Odd Old News: Women Save the Redwoods

Four women pose by Save The Redwoods banner displayed on an auto, [Crop of an Image from the Palmquist Collection in the Humboldt Room of HSU, Art Freeman photographer]

Last week’s cursory history of the Saving the Redwoods movement article skipped over some of the most significant contributors to the movement… the women of Humboldt County.

In 1917 three Naturalist mover and shakers left from the Bohemian Grove conclave in Sonoma county, and drove north to survey the status of Humboldt County’s awe-inspiring Redwood forests. After observing the effects of logging, John C. Merriam, professor and future President of the Carnegie Institute; Henry F. Osborn, President of the American Museum of Natural History; and Madison Grant, wealthy founder of the N.Y. Zoological Society, began negotiating with state officials, and enlisting “Patriotic” Californians for help in preserving what was left. The Save-the-Redwood-League came to life in 1918, with Franklin Lane, the US Secretary of the Interior, serving as a volunteer first President.
In 1919, when the Save-the-Redwoods-League founders Madison Grant and Stephen Mather came to Eureka to speak and promote conservation, they were surprised to find an enthusiastic response in the heart of the logging country. Humboldt County’s women had set the stage for local acceptance with over a decade of promoting conservation at the grassroots level.

Sam Hoder, President and CEO of the Save the Redwoods League, wrote about their efforts in an article A League of Their Own: The Women Who Started Saving the Redwoods:

In Humboldt, women — many of whom were wives, sisters and daughters of logging industry leaders — witnessed the redwood forest being clear-cut all around them. Given the significance of the timber industry to their families’ livelihoods, most women didn’t push outright for logging restrictions (just yet), but rather called for the protection of specific ancient groves. In some of the very earliest recorded efforts to preserve redwoods in Northern California, Humboldt County women began encouraging the establishment of a park…. In 1921, three women’s club leaders were elected to the council of the newly-formed Save the Redwoods League. League leader J.D. Grant wrote in 1922 that ‘it is to the women that we owe very largely the success that has thus far attended our efforts to establish the Humboldt Redwoods Park.

As the Save the Redwoods League gained popularity, money, and momentum, a wide range of citizens and groups started donating groves to the State Park system in the early to mid 1920’s. Wealthy philanthropists were not the only ones to purchase or donate groves, timber companies and the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, a national timber workers organization, also made contributions. This week Odd Old News takes look at the early acquisitions and growth of the Redwood State Park system as of 1924.

(In 1992, Jerry and Gisela Rohde wrote Humboldt Redwoods State Park, the Complete Guide, a fine reference for those wanting more history of the Park)

Heavy Stand of Redwoods in the Bull Creek Grove [Image from the Palmquist Collection in the Humboldt Room of HSU]

NATION-WIDE MOVE TO PRESERVE NOBLE TREES FOR POSTERITY
Coronado Eagle and Journal
October 18, 1924
By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN

SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE has just dedicated, as a part of the Humboldt State Redwood park of California, the Franklin K. Lane Memorial Redwood grove of 195 acres in honor of the first cabinet officer who had the seeing eye and the understanding heart and appreciated that it was the nation’s duty as well as privilege to preserve our areas of exceptional natural scenic beauty for posterity—both as national economic assets and as natural history museums and playgrounds for the people forever. This memorial grove contains 105 acres, including about 5,000,000 feet of very fine Redwoods, 188,000 feet of fir and camping places for motorists. B. B. Ayer of Chicago headed the group which raised the memorial fund. The grove has been deeded to the Humboldt park—of which more later.

This Save the Redwoods league incorporated October 21, 1920, as a non-profit corporation, may serve as an exemplar, epitome and object lesson to the vast army of nature-lovers all over the country engaged in similar work. Its general purpose is to save a natural resource which is such a thing of beauty that it should be made a joy forever. This natural resource is also a great economic asset —worth more as a beauty spot than as the league’s activities are comprehensive and include the establishment of a national-redwood park; the enlargement of the state redwood parks; the purchase of redwood groves by private subscription; the creation of memorial groves for individuals and organizations; the protection of timber along the state highways; the support of conservation and reforestation of forest areas; the promotion of travel to the redwood areas, and the establishment of auto camps for tourists’ comfort.

