John Muir is an almost prophetlike figure in California. The 19th-century Scottish-American found rapture in the Sierra Nevada, publishing works that helped inspire the preservation of wild areas, including the designation of Yosemite as a national park in 1890.

No fewer than 70 schools, lodges, roads, and other places in California bear Muir’s name.  

So it came as a jolt to many last week when the Sierra Club, of which Muir was the first president, issued a statement denouncing the environmentalist for drawing on racist stereotypes in his writings. The post, titled “Pulling down our monuments,” linked to an Atlas Obscura article that recounted how Muir had described Native Americans as “lazy” and “savages.” While walking through the South, Muir recalled encountering a “black lump of something” that turned out to be a small boy. “Birds make nests and nearly all beasts make some kind of bed for their young, but these negroes allow their younglings to lie nestless and naked in the dirt,” he wrote. 

In an essay responding to the Sierra Club’s post, the Muir biographer Donald E. Worster acknowledged there was much to regret about Muir’s views, but argued that the environmentalist should be judged in a broader context. 

“Muir has been dead for more than a century,” Worster wrote, “but if he could speak from the grave, I can easily imagine him agreeing that systemic racism is bad and should be repudiated, for he never published a word in support of black slavery, racial segregation, the Confederacy, forced sterilization of minorities, or genocidal policies toward Native Americans.”

California Sun contributor Finn Cohen reached out to ask a few questions of Worster, who is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Kansas and the author of “A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir.” 

Excerpts of their conversation, below, have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q. What are your feelings about the Sierra Club’s statement regarding John Muir?

A. If they just turn the page, sometimes they find some rather surprising context. Particularly that one episode from John Muir’s journal from 1868 when he was for the first time in the Yosemite area and encountered Indians coming over the mountains from Mono Lake. That gets quoted again and again. But the rest of that day's journal entry, just something he wrote by the campfire, is quite different in tone from what most people gather from a couple of words and characterizations. 

When you ignore the context, then you are cherry-picking. You're looking for items that fit your definition. I think the Sierra Club definitely ought to be aware of who joined it over the years. A lot of people joined the club who didn't even live in California, never came to a meeting. I think during the first several decades, the Sierra Club was probably a hiking club of very elite people who were probably full of racists and white supremacists. Of course, everybody believes the Sierra Club ought to be on today's good side of moral values and changing social attitudes. But I fear that the way this current executive director has done this is not conducive to really rational analysis of where it's been, or really even of its traditions or its heritage of ideas, because it is undoubtedly a lot more complex. Historians always say history is more complicated. [laughs] 

You’ve written that you found certain elements of Muir’s character that you didn't like. Did those have anything to do with racism or xenophobia? 

Xenophobia, I don't find in John Muir. Some of his statements were probably a little insensitive or unkind, but they were written usually in a journal, and they were mostly about people he runs into. When he ran into Indians on the trail in Yosemite who were demanding cigarettes, tobacco, alcohol — John Muir was a fastidious kind of guy. He was not much of a drinker at that point in his life, so all those things repelled him. He had a lot of caustic things to say about a lot of people. He was not an easy person to get along with. I'm not sure I would have liked to go on a hike with him! [laughs] He was the kind of person who could easily offend people by his comments. But the other side of it is, this is maybe a huge paradox — he was a much-beloved man. So many people made friends with him over his lifetime and he continued those friendships. 

There’s always a question of what is a racist. And this word is very loosely applied anymore. Believing in the inborn biological superiority of your group of people over others is, I think, the more classic definition of the term. I don’t find that in Muir. I find quite the opposite. There's a scrap of paper I found when I was going through his papers, doing my research. It was jotted down when he was off the coast of China. The Chinese never get into these discussions; it’s always about Blacks or Indians. Muir lived in a state with a growing Chinese population of immigrants, and that was extremely controversial. He hired Chinese workers on his fruit farm. And when he was traveling on the coast of China, he wrote on a little scrap of paper: “Some of the best people in the world are Chinese and we must not hate them. Hatred of any race of human beings is both foolish and wicked. We should not try to flock together too closely with the Chinese, for they are birds with feathers so unlike our own they seem to have been hatched on some other planet.” 

John Muir was a complicated guy. When he says, “We shouldn't hate anybody,” he’s writing this to himself. He's not publishing it. But I think we should take that just as seriously as we take some of the more negative things he said. It's not always clear when he said negative things that he was opposed to people as such, or he thought that they were inferior, but maybe that culturally it was going to be hard to assimilate or amalgamate or create social bonds. 

