Stop 3: Halfway to the Train Trestle

Historic photo of the Muir/Strentzel home.

JOMU 1729

Transcript for the John Muir NHS Cell Phone Tour

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 are 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 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.”