The term “Redwoods” is applied somewhat loosely to both species of the Sequoia—the Sequoia gigantea and the Sequoia sempervirens. The former are the Big Trees, which are found only on the west slope of the Sierra in California and are adequately protected for posterity In Yosemite, Sequoia and General Grant National parks. They are the biggest and oldest living things on earth. The General Sherman, a trifle the largest, though not the tallest, is 36.5 feet in diameter—not circumference, mark you!—and 279.9 feet high. Its age is reckoned at between 5,000 and 6,000 years. Sequoia National park contains more than a million Sequoias, 12,000 of which are more than ten feet in diameter.

The Redwood proper, the Sequoia sempervirens (ever living), is a first cousin of the Big Tree. It is found only on a narrow strip along the Pacific. It does not suffer in comparison with the Big Trees. It often rises to a height of 375 feet and attains a diameter of 18 feet. The largest ones were probably well grown before Christ was born upon earth. Even the youngsters were impressive before Columbus discovered America. Imagine—if you can —a virgin forest of Redwoods, dense stands of graceful giants covering hillsides and canyons, river bottoms and flats and sometimes reaching to the very ocean; great, straight trunks rising far aloft without a branch; a solid canopy of green 300 feet above earth, with here and there a flash of sunlight and a glimpse of blue; below, the forest floor strewn with fern and wild flower, and over all the mystery of eternal twilight and the hush of silence.

Originally this strip extended from “The Southern Sentinel” —which still stands, the southernmost Redwood In the world, a few miles south of Monterey —to just across the Oregon line. This strip was about 450 miles long, averaged 20 miles in width and contained about 1,500,000 acres. To date more than a third has been cut over. The present rate of cutting is about 6,500 acres a year. Without check, therefore, a hundred years or so would see the end of the Redwoods. None of us, to be sure, will see that day, but in the life of the American people that means but three or tour generations. Moreover, the lumbering of Redwoods is profitable, it is increasing, the finest trees are being cut first and almost the entire belt is in private ownership.

Lumbering of the Redwoods begun on a commercial scale soon after the first excitement of the gold rush of ’49 was over. Practically nothing of the great Redwood strip had been conserved up to 1900. Then, in 1901, the state of California, through the efforts of the Sempervirens club, established at a cost of $250,000 the California State Redwood park of about 2,500 acres. This preserved almost the only remaining stand of original Redwoods in Santa Cruz county. In 1908 Mr. and Mrs. William Kent gave to the nation Muir woods, 420 acres within a few miles of San Francisco, which was made a national monument. The construction of the California Redwood highway through the virgin tracts of northern California brought about renewed activity in efforts to save the trees, inasmuch as it afforded easy access for lumbermen and brought forth increasing protests from visitors whom the destruction made “sick at heart.”

The activities of the league are too many and diversified for detailed mention here, but highlights of the present situation include these:

To date the Redwoods saved from the ax and saw aggregate 6,157 acres. In addition to the California State Redwood park and Muir Woods National monument, the Humboldt State Redwood park was established In 1921. It contains about 2,500 acres and is being enlarged at frequent intervals. Its nucleus is in the basin of the south fork of the Eel river along the California Redwood State highway. Many noteworthy donations add to its interest. The Bolling Memorial grove of 35 acres was established by Dr. John C. Phillips of Massachusetts In memory of Col. Raynal C. Bolling, the first American officer of high rank to give his life In the World war. Zipporah Patrick Russ, widow of a pioneer California lumberman, gave 166 acres of virgin Redwood forest as a park unit, near Orick, Humboldt county. It contains about 30,000,000 feet and is worth about $120,000. One of the trees is more than 21 feet in diameter. Joseph Russ, the husband, was a Forty-Niner and died in 1886 at the age of sixty-one. They were married in 1854. A bronze tablet on a boulder contains this inscription :

This Grove
Is a Memorial to the
Pioneers of Humboldt County
———————————-
A Gift to the State of California
June 6, 1923.
From Zipporah Russ, a Pioneer of 1852,
Who crossed the plains from Illinois 1852,
Leaving May 6, arriving Oct. 26.
In memory of her husband,
Joseph Russ, a Pioneer of 1852,
Who leaving Maine November, 1849,
Came around the Horn, arriving March, 1850.

