Architectural style Italianate-Victorian NRHP Reference # 66000083 Year built 1849 Added to NRHP 15 October 1966 | Visitation 28,166 (2005) Area 140 ha Phone +1 925-228-8860 Management National Park Service | |
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Location 4202 Alhambra Avenue, Martinez, California Architect Wolfe & Son; Martinez, Vicente Website John Muir National Historic Site Address 4202 Alhambra Ave, Martinez, CA 94553, USA Hours Open today · 10AM–5PMSunday10AM–5PMMonday10AM–5PMTuesday10AM–5PMWednesday10AM–5PMThursday10AM–5PMFriday10AM–5PMSaturday10AM–5PM Similar Eugene O'Neill National, Port Chicago Naval Ma, Rosie the Riveter/World War II Ho, Caspar Headlands State Bea, Admiral William Standley Profiles | ||
John muir national historic site travel video part 1 of 2
The John Muir National Historic Site is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Martinez, Contra Costa County, California. It preserves the 14-room Italianate Victorian mansion where the naturalist and writer John Muir lived, as well as a nearby 325 acres (132 ha) tract of native oak woodlands and grasslands historically owned by the Muir family. The main site is on the edge of town, in the shadow of State Route 4, also known as the "John Muir Parkway".
Contents
John muir national historic site
Mansion
The mansion was built in 1883 by Dr. John Strentzel, Muir's father-in-law, with whom Muir went into partnership, managing his 2,600-acre (1,100 ha) fruit ranch. Muir and his wife, Louisa, moved into the house in 1890, and he lived there until his death in 1914.
Conservationist
While living here, Muir realized many of his greatest accomplishments, co-founding and serving as the first president of the Sierra Club, in the wake of his battle to prevent Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley from being dammed, playing a prominent role in the creation of several national parks, writing hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles and several books expounding on the virtues of conservation and the natural world, and laying the foundations for the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.
The home contains Muir’s "scribble den," as he called his study, and his original desk, where he wrote about many of the ideas that are the bedrock of the modern conservation movement.
Archive and Landmark
The Muir house was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1960.
It became a National Historic Site in 1964, is a California Historical Landmark #312 and National Historic Landmark, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1988 nearby Mount Wanda Nature Preserve was added to the Historic Site.
John Muir National Historic Site
The John Muir National Historic Site offers a biographical film, tours of the house and nature walks on Mount Wanda.