Point Reyes Station is a community on the San Andreas Fault zone at the head of Tomales Bay, near the tidal estuary of Lagunitas Creek, about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of San Francisco and 3.5 miles (6 km) southeast of Inverness, California. It began as Olema Station, a stop on the North Pacific Coast Railroad linking Cazadero on the Russian River with the Sausalito ferries. It became Point Reyes after a post office opened in 1882, and Point Reyes Station in 1891 to avoid confusion with another post office on the Point Reyes Peninsula. Lagunitas Creek rises at roughly 2,600 feet (793 m) on the northern slopes of Mount Tamalpais, on the Marin Peninsula in the Pacific Coast Ranges. It runs northwest for 24 miles (39 km) to Tomales Bay, draining a 65,920-acre (26,677-ha) watershed. Most major tributaries are dammed, forming the Kent, Alpine, Bon Tempe, Lagunitas, and Nicasio reservoirs. The watershed is formed by sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Franciscan Complex. The Olema Creek valley, its western arm, follows the San Andreas Fault, the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate that runs roughly 800 miles (1,300 km). The 1906 earthquake shifted the peninsula up to 20 feet northwest, relative to the continent.

Coast Miwok inhabited much of present-day Marin County for millennia, living in small bands on acorns, game, and seasonal coastal fish and shellfish. Spanish settlers estimated their population at 1,500 to 2,000 in 1770, a figure that collapsed after Europeans introduced disease. From 1783, Coast Miwok and Ohlone people joined Mission San Francisco de Asís. By 1817, 850 Coast Miwok had been converted, and many were moved north to found Mission San Rafael. Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, but secularization in 1834 ended Franciscan mission control and passed lands to Californios. In 1835 about 80,000 acres (32,375 ha) around Tomales Bay were granted to the Coast Miwok by Governor José Figueroa, but never legally conveyed. In 1844 Manuel Micheltorena granted 56,621 acres (22,914 ha) as Rancho Nicasio to Pablo de la Guerra and Juan B.R. Cooper. After Alta California passed to the United States in 1848, de la Guerra sold 30,848 acres (12,484 ha) to Henry W. Halleck in 1850, and Cooper sold 16,293 acres (6,594 ha) to Benjamin R. Buckelew that year. Immigrants from Ireland, southern Switzerland, Denmark, and the Azores ran most ranches by 1900. Marin had been California’s leading dairy county since the early 1860s, when it supplied about a quarter of the state’s butter. By 1867 its butter yield was the largest in California, much of it shipped to San Francisco from Tomales and Bolinas. About 200 dairies still operated in the county in 1950. Today the Graton Rancheria, a federation of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo groups, is recognized by Congress.

The Lagunitas Creek watershed supports steelhead trout and the region’s highest spawning population of coho salmon. State and federal regulators both listed the population as endangered in 2005, after it had been listed as threatened in 1996. Fewer than 60 adults returned in 2008, against thousands historically. Human-caused factors include water diversions, road building, timber harvest, urbanization, flood control, and climate change. Nicasio Creek once held a large share of the watershed’s coho, but Seeger Dam, completed in 1961, cut off much of its habitat. In 2020-21, 83% of coho spawning was in the Lagunitas mainstem and 8% in San Geronimo Creek. Pink salmon, first documented in 2017, and chum salmon have appeared in small numbers since. Pink salmon are scarce south of Puget Sound, and major chum populations reach only to Tillamook Bay, Oregon. In the 2025-26 season, Marin Water surveyors had counted 77 coho redds through January. At face value, that would make the run one of the smallest in 30 years, though more adults returned than three years earlier. Today the Point Reyes Station census-designated area has 895 residents (2020 census), and its post office occupies the old train depot. Marin Water monitors the watershed, which is 52% publicly owned. Read more here and here. Explore more of Point Reyes Station and Tomales Bay here: