A LOVELY SCENE

Scott Peden Collection

In 1888 a lady visitor recorded her arrival at Big Trees Grove. 

“The height of these trees impresses one more than the size of their trunks, the branches and foliage being at the top … We walked down through the woods, crossed the San Lorenzo on a narrow foot bridge, climbed steep places where seats are arranged at intervals and one can rest and contemplate the lovely scene altogether – the grand old trees and their known antiquity standing here as they have for thousands of years.” 

About thirty years earlier there was quite a different scene on the San Lorenzo River. With the discovery of gold in the early 1850s, the locale just upstream of the park's current Group Picnic Area became known as Gold Gulch. 

Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel, November 14, 1863

Back in 1856 another visitor to the region described their arrival in the San Lorenzo Valley.

"On Saturday last we took a pleasant ride into the country about our little village of Santa Cruz; going in a northerly direction, about seven miles over an undulating country, and through sand hills covered with majestic pine trees, we emerged into the beautiful and romantic valley of Sayante  -- which forms the residence of Capt. Isaac Graham, one of the old pioneers, twenty-two years a resident of California. This valley is a broad bottom about one mile wide and two miles in length, in the middle of which the San Lorenzo and Sayante rivers mingle their waters, and find their way down through a pass in the mountains to the ocean. Some parts of the bottom are open land, suitable for cultivation, with a rich fertile soil, while others are covered with red wood timber of the most enormous growth. We passed on through the valley, which is surrounded with mountains and lofty hills covered with dense forests of timber, across the San Lorenzo; upon one of the beautiful streams coming from the mountains on the western side, we passed a large body of miners, who were engaged in turning the creek from its bed in order to work for gold. They were just completing their ditch and flume which turns the water out of the creek for about three-fourths of a mile. We did not learn the name of the company, and we knew but few persons whom we met; they treated us with kindness and hospitality, and we judge by their cheerful countenances and dispositions that they have a reasonable prospect of good diggings." 

The gold strike was short-lived, petering out by the late 1860s. One story claims local settler Isaac Graham found a gold-speckled boulder that netted him approximately $30,000.* Most gold seekers netted at best just a few hundred dollars. 

Thanks to the foresight of Joseph Warren Welch, today we can all enjoy the true gold of the San Lorenzo Valley ... a beautiful, preserved grove of towering coast redwoods now known as Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.

* Other research tells that a large 1853 gold nugget was discovered by Philip T. Stribling. 

Sources: “Sayante Valley – Fremont’s Tree,” Sacramento Daily Union, July 3, 1856; "Santa Cruz Trains: Tales of Gold Gulch and Forest Lakes," by Derek Whaley, Press Banner, December 18, 2014; “Wayside Impressions – Notes of a Trip From San Miguel to Santa Cruz,” Santa Cruz Daily Surf, March 9, 1888.