Goat Rock Beach - Area History

Area History

The oldest natural history of this area related to mammals manifests in a series of rock outcrops about one third of a mile south of Goat Rock Beach, positioned above the shoreline on a low lying marine terrace. There are uplifted sea stack formations with prominent rubbing marks about two to four meters in elevation above the ground surface, a height too high to have been caused by modern bovids. Mammoths are believed to have roamed here as recently as 40,000 years ago, and they are thought to have created these severe rubbing marks. Mammoth fossil remains have been found at Bodega Head at the south end of Sonoma Coast State Beach.

The earliest known human settlement of this site was by the Native American Coast Miwok and Pomo tribes. As early as 1849 archaeological discoveries were recorded in the vicinity, and to date several prehistoric kitchen middens and other types of tribal habitation finds have been made. Goat Rock Beach is part of the Mexican land grant rancho Bodega. The Russians are thought to have begun logging the old-growth forests directly above the coastal prairie in the early 19th century.

The underwater delineation of the property is considered to extend to 1000 feet from the shoreline. While no shipwrecks have been discovered, the literature indicates that there are at least 17 vessels which may have been lost in these waters. There are remains of numerous historic barns and other agricultural buildings on the coastal prairie several miles south of Goat Rock Beach, indicating 19th century settlement by Europeans; to the south, at Duncans Landing there are iron pins embedded in the sandstone bluffs as evidence of an active shipping industry here in the late 19th and early 20th century.

In the era circa 1920, a sizeable quarrying was conducted at Goat Rock, which activity produced the apparent separation of Goat Rock from the mainland. Quarry products were transported to the mouth of the Russian River via a now abandoned rail line; some of these materials were used to attempt the construction of a jetty in the mouth area, but that project was eventually terminated.