They are THOUSANDS of years old and were seedlings in biblical times. I was speechless the first time I saw these shocking vintage photos of MASSIVE REDWOOD TREES being cut down. These huge trees are truly the GIANTS OF THE FOREST and have stood tall long before America was discovered.
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Giant Redwoods can grow to be about 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter and more than 250 feet (76 m) tall. The biggest of these giants is General Sherman, a giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park. General Sherman stands at an enormous 275 feet (84 m) tall, has a mind blowing 102-foot (31 m) circumference, and weighs an incredible 2.7 million lbs. (1.2 million kilograms).
Giant sequoias can live to 3,000 years, with the oldest on record living more than 3,500 years. When they die, it is often indirectly because of root rot or another weakening of the base. Fire, root rot and dry spells do not typically affect the whole tree but if they destabilize the base, gravity can eventually take the tree down, according to Scientific American. This process takes a long time, as evidenced by the fact that sequoias are some of the longest living organisms on the planet.
In 1850, when gold was discovered along northwestern California’s Trinity River, outsiders moved into the area in overwhelming numbers and the rush was on.These people were no less dependent upon lumber, and the redwoods conveniently provided the wood the people needed. The size of the huge trees made them prized timber, as redwood became known for its durability and work ability. By 1853, nine sawmills were at work in Eureka, a gold boom town established three years prior due to the gold boom. Large-scale logging was soon underway and the once immense stands of redwoods began to disappear by the close of the 19th century.
At first, axes, saws, and other early methods of bringing the trees down were used. But the loggers made use of rapidly improving technology in the 20th century that allowed more trees to be harvested in less time. Transportation also caught up to the task of moving the massive logs. The locomotive replaced horses and oxen. The era of railroad logging became the fastest way to transport the logs to mills.
Land fraud was common, as acres of prime redwood forests were transferred from the public domain to private industry. Although some of the perpetrators were caught, many thousands of acres of land were lost in land swindles.
By the 1910s, some concerned citizens began to clamor for the preservation of the dwindling stands of redwoods. The Save-the-Redwoods League was born out of this earnest group, and eventually the League succeeded in helping to establish the redwood preserves of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.
But still logging continued in those parts of the forests that were privately owned, accelerated by WW 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. Logging continues on privately-held lands nearby and throughout the redwood region.
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