Sue-meg State Park (formerly Patrick's Point State Park) is a in Humboldt County, California near

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

on the Redwood Coast, situated on a lushly forested promontory above the Pacific Ocean. The park is home to many tree species including coastal redwoods, Sitka spruce,

western hemlock ''Tsuga heterophylla'', the western hemlock or western hemlock-spruce, is a species of hemlock native to the west coast of North America, with its northwestern limit on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and its southeastern limit in northern Sonoma ...

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts ...

grand fir ''Abies grandis'' (grand fir, giant fir, lowland white fir, great silver fir, western white fir, Vancouver fir, or Oregon fir) is a fir native to the Pacific Northwest and Northern California of North America, occurring at altitudes of sea leve ...

, Douglas fir,

red alder ''Alnus rubra'', the red alder, is a deciduous broadleaf tree native to western North America (Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Montana). Description Red alder is the largest species of alder in Nort ...

and wildflower meadows, with a shoreline that consists of sandy beaches and sheer cliffs against the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

. Amenities include hiking trails, a recreated

Yurok The Yurok (Karuk language: Yurúkvaarar / Yuru Kyara - "downriver Indian; i.e. Yurok Indian") are an Indigenous people from along the Klamath River and Pacific coast, whose homelands are located in present-day California stretching from Trinidad ...

Village, a native plant garden, visitor center, three family campgrounds, two group camps, a camp for hikers and bicyclists, accessible beaches, lookout points, and three group picnic areas.

History

Sue-meg is the original place name used by the

people. In the modern

orthography, it is spelled ''Suemeeg,'' pronounced �umiɣor �umij Patrick Beegan, an Irish immigrant who came from the Mississippi Valley in 1851, referred to the area as Patrick's Ranch. After encountering

wild potato Wild potato may refer to: * Several species belonging to the genus ''Solanum'' section '' Petota'', such as ''Solanum jamesii'', ''Solanum berthaultii'', etc. * '' Thladiantha dubia'' (not related to potato) * '' Hedysarum alpinum'', a species of fl ...

, "Old Patrick," as he was known to the residents of the Trinidad area, decided to stop and file a preemption claim to the land. Beegan's claim to the land was first recorded in the Trinidad Record Book on January 13, 1851, and the first official mention of Patrick's Point on the Humboldt County map was in 1886. Another narrative attributes the name to Patrick McLaughlin, a squatter who arrived in the area in the 1870s and is credited with planting the first apple trees in the area. Efforts to protect the wooden region and coastal rock formations led to the establishment of the park, ultimately encompassing an area of , originally named Patrick's Point State Park. Later, requests that the park be renamed because Patrick Beegan had been accused of murdering several Indigenous Americans led to a name change. Sue-meg, reflecting the original

name for the land, became official by unanimous vote of the California State Parks and Recreation Commission in 2021.

References

External links

California State Parks pageNorth Coast Redwood Interpretive Association
{{authority control California State Reserves California State Beaches State parks of California Parks in Humboldt County, California Beaches of Humboldt County, California Beaches of Northern California

History

See also

References

External links