When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
The park was named for its stunning mudstone arches, which were formed by sediment deposits and carved out of the cliffsides by the Pacific Ocean. When the cliffs eroded away, these standalone arches were left. Three such arches used to be found at this beach, but one fell during the early 1900s and another during a storm in 1980. The only remaining arch is also at risk of collapsing due to natural processes of erosion.
Read MoreWilder Ranch State Park’s history, like much of California, is shaped by the Spanish and their missions. When the nearby Mission Santa Cruz was established in 1791, the state park area became part of the mission pasture lands. Then, when the mission lands were divided into “ranchos,” large land grants, after secularization, Wilder Ranch became part of Rancho Refugio. The land was split into smaller ranches over the years, Wilder Ranch operating until 1969.
Read MoreWhen California was still part of Mexico, ranchos, or large land grants, were created. The park’s lands were purchased by industrialist Henry Cowell from the Rancho Cañada del Rincon en el Rio San Lorenzo in 1865. In the 1930, California’s Lieutenant Governor William Jeter approved efforts for the County of Santa Cruz to purchase and preserve the Redwood lands adjacent to Cowell’s. Finally, in 1954, Samuel Cowell (the last of the Cowell line) donated the rest of the park to the state under the condition that the county relinquish their land to the state as well, and Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park was born.
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