A local long time activist and nature lover, John Olmsted, spent his life dedicated to preserving a necklace of public park lands strung across California from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Tahoe.

“The Story of Jug Handle,” is a film directed and produced by John Olmstead’s son, Alden Olmsted, about his father and a small band of grass roots activists who successfully won the fight to conserve an iconic slice of Mendocino coastline using the California Environmental Quality Act in the early 1970s.
Click here to listen to Alden Olmstead

John Olmsted fought hard to protect Jug Handle from developers and bulldozers in 1972.
By sharing “The Story of Jug Handle” Alden Olmsted hopes to inspire a new generation of conservationists in the face of ongoing development threats.
Click here to listen to Alden Olmstead

Shortly following the death of his father in 2011, Alden Olmsted started a bucket fundraising campaign to save state parks $1 at a time. He also started the Olmsted Park Fund and continues to raise funds for parks like South Yuba River State Park at Bridgeport and Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park.

The “Story of Jug Handle” premiers Wednesday evevning at 7:00 PM on Public Television station KVIE.

On April 30, Alden will visit Nevada City, California for a film screening of the longer 51-minute directors cut version of “The Story of Jug Handle” for the Bear Yuba Land Trust.