American Sign Language TourMain Park GroundsThe park currently has a "Cell Phone Tour" of the main park grounds, with 12 stops. Each of the "Stops" are indicated with a small sign that has a stop number and a phone number. We have created ASL versions of this tour that you can watch by selecting the corresponding video for each stop. Want High Quality Video or to Download?Each video player has a monitor icon on the bottom right. You may adjust the streaming quality, there. 1080p is the highest quality video but takes the most data. You may also download these videos at home, before you arrive. The download button is on the top right of each player. Transcript
This is Stop number 1 Welcome to John Muir National Historic Site. This tour explores the historic grounds and orchards of the main park site. There are multiple stops on the tour, and throughout the site there are signs indicating a cell phone stop number.
John Muir was an explorer and writer, known today for his work in preserving nature. Later in life, Muir was a fruit farmer and a businessman. His success as a fruit rancher provided affluence that supported his family and travels and allowed him time to write. It also provided him access to a political arena where he was able to build support for his preservation efforts. Much of what Muir wrote on preserving and protecting natural areas was completed during this time. Learn more about Muir the rancher and the agricultural history of the site with this orchard tour. Please move toward the easy access path to reach the next stop.
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 2 This land and house were once owned by Dr. John Strentzel and his wife Louisiana, John Muir’s future in-laws. Dr. Strentzel was a medical doctor with a talent for growing fruit who experimented with more than a thousand varieties of fruit trees and ornamentals. Through his work in those early days of California horticulture, he was able to determine what kinds of fruit would grow best in this northern California climate. At one point, he grew 50 different varieties of pears.
John Muir was encouraged to visit Dr. Strentzel through a mutual friend. Knowing of the doctor’s interest in trees and the promise of a warm meal was all it took to get the bachelor Muir to visit the Strentzel family. Little did he suspect that Strentzel’s beautiful daughter Louie would become his wife. Dr. Strentzel’s first home in Martinez was a modest house located about a mile south of here. In this quote, Muir writes his sister Sarah about a visit in 1877: “Coming home here I left my boat at Martinez, thirty miles up the bay, and walked to Oakland across the top of Mount Diablo, and on the way called at my friends the Strentzel’s, who have eighty acres of choice orchards and vineyards, where I rested two days, my first rest in six weeks. They pitied my weary looks, and made me eat and sleep, stuffing me with turkey, chicken, beef, fruits, and jellies in the most extravagant manner imaginable, and begged me to stay a month.”
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 3
The Strentzel Ranch filled the Alhambra Valley, totaling 2,600 acres by 1890. After the death of Dr. Strentzel, John, Louie, and their two daughters Wanda and Helen joined the widowed Mrs. Strentzel in the “Big House”. A more pastoral scene of fruit and nut trees, wheat and grapes would have been hard to find. Looking around you now, 20th century changes are everywhere. The park immediately around the home is now only nine acres and surrounded by other homes, businesses, and roads. The buzz of Alhambra Valley bees has taken on another form. The sounds of our 21st century is much different than that of Muir’s 19th century. One of the resources in National Parks is called a “soundscape”. Trying to preserve the quiet of the Grand Canyon might be easier than here in this suburban park. Though the roar and howl of vehicles can be disturbing to us now, here is a quote of what John Muir innocently thought about the future of automobiles in our national parks: “All signs indicate automobile victory, and doubtless, under certain precautionary restrictions, these useful, progressive, blunt-nosed mechanical beetles will hereafter be allowed to puff their way into all the parks and mingle their gas-breath with the breath of the pines and waterfalls, and, from the mountaineer’s standpoint, with but little harm or good.”
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 4
The railroad trestle above the freeway spanned the Alhambra Valley and crossed through the Muir property in 1900. Prior to the railroad, fruit would have been boxed and loaded in wagons, then taken to Strentzel Wharf in downtown Martinez two miles from here. It was then sold and loaded on ships for transportation to San Francisco and beyond. Muir sold the easement through his property to the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railway for $10 and a lifetime pass for the railroad. In addition, the railroad station for Martinez, located on the far side of the trestle from the house, was named in Muir’s honor as Muir Station. Though no longer in existence, the station provided easy access for Muir to ship his fruit to far away states, delivering it quickly, fresh and unbruised. Muir’s daughters, Wanda, and Helen grew up with a fascination of trains and went to explore the construction of the trestle being built in their backyard. Wanda later wrote to her father: “There has been much blasting and banging away on the railroad cut. We went up there Sunday and found a lot of fossil shells. There was one flat rock about three feet square that was just covered with different kinds of shells and Helen was very much pleased to find a petrified worm.”
