Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1915-09-09
More Than a Million
Monster SequOiaS Grow
Together in One Ma
tiOnaI Park.
One of Them is Known to
Have SprOuted 5000 Years
Ago and Has Lived Thru
Written History.

The Seduoia National Park is TWEEN
ty-four years old, get, east of the
Rockies it is scarcely known. Yellow
stone and Yosemite are the only two
names which the enormous majority of
easterners think of when National
Parks are mentioned Nevertheless,
Sequoa is. perhaps, in point of aver
age beauty, the superior Of all. 1t was
dear to the heart of john Muir, Faith
er of National Parks, and Chief Geo
grapher E. B. Marshall, who knows
them all as no other man knows them,
having surveyed or traversed them IN
person, has declared in print that it
possesses beauty as great as all others
combined.
1t is par excellence the camping out
park, as some day will be discovered.
Perhaps the most potent reason for
its lack of celebrity is that this is the
Big Tree Park, and the general public
associates the Big Trees of California
with Yosemite. The eMariposa Grove,
within easy reach of the Yosemite
Valley, contains several enormous Sc
,ouoia trees. In fact the Yosemite Ma
tional Park contains three groves OF
these giants, the two others being the
Merced and Tuolumne Groves. which
lie within easy reach to the northwest
The Sequo;a National Park, howev-
er, which lies many miles south OF
Yosemite, was created TO preserve, for
the use and pleasure Of the people OF
the United States. by far the greatest
groges of the oldest, the biggest, and
the most remarkable trees living IN
this world. They nEmber d,i66, 600.
OF these, 70, 0a9 exceed 10 feet in dia-
meter The General Sherman tree,
most celebrated of all, is 279.9 feet
high with a character of 36 5 feet. The
Abraham Lincoln tree is 27O feet high
with a diameter of 81 feet. The Will
liam Mckinley tree is 29t feet high
with diameter of % feet.
The General Grant National Park Is
usually mentioned with Seauoia be-
cause, though separated by six miles
of mountain and forest, the two are
practically the same national park. 1t
contains only 1855 acres and was
created only for the protection OF the
General Grant tree, monster sequoia
964 feet high and thirty 1--we feet IN
diameter. But General Grant shares
his domain with distinguished neigh
bars, notably the George washington
tree, which is only MAE. feet less IN
heighth, and six feet less in diameter
The seuuoaas are the oldest living
things in this world. They are the
connecting link, writes Eilsw orth
Hunt ngton, between the ancient
East and the ml0dern West -
.iThree Thousand fence posts, suffic-
lent to support 9 wire fence AROUND
$, 900 or 8, 600 acres, have been made
from ONE of these giants, -and that was
only the first step toward using its
huge CARCASS Six hundred and fifty
thousand shingles, enough to cover she
roofs of seventy &C. eighty houses.
formed the second item Of its product
Finally there still remained hHn-
areds of cords of FIRE wood which no
one could use because of the prohibi-
tive expense Of hauling the wood out
of the mountains The upper third
of the trunk and all the branches lie
on te ground where they fell, not
wildly rotting, for the wood is won
derfully enduring, but simply waiting
till some foolish camper shall light a
devastating fire.
Huge as the sequoias are. their size
is scarcely SO wonderful as their age.
A tree that has lived 500 years is
still in it's early youth. one that has
ont 1000 summers and win
ters is only in full maturity. and old
age, the three score years and ten OF
the sequoias, does not come for sevel.-
zen or eighteen centuries.
Y How old the Oldest trees may be Is
not vet certain, but have counted
S.e rings of seventy mine that were
oye.. ., 900 years of age, of three that
were over 5000, aud of one that was
3, l5G
.In the days of the Trojan War and
ps the exodus of the Hebrews from
Egypt this oldest tree was sturdy