Redwoods National and State Parks, Crescent City, California and Muir Woods, National Monument, Mill Valley, California

Let’s be frank. Words and photos cannot adequately capture some of the wondrous parks in our land. Redwoods NP and Muir Woods NM fall into this category. These are several of the Crown Jewels of the NPS. To truly cover these two NPS site and the other natural wonders of the California, we also need to look at John Muir, the grand spirit of the High Sierras. First, these majestic parks, the redwoods, then Muir.

Tall trees at Redwoods NP (Photo by Hunner)

At Redwoods National and State Parks on the Pacific coast in northern California, the tallest living things in the world grow. They reach upwards of 370 feet, and their trunks are fifteen feet in diameter. Some redwoods are as tall as the Statue of Liberty and taller than a thirty story building.  Standing at a base of a redwood with hands on the grooved bark and looking up, I marveled at the size and age of such trees. Most groves hold trees 500 to 700 years old with some older than 2,000 years. These ancient beings are not only the tallest living things on the planet, but some of the oldest.

Redwoods thrive along the coastal mountains of northern California. Fog in the summer brings nourishing moisture, and the lack of winter frost ensures a year round growing season. Their bark is fire resistant and repels harmful bugs. At the Redwoods Parks, I spent hours hiking along the Brown Creek, Rhododendron, and South Fork Trails. As I first wandered and gazed up at these ancient groves, I kept stumbling on the exposed roots. One ranger told me that the root system is their only weakness. Since these tall trees have no tap root and are shallow, not much deeper than eight to ten feet, they are prone to winds which can knock them over. The roots do spread out up to 100 feet, and cover the grove’s floor. I made slow progress as I looked up at the giants and glanced down at their roots. In truth, I stumbled a lot under the red and green canopy of the forest.

A downed redwood with exposed shallow root system (Photo by Hunner)

The Redwoods Parks is a joint venture between the NPS and California State Parks. For forty miles of coastline along the Pacific, the state and national parks preserve these wondrous trees. Preservation started over 100 years ago as alarms grew about the decimation of the redwood groves by logging.

In 1918, the Save-the-Redwoods League formed and began buying up threatened groves that are now Jedediah Smith, Del Norte Coast, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks. While the State Parks protected these tall trees, more old growth forests fell. A survey by the National Geographic Society in the 1960s revealed that of the “original 2 million acres of virgin redwoods, only 300,000 acres, or 15 percent, remained uncut, with 50,000 of those acres in state parks.”[1] This report galvanized many to seek further protection. The Sierra Club proposed a 90,000 acre park while those in the lumber industry countered with claiming that just the three existing state parks should become the national one. Congress compromised and established the 58,000 acre Redwood NP in 1968 to compliment the state parks.

Who worked to protect the redwoods? Of course, many people called for their preservation, perhaps none so influential as John Muir. Born in Dunbar, Scotland in 1838, he came with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. He studied botany, chemistry, and geology for several years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until he left to attend what he called “the University of the Wilderness.” In the late 1860s, he suffered an eye injury at a factory that temporarily blinded him. Once recovered, he walked 1,000 miles to Florida. Eventually, he arrived in San Francisco by boat in 1868 and wandered around the Golden State.

John Muir (from www.pbs.com)

When he got to Sierra Nevadas, he settled in the Yosemite Valley where he built humble shacks, worked at a saw mill, and herded sheep. And he fell into a deep love with the mountains, valleys, and meadows of the Sierra Nevadas.  About the high country, Muir wrote: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul.” Reveling in the spirituality that surrounded him in the mountains, Muir started writing to proclaim the benefits of going into the wilderness. 

To the revered writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, Muir invited him to join him: "Do not thus drift away with the mob, while the spirits of these rocks and waters hail after you, after long waiting as their kinsman and persuade you to closer communion.... I invite you to join me in a month's worship with Nature in the high temples of the great Sierra Crown beyond our holy Yosemite." His writings attracted Emerson and others to join and support the preservation of these holy places. 

Muir did not see Nature as a warehouse of natural resources, but as a storehouse of spiritual sources, and he actively sought to protect these temples of God. His main tool was his pen. He wrote about Nature for many different publications and helped get Congress to protect Yosemite in 1890. In 1892, along with a number of supporters, Muir founded the Sierra Club. He wanted to "do something for wildness and make the mountains glad." He was its president until his death in 1914, and the Sierra Club continues to be a strong voice for preservation.

His advocacy for nature, his cries for the protection of tall trees, alpine meadows, thundering waterfalls, mirror lakes, deep valleys, and high domes helped create the preservation movement that led to the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. We will come back to him in the next week’s posting about Yosemite. Let’s return to the glorious redwoods.

Tall trees (Photo by Hunner)

Muir Woods, in the hills north of the Golden Gate Bridge, also honors the redwoods.  A postage stamp sized park at 553 acres, its attraction is up, not on the ground. Two paved paths snake up the narrow valley on each side of the small Redwood Creek. Many people were at Muir Woods the day I was there, but they mainly walked on the main trails along the creek bed. I jumped off the Redwood Creek Trail and quickly left the crowds as I hiked up the Canopy View Trail. Ambling along, breathing in the rich oxygen given off by these consumers of carbon dioxide, I breathed in the scents of trees hundreds, even thousands of years old and communed with these ancient beings. Talking about the groves at Muir Woods, a friend once said: “Nature is so generous. It is eternity.” This is a magical place.

