John Muir, the renowned conservationist and Sierra Club founder who passed away 100 years ago, will be remembered and honored at a public ‘John Muir 100th Anniversary Memorial Candlelight Vigil’ in Santa Monica.
It will take place from 5 pm to 6 pm on Tuesday, Dec. 23, the evening before his Dec. 24, 1914 Christmas Eve passing at the age of 76 from pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles.
The vigil will take place in front of the “Muir Woods” wall mural in Santa Monica located at the corner of Lincoln Blvd. and Ocean Park Blvd. The mural was painted in 1978 by noted artist Jane Golden.
At the free-to-the-public vigil, speakers from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups will talk about John Muir’s life and environmental legacy.
According to the Dec. 25, 1914 New York Times obituary, “John Muir was best known to the general public as a great lover of nature, and was affectionately called the ‘Guardian of the Yosemite’ and the ‘Naturalist of the Sierras’, because of his love for the riotous wildness of nature in those parts of the West. But aside from being a naturalist- ‘more wonderful than Thoreau’, according to his good friend Ralph Waldo Emerson- Mr. Muir was a geologist, an explorer, philosopher, artist, author and editor, and to each of his avocations he devoted that deep insight and conscientious devotion which made him its master.”
John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838. He came to America when he was 11 years old.
The vigil is being sponsored by the Campaign to Save the Muir Woods Mural.
For further information on the vigil call 310.399.1000 or visit facebook.com/SaveTheMuirWoodsMural.
