Four years ago, National Park Service employees seeking to provide a more robust look at the history of Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County began the “History Under Construction” exhibit.
The concept of the work was to expand an existing sign featuring a timeline detailing the preservation of Muir Woods. Employees placed caution tape on the sign within Founder’s Grove and used yellow sticky notes to add facts and dates that were missing from the original timeline. Among the information added were the efforts of Indigenous people who originally maintained the land, as well as the role of women in creating the national monument.
A letter on the plaque assured passersby that “everything on this sign is accurate, but incomplete. The facts are not under construction, but the way we tell history is.”
But, as of this month, the yellow notes are no more.
The expanded exhibit became the first in the nation to be altered following an executive order by President Trump in March to rid park signage of any language he would deem unpatriotic.
The president’s aim was to restore federal sites that he said had been changed since 2020 to perpetuate a “false reconstruction of American history” including “improper partisan ideology.” The Muir Woods change was first reported by SF Gate.
Elizabeth Villano, a former park ranger who helped create the new version of the sign, criticized the move, writing in a post on Medium that the Trump administration “is actively censoring American history from the public.”
She said the goal of the project was to make sure nothing on the original sign was erased, but to add details so people could see the difference in how history was told and how it could be expanded to include more voices.
“We wanted to tell the true story of the woods in a way that helped people learn from the past, and apply those lessons towards a brighter future,” she wrote. “Despite this care not to erase history, here I am, watching history be erased.”
A spokesperson for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Muir Woods, could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Before the notes were added in 2021, the first date included in the sign’s timeline, called “Path to Preservation,” was the establishment of the first national park in the United States, Yellowstone, in 1872. The next was 1892 when the Sierra Club was founded in San Francisco with John Muir as the first president.
But staff at the time found that some key information was missing from the timeline, namely the work of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo people who tended to the land before Europeans arrived in North America. They also included the first campaign to save the region launched by a women’s club in 1904.
Of course, not all the information added to the timeline was positive.
Staff detailed Spanish missionaries exploiting the work of Indigenous people in the Bay Area to build California missions and congressional actions stripping Coast Miwok people of title to their ancestral lands, including Muir Woods.
The revised timeline didn’t shy away from pointing out the complex legacies of key figures who helped spearhead the creation of the national monument. It noted that John Muir referred to Indigenous people using racist language in his diary, which was published years before his death, and pointed out William Kent’s vote in Congress to prevent non-citizens from owning or leasing land.
The rangers didn’t cast blame for the omissions, saying that the expanded narratives were reflective of increasing diversity among park service employees in the years since the timeline was first unveiled.
“From redwood conservation to the legacy of the country’s founders, American stories are enriched by complexity, dimension, and challenge. It’s not our job to judge these stories or promote a singular narrative. As national park rangers, it is our mandate to tell complete stories that reflect who we are as a society. And as Americans, it’s important that we hear them,” according to a National Park Service post about the changes.
Trump’s executive order directed the Department of the Interior to identify any public monuments, memorials, statues or markers that had been removed or changed since 2020 to “perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history,” minimize the value of historical events or figures or include “improper partisan ideology” and to reinstate prior monuments.
The order also directed officials to ensure that monuments do not contain content that disparages Americans. Instead, the monuments should focus on “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape,” the order states.
Critics have said Trump’s directive demands a rose-colored view of more complex events that make up American history.
Villano, the former park ranger, wrote in the Medium essay that it’s disparaging to Americans to take away people’s ability to think critically and have a better understanding of history.
“Why doesn’t the White House want you to see a more complete version of history? Maybe it’s because, when we see ourselves in history, we realize that we can reshape it,” she wrote. “For a government like this, that must feel like a threat. It doesn’t benefit people in power to understand that anyone can be a part of history.”
