Then & Now: Elsewhere on the Point

Point Reyes National Seashore has a long and varied history. This section includes a few historic locales worthy of note.

Click and drag the circle at the center of the photos left and right to compare the then and now images.

 

 

Drakes Beach 1954

Left image
Credit: Credit: Point Reyes National Seashore Archives #008830-A.

Right image
Credit: Credit: NPS / Ted Barone.

It is generally believed that Francis Drake anchored in Drakes Bay in 1579, perhaps near the mouth of the namesake estuary that empties into the bay from the north. However, hard evidence has yet to be discovered.

The parking lot from the old Drakes Beach County Park has been repositioned and replaced by vegetation designed to stabilize the shoreline. Note the erosion visible in the photo from today as compared to the 1954 photograph. Today, Drakes Beach is a popular destination on warm, sunny days. A visitor center and bookstore is positioned adjacent to the beach. The beach may be closed in the winter during the elephant seal breeding and pupping season.

 

The First NPS Visitor Contact Station at Bear Valley, 1967

Left image
Visitors stop by the first information station at Bear Valley on February 22, 1967 (Washington's Birthday).
Credit: NPS Photo / HPRC 025600

Right image
The Red Barn.
Credit: NPS Photo

As the National Park Service (NPS) was purchasing land to create Point Reyes National Seashore in the 1960s, the Bear Valley Ranch was one of the first acquisitions, completed on October 1, 1963. Due to its location close to where visitors would be entering the future park, the NPS chose to locate the park headquarters at Bear Valley Ranch, converting many of the ranch houses and structures into offices and maintenance facilities. A small information center/visitor contact station was constructed just north of the ranch's 1870s-era hay barn. This information center was decommissioned and removed when the current Bear Valley Visitor Center was opened in 1983. In 2001–02, the historic Red Barn was renovated to house the park's museum archives and a classroom.

 

RCA Communications Station, ca. 1975

Left image
Credit: Credit: Point Reyes National Seashore Archives #009050.

Right image
Credit: Credit: NPS / Ted Barone.

The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) built this Art Deco-style wireless telegraph receiving station on the G ranch between 1929 and 1931. The access road to the station is lined by cypress trees and makes a photogenic tree tunnel.

The early 1900s saw many innovations in wireless communications. Gugliemo Marconi, an Italian inventor, developed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph and in 1901 broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal. He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for his radio work.

In 1914, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America built a transmitting station in Bolinas and a receiving station on Tomales Bay south of Marshal to facilitate communication across the Pacific. The third receiving station at G ranch was built after RCA bought American Marconi in 1920.