At a table near the visitors’ center, I met two summer employees -- Danielle Shinmoto and Brandon Burkes. These college students explained the acquisition of the park. In 1905, William and Elizabeth Thacher Kent paid $45,000 for this valley to save some of the last uncut stands of redwoods near San Francisco. After the 1906 earthquake, the North Coast Water Company tried to gain access to the redwoods for the wood to help rebuild San Francisco, but the Kents thwarted this by donating 295 acres to the federal government. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed their property a National Monument. The Kents insisted that the monument be named to honor John Muir’s conservation efforts.

Muir and William Kent
(From Wikipedia Commons)

Elizabeth Thacher Kent
(From wikipedia Commons)

How could the president set aside public lands? The recently signed Antiquities Act gave Teddy that power, and presidents to this day invoke this act to preserve unique pieces of our land and heritage. Roosevelt was a new type of politician, a “progressive” who reshaped our government.  

Through the 19th century, laissez-faire capitalism ruled, and natural resources were used without much thought about the future. After the turn of the 20th century, a new ethos emerged that centered around the policy of what would bring "the greatest good for the greatest number of people over the greatest period of time." This long view utilitarian approach to Nature transformed the previous hands-off, no regulation attitude. Throughout the 20th century, the utilitarian policy has ruled so that we now scientifically manage the resources on our public lands.

The history of the NPS reflects the web and flow of the struggle between the policies of laissez-faire versus the management of our natural resources on public lands. William Kent, being a Progressive member of the U.S. House of Representatives, supported the protection of our natural resources and introduced and helped pass the Organic Act of 1916 which created the National Park Service.

Without John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, Elizabeth and William Kent, and thousands of others, we might not have Muir Woods and Redwoods National Parks, we might not have Manzanar NHP and Independence Hall NHP, we might not even have the National Park Service. The deep yearning and dedication of many people to preserve our natural and historic sites have enriched our country. 

Without these people and these treasured places, we would be a lesser country.

Redwoods National Park was established by Congress and President Lyndon Johnson on Oct. 2, 1968. It now has 105,516 acres. In 1980, it was designated as a World Heritage Site. Muir Woods was proclaimed a National Monument on January 9, 1908 by President Teddy Roosevelt in the last months of his presidency. It now holds 553 acres. 

Redwoods and Rhododendrons at Redwoods NP (Photo by Hunner)

[1] Richard Rasp, Redwood: The Story Behind the Scenery(KC Publications, 1989),46-47.

Itinerary for East Coast and American South Road Trip through our National Parks

Here is the updated itinerary (As of October 9) for the Driven by History road trip.

As with the West Coast trip, this will probably change. As Paul Theroux says in Deep South, his latest book --  that’s the joy about road trips in this country—we can go where fancy takes us.

Week of July 31

Leave Las Cruces, New Mexico and drive on Route 66 National Historic Trail (NHT) from New Mexico towards Illinois

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site (NHS), Oklahoma

Oklahoma City National Memorial (NM), Oklahoma

Trail of Tears NHT, Oklahoma

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial at St. Louis, Missouri

Conner Prairie Interactive History Park, Indiana

Week of Aug 7

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park (NHP), Ohio

Hopewell Culture NHP, Ohio

Fort Necessity National Battlefield (NB) and Flight 93 NM, Pennsylvania

Women’s Rights NHP, New York

Week of Aug 14

Erie Canal, New York

Fort Stanwix NM, New York

Saratoga NHP, New York
Fort Ticonderoga, New York

Boston area—Lowell NHP, Adams NHP, Minute Men NHP, Salem Maritime NHS, Old Sturbridge
          Village, and Boston NHP, Massachusetts

Week of Aug 21

Plimouth Planation, Massachusetts

New Bedford Whaling NHP, Massachusetts
Mystic Seaport, Connecticut 

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island NM and September 11 Memorial, New York and New Jersey
Morristown NHP, New Jersey

Week of Aug 28

Valley Forge NHP, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP), Pennsylvania

Antietam National Battlefield (NB), Maryland

Week of Sept 4

Harper’s Ferry NHP, West Virginia

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal NHP, Maryland, West Virginia, and Washington D.C.

Monacacy NB, Maryland

Ford's Theater NHS, National Mall, and Frederick Douglass NHS, Washington D. C
Appomattox Court House NHP, Virginia

Week of Sept 11

Attend the Bridging Ages conference in Kalmar Sweden

Week of Sept 18

Copenhagen historic sites and visit Bornholm, Denmark

Week of Sept 25
Return from Denmark

Wilderness and Chancellorsville NMP, Virginia
Petersburg NB, Virginia

Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

Week of Oct 2
Fort Sumter NHS and Fort Moultrie, South Carolina
King's Mountain NHP, South Carolina/North Carolina
Andrew Johnson NHS, Tennessee

Week of Oct. 10

Great Smoky Mountains NP, Tennessee

Manhattan Project NHP at Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Tennessee Valley Authority, Tennessee

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Parks, Tennessee

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Georgia

Week of Oct 17

Andersonville NHS, Georgia

Tuskegee Airmen NHS, Alabama

Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights Trail, Alabama

Week of Oct 24

Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail and Parkway, Alabama and Mississippi

Vicksburg NMP, Mississippi

New Orleans Jazz NHP, Louisiana

I will present a lecture about Driving by History at University of Louisiana at Lafayette on Oct. 27 

Week of Oct 30

San Jacinto State Historic Park, Texas

Palo Alto Battlefield NHP, Texas

San Antonio Missions NHP, Texas

Fort Davis NHS, Texas

Return to Las Cruces, New Mexico

Manzanar National Historic Site, Independence, California

At 9 am in mid-June, the sun already blasted the valley in eastern California. I walked through the 90 degree heat to the visitors’ center as dust devils swirled across the desert. A Park ranger raised the flag as I went by, inviting me to go into one of the NPS’s sites of conscience. This harsh land reflects the harsh deeds done in time of a national emergency.