If you put that with the other comments, to call him a racist or white supremacist and just leave it at that, I think that's really unfair. I'm saying that about the executive director of the Sierra Club, if he buys that sort of thinking. Has he really read this journal entry? Has he really tried to put all this together in his mind? Do the people who come to him and say, “I read that Muir said these Indians were dirty, and it really hurts me” — has he asked them to sit down and read the rest of the passage? We all make snap decisions, sometimes on the basis of reading a few words, but I think the job of the Sierra Club ought to be to help people think about the past and its complexities, the gray tones, and use this to educate their own members, educate the public about what an environmental movement should look like. 

Besides the interaction in Yosemite that you mentioned Muir had with Native Americans, what were some of his other interactions with them, and how did those change his views? 

Most of John Muir’s knowledge about Native Americans came later in his life. He knew a few Indians in a remnant population in Yosemite Valley. But when Muir began taking longer trips up to Alaska, he met a lot of Natives, from the panhandle all the way up to the Bering Strait. There he saw the effects of white immigration and the diseases that came along, wiping out whole populations; the presence of alcohol and its effects; trade relations that were not good for the Indians. He wrote a diatribe against the white invasion. He said this is something the government should be up here doing: taking care of and protecting these people from being exploited, from being hurt and dying from all this. 

There's one episode from those days that really touched me, when Muir stopped at an Indian village somewhere and stayed overnight for several days with the people. Muir often hired them to take him on canoe expeditions up in these fjords. And in this village, there’s a little baby crying piteously. Nobody knows what to do. Its mother has died and the baby's hungry. No one's nursing it. So Muir goes to his canoe and he brings out a box of canned milk. He opens it and he spends the entire night with this baby, basically feeding it and holding it in his arms. He's walking up and down, trying to soothe it. And the people of this village are so struck by it that they named the baby after John Muir. He gets word of this later on.

I think his attitudes toward Native Americans got more positive as he got to know more of them and particularly that came in Alaska. The population of Indians in California dramatically dropped even before he got there, due to gold mining and the Gold Rush. So he didn't see many Native Americans there; he certainly didn't see many whose lives had been what they were. The people he would see were alcoholic, whose lives were degraded from what they had been. Demanding whiskey, cigarettes, having little to do; their hunting was gone. In Alaska, he met a very different group of Native Americans who were undergoing invasion to some extent, but still were intact: their ways, their culture, their hunting, their economy, and their pride.

When he got to California, it wasn't just the Indians who got him saying unflattering things. The white population, the people who were invading, the frontier types, the miners — he thought they were uncouth, savages, brutal, dirty, given over to alcohol. His writings are full of those descriptions. Nobody gets upset about that. You could, I suppose, claim that he was anti-working people generally, but that wouldn't be true because he spent a couple of years in Indianapolis working in a factory. You can chase these sorts of things around and try to find something. But he certainly didn't understand or know much about what we would call today systemic racism built into our institutions and cultures. 

You wrote that he had some radical ideas about justice — what were those? 

I trace them back to poets like Robert Burns or people like William Wordsworth, English romantics, Scots. It was a kind of egalitarianism extended to the whole living world. This theme is very strong in his growing up, and particularly after he leaves home, when he goes to the South after the Civil War — where he has lots of encounters with African Americans, by the way. When he gets to California, he is writing constantly about the “other people of the planet.” He talks about the plant people, the bird people, the grasshopper people. He really takes it seriously, that all of these are organisms forming societies, and families, and relationships and they have a right to exist. There's a point where on the trail up in Yosemite, he comes upon the carcass of a dead brown bear, just lying down the grass. And he sits down next to this carcass and writes on another little scrap of paper: “We live in an age of liberal principles.” He means that he also is a liberal, he is wide open to these ideas about human rights, equality. And goes on to say that we have allowed into our idea of heaven all kinds of other peoples in the world; we all can come into the Christian heaven, but “our liberal principles don't extend to the bears, or other species.” So he's going to sit down by the trail and mourn the passing of this brown bear. 

I take this as meaning, “I'm a liberal, I'm an egalitarian; I believe in democracy, but my sympathies are not limited to just conventional ideas of humanity. We draw a line around ourselves, a fence around who we are as a species, and everybody is supposed to be equal, but everything outside of it’s nothing, absolutely nothing to us.” No, he says, “I don't believe in that sense. And I'm going to talk about these liberal principles in a broader way.” And this, I think, is the moral value Muir thought he stood for, which didn’t exclude people but didn't stop with people, that the Sierra Club ought to be talking about right now, ought to be remembering, and ought to be asking, “What can we do with it? And how do our programs encourage this or at least to examine it carefully and talk about it critically?”

