Four Women You Should Know in California State Parks History | Cal Parks
Published: March 14, 2024

March is Women’s History Month! This month we’re celebrating some of the women who have made an impact on our state parks. This is a very small snapshot of the innumerable women who have impacted California's state parks. We'd also like to celebrate the Indigenous women, women of color, and trans and queer women who likely shaped the histories of our state parks, but whose names, stories, and impact have been overlooked by historical records.

Carol Nelson

Carol Nelson, age 32, at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area on August 10, 1983. She had just become the first woman and first African American California State Park Superintendent the prior year. Courtesy of California State Parks.

Carol Nelson 

Candlestick Point State Recreation Area; Marin County and San Mateo County Coastal State Parks 

Throughout her life, Carol Nelson showed a deep commitment to the preservation of public land and spent much of her career in service to it. In 1975, Nelson became the first Black woman to serve as a California State Parks ranger. In 1982, she set another standard by becoming both the first woman and the first African American to serve as a California State Parks Superintendent at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. She went above and beyond to create innovative programs to increase access and bring more people into state parks. She helped create the “Willie’s Kids” program, bringing children from urban environments to experience parks. She also created FamCamp, with help from California State Parks and California State Parks Foundation, a program that lives on today, giving thousands of students and their families equipment and access to state parks who might not otherwise be able to do so. She was a true trailblazer and champion for opening up California’s state parks to more people — work we are proud to carry on today. 

 

Julia Morgan

Julia Morgan, age 61, fishing on May 4, 1933. Julia was a very private person, so this photo is a fun insight into what her personality might have been like. Courtesy of California State Parks.

Julia Morgan 

Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument 

Julia Morgan, the architect of the world-famous Hearst Castle, began her career with a proliferation of firsts. Born in the 1870s, Morgan was the only woman to earn a civil engineering degree in her class at UC Berkeley, the first woman architect to graduate L’Ecole de Beaux Arts, and the first woman to receive a California State Architectural License. She went on to lead a very successful professional life, working on more than 700 buildings, including several well-known California monuments. Morgan’s work can be seen in five state parks up and down the California coast — Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Angel Island State Park, Alisomar State Beach, Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument, and Santa Monica State Beach. Her work on Hearst Castle is perhaps her best known, and she spent almost three decades working with William Randolph Hearst to perfect the sprawling, opulent, Renaissance-style mansion, now home to a state historic park. 

 

Harriet Petey

Petey Weaver, age 38, leading an audience in singing "Auld Lang Syne" at the rededication of Andrew P. Hill Memorial Fountain at Big Basin Redwoods State Park on July 14, 1946. Courtesy of California State Parks.

Petey Weaver

Big Basin Redwoods State Park

Back in 1929, Harriet (Petey) Weaver was the first woman to work as a California State Parks ranger. Weaver — who got the nickname Petey from being “PDQ,” pretty darn quick as a girl — raced ahead and paved the way for future women in parks. Long before women were allowed to officially hold the title, Weaver worked alongside park rangers at Big Basin Redwoods State Park carrying out the duties of a park ranger — helping others enjoy the wonders of the redwoods while they vacationed at the park. She loved the Big Basin and spent her every summer off as a full-time schoolteacher working there. In 1950, Weaver retired from her position, writing in an autobiographical article, “After twelve months a year at work for the past twenty, the time seemed right to return to my writing and to take a vacation of my own. And so I did, although with understandable yearnings; yet also with loads of happy memories that were to bring joy the rest of my life.” It would be 22 years before the next woman, Paula Peterson, was officially classified as a California State Parks ranger. 

 

Nisene Marks

Aptos Creek flows through The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. We tried, but couldn't locate any photos of Nisene Marks herself.

Nisene Marks  

The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park

If you’ve ever been through Santa Cruz, you may have wondered how this park got its unique name. Nisene Marks was a woman who moved to the Monterey Bay area in 1890, alongside other colonists who settled in the homelands of the Muwekme Ohlone Tribe. Her husband died young, and she raised her three children alone, running an egg business to support the family. Her business was successful enough to allow her to invest in the land that is now the state park, as well as some property that later contributed to Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. After she died, her children donated the land with the promise that it would forever be named after their mother. Even today, very few state, national, and regional parks are named after women. The Forest of Nisene Marks joins Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Emma Wood State Beach, McLaughlin Eastshore State Park State Seashore, and Zmudowski State Beach as some of the California state parks named in honor of women. For reference, only eight out of 429 National Parks are named for women (1.8%), and 22% of parks in San Francisco are named after women. 

 

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