The archaeology of maritime cultural landscapes offers insights into cultural traditions, social transitions, and cultural relationships that reach beyond the narrow confines of waterfronts and beach strands and helps construct meaningful social histories. The long shore of California is not limited to the land that borders the Pacific Ocean, but includes the navigable waters that reach inland, the off-shore islands, and the riverways flow to the sea. Authors investigate the multifaceted character of maritime landscapes and maritime oriented communities in California’s equally diverse cultural landscape; viewed through an archaeological lens, and emphasizing social behavior and community as material culture in order to reveal intersections and commonalities.
In 1980 and 1981, the Cultural Resource Management Unit of the Department of Parks and Recreation undertook investigations of the cultural resources of the area northwest of Gerstle Cove. The research was part of the Department's planning for construction of a parking lot, fish cleaning station, and shower facility on a recorded Native American habitation site. Concern for the archeological, historical, and ethnographical resources of the affected area, and of the entire park unit, generated a multi-disciplinary study of those resources by state archeologists, a state historian, and a Native American consultant. Historical research began with review of earlier accounts of the history of Salt Point State Park. The present report elaborates on some topics introduced in the earlier works, without referring to others (e.g., shipwrecks). This report also expands coverage to the entire region of the north Sonoma coast. Salt Point and Fisk's Mill (both now included within Salt Point State Park) were not isolated, independent settlements, but were units of a larger north coast community that included the other coastal shipping points of Fort Ross, Timber Cove, and Stewart's Point, and the ridge settlements of Plantation and Seaview (Henry's Hotel). The people of the community were bound by ties of social, economic, and commercial interdependence that must be explained in any history of Salt Point State Park. An expanded history of the area should also be useful to the Department in case of future land acquisition. Although an arbitrary cut-off date, 1890 is a convenient stopping place for this report, since it is well past the most active period of Salt Point's history -- the years between 1853 and 1876 when the quarry and mills were active.--Paraphrased from Introduction.
Emigration Canyon is well known in Utah as the route by which pioneers, in 1847, reached Great Salt Lake Valley to establish the state's first lasting Euro-American settlements. Before and after 1847 the canyon had an interesting history, which included the Donner-Reed party, the Pony Express and Overland Stage, mining and sheep herding, a narrow-gauge railroad, a major resort, a brewery, and the transformation of recreation areas and cabin sites into year-round residential neighborhoods. This well-illustrated, detailed history tells the story of a unique place, but its counterparts can be found across the West and America wherever the development of wild and scenic areas has been shaped by the growth and needs of neighboring cities. In this second edition, new illustrations and maps, new information and stories, a significantly expanded chapter on the Emigration Canyon Railroad, and a new chapter on the modern history, bring to life the story of a place and its people.
Conservation and development of natural resources are issues of critical importance throughout the world. These issues have been matters of public concern in Texas since legislators first adopted the state-sponsored geological survey as a means of extending government funds to private citizens who would help develop and advertise the mineral and agricultural wealth of Texas. Walter Keene Ferguson examines the relation of politics to geological exploration during a critical period in Texas history—the first half-century of statehood. Although Texas shared its frontier experience with many other areas, it could not rely on federal aid in the form of land grants because the state government controlled the destiny of the public domain at all times. Acrimonious debate between farmers and urbanites of East Texas and pioneer ranchers of arid West Texas rendered the disposition of public lands even more difficult. As tools for developing and advertising resources, the geological and agricultural surveys of 1858 and 1867 fulfilled the demands of expectant capitalism made by politicians, speculators, and railroad entrepreneurs. Reconnaissance geologists publicized the wealth of Texas. Drought in 1886 and popular agitation against squandering of state land caused the emergence of a new concept of the geological survey as an instrument of land reform and public assistance. Lobbying by reformers and scientific organizations led to the formation of the Dumble Survey in 1888 and the University of Texas Mineral Survey in 1901. Stratigraphic analysis of the “individualities” of Texas geology helped the state realize its full economic potential and led to legislation to protect public mineral land from exploitation. The youthful oil industry finally removed geological exploration from the political arena. As part of the University, a permanent Bureau of Economic Geology was established in 1909 to extend the benefits of scientific research to private citizens and state organizations on a nonpartisan basis. Ferguson’s analysis of geological surveys in Texas contributes to an understanding not only of the geology and history of the state but of the urgent problem of evaluating the natural resources of underdeveloped regions.
