SIMPLY, THE GIANT

St. Louis Globe, June 22, 1890

"[Standing] in solitary grandeur 'The Giant', which is perhaps the finest single tree in the grove. It is 53 feet in circumference five feet above the ground and when, as often happens, a number of visitors join hands to form a ring around his base, it takes over twenty to complete the chain."

“The Big Trees,” Santa Cruz Daily Surf, June 3, 1889

Originally known as Frémont’s Tree, over the years the greatest monarch of Big Trees Grove was also called the San Lorenzo Giant, the Felton Giant, the National Educational Association Tree, and the Rotary International Tree. 

LOFTY TREES

 

Author's Personal Collection

The following excerpt is from an 1851 Vermont newspaper article recounting John Charles Frémont's description of redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

"The writer speaks thus of some trees on the coast mountain between St. Joseph [San Jose] and Santa Cruz."

"The mountains were wooded with many varieties of trees, and in some parts with heavy forests. These forests are characteri[z]ed by a cypress of extraordinary dimensions already mentioned among the forest trees of America, by its superior size and height. Among many which we measured in this part of the mountain, nine and ten feet in diameter was frequent, eleven sometimes, but going beyond eleven only in a single instance, which reached fourteen feet in diameter. Above 200 feet was a frequent height. In this locality the bark was very deeply furrowed, and unusually thick, being fully sixteen inches in some of the trees …"

"This is the staple timber tree of the country, being cut into both boards and shingles, and is the [principal] timber sawed at the mills. It is soft and easily worked, wearing away too quickly too be used for floors. It seems to have all the durability which anciently gave the Cypress so much celebrity. Posts which have been exposed to the weather three quarters of a century (since the foundation of the missions) shows no marks of decay in the wood and are now converted into beams and posts for private dwellings. In California this tree is called the palo colorado. It is the king of trees."

Source:  “Lofty Trees,” Aurora of the Valley [Newberry, Vermont], July 24, 1851.

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Author's Personal Collection

Recently I was searching the newly digitized collection of Santa Cruz photographs posted by the University of California, Santa Cruz. It is a marvelous array of historic photographs known as the Santa Cruz County Historic Photograph Collection and contains over 10,000 images. 

I was excited to see some images of Big Trees Grove which were either new to me or the evident inspirations for familiar postcards. 

Special Collections, University Library, University of California-Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz Historical Photograph Collection) - ms0427 pho 06791

One such image which was the basis of a postcard is this one of two ladies standing in front of a big tree. The real photograph brings not only greater clarity but also a surprise. 

It appears that for their photo opportunity, the ladies stepped over a tangle of barbed wire wrapped around the base of the tree. 

It seems likely that the barbed wire was placed purposely to protect the forest monarch from vandals and souvenir hunters. 

We know that in 1892 a picket fence, topped with barbed wire, was placed around the base of the Giant for that exact purpose. Discovery of this photograph reveals that this practice was used to protect other trees in the grove as well. 

The photograph also demonstrates the creativity of the person who colorized the image. Green grass at the base of the redwood? I think not. 

Though the university's description estimates the date of the photograph as circa 1890, judging by the ladies' clothing and the broad brimmed hat one is wearing, the date is more likely somewhere between 1905-1915.  

When you visit Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, site of the historic Big Trees Grove resort, please remember while walking the Redwood Loop Trail to respect the protective fencing and stay on the designated trail. No climbing is allowed on the redwoods or their roots and trunks. Please take nothing but memories and leave nothing but footprints. Thank you.

The Santa Cruz Historic Photograph Collection which premiered in October 2020 "spans more than 100 years of Santa Cruz city and county development and activity. Take a few minutes and browse this wonderful collection.

SAY TREES !

A group of tourists likely visiting from Michigan, circa 1902 - Courtesy of Ross Eric Gibson

"It was nearly fifty miles northward around the bay to Santa Cruz, a busy little town and popular shore resort for the San Francisco people. Several miles from the city, on a narrow gauge road, is a grove of big trees which fairly rival the giants at Mariposa.  One of them is more than sixty feet in circumference, and another has a cavity large enough for a good sized family to comfortably set up housekeeping in it. I photographed our party of ten or a dozen people standing in front of one of the trees, the group not extending beyond the outside lines of the tree.  The bark of these redwood trees is frequently four or five inches thick, and is so porous that cross sections are neatly mounted and sold for pin cushions."  

