Campground.

The Glen Trail provides a 1.4-mile-long connection between the Bear Valley Trail and the Stewart Trail deep within the Phillip Burton Wilderness. The Bear Valley Trailhead is 3.1 miles to the north of the Glen Trail's northern terminus and Five Brooks Trailhead is 5.4 miles to the east (via the Stewart Trail) of the Glen Trail's southern terminus.

Glenbrook Creek and Glenbrook Trail: Named after one of James McMillan Shafter's ranches.

The Glenbrook Ranch was located in a valley about a mile southwest of peak of Point Reyes Hill and a mile upstream from Home Ranch Road (now a decommissioned section of the Muddy Hollow Road Trail). According to a Shafter family diary entry, Glenbrook ranch was new in 1884. James McMillan Shafter may have named it after Glenbrook on Lake Tahoe. Two years after Leland Murphy purchased the many ranches owned by Shafter's daughter Julia Shafter Hamilton in 1929, he leased the Glenbrook Ranch to Coy and Mildred Lantrip from September 1931 to October 1932. Murphy sold 1,023 acres, including Glenbrook Ranch, about 1945 to Turney and Lundgren of Roberts Dairy in San Rafael. Dr. Millard Ottinger purchased the ranch in 1961, using it as a hunting reserve until selling to the National Park Service in 1971. The remaining house and calf barn were torn down by the Park Service soon after. Few other records about this ranch and its history have been found.

Hike the 7.4-mile-long Estero–Glenbrook–Muddy Hollow Road Loop, which start at the Muddy Hollow Trailhead.

Great Beach: A semi-descriptive name for Point Reyes Beach.

Another name for the 11-mile-long Point Reyes Beach. All other beaches in the area are much shorter in length, so this is the largest—or greatest— beach at Point Reyes.

Visitors may drive to the Point Reyes Beach at the North Beach and South Beach parking lots, or get to northern sections of the beach by hiking 1.5 miles via the Abbotts Lagoon Trail or 0.7 miles via the Kehoe Beach Trail.

Greenpicker Trail: Named for Italian "greenpickers."

"Greenpickers" were Italian immigrants who harvested ferns, salal, and other plants. The Greenpicker Trail is within the Phillip Burton Wilderness and intersects the Stewart Trail and the Glen Trail. The closest place to park one's vehicle is at the Five Brooks Trailhead.

Haggerty Gulch: Named after Martin Haggerty, an early tenant rancher.

Martin Haggerty operated the Piedmont Dairy at White House Pool, which is located at the mouth of Haggerty Gulch. Haggerty was later an early tenant of the New Albion Ranch at the mouth of Glenbrook Creek.

The first trail developed by settlers of European descent to get from Olema to many of the ranches on the Point Reyes Peninsula headed up Haggerty Gulch before descending to the Laguna and Muddy Hollow Ranches. After a road following the current route of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard northwest of Inverness was constructed in 1873, the road from Olema to Muddy Hollow experienced reduced traffic, but continued to provide access to the J.M. Shafter ranches in the Estero de Limantour area.

Hagmaier: Named after rancher George Hagmaier.

As early as 1856, Ohio native Benjamin Miller settled in the upper Olema Valley at what later became known as the Hagmaier Ranch, apparently claiming unoccupied land that would figure in subsequent title litigation. On June 7, 1860, Miller gained local renown for the murder of his neighbor, William Randall, during a dispute over their ranches' boundaries. Miller, although sentenced to 11 years in prison, went free and eventually took the case to the Supreme Court. He evidently remained on the ranch throughout his prosecution for murder, continuing to develop the ranch’s operations. He eventually purchased his land from the Shafter law firm on March 6, 1861, for $3,264.05, or about $15 per acre. In July 1869, Miller sold his ranch to Swiss immigrant Giuseppe Bassi for $5,000 and would later settled in Watsonville "where he dropped dead in the street" in 1879.

The Miller Ranch passed through a few hands over the years before San Francisco contractor George Hagmaier purchased what by then was known as the Healion Ranch in 1938. Hagmaier had lived on the Biesler Ranch immediately to the north since 1920 before purchasing that 289.76-acre ranch from Fred Biesler on October 28, 1937. The next year, he bought the 179.15-acre Healion Ranch from Caroline Healion on May 2, 1938. Hagmaier went to work improving the two properties, which collectively came to be known as the Hagmaier Ranch, while residing for the most part in Alameda and continuing in the contracting business. The ranch operated as a dairy until 1942. After the end of World War II, Hagmaier stocked the ranch with beef cattle.

In 1972, the National Park Service purchased the Hagmaier Ranch from George's son Daniel. The main ranch house, built by the Healion family around 1915, has since been used as park employee housing, as the Pacific Coast Science and Learning Center, and currently (as of 2023) as the UC Berkeley Point Reyes Field Station. The Hagmaier Ranch's hay barn was used for a number of years by the park's fire crew as office space and as a fire cache before a new fire cache was constructed at Bear Valley in the early 2000s.

The old Biesler house and dairy barn burned in 1966 and the National Park Service removed the remaining structures in the 1970s. A row of cypress trees and a couple of orchard trees remain at the Biesler Ranch site, located near where the connector trail from the Olema Valley (Hagmaier) Trailhead intersects with the Olema Valley Trail.

Hamlet: Named after early farmer/rancher John Hamlet.

John Hamlet was a dairyman born in Tennessee in 1834 who briefly lived at this site in the early 1870s.

Hamlet was a small village on Tomales Bay south of the mouth of Keys Creek. It was occupied by Coast Miwok Indians for centuries and was included in the Rancho Nicasio land grant Mexican Governor Jose Figueroa decreed be given to the Coast Miwok in 1834–35. Within a decade, the Mexican government reneged on the grant and gave Rancho Nicasio to Pablo De la Guerra, an aristocratic Spaniard, and Juan B.R. Cooper, an Irishman who already owned the Rancho Punta de Quentin near San Rafael.

The property that became Hamlet changed hands a few times before John Hamlet purchased the property in 1870. John Hamlet was a dairyman born in Tennessee in 1834 and had been farming in Tomales by 1860, maybe earlier. It was during the early 1870s that the name Hamlet was established to identify the property; even after Hamlet sold to Warren Dutton in 1873 the area was known as "Hamlet's."

The townsite of Hamlet was located in what was once a prime location for commerce: situated only about two miles from the Pacific Ocean in the protection of Tomales Bay; directly adjacent to the once-navigable waterway to Tomales, Keys Creek; on the North Pacific Coast Railroad's line serving the north country and San Francisco markets; and close to a few large dairy ranches on the ridge to the east or across the bay on Point Reyes. A hotel, a wharf, a train stop, a post office, a mercantile store, a restaurant, an oyster farm, and many residences were constructed at the site over the years. In October 1987, the National Park Service purchased ~40 acres surrounding and containing the village of Hamlet to be included as part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and administered by Point Reyes National Seashore. By January 31, 1988, the ~20 remaining structures at Hamlet had been vacated. The structures lay abandoned, suffering the abuses from weather and vandalism, until they were destroyed in 2003.

Hog Island: Most likely named for its appearance.

Hog Island most likely acquired its name because in its natural state before trees were planted on it, the island looked like a wallowing hog.

Another frequently referenced local story is that Hog Island acquired its name after a barge carrying hogs in Tomales Bay broke loose and drifted ashore on the island. However, an early map produced before the construction of the North Pacific Coast Railroad uses the name Hog Island. Since hogs would not have likely been transported by barge on Tomales Bay prior to the construction of the railroad, some historians doubt this origin story.

Home Bay: Named after the Home Ranch, the first of the Shafters' ranches.

The Home Ranch complex (the first of the Shafters' ranches) is nestled at the head of Home Bay, an arm of Drakes Estero. Oscar and James Shafter were apparently the first settlers of European descent to notice this moderate-sized valley above Drakes Estero and to find inspiration in its fine location. The Shafters chose the valley for their first construction project, the "Home Ranch" of a projected empire of dairies on their vast holdings. In 1857, John Shafter, a cousin of the Shafter brothers, arrived from the east coast with his family to assist in development of the ranches and to oversee ranch operations. (James McMillan Shafter and his family lived in San Francisco, although the children grew up visiting the ranch often and spending much time during the summer there.) John Shafter left Home Ranch in 1864, after ''developing the ranch and building up a dairy business,'' for another Point Reyes dairy which he leased from his cousins and was succeeded by a Mr. Johnson as ranch superintendent. Home Ranch acted as the headquarters ranch for all the Shafter dairies at least until the land partition of 1869 and possibly for some time after. Under the terms of the 1869 partition James McMillan Shafter took ownership of Home Ranch and the surrounding dairies. Probably around this time, James and Oscar's younger brother—William Newton Shafter—had moved into the ranch house to oversee ranching operations on James' ranches. William Newton Shafter and his family moved to James Shafter's Riverside Ranch near Point Reyes Station, today's Genazzi Ranch in 1885. Various individuals served as superintendent of James' ranches over the next few decades before his daughter Julia Shafter Hamilton sold the Home Ranch to Leland S. Murphy in 1929. The National Park Service purchased the Home/Murphy Ranch for Point Reyes National Seashore in 1968.

