West Marin

Olema Valley is a gorge formed by the San Andreas Fault in rural west Marin County, Northern California. The valley runs from the southern end of Tomales Bay through Point Reyes Station, the town of Olema, and Dogtown, to the Bolinas Lagoon, which lies between Bolinas and Stinson Beach. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The northern and central portions of the Olema Valley are drained by northwestward-flowing Olema Creek, whereas the southern portion is drained by southeastward-flowing Pine Gulch Creek.

The Olema Lime Kilns at Point Reyes National Seashore in California were built in 1850 on land leased from Mexican grantee Rafael Garcia by James A. Shorb and William F. Mercer, two San Francisco entrepreneurs. The kilns were reportedly fired only a few times, and have lain abandoned for some 140 years. They were apparently abandoned no later than 1855 after only a few firings, probably due to the poor quality, small limestone deposits and the financial depression of that year. They represent a Gold Rush era effort to establish a lime-producing industry in Marin County, only two years after cession of Alta California to the United States by Mexico. They consist of three long-abandoned, barrel-shaped stone vaults lying in ruins against a hillside on the east side of Olema Creek about five miles south of Olema and about 100 yards west of California State Highway 1.

Samuel Penfield Taylor (October 9, 1827, in Saugerties, New York – January 22, 1886, in San Francisco, California) was an entrepreneur who made his fortune during the California Gold Rush. He is best known for building the Pioneer Paper Mill, the first paper mill in California. Taylor sailed from Boston Harbor in a schooner that he purchased with a group of friends, arriving in San Francisco ten months later.Taylor's first business in California was a bacon and egg stand on the beach. "Upon arrival Taylor found a wooden cask of eggs floating near the shore. He cooked the eggs, overturned the cask, and set up a food stand on the beach." In 1853, Taylor left for Hawkins Bar, California, in Tuolumne County to prospect for gold. He used his profits to buy land in Marin County and enter the paper business.Samuel Taylor was ahead of his time in producing recycled paper products from rags and old papers that his employees collected from various California cities and in creating the first fish ladder on the West Coast to help fish swim upstream around the dam near his paper mill. Taylor married Sarah Washington Irving, raised a family of seven boys and one girl, and served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Working with other concerned citizens, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor helped stop the importation of Chinese slave girls into San Francisco. After Samuel Taylor's death in 1886, his wife lost the paper mill and land around it in the Panic of 1893. The new owners of the Taylors' land (who refused to allow Sarah Taylor to be buried next to her husband on the family plot) lost the property themselves when it was taken by the State of California in 1945 for non-payment of taxes. The state then created Samuel P. Taylor State Park. Taylor is buried on a hill overlooking the former site of the mill. His gravesite was restored in 1997 by Freemasons of San Francisco Oriental Lodge No. 144. Sarah Washington Irving now lies next to her husband on the southwest slope of Barnabe Mountain (near 38.0263°N 122.732°W / 38.0263; -122.732).

Taylorville is a former settlement in Marin County, California. It was located on the Northwestern Pacific Railroad 11 miles (18 km) west-southwest of downtown Novato, at an elevation of 141 feet (43 m). Taylorville still appeared on maps as of 1914.Taylorville had a post office, a tannery, a gun powder factory, a water-powered paper mill, then later a steam-driven mill. An orchard, cattle ranch and was serviced by train from 1875 until 1933. Cap Taylor, on the same property had a hotel, a dance hall, two bowling alleys, boating on the creek, hunting and fishing. As many as 3000 people would visit on popular weekends. The name honors Samuel P. Taylor, founder of the first paper mill on the West Coast.

Barnabe Creek is a stream in the U.S. state of California. It is located in Marin County.

Jewell was an unincorporated community in Marin County, California. It was located 11 miles (18 km) west-southwest of Novato.In the 1860s, the site was a dairy and pig farm owned by Omar Jewell. When the Northwestern Pacific Railroad was built nearby, Jewell sold a right-of-way across his land and a flagstop called Jewells was set up on the ranch. In the 1930s, a strip of land between Lagunitas Creek and the Sir Francis Drake Highway was subdivided into small lots where city dwellers built weekend cottages. The settlement became known as Jewell because it lay opposite of the Jewell train flagstop.The National Park Service bought the community alongside the creek and removed the few remaining residents. In 2018 an environmental group tore down the cluster of houses and began to restore the creek to improve the habitat for endangered coho salmon.

Marin County ( mə-RIN; Spanish: Condado de Marín) is located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Marin County's natural sites include the Muir Woods redwood forest, the Marin Headlands, Stinson Beach, the Point Reyes National Seashore, and Mount Tamalpais. Marin is one of the highest-income counties by per capita income and median household income. The county is governed by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. The Marin County Civic Center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and draws thousands of visitors a year to guided tours of its arch and atrium design. In 1994, a new county jail facility was embedded into the hillside nearby.The United States' oldest cross country running event, the Dipsea Race, takes place annually in Marin County, attracting thousands of athletes. Modern mountain biking has many early origins on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Marin.San Quentin State Prison is located in the county.

San Geronimo Creek is a stream in Marin County, California, United States, which feeds into Lagunitas Creek below Kent Lake.

The Inkwells (also known as The Ink Wells) are two deep natural swimming pools in Lagunitas Creek, in Marin County, California. The upper Inkwell is also known as "Shafters", named after the former railroad bridge that bore its name nearby, whereas the lower Inkwell is simply known as "Inkwell" or "Hole" because it is deeper and darker. Together, they are known as "The Inkwells". They are a common swimming spot in summer, despite failing to meet current water quality standards due to high levels of coliform. The Inkwells are accessible by car as well as public transit, with a Marin Transit bus stop being less than a mile away. The Inkwells Bridge, which runs above the inkwells, is part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail. It also carries pipes that bring water from nearby Kent Lake and the nearby Nicasio Reservoir to be treated.

Samuel P. Taylor State Park is a state park located in Marin County, California, United States, which includes approximately 2,700 acres (11 km2) of redwood forest and grassland. The park contains about 600 acres (2.4 km2) of old-growth forest, some of which can be seen along the Pioneer Tree Trail.

Kent Lake is a reservoir in western Marin County, California formed by the construction of Peters Dam across Lagunitas Creek. Built in 1954 (1954), the lake is the most recent lake of the Marin Municipal Water District, as well as the largest. It lies to the west of Alpine Lake; among the five major lakes in the area it is the only one to the west of Fairfax-Bolinas Road.

Lagunitas (Laguna, Spanish for "Little lagoons") is an unincorporated community in Marin County, California. It is located 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Novato, at an elevation of 217 feet (66 m). Lagunitas is aggregated with Forest Knolls by the U.S. Census into the census-designated place (CDP) Lagunitas-Forest Knolls. The first post office at Lagunitas opened in 1906. Lagunitas' ZIP Code is 94938.