John Muir and William Kent

John Muir and William Kent

John Muir and William Kent, 1912.

Muir Woods Gates

President Theodore Roosevelt used the powers of the Antiquities
Act on January 9, 1908, to create Muir Woods National Monument.
William Kent, who donated the land for the monument, requested
that it be named for noted conservationist John Muir.


William Kent: Philanthropist, Politician, Businessman.

Until the 1800s, many northern California coastal valleys were
covered with coast redwood trees similar to those now found in
Muir Woods National Monument. The forest along Redwood Creek
in today's Muir Woods was spared from logging because it was hard
to get to. Redwood Creek contained one of the Bay Area's last uncut
stands of old-growth redwood, Congressman William Kent and his
wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent, bought 611 acres here for $45,000 in
1905. To protect the redwoods the Kents donated 295 of the land to
the Federal Government and, in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt
declared it a national monument. Roosevelt suggested naming the
area after Kent, but Kent wanted it named for conservationist
John Muir.

John Muir: Philosopher, Scientist, Author.

Young John Muir's family emigrated from Scotland to Wisconsin in
1848. Muir had a lively interest in nature and after brief studies at
the University of Wisconsin he left school for what he would call
"the University of the Wilderness." On his lengthy wanderings Muir
contemplated man's relationship to nature, concluding that all life
forms have inherent significance and the right to exist. Humans,
Muir decided, are no greater or lesser than other forms of life. Muir
eventually won public acceptance of conservation as an
environmental ethic and inspired generations of wilderness
advocates.
National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior


I have admired their missions of nature protection and preservation.
On this date, September 13, 2009, I name two of the Giant Redwood
trees around my house after John Muir and William Kent.


Yeh Tze