Muir Woods National Monument

This guide to Muir Woods National Monument near San Francisco opens in 1905, when William Kent spent forty five thousand dollars on six hundred acres of coastal redwood forest without telling his wife the price. It follows the fight that came two years later, when a water company tried to seize part of the land through eminent domain to dam the creek and flood the canyon floor, and the newly passed Antiquities Act that gave Kent an unlikely way out. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the papers on January 9, 1908. Stand beneath the redwoods and listen for how Kent felt about putting his own name on the deed.