Hike two miles roundtrip to Home Bay from the Estero Trailhead.

Horseshoe Lagoon: Named for its U or horseshoe shape when viewed from the air.

Horseshoe Lagoon is located on the north side of Drakes Beach about one mile west of the mouth of Drakes Estero.

For hundreds of years, this lowland area functioned as a lagoon, controlled by the sand-dominated outlet on the west side of the beach interface. In the late 1940s, an access road to a hunting blind at the mouth of Drakes Estero was constructed by filling across the sandy beach lagoon interface with upland fill. This fill served as a dam, changing the coastal lagoon into a pond. The pond was part of the D Ranch dairy operation, acting as a water source and as a destination for much of the dairy cows' waste. In 2004, Point Reyes National Seashore proposed and completed the restoration of natural hydrologic and shoreline process to the Horseshoe Pond/Lagoon area.

 

Inverness through Limantour

 

Inverness: Named by James McMillan Shafter after the Scottish city.

James McMillan Shafter subdivided some of his land and created the town of Inverness in 1889 in an effort to pay off debts. Located along the west side of Tomales Bay on what had been part of James Richard Berry's Rancho Punta de los Reyes, Shafter hoped to establish a summer resort town which he intended to call the Point Reyes Shafter Colony. McMillan may have chosen the name of the Scottish city because of his family’s roots and/or because of the area's similar appearance to the long narrow lochs of the Scottish Highlands.

Jewell and Jewell Trail: Named after a ranching family.

The Jewells were a ranching family who occupied the ranch located at the west edge of what is now Samuel P. Taylor State Park.

Omar Jewell, born in New York in 1821, came to California in 1861. Jewell initially leased a dairy on the crest of Bolinas Ridge from the Olds family (who operated a ranch about three miles south of Olema) and commenced dairying. After the Olds brothers divided their large Olema Valley holdings, Jewell purchased a 680.99-acre ranch property on the east side of the ridge, north of Samuel P. Taylor's papermill property

In 1873, Jewell sold a 75-foot right-of-way to the North Pacific Railroad Company, which constructed narrow gauge tracks along the east side of the property below Jewell's home. A flagstop was established soon after and named Jewell's. Omar Jewell died in 1875, but Jewell's oldest son, Alva, continued operating the dairy ranch. The Jewell family leased the ranch to Battista Ottolini for many years beginning in 1883. By 1925 Samuel M. Augustine, who had been the notary public on the leases to Ottolini, owned the Jewell Ranch.

The very small community composed mostly of weekend/vacation homes that developed in 1931 along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard across Lagunitas Creek from the Jewell Ranch was named Jewell.

The ranch changed hands several times before the National Park Service bought the ranch in 1974, by which time the ranch buildings had been abandoned, the water system had ceased to function, and the land used only for grazing. The remaining ranch buildings—a one-story house and the Grade A barn and shed—were torn down. In 2018, the environmental group Turtle Island Restoration Network secured a grant to tear down the abandoned weekend cottages along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and began to restore the creek to improve the habitat for endangered coho salmon.

The Jewell Trail connects the Bolinas Ridge Trail and the Cross Marin Trail. The Bolinas Ridge Trailhead and the Cross Marin Trailhead are the closest locations to park your vehicle.

Kehoe Beach: Named after a ranching family who has long lived at the J Ranch.

For much of its early existence, J Ranch was the most remote of all the O. L. Shafter ranches, literally at the "end of the trail." It was the northernmost Shafter ranch, bypassed by the main road, and hence virtually ignored in the popular records. For perhaps this reason, J Ranch's early history is sketchy. It is probable that J Ranch was not built until after 1871. The Kehoe family has been present at Point Reyes since 1939, when Jim Kehoe purchased the J Ranch from the O.L. Shafter Company. In 1940, Jim Kehoe was elected as a Marin County supervisor for District Four, which covered practically all of the West Marin dairy lands. Kehoe was instrumental in getting the road to Tomales Point improved and brought into the county system. As of 2023, the Kehoes hold the lease for the J Ranch.

Hike the 0.7-mile-long Kehoe Beach Trail from the Kehoe Beach Trailhead to visit Kehoe Beach, which is essentially the northernmost section of the 11-mile-long Point Reyes Beach.

Kelham Beach: Named after one of the former owners of the Bear Valley Ranch.

Grace H. Kelham, heiress to the Spreckels sugar fortune, and her husband Bruce, a San Francisco investment broker purchased the Bear Valley Ranch from Eugene Compton on February 11, 1949. The Kelhams were not interested in rodeos or dairy farming, and within a year sold the dairy herd and demolished the dairy and hospital (hay) barn. Equipment was auctioned and, after more than 80 years as a premium dairy, Bear Valley Ranch became a large beef cattle operation.

In the late 1950s, the ranch became a focal point in the establishment of Point Reyes National Seashore, being part of the smaller, original park plan. The National Park Service rented a building from the Kelhams to operate their land office, and a tiny parcel on the coastal part of the ranch became the first property to be deeded to the new park, as the gravesite of park legislation sponsor Representative Clem Miller. The National Park Service purchased Bear Valley Ranch on October 1, 1963. The Bear Valley Ranch site now serves as the administration headquarters, the site of the park's primary visitor center and picnic area, and a major trailhead for visitors to the Point Reyes National Seashore.

The coastal bluff area where the trail leading down to Kelham Beach was located suffered a major collapse in 2024. There is no longer any safe access to Kelham Beach.

Kenneth C. Patrick Visitor Center: Named after a ranger killed in the line of duty.

Park Ranger Kenneth C. Patrick was killed while on patrol in 1973. A native of Kentucky, Patrick had been with the National Park Service for 10 years and had worked at Point Reyes National Seashore for less than a year. He had previously served at Grand Canyon National Park and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

The Kenneth C. Patrick Visitor Center is at Drakes Beach.

Kule Loklo: The Coast Miwok words for "Bear Valley."

Kule Loklo is the Coast Miwok translation for "Bear Valley." In the 1970s, the National Park Service constructed a recreated Coast Miwok village as an interpretive exhibit near the park's headquarters at what had been the Bear Valley Ranch.

Laguna Trail: Named for the lagoon at the easternmost extent of Limantour Estero.

Laguna Ranch was one of the three pioneer dairies of the Steele brothers, named for the lagoon at the easternmost extent of Limantour Estero. Called Rancho de Laguna on early maps, the ranch was located closer to the ocean (about one mile south of today's Hostel) in its earliest days. The Shafters and Howard gave Laguna Ranch the letter "T," but by the time James McMillan Shafter took over the ranch in 1870 the letter was used only as a cattle brand. Leland Murphy had purchased Laguna Ranch from Julia Shafter Hamilton in 1929 and retained the dairy business there until the late 1930s. It was at Laguna Ranch that, in November of 1933, a chauffeur named William Caldeira reportedly found the controversial "Plate of Brasse" left by Francis Drake in 1579. (In 2003, the plate was revealed to be part of a practical-joke-gone-awry some members of E Clampus Vitus attempted to pull on one of their own.) The U.S. Army leased Laguna Ranch from Murphy in 1940, installing elements of the U.S. 30th Infantry at the ranch during World War II. The National Park Service purchased the Laguna Ranch in 1971 and many of the ranch buildings were retained for use as an American Youth Hostel, park residences, and the Clem Miller Environmental Education Center. The Coast Trailhead and the Laguna Trailhead are both located at the former ranch site.

Lagunitas Creek: Named for the presence of a small lake (lagunita) near the creek's headwaters.

A survey map of the Rancho Punta de Quentin from 1858 includes a Puerto Suelo Lagunitas (Lagunitas Pass) and an Arroyo Lagunitas (Lagunitas Creek). The lagunita that gave the pass and creek their name was somewhere on today's Meadow Club golf course above Fairfax, but is now filled in. Lagunitas Creek watershed provided important habitat for coho salmon and steelhead trout, both of which have seen large reductions in their populations since four dams were constructed in the watershed. Lagunitas Creek has been known by many names over the years. Early maps name the stream Arroyo de San Geronimo and Daniel's Creek. Today, Paper Mill Creek is one of the more common names known to many locals—in the early 1850s, Samuel P. Taylor opened the first paper mill on the west coast along the creek in what is now Samuel P. Taylor State Park.

Lairds Landing: Named after George and Charles Laird, the first tenants of the K Ranch.

