Muir Woods National Monument

One of the last stands of old-growth redwoods near San Francisco, saved from a water company's dam by a conservationist who then declined to have the grove named after himself, insisting it honor John Muir instead.

By the early 1900s, most of the old-growth redwood forest around San Francisco Bay had already been logged to build the rapidly growing region, and the grove then known as Redwood Canyon faced a new threat in 1905, when a local water company proposed damming the creek running through it and flooding the area for a reservoir. Conservationists William Kent and his wife Elizabeth Thacher Kent purchased the grove outright in 1907 specifically to prevent its destruction.

Rather than rely on private ownership alone to protect the land permanently, Kent donated the grove to the federal government, and President Theodore Roosevelt designated it a National Monument in 1908 under the Antiquities Act. When Roosevelt offered to name the new monument 'Kent Monument' in his honor, Kent declined, insisting instead that it be named for naturalist John Muir, whose writing had helped inspire the conservation movement.

Muir Woods today preserves one of the last old-growth coast redwood stands remaining in the San Francisco Bay Area, with some trees exceeding 250 feet in height and estimated to be more than 800 years old. The monument stands as an early and influential example of private conservation action leading directly to permanent federal protection, a model later repeated at other threatened natural sites across the country.