Read Worster's essay responding to the Sierra Club’s criticism of John Muir.

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Finn Cohen

A conversation with Donald E. Worster, the author of “A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir.”

John Muir and race: Biographer argues for nuanced view of the environmentalist

Donald E. Worster is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Kansas and the author of “A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir.”

Below is an essay he wrote in response to a Sierra Club initiative to reckon with comments by Muir that the group said "drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes."

The Sierra Club’s president now wants to distance himself from John Muir, the Club’s first president from 1892 to 1914, ostensibly because Muir was a racist and associated with “white supremacists.”

Several years ago I wrote a biography of Muir, not to make him a hero or to celebrate uncritically his life and achievements, but rather to understand better the complexities of thought and character within this individual and within American environmentalism. In the end there was much in the man that I did not admire or even like, although I concluded that he lived an extraordinary life, and was most extraordinary when he advocated a broad new ethical perspective on human relations with the rest of the planet. I would call that idea “justice,” but it went beyond what today many call “environmental justice,” which is focused only on racial, class, and gender lines within society. But I never went so far as to denounce him as a racist or white supremacist.

There is also talk of taking down statues of Muir, erasing his name from college buildings, the California landscape, and so forth. Why did anyone put up a statue of Muir in the first place? Did they mean that here is a human being without moral blemish? There are no such people in the world. Move those statues to the basement or tear them down — it’s okay with me. But why must we scrub this man from our list of good people, and in the process risk overlooking the good that was in him and in his valuing of wilderness, natural beauty, and the rights of all “God’s peoples” to enjoy their lives in the outdoors, in the midst of or away from cities, crowds, and bulldozers?

Muir has been dead for more than a century, but if he could speak from the grave, I can easily imagine him agreeing that systemic racism is bad and should be repudiated, for he never published a word in support of black slavery, racial segregation, the Confederacy, forced sterilization of minorities, or genocidal policies toward Native Americans.

Late in his life Muir acquired a few friends who were rich developers, like E. H. Harriman, the New York railroad magnate, but his preferred circle of friends did not include Frederick Henry Osborn, another New Yorker who was a blue-blooded paleontologist and could fairly be called a white supremacist. By far Muir’s greatest moral failings came, in my view, when, influenced by those close friendships, he soft-pedaled his more radical ideas about justice. He failed to address how those ideas should be applied outside the national parks wherever people sought a living and economic development. At home he was an agriculturalist, but he never got around to explaining what it meant to be an environmentally just farmer, nor to define environmental ethics for miners, lumbermen, engineers, irrigators, or railroad men. Thus, he left a lot for later generations to figure out.

Muir was not, by the way, the founder of the Sierra Club — a group of professors at Berkeley were the main organizers. Reluctantly, he agreed to serve as president but was often negligent in his duties. The Club was not that important to him. He even made powerful enemies among its members, especially over his opposition to dam building within Yosemite National Park. If today’s Club wants to distance itself from some things Muir said, then let it do so, but without obscuring or repudiating the core of what he stood for. Above all they should not tar him with “white supremacist” labels that represent mere “guilt by association.”

After several years of digging into his life, I could find no evidence that Muir was an out-and-out “racist” (if we mean that he believed in the innate superiority of his own race over others). True, he occasionally made unflattering remarks about this person or that, including a lot of white people. I could find only a few expressions of distaste for non-whites: a poor family of African Americans he met while tramping across Florida, a band of Indians he met on a trail near Yosemite Valley who begged him for whisky, all of whom he found disgusting mainly because they were dirty. But he was even more disgusted by a filthy white lad who was his fellow sheepherder in the Sierra. The rush-to-judgment reader should not seize on a single word or two he uttered in those encounters, ignoring their full context. In the second case, for instance, Muir went on to self-examine the repulsion he felt toward the Indians he met on the trail and then concluded with a call for interracial brotherhood! Clearly, he was ashamed by his initial reactions. But too often his critics don’t turn the page and see that fuller picture.

Muir showed far more sympathy for Native Americans as he got older and came to know the indigenous people of Alaska. But throughout his life he never called for excluding any group from the national parks. The notion that he was a lone, antisocial hiker out to claim exclusive possession of the parks is a common but false stereotype. Always he wanted to get people of all sorts in touch with the natural world. And by no means did he want the parks to become exclusive preserves for the privileged and wealthy. At the same time he insisted that humans were not the only form of life that mattered. The world had not been made only for Homo sapiens; it existed for all living creatures, including the bears and grasshoppers. Muir was a radical egalitarian in his environmental philosophy, and he should be remembered and honored for that.

