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The first quarter released in 2005
honors California, and is the 31st in
the United States Mint's 50 State
Quarters® Program. California was
admitted into the Union on September
9, 1850, becoming our Nation’s 31st
State. Nicknamed the "Golden State,"
California’s quarter depicts
naturalist and conservationist John
Muir admiring Yosemite Valley’s
monolithic granite headwall known as
"Half Dome" and also contains a
soaring California condor. The coin
bears the inscriptions "California,"
"John Muir," "Yosemite Valley" and
"1850."
In 1849, the
year before California gained
statehood, the family of 11-year-old
John Muir emigrated from Scotland to
the United States, settling in
Wisconsin. In 1868, at the age of 30,
Muir sailed up the West Coast and
landed in San Francisco. He made his
home in the Yosemite Valley,
describing the Sierra Nevada
Mountains as "the Range of Light… the
most divinely beautiful of all the
mountain chains I have seen." He
devoted the rest of his life to the
conservation of natural beauty,
publishing more than 300 articles and
10 books that expanded his naturalist
philosophy.
In 1890,
Congress established Yosemite
National Park, and in 1892 John Muir
helped form the Sierra Club to
protect it, serving as that
organization’s President until his
death in 1914.
The California condor, with a wingspan as
long as nine feet, is also featured on the
coin in a tribute to the successful
repopulation of the once nearly extinct
bird.
The 20-member California State Quarter
Commission was formed to solicit design
concepts from California citizens and to
review all submissions. The Commission
forwarded 20 design concepts to Governor
Gray Davis’s office for further
consideration. From these, five were chosen
as finalists and sent for final review to
the United States Mint. Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger chose the final selection
from this group of five. The four other
design concepts considered included "Waves
and Sun," "Gold Miner," "Golden Gate
Bridge," and the "Giant Sequoia" design.
The Department of Treasury approved the
"John Muir/Yosemite Valley" design on April
15, 2004.
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The California quarter
depicts naturalist and
conservationist John Muir admiring
Yosemite Valley’s monolithic granite
headwall known as Half Dome with a
soaring California
condor..
United States Mint
image
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To
learn even more about the
State Quarters Program, please
visit,
The United States
Mint
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