Brothers George and Charles Laird leased the future site of K Ranch from Shafter, Shafter, Park and Heydenfeldt on June 1, 1858. In a nearby cove at which Coast Miwok families resided south of what is now called Marshall Beach, the Lairds constructed a ranch wharf from which they shipped their products to San Francisco. Small steamers, such as Donald, Cassie Telfair, and Union Star put into Laird's Landing, in addition to stopping at Tomales, Preston's Point, and Millerton in Tomales Bay. The Lairds moved to the other side of Tomales Bay in 1866 and the ranch became part of the Shafters and Howard tenant system, owned by Oscar Shafter after the Partition of 1869–70. In the 1930s, a schoolhouse was built on K Ranch to replace the one at Pierce Ranch. The new school retained the Pierce School name and served the children of the local dairies until 1943 when it closed for lack of students. The schoolhouse was then used as a residence until it burned in September 1973. San Francisco investor Leonard David bought the entire O. L. Shafter Estate in 1939 and sold the K Ranch to group of dairymen headed by Sayles Turney and James Lundgren on August 2, 1939. In the 1970s, the National Park Service acquired the K Ranch property, which had since been subdivided into seven parcels, through both purchase and condemnation.

Lairds Landing is also referred to as Felix Cove, named for the Felix family. The last Miwok descendant to occupy this 12-acre site, Victor Sousa, was evicted by Lundgren in 1954 after a lengthy court battle over squatter's rights which reached the state Supreme Court. Sousa attempted to prove that his great-grandparents, Domingo and Euphrasia Felix, had lived on the site since 1830. Euphrasia was a Coast Miwok Indian, her husband a Filipino. But since the family had never paid taxes on the land—one of the conditions for a successful squatter's land claim—Sousa lost the case and was forced to leave.

From 1960 to 1995, the vacant property was rented to artist Clayton Lewis, who built an additional two structures and raised a family there. Lewis remained at Laird's Landing after the National Park Service purchased the K Ranch on an annual special use permit.

Lake Ranch Trail: Named after O. L. Shafter's Lake Ranch.

The Lake Ranch's name was derived from the numerous natural lakes surrounding the ranch site.

Lake Ranch was one of only two dairy ranches in O. L. Shafter's southern parcel. The origin and early history of Lake Ranch are obscure. Angelo Pedrotti is recorded by contemporary newspaper accounts to have occupied the ranch in 1890, when his wife died. The O. L. Shafter estate sold Lake Ranch in 1940 to William S. Tevis, an internationally known polo player and wealthy descendant of California pioneers. Tevis operated a cattle ranch, and sold oil exploration rights to the National Exploration Company in 1947 and timber rights in 1957 to the Sweet Lumber Company of Oregon, who logged much of the eastern half of the property until halted by the National Park Service condemnation of the timber rights in 1963. Tevis sold his interest in the ranch in 1963 to A. H. and D. H. Sweet, who sold lots and began work on a housing development at Lake Ranch, actions which became a key issue in the movement called "Save Our Seashore." Lake Ranch was ultimately purchased by the National Park Service by condemnation in September 1971. All of the structures on the ranch were destroyed soon after.

The Lake Ranch Trail connects the Coast Trail to the Ridge Trail. The closest places to park are the Palomarin Trailhead and the Five Brooks Trailhead.

Limantour: Named for Joseph Yves Limantour, a French merchant/trader.

Born in 1812, in Ploemeur, France, Joseph Yves Limantour (aka José), emigrated to Veracruz, Mexico, in 1831, and relocated to Mexico City in 1836. He traded along the Pacific Coast from Valparaíso to California. In October 1841, his schooner, the Ayacucho, wrecked on what is now named Limantour Beach. Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Limantour provided the Mexican government with goods and loans, for which Limantour claimed he received land grants. In 1853, Limantour began filing claims with the Public Land Commission, which was established to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican land grants. The Commission validated Limantour's claims to hundreds of thousands of acres in northern California. However, these claims were later found fraudulent and a grand jury indicted Limantour for criminal fraud and perjury. Limantour was arrested in December 1857, but posted bail and fled to Mexico. He died in Mexico City in 1885. His son, José Yves Limantour, born in 1854, served as Mexico's Secretary of Finance from 1893 to 1911.

Features, places, and routes named for Limantour

Estero de Limantour: Estero is the Spanish word for estuary. On early U.S. Coast Survey charts from the 1860s and on the 1873 Official Map of Marin County, Drakes Estero is labelled "Limantour." By 1916, U.S. Geological Survey maps labeled the larger western part of the estuary as "Drakes Estero" and the smaller arm that stretches to the east and then north along the east side of Drakes Head as "Estero de Limantour."

Limantour Beach: A four-mile-long beach along the northeast edge of Drakes Bay. The Limantour Beach Parking Lot is located near the middle of Limantour Beach.

Limantour Road: Constructed on park land by the National Park Service in the 1970s to connect Bear Valley Road to Limantour Beach, creating a wider alternative route to the beach relative to the narrow, very windy route from Inverness Park through a residential neighborhood.

Limantour Spit: An approximately two-mile-long narrow spit of sand stretching from west to east separating Estero de Limantour on the north from Drakes Bay on the south.

 

Marconi through Muddy Hollow

 

Marconi: Named after Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless radio.

Guglielmo Marconi (b.1874, d.1937) was the inventor of wireless radio. In 1914, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (aka American Marconi) built and operated an overseas wireless telegraphy transmitting station in Bolinas and a receiving station on Tomales Bay in Marshall (now the Marconi Conference Center State Historic Park) to better communicate across the Pacific. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) acquired American Marconi in 1920 and built an Art Deco-style receiving station between 1929 and 1931, which supplanted the Marshall station. RCA continued commercial maritime radio services from the Bolinas and Point Reyes stations until 1999. Today, Point Reyes National Seashore partners with the Maritime Radio Historical Society to maintain the historic stations and to host commemorative broadcasts.

Visit the Communications at Point Reyes page for more information.

Marin: Named after Huicmuse, a Coast Miwok Indian known to the Spanish as Marino.

Marin County was named after a Coast Miwok Indian named Huicmuse, who was given the name Marino by Spanish missionaries.

In 1850, General Mariano Vallejo, as a California State Senator and chairman of the Senate Committee on Derivation and Definition of the Names of the Several Counties, issued a report which included:

MARIN.— This is the name of the great chief of the tribe Licatiut, and the other tribes that inhabited this County and that of Sonoma…the valley of Petaluma [was] their usual encampment.

While many tales and legends about "Chief Marin" spread among the settlers of European descent during the mid- to late 1800s, factual historical records that can provide details about the person known as Marin are scarce.

Mission records indicate that a 20-year-old male named Marino was baptized at Mission San Francisco de Asís (in what is now San Francisco) on March 7, 1801. The mission's baptismal register indicates that his native name was Huicmuse and that his ethnicity was Huimen (the Coast Miwok who would have lived in what is now south Marin County). Marino's name is the first of 11 Huimen listed as baptized that day, implying that he was the leader of the 11.

The marriage records from Mission San Francisco de Asís indicate that Marino was married three times. At least once and probably twice, he was married to women who were daughters of tribal leaders, which Betty Goerke, in her book Chief Marin, interprets "as evidence of [Marino's] high status in the Indian community."

It appears as though Marino, at various times during his life was: a devout Catholic; a mission runaway; a prisoner at the San Francisco presidio; an alcalde primero and mayordomo at Mission San Rafael Arcángel; and a guide for the Spanish during the Columbia expedition of 1821, which was tasked with looking for English-speaking intruders and settlements in northern California.

Mission San Rafael Arcángel records report that Marin died on March 15, 1839, from murio de apostema (death by abscess).

Marshall: Named for the pioneer Marshall Brothers.

In the 1849, Hugh, James, Samuel, and Alexander S. Marshall emigrated from County Armagh, Ireland, to Philadephia, Pennsylvania. Accounts from their obituaries differ, but either in 1852 or 1854 or 1856, they headed west with two large droves of cattle, crossing the plains to California. They settled on 1,126 acres along Tomales Bay at the site that became known as the Marshall Brothers Home Ranch. At some time prior to 1866, they were joined by their brother David. Their cattle and dairy business proved to be profitable. In 1870, the Marshalls constructed the Bay View Hotel, which later served as a stop along the North Pacific Coast Railroad. The Bay View burned in 1897 and was replaced by the Marshall Hotel, which survived the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, but did not survive a fire in 1971. A general store, which housed the post office, was constructed in the early 1870s; the building now houses Hog Island Oyster Company. Obituaries for all five brothers comment on their wealth—David "was worth considerable property" in 1866; Samuel left "a vast fortune" in 1891; James died in 1896 with an estate valued at $1 million; Hugh left an estate worth $30,000 at his passing in 1898; and Alexander "left a large estate" in 1903.

Marshall Beach: Named after Robert Marshall, a developer and rancher.

In 1960, Robert Marshall purchased a beach parcel from James Lundgren, the owner of the K Ranch. Marshall was a millionaire rancher and lumberman who owned the Laguna Ranch from 1945 until his death in 1962. Marshall had planned to construct a subdivision above the beach, but the development never materialized.