See the California Sun's Q. and A. with Worster.

Donald E. Worster

The historian Donald E. Worster responds to the Sierra Club’s criticism of John Muir.

John Muir biographer: He was no white supremacist 

The California Sun reached out to leading outdoor experts in each of nine California regions and asked the same question: If you had to name your absolute top 5 not-to-be-missed day outings, what would they be?

Listed below are their picks, 45 in all, roughly north to south.

<p class="Block TextBlock -role--paragraph -align--left">
Jump to:<strong>
<a href="#far-north">Far north</a> | 
<a href="#northwest">Northwest</a> | 
<a href="#gold-country">Gold Country</a> | 
<a href="#central-valley">Central Valley</a> | 
<a href="#bay-area">Bay Area</a> | 
<a href="#eastern-sierra">Eastern Sierra</a> |
<a href="#central-coast">Central Coast</a> | 
<a href="#southland">Southland</a> | 
<a href="#san-diego">Southern border</a>
</strong>
</p>

<h2 style="line-height:120%" id="far-north" class="Block TextBlock -role--heading -align--left">Far north region, by John Soares</h2>

1. Sacramento River Bend Area, north of Red Bluff

This extensive stretch of BLM land encompasses volcanic foothills beside the Sacramento River. A network of trails and dirt roads offers several hiking options, plus the open country encourages cross-country rambling, especially in spring when green grasses and wildflowers cover the landscape.

Redding is blessed with an abundance of paths, many broad and paved. The ones near the Sundial Bridge may be too popular right now, but check out the Sacramento River Trail loop west of Caldwell Park. There are also several local parks with more paved paths. Bonus: Walk Anderson River Park just 10 miles south of Redding, which has an array of dirt roads and paved paths open to hikers.

3. Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, west of Redding

This Shasta County jewel is a favorite with locals and visitors alike. Whiskeytown Lake nestles below massive Shasta Bally, and numerous trails explore the lakeshore, creeks, and forests. The 2018 Carr Fire hit this area hard, but the lake and vistas are still beautiful, and you can see how the landscape is slowly recovering.

4. Castle Crags State Park, south of Dunsmuir

Granitic Castle Crags juts dramatically skyward along the west side of Interstate 5. Several paths for both beginning and experienced hikers run through the park, including the most spectacular: the Castle Dome Trail, which climbs steeply out of the park into the pure granite of Castle Crags Wilderness.

Wherever you go, you almost always have a view of the magnificent mountain. Ascend the Spring Hill Trail, a dirt road that ends at the top of a small volcano on the north side of Mount Shasta city. Also explore the Gateway Trail system off Everitt Memorial Highway just outside the town limits; it's a favorite with mountain bikers, but hikers are welcome on the dirt roads and newly constructed single-track paths. Finally, head out to the Lake Siskiyou Loop Trail, a broad and flat ramble that runs through forest and near the lakeshore, allowing excellent views of Mount Eddy and Mount Shasta.

John Soares is the author of "Day Hiking: Mount Shasta, Lassen & Trinity Alps Regions" and "100 Classic Hikes: Northern California and Hike the Parks: Redwood National & State Parks." Find trail details and book purchasing info at his website.

<h2 style="line-height:120%" id="northwest" class="Block TextBlock -role--heading -align--left">Northwest, by Richard Stenger</h2>

1. Stout Grove, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park

Not the tallest or biggest, but this stand of coastal redwoods on an overlooked gravel road along the Wild & Scenic Smith River, California’s most pristine waterway, delivers one of the most pristine forest experiences. The trees soar in aesthetically pleasing straight lines into the sky from a quiet, remote, and lush alluvial flat.

2. Fern Canyon, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

Hike in from the James Irvine Trail for classic, giant old-growth redwoods, some for the record books, which give way to Sitka Spruce and octopus trees as the path approaches the coast. It then bottoms out into Fern Canyon, an 80-foot chasm draped in rare fronds and gentle waterfall ribbons and floored by a seasonal creek, perfect for easy wading and gentle bank scrambling, made easier in the summer by wooden footbridges. Featured in "Jurassic Park 2," the canyon represents one of the oldest surviving ecosystems on the planet.

This wild beachfront so awed the great Catholic theologian Thomas Merton that he vowed to build a monastery here. Alas, it would be his final retreat before his untimely death. He did manage to write a short book about his adventures, typed up by helpful nuns who live in nearby Whitethorn. To retrace his steps and sample the longest stretch of undeveloped coast in California, aim for Needle Point and Whale Gulch.

