National Monument gains crucial acreage of land in the form of
Pinnacles Ranch
Hollister – More than 50 people gathered under a bright sky at Pinnacles National Monument Tuesday to see the nearly 1,700-acre Pinnacles Ranch and campground become part of the park.
Flanked on either side by students from Jefferson Elementary School – the one-room school in South San Benito County – Congressman Sam Farr (D-Carmel) tightened the bolts of the arrow-shaped National Parks Service crest that will now hang at the entrance of the Pinnacles Campground. In the distance a bobcat scurried across the small road that meanders through the park.
“Welcome to Pinnacles National Monument,” park Superintendent Eric Brunnemann said to those gathered once the sign was attached.
Tuesday marked culmination of more than a decade of work by landowners, environmentalists and members of Congress. The National Park Service recently purchased the 1,967-acre Pinnacles Ranch for $5.3 million from the Nature Conservancy. The acquisition brings large tracts of native grasslands, riparian areas and about 700 acres of oak woodlands under the protection of the parks service and eliminates the possibility that the land will be developed.
The grassy slopes and oak woodlands of the ranch will add needed foraging grounds for the California condor, according to the Nature Conservancy. Several young condors have been released in the area since 2003 in an effort to make the species thrive. The ranch and park are also home to bobcats, golden eagles, deer and more than 100 bird species.
Development of the ranch would have held “terrible implications” for the condors and other wildlife on the ranch, according to Nature Conservancy spokesperson Misty Herrin.
Nature lovers will also benefit from the ranch acquisition, according to Brunnemann. The 120 sites at the Pinnacles Campground will remain open, just as they have for the past year under the management of the Nature Conservancy, he said.
When landowners Peggy and Stu Kingman put the Pinnacles Ranch on the market about 12 years ago, they knew that they wanted the ranch to become part of the Pinnacles National Monument. The park service, however, lacked the funds to purchase it. Dedicated to their vision for the ranch’s future, the Kingmans held onto the land.
Just more than a year ago, the Nature Conservancy purchased the Pinnacles Ranch for $5.3 million and waited as Farr and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein worked in Congress to get funding to purchase the land.
“It’s been a long haul, I have to say,” Stu Kingman said. “It’s been a long 12 years to get this done, but it was worth it.”
The Kingmans, who have lived on the Pinnacles Ranch property for nearly 30 years, weren’t immediately enamored with the area when they made their first trip to the Pinnacles National Monument in the 1960s. During Tuesday’s ceremony, Stu Kingman recalled the family trip to the park one August.
“It was hot, miserably hot, yellow jackets all over the place” he said. ” We had a miserable night and said to ourselves, ‘we never want to live in a place like this.’ ”
In 1978, however, the Kingmans moved to the centuries old Pinnacles Ranch. During the intervening years, the Kingmans developed a deep bond with the land.
“I get very emotional about the property,” Peggy Kingman said. “It just grows on you, it sustains you.”
