SOUNDS OF THE GROVE

The Chautauquan - April 25, 1914

"All through the grove there reigns a stillness, broken now and then by the far-echoing whistle of an approaching train, or the more frequent sound of the wood-chopper’s ax. There is the never-ceasing sighing of the passing breezes through the tapering tree tops, and an undertone of rushing water in the stream near at hand."

                                                        San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 1889

One of my favorite aspects of walking along the beautiful Redwood Loop Trail, site of the original Big Trees Grove resort, is hearing the "far-echoing whistle of an approaching train." Today the train whistle comes from neighboring amusement site, Roaring Camp, where visitors can ride vintage steam and diesel trains. Visitors who choose to take the train ride to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk travel the original route which brought thousands of the first rail tourists to the grove via the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad starting in 1875.

View of Big Tree Station from a pre-1940 Southern Pacific Railroad Time Schedule - Author's Personal Collection

The wood-chopper’s ax is no longer heard. But if you were a visitor to Big Trees Grove resort around 1900, you would have not only heard loggers busily at work, but you would also have felt the earth shake when giant redwoods fell. The logging was not taking place on the Welch family's property, but upon the land of their neighbor ... "[f]or some time Henry Cowell, whose ranch line is within two hundred feet of the Big Trees has been working his timber up into kiln wood."

Cowell's logging set up a stark contrast to the preservation of the Big Trees on the adjacent Welch family property. A visitor in 1903 told how

"... before reaching our destination we were to be tortured by the sight of thousands of acres from which every redwood of salable size had been cut, split and perverted into cash to add yet another million to the pockets of an already multi-millionaire. 'Breathes there a man with soul so dead?' [W]e wondered at the sight of the charred stumps of fallen giants that were great trees when Rome was mistress of the world. But righteous anger against the rich old sinner who had devastated this region melted after we crossed the line of his vast possessions and entered his neighbor's territory, where redwoods in all their primeval grandeur still stood."

Thankfully, the descendants of Joseph Warren Welch continued his preservation legacy by selling the grove to Santa Cruz County for the establishment of a park in 1930. The Cowell family enters the preservation story later though not through Henry, but rather through his son, Samuel. It was Samuel Cowell who donated 1,623 of those already logged acres of adjacent land to the State of California. In 1954 Samuel insisted that his donated land be combined with the county park, site of the former Big Trees Grove resort for the establishment of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. 

Sources: “Santa Cruz Big Trees – Peculiarities of Their Growth,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 1889; "Santa Cruz Big Trees Said to Be in Danger," Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel, March 13, 1900; Six and a Half Tenderfeet: Toward the Sunrise on “The Sunset” - The Record of a Journey in the Land of Sunshine, World’s Work Press: New York, 1903.