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"The main object of this incidental trip to Santa Cruz was to see Big Tree Grove, which lies eight miles up the San Lorenzo River, and is reached by a narrow gauge railroad or by carriage. We employed the latter medium, partly because of a preference for the carriage drive through the picturesque San Lorenzo Defile, but chiefly because the narrow-gauge train had already departed when we were ready to start. The drive to the Grove occupied little more than an hour, and proved to be even more agreeable than had been anticipated, the road being good, the weather delightful, and the scenery positively enchanting. At the Grove we found a great number of visitors from San Francisco, and several parties encamped in tents on the banks of the adjacent stream. The big trees consist of perhaps a score of immense specimens, with hundreds of smaller ones, all of the California redwood, and exceedingly shapely in form."

For many years stable owner Milo Hopkins, working in conjunction with Southern Pacific Railroad, drove stages which brought visitors to and from Big Trees Grove. In 1902 Hopkins decided to switch gears and become a resort operator. Hopkins leased land from Henry Cowell and set up a rival resort to the Welch family's Big Trees Grove. He constructed the famed Club House at Cowell's Big Trees which he continued to operate until 1928, when he turned over reins of his resort to his son George who continued its operation until World War II.

Source: Sunset Magazine, Passenger Dept., Southern Pacific Co., San Francisco, 1898 and “From New England to the Pacific – Notes of a Vacation Trip Across the Continent in April, May, and June, 1884,” by J.A.S. [John A. Spalding] in Hartford Evening Post, Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., Hartford, Conn., 1884