Before the Gold Rush changed California forever, and before California became a state, Fort Ross was a windswept outpost where Russian settlers and fur traders built a rugged community along the Sonoma Coast from 1812 to 1841.
On Thursday, a Bay Area environmental group announced the latest chapter at the venerable landscape: a $15 million deal to purchase 1,624 acres of redwoods and picturesque coastal meadows adjacent to what is now Fort Ross State Historic Park, expanding the protected lands around the site by 50%.
The redwoods property, larger than Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, includes 3.2 miles along Highway 1 that could have been developed into luxury homes.
Every year thousands of tourists, schoolchildren and others visit the historic wooden buildings at Fort Ross, and the purchase by the non-profit group Save the Redwoods League from Soper Wheeler timber company guarantees that rural part of the North Bay coast will remain as scenic open space, looking for generations to come much the same as it did 200 years ago.
“This property feels like the very best of California,” said Sam Hodder, president of Save the Redwoods League. “It’s true California coastline. It has spectacular redwood groves, sweeping vistas of the Pacific shoreline, and classic coastal bluffs with fingers of redwood forests coming up the drainages. It is just a stunning landscape.”
Save the Redwoods League, founded in 1918, has protected more than 220,000 acres of redwood and sequoia forests over the last century. By buying land and development rights from willing sellers, it has expanded 66 state, national and local parks around California, including Redwood National Park and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, along with Big Basin, Calaveras Big Trees, Del Norte, Emerald Bay, Grizzly Creek, Año Nuevo, Henry Cowell, Prairie Creek, Pfeiffer Big Sur, Jedediah Smith and other landmark state parks.
In this photo taken Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, Jim Maas, right, and his grandsons, Anthony, 13, center, and Robert, 11, Clevenger, inspect a canon in front of the rebuilt Russian Orthodox church at the Fort Ross Historic State Park, located 80 miles north of San Francisco, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
In 1989, the league purchased 2,157 acres adjacent to Fort Ross and sold it to California’s state parks department below the appraised price, expanding Fort Ross state park to 3,393 acres.
Hodder said the organization has been in discussion with state parks officials, along with Sonoma County parks officials, about selling the property in the coming years to allow public access and expanded recreation along the California Coastal Trail through the area.
The administrations of former Gov Jerry Brown and Gov. Gavin Newsom have resisted expanding the state parks system, citing budget constraints. Their two administrations have established only one new state park since 2009, Dos Rios State Park, which opened in June, and is 8 miles west of Modesto near the confluence of the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers.
“We’re trying to map out the strongest possible conservation outcome,” Hodder said of the newly purchased Sonoma Coast property. “It would be a terrific addition to Fort …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
