Emerson Knight (1882-1960)

Emerson Knight, a California landscape architect, designed gardens and country estates in San Francisco and on the peninsula until the late 1920s when he traveled to Mexico to do studies for the Mexican National Highway Commission. Upon returning to the United States, Knight worked for the Save-The-Redwoods League, the Monterey City Planning Commission, the California State Park Commission, and the National Park Service. Knight designed a number of outdoor theaters including the Mountain Theater on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. The Emerson Knight papers span the years 1932-1954 and include correspondence, reports, photographs, theater programs, drawings and articles. The correspondence and reports from 1936-38 were created during Knight’s years working for the National Park Service and discuss projects such as preserving historic Monterey and the preservation of old trees along the north-south highway to Eureka. Most of the other material in the collection concerns the design, construction, and use of the Mountain Theater on Mount Tamalpais.