Shutdown closes Bay Area home of the father of the national parks'

"But then they turned away because the 325-acre park, with its Victorian mansion, historic pear orchard and visitor's center, had been closed to the public without notice. What's going on? a man in one car asked. When told that the park was closed because of the federal government shutdown, he said, I didn't expect a historic site to be closed. I feel bad. He had driven an hour from Santa Clara to Martinez, having heard that a famous American once lived there."

"That eminent figure is Muir, the Scottish-born naturalist who founded the Sierra Club and hosted President Theodore Roosevelt on a camping trip in Yosemite in 1903. Muir is called the father of the national parks, in part because the writing he did in his Martinez study persuaded Americans to see their wilderness areas as treasures to preserve, not as resources to be exploited."

"But since Oct. 1, Muir's home has been shuttered, a closure Jonathan Jarvis, the director of the park service from 2009 to 2017, and Mark Rose, Sierra Nevada and clean air senior program manager of National Parks Conservation Association, said was emblematic of the murky future of the National Park Service."

Visitors arrived at the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez but were turned away because the 325-acre park, including the Victorian mansion, pear orchard and visitor center, had been closed without notice. The closure began Oct. 1 and reflects uncertainties facing the National Park Service. John Muir, the Scottish-born naturalist who founded the Sierra Club and influenced national park conservation, is associated with the site. Popular Bay Area parks such as Alcatraz, Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore remain open, though some larger open-air parks provide only bare-bones services. Three smaller historic parks in Contra Costa County have been closed.

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