A Visit to John Muir National Historic Site

And a Conversation with Ranger Kelli English, Chief of Interpretation

John Muir's most famous memorials are his many contributions to the literature and preservation of American scenic wonders. The image of  "John of the Mountains" is inseparable from the image of Yosemite and other wilderness areas. But John Muir spent much of his adult life in a Victorian mansion in an orchard a few miles from San Francisco -- far from the mountains he celebrated. That house and its surroundings is now a National Historic Park in Martinez, California.

This is the way the house looked in 1900:

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Wikipedia Commons

On a bright Autumn day in November, 2014, I visited the park for a look at the landscape and the house and for a conversation with Kelli English, the site's chief of Interpretation. This fall I've been blessed with a teaching schedule at Eastern Washington University that allows me to focus on one course, "The History of the American National Parks." Since the class is on line, I can take my students with me, so to speak, to some of our fabled parks.

My students and I have studied John Muir, naturally, as the person I like to call "The George Washington of American National Parks." We all learned about Muir riding an avalanche down a Sierra mountain slope and clinging to the top of a swaying tree in a windstorm, but I knew less about the Muir who made a fortune in agriculture and hunkered down in a Victorian house to write many of his books and articles.

In the Visitor's Center at the Historic Site a bronze statue of John Muir greets visitors:

Here is what the Muir house looks like today along with a sampling of its contents: 

The high point of the visit for me was a conversation with Kelli English, the Chief of Interpretation at the Historic Site. We talked about John Muir, but also about broader issues surrounding park management and interpretation. Kelli and I sat at a picnic bench with another historic building, the Martinez Adobe, in the background. In a wide-ranging conversation we discussed John Muir and the Muir house and also a number of issues in modern park policy ranging from snowmobiles in Yellowstone to wolves, bears, and coyotes, oh my. I came away feeling that although I had not been able to talk to John Muir himself that day, Ranger English was the next best thing.

Here is the conversation:

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