THE FIRST REDWOOD RESORTS

 

Visitors admire redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, circa 1915 - Author's Personal Collection

Clarence E. Edwords, Chief of the Publicity Bureau for the California Promotion Committee, made the following statement in the April 30, 1907 Santa Cruz Surf.

"I must confess that I always had an unfavorable impression regarding Santa Cruz county until one day when I drove over the hills, down through the wonderful canyons, past such insistent evidences [of] magnificent natural wealth that I wondered how it happened that I permitted all this beautiful country to sit at my very door for so long without knowing anything about it ..."

"The world boasts no greater natural wonder than the tree growth of California. In this State are the largest and the oldest trees in the world – trees who send their tops up into the sky while their roots are entwined about the granite of the hills."

"In California nowhere are there so large ones of the Sempervirens variety as in Santa Cruz county, and the 'Big Tree Grove,' five miles from the city of Santa Cruz, has attracted the attention of world travelers."

"Two immense groves of these trees are preserved in Santa Cruz. The one best known is the Fremont grove [Big Trees Grove], five miles from the city of Santa Cruz. In this grove fifty of the trees range from thirty to sixty feet in circumference, and from two hundred to three hundred feet in height. Here notables of the world have come to pay homage to the patriarchs of earth."

"The Big Basin grove, or as it is now officially known, Sempervirens Park, is a recent public acquisition, and the 4000 acres of its area form one of the finest forests in the world* … Santa Cruz county will extend her fame over the world more through this wonderful park than through any of her many other interests which are being made known through extensive advertising of beach and summer resort."

From its inception in 1902, Big Basin was far larger than Big Trees Grove whose big trees stood upon about 40 acres. Despite its larger size, Big Basin attracted just over two thousand visitors each year during this period. The additional fifteen-mile journey up winding mountain roads and a lack of facilities probably contributed to its slower growth. For at least a little while longer, the larger crowds and more intense competition for redwood tourists continued to be between the two redwood resorts in Felton: the Welch brothers' Big Trees Grove and Milo Hopkins' Cowell’s Big Trees.

* Originally 3,601 acres, today Big Basin Redwoods State Park encompasses over 18,000 acres. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, site of the historic Big Trees Grove resort, now contains 4,650 acres.