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photo by Donald Kinney
The Coast Miwok Indians called this village "O-lum-pa'-lee" and had been occupants for centuries prior to arrival of Spanish explorers and padres. Earliest verified contact between Spaniards and the Olompali people was 1814 when the first Olompalis were baptized at Mission San Francisco de Asis. Thus began a series of changes that transformed the villagers' lives forever. Their numbers dwindled due to new diseases they had no resistance to, and their lands were occupied by people with very different cultures.
Rancho Olompali was home to three generations of Burdells from 1866 to 1943 and changed ownership several times until 1967 when the main ranch buildings were leased to Don McCoy, a businessman turned hippie, for use as the
Chosen Family Commune. This was the home of
The Diggers who baked bread in coffee cans, ending up with loaves that resembled large mushrooms (can you dig it?) which they distributed in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. The
Grateful Dead rented the main buildings here and rock music icons such as Janis Joplin and Grace Slick were frequent visitors.
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photo by Donald Kinney
This one-story clap-boarded barn with its square cupola and sitting on a foundation of cut stones is representative of early 19th century rural eastern architecture that appeared in California after 1850. The building provided animal stalls and equipment storage space for the Burdell Ranch.
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photo by Donald Kinney
The blacksmith shop (on right) was built in 1870 and remained in continuous use until 1943. In the days before mass production, such essential ranch items as horse shoes, hinges, iron gates, and branding irons were manufactured here by the ranch "smitty".
The "salt box" house (on left) was the blacksmith's residence, and is built on hand-laid stones. The walls lack studs--instead, two layers of one inch-thick boards are nailed to beams at the corners of each wall.
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photo by Donald Kinney
This now-crumbling cement and wood structure is the Rancho Olompali dairy barn, originally built by the Burdell family in 1938. Not far away, park volunteers are in the process of constructing a representation of a Coast Miwok village. When completed it will be used by Coast Miwok descendants to preserve their cultural traditions, and by Park staff to interpret the Miwok culture to visitors and school groups.
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