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 5
Maintaining the 2600-acre ranch required a lot of work. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1870’s, help was available in the form of displaced Chinese railroad workers. Here in Northern California, they didn’t have to look too far for work. The planting, growing, pruning, and harvesting of fruit required many ranch hands. Behind the mansion stood the “China House”, a segregated dormitory for the men working in the orchards. Chinese workers were accustomed to hard work and long hours, but if the pay wasn’t good enough, they would leave for better prospects at other fruit ranches. Muir, like all ranchers, struggled with the cost of labor cutting into his profit margins. Failure to maintain the balance could lead to his fruit rotting on the trees. By 1890, Chinese workers in this orchard and others would have been taking care of all aspects of fruit and nut production. It began with the planting, grafting, pruning, and spraying of trees, then on to the harvesting, boxing and delivering of fruits and nuts to buyers. It would have been impossible to have had a successful orchard business without the experienced help of the Chinese laborers. Muir himself described the running of the ranch as “an eternal fountain of work”.
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 6
It seems that everyone here in California came from somewhere else. John Muir arrived in California in 1868. Dr. Strentzel, his father-in-law, arrived here in the Alhambra Valley 14 years earlier. Before them came the gold miners of 1849 and the Spanish exploring this area as early as 1776. Earlier, the Ohlone people – American Indians – settled in this bountiful eastern area of the San Francisco Bay. Even before the lush orchards of the Alhambra Valley were planted, it would’ve been an Eden. Ohlone men would have caught salmon, bass and other fish in the creeks. They hunted deer and smaller animals for food and hides. Women and children collected berries and shellfish from the Carquinez Straits. Come fall, they would have migrated to the tribe’s special oak trees for a massive harvest and preparation of acorns as a winter food supplement. Many other native plants played an important role in the life of American Indians, such as the wavy-leaved soap root, which was been harvested to clean the body and hair. The tule reed was used to make baskets and canoes, the California buckeye nut was used to stun fish, and miner’s lettuce was just one of the plants eaten as a leafy green vegetable. Above you is a beautiful native tree called the California Bay. Try to find a leaf on the ground, crunch it in between your fingers and give it a sniff. These highly aromatic leaves were used by American Indians in a variety of ways. They could be used to smoke out bugs from a lodge, to spice up food, placed under a headband to stop a headache, or simply crushed, rolled up and stuck up the nose to relieve congestion and ease breathing. The Bay tree also played a part in the Muir family as well. Instead of cutting down a tree each year for Christmas, the Muirs would trim a branch off of one of the Bay trees on Mt. Wanda (named after Muir’s oldest daughter), then bring that to the home and decorate it. It looks different and certainly smells different than the traditional Christmas evergreen but was easy to get used to once covered in Victorian ornaments.
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 7
After his father-in-law’s death in 1890, Muir took over the running of the ranch and began to transform much of the ranch to growing Bartlett pears. He also grew a variety of fruit for family consumption, including cherries, apricots, and peaches. These Elberta peach trees before you are of the same heritage variety as the ones that Muir once grew. Muir was a successful rancher, although he found the work difficult and tiring. After 10 years of hard work, he hired his brother- in-law John Reid, husband of his sister Margaret, to manage the ranch. With Reid taking care of operations, Muir was free to enjoy strolling through the orchards again, with little thought to the strain of running the business. Throughout his time in Martinez, Muir’s wife Louie knew that Muir wasn’t happy with ranch work and could achieve more. She continually encouraged him to keep exploring and writing, and he did. John Muir often left the house for months at a time but also missed his life with his family. When he left the ranch, it was usually to connect emotionally with nature and gather data for his books and essays that he wrote in Martinez. Muir considered this ranch where his beloved family lived his home. John Muir could not have been the man we know of today without the complete support of his family. Louie’s belief that ranch life should not interfere with her husband’s passions for nature can be seen in a quote from this letter: “A ranch that needs and takes the sacrifice of a noble life or work ought to be flung away beyond all reach and harm.”
