Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2007, the population was 248,096. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is renowned for its natural beauty, liberal politics, affluence and a strong New Age reputation. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Marin County has the 5th highest per capita income in the United States at $91,483.[1] It is governed by local cities and the Marin County Board of Supervisors.
San Quentin Prison is located in the county, as is Skywalker Ranch. Autodesk, the publisher of AutoCAD, is located there, as are numerous other high-tech companies. The headquarters of film and media company Lucasfilm Ltd., previously based in San Rafael, have moved to the Presidio of San Francisco.
The Marin County Civic Center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and draws thousands of visitors a year to guided tours of its arch and atrium design.
America's oldest cross country running event, the Dipsea Race, takes place annually in Marin County, attracting thousands of athletes. Mountain biking is said to have been invented on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Marin.
Marin County's natural sites include Muir Woods redwood forest, the Marin Headlands, Stinson Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, and Mount Tamalpais.
Marin County is one of the original 27 counties of California, created February 18, 1850, following adoption of the Constitution of 1849 and just months before the state was admitted to the Union.[2]
The origin of the county's name is not clear. One version is the county was named after Chief Marin, of the Coast Miwok, Licatiut tribe of Native Americans who inhabited that section and waged fierce battle against the early Spanish military explorers. The other version is that the bay between San Pedro Point and San Quentin Point was named Bahía de Nuestra Señora del Rosario la Marinera in 1775, and it is quite possible that Marin is simply an abbreviation of this name.[3]
The Coast Miwok Indians were hunters and gatherers whose ancestors had occupied the area for thousands of years. About 600 village sites have been identified in the county. The Coast Miwok numbered in the thousands. Today there are few left, and even fewer with any knowledge of their Coast Miwok lineage. Efforts are being made so that they are not forgotten.[4]
The English explorer and privateer, Sir Francis Drake and the crew of the Golden Hind was thought to have landed on the Marin coast in 1579 claiming the land as Nova Albion. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands, fitting the description in Drake's own account, was discovered in 1933. This so-called Drake's Plate of Brass was later declared a hoax.
In 1595 Sebastian Cermeno lost his ship, the San Agustin, while exploring the Marin Coast. The Spanish explorer Vizcaíno landed about twenty years after Drake in what is now called Drake's Bay. However the first Spanish settlement in Marin was not established until 1817 when Mission San Rafael Arcángel was founded partly in response to the Russian-built Fort Ross to the north in what is now Sonoma County.
Mission San Rafael Arcángel was founded in what is now downtown San Rafael as the 20th Spanish mission in the colonial Mexican province of Alta California by four priests, Father Narciso Duran from Mission San Jose, Father Abella from Mission San Francisco de Asís, Father Gil y Taboada and Father Mariano Payeras, the President of the Missions, on December 14, 1817, four years before Mexico gained independence from Spain.
