So the state parks are an outgrowth of good roads and a movement to protect at the beauty along them.
Yes. We have corridors, like the Van Duzer on the way to the coast, which is a good example (3). But it also demonstrates where the highway maybe the kiss of death in the long run. This is because as you widen the highway, you lose more old growth trees. It is a real problem because the Van Duzer represents one of the very few old-growth areas in the Coast Range that the public can see.
Those large trees remind me of a question I had regarding Steve Mather’s involvement in the Save-the-Redwoods League.
Mather was involved with my grandfather, Madison Grant, and Henry Fairfield Osborn in setting up the League. This organization was very influential in getting the state park system going in California for a couple of reasons. One was that they had a lot of strong support from the east coast, but a more important reason involved dedicating redwood groves in response to donations. This was an absolute winner.
Sort of like buying a brick.
That’s right. What could be better than getting a sacred grove named after somebody? This was helped along by a bill which passed the state legislature in the 1920s. It provided matching money, so that the state furnished money to save the redwoods. When some wealthy family like the Rockefellers bought a big grove, the money went twice as far. They would never have been able to acquire what is now Humboldt Redwoods State Park without this formula. The League also bought a lot of land in the 1930s when the lumber industry was trying to get rid of it because they couldn’t pay the taxes on their property.
The League was very influential primarily because you had a lot of powerful people in the state at that time who was also involved with the state parks. Grandfather was one of these people, as was William E. Colby of the Sierra Club, and Joseph R. Knowland, who I think owned the Oakland Tribune. There were also people from Southern California who were involved in the League, such as Major Frederick Burnham and others. Mather had Eastern connections with people and arranged to have a few of them give money for the first groves bought by the League. The first was called the Bolling Grove and was dedicated in 1921. I think Bolling was a high ranking officer who was killed in the First World War. Mather knew his family or at least got in contact with them. I believe Mather was a key in getting Rockefeller interested in the League.
