Ranching at Point Reyes...

The landscape that surrounds Tomales Bay can be considered a legacy of the dairy industry. This legacy is part of the story of the bay and today provides the vistas of rolling hills, oak woodlands and places delicious milk and cheeses on the table.

Dairying came to the Point Reyes peninsula soon after the California Gold Rush of the mid-nineteenth century. Many of the original settlers of the peninsula originally came west in the search for gold. They found gold alright, not chunks of precious metal, rather, great golden wheels of cheese and casks of butter produced for the growing population of nearby San Francisco.

The cool moist climate of Point Reyes provided ideal conditions for dairy cows, plenty of grass with a long growing season and abundant fresh water supplies. The 1880 History of Marin County remarked of Point Reyes, "The grass growing in the fields on Monday is butter on the city tables the following Sunday." The national symbol of quality in butter became the letters PR in a star stamped into cheesecloth wrapped rolls or casks of butter.

Dairying at Point Reyes provided food for many early settlers and gave many immigrants a chance to get started in America. The peninsula was granted to early Mexican settlers whose claims were often disputed. Finally, a San Francisco law firm, Shafter, Shafter, Park, and Heydenfeldt established ownership of the entire peninsula. They sold the northernmost tip to an old friend from Vermont, Solomon Pierce, and divided up the rest of the peninsula into tenant dairies which were named after letters of the alphabet: "A" Ranch, which is closest to the Lighthouse, through "Z" Ranch at the summit of Mt. Wittenberg. "W" Ranch is the site of park headquarters and Bear Valley Visitor Center.

These tenant ranches, rented by Irish, Swedish, Italian speaking Swiss, and Portuguese families, produced record yields of the highest quality butter and cheese throughout the late 19th century. In 1867, the largest yield of butter from a California county was Marin weighing in with 932,429 pounds of butter. Most of the butter was shipped on shallow draft schooners to groceries in San Francisco. These huge amounts of butter were produced in an era when the finest restaurants would serve a good steak with a slab of butter melting on top! The milk byİproducts from buttermaking were fed to hogs, providing ranchers with extra cash.

Pierce Point Ranch, at the northernmost tip of Tomales Point bordering the west side of Tomales Bay, was one of the few privately held ranches in Point Reyes and was considered one of the most modern, second in butter production. The Pierce family imported special breeding stock and built a small town to support their isolated ranch at the end of Tomales Point. Few roads came into the area so most of their milk and farm products were shipped by boat across Tomales Bay to the railroad line where Highway 1 is today. A schoolhouse, blacksmith's shop, milking barn, and creamery still stand as reminders of this vigorous ranching life which shaped much of the Point Reyes area. Restoration work was begun in 1982 and continued this year by the National Park Service to stabilize the buildings and bring them up to modern safety standards. An access trail through the ranch provides glimpses of early ranching life such as the main house where immigrant hands gathered around the dinner table for English lessons or the creamery where that famous Point Reyes butter was made.

Land ownership of the peninsula changed as the dairy industry began to change. In 1919, the Shafter firm sold out the "alphabet" of ranches. Many of the emigrant families were able to purchase the land they had worked on so diligently. Dairy cattle still dot the landscape as they have for over a hundred years but their feed is no longer exclusively the luxuriant grass of Point Reyes. The local grass is now supplemented by higher quality feeds grown in drier climates.

Individual ranches gave up producing their own butter and cheese and joined a cooperative creamery. Milk is picked up from twice daily milkings and sent to a central processing plant. Butter and milk comes in neatly wrapped packages, a far cry from when Pierce Ranch school teacher Helen Smith walked into the creamery to scoop a small cup of cream from the cooling pans to pour over her breakfast pancakes. Today there are thirteen operating ranches in the park. Dairy cows, the black and white Holstein breed, are found on seven ranches. Black Angus and the brown and white Hereford breed are found on six beef ranches.

The creation of the National Seashore in 1962 brought another change in ownership to the peninsula. Legislation creating the park provided funds to purchase ranch lands and then lease the land back to the existing ranchers. The 5 year leases partner the National Park Service and the ranchers as stewards protecting the natural landscape as well as the rich cultural landscape of agricultural history.

Preserving and protecting the pastoral zone is essential. The open lands of ranch country provide a needed vista in the crowded urban landscape surrounding the park. This agricultural landscape also provides fresh and healthy food to the nearby urban population. Perhaps more importantly places such as this pastoral area provide a connection between past and present; boating in the untouched tranquility of Tomales Bay is a gift from the past. It can be a time for appreciation of the ways of our ancestors and a time to reflect on our contemporary ways.

Additional Resources:

Marin Agricultural Land Trust
"An Abundant Land - The Story of West Marin Ranching" – a tape driving tour of West Marin available at park visitor centers and from the Point Reyes Seashore Association.
http://www.malt.org

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