The final stop for one of the world’s most famous authors is found in a tract of farmland and forest in the Valley of the Moon. Nearby, his grand venture, the Wolf House, burned to the ground in 1913 before he could move in. However, the modest cottage where he penned many great words remains on his former Glen Ellen estate, along with nature trails, meadow walks, and a circular stone pig palace where his prized farm animals lived high on the hog.

5. Palisades Trail, Robert Louis Stevenson State Park

This day-hike loop to the precipitous edge of Napa Valley represents one of the finest hikes in wine country, a rural jaunt that closely resembles the Provence region in the south of France. "Jean de Florette" could have been filmed here, with its stark rock formations, solitude, darting hares, scraggly trees, and rugged mountain terrain. Bring ample water, choice provisions, a shade hat, and conditioned legs.

Richard Stenger, a travel writer and media guru based in Eureka, serves as chief marketing ranger for RedwoodCoastParks.com and principal of StengerMedia.com.

<h2 style="line-height:120%" id="gold-country" class="Block TextBlock -role--heading -align--left">Gold Country, by Mary West</h2>

1. The Mist Trail to Half Dome, Yosemite National Park

This popular trail — 14 miles out and back — begins near Happy Isles on the valley floor. Cross a footbridge and look up at Vernal Fall, a sight to see on the Merced River. Hike past Emerald Pool and make your way to the top of Nevada Falls. From here you are on level ground before you reach the sub dome and Half Dome’s cables. Climb the last 400 feet (permit required) and enjoy this majestic place as long as you dare before making the trip downhill, hopefully before dark.

2. Quarry Road Trail, Auburn State Recreation Area

Straddling both Placer and El Dorado counties, this area runs 40 miles along the north and middle forks of the American River. At the border between the two counties near Auburn is the confluence of the two rivers. On the El Dorado County side is Quarry Road Trail, my favorite hike, stretching 10 miles along the river. Hiking is just the beginning here — opportunities for mountain biking, river rafting, trail running, and rock climbing abound.

3. Eagle Falls and Eagle Lake, Desolation Wilderness

This 4-mile hike at Lake Tahoe is a must-do. Start on the east side of Highway 89. Enjoy the view of Emerald Bay. A lovely stone bridge sits under the highway over a shallow pool. As the water pours into the pool it spills over the edge into Lake Tahoe. Back across the highway to the Eagle Falls Trail you climb stone steps up to an amazing view of the bay. Continue back to Eagle Lake surrounded by mountains and enjoy.

This destination near Truckee is the place to go to escape the heat of the Sacramento Valley in summer. The wildflower gardens are lush, and patches of snow can still be found in mid-July. The Pacific Crest Trail can be accessed here; the 5-mile moderate hike is everything I love about hiking.

5. Sierra Buttes Lookout Tower, Sierra County

Built by the Forest Service in 1915, this former lookout tower now offers hikers some of the most spectacular views in the northern Sierra. A 6-mile out-and-back trail to the tower is mostly uphill. A short but flat forested area will help you catch your breath before heading up the steeper part of the trail and up the stairs to the lookout tower, with the 360-degree panoramic views of lakes, mountains, and the Sacramento Valley.

Mary West is the author of the "Day Hiker: Gold Country Trail Guide" series.

<h2 style="line-height:120%" id="central-valley" class="Block TextBlock -role--heading -align--left">Central Valley, by Josh McNair</h2>

Red Rock Canyon State Park, in Kern County, features lots of unique rock formations in stunning red hues. The park has miles of hiking trails and a campground, and is a great place to go for wildflowers in the spring.

This region is home to many of the largest trees in the world, and it is a fantastic place to explore with both General Grant and General Sherman groves. Also, the hike to Moro Rock will get the blood pumping and has some great views.

The Kern River is a popular destination for white water rafting in Southern California. It has many different water classes, from easy to difficult, and there are even options for multi-day adventures.

South of Yosemite National Park, Bass Lake is a destination itself with lots of outdoor activities like hiking, fishing, and kayaking. The 5-mile long lake is situated in a forested area and is excellent for a weekend of relaxation or adventure.

Phantom Falls is a nice hike in Butte County, near Chico, that features a stunning, seasonal waterfall. While it is only really flowing in the spring, it is a sight to see as it cascades down into a vast valley. Plus, you can head into Chico and go to Sierra Nevada Brewery after the hike.

Josh McNair is the author of the excellent travel website California Through My Lens.