Japanese Americans arriving in Manzanar 1942 (From Visitor's Center exhibit)

Right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, some Japanese-American families at Long Beach, California received visits from the FBI. For teenager Mike Miyagashima, his father did not return from his fishing boat on December 7.[1] Mike did not see his father for 18 months. To legalize the detention without due legal process of American citizens, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. Eventually, over 100,000 people of Japanese descent were imprisoned in camps like Manzanar and in Minidoka NHS (which I wrote about on June 3rd). In short, Japanese-American citizens (Nisei) and Japanese immigrants (Issei) along the West Coast were rounded up in the spring of 1942 and incarcerated at “internment” camps. Surrounded by barbed wire and watch towers and patrolled by armed guards, these camps detained citizens and immigrants of Japanese ancestry because they looked like the enemy and their loyalty to the U.S. was doubted.

Anti-Japanese sentiment (Photo from exhibit at Visitors' Center) 

Manzanar was one of ten official War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps used to carry out this detention mandated by Executive Order 9066. The Order eliminated the constitutional protections of due process for citizens and violated the Bill of Rights. Two-thirds of the 120,000 persons of Japanese descent incarcerated in American concentration camps were American citizens, an act that reflected decades of anti-Japanese discrimination and then war time propaganda.

Map of the 10 WRA camps (Map from exhibit)

The stories of the spirit of the incarcerated Japanese-Americans has filled volumes. Imprisoned without court trials with their families torn apart, these mainly citizens lost their land and businesses as they had to quickly liquidate their estates  before and rushing to the train station with only two suitcases. Some Californian fortunes today arose from the bargain priced acquisitions of productive farms and prosperous businesses.

In the movie “Remembering Manzanar” shown at the Visitors’ Center, one Japanese-American said: “It was just a devastating day for all of us. I will never forget. Because I looked like the enemy, I was treated like one.” Another internee speculated that “It must have been difficult for teachers to talk about democracy.”

Japanese American escorted to train for removal to camps
(From exhibit)

Forlorn boys on way to camps
(From exhibit)

Despite the wrenching apart of families who then arrived at camps not yet completed, the internees created mini-cities with many amenities of a normal town. Active farms, retail shops, sports leagues, schools, and recreation halls filled the uncertainties of enforced detention. At both Minidoka and Manzanar, perhaps unbeknownst to each other, the internees created vibrant communities and responded to their prisons in various ways.

Some young men joined the U.S. Army. Six thousand Nisei served in the Military Intelligence Service translating Japanese communications. More than 10,000 more Nisei served in the 100^th Infantry Battalion and the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team of the Army which fought in some of the fiercest action in Europe as they slogged up the Italian mountains in 1944. The Japanese Americans in the  442^nd received more combat awards than any other unit of its size in the Army. In praise of the men who fought in the 442^nd, General George C. Marshall said: “They were superb!.... They took terrific casualties. They showed rare courage and tremendous fighting spirit. Not too much can be said of the performance of those battalions in Europe and everybody wanted them….”[2] Not enough can be said about these Japanese-Americans who fought for a country which had imprisoned them and their families.

Japanese Americans fighting in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in France late 1944.
(Photo from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/442_regimental_combat_team.jpg

Back at the homefront, Manzanar residents made the best of a bad situation. Four thousand people worked at the camp as clerks, chemists, nurses, doctors, accountants, teachers, fire fighter, switchboard operators, and camouflage net makers. At a building in the camp, five hundred people turned out thousands of camouflage nets a month to support the war effort.

Love also flourished as 188 couples married at Manzanar, and 541 babies were born there. For this small city, the 250 bed hospital was the largest one between Los Angeles and Reno. And like at Minidoka, people played the all American sport of baseball.

Playing baseball at Manzanar (From exhibit)

As usual, I arrived at Manzanar without an appointment. I asked to talk with the Chief Interpreter and heard that she was busy. I went through the excellent exhibit and watched the film at the visitors’ center and then asked again. A few minutes later, I met Alisa Lynch, who had broken off what she was doing to spend an hour with me. I’m richer for her time.

Alisa has been at Manzanr NHS for fourteen years, even before it officially opened. She spoke from her heart about the history as well as the continuing relationship that the place has with the people incarcerated here and their descendants. She told me that the site is “conserving history of people who don’t consider themselves part of history.” She talked about all the stories of the people who were here: “This is reminder that history is about real people. I carry 10,000 lives, 10,000 stories. We don’t think of government policies in terms of real people but you can walk here where they walked. We can’t totally recreate 10,000 people in 800 buildings, but history is always relevant.”

Alisa was especially proud of the exhibit on the No-No issue. The WRA had all the internees fill out a loyalty questionnaire. Question 27 asked if they would serve in the U.S. military, while question 28 asked if they would foreswear their allegiance to the Japanese emperor Hirohito. As Alisa noted, that’s like asking “how many of you have stopped beating your pet?” Many of the internees had no allegiance to Hirohito so could not foreswear something they never had. Others did not want to serve in the military of a country that violated their civil rights. So, those who answered “no” to both questions were called No-No Boys. Considered disloyal by the WRA, they were sent to the detention center at Tule Lake. At its height, Tule Lake held 18,000 internees guarded by  1,200 Military Police. Some No-Nos were deported to Japan during the war.  The staff and consultants at Manzanar used diaries, oral histories, and donated artifacts from incarcerated families to mount this exhibit on the No-Nos. To recognize the excellent research, interpretation, and installation of this exhibit, the Organization of American Historians in 2016 awarded Manzanar NHS and Park Rangers Patricia Biggs and Rose Masters the Stanton-Horton Award.

