Historical Summary of Redwood
Early conservationists John Merriam, Madison Grant, and Henry Fair-field Osborn visited the region in 1917. The men were disappointed that there were still no public lands preserving all of the large trees these men along with Frederick Russell Burnham and some other founded the Save-the-Redwood League in 1918. Using funds provided by the County of Humbolt, the Save-the-Redwoods League managed to protect areas of concentrated redwood groves and a few entire forests in the 1920s.California created a state park system, beginning in 1927, three of the preserved redwood areas became Prairie Creek Redwoods, Del Norte Coast Redwoods, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks. Because of the high demand for lumber during World War II and the construction boom that followed in the 1950s, the creation of the national park was delayed. Efforts by Save-the-Redwoods League, the Sierra Club, and the National Geographic Society to create a national park began in the early 1960s. After intense asking of Congress, the bill creating Redwood National Park was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on October 2, 1968. The Save-the-Redwoods League and other groups purchased over 10,000 acres, which were added to existing state parks. In 1978, 48,000 acres were added to Redwood Nation Park in expansion but only a fifth of that land was old-growth forest, the rest had been cut. This expansion protected the watershed along Redwood Creek from being affected by logging operations outside the park. The federal and state parks were administratively combined in 1994. The United Nations designated Redwood National and State Park a world heritage site on September 5, 1980.