John Muir National Historic Site

John Muir: Fruit Rancher

Muir and Family in Martinez

John Muir married into the fruit-ranching Strentzel family in 1880 at age 42. Martinez would be his home until he died in 1914. He and wife Louie raised their daughters here. Hard-working and astute, Muir took over the fruit business and made enough money in five years to support the family for his lifetime. Louie then urged her overworked husband to revisit the wilds and resume his conservation writing and advocacy. Their daughters inherited the house from Louie in 1905. Muir bought it in 1912 – perhaps hoping they would move back?

Few people associate raising a family and fruit ranching with "John of the Mountains" Muir, but he thrived at both. As a young man he had been a successful inventor and machine shop designer and operator. Muir’s Strentzel in-laws had pioneered the fruit business, but Muir made it pay handsomely. Having grown up on a Wisconsin farm, he was no stranger to hard work. He was passionate about efficiency, savvy about business, and attentive to his father-in-law’s horticultural experiments and innovations, influential throughout California. (Dr. Strentzel showed 91 varieties of seven fruits at one county fair.) The family eventually owned 2,600 agricultural acres in Martinez. Muir focused solely on fruit ranching from 1882 through 1887, when Louie, concerned about his health, convinced him to turn the operation over to others and resume his conservation work and travels. After Dr. Strentzel died in 1890, the Muir family moved to the big house. Here in his second-floor "scribble den" Muir wrote most of his published writings and all of his books – which place him among the world’s classic nature writers. From here Muir also traveled to Alaska several times to study glaciers and then around the world to study trees and other plants. Everywhere he went, Muir advocated saving wildness.

John Muir Biography: A Personal Timeline

1760s – Karkin Indians of Ohlone group are still living in the area

1769 – Spanish expeditions find San Francisco Bay

1770-1834 – Mission life in California at its peak

1820 – Mission records show no Ohlones left in area

1821 – Mexico wins independence from Spain

1823 – Don Ygnacio Martinez gets 17,700-acre Rancho el Pinole land grant in Contra Costa

1848 – United States takes California in war with Mexico; gold discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California

1849 – Don Ygnacio’s son Vincente Martinez builds two-story adobe home (now a part of John Muir National Historic Site)

1853 – Dr. and Mrs. John T. Strentzel buy Alhambra Valley land

1869 – Dr. Strentzel extends markets by devising carbonized-bran method of shipping fruit; transcontinental railroad completed

1877 – Central Pacific Railroad reaches Martinez, provides long-distance shipping for Alhambra Valley produce

1879 – Engaged to Strentzel daughter Louisa "Louie" Wanda

1880 – Muir marries April 14, age 42; Martinez population 875

1881 – Daughter Annie Wanda Muir born

1882-87 – Fruit ranching at Martinez

1882 – Father-in-law Dr. Strentzel builds the house on the hill

1884 – Telephone service brought to house

1886 – Daughter Helen Muir born

1890 – Father-in-law Dr. John Strentzel dies

1890s – Muir adds brick water tower to rear of house; paints house smokey gray with red trim

1897 – Mother-in-law Louisiana Strentzel dies

1905 – Wife Louie dies

1906 – Muir repairs earthquake-damaged chimneys and reconfigures first floor

1914 – House electrified. Muir dies December 24, age 76; house passes back to Helen and Wanda

1915 – Helen and Wanda sell house

John Muir Biography continued here.