The award winning exhibit about the Loyalty Questionnaire (Photo by Hunner)

Manzanar closed on November 21, 1945. When they left, those incarcerated were given $20 and a bus ticket back to their home city. Because these internees had sold their houses,  businesses, farms in haste, many had no place to return to, and they spent decades rebuilding their lives. Today, an annual pilgrimage attended by up to 1,000 people keeps alive the memories of Manzanar.

In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act which paid former detainees $20,000. In signing the bill, President Ronald Reagan admitted that it was mistake to intern Japanese-Americans. He said: “When we violate that Constitution, we begin to unravel as a nation.” President George H.W. Bush’s apology letter sent to over 82,000 people contained the following: “A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase painful memories; neither can they fully convey our Nation’s resolve to rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals…. But we can take a clear stand for Justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans during World War II.”[3] The U.S. government has paid over $1,200,000,000 to the former detainees.

Manzanar’s auditorium (today’s visitors’ center) was built by camp residents. It held 1,280 seats and after the war, served as the Inyo County road maintenance shop for forty years. The NPS bought it from the county in 1996, and after a $3,500,000 renovation, the Manzanar NHS opened on April 24, 2004. Almost 100,000 people visited Manzanar last year.

As I left Manzanar and drove through the dry Owens Lake valley on my way to Death Valley, large dust devils buffeted my rig. This is a harsh land.

The Cemetery at Manzanr (Photo by Hunner)

[1] Interview with Mike Miyagashima by Jon Hunner at Las Cruces, NM.

[2] Accessed at the “the422.org” website, July 18, 2016.

[3] Letter from President George H.W. Bush reprinted in Park brochure.

Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front NHP, Richmond, California

Poster from Rosie the Riveter/World War II Homefront NHP

It’s not too often I get to meet people who helped shape history. Usually, I read about them, even study them, but with historic figures, they are usually longer with us. At the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front NHP in Richmond, California, I luckily met Marian Wynn and Kay Morrison who had just finished a shift talking to visitors about their World War II experiences. They fought on the home front in the most horrendous war in human history. Without people like them, we might not have defeated the totalitarianism of the 1940s. They helped create the world we live in. We’ll come back to Kay and Marian in a minute.

Granted, a lot of people won the war.  Of course, the soldiers, sailors, and air crews who attacked the Axis Powers had the main role. The Merchant Marines who supplied the global war machine served and sacrificed as well. The factories in the United States feed the war effort with tanks, planes, ships, helmets, rifles, boots, uniforms, food, and everything that the fighting forces needed. The U.S. factories and industries supplied not only our military, but the fighting men and women of our allies. This NPS site documents and celebrates the home front which played a vital role in winning World War II.

Before we get to the home front, here’s a brief review of the events that lead to the United States entering World War II. The flawed Versailles Peace Treaty which ended World War I unfairly punished Germany for a war that both sides hungered for. The resultant economic chaos in Germany in the 1920s led to the rise of Hitler and his Nazi Party which began to rearm their military in the 1930s. The Great Depression on the 1930s worsened people’s ability to resist extreme solutions like Fascism. Germany tested its new weapons and tactics as it aided Franco in the Spanish Civil War where it fine-tuned the lightning strikes of blitzkreig. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and consequently, Britain declared war on the Nazis. By 1940, Germany had invaded and occupied France, Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Netherlands, and parts of Poland.

Meantime, war had erupted in Asia even earlier. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, began ravaging China in 1937, and created the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere which targeted most of Asia. The flag of the Rising Sun spread around East Asia as the Japanese military aggressively expanded its power and captured new territories.

The United States, remembering the shocking devastation of Europe in World War I, remained neutral, although some in government, including President Franklin Roosevelt, saw the war clouds building. They prepared for war. As death and destruction engulfed Europe and Asia, Roosevelt sent war materiel abroad and even provided U.S. Navy escorts for English convoys. These destroyers engaged with German U-boats in the summer of 1941. The U.S. cut off Japan’s oil supply that fall, and with its fuel supply dwindling, Japan launched the surprise attack on Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941 which threw the U.S. into World War II.

The U.S. held a unique and enviable position. It had no common borders with its enemies, and its homeland was safe from serious attack. As a result, its factories remained undamaged and quickly converted to producing the many things needed by the Allied military. Ford automobile plants switched to making jeeps and trucks, factories like the Wadsworth Watch Company began to turn out gun, bomb, and compass parts, and textile mills spun 1,000,000,000 pounds of wool in 1942 to make G.I. uniforms. War work lifted the U.S. out of the Depression while helping to thwart the gains of the Axis powers in Europe, Russia, and Asia.

Workers lined up outside the Kaiser Employment Office at Shipyard #2 (Exhibit photo)

With 16,000,000 men in uniform, who worked in these factories and plants?  Women, of course. Before the war, 12,000,000 women held jobs outside the home. By 1944, that number rose to 18,000,000. Additionally, minorities who could not work in factories before the war found jobs there. By the end of the war, the United States produced more than ½ of the world’s industrial output, thanks to many people, but in particular, to women and minorities.[1]

Richmond, California, north of Oakland, played an essential role in the home front. Henry J. Kaiser built four of the fourteen Richmond shipyards. Part of the Kaiser company's success entailed prefabricating ship components off-site, which increased the efficiency and speed of production. Previously unskilled workers did the repetitive jobs like welding pipes together. This is where Marian and Kay came into the picture.

