Olompali, Novato's Hidden State Park: A Miwok Village, a Bear Flag Skirmish and a Grateful Dead Summer

Olompali State Historic Park sits on the east-facing slopes of Mount Burdell, about 2.5 miles north of Novato off Highway 101. From the hillside you look out over the Petaluma River and San Pablo Bay. State Parks says the name comes from the Coast Miwok language and may mean "southern village" or "southern people."

A village that lasted millennia

State Parks says Coast Miwok people lived at the site continuously from as early as 6,000 BC until the early 1850s. Visitors can still see "kitchen rock," a large boulder that served as a mortar for grinding acorns and seeds. Archaeologists also found an Elizabethan silver sixpence dated 1567 here. It is now in UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library and is thought to be among the earliest known artifacts of contact between Europeans and Native Californians.

Camilo Ynitia and the 'Battle of Olompali'

Camilo Ynitia was the last hoipu, or headman, of the Olompali community. In 1843 he was granted two square leagues (8,877 acres) of his ancestral land as Rancho Olompali. Friends of Olompali says he was the only Northern California Native American whose grant was later patented by the U.S. government. His adobe is a California Historical Landmark.

In June 1846, during the Bear Flag Revolt, American Bear Flaggers and a Mexican force skirmished briefly at Ynitia's adobe. Several men were wounded and one was killed, according to State Parks. The fight became known as the "Battle of Olompali."

Dentists, Jesuits and the Grateful Dead

Ynitia sold most of the land to James Black in 1852. Black gave the ranch to his daughter when she married Dr. Galen Burdell, and the couple built their house around the adobe. Later owners used the property as a Jesuit retreat, a dairy ranch and a private estate, Friends of Olompali says. The Grateful Dead lived at the ranch in 1966, and it became a gathering place for San Francisco musicians, according to State Parks. The state bought the property in 1977 and opened the park to the public in 1990.

Visiting

The park is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the gates close promptly. Take the Atherton Ave./San Marin Dr. exit from either direction of Highway 101. Parking is $8 per vehicle, or free with a State Park pass borrowed from the Novato library or another public library. The 2.5-mile Miwok Loop Trail climbs the lower slopes of Mount Burdell, and there are two redwood-bark kotchas (houses) in a recreated Coast Miwok village. Dogs and bikes are not allowed on the trails.