Arthur B. Ripley Desert Woodland State Park is a state park of California, USA, protecting a stand of Joshua trees and junipers in the Antelope Valley. The park is located in northern Los Angeles County, 20 miles (32 km) west of downtown Lancaster and about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.
The site was donated to the state by Arthur "Archie" Ripley, and preserves a remnant of Joshua/juniper woodland which once grew in great abundance throughout the valley. Today only remnant parcels of this woodland community remain in the valley, much of the rest having been cleared for farming, housing, and some rather esoteric uses — directions for nighttime automobile travelers in the first half of the 20th century and even pulp for newspaper usage. The 566-acre (229 ha) property was officially acquired in 1993.
The Joshua tree played an important part in the cultural history of the Antelope Valley, providing a vital source of food and fiber materials for the Native Americans that inhabited the region.
Famous quotes containing the words arthur, desert, woodland, state and/or park:
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“In time the scouring of wind and rain will wear down the ranges and plane off the region until it has the drab monotony of the older deserts. In the meantime—a two-million-year meantime—travelers may enjoy the cruel beauties of a desert in its youth,....”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that our life should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... writers do not find subjects: subjects find them. There is not so much a search as a state of open susceptibility.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Therefore awake! make haste, I say,
And let us, without staying,
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the Park a-maying!”
—Unknown. Sister, Awake! (L. 9–12)