Will Rogers State Historic Park S

For me, Will Rogers State Historic Park has always been more than just another park. It’s where I cut my teeth as a young hiker, where I first understood that a trail could be a path not only across a landscape, but into a lifelong passion. And later in life, it became the eastern gateway for something even bigger: the 70-mile-long Backbone Trail across the Santa Monica Mountains, a dream that took decades-and no small amount of stubbornness-to bring to life.

Decades ago, if you hiked to Inspiration Point, you may have noticed a large kiosk with a huge map illustrating the Backbone Trail. True confessions: back in the late 1980s, my merry band of trail advocates “installed” that display-without asking for permission. We figured it was easier to apologize later than to wait for a bureaucratic green light that might never come. The kiosk stayed up for years, reminding hikers about the need to connect the missing trail links. Eventually, against the odds, the gaps were filled. Today you can start at Will Rogers’ front yard and walk all the way across the Santa Monicas to Point Mugu. Every time I set foot on the Backbone, I think about the kiosk, the laughter, and the grit it took to finish what we started.

But before there was a park, there was a man. Will Rogers was America’s cowboy philosopher, a humorist who lassoed laughs on the vaudeville stage, in films, and in his syndicated newspaper column. His wit-“I never met a man I didn’t like”-is part of American folklore. Rogers built his ranch here in the 1920s, a spread of horse pastures, stables, polo field, and his beloved home in the Pacific Palisades. He lived large, with an open heart and an open door. Friends and Hollywood celebrities came for Sunday polo matches, backyard barbecues, and hikes into the hills. When Rogers died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935, Californians mourned him as one of their own. His ranch became a state park in 1944.

The ranch house stood as the jewel of the park for generations, preserved with Rogers’ books, saddles, and family mementos. And then came the 2025 Palisades Fire, a fast-moving inferno that swept through the hills and destroyed the Rogers home. A priceless part of California-and American-heritage was lost in the flames. For those of us who loved the place, it was a gut punch. And yet, just as the Backbone Trail endures, the land endures, and Rogers’ legacy as a humorist, horseman, and Californian lives on in every hiker who climbs the trail to Inspiration Point.