The Colorful History of Marin County
History for Marin County began shortly after California adopted its state constitution in 1849. Marin County is counted among the twenty seven original counties of the State of California even before it was taken on as part of the Union. With fifty eight counties in California of today, Marin County is situated in the northern part of the state and immediately across the bay from San Francisco.
As of the most recent census, the population of Marin County had surpassed 260,000 and the county seat is located in San Rafael with the county government being Marin County’s largest employer.
Marin County is recognized for its wealth of nature and its widely varied topographic beauty that includes sites such as the Muir Woods Redwood Forest, the Marin Headlands, Stinson Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore and Mount Tamalpais which is where mountain biking was allegedly invented.
Marin County is also well known for the affluence of its residents who had been drawing the highest per capita income with over $48,000 per year and the third highest mean personal income with well over $85,000 per year in the nation.
No one knows for sure how Marin County acquired its name but there are a few theories that ring true. The first theory claims that Marin County was named after Chief Marin, a legendary Coast Miwok chief who fought against the Spaniards in an attempt to keep them of his lands. The second and equally convincing theory claims that Marin County’s name is just a shortened version of the bay between San Pedro Point and San Quentin Point which in 1775 was named Baha de Nuestra Seora Del Rosario la Marinera.
The Native American nation called the Miwok was subdivided into sub-groups and one of its largest lived in the territory that is today’s Marin County and was known as the Coast Miwok. The Coast Miwok also dwelled in the south part of Sonoma County. According to researcher, history of the Coast Miwok in this region dates back roughly five thousand years and their population which has been estimated in the thousands was scattered among at least 600 villages. The Coast Miwok lived a peaceful existence off the plentiful land by hunting and gathering. The historical tragedy is that very few Coast Miwok still live today and even fewer of them have any knowledge of their amazing past.
Many European explorers, privateers and missionaries began flocking to the region as early as the sixteenth century. Sir Francis Drake landed in 1579 and claimed the land for the then king of England. Following in Drake’s footsteps, a Spanish explorer named Sebastian Cermeno docked his ship in what is now called Drake’s Bay in 1595.
Marin County of then began with indigenous tribes but the Spaniards turned it into a long lasting European settlement by erecting Mission San Rafael Arcngel in 1817 which is still now standing in the center of San Rafael’s downtown and which was prompted by the Russian construction of Fort Ross in Sonoma County.
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