<h2 style="line-height:120%" id="bay-area" class="Block TextBlock -role--heading -align--left">Bay Area, by Jane Huber</h2>

This cape just north of San Francisco is a wonderland of sandy beaches and cool forested trails. There are loads of hiking possibilities, from popular destinations like Tomales Point and Bear Valley to lesser-known trailheads including Muddy Hollow and Sky.

Folks have been flocking to this area in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains for more than 100 years, and for good reason. You can spend hours meandering through the quiet redwood forest on trails short or long. The park headquarters area can get crowded, so arrive in the morning or consider accessing Big Basin from the Rancho del Oso trailhead on the coast north of Santa Cruz.

3. Batteries to Bluffs Trail, San Francisco

The city of San Francisco is home to quite a few options for outdoor recreation, from placid Golden Gate Park to hilly open spaces laced with paths. The Presidio’s Batteries to Bluffs Trail hugs the city’s western coastline and offers outstanding views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the ocean.

Mount Diablo State Park is visible throughout the Bay Area, with a 3,848-foot peak beckoning visitors to explore nearly 20,000 acres of parkland. During summer months it is hot on Diablo, so come prepared with lots of water and get an early start. Mary Bowerman Trail, which loops around the summit on a path less than a mile long, is a great introduction to the mountain.

This Santa Clara County park sprawls over 10,000 acres on the slopes of Mount Hamilton, east of Silicon Valley. There are 51 miles of trails, many of which climb to grassy ridgelines, offering exceptional views. Dogs who like to hike: bring your humans (don’t forget their leash). Looking for a quick weekend getaway? Grant has 37 campsites, many shaded by old oaks.

Jane Huber is the creator of Bay Area Hiker, with descriptions and photos of more than 275 hikes, and the author of “60 Hikes within 60 Miles: San Francisco.”

<h2 style="line-height:120%" id="eastern-sierra" class="Block TextBlock -role--heading -align--left">Eastern Sierra, by Ann Marie Brown</h2>

Mike McPhate

Leading outdoor experts give their recommendations for not-to-be-missed destinations across the Golden State.

California’s ultimate outdoor bucket list: 45 natural wonders

The 1848 discovery of gold in the California hills unleashed a burst of industry that transformed the American West. It also coincided with the rise of photography. Among the entrepreneurs who spilled into California to separate the miners from their pay were photographers, who opened daguerreotype studios in most of the big cities.

Virtually every prospector that could scrape enough gold dust together wanted to get a picture taken to send to loved ones back home, said Jane Aspinwall, an art historian who has researched Gold Rush photography.  

“The people living in this time period knew that this was really an epic adventure, this once in a lifetime time.” she said. “They were really motivated to show their participation in it.”

The daguerreotypes that emerged from the Gold Rush represented the first time a major event in American history had been documented in depth by photography. 

The work includes views of dusty towns and mining claims along with poignant portraits of the prospectors themselves. Some posed in their finest clothes. Others chose to look the part, outfitted with tattered work attire, pickaxes, and pans, a gleam of determination in their eyes.

Last year, Aspinwall, who is a curator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, published a visual history of the Gold Rush, “Golden Prospects: California Gold Rush Daguerreotypes,” which showcases roughly 150 images culled from libraries, archives, and private collections. 

She shared a selection with the Sun, below.

Unknown photographer/The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

A new photographic collection captures the determination and style of the young men who ventured west in pursuit of wealth. 

Poignant daguerreotypes of California’s Gold Rush miners

San Francisco, it is often said, isn’t what it used to be. 

A city that once welcomed everyone has become an enclave of the filthy rich where the masons, blacksmiths, and bohemians of yesteryear have long since vanished. Yet tucked along Mission Street in the city’s southeast is one neighborhood that seems to have largely withstood the steamroller of gentrification.

It was the authenticity of the Excelsior District that drew the photographer Travis Jensen to the neighborhood in 2012. He spent the next seven years documenting what he calls San Francisco’s “last working class neighborhood.”

In a city of $3,500 rents, the Excelsior is a place of mom-and-pop businesses where kids play in the street and neighbors look out for one another, Jensen said. “It’s one giant family. White, black, Latino, Hawaiian, Filipino — it’s pretty beautiful, and it’s all family, and it’s all brotherhood, and it’s all about community.”

How does the Excelsior's blue-collar character persevere? Affordable housing policies and organized resistance to luxury development play a part. But so too does the bond between the neighborhood and families who bought back when homes cost $40,000, Jensen said. “Where do you go?” he said. “Because you just have to just pick up your whole life and everything you know, this neighborhood that means so much to you —  you go to Antioch or Santa Rosa?”