Kay Morrison and Marian Wynn ending their volunteer shift at the park (Photo by Hunner)

With just two weeks training as a welder, Kay Morrison worked the grave yard shift from January 1943 to August 1945. She told me: “We’re one of the reasons we won the war. We’re FDR’s secret weapon.”[2] Marion Wynn also welded pipes for the Victory ships which were sent to the docks for final assembly. Marion worked at Richmond for the last eleven months of the war and came to the shipyard after her brother died on the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion. Both of these women continue to volunteer at the park as well as do community events around the Bay area. Another woman worker, Marian Sousa, a draftsman at Shipyard #3, perhaps summed up their humble sentiments: “I specifically didn’t do anything great, but I participated in something that was great.”[3]

Kay pointing herself out in the group picture of pipe welders in 1945. (Photo by Hunner) 

The icon of Rosie the Riveter first popped up in a song released by the Four Vagabonds in early 1943: “She’s part of the assembly line/ She’s making history working for victory/Rosie the Riveter.” Norman Rockwell’s famous painting of Rosie appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943. Across the country, women started working at jobs previously held by men: welders, machinists, electricians, carpenters, mechanics, and at railyards, gas stations, on farms, in the military. Women even served as pilots and ferried planes across the country from factories to airfields before men flew them into combat.

Norman Rockwell's cover on the Saturday Evening Post (Exhibit poster)

To celebrate Rosie and all of the Homefront workers who helped win the war, the NPS has taken over the old Ford Assembly plant. During the war, this plant made more than 60,000 military vehicles including tanks, Army trucks, half-tracks, tank destroyers, personnel carriers, scout cars, amphibious tanks, and bomb lift trucks.[4]

Other parts of Richmond, especially the other shipyards, played vital roles in building the ships necessary to move troops and supplies for this world war. Richmond launched 747 ships between 1942 and 1945, the most of any shipyard in the country. The U.S. built a total 3,200 Liberty and Victory ships.  

Aerial photo of Shipyard #2 at Richmond. The Ford Assembly plant is at the upper right hand corner. (Exhibit photo) 

Shipyard No. 3 (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) is the only surviving wartime yard in the Bay Area. At Shipyard 3 is moored the S.S. Red Oak Victory. It is a World War II Victory ship built in the Richmond Shipyards in 1944. It carried supplies and troops to the Pacific Theater during the war, and stayed active through the Korean and Vietnam wars. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places to recognize its military, transportation, and engineering significance as an ammunition and cargo vessel during WWII.

U.S.S. Red Oak Victory at Shipyard #3. (Photo by Hunner)

One of Henry Kaiser’s innovations was health care. In 1942, he created the Permanente Health Plan for shipyard workers. This instituted a three-tier medical care system with first-aid stations in the shipyards, a field hospital, and a main hospital. One of Kaiser's original first-aid stations remains intact in Shipyard No. 3. The field hospital also still exists and is now privately owned.  This health care system is now Kaiser Permanente, an integrated health care system that cares for millions of people in California.

Kaiser instituted another innovation at his shipyards-- child care for families working in his shipyards. The child care centers had progressive early-childhood education programming, nutritional meals and snacks, on-site nurses, art lessons, and family counseling. Some of the centers operated around the clock, although most opened at 6 am and closed at 6 pm. Today, the largest Kaiser childcare center --  the Maritime Center -- is owned by the Rosie the Riveter Trust and houses a re-created wartime classroom exhibit.

In most parks that I visit, I ask rangers about climate change. At Rosie the Riveter NHS, Karen (a retired Kindergarten and First Grade teacher who volunteers  at the front desk) replied that she tours visiting 4^th graders along the waterfront. She talks about how these docks at Richmond could be underwater in 100 years.  She tells the students that we need to take care of the planet for future generations just like during World War II, “everyone came together to support the war. We need to do that for the climate today.” Karen emphasized that she wants to make a personal connection with young visitors about climate change since they will inherit this earth.

Shoreline outside of the Visitors' Center at Rosie the Riveter (Photo by Hunner)

By war’s end, the Home Front had dramatically changed the nation. Granted, many women and minorities faced a return to pre-war status as returning vets got their jobs back. Despite the three million women dismissed from their jobs in the immediate post war period, women employment has continued to rise from 16.8 million in 1946 to 31.6 million in 1970. This growing freedom in the job market for women and minorities led to vast social change. As Fanny Christina Hill is quoted in the exhibit: “Hitler was the one who got us out of the white folks’ kitchen.”

In addition to the movement of women into the work force, World War II transformed the population distribution of the nation. Social historian James Gregory says: “World War II set off the greatest sequence of human relocation in American history. At least 57% of the population changed residence during the war years, 21% of them migrating across county or state lines…. California, Oregon, and Washington gained more than three million newcomers during the 1940s.”[5] The American West won big in this migration, ending its colonial status with the East Coast and growing into a powerful region of the country.

Full employment, health care, child care, under-represented people in the workforce, new assembly methods, shifts in demographics, the unintended consequences of the swift changes in U.S. society on the home front proved vital in winning the war. Without Marian, Kay, and millions of Rosies (including my mom, Anna LaShelle), our world might have succumbed to the dark forces of totalitarianism.

Rosie the Riveter/World War II Homefront NHP, 1414 Harbour Way South, Suite 3000, Richmond, CA 94804, (510) 232-5050. It was designated a National Historical Park on October 25, 2000.

