- City:
- Humboldt Redwoods State Park, CA
- Site Type:
- Fire Lookouts, Forestry and Agriculture
- New Deal Agencies:
- Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Work Relief Programs
- Started:
- 1933
- Completed:
- 1935
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- No Longer Extant
Description
Humboldt Redwoods State Park was established in 1921 with purchases of some of the last remaining Old Growth stands of Coast Redwoods by the Save the Redwoods League. It has since been expanded several times and now includes over 51,000 acres, of which 17,000 are old growth redwood stands.
California did not establish a state parks system until 1928, and little improvement work had been done at Humboldt Redwoods before the New Deal. When the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) arrived at Dyerville camp in 1933, the young men got to work right away developing the state park.
The CCC enrollees immediately started work on a road from Johnson Camp up to Grasshopper Peak, the highest point in the park at 3,382 feet. When the road was complete, they built a stone fire lookout tower on the peak in 1935 (O’Hara & Stockton, p. 86).
The original tower is gone, replaced by an all-wood tower. The why and when of the replacement is unknown to us and needs further information.
Source notes
Engbeck, Joseph H., Jr. 2002. By the People, For the People: The Work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in California State Parks, 1933-1941. Sacramento: California State Parks.
O'Hara, Susan and Dave Stockton, 2012. Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Charleston SC: Arcadia Books.
Site originally submitted by Richard A Walker on August 10, 2021.
Additional contributions by Joan Greer.
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