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.