Video

Stop 4 - ASL - Train Trestle View: Trains

John Muir National Historic Site

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.”

Descriptive Transcript

A young man is standing in a plan room, and is using American Sign Language. Full details of the ASL dialogue are in the transcript. 

Description

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.

Duration

1 minute, 57 seconds

Credit

NPS/Luther Bailey and Cory Stellmack

Date Created

08/23/2023

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