Marshall Beach and the adjacent Lairds Landing are on what some refer to as Felix Cove, named for the Felix family. The last Miwok descendant to occupy this 12-acre site, Victor Sousa, was evicted by Lundgren in 1954 after a lengthy court battle over squatter's rights which reached the state Supreme Court. Sousa attempted to prove that his great-grandparents, Domingo and Euphrasia Felix, had lived on the site since 1830. Euphrasia was a Coast Miwok Indian, her husband a Filipino. But since the family had never paid taxes on the land—one of the conditions for a successful squatter's land claim—Sousa lost the case and was forced to leave.

Hike one mile to Marshall Beach from the Marshall Beach Trailhead, or visit the beach by boat. Marshall Beach is one of many beaches on which visitors may camp (if they arrive by boat and have a permit) along the west shore of Tomales Bay, and one of only two beaches where parties of 15 to 25 may camp.

McClures Beach: Named after a ranching family.

The McClure family has been present at Point Reyes since 1889, when James McClure emigrated from Ireland to Olema, where he worked for three months in the Shafter sawmill before working for two years at the Point Reyes dairy ranch of McGaughey and Marshall. The McClures are apparently the oldest family continuously operating on Point Reyes, with various family members residing at many of the ranches over the years. In early 1942, McClures Beach County Park was established on the ocean side of Pierce Point, on property deeded by Pierce Ranch owner Margaret McClure. As of 2023, the I Ranch, which may date to 1860, is leased to members of the McClure family.

Hike 0.4 miles to McClures Beach from the McClures Beach Trailhead.

McCurdy Trail: Named after a ranching family.

Irish immigrants Samuel McCurdy and David McMullin arrived in California around 1852 and settled on a large, mostly wooded property north of Dogtown in the Pine Gulch drainage sometime before 1860. They purchased 1,835 acres of land, on which they farmed, logged, ranched, and raised families. In early 1906, the Marin Journal described the McCurdy Ranch as "one of the best equipped dairy ranches in the county." McCurdy sold the ranch sometime prior to 1921 to Charles McMaster. The McMaster family sold the ranch to Dr. Ethel Righetti in 1935. By the 1960s, no structures remained at the McCurdy Ranch. The National Park Service purchased the ranch in 1974 for Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The two-mile-long McCurdy Trail climbs to the Bolinas Ridge Trail from the McCurdy Trailhead along Highway 1 at the north end of Dogtown.

Meadow Trail: Named for a couple large meadows through which the trail passed.

As the Meadow Trail ascends from the Bear Valley Trail to the Sky Trail, it passes through a couple meadows. Over time, the meadows have been reduced in size due to the encroachment of trees.

Start a hike at the Bear Valley Trailhead to incorporate the Meadow Trail into your route. The Meadow Trail diverts from the Bear Valley Trail 0.8 miles south of the trailhead.

Mesa Road: Named for rancher Francisco Mesa (occasionally called Frank Macy).

Hiram J. Nott owned a dairy farm three miles northwest of Bolinas. When Hiram Austin laid out the road to the ranch in 1867, he labelled it "Macy Road." At the time, Francisco Mesa (occasionally called Frank Macy) was a day laborer on the Nott dairy farm. Mesa later married Nott’s widow, Rosario, and the ranch has been referred to as both the Nott Ranch and the Mesa Ranch over the year. The road has been called Mesa Road since the late 1800s. The road is locally significant as a pioneer route in the Bolinas area. It follows its original alignment and has not been significantly widened or improved, except for regrading and paving.

Miller Boat Launch: Named after Mr. and Mrs. Fred Miller.

According to Louise Teather's Place Names of Marin: “This six-acre park at the far north end of Tomales Bay was donated to the county in 1955 by Mrs. Fred Miller." An Internet search was unable to produce more information about this particular Fred Miller or what Mrs. Miller's first name was.

Miller Boat Launch County Park is a popular 4-acre boat launch and fishing spot on the east side of Tomales Bay.

Miller Point: Named in honor of U.S. Representative Clement Woodnutt Miller.

U.S. Representative Clement Woodnutt Miller was the primary sponsor of the legislation authorizing Point Reyes National Seashore.

Clement Miller was born on October 28, 1916, in Wilmington, Delaware. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II and with the National Labor Relations Board from 1948 to 1953, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1956. His campaign in 1958 was successful and he served in Congress from January 1959 until his death on October 7, 1962, in an airplane accident near Eureka, California. Less than a month earlier, on September 13, 1962, President John F. Kennedy had signed Senate Bill 476, An Act to establish the Point Reyes National Seashore in the State of California, and for other purposes, which had been shepherded through the Congress by Clem Miller and Senators Clair Engle and Thomas Kuchel.

Miller Point is the headland at the south end of Kelham Beach and the north end of Wildcat Beach. The Coast Trail passes above Miller Point about 0.5 miles south of the Coast Trail's junction with Bear Valley Trail. There are no authorized trails to the edge of Miller Point's bluff tops; please stay on the Coast Trail in this area and away from the unstable bluff tops. The Bear Valley Trailhead is 4.5 miles from Miller Point and is the closest place to park.

Millerton: Named after James Miller, an early dairy rancher.

James Miller was one of early Marin's most prominent dairy ranchers. In addition to land in present-day Marinwood, Miller bought hundreds of acres on Tomales Bay in 1857. The North Pacific Coast Railroad’s earliest timetables from 1875 list Millerton and there was a flagstop at this location until 1930.

Millerton Point is now a unit of Tomales Bay State Park on the east side of Tomales Bay. The state park's parking lot is at the site where the community of Millerton was located. Millerton Gulch is the drainage to the east of Millerton.

Miwok: The indigenous people of what is now Marin County.

The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word Miwok means "people" in the Miwok languages. Anthropologists commonly divide the Miwok into four geographically and culturally diverse ethnic subgroups. These distinctions were not used among the Miwok before European contact. Anthropologists referred to the Miwok that lived in what are now Marin County and southern Sonoma County as the Coast Miwok.

Morgan Horse Ranch: Morgan horses have been bred and trained at this location.

The National Park Service has bred, trained, and/or kept Morgan horses at this site since 1970. The Morgan horse was named after Justin Morgan of Vermont. Visit our Morgan Horse Ranch page for more about the horse and its history and about opportunities to visit and see the park's Morgan horses.

Mount Vision: Named after the James McMillan Shafter's Vision Ranch.

Possibly named by James McMillan Shafter, who had a dairy ranch constructed near the summit of Point Reyes Hill which was named Vision Ranch (probably for the view offered from this elevated location). Existence of Vision Ranch is not documented until 1874, when William Newton Shafter, overseer of the Shafter ranches, mentioned the ranch in a series of letters. A number of tenants operated this small ranch over the years, but by the time Dr. Millard Ottinger bought the Vision Ranch in the early 1940s, the buildings had been destroyed. Ottinger sold the ranch to the National Park Service in August 1970.

Mount Wittenberg: Named after the family that leased the Z Ranch in the 1860s.

Peter and Newton Wittenberg were apparently the first occupants of Charles Webb Howard's Z Ranch in the early 1860s. The Wittenbergs, probably father and son, came to Point Reyes from North Carolina. Peter Wittenberg spent six years in jail for the murder of William "Arkansaw Bill" Swinerton outside of Levy's store in Olema on March 28, 1861. Sentenced to eleven years after a trial in San Rafael, Wittenberg was pardoned in 1867 by Governor Frederick F. Low after his local friends petitioned on his behalf.

An 1899 map made for the Country Club at what is now called Divide Meadow labels this peak as Whittenberg Hill.

The Z Ranch was occupied by various families until about 1927, when Jesse Langdon—the new owner of the U, W, Y, and Z ranches—eliminated the smaller dairies (U, Y, and Z) on what became known as Bear Valley Ranch. The National Park Service purchased Bear Valley Ranch on October 1, 1963, and located Sky Campground at the site of the Z Ranch.

Mount Wittenberg, at 1,407 feet in elevation, is the highest location within Point Reyes National Seashore. The once unobstructed views from near the summit have, since 2000, become obstructed by dense Douglas fir thickets that sprouted shortly after the 1995 Vision Fire. While the 2020 Woodward Fire burned through much of the forest around Mount Wittenberg, the view-obstructing Douglas fir thickets were largely left unscathed. Mount Wittenberg may be reached via a 4.8-mile-roundtrip hike from the Bear Valley Trailhead or a 4.5-mile-roundtrip hike from the Sky Trailhead.

Muddy Hollow: A descriptive name.

The origin of Muddy Hollow's name is somewhat obvious: it is the location of a meadow and creek crossing which during the wet months would have been a quagmire, perhaps a memorable obstacle to any traveler· until the road was improved. The name first appears in an 1859 petition to the Marin County Board of Supervisors for a road to Point Reyes. The petition by George Steele and Oliver Allen asked for a road from Josiah Swain’s (later the site of F Ranch) to Samuel Knight’s house "opposite Muddy Hollow.'' By this time the Steeles had settled at Muddy Hollow. Muddy Hollow was one of the Steele brothers' dairy ranches until their departure in 1866, making it one of, or perhaps the first, of the dairies at Point Reyes. The National Park Service bought the Muddy Hollow Ranch property in 1963.

