A dozen docents, spouses and state park staff visited Olompali State Park on October 8. Sonoma/ Petaluma SHP docents in attendance were Bob Alwitt, Kit Foster, Phil Glander, Jerome Knill, Jan Oneto and Lisa Tremblay. Tyler Markley and Jennifer Hanson represented our two historic parks and Ryan Forbes, Parks Interpretive Specialist at Olompali, gave us an interesting and in-depth tour.
Olompali means “southern people” in the Coast Miwok language. The park is a small part of the original Rancho Olompali land grant given to Headman Camillo Ynitia in 1843 with the support of Mariano Vallejo. It is on a trade route that was probably in use going back 3,000 years. In 1852 the rancho was sold to James Black of Marin, who gave it as a wedding present to his daughter Mary Burdell. It passed through several owners and many tenants in the following years. In the 1960s it briefly became the home of the Grateful Dead and then a hippie commune with a sordid history. In 1977 it was purchased by the State of California and turned into a state historic park.
In 2018 Peter Coyote made a documentary movie, “Olompali: A Hippie Odyssey”, that can be streamed online. Short films and trailers are on YouTube, including this one with Breck Parkman, our retired parks archaeologist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4tDaSksBrk.