When redwood logging reached a fever pitch by the 1890s, 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 late 1910s, it became obvious that the last remaining stands of old-growth redwoods were about to disappear. Because the trees had been linked with fossil records millions of years old, they were looked upon as a living link with the past. Thus, the urge to protect these last stands came not from an aesthetic concern, but rather a scientific one.

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.

The majority of these purchases consisted of North Coast redwood groves. The California Department of Parks and Recreation created Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and Humboldt Redwoods State Park in the early 1920s with these lands. Today the League continues its protective work in partnership with RNSP.

The Memorial Grove Program of the Save-the-Redwoods League was started in 1921 when the first large donation was given to the League to purchase and dedicate a redwood grove. Now more than 700 memorial and honor groves, named for individuals and organizations, have been established in California State Parks and Redwood National Park, with more being added each year.

For more information, contact:

Save-the-Redwoods League
114 Sansome Street
Room 654
San Francisco, CA 94101
(415) 362-2352
www.savetheredwoods.org