How much longer the community can withstand the forces reshaping San Francisco is anyone’s guess. In a 2014 SF Weekly story about changes roiling the neighborhood, a county supervisor said millionaires were not moving into the Excelsior. Then he reconsidered: “Okay, multi-millionaires are not moving into the Excelsior.” A few years after that, Business Insider declared it “one of the hottest housing markets in America.”

As for Jensen, a resident of San Francisco for 20 years, his life in the city became untenable on a photographer’s wage. He now lives in Boise. 

Jensen plans to publish a photography book of his work in collaboration with Rasta Dave, an Excelsior District local, by early 2021. See a selection of the images below, and more at his website.

Tucked along Mission Street in the city’s southeast, the Excelsior District is a place that appears to have largely withstood the steamroller of gentrification.

25 photos of San Francisco's last blue-collar neighborhood

 The Southern California coast is putting on one of nature's most dazzling nighttime shows right now. 

Known as bioluminescence, the phenomenon of glowing aqua-colored waves is caused by microscopic phytoplankton that emit light when agitated to scare off predators. The events are unpredictable, but occur every so often all along the Pacific coast, peaking usually in summer.

The blooms of plankton, called red tides, are associated with surges of nutrients in the water, from runoff for example. They appear reddish brown during the day. At night, the pyrotechnics begin.

This event, according to Michael Latz of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was first detected in March and is unusually large, extending from Baja California up to Los Angeles. Time may be running out to catch a show: red tides typically last anywhere from several days to a month or more. 

Below, the Sun curated a selection of some of the best photos captured along the coast in recent days by both professional and amateur photographers.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article inadvertently included a composite photo, meaning is was constructed from two or more images. It has been removed. 

The Southern California coast is putting on one of nature's most dazzling nighttime shows right now. 

11 stunning photos of strange neon waves off California's coast

Dotting a rugged slope in the Inyo Mountains are the remains of one of early California’s great engines of prosperity.  

During its 1870s heyday, Cerro Gordo, or "fat hill," was a rollicking silver town of 4,800 people and 1,600 mules, ruled by the six-gun. It generated so much trade that the Los Angeles News editorialized in 1872: Should the link between Los Angeles and the mining town be severed, "we would inevitably collapse."

Like dozens of California ghost towns whose fortunes rose and fell with the mines, Cerro Gordo was all but abandoned by the 1950s, its tin and wooden structures left to decay in the high desert wind. But now it's attracting dreamers once again. 

In 2018, a pair of entrepreneurs sank their life savings into the $1.4 million price for all 300 acres of Cerro Gordo. They've been at work ever since restoring the town and its 22 historic structures, among them a saloon, a church, a general store, and a small theater. 

One of the new owners, Brent Underwood, 32, said the goal is to open Cerro Gordo as a tourist destination, with overnight accommodations in original homes and hotel rooms along with on-site camping. Guests could be welcomed as soon as late summer, pandemic permitting.

In contrast to the look-but-don't-touch historical parks run by the state, such as Bodie, Cerro Gordo will be more immersive, Underwood said. "I'd love to create a place where people could come and really experience the history and stay in the exact buildings that the founder of the city stayed in." 

More than just a ghost town, Cerro Gordo is a magnificent perch. At 8,500 feet, it faces the plunging Death Valley from one side of the property and the soaring peaks of the southern Sierra Nevada from the other.

For quarantine-weary Californians, a place so removed from the ordinary could be a tempting escape.

Last year, Frank Foster, a photographer based in Victor Valley, made several trips out to Cerro Gordo for a photo project. He shared some of his images with the California Sun, below. 

Entrepreneurs are transforming Cerro Gordo in the mountains east of Owens Valley into a tourist destination with overnight accommodations.

California ghost town famous for riches and rowdiness prepares to welcome guests

On this day in 1906, the motion picture pioneer Harry Miles climbed aboard a San Francisco cable car and cranked a movie camera. The film by the Miles Brothers movie company captured a view of the thoroughfare — bustling with horse-drawn wagons, bicycles, and newfangled automobiles — as it would never be recorded again. That's because just four days later, San Francisco was devastated by the great earthquake of 1906.

Now Denis Shiryaev, a YouTuber known for restoring vintage videos, someone has boosted the resolution of “A Trip Down Market Street” to 4K using image-editing techniques that essentially fill in missing details to heighten the realism of grainy films. The result, embedded below, is remarkable. (For full effect, make sure the playback quality is set to 4K under the gear icon at the bottom right.)

Someone used machine-learning techniques to fill in missing details from classic footage of Market Street.

