In 1971 the California Department of Parks and Recreation printed the state's register of historical landmarks: 844 numbered landmarks, from No. 1, the Custom House at Monterey, to No. 844, the Hotel del Coronado, each with the state's own text. 773 of the 1971 edition's 844 landmarks now have permanent pages at TreeAlive, placing that register text on georeferenced maps from the period each one commemorates. These pages carry the register as the state printed it in 1971, not the wording on the plaque today.
780 marker pages, on more than 84,000 historical map sheets. State of California, Department of Parks and Recreation (1971), credited on every page.
Every dot is a live page. Click one to preview it or add it to a road trip; many dots hold several markers each; click a busy spot to zoom in. Prefer a list? Browse all 780 markers by county.
TreeAlive maps family trees. When a visitor's ancestors lived in California, the landmarks registered near those places surface automatically alongside their family's journey:
Fort Ross · near where a family lived on the Sonoma coast in the 1840s · founded in 1812 by Russians from Alaska, and when they withdrew in 1841 Captain Sutter bought the improvements and supplies
A landmark stops being a roadside stop and becomes a destination with a personal reason to visit. Open the live demo tree, choose the Crossings tab, and turn on Historical Markers to see the experience working (the demo family’s markers are in Pennsylvania; a California family sees California’s).
Browsing all 780 markers by county.
Scan: Fort Ross landmark