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.