The Muddy Hollow Trailhead is located to the east across Muddy Hollow Creek from the ranch site. Start at this trailhead to hike the four-mile-roundtrip Muddy Hollow Trail to Limantour Beach or follow the 7.4-mile-long Estero–Glenbrook–Muddy Hollow Road Loop, among other routes.

 

Nicks Cove through Point Reyes

 

Nicks Cove: Named after Nick Kojich, founder of Nick's Cove seafood restaurant.

Nick Kojich, an immigrant from Yugoslavia, opened a restaurant in 1931 near the north end of the eastern shore of Tomales Bay and named it Nick's Cove.

Nova Albion: The name Francis Drake gave the area in 1579.

Albion was an alternative name based on a Latinized Greek word for Britain. Nova is Latin for new. When Francis Drake landed at Point Reyes in 1579, he claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth and named it Nova Albion, i.e., New Britain.

Names derived from Nova Albion

New Albion Ranch: In 1857, George, Isaac, and Edgar Steele and their cousin Rensselaer Steele leased one square league of the Point Reyes peninsula on which to ranch. They developed the first dairy on Point Reyes (and perhaps in Marin County) near the mouth of what would later be called Glenbrook Creek on a still unnamed peninsula dividing Estero de Limantour Estero. They shortly thereafter developed another dairy at Muddy Hollow, and a third possibly at either Glenbrook or Laguna ranches. The Steeles' Point Reyes dairies operated until 1866, at which time the Shafters took over the ranches and adapted them to their own newly developed tenant system.

In the late 1860s, James McMillan Shafter gave the dairy near the mouth of Glenbrook Creek the name New Albion Ranch. The historic dairy ranch continued as one of the largest of Shafter's dairies for another six decades. Today, only a few old eucalyptus trees along the Estero Trail mark the site of this first dairy on Point Reyes. To visit the site, park at the Muddy Hollow Trailhead and hike the 7.4-mile-long Estero–Glenbrook–Muddy Hollow Road Loop.

Ocean Lake: A descriptive name.

Ocean Lake is a small, shallow, tule-filled lake above the south end of Wildcat Beach and within 500 feet of the Pacific Ocean. This small lake was created when an ancient landslide dammed a stream drainage.

To hike to Ocean Lake, start at the Palomarin Trailhead and follow the Coast Trail north for four miles. Turn left on to the Ocean Lake Loop and continue another half mile.

Old Out Road Trail: The name given to this route by the Stewart family.

The Stewart family referred to this route on the Wildcat Ranch as "Old Out Road" and the National Park Service adopted this name for the trail in the 1990s. Boyd Stewart purchased the Olds Ranch in Olema Valley in 1924 and later bought much of the forested east side of Wildcat Ranch to the west of the Olds Ranch to obtain a sufficient water supply. USGS maps from 1916 show that if one wanted to travel by road from Five Brooks or Glen Ranch to Wildcat Ranch, one would follow the Old Out Road. The westernmost section of today's Stewart Trail wasn't constructed until later.

Today, the Old Out Road Trail is a 1.1-mile-long connection between the Stewart Trail and the Coast Trail. The Five Brooks Trailhead is 4.5 miles from the Old Out Road Trail's junction with the Stewart Trail. The Palomarin Trailhead is 4.8 miles from the Old Out Road Trail's junction with the Coast Trail.

Old Pine Trail: A misnomer, probably due to the misidentification of the trees along the route.

There are many Douglas fir trees, but no pine trees, in the vicinity of Old Pine Trail. This old ranch road may have obtained its name due to a rancher or ranch hand, back in the day when there were far fewer trees and more grass covering Inverness Ridge, misidentifying a large, old Douglas fir as a pine. This historic route connected the Z Ranch on Mount Wittenberg with the Country Club in Bear Valley.

The Old Pine Trail climbs to the Sky Trail from Divide Meadow 1.6 miles south of the Bear Valley Trailhead.

Olema: The Coast Miwok word for coyote.

Alfred Louis Kroeber, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California in Berkeley, reported that a Coast Miwok village at the southern end of Tomales Bay was named Olemaloke ("Coyote Valley").

Benjamin T. Winslow has been credited with founding and naming the town of Olema at the northern end of 574 acres of ranch land he and Stephen Barnaby purchased on September 23, 1857. Before September 1857, Winslow had built a combination hotel, store and saloon, called the Olema House, and he became the town's first postmaster when a post office was established on February 28, 1859. Within a short time, the town had a number of hotels, saloons, service businesses and dwellings and became the dominant town in the Point Reyes area for at least the next two decades. Olema's dominance was lost after the North Pacific Coast Railroad constructed "Olema Station" two miles north of Olema at what is now Point Reyes Station. Olema still retains a post office, a campground, a lodge with a restaurant and small market, a few stores, and a number of residences. And the only stop light in West Marin is in Olema at the junction of Highway 1 and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Olema Valley is the valley overlying the San Andreas Fault stretching 11 miles between Tomales Bay to the north and Bolinas Lagoon to the south and between Bolinas Ridge to the east and Inverness Ridge to the west.

Olema Valley Trail is a 5.3-mile-long multi-use trail on the west side of Highway 1 between the Five Brooks Trailhead and the Olema Valley (South) Trailhead. The Olema Valley (Hagmaier) Trailhead provides access to the trail about halfway between its northern and southern ends.

Ottingers Hill: Named after Dr. Millard Ottinger, a mid-1900s landowner.

Dr. Millard Ottinger acquired part of N Ranch in 1940, the Vision and Oporto Ranches in the early 1940s and the Glenbrook Ranch in 1961. Ottinger was one of the individuals responsible for introducing the non-native fallow and axis deer to the Point Reyes peninsula for hunting purposes prior to the establishment of the national seashore. He sold his ranches to the National Park Service in the early 1970s. The section of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard leading west from Chicken Ranch Beach to the junction with Pierce Point Road is referred to as Ottingers Hill.

Pablo Point: Named after Pablo Briones, an early settler along Bolinas Bay.

Gregorio Briones, the alcalde (mayor) of San Mateo acquired much of the land around what is now called Bolinas Lagoon in 1836 from his brother-in-law Rafael Garcia. Gregorio Briones sent his eldest son, Pablo, aged fourteen, to Bolinas Bay in the fall of 1837, to take charge of the rancho and to erect any necessary buildings. Pablo would later practice medicine and he resided in the Bolinas area for the rest of his life. A death notice published on December 11, 1897, in the San Francisco Call notes: "At one time Briones owned almost all the town of Bolinas."

Older park maps indicate that there was a scenic overlook at Pablo Point. However, Douglas fir trees now obscure the views from Pablo Point, which is withing the Phillip Burton Wilderness where the cutting of trees to maintain views is prohibited. A trail that is rarely maintained and frequently overgrown with poison oak still leads to Pablo Point from the Teixeira Trail. The closest place to park is 2.7 miles from Pablo Point at the Olema Valley (South) Trailhead.

Palomarin: Name given in the 1950s to the area by the Church of the Golden Rule.

In the 1950s, the Church of the Golden Rule established a religious community at the former South End Ranch site and renamed the site "Palomarin."

The South End Ranch was the southernmost of the Shafter dairy ranches. Very little is known of South End Ranch, one of the most obscure of the Shafter ranches. A house appeared on a map dated 1858, with cultivated fields appearing maps after 1860. A full-sized dairy ranch was developed, but the poor quality of the ranch (the land was extremely brushy) resulted in the final tenants leaving in frustration in 1935.

The ranch changed ownership a couple times before the Christ Church of the Golden Rule, a non-profit religious group organized under the name Golden Rule Church Association, bought South End Ranch in 1950. The church developed the property into a residential religious community.

The National Park Service bought the South End Ranch from the church in 1963 and 1964. All of the buildings on the ranch, including the original dairy farm, were destroyed by controlled burning in 1966, except the school on Arroyo Hondo, which is now used by Point Blue Conservation Science as a field station.

Names derived from Palomarin

Palomarin Beach: A rocky section of shoreline along the Palomarin area. Due to coastal erosion at the base of the Palomarin Beach Trail (which was closed to all use in September 2020), Palomarin Beach is largely inaccessible.

Palomarin Trailhead: The South End Ranch site now serves as the Palomarin Trailhead for hikers wishing to explore the southern end of the Phillip Burton Wilderness.

Paper Mill Creek: An alternate name for Lagunitas Creek.

In 1856, Samuel P. Taylor opened the first paper mill on the west coast along the creek in what is now Samuel P. Taylor State Park. Lagunitas Creek has been known by many names over the years. Early maps name the stream Arroyo de San Geronimo and Daniel's Creek. Today, Paper Mill Creek is one of the more common names known to many locals.