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 8
John Muir’s love of botany is expressed in the many varieties of trees planted around the home and orchards. Most are not fruit bearers but were chosen by Louie, John or Dr. Strentzel for their beauty and uniqueness. John Muir would often send seeds and plant cuttings through the mail to his family here. One of John Muir’s favorite transplants was this tree he brought from the Sierra Nevada when it was just a seedling. Now, at over 70 feet and 120 years young, this is still a baby and could someday grow to more than 250 feet high, 100 feet around and 3,000 years old. This will only happen with proper care and enough water – a tough thing to provide to a tree miles away from its natural habitat. This tree is the mighty Sequoia. As large as this tree could grow, its height would be completely eclipsed by another one of Muir’s favorite trees. The genetic brother of the sequoia is the California state tree and the tallest tree on the planet, the coastal redwood. After seeing the Merced grove of sequoias in what would eventually become Yosemite National Park, Muir writes a good friend about his divine experience among the giants: “Do behold the King in his glory, King Sequoia! Behold! Behold! Seems all I can say…I’m in the woods, woods, woods, and they are in me-ee-ee. The King tree and I have sworn eternal love…and I’ve taken sacrament with Douglas squirrel, drunk Sequoia wine, Sequoia blood, and with its rosy purple drops I am writing this woody gospel letter.”
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 9
These large bush-like relatives of the apple and the pear are called quinces. This old-fashioned fruit is rarely seen in stores today. Quinces are not ripe until November and are usually cooked before eaten. They are often used in making jams and jellies because of a high pectin content which serves as a gelling agent. The reason for quince use here in the Alhambra Valley has nothing to do with their taste. In Muir’s day pears were sickened by a fungus that attacked their roots. The quinces, however, were not affected. So, fruit ranchers of the time grafted pear trees to quince rootstocks to help increase disease resistance. Grafting is a common process in horticulture. A sample is taken from a species or variety you want to grow and attached to the rootstock of a related variety. For example, horticulturalists graft English walnuts, the favored variety of walnuts, onto native Black walnut root stock. This ensures healthy growth and production of the exotic variety in an area where it would normally fail. Though Muir preferred the “wild” apples and fruits of the woods to the grafted and “tamed” ones, he realized that grafting was a crucial part of a successful agricultural business.
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 10
To your left are several varieties of plum trees, including Santa Rosa and Cherry Plums. If it’s July, stroll into the orchard and pick up a sweet treat from the ground. Please don’t climb the trees or pick fruit. The ripe plums and the sweetest ones are already on the ground. Don’t let a blemish or some easily brushed off dirt stop you from enjoying this delicious fruit. On the right, the short, bushy vines are grapes. The Muirs grew both wine and table grapes, but they did not make wine on the ranch. The three varieties you see before you (Tokay, Muscat, and Zinfandel) were planted in the 1970’s by Muir’s grandson. Muir was very discerning about which grapes should be grown on the ranch. Here is what he had to say about one of the varieties he removed: “The Mission Vine, the first planted in California, is a good table grape, but a poor wine grape and brings a very low price for either table or wine. The Padres ought to have known better – such good judges they were in most things relating to the stomach.”
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 11
More than a place for business, this property formed the centerpiece on which Muir’s family life was built. This adobe building in front of you is the oldest in Martinez. It was built by Vincente Martinez in 1849. During Muir’s time ranch managers used the adobe as their home. One of these men was Thomas Hanna, who married Muir’s oldest daughter Wanda. The short distance between the adobe and the house allowed Muir to spend time with his daughter and later grandchildren, building strong family ties that Muir valued. Muir wrote to an old friend about his family and the sun setting on his life: “It is now seven years since my beloved wife vanished in the land of the leal. Both of my girls are happily married and have homes and children of their own. Wanda has three lively boys, Helen has two and are living at Daggett, California. Wanda is living on the ranch in the old adobe, while I am alone in my library den in the big house on the hill where you and sister Kate found me on your memorable visit long ago. As the shadows lengthen in life’s afternoon, we cling all the more fondly to the friends of our youth. …” John Muir died on December 24, 1914. After his passing, Muir’s daughters sold the house and the land that was used as a fruit ranch. The Muir home and the Martinez adobe went through five different owners before being designated as a National Historic Site in 1964. The site now gives you insight into John Muir’s life as a rancher, father, and husband, which is inseparable from his accomplishments as a writer and preservationist. As you walk back to the entrance, consider how the ground you are walking on supported one of nature’s most devoted defenders, John Muir. The next stop is about the Juan Bautista de Anza Trail, which is part of the Martinez Adobe. Here is the introduction to that stop. Did you know, that where you are standing right now, used to be part of Colonial Spain? Select the next stop to journey with us into the history of the Anza expedition that led 240 people along a 1200-mile trail to what is now known as the Martinez Adobe.
