MAMMOTH TREES DISCOVERED
Written by Mrs. Layman
“Timber!” Cries of loggers echoed throughout the Sierra Nevada Mountains in
California throughout the 1800s. For a time, the soft sounds of squirrels
scampering and birds tweeting were covered by machines and falling trees.
Nowadays, the original sounds of the forests have been restored. Find out more
about the history of the sequoia trees.
Mammoth sequoia trees were discovered in California in the year 1852.
Reportedly, a hunter who was chasing a bear in the Sierra Nevada Mountains
stumbled upon a sequoia tree. The hunter, Augustus T. Dowd, was amazed at the
sight. Since then, that tree has been known as “The Discovery Tree.” A year after
Dowd’s discovery, the tree was felled by a crew of five men. It took them 22 days
to fell the tree. The stump of the tree was famously used as a dance floor.
With that, the gold rush was replaced with a “tree rush.” People looked at the
trees and thought of all the money they could make. Loggers flocked to the Sierra
Nevada Mountains in California. Flumes were built to transport the logs down
the precipitous mountain terrain. In some of the first flumes, the logs could get
stuck. James W. Haines built the first “V”-shaped log flume in 1868. This new
shape allowed the lumber to move more easily. The logs would be taken to a mill,
and then they would be turned into the lumber needed to build houses. A recordsetting flume, the Kings River Flume in Sanger, California, was reportedly 62 miles
in length!
Not everyone was happy about the sequoias being cut for lumber. John Muir
worked to stop the logging of the grand giants along with others. He wanted to
preserve the beautiful forests of the Sierra Nevada valley. Finally, in the year 1920,
the logging of the sequoias was mostly stopped. Muir also founded the Sierra
Club, named for the grandeur of the Sierra Nevada valley. It’s now one of the most
important conservation organizations here in the United States.