Marin County And Its History
By Kadence Buchanan
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.
San Rafael is where Marin County's local government resides, its most recent population count just exceeded 260,000 and the County's largest employer is the county government itself.
Marin County has been well endowed by nature as well as by society at large. On the one hand, nature has bestowed Marin County with unsurpassed beauty reflected in sites such as the Muir Woods National Monument, the Marin Headlands, Stinson Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore and, its highest peak which claims to be the birthplace for mountain biking, Mount Tamalpais.
On the other hand, Marin County is known for its well-to-do residents whose annual income is the highest per capita with nearly $50,000 and the third national highest mean personal annual income with approximately $90,000.
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 Bahia de Nuestra Senora 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.
Marin County's beauty and bounty of land and sea attracted many Europeans in the beginning of the sixteenth century. The English Sir Francis Drake appeared in 1579 to claim lands for his king and was followed by the Spanish Sebastian Cermeno in 1595.
Marin County and its history had its indigenous beginnings thousands of years ago but the first site of white men's permanence which, by the way, still stands today in downtown San Rafael was established in 1817 when the Spaniards built Mission San Rafael ArcAngel. Interestingly enough, the erection of this mission was motivated by the fact that the Russians built Fort Ross in Sonoma County which is just north of Marin County.
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