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. Transcript
This is Stop number 12
It was between 1775 and 1776 that 240 colonists, soldiers, and others packed up their lives and began an astounding journey of 1200 miles. Led by Lt. Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza, the expedition began from present-day Sonora, Mexico, to the area of what the Spanish then called “Alta California”. The goal of Anza’s expedition was to establish an overland route for further settlement of the region. While we know it as California, today, it was then the northern frontier of the Spanish empire. When they reached their final destination of San Francisco, they would work to establish a mission for personal religious purposes, to evangelize the local people, as well as build a military fort, also known as a presidio. The colonists of the Anza Expedition were a multiethnic group of families of mixed Native American, African, and European ancestry. Their collective experiences and cultures established a wonderful foundation for the thriving mixed heritage that the San Francisco Bay Area is known for, today. The official handwritten records from the expedition have provided a connection to many of the family groups who participated. However, the names of horsemen, carpenters, blacksmiths, muleteers, cowboys, Indian guides, and servants who were essential members of the journey, were not included. When the Anza expedition arrived in the bay area, they discovered that the lands were inhabited by the Native American Ohlone peoples. Over time, the colonialist displaced the Ohlone through cultural clashes and forced missionization. By the turn of the century the impact of colonialism had forever changed both the environment and the first peoples of this land. The early 1800’s marked the change of San Francisco, and the rest of Alta California, which were no longer under Spanish rule and had become a part of the newly independent Mexico. The original families of the expedition and their descendants, known as Californios, continued to navigate the changing political landscape, and dispersed throughout Alta California to settle new regions. Manuel Ramírez de Arellano, who had brought his family from Sonora on the Anza Expedition, moved to Los Angeles with his wife and 4 children after retiring from the military. In 1797, he became the alcalde, or mayor, of Los Angeles. His daughter, María Martina Arellano, married a cadet stationed at the Presidio of Santa Barbara named Lieutenant Don Ignacio Martínez, who would eventually become one of the most prominent figures in San Francisco during his life. Over the course of their marriage, Lt. Don Ignacio Martínez and María Martina Arellano would move from Santa Barbara to San Diego to San Francisco and have 11 children along the way. By 1823, Don Ignacio, now the Comandante of the San Francisco Presidio, was granted over 17,000 acres of land that would become Rancho Pinole, and included the property where John Muir’s home sits today. María and Ignacio’s son, Vicente, built the adobe home in 1849 where he resided with his wife. To this day the city of Martinez continues to carry the name of the family and the Martinez Adobe is considered one of the oldest standing two-story adobe structures. Vicente Martinez eventually sold off portions of land, including the adobe house, to Edward Franklin who, in 1875, sold the property to Dr. John T. Strentzel. The adobe was used as a headquarters and storage for the ranch. A Victorian-style home was built by Dr. Strentzel, which would eventually become the home of his daughter Louisa Strentzel and son-in-law, John Muir. The Muir’s daughter, Wanda, moved into the adobe in 1907, with her husband, and raised her three children there. Today, the Martinez Adobe stands as a bridge through centuries to the early Spanish colonial era ushered in by those on the Anza Expedition.
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Welcome to the ASL (American Sign Language) version of the main park grounds tour. There are 12 videos, each of which corresponds to the cell phone tour stop signs throughout the park. This first "Stop" begins behind the visitor center. Visually, these small signs contain a stop number and a cell phone number. Please select the correct video from the web page, as you move from stop to stop. Feel free to reach out to our staff, if you have any questions. There is also a transcript for each stop. |
Last updated: August 23, 2023