Trinidad Gutierrez and Molly Alcanto change lamps and oil cans on incoming trains. (Exhibit photo)

[1] Statistics taken from the exhibit panels and the movie at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front NHS.

[2] Interview with Kay Morrison by Jon Hunner, June 13, 2016 at the Rosie the Riveter NHS.

[3] Exhibit text at Rosie the Riveter NHS.

[4] History & Culture – Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service http://www.nps.gov/rori/learn/historyculture/index.htm

[5] James N. Gregory, “Internal Migration: Twentieth Century and Beyond.” Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 542.

Ciao to the Western Leg of the Driven by History Road Trip through our Parks

Over the last five weeks, I went west. I drove almost 7,000 miles through ten states and visited twenty-three NPS units. I went to places whose natural beauty took my breath away and to sites of troubled conscience. I drove to parks which leveraged our pasts like fulcrums, and I met people who lived through historic events. I heard stories about local heritage and about our lands, both inside and outside the parks. I had a busy itinerary which I recount at the end of this blog.  

I drove a lot, and still I sadly had to bypass museums, historic sites, even NPS units without stopping. At first, I blamed my tight travel schedule, but as I passed some sites, I grew to know myself better and what drives me. My dad, Paul Hunner, drove to drive. Even in his 60s, he took the wheel and drove through the night on a trip from Albuquerque to California while I slept. So this drive that I have to drive, I got from Dad. It makes for some sleepless nights, but I like the drive.

Here are some less personal observations and conclusions from the western leg of the Driven by History Road Trip.

First, the public loves our national parks. I saw thousands of people find their parks at Arches National Park (NP), Yosemite NP, and the Grand Canyon NP. I saw good crowds at lesser known units like Manzanar National Historic Site (NHS) and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (NHP). And even at the least known sites like Minidoka NHS in rural Idaho, people had made it a destination visit on Memorial Day weekend.

A crowd watching the sunset on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon (Photo by Hunner)

Second, every day I met interesting people. NPS staff provided essential information at visitors’ centers and kiosks. Park rangers gave interesting tours and talks, both to groups as well as fielding my many questions. Often, we had thoughtful conversations about history, the public, and the NPS. Traveling alone for days on end, I became a chatty guy with strangers. At RV parks, gas stations, restaurants, and the parks, I chatted with touring families, with foreign travelers, with wait people, in truth with anyone who would listen. Most people were friendly, even engaging, and when I mentioned I was a historian, they often told stories of their heritage, of their land, and of their beliefs. I met a lot of good people.

Quote from a store front at Grand Canyon (Photo by Hunner)

Third, the parks are in danger. Their popularity threatens them since Congress does not adequately fund them. The NPS estimates that they have a $12,000,000,000 backlog in deferred maintenance at their 410 units. Every year, new parks are added without increases in the NPS budget. NPS staffing is asked to do more with less. This has consequences. For example, at the end of June, the Grand Canyon declared a level 2 water emergency. The Transcanyon Pipeline and a pump at Indian Gardens had failed, and water couldn’t get up to the South Rim. I heard that if the two week supply of stored water ran out, a Level 3 water emergency would close the park. Imagine, the Grand Canyon closed at the height of the tourist season celebrating the NPS’s centennial because of its aging equipment. Fortunately, the pipeline and pump are back working, and the Grand Canyon remains open.

A different threat to the NPS exists. Waterfront parks like Jamestown at Colonial NHP in Virginia, Rose the Riveter/World War II Homefront NHP in California, and the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island National Memorial (NM) in New York could go under water as oceans rise. A multi-year drought has killed millions of evergreen trees in the Sierra Nevadas. These trees could catch fire and sweep through the groves of the big trees at Yosemite and Sequoia. In reply to my concerns about forest fires sweeping through parks, a  ranger at Kings Canyon NP said that maybe we are the last generation that will see the giant sequoias. Her comment still shocks and haunts me. Could we be the last to see the biggest living things on earth. As environmental historian William Tweed asks: what will happen if there are no Joshua Trees at Joshua Tree NP? What happens when there are no glaciers at Glacier NP?

Dead evergreen trees seen on the floor of Yosemite Valley between El Capitan and Bridal Veil Falls show the effects of the multi-year drought in California. (Photo by Hunner)

Fourth, despite these challenges of climate chaos and chaotic funding, the NPS has many things going well for it. Incredible people work at the parks who are friendly, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, engaged, and dedicated. People like Alisa Lynch at Manzanar NHS who took an hour out of her morning to talk to me and then included other visitors who came into our discussions. People like Lance Gambrel, who took me on a special tour of the south rim of the Grand Canyon after he got off work so we could watch the sun set at Hermit’s Rest. Since he was still wearing the Ranger uniform and hat, he fielded questions from kids who were thirsty for information. 

Grand Canyon Ranger Lance Gambrel fielding questions from a family (Photo by Hunner)

I met many people who volunteered at the parks-- people like Tom Wilson at Fort Clatsop and Dennis Torresdal, John Prutsman, and Betty Meeks  at Fort Vancouver. Without a dedicated corps of volunteers like these and thousands of others, visitors to the parks would miss the interactions and recreations that enrich their experiences.

I experienced two very popular programs run by the parks. The first is the Junior Ranger program, where children and teens race around the exhibits and answer questions about that particular park. For Lance, quizzing the Junior Rangers is a favorite part of his job. I witnessed two older teenagers doing a hip-hop version of the Banana Slug dance at Redwoods NP. I met the Rich family from Georgia as their two boys tore around the Death Valley visitors’ center filling out a question sheet and doing activities. Over the years, the family had visited 200 parks where the boys have earned their Junior Rangers’ badges and certificates. Here's their Facebook page: Fall Back in Love with America. I saw a lot of young people high on history at the parks.

