A BEAUTY SPOT

View from the Rincon along San Lorenzo Canyon, circa 1920 - Author's Personal Collection

"Even though not a resident of Santa Cruz, permit me, as one feeling for your best interests, to make a suggestion. We Easterners, when coming to California, are always greatly impressed by your rare redwood trees. Your cliff and Big Tree drives are your foremost attractions for us, so your livery men tell me. They say the canyon of the San Lorenzo river is always greatly admired. I believe it is a wonderful sight, especially that section between the Powder Mills and Rincon."

View of the California Powder Works from Beauties of California by N.W. Griswold, 1883

"To look down from the picturesque drive to the clear water of the river, hundreds of feet below, to see those great Sempervirens stretch their stately branches hundreds of feet above us, is a sensation not entirely of this earth. People of Santa Cruz, surely you do not appreciate this 'Grand Canyon of the San Lorenzo'. Would that you would call it some such name, as the one I propose above, and would make efforts to preserve it for future ages. Already almost all of the western banks have been stripped. A few days ago, when I was driven on this road, woodmen with their yoked oxen were laying bare still more of these monarchs that have taken thousands of years in their formation. I am told that the only reason the Eastern slope of the canyon is not laid bare is that as yet no road reaches across the river to it. What a reason!"

"People of Santa Cruz, you admit that this spot is perhaps the grandest piece of mountain scenery for visitors that you possess, and yet you are doing absolutely nothing to preserve it. It is not five miles from town, a rich heritage to you. Do not let it be wasted for its mere value in cord wood. I am told the estate of Henry Cowell owns the land. I do not know the parties, but surely no difficulty would be encountered, if the city would attempt to come to some understanding with them, whereby this wonderful 'Grand Canyon of the San Lorenzo' might be preserved for all time as a beauty spot of Santa Cruz."

This editorial, signed simply from an "Eastern Visitor", appeared in June 30, 1904 Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel.

Just a few years before this was written, Henry Cowell did begin to log his land adjacent to the Welch family's Big Trees Grove resort. Eventually most of the Eastern portion of San Lorenzo Canyon also fell to the logger's ax. It would take another 50 years after this editorial, and thanks to Samuel Cowell, before the spectacular San Lorenzo Canyon finally came under the protection of the State of California. This southern portion of what is now Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is covered in over one hundred years of impressive second growth redwoods.

Source: “Desecration of San Lorenzo Canyon – Eastern Visitors Sound Notes of Warning Concerning Big Trees Drive,” Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel, June 30, 1904.