Pelican Lake and Pelican Point: Named for pelicans.

Named for the pelicans that frequented these locations.

Pelican Lake is visible from the Coast Trail about 3.5 miles north of the Palomarin Trailhead. There are no authorized trails that lead through the thickets of poison oak to its shore.

Pelican Point is a sand spit on Tomales Point on the west side of Tomales Bay.

Pierce Point and Pierce Ranch: Named after an early ranching family.

Solomon Pierce left Vermont for California in the spring of 1850 in search of gold. On December 5, 1858, Pierce purchased the Tomales Point tract from Shafter, Shafter, Park & Heydenfeldt and shortly thereafter moved his family onto the land. Solomon’s son (Abram), grandson (William), and Abram's widow (Mary) would subsequently inherit the ranch. In 1917, Mary Pierce sold the ranch to brewer John G. Rapp, who two years later also purchased all of the Charles Webb Howard estate lands on Point Reyes. No descendants of Solomon are known to have resided at Tomales Point or Point Reyes after 1917.

The Pierce Ranch traded hands a couple more times over the years before the National Park Service purchased the property in 1973. The National Park Service had considered it as a location for a "Living Historical Farm" as early as 1968, and began monitoring the property closely after acquiring it in 1973. In 1976, Congress established part of the ranch as a Wilderness Area, and, in 1978, the National Park Service reintroduced tule elk onto the peninsula. The ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Pierce Point is also known as Tomales Point, and Pierce Ranch is also known as Pierce Point Ranch.

Tomales Point is located at the northern end of Point Reyes National Seashore. The Tomales Point area is a popular destination for visitors wishing to view tule elk, birds, and wildflowers. The historic Pierce Ranch offers a glimpse into the early dairy ranching days on the peninsula. A short 0.4-mile trail leads down to the beautiful McClures Beach. The 9.7-mile roundtrip Tomales Point Trail leads along the ridge crest of a narrow peninsula, offering spectacular views of Tomales Bay and Bolinas Ridge to the east, Bodega Bay to the north, and the coastline of the Point Reyes peninsula stretching to the south.

Pine Gulch Creek: Likely a descriptive name, although there are no native pines along the stream.

Likely a descriptive name, although the conifers past which the creek flows are not pines but Douglas firs and some coast redwoods.

This creek has also been referred to as Bolinas Creek and Gregorio’s Creek. In 1846, Gregorio Briones received title to two leagues of land (8,911 acres) surrounding what is now Bolinas Lagoon, which he called the Rancho Las Baulines. See the Bolinas entry above for the possible origins of that name.

Point Reyes: Originally Punta de los Tres Reyes, Spanish for Point of the Three Kings.

In 1601, the Spanish viceroy in Mexico City appointed Sebastián Vizcaíno general-in-charge of an expedition to locate safe harbors in Alta California for Spanish galleons to use on their return voyage to Acapulco from Manila. Vizcaíno departed Acapulco with three ships on May 5, 1602. On January 6, 1603, he sighted the peninsula now known as Point Reyes and named it la Punta de los Tres Reyes, the Point of the Three Kings. Some Christians celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, a day that is sometimes called Three Kings' Day.

U.S. Navy Commander Charles Wilkes' 1841 map of Upper California may be the first to identify the peninsula using the name "Point Reyes." While a map from 1849 used the name "King's Point"—which would be the expected "final" name for the peninsula as more English-speaking settlers moved into the area—the name using the English word "Point" and the Spanish word "Reyes" ultimately became the name recognized by various levels of government.

The Coast Miwok called the Point Reyes Peninsula Tamál-Húye (Coast Point).

Names derived from Point Reyes

Point Reyes Beach: The 11-mile-long beach along the peninsula's western side. Visitors may drive to the Point Reyes Beach at the North Beach and South Beach parking lots, or get to northern sections of the beach by hiking 1.5 miles via the Abbotts Lagoon Trail or 0.7 miles via the Kehoe Beach Trail.

Point Reyes Hill: The second tallest hill on the Point Reyes Peninsula, measuring 1,336 feet in elevation. Mount Wittenberg is 1,407 feet in elevation. The Point Reyes Hill Trailhead is located a short distance to the northwest of the summit.

Point Reyes Station: Originally named "Olema Station" by the North Pacific Coast Railroad, this community’s name was changed to "Point Reyes Station" in 1883. From 1853 to 1854 and from 1887 to 1920, the F Ranch on the Point Reyes Peninsula supported a post office, officially called "Point Reyes" by the U.S. Postal Service. A heated battle broke out over the post office name between the inland town of Point Reyes Station and the tiny settlement at F Ranch. The growing railroad town had first claimed the name Point Reyes in 1883, although that name had been previously used out at F Ranch in the 1850s. In 1891, the government attempted to resolve the discussion by naming the inland town "Marin," a move that the local newspaper promised would "stir up lively opposition." Local protests led to the decision of designating the F Ranch post office "Point Reyes," and the town "Point Reyes Station."

 

Randall Trail through Sunset Beach

 

Randall Trail: Named after a pioneer family.

In 1849, William Edgar Randall, born on May 13, 1824, in Greensboro, Vermont, married fellow Vermonter Sarah Seaver, born on October 6, 1826. In the spirit of the era, the young couple joined the Gold Rush to California, arriving in San Francisco on May 2, 1850. After some time searching for gold in both California and Oregon, including a stint fighting American Indians in 1856, Randall and his business partner John Nelson, purchases a herd of cattle in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and drove it to Olema, arriving in January 1857. They purchased 1,400 acres of land in the southern Olema Valley drainage from Rafael Garcia and his wife on May 2, 1857, and commenced dairy ranching. Nelson sold his share in January of 1860. On June 7, 1860, Randall’s neighbor Benjamin Miller (of what is now referred to as the Hagmaier Ranch) killed him in a long-simmering boundary dispute.

Despite five young children, her husband's debt, and limited knowledge of the dairy business, Sarah Seaver Randall was able to recover from her tragedy and kept the dairy ranch going with the help of her brother and neighbors. But problems over ownership of the Randall land soon arose as a result of the carelessness with which the map delineating Rafael Garcia's grant had been drawn. The Shafter law firm claimed that the land belonged to them as part of the old Berry claim which they had rightfully purchased. The matter went to court in October 1862 and Sarah Randall won her case. During the subsequent decade, Sarah Randall, with the help of her family, developed a prosperous dairy farm, producing 5,000 pound of butter in 1870 from 72 milk cows.

By 1880, it appears that Sarah Randall and her siblings did not live on the ranch. Two of her children lived on the ranch through the 1880s and 1890s. Sarah Randall apparently returned to the ranch and lived alone there in later years, but was eventually persuaded by her children to leave and live with them in Olema. Sarah died on January 24, 1907, leaving the ranch to her children. In 1911, the Randall heirs sold the ranch. The ranch changed hands many times over the next several decades before the National Park Service purchased it in 1974 for Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Randall House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its association with Sarah Seaver Randall and her perseverance despite personal hardship.

The 1.7-mile-long Randall Trail climbs to the Bolinas Ridge Trail from the Randall Trailhead along Highway 1.

Ridge Trail: A descriptive name.

The Ridge Trail largely runs along the ridge crest of Inverness Ridge, intersecting with the Stewart Trail at its northern end and Palomarin Road at its southern end.

Rift Zone Trail: A descriptive name.

This four-mile-long trail parallels a section of the San Andreas Fault’s rift zone. It's northern terminus is at the Bear Valley Trailhead and its southern terminus is at the Five Brooks Trailhead.

Sacramento Landing: Named for Sacramento Ouse, a Mexican Yaqui Indian.

Sacramento Ouse was a Mexican Yaqui Indian who settled at the location that now bears his name. He was married a Coast Miwok woman. An Internet search was unable to produce more information about Sacramento Ouse.

San Andreas Fault: Named for the valley in which the fault was first identified.

Professor Andrew Lawson of the University of California in Berkeley identified a section of the fault in 1895 and named it after the surrounding San Andreas Valley in San Mateo County. (San Andreas is derived from San Andres, which is Spanish for "Saint Andrew.") In the Point Reyes area, the San Andreas Fault underlies Tomales Bay, Olema Valley, and Bolinas Lagoon.

Santa Maria: Spanish for Saint Mary, i.e., the mother of Jesus Christ.

Why this name was applied to Santa Maria Beach and Santa Maria Creek is currently a mystery. Older, pre-1998 paper maps show Santa Maria Creek as the stream to the southeast of U Ranch/Coast Campground. Google Maps and other online maps, along with a few post-1998 paper maps, identify the stream flowing along the west side of Coast Campground as Santa Maria Creek. The location of the label of Santa Maria Beach also varies from map to map—sometimes the label is west of Coast Campground, other times to the east.

Samuel P. Taylor State Park: Named for the entrepreneur who built the west coast's first paper mill.