Source: "Wintering and Wandering in Southern California," The Berkshire County Eagle, July 3, 1890.

THE BIG TREES BY RAIL

Excerpt from a Southern Pacific brochure, circa 1940

Since the establishment of the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad in 1875, Big Trees Grove resort benefited greatly from rail tourists. Beginning in 1880, the South Pacific Coast Railroad (later purchased by Southern Pacific) brought tourists down directly from the port of Oakland.

In the spring of 1940, heavy rains brought on a mud slide that blocked the Southern Pacific rail line through the mountains. The high estimated cost of recovery led the railroad to abandon the line from Oakland, cutting off a still important artery of the grove’s tourist trade. When Southern Pacific claimed out of-state passengers would happily take the extra step to transfer by bus from a branch line to reach Big Trees Grove, an article in the Riptide that spring countered by saying that 

"... when the railroad no longer goes to the Big Trees, the Big Trees DIE as a Santa Cruz tourist attraction.…With abandonment of the Southern Pacific’s  mountain railroad line, this community from a national standpoint—loses its greatest asset. With all deference to our beaches, mountains, climate and many other features, we lose our only claim to nationwide recognition when we take our Big Trees off the tourist pathway—the railroad ..."

Well not quite. With the completion of Highway 17 that same year, tourists continued to come to the grove via automobile. Today Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park attracts 1.1 million visitors annually. 

IN MEMORIAM

 

San Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 1901

In 1901 Big Trees Grove was expecting its second presidential visit. The first president to visit the grove was Benjamin Harrison in 1891. Ten years later the grove was supposed to be visited by President William McKinley. Extravagant preparations were made for a banquet lunch at the grove that May. When Mrs. McKinley fell ill, the president decided to stay at her bedside. Though the people of Santa Cruz were disappointed, they decided to carry out the program as it had been arranged. Serving in lieu of the president were members of his cabinet led by Secretary of State John Hay.

 

"By 11 o’clock the train reached Big Tree Station. Some of the immemorial giants stood near the track, and before the party left their seats they could see the great corrugated trunks towering above them. There, for the first time, most of the Cabinet officers and their companions saw the works of nature that have done more than anything else to make the name of California famous among naturalists. Directly in front of the Secretary of State’s group stood the famous sequoia sempervirens ‘General Grant,’ as it stood when Napoleon rose and fell, and long before, when the pride of King John crumbled at Runnymede, and even perhaps in that old time when the Roman eagles flew above the world, so it stood in majestic calm, with barley a murmur audible among the branches that hung ninety feet above the heads of the throng below ..."

 

"A guide showed the Cabinet party hurriedly through the grove. On every hand evidence of untold age was seen. The charm of this was that united to the antiquity of the trees was perfect health and green old strength. Their great trunks were wrinkled as a centenarian’s brow, but their tops were flourishing with the freshness of a youth that seems immortal."

 

Though a later Santa Cruz County Big Trees Park brochure stated that the McKinley tree dedication took place during this visit of the cabinet, accounts of the day do not mention it. In fact, the only mention of a tree dedication that day was for a member of the next party to arrive, Governor Nash of Ohio. Therefore, I believe the McKinley Tree dedication did not come until later that year after the president’s assassination on September 14, 1901.

 

"The most perfect tree in the grove, tall, over 300 feet, and stately, was named after our lamented and beloved President, 'McKinley,' a striking monument to his straightforward character and lofty principles."

Author's Personal Collection

Later accounts mention a slightly smaller tree which stood close to the McKinley. One account claims it was dubbed the Mrs. McKinley Tree. But another claimed the smaller tree was "… named in honor of the then Vice-President, now our highly esteemed President, 'Roosevelt.'" Once Theodore Roosevelt became president, it only seemed fitting that he should have a proper, presidential size tree. During his May 11, 1903 visit, he too was finally given this honor with an appropriately straight, tall, monarch of the forest befitting a president.

Sources: “Our California Letter,” by E.B. Leek, Sag-Harbor Express, May 15, 1902; “Seeing America,” by Prof. J. Kimber Grimm, Bedford Gazette, [Bedford, Pennsylvania], November 28, 1912; “Santa Cruz Entertains the Cabinet Royally,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 1901.