Jack London left nearly his entire estate to his wife Charmian in 1916; she kept the ranch, evicted a biographer, and her 1938 will turned it into a state park

Jack London died on his Beauty Ranch at 40. His death certificate lists uremia following acute renal colic. He also had dysentery and alcoholism, and was taking morphine and opium. Older accounts called it suicide. Biographer Clarice Stasz writes that recent scholarship challenges that, and Russ Kingman and most biographers say uremia aggravated by an accidental morphine overdose. He left nearly his entire estate to Charmian, and token amounts to his first wife and their daughters. Charmian and his stepsister Eliza Shepard saved the ranch, and Charmian sold screen rights to his works. In 1935 she invited writer Irving Stone to study the papers, then evicted him after he read her hidden diaries and love letters. His book was Sailor on Horseback. Charmian died on 14 January 1955 and her ashes lie beside Jack's. Her 1938 will asked that the ranch become a public museum^†. Nephew Irving Shepard gave about 40 acres to California in 1959 or 1960^†. The state bought 756 more acres in 1979^†.