In the early 1850s, Samuel P. Taylor, an entrepreneur who came to California during the Gold Rush, opened the first paper mill on the west coast along Lagunitas Creek (aka Paper Mill Creek). In 1945, the State of California created a state park named for Samuel P. Taylor. Visit the state park’s History page for more information.

Schooner Bay: Named after the schooners that frequented this arm of Drakes Estero.

The most efficient transport to be had in the 1800s was by sea in small, shallow draft schooners. Point Reyes, with ocean frontage too rough for landing, had numerous bays and estuaries that could be safely entered by schooners. Two wharfs (one below F Ranch and another below N Ranch) were used by schooners in this arm of Drakes Estero.

Schooner Creek is the largest stream that flows into Schooner Bay.

Sculptured Beach: A descriptive name.

Named for the "sculpted" (eroded) cliffs along this stretch of Drakes Bay. Sculptured Beach is over two miles from the closest trailhead. Visit our Hike to Sculptured Beach page to learn more.

Sky Campground, Trail, and Trailhead: Descriptive names.

The National Park Service gave the Sky Campground, Trail, and Trailhead their names since they are some of the closest features in the park to the sky and, at the time of their naming, generally offered extensive views.

Sky Campground

Peter and Newton Wittenberg were apparently the first occupants of Charles Webb Howard's Z Ranch in the early 1860s. The Wittenbergs, probably father and son, came to Point Reyes from North Carolina. Peter Wittenberg spent six years in jail for the murder of William "Arkansaw Bill" Swinerton outside of Levy's store in Olema on March 28, 1861. Sentenced to eleven years after a trial in San Rafael, Wittenberg was pardoned in 1867 by Governor Frederick F. Low after his local friends petitioned on his behalf.

The Z Ranch was occupied by various families until about 1927, when Jesse Langdon—the new owner of the U, W, Y, and Z ranches—eliminated the smaller dairies (U, Y, and Z) on what became known as Bear Valley Ranch. The National Park Service purchased Bear Valley Ranch on October 1, 1963, and located Sky Campground at the site of the Z Ranch.

Sky Trail and Sky Trailhead

Prior to the 1995 Vision Fire, the Sky Trail included what is now the Sky Trail and the Mount Wittenberg Trail, as is indicated on early 1990s trail maps. This inevitably led to a fair bit of confusion among the firefighters, particularly those who came from other parks or agencies. After the fire, the section of trail leading up the eastern side of Inverness Ridge from the Bear Valley Trail was renamed the Mount Wittenberg Trail.

Many different hiking routes into the Phillip Burton Wilderness can be followed from either the Sky Trailhead or the Bear Valley Trailhead.

Stewart Trail: Named after a ranching family.

The Stewart Ranch is an 890-acre parcel in the geographic center of the Olema Valley, located about one mile north of Five Brooks. The Stewart Ranch was historically known as the Olds Ranch, named after Nelson Olds, the patriarch of a family that moved to the site in 1856. After Nelson Olds' death in 1882, the ranch changed hands a few times before Samuel J. Stewart of Nicasio purchased the ranch that bears his family's name on October 3, 1924. Samuel's son Boyd took over the ranch in 1932, sometime after Samuel was killed when kicked by a horse he owned. Boyd's daughter Jo Ann took over the dairy business after graduating from University of California at Davis in 1950. She expanded the Jersey dairy from 175 cows to 280 at the time the dairy business ceased in 1972. In 1968, the National Park Service purchased the woodland property west of Olema Creek that Boyd Stewart had bought in 1945 for inclusion in Point Reyes National Seashore. The National Park Service purchased the original Olds/Stewart Ranch for Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1974. The Stewart family negotiated a reservation of use and occupancy and continued their beef and horse operations until 2021. For many years, Boyd Stewart served on the Coastal Parks Association (now called the Point Reyes National Seashore Association).

The Stewart Trail's eastern terminus is at the Five Brooks Trailhead and its western terminus is at Wildcat Campground and Wildcat Beach.

Sunset Beach: The named of a proposed subdivision at this site.

Leland Murphy (a former owner of Home Ranch) gave a proposed subdivision at this site the name Sunset Beach. Observant hikers may notice that the Sunset Beach Trail is actually a wide pre-subdivision roadway. Murphy also planned to construct another subdivision with the name Sunshine Beach in the next valley to the east of Sunset Beach.

From the Estero Trailhead, follow the Estero Trail 2.5 miles to the Sunset Beach Trail. The mudflats and marsh of Sunset Beach are 1.4 miles south of this intersection.

 

Teixeira Trail through Z Ranch Trail

 

Teixeira Trail: Named after a ranching family.

Born in St. George, Azores, Joseph Teixeira, immigrated to the United States at the age 17 and worked on dairies in Fresno, Point Reyes (for James McClure at G Ranch), and Tiburon. In 1921 or 1922, he and his wife (Mary) moved to the Strain Ranch, located along Pine Gulch Creek a half-mile north of Dogtown/Woodville. The Teixeiras were tenants for close to 20 years before purchasing it from Anna Strain in 1941. Four of the Teixeira’s six children were born on the Strain Ranch. In addition to milking cows, the Teixeiras grew crops on various parts of the ranch, including potatoes, ryegrass and oats. After Joseph Teixeira's death in 1951, the property was divided among the surviving members of the family. The dairy stopped operating in 1972 after the National Park Service purchased most of the property for Point Reyes National Seashore in 1971. Members of the Teixeira family resided at the Teixeira Ranch though 1991.

The 1.2-mile-long Teixeira Trail ascends the southern end of Inverness Ridge to the Ridge Trail from the Olema Valley Trail 0.5 miles north of the Olema Valley (South) Trailhead.

Ten-mile Beach: An almost-accurate descriptive name for the Point Reyes Beach.

The Point Reyes Beach is an 11-mile-long uninterupted expanse of sandy beach between the rocky headlands of Tomales Point at its northern end and the Point Reyes Headlands at its southern end.

Visitors may drive to the Point Reyes Beach at the North Beach and South Beach parking lots, or get to northern sections of the beach by hiking 1.5 miles via the Abbotts Lagoon Trail or 0.7 miles via the Kehoe Beach Trail.

Tocaloma: Of unknown origin, but probably derived from a Coast Miwok word.

Alfred Louis Kroeber, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California in Berkeley, thought that -loma suggested the Coast Miwok -yome, which meant place. A Coast Miwok village was likely located here. Kroeber also noted that in Central Sierra Miwok dialect, tokoloma means "land salamander."

Tocaloma was developed on land that had been included in the vast Rancho Nicasio. From 1866 to 1870, the Rancho was divided, parcels were sold and divided again. The extreme southwestern parcel of the Rancho passed through the hands of three sets of owners before Swiss immigrants Giuseppe (Joseph) Codoni and Giacomo Cotta acquired a 619-acre dairy ranch.

Across the creek from the Codoni Ranch grew the "town" of Tocaloma, really nothing more than a hotel, post office, and stables. After the construction of the North Pacific Coast Railroad in 1873–74, Tocaloma became the unofficial depot for Olema, which was located two miles to the west over Bolinas Ridge. At Tocaloma, passengers could take a regularly scheduled stage to Olema and Bolinas, or pay for excursions offered by Payne Shafter to the scenic areas of the Point Reyes Peninsula.

John Lycurgus built a two-story hotel, the Tocaloma House, next to the tracks in 1879. The Tocaloma House burned down in 1885 and was replaced the next year by a larger one under the ownership of Joseph Bertrand, a French hotelkeeper. Bertrand sold the hotel and property to Caesar Ronchi in 1913. The huge edifice burned to the ground in December of 1916, but Ronchi rebuilt, in more modest form, the next year. Caesar's was a popular stop for motorists on the road to Point Reyes until the 1940s.

Bertrand was appointed Tocaloma's first postmaster on April 17, 1891. Codoni became the postmaster at Tocaloma in 1899, a position his son James acquired at some time during the subsequent 20 years. The existence of the Tocaloma post office effectively ended when James resigned as postmaster in 1919.

The Tocaloma Bridge, long a landmark on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, was designed by Marin County surveyor John C. Oglesby and constructed in 1927. The bridge crosses Lagunitas Creek at Tocaloma before the long grade towards Olema. The new highway was touted as both an important farm route and a pathway to scenic west Marin County for an increasing number of motorists. Financed by a 1925 bond issue in the county, the Tocaloma Bridge was the most spectacular of six large bridges built during the project, 1926–1930. The reinforced concrete arch bridge is unique to the west county, and only one similar bridge exists in the county. The bridge was bypassed in 1962 and abandoned and is now closed to vehicular traffic.

The Cross Marin Trailhead is located at the site of Tocalomo. Please respect the privacy of the residents who live in the vicinity.

Tomales: Likely derived from the Coast Miwok word "tamal."

The name Tomales is likely derived from "tamal," the Coast Miwok word for "bay," "bay country," or "west." The modern descendants of the Coast Miwok who lived along Tomales Bay call themselves Tamáls.

