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The Trail Companion
Winter 2001
A Brief History of Bay Area Parks and Open
Spaces
Part 2. From the 1960s through the Present
Day
...continued.
Despite state
rejection of a Bay Area-wide open space agency, the
concept proved popular, taking on new life at a
subregional level. Already the existing East Bay
Regional Park District had grown again, with most of
Contra Costa County joining the district in 1964, and
the Pleasanton area followed suit in 1966. In 1970
residents of the expanded district formed a Citizens
Committee for More Parklands, which proposed and won
a property tax increase to fund new acquisitions. The
district responded with a master plan for expansion
at the end of 1973, under which it acquired 20,000
acres and created thirteen new regional parks over
the next five years, bringing its total holdings to
50,000 acres of parkland. Elsewhere, county
governments and voter-approved initiatives
established new regional park districts on the model
of the older one. Sonoma County approved a long-range
plan for thirty-two parks in 1964, and created a
regional park department to implement the plan in
1967. San Mateo County adopted a plan for a scenic
corridor along Skyline Boulevard featuring
architectural controls, vista points and scenic
easements in 1964, prefiguring today's chain of parks
and open space along the same corridor. 1972 marked
the creation of both the Marin County Open Space
District and northwestern Santa Clara County's
Midpeninsula Regional Park District (now the
Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District). The scope
of the latter was extended when southern San Mateo
County voted to join it in 1976. The new district's
stated mission was "to acquire and preserve a
regional greenbelt of open space land in perpetuity;
protect and restore the natural environment; and
provide opportunities for ecologically sensitive
public enjoyment and education." By 1983 twenty
preserves covering 15,000 acres in both counties had
been acquired, which together with city and county
parks formed a greenbelt nine miles long.
New Parks
As comprehensive planning for bayland and parkland
preservation went forward, the piecemeal
establishment of additional parks characteristic of
previous decades had also continued. In September,
1961 Butano forest in San Mateo County was designated
a state park, capping a thirty year effort to
preserve it. A year later, on September 13, 1962,
President Kennedy signed a Congressional bill
creating the Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin
County, a measure endorsed by ABAG over the
opposition of the Marin County Board of Supervisors.
In December of the same year the Federal government
turned over Angel Island to the state for use as a
state park. A more modest addition to area parks was
the John Muir National Historical Site in August,
1964. On the coast, the James V. Fitzgerald Marine
Reserve was established by San Mateo County in 1969.
In spring of 1970 various groups in San Francisco and
Marin Counties joined together to form People for a
Golden Gate National Recreation Area to urge
including areas on both sides of the bay entrance in
a new federal preserve. Their drive paid off on
October 27, 1972 in a federal act preserving 25,000
acres of previously unprotected land and water as the
Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Its extent was
ultimately increased to 73,690 acres, including
Alcatraz Island, the Marin Headlands, Fort Funston,
Fort Mason, Fort Point National Historic Site, Muir
Woods National Monument, and (later) the Presidio of
San Francisco.
In the early 1970s San
Mateo County voters approved further support to its
park system in a "Charter for Parks," establishing a
county-wide special tax for park purposes. Similarly,
Santa Clara County voters passed measures in 1972 and
1978 providing more than $45,000,000 for park
acquisition through 1982. Parks established in the
two counties during the decade included San Mateo
County's Pescadero Creek Park in 1971, and Santa
Clara County's J. D. Grant Park (9,529 acres),
Almaden Quicksilver Park (3,750 acres), and Sanborn
Skyline Park (3,154 acres).
Other new parks
created in the 1970s included Fort Point National
Historical Site and the Eugene O'Neill National
Historical Site, established by the federal
government in October, 1970 and October, 1976,
respectively, and Año Nuevo State Reserve,
purchased by the state in 1971. 1973 was notable for
Stanford University setting aside some of its land as
the 1,190-acre Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve for
biological studies and research in population
biology, ecology, plant physiology, and
anthropology.
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