Qualla: The Sixpence in the Soil

The Sixpence in the Soil: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Archaeologists working at Olompali unearthed an Elizabethan English silver sixpence, minted in 1567, from the soil of a Coast Miwok village that had been occupied since roughly 500 CE. The coin's presence, more than seven hundred years after the village's founding and two centuries before California became a state, suggests contact with Sir Francis Drake's expedition or with indigenous trade networks that reached the English explorer during his 1579 landing somewhere along the Northern California coast. A single small coin, and it rewrites the timeline. That capacity for surprise runs through everything at Olompali, a 700-acre park along Highway 101 just north of Novato in Marin County where fifteen centuries of continuous human presence have left layers that no single story can contain.

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Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

The Sixpence in the Soil: The Village That Endured

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah Stierch from Sonoma, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0. The Coast Miwok people established their village of Olompali around 500 CE, and by 1200 it had become one of the largest native settlements in what is now Marin County. The chief of the Olompolli band built an adobe house on the site in 1776, making it the oldest surviving house ...

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Image: Sarah Stierch from Sonoma, CA, USA | CC BY 2.0

The Sixpence in the Soil: A Skirmish and a Flag

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stepheng3, CC0. In June 1846, a group of American settlers in Sonoma raised a homemade flag bearing a grizzly bear and declared California an independent republic. The Mexican government did not take this well. The brief conflict that followed, known as the Bear Flag Revolt, produced one notable...

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Image: Stepheng3 | CC0

The Sixpence in the Soil: The Dead, the Chosen, and the Fire

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah Stierch from Sonoma, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0. Olompali's strangest chapter began in the mid-1960s, after the Burdell family sold the estate and it passed through several hands to the University of San Francisco, which used it as a Jesuit retreat. In 1966, the Grateful Dead leased the property for the spring and returned freq...

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Image: Sarah Stierch from Sonoma, CA, USA | CC BY 2.0

The Sixpence in the Soil: What the Park Holds Now

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sanfranman59, CC BY-SA 3.0. California purchased the property in 1977 and designated it a state historic park. Today the 700 acres encompass hiking trails through grasslands and oak woodlands, the reconstructed foundations of the Burdell mansion, and the remnants of Ynitia's adobe house, registered as Calif...

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Image: Sanfranman59 | CC BY-SA 3.0