Año Nuevo Marine Education Center

The former dairy barn of Cypress Dairy Ranch, now housing the Marine Education Center 

The marine education center in the Año Nuevo State Park is an exhibition barn with focus on the unique elephant seal breeding grounds within the park. The education center is your gateway to nearby beaches, where elephant seals are present pretty much year round.  Access to viewing platforms involves a scenic hike over sand and varied terrain—three to four miles northwest from the education center. Elephant seal viewing is available by guided walks or with a viewing permit. On my last visit I was approached by friendly and knowledgeable park staff offering their binoculars to spot seals and giving updates of elephant seal life: northern elephant seal numbers have rebound from near extinction. Numbers have grown dramatically along the U.S. Pacific Coast thanks to strong conservation efforts. 

The barn with the marine education center also serves as the main visitor center. It includes natural history exhibits, a bookstore and a theater. You can find picnic tables nearby.    

Adult elephant seal skulls: male (left) and female (right)

A male and a female elephant seal skull are displayed in the barn; supplemented by an explaining placard: 

Note the size difference between the adult male and female skulls. Adult males weigh up to 2 ½ tons  and average fifteen feet long. Females weigh half that amount and average eleven feet in length. At birth, pups weigh about 75 pounds and are already more than four feet long. 

In the old days, the exhibition barn was a dairy barn. The historic buildings, including the barn and the creamery, are—according to an interpretive panel—“Echoes of a Dairy Ranch”:

The historic buildings you see today were once part of the Cypress Dairy built by Edwin and Effie Dickerman in 1881 for making butter and cream. Materials for construction were salvaged from a nearby abandoned wharf.

Effie was a member of the prominent Steele family that had settled along the Año Nuevo coast in 1862 from Ohio. During the late 1800's her family helped pioneer the dairy industry in California.

In the 1930s the family switched to crop farming and, like many coastal farms, grew artichokes and Brussel sprouts, crops that are still popular today. The ranch was eventually purchased by the State of California in 1968 and added to Año Nuevo State Park.

The creamery of the historic Dickerman Ranch at the former Cypress Dairy

In addition to the dairy barn and the creamy, Cypress Dairy Ranch features Dickerman's home, a storage barn, a horse barn, a blacksmith shop, a water tower, an orchard and New Years Creek Bridge.

Getting there

The former Cypress Dairy Ranch with the dairy barn—now called Marine Education Center—is located just south of the visitor parking lot in Año Nuevo State Park. The park entrance is located on the west side of Highway 1, approximately 55 miles south of San Francisco and a short drive south from the Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park. 

Further reading

[1]  Marine Education Center. California State Parks. URL: https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=27612 .

[2] Año Nuevo State Park. Coastside State Parks Association. URL: https://www.coastsidestateparks.org/ano_nuevo.