Long before the United States was born this beautiful peninsula was home to the Miwok people. Sir Francis Drake put into Drakes Bay in the Sixteenth Century for repairs to his ship and visited with the Miwok people. Although Drake claimed the area for the British Empire, Spain, Russia and Mexico also sought control for more than a century until finally it became part of the newly formed state of California. The rapid growth of San Francisco following the discovery of gold in the Sierras stimulated an extensive dairy industry in the peninsula that still exists today. The San Andreas fault runs through the park and there are some excellent earthquake related exhibits in the park that graphically illustrate the power of the 1906 earthquake that destroyed San Francisco.