Russian Gulch State Park is a
California State Park in coastal
Mendocino County,
California, north of
Mendocino and south of
Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within Cum ...
.
Park features
The park features of rocky ocean shores;
it is approximately wide from north to south at its widest point, and extends for approximately three miles from east to west.
[.] Russian Gulch is crossed by
California State Highway 1, which passes over the gulch on the
Frederick W. Panhorst Bridge
The Frederick W. Panhorst Bridge, more commonly known as the Russian Gulch Bridge, is a reinforced concrete open-spandrel deck arch bridge on California State Highway 1, spanning Russian Gulch Creek in Russian Gulch State Park, Mendocino County, ...
, a large
concrete arch bridge constructed in 1940.
[.] The park entrance is on the west side of Highway 1, north of the bridge, and connects by a one-lane road under the bridge to the eastern part of the park. The smaller, western portion of the park consists largely of
headland
A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, John ...
s with a
blowhole
Blowhole may refer to:
* Blowhole (anatomy), the hole at the top of a whale's or other cetacean's head
*Blowhole (geology), a hole at the inland end of a sea cave
**Kiama Blowhole in Kiama, Australia
**The Blow Hole, a marine passage between Minst ...
and picnic areas, while the larger eastern portion of the park includes a campground, the park headquarters, and several trails for bicycles, hikers, and horses.
[.] A hike from the trailhead at the east end of the campground to a waterfall largely follows an abandoned logging road along the creek.
A small beach, physically in the western part of the park but accessed by a road from the eastern side, is equipped with a restroom and an outdoor shower;
swimming, skin diving, fishing, and tide pool exploration are all possible.
[.]
History
The name "Russian Gulch" was given to the area by U.S. government surveyors, in honor of the Russian fur trappers who founded
Fort Ross to the south;
according to a more specific local tradition, a deserter from Fort Ross lived at Russian Gulch.
In the second half of the 19th century,
schooner
A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...
s would frequently make dangerous stops in the cove to take on
coast redwood lumber and passengers; the headlands still contain iron rings used to hold ropes and move lumber when these ships docked, and a mill made redwood shingles on what is now the site of a park recreation hall.
Some of the land within what is now the park was farmed in the late 19th century, and in the mid-1920s a property developer from Los Angeles, F. O. Warner, bought land in the area with the intention of building a resort there.
The
Native Sons of the Golden West began a drive to turn the area into a park in 1928,
and after funds were provided by A. Johnston, the county, and the state, the park was founded in 1933.
Russian Gulch was one of 70 state parks due for closure in 2012 due to state budget cuts.
[.]
See also
*
List of beaches in California
*
List of California state parks
References
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State parks of California
Beaches of Mendocino County, California
Parks in Mendocino County, California
Protected areas established in 1933
Russian-American culture in California
Beaches of Northern California