History Stories Archive - Bay Nature Magazine

san francisco bay map — Map of San Francisco Bay, 1850.

Human settlement in the San Francisco Bay Area dates back 10,000 years to early Native American settlements. Today, the region is a teeming metropolis of 7 million people that collectively challenge the health of the region's ecosystems. How it got this way is a story that prompts a deeper understanding of our place in the landscape.

From the Bottom Up

January 1, 2002 • by Micky Ellinger

It’s small, it’s restless, and it changes sex halfway through its life. Plus, the humble bay shrimp occupies a crucial niche in the complex food web of San Francisco Bay. It once played a significant role in the economy and culture of the local Chinese community. Today, both the shrimp and those who fish for it are still hanging on, but it hasn’t been easy.

Legacy of the Red Ore

January 1, 2002 • by John Dorrance

Numerous animals make their homes in burrows in the hills of this Santa Clara County park, but none dig as deep as the miners who hauled mercury-laden ore out of the ground for 125 years.

The Changing Nature of Joaquin Miller Park

October 1, 2001 • by Rex Burress

Over 100 years ago, poet Joaquin Miller found a refuge in the Oakland hills. Today, thousands of residents from the cities below are doing likewise in the park that bears his name.

The Dream Given by You

October 1, 2001 • by Jules Evens

The return of endangered coho salmon to their ancestral spawning grounds in this west Marin watershed is an essential component of the connective tissue that holds a fragmented ecosystem together. Greeting the salmon tethers us to the landscape’s seasonal rhythms and reawakens a lineage that goes back to the first inhabitants of this place.

The Vale of Tesla

October 1, 2001 • by Steve Edwards

Nestled in the hills southeast of Livermore, at the border between the San Joaquin Valley and the Bay Area, the old Tesla Mine townsite in Corral Hollow sustains a vibrant mix of inner south coast range plants and animals along with the traces of a rich human history. But a state proposal to create an off-road vehicle park in the hollow threatens to reopen old scars on this tranquil landscape.

Old Hills, New Economies

April 1, 2001 • by David Rains Wallace

The vast expanse of rugged country east of high-tech Santa Clara Valley, crowned by the Bay Area’s highest peak, has been a refuge for wild species—humans included—for a very long time.

Letter from the Publisher: Introducing Bay Nature Magazine

January 1, 2001 • by David Loeb

For most of the nearly four years it has taken to turn BAY NATURE from an idea into the magazine you now hold in your hands, I worked out of my house in north Berkeley. Could be worse: there’s a … Read more

A Natural History of Oakland’s Lake Merritt

January 1, 2001 • by Linda Watanabe McFerrin

Lake Merritt changed dramatically over the centuries, but it still supports estuarine habitat — in addition to the recreation needs of a growing city.

Rivers in the Bay

January 1, 2001 • by Paul McHugh

San Francisco Bay presented a thrilling—yet possibly lethal—mystery to a young Spanish captain as he sailed up to probe the entry to the Golden Gate for the first time on the morning of August 5, 1775. Juan Manuel de Ayala … Read more

The Art of Restoration

January 1, 2001 • by Chis Clarke

The air over Cullinan Ranch is cool and moist. Only the faintest gray line marks the location, south across San Pablo Bay, of the East Bay hills. The wetlands here, just north of Route 37, bear imprints of human use. … Read more