In 1603, Spanish sailors aboard the Tres Reyes, one of the ships participating in Sebastián Vizcaíno's expedition mapping the coastline of Alta California, named what is now Tomales Bay Rio Grande de San Sebastian. They mistook the bay for a large river (rio grande) and the date was January 20, which Roman Catholics observe as the Feast of Saint Sebastian.

Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, a Spanish Peruvian explorer with the Spanish Navy, is the first known European to chart Bodega Bay and Tomales Bay. He sailed his 30-foot-long schooner, the Sonora, into Tomales Bay and set anchor overnight in the lee of Tomales Point on October 3, 1775. He apparently thought Tomales Bay was a river, giving the long narrow point and bay the names of Pto y Rio del Capitan Vodega ("Point and River of Captain Bodega") on his official map.

In 1793, Captain Juan B. Matute aboard the Spanish vessel Sutil named the bay Puerto Nuevo ("New Port").

Over 20 years later, Russians hunting sea otters with the Russian-American Company came across Bodega Bay aboard the Peacock in 1807 and, over the next few years, established an outpost there. Russan charts identify present-day Tomales Point as Point Great Bodega and Tomales Bay as Great Bodega Bay, reflecting Bodega y Quadra's original naming.

Mission Dolores (in San Francisco) records include the name Tamal as early as 1801 and Father Amaros of Mission San Rafael mentioned "Tamales" as a place name in 1819. Records and maps over the next several decades contain many variations of the word Tamal including: Tameles, Tamalo, les Tamals, Tomalles, Tamallos, Tamalinos, Tamalonos, and Tamalsimela. A map from the 1840s that was filed by Bethuel Phelps with a U.S. District Court during the land disputes of the 1850s labels Lagunitas Creek as Cañada de Tamales ("Stream of Tamales") and Tomales Bay as Estera de Tamales ("Estuary of Tamales"). A second map filed by Bethuel Phelps and dated 1854 labels Tomales Bay as "Tamales Bay."

The current community of Tomales initially was called Keys Town, after Irish immigrant John Keys, who built a shanty at the site in 1850. Keys and Warren Dutton opened a grocery store in the shanty in 1852. A U.S. post office was established in 1854 and Dutton is said to have named it "Tomalles." By 1861, the second L was removed from the name and over the years, the name "Tomales" became the accepted spelling. Over the years, this name was applied to features that previously had been spelled with an A instead of an O after the T, or with two L's instead of one.

Names derived from Tomales

Tomales Bay: An approximately 14-mile-long by one-mile-wide bay separating the northern end of the Point Reyes Peninsula from the mainland. It is a submerged valley that overlies the San Andreas Fault.

Tomales Beach: An approximately 700-foot-long beach along the western shore of Tomales Bay near the south end of Tomales Point. There are no authorized trails that lead to Tomales Beach—one must arrive at the beach by boat. Tomales Beach is now one of many beaches on which visitors may camp (if they arrive by boat) and one of the two beaches where parties of 15 to 25 may camp along the west shore of Tomales Bay.

Tomales Point: An approximately six-mile-long by one-mile-wide sub-peninsula at the northern end of the Point Reyes peninsula. It's bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, Bodega Bay to the north, and Tomales Bay to the east. The Coast Miwok called Tomales Point Calupetamál (Hummingbird Coast). Tomales Point is the location of Pierce Ranch, the park's first tule elk herd, the Tomales Point Trail, and McClures Beach.

Tomasini Canyon and Tomasini Creek: Named after rancher Battista Tomasini.

Battista Tomasini (b. 1848, d. 1929) was born in Switzerland and immigrated to the United States in the 1860s. He purchased a dairy ranch north of Point Reyes Station in 1880.

Tomasini Point and Tomasini Triangle Marsh: Named after ranchers Luigi and Matteo Tomasini.

In the 1800s, the brothers Luigi and Matteo Tomasini were the owners of a 2,000-acre upland ranch along the south end of Tomales Bay north of Point Reyes Station.

The Tomasini Triangle Marsh was one hydrological feature that was restored during the Giacomini Wetland Restoration Project.

Tom's Point: Named for George Thomas Wood

George Thomas Wood lived in a cabin on a small peninsula on the east side of Tomales Bay north of the mouth of Walker Creek in the mid-1800s. He was often referred to as "Tom Vaquero" due to his horse-riding skills.

White Gate Trail: Named for a white gate along the Home Ranch Road.

A white gate was loncated along the Home Ranch Road through the Murphy (aka Home) Ranch where the White Gate Trail and the Muddy Hollow Road Trail intersect.

The White Gate Trail connects the western end of the Muddy Hollow Road Trail to the mid-section of the Estero Trail.

White Gulch: A descriptive name.

This gulch and small inlet on Tomales Bay was named for the white cliffs on its north side.

Whitehouse Pool: Named after a white ranch house that stood near this pool.

The white ranch house of James McMillan Shafter's Piedmont Ranch used to stand near this wide bend along Lagunitas Creek west of Point Reyes Station. The house was demolished in 1969 after years of use, including as a U.S. Army communications center during World War II.

Part of the Piedmont Ranch is open to the public as Whitehouse Pool County Park.

Wildcat Beach and Wildcat Campground: Named after the Wildcat Ranch.

Wildcat Ranch was likely given this descriptive name because of the mountain lions and bobcats found in the area.

Wildcat Ranch was occupied as early as 1858, when the dwelling of M. Parrot appears on a map. The Shafters and Howard used Wildcat Ranch for their wild cattle and horses in the 1850s and 1860s; it may have developed into a dairy ranch in the 1870s. Dairy operations continued until the 1920s. The U.S. Army purchased 3.69 acres and leased over 150 acres of the ranch during World War II. The Bolema Club, a pheasant hunting camp, was established at Wildcat Ranch in the 1950s. The National Park Service bought Wildcat Ranch in 1966 and developed the ranch site into Wildcat Campground.

There are many possible routes to hike to Wildcat Beach.

Woodpecker Trail: A nature trail interpreting the area's flora and fauna, including woodpeckers.

Acorn woodpeckers are a commonly seen and heard bird along this nature trail. The woodpeckers drill holes in the bark of the Douglas fir trees along the trail and store acorns for later use in the holes.

The 0.9-mile-long Woodpecker Nature Trail departs from the Bear Valley Trailhead.

Woodward Valley: Named for the Woodward brothers.

In the 1890s, the Woodward Brothers were members of the Country Club that was located at what is now called Divide Meadow.

The Woodward Valley Trail is well within the Phillip Burton Wilderness, connecting the Coast Trail to the mid-section of the Sky Trail. Visit our Hike the Woodward Valley Loop and Hike the Sky–Woodward Valley–Fire Lane Loop pages for more information.

Z Ranch Trail: An old ranch road on the Z Ranch that's been converted to a trail.

Peter and Newton Wittenberg were apparently the first occupants of Charles Webb Howard's Z Ranch in the early 1860s. The Wittenbergs, probably father and son, came to Point Reyes from North Carolina. Peter Wittenberg spent six years in jail for the murder of William "Arkansaw Bill" Swinerton outside of Levy's store in Olema on March 28, 1861. Sentenced to eleven years after a trial in San Rafael, Wittenberg was pardoned in 1867 by Governor Frederick F. Low after his local friends petitioned on his behalf.

The Z Ranch was occupied by various families until about 1927, when Jesse Langdon—the new owner of the U, W, Y, and Z ranches—eliminated the smaller dairies (U, Y, and Z) on what became known as Bear Valley Ranch. The National Park Service purchased Bear Valley Ranch on October 1, 1963, and located Sky Campground at the site of the Z Ranch.

The Z Ranch Trail serves as a connector between the Horse Trail and the Mount Wittenberg Trail. It passes along Mount Wittenberg's western shoulder through dense Douglas fir thickets that sprouted shortly after the 1995 Vision Fire. A 4.5-mile-roundtrip hike to Mount Wittenberg from the Sky Trailhead includes hiking along the Z Ranch Trail.

 

Sources and References

California Digital Newspaper Collection. The Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research at the University of California, Riverside.

Early California Population Project. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Available at https://huntington.org/early-california-population-project (accessed 19 February 2023).

Find a Grave. Miscellaneous pages.

Goerke, B. 2007. Chief Marin: Leader, Rebel, and Legend. Berkeley: Heyday.

Livingston, D.S. 1993. Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula - A History of the Dairy and Beef Ranches within Point Reyes National Seashore, 1834-1992. Point Reyes National Seashore. Marin County, California, USA. Available at https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2202921 (accessed 19 February 2023).

Livingston, D.S. 1995. 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, USA. Available at https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2175701 (accessed 19 February 2023).

Dewey Livingston, email to author, December 31, 2022.

Teather, L. 1986. Place Names of Marin. San Francisco: Scottwall Associates.

Wikipedia. Miscellaneous pages.

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