In the park are the Gould Memorial grove, the Kent grove, the Mather grove, the Perrot grove—all gifts in whole or part from friends of the league. There are also groves given by the Hammond Lumber company, 3O acres; Humboldt county, 275 acres; the league, 40 acres; Standish Hickey, 43 acres; Mrs. James Hobart Moore and E. E. Ayer, 160 acres; B. C. Chapman, 7 acres. Altogether, the state, aided by donations, has purchased for this park about 1,700 acres for about $260,000. The donations bring the total investment up to about half a million.
Elsewhere In the state Sonoma county purchased Armstrong grove, 485 acres, and San Mateo county the McCormick tract, 310 acres. The Bohemian grove, in club ownership, has long been famous. Santa Cruz grove is in private ownership, but will probably never feel the ax.

There are further donations to the cause in prospect The California State Federation of Women’s Clubs has pledged a fund of $6O,OOO for the establishment of a memorial grove. “A resident of Massachusetts” has given a fund of $23,000. The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, the lumbermen’s national fraternal order, has approved the purchase and establishment of a Hoo-Hoo Redwood grove.

The league is prosperous. It had a balance on hand in various funds January 1, 1924, of $41,713. It has nine sustaining members, who pay $5O a year; 286 contributing members at $1O a year; 4,383 annual members at $2 a year. The founders are: Edward L. Doheny, Willam Kent, Stephen T. Mather, Mrs. James Hobart Moore, Dr. John C. Phillips, Mrs. Zipporah Russ. The associate founders are E. E. Ayer and Mrs. William H. Crocker. There are long lists of patrons and of life members from all parts of the country Dr. John C. Merriam, famous naturalist and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C. is president of the league.

The California legislature has passed the Rosenshine act, which was supported by both the league and the lumbermen. This act makes possible under certain limitations the exercise of the right of eminent domain in acquiring Redwood and other timberlands for park purposes whenever lands that have been designated as desirable for parks cannot be purchased after a fair offer has been made to the owners. The bill, however, is not confiscatory in its nature but adequately safeguards the rights of timber owners and assures their being paid a fair price for their holdings. The act also calls for a state-wide survey, in sections, of the areas suitable for park purposes, by the state forestry board. It also makes possible the acceptance by the state, for the acquirements of specifically named tracts, of sums of money from individuals. The forestry board, assisted by funds furnished by the league, is making a survey of the Redwood belt. League officials made a trip of investigation through the Redwood belt and their finding will be placed before state and national committees. The National Park service has made a study of the question.

As to reforestation: The sempervirens Is called “ever-living” because the stump of the felled tree throws up sprouts, which in fifty years or so become merchantable timber. But this does not save the Redwoods. This, second growth is as nothing compared with the thousand-year-old giants now standing. The planting of young Redwoods is also a good thing in its way—but it will not save the Redwoods. The California Redwood association has planned a reforestation program by lumbermen. Two four-acre nurseries have been established, one by the Union Lumber company in Mendocino county and the other by the Pacific Lumber company in Humboldt county. This program calls for the planting of 1,000 acres this year, 3,000 in 1925 and so on until 1930.

The work of the Save the Redwoods league has grown into a movement with nation-wide support. Its real test of power will come when It asks federal aid in the establishment of a Redwood National park—a project seemingly beyond its financial resources. Congress apparently is unwilling, as a matter of general policy, to appropriate, money for the purchase of national park areas. A bill establishing the Redwood National park will probably be introduced at the coming session of congress.

Up to thirty State parks were created, and discussions of a Redwood National Park continued for decades until it was finally created in 1968, but to mixed reviews at the time.

The many thousands of acres that have been preserved have allowed millions of people to enjoy the scenic grandeur of the North Coast’s old growth Redwood forests.

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• Odd Old News: The 1906 Chinese Expulsion
• Odd Old News: Bicycling—The Exciting New Mode Of Travel and the Evolution of the Bicycle Saddle
• The Bicycle Bandit of Humboldt County
• The Hansell Ranch Orchard at Camp Grant
• Mountain Children
• More Caves of Mystery
• Sam’s Story of Snaking, Snakers, and Snakeries
• An 1884 Look at Dogholes, Lumber Loading Chutes, and the Rockport Suspension Bridge
• The Early History of the Save the Redwoods Movement