vacation tours pegleg or peralta? - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Patrick's Point State Park
N Trinity Sunday, June
9, 1775, two Spanish
explorers, Bodega and
Heceta, entered a small
cove now known as
Trinidad Bay some 18
miles north of the present city of Eureka,
California and erected a roughly hewn
cross bearing the inscription, "Carolus
III Dei G Hyspaniarum Rex."
It is possible that Rodriguez Cermano
may have sighted the Trinity headland
on November 4, 1595 but there isn't any
record showing that he landed. Neither
are there any records of other white explorers
going ashore there between Heceta's
landing and that of Captain George
Vancouver who landed in April 1793
and found the hewn cross left by the two
Spanish explorers.
20 / Desert Magazine / July, 1968
At that time the Yurok Indians
claimed all the shore line from Klamath
River in the north to Little River in the
south and extending about thirty miles
inland. Although these Indians were
friendly, whites did not try to settle until
about 1851 when gold was discovered in
black sand on the beach at Gold Bluffs,
15 miles south of the mouth of the Klamath
River. When gold played out and
attempts at homesteading and farming
were unsuccessful, all but a few hardy
whites deserted the area.
Patrick's Point State Park, lying a few
miles north of Trinidad and a few miles
south of Gold Bluffs, is a small portion
of the Yurok territory. Conservation
minded citizens, the Save-the-Redwoods
League and the United States Government
began to negotiate for its acqui-
byMilofl. Bird
sition in 1930. The park was named for
Patrick Beegan whose preemptive claim
is recorded in the Trinidad Record Book
of 1851 and whose tract six miles north
of Trinidad was known as Patrick's
Ranch.
Although there are times when Patrick's
Point is fog-bound and windwhipped,
the park is always beautiful.
In its 425 acres there are 122 camping
spots, 42 picnic units, a group camping
area with communal kitchens, a museum,
hiking trails and a rain forest. The Japanese
current warms it in winter and cools
it in summer. The entire area is a paradise
for nature lovers, hikers, driftwood
buffs, rockhounds and shutterbugs.
Trails have been cut through much of
the wildest portions of the park to accommodate
hikers and nature lovers.