American Realities with Bill Youngs
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    • Gods Messengers: Religious Leadership in Colonial New England, 1700-1750 >
      • Table of Contents
      • Preface
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      • Chapter 2: The Minister's Calling
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      • Appendix: Length of Ministerial Settlement
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      • Prologue: The South Pacific, 1943 >
        • Eleanor Roosevelt South Pacific
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      • Volume One >
        • The Native Americans
        • The English Background
        • The British American
        • Reform in Colonial America
        • Divided Loyalties
        • The American Revolution
        • Testing the Constitution
        • Republican Nationalism
        • The Limits of Jacksonian Democracy
        • Abolitionists and Anti-abolitionists
        • Texas Revolution
        • Reform in the Early Republic
        • Manifest Destiny
        • A Slave's Story
        • The Civil War >
          • Two Soldiers
      • Volume Two >
        • The “Taming” of the West
        • Beyond Emancipation
        • The New Industrial Era
        • The Birth of Environmentalism
        • New Immigrants
        • Expanding American Democracy
        • World War I
        • Modernity versus Tradition
        • The New Deal
        • Total War
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        • The Civil Rights Movement
        • Turmoil on the Campuses
        • The New Computer Age
        • America, the Cold War, and Beyond
      • Additional Essays >
        • Norsemen in the New World
    • The Fair and the Falls >
      • Part I: Possessing the Falls >
        • Chapter One: James Glover: Purchasing the Falls
        • Chapter Two: Waiting for the Indians
        • Chapter Three: Harnessing the Falls
        • Chapter Four: "The World's Fair of the Northwest"
        • Chapter Five: The City Beside the Falls
      • Part II: Rediscovering the Falls >
        • Chapter Six: The Twilight of Old Spokane
        • Chapter Seven: Urban Blight and Urban Renewal
        • Chapter Eight: King Cole and The Heart of a City
        • Chapter Nine: Visualizing a World's Fair
      • Part III Redesigning the Falls >
        • Chapter Ten: From Spokane to Paris >
          • Tom Foley's Turn
        • Chapter Eleven: Wooing the Foreign Exhibitors
        • Chapter Twelve: Wooing the Domestic Exhibitors
        • Chapter Thirteen: The Environmental Debate
        • Chapter Fourteen: Building the Fair
        • Chapter Fifteen: Marketing, Money, and Management
      • Part IV: The Fair by the Falls >
        • Chapter Sixteen: Opening Day
        • Chapter Seventeen: A Mingling of Peoples
        • Chapter Eighteen: Days at the Fair
        • Chapter Nineteen: The Press of New Ideas
        • Chapter Twenty: The Final Tally
      • Part V: An American Environment >
        • Chapter Twenty-One: Spokane Falls, An American Environment
      • The Fair and the Falls Map

A Visit to Muir Woods National Monument

Fireside Chat: A Visit to Muir Woods National Monument
J. William T. Youngs
October 3, 2012 

(As of October 5, 2012, I'm still working on this. A film of the forest and stream will be completed soon)

  I visited Muir woods this afternoon, driving there by motorcycle from a campground in Olema, California. The last ten miles up to the woods was more adventure than I'd anticipated: up and up an windy road along the Pacific Coast with the right wheel of my Spyder closer than I liked the perilous cliff just to the right. And there were those cars behind me wanting to go faster than I did. Drive a mile, pull off on the narrow shoulder, and don't look down as the cars whizzed by. Then I pulled off Highway 1 onto another windy steep road, but at least this one led up into the forest -- no more cliffs. And soon I was at Muir Woods. John Muir speaks of nature soothing our troubled spirits -- I'll tell you, after that ride I was ready for some soothing!
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  As I walked through the forest I was looking for examples of the kind of lessons we've learned in class about the parks from studying their history. First, this is a National Monument -- so that is the first "lesson," an opportunity to review something we've learned in class.

(1) What is a national monument?

(2) When were they first created?

(3) Why were they so appealing to President Theodore Roosevelt?

(4) What was the very first national monument?

(5) Muir Woods became a national monument in 1908. Who was the president of the United States at that time?

  OK, on into the park. I liked the sign you'll see below. I had seen a similar sign this past summer at the Gettysburg National Military Park, asking silence out of respect for the soldiers who died there during the Civil War. What kinds of associations can you think of for a sign requesting silence in the presence of giant redwoods?

                                                                    Here's that little sign: 
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 And how about this sign, below. We've been learning that in the early days of the parks it was hard to protect the buffalo from extermination or to keep tourists from pouring soap in the geysers. We've grown a lot more sensitive about "leaving it alone" in the natural world, and also a lot more knowledgeable about how one part of the natural world (in this case, leaves) nurtures another part (in this case, pregnant deer).
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I assume that park employees picked up these leaves from the forest floor - and will put them back!

  We have been studying how in the early days of the parks, men and women thought deeply and debated extensively how parks should be preserved, protected, and enhanced. One development has been an attention to detail in deciding what the "build environment" of the parks should be. What were the appropriate roads, fences, paths, bridges, and buildings by the way. Here is the park-appropriate approach to walkways and to the park shop at the Muir Woods National Monument:
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It looked to me like a magical shop in a fairy tale! And it certainly blended into the forest.
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This bridge in the Muir Woods is another example of park-friendly architecture.
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 The wooden walkways through the forest also blended in.

  One of the goals of the National Parks is to educate. Here is a good example of how they perform that mission at Muir Woods National Monument. Walking along the board-walk pathway you see a cluster of trees packed tightly together, and you wonder, how did they happen to grow so close to each other. This sign tells the story:
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Whoops! I see that my camera did not show the text in enough detail for you to read it. So here is the gist: long, long ago a giant tree stood here. Fire after fire burnt it, weakening it until it fell, leaving only a tall stump. BUT from its roots came new life, and other trees grew close by. Here is a photo of the newer trees and the old burnt tree:
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That's the old burned tree in the middle with it's "progeny" growing right beside it --John Muir might say, as if to comfort the fallen patriarch!

And here's another appropriate image for Muir Woods:
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