Junior Ranger gear at a Gift Shop in Grand Canyon (Photo by Hunner)

For adults the NPS passport book also proved popular. At each park, and sometimes at multiple places in bigger parks, I filled my blue passport book with stamps which stated the place and date of the visit. I often had to wait in line as others did the same. I heard that some people even stamped their real passports. I saw a lot of people excited and high on our national parks.

My last observation is that I am a lucky man to be able to do this. Lucky to have the time and resources to take this road trip through the parks, lucky to be able to write about it, lucky to follow this dream of driving through history. Thanks for joining me.

Here’s a summary of the west coast trip. On May 12, I shot out of Las Cruces and followed El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and the Santa Fe National Historic Trail (NHT) up the spine of New Mexico. Once in Colorado, I visited Bent’s Old Fort NHS and Sand Creek Massacre NHS, and then Fort LarnedNHS in Kansas. After a quick return to New Mexico, on May 25 I headed out again and hiked Arches NP, smelled the coal fired locomotive at Golden Spike NHS, ate dust at the Minidoka NHS which had interned American citizens during World War II, followed the Oregon Trail and the Lewis and Clark NHTs, stopped at the radioactive Manhattan Project NHP at Hanford, Washington, visited the Klondike NHS in Seattle, and spent a morning at Fort Vancouver NHS across the river from Portland. For several days, I toured the mouth of the Columbia River looking for Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery. I then drove south down the Pacific Coast with visits at Redwoods NP and Fort Ross California State Park. In the San Francisco, I enjoyed the San Francisco Maritime NHS at Fisherman’s Wharf and Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge. I met two women welders from World War II at the Rosie the Riveter NHS and spent more time with big trees at the Muir Woods NM. Over Father’s Day weekend, I communed with nature and John Muir at Yosemite NP and hugged some more giant trees, this time sequoias at Kings Canyon NP. Then swinging around the south end of the Sierra Nevadas, I went to Manzanar NHS, through Death Valley NP, and over to Grand Canyon NP.  I ended the trip with a visit to First Mesa on the Hopi Indian Reservation. So far, I have blogged about half of these places and plan on catching up over the next month before I bolt out of here and head east.

By August, I will be back on the road heading east on Route 66 NHT and into the past. I will continue to visit pre-Contact Native American sites like Hopewell Mounds NHP, colonial sites like Castillo de San Marcos NM in Florida, Revolutionary parks like the Adams NHP in Boston, and battlefields like Cowpens National Battlefield (NB) in South Carolina, Civil War sites all over, and industrial units like Lowell NHP and New Bedford NHP both in Massachusetts. I also will go to civil rights sites like Women’s Rights NHP at Seneca Falls, New York, Frederick Douglas NHS in D.C., and the Selma to Montgomery NHT in Alabama. As I drive to these and many other parks in the east and south, let me know if I am going to your favorite park.

This is a damn big country, and I’ve only gone to a third of it. I better get driving.

Have a happy Fourth of July.

My rig for touring the parks (Photo by Hunner)

Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford, Washington

It is tricky to get your arms around one of the newest units of the NPS-- tricky because it exists in three states, tricky because it entails challenging scientific information, tricky because the sites are not open to the public, and tricky because of its contested history. The three sites included in the Manhattan Project NHP – Hanford, Washington, Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee-- commemorate one of the crowning achievements of the U.S. which ended the most horrific war in history as well as the places which created a weapon of mass destruction that could end human existence on earth.

On my western road trip through the National Parks, I stopped by the Hanford nuclear site. On the wind swept plains in a loop of the Columbia River, I drove past complexes of gray buildings surrounded by chain link fences and patrolled by security guards in SUVs. That was the closest I got to this historic place which helped create the Atomic Age. The site is not open to the public due to security and health concerns. I then visited the nearby Reach in Richland, a new museum about the area which combines exhibits on the natural beauty of the area with the Manhattan Project. This is a complex encounter.

Outside Area 300 at Hanford, WA. (Photo by Hunner)

In 1938, as the world descended into the Second World War, German physicists in Berlin split or fissioned the atom. This discovery spread through the world’s nuclear scientists like a prairie wild fire. These scientists knew that if the energy released from atomic fission was harnessed into a weapon, the destructive power would be immense. Afraid of that power in the hands of the Nazis, scientists in England scrambled to catch up with their own nuclear research.

After Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into the war, the United States organized the Allied efforts to create an atomic bomb under the Army Corps of Engineers. Many peoples and places contributed to the effort, but the three main sites were the main research and development laboratory at Los Alamos, the uranium enrichment plant at Oak Ridge, and the plutonium reactor at Hanford. We will explore Los Alamos and Oak Ridge in future postings, so let’s focus on Hanford’s contribution.

To split an atom and create an explosion, atoms need to be slightly unstable to begin with. Scientists identified two elements suitable for such work—Uranium 235 and Plutonium 249. Oak Ridge processed uranium ore into the rare isotope of Uranium 235 using massive centrifuges and microscopic filters. Making plutonium requires a different method since it is totally man-made. At Hanford, uranium ore was put into Reactor B, bombarded by neutrons, and like an alchemist’s transmutation, turned into a totally new element, plutonium.

