| Redwood National and State Parks | |
History:
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Lacking good deep harbors, the redwood coast drew little attention until fur trapper Jed Smith arrived overland in 1828. Smith explored the redwood coast in search of a better route between the Rockies and the Pacific Ocean. The area was largely ignored by Anglos and Spaniards until the Gold Rush of the late 1840's, at which time it was open to settlement. Gold was discovered on Gold Bluffs Beach in 1850 and mining proved to be marginally profitable.
Logging began in redwood country in 1851. At first small logs were floated to small mills or were dragged by oxen, but with the advent of the railroads in the 1870s followed by the steam donkey in 1882 and the bull donkey ten years later, large-scale logging was soon underway. The once immense stands of redwoods began to disappear by the close of the 19th century and most of the redwood forests had become privately owned.
Though some people had previously proposed the idea of preservation, the huge demand for lumber in America made it impossible at the time. By the 1910s, some concerned citizens began to advocate the preservation of the dwindling stands of redwoods. Paleontologists Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History, Madison Grant of the New York Zoological Society, and John C. Merriam of the University of California at Berkeley founded the Save-the-Redwoods League in 1918. The League was formed as a nonprofit organization dedicated to buying redwood tracts for preservation. Through donations and matching state funds, the League bought over 100,000 acres of redwood forest between 1920 and 1960. Along the way, The League succeeded in helping to establish the redwood preserves of Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (1923), Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park (1925), and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park (1929).
Logging still continued in those parts of the forests that were privately owned, accelerated by World War II and the economic boom of the 1950s. By the 1960s, logging had consumed nearly 90 percent of all the original redwoods. It wasn’t until 1968 that Redwood National Park was established, which secured some of the few remaining stands of uncut redwoods. In 1978, Congress added more land that included logged-over portions of Redwood Creek. Today, these lands are undergoing large-scale restoration by the parks' resource managers.
Since logging began in 1850, only 85,000 acres or 4% of the two million acres of old growth redwood forests remain. Of this remaining land, Redwood National and State Parks contains 38,932 acres, which represents 45% of all the old-growth redwood forests remaining in California. The four parks together were declared a World Heritage Site in 1980 and an International Biosphere Reserve in 1983.
Area History
Includes information on native people of the North Coast region, logging, Save-the-Redwoods League, and more.
Redwood National and State Parks
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