Looming sale of California ranch summons violent past
Here in this forgotten corner of coastal California, nestled amid a curtain of redwoods so far north it feels otherworldly, the state’s most pristine river harbors more than a century of secrets. Its emerald-green water once flowed red with Native American blood, its wetlands haunted by one of the largest massacres in U.S. history. Today, the Smith River is the last major waterway in California that runs freely without a single dam — a precious refuge for salmon, for steelhead and a bygone timber community still searching for a future.