To build a plant to make plutonium, the Army Corp of Engineers had several criteria for site selection. First, the ten by sixteen mile section of land had to be ten miles from the nearest road and twenty miles from the nearest railroad. To cool the reactor, the site needed 25,000 gallons of water per minute. To power the reactor, it needed at least 100,000 kilowatts. The mighty Columbia River with its massive flow and its hydroelectric power fit the bill. Once selected, 137,000 construction workers at the Hanford Engineering Works put up 1,200 buildings in addition to Reactor B.

Reactor B at Hanford, Washington (From exhibit at Reach Museum, Richland, WA.)

According to Reach museum docent and retired nuclear scientist Gary Busselman, the processing of uranium created eight pound rods which when irradiated at Reactor B, produced small spots of plutonium the size of a pen point. An atomic bomb needs around seventeen pounds of plutonium to explode. So, this nuclear process created a lot of radioactive waste. We’ll look at this legacy at the end of this blog.

The plutonium from Hanford was used in the “Fat Man” bomb. Scientists at Los Alamos worked on this unique weapon which imploded—where conventional explosives created shock waves which went inward, compressing the plutonium core, and creating the chain reaction which split atoms and released an incredible amount of energy. The Fat Man bomb was tested at the Trinity site in the New Mexico desert on July 16^th, 1945 with the equivalent force of eighteen tons of TNT. Fat Man detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9^th with about 40,000-50,000 dead from the explosion.

Photo of Fat Man Atomic Bomb (From Reach Museum, Richland WA.)

 Three days earlier, the US had detonated a uranium atomic bomb over Hiroshima with an immediate loss of life of 60,000 to 70,000 people. More died in the ensuing months in both cities from “radiation sickness.”  This one-two punch from a devastating new weapon forced the Japan to surrender. World War II killed 60,000,000 people, both soldiers and civilians, maybe more. Perhaps it took such a horrendous weapon to end the most horrific war in human history.

The end of World War II did not end Hanford’s mission. The Cold War with the Soviet Union and the resultant nuclear arms race depended on this site to continue to produce plutonium. In the 1960’s, Hanford churned out 2/3rds of the plutonium for our weapons’ stockpile. Atomic bombs became hydrogen weapons, some 1,000 more powerful than those used over Japan. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had the ability to commit Cliocide, the death of the muse of history and of humanity.

Exhibit at Reach Museum, Richland, WA (Photo by Hunner)

Since the end of the Cold War, the world has edged back from a nuclear Armageddon; however the environmental legacy of creating materials that are toxic for tens of thousands of years remain controversial. At Hanford, the radioactive waste was stored in 177 single shell underground metal tanks. The Reach’s exhibit on the Manhattan Project notes that 7,500,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste were stored in these tanks with 1,250,000 gallons of toxic sludge that has settled in the bottoms. The Department of Energy which manages all our nuclear facilities is actively removing this waste and remediating the poisonous material in the storage tanks. It is no easy feat.

Storage tanks for radioactive waste left over from the Manhattan Project and the Cold War
(From exhibit at the Reach Museum, Richland, WA.)

Part of the challenge is that plutonium remains toxic for 240,000 years. Other radioactive elements in the waste harmful to humans and other living things, such as Iodine 131, Strontium 90, and Cesium 137 have shorter toxic lives. Despite the rosy film at the Reach which concludes that the remediation is successfully cleaning up Hanford and returning it to a pristine natural reserve, some people  disagree. They note that the DOE has spent $19,000,000,000 only on waste removal from the leaking tanks without a spoonful actually being cleaned up. Leaks continue to make their way to the nearby Columbia River. A saying I heard several times is that ‘the solution to pollution is dilution.” As mentioned in previous blogs, the Columbia River is massive. I fear that its rolling on radioactively is not a good thing.

Waste remediation continues at Hanford (Photo by Hunner)

In November 2015, I participated in a Scholars’ Forum to help the NPS figure out how to interpret the Manhattan Project NHP. For two days, about twenty-five atomic historians, community members, staff from the NPS, the Department of Energy, and the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as two representatives from the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki discussed what should be included in the exhibits.

We discussed the key elements needed to tell the story of the Manhattan Project, including the scientific discoveries, the historical context of World War II, the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear environmental legacy, and the Cold War and its aftermath. The representatives from the Japanese Atomic Cities were not so interested in discussing those questions that we atomic historians gnaw on—who did what to create these weapons? Did we need to use the bombs on Japan to force its surrender? Why two bombs? The Japanese delegation stated several times with forceful  dignity (and produced letters from their mayors saying the same thing) that they hoped that people would come away from their encounter with the Manhattan Project NHP concluding “Never Again.” Most of us at the table agreed with them. 

As with all new parks, the NPS is now developing an interpretive plan for the Manhattan Project parks which could take several years to finalize. In the meantime, the three communities are exploring their options. For example, Ellen McGhee at Los Alamos showed me a picture of a tunnel used right after World War II to store atomic bombs. She said this might be a place to install an exhibit.

The legacy of the Manhattan Project is manifold. It helped end World War II in August 1945, sparing numerous lives—both Allied military poised to invade Japan’s home islands as well as the Japanese who would resist the invasion. Nuclear weapons then entered the arsenal of some countries at large costs in funding and material. Even today, decades after the end of the Cold War, we spend billions on maintaining our nuclear stockpile. And finally, the environmental legacy of our nuclear production will continue to plague humans and the earth for thousands of years to come.

The Manhattan Project National Historical Parks became part of the NPS on Nov. 9, 2015 with a joint memorandum of understanding between the Departments of Interior and Energy. We will return to these parks in the future when I visit Oak Ridge and Los Alamos.