A 1906 film of San Francisco was "upscaled" to 4K and the result is stunning 

Every few weeks or so, the crackle of musket fire echoes across the golden fields of California as men clad in uniforms of the Union and Confederate armies face off in pretend battles.

Never mind that the state is located more than 150 years and a world away from the main theaters of the conflict: Many Californians, it turns out, are really into the Civil War. About half a dozen groups hold roughly 20 mock battles a year from Half Moon Bay to Huntington Beach and beyond. 

It was the incongruity of it all that caught the eye of Oakland photographer Brandon Tauszik, who spent three years immersed in the world of Civil War reenactments in Northern and Central California. Visually, the settings introduce jarring anachronisms — such as redwoods and sequoias — in a hobby that prizes fidelity to the 1860s South. Politically, Tauszik said, the reenactments tend to be conservative spaces in one of America's bluest states.

"Mostly it's below the surface," he said of the ideological undertone, "but it's just below the surface."

Participants say they are drawn to the events for several reasons — camaraderie, love of history, sartorial escapism — but for many, personal political views play a role. Walk through the parking lot at a Civil War reenactment and find any number of bumpers plastered with NRA, Maga, and "Don't Tread on Me" messages. 

Shawnee Iacono, a Confederate reenactor who grew up in the Central Valley, said she gravitated to the hobby through her love of the South as expressed in romantic depictions such as "Gone With the Wind." Civil War reenactments aim to restore "the truth," Iacono said. For example, she explained, while differences over slavery certainly factored into the war, the average Confederate soldier yearned only for states' rights.

Asked if some reenactors hold genuine admiration for the Confederacy, Iacono balked: "OK, well, when you say Confederacy, you have to give it, I mean, pro-Southern? Because all of this drama's been over a flag."

Reenactment groups call what they do "living history," with a mission to educate the public. But professional historians trace their origins to efforts that began long after the war to valorize the Confederate cause. Crucial to that project has been the erasure of slavery from the story, said James Campbell, a professor of American history at Stanford. 

"And it's far easier to do that," he said, "if you imagine soldiers as embodying a shared heroism, and both sides fighting for valid principles, as opposed to imagining that one side was fighting in defense of the right of human beings to own other human beings." 

But why should reenactment culture resonate with Californians? It's perplexing, Campbell said. But it's not just California. Civil War reenactments are held in places as far flung as Hawaii and England. "It's become a kind of creation story that Americans tell about themselves," Campbell said. "It's a period of time that has been cast in this sepia glow."

Tauszik, the photographer, cited an additional motivation: reenactments seem like good fun. The thrill of living inside a 19th-century tintype has an appeal all of its own, drawing families and spectators. Participants typically camp out under the stars. "It's very romantic," Tauszik said. "There are campfires. The women stay behind during the battles and cook beans and make bread."

The beauty and elaborate detail of the gatherings shine through the photography of Tauszik, who aimed to portray his subjects without judgment or irony. The result, said Campbell, who wrote an accompanying essay with the project, are images that invite "not ridicule but curiosity about people whose commitments might differ from our own."

Tauszik shared some of his photographs with the California Sun. See a selection, below, and more from his project, "Pale Blue Dress," here. 

Many Californians, it turns out, are really into the Civil War.

In California, Civil War reenactors brandish the Southern cause

We’ve been through shutdowns like this before. 

In September of 1918, a global flu pandemic made entry into California. As with the coronavirus, the first cases were detected among travelers — a man who had returned to San Francisco from a trip to Chicago and seamen aboard a vessel that arrived to the harbor in Los Angeles.

What happened over the fall and winter will sound familiar. City officials imposed “stay at home” orders and forced the closure of schools and places of “public amusement.” Court proceedings and church services moved outdoors. Tents, hotels, and large halls served as makeshift hospitals. Panic was everywhere.

As the death toll climbed, measures became more severe, with forced quarantines and mandatory mask ordinances. Cops arrested so-called “mask slackers” by the hundreds.

By the time the pandemic subsided in 1920, at least 50 million people had died worldwide. More than 600,000 of those were Americans, far more than who died in World War I.

In California, outcomes appeared to vary according to the quickness and aggressiveness of the response in the state’s largest cities. Los Angeles lost more than 2,700 souls. The toll in Oakland was about 1,400. In San Francisco, which researchers say acted more slowly, the death rate was substantially higher, leaving more than 3,000 people dead.

Below is a visual look back at the way California responded to the 1918 influenza pandemic, with images retrieved from the digital archives of libraries, museums, and other sources.