'Own-a-redwood' sale
Ancient trees were 'sold' with building lots in the 1960s
Volume 1, Number 3 - Monday, Aug. 22, 2022
A photo of a memorial to Sonny Rouch near the entrance to Sequoia Crest, a residential subdivision east of Springville, California. The project was promoted as the “sale” of ancient redwoods in the 1960s. Many homes, giant sequoias and other trees were lost in the 2020 Castle Fire. — Claudia Elliott, July 9, 2022
Perspective
DID YOU KNOW that you could once buy ancient giant sequoia trees — with a building lot included?
At least that was the pitch in advertisements for a development known as Sequoia Crest back in the 1960s.
Here’s an example of “news items” that appeared in real estate sections of newspapers, this one from the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 18, 1964:
Only 40 Trees Left for Sale at Project
SEQUOIA CREST — Only 40 giant trees are left in the own-a-redwood sale by Louis Leppelman, president of Visalia Homes in Visalia, who put hundreds of trees in a subdivision up for sale earlier this year.
The trees are located in the mountain community of Sequoia Crest, six miles north of Camp Nelson on Highway 190. The community has a grocery store, other services and 20 permanent cabins at an altitude of 6,500 ft.
Many of the trees offered are 1,000 to 2,000 years old, Leppelman said. There also are some young redwoods, 15 ft to 25 ft. tall, about 30 years old.
Of course, the truth was that a tract of land including old growth giant sequoia trees was subdivided and purchase of the building lots included whatever happened to be growing on it — in this case, giant sequoia trees.
Leppelman got a lot of mileage out of his promotion. Related articles appeared in dozens of newspapers in California and across the country.
Sequoia Crest is located about 24 miles northeast of Springville, California. The tract of land was surrounded by Sequoia National Forest when the subdivision took place and today is surrounded by Giant Sequoia National Monument.
The Rouch family subdivided the property — Leppelman handled sales for a time. It happens that I knew Claud “Sonny” Rouch, who died in 2012 at the age of 92. The giant sequoias growing on Rouch property included the Amos Alonzo Stagg Tree, believed to be the fifth largest tree in the world. You can learn more about Sonny, who was a history buff and loved giant sequoias, online at Sonny’s Redwoods.
Part of the Rouch property was subdivided to become the small community of Sequoia Crest. Many of the homes there were destroyed in the 2020 Castle Fire. According to the Los Angeles Times, about a third of 104 houses were lost to the fire. Also lost were many of the big trees that Leppelman “sold” back in the 1960s.
Before the fire, in December 2019, Save the Redwoods League completed purchase of what it said was the largest remaining privately owned giant sequoia property in the world, the Rouch family’s remaining land in the area of the Alder Creek Giant Sequoia Grove, including the Stagg tree.
According to the news release put out by the organization in January 2020, “the purchase of Alder Creek, which was finalized on December 31, 2019, was made possible thanks to more than 8,500 donors from all 50 states and around the world who made gifts to acquire the property for $15.65 million.”
Barely nine months later, a lightning strike on the Golden Trout Wilderness, east of Sequoia Crest ignited the Castle Fire. Along with the Shotgun Fire, it became known as the SQF Complex fire and burned from August to December 2020, encompassing more than 174,000 acres.
Scientists are still studying the fire and its impact on giant sequoias. When the above-referenced LA Times article was published in mid-November 2020, an estimate was that the Castle Fire might have killed 1,000 giant sequoias. More recent information suggests that somewhere between 7,500 and 10,600 large giant sequoias were killed by the Castle Fire, including many in the area of Alder Creek grove.
The Stagg tree and other monarchs — and some Sequoia Crest homes — are still standing.
The week in wildfires
I must admit I felt a little nervous at this time last week, reporting that: “Northern California wildfires are far from giant sequoia country and firefighters seemed to be making good progress with those. It’s always a good thing when this section is short.”
Just a few hours later I learned that the Wishon Fire was burning in the mountains east of Springville, California, on Giant Sequoia National Monument. As of the last report yesterday afternoon, this fire was 95% contained at 325 acres with no structures lost and two firefighter injuries.
The fire started near an area along the Tule River called “The Stairs,” and there have been many fires in that area over the years. I’ll write more about this in the coming weeks, but one of the reasons the Forest Service was able to contain this fire is because a lot of air resources happened to be available. My observation was confirmed by Forest Supervisor Teresa Benson, who I met at an event I covered in the Bearskin Giant Sequoia Grove last week.
The cause of the Wishon Fire remains under investigation. But other fires in giant sequoia country this past week were caused by lightning. Sometimes these fires remain small and when they are in remote areas — or in designated wilderness — the managing agency observes them but doesn’t actively fight them. I imagine it’s hard to make such decisions because sometimes these small fires become massive.
It’s not always easy to even know about these small fires because they may not be posted to the websites we regular folks can check to monitor them. I haven’t been able to get information about the Slate Fire in Giant Sequoia National Park last week. But several others showing this morning at inciweb.org (in addition to Wishon) include:
Rodgers Fire - discovered Aug. 8 northwest of Rodgers Canyon and southwest of Pleasant Valley at 8,100 feet elevation in Yosemite National Park, this 150-acre lightning-caused fire is being managed under a Type 3 organization, along with the Red Fire.
Red Fire - discovered Aug. 4 between Red Creek and Illilouette Creek at 7,800 feet elevation in Yosemite National Park, this 749-acre lightning-caused fire is being managed under a Type 3 organization, along with the Rodgers Fire.
And, of course, it’s wildfire season so there are other fires, large and small, burning in other areas of California.
Giant sequoias in the news
I’m happy to report that two articles about giant sequoias that I wrote this last week were published in the Porterville Recorder and The Bakersfield Californian. Both (slightly different articles) are about the Forest Service’s emergency response to giant sequoia loss. It was a 3.5 hour drive from my home in Tehachapi to the Bearskin Giant Sequoia Grove where work to reduce fuels in the grove was underway last week, but it was well worth the trip. The Forest Service project will continue at least through 2023, so I’m sure I’ll write about it many more times.
But if you read only one of the articles referenced in this section this week, I hope it’s this one — about efforts of the Tule River Tribe to manage giant sequoia groves. Here’s the headline: “Wildfire Management and Recovery on Tribal Lands Complicated by Policy Inequities.” The article by Jeanine Pfeiffer for PBS’s KCET examines the difficulty the tribe had during recent wildfires.
Zane Santos, the tribe’s fire management officer referenced in the article, was a young firefighter when I published the Southern Sierra Messenger years ago, covering the Tule River Reservation and other communities in the area of the southern portion of Giant Sequoia National Monument. I recall that the tribe had concerns about establishment of the monument, which surrounds its 55,356-acre reservation on three sides. (The tribe will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the reservation next year).
Pfeiffer’s article highlights many of those concerns including what tribal officials say is less concern for tribal lands than other areas.
From her article: “Our cultural sites, our plants and animals are just as important as structures,” asserted Kerri Vera, the tribe's Department of Environmental Protection director. “Cultural sites should be automatic avoidance zones [for fire retardants and tree clearing] — but for the last two fires on our reservation, that wasn't the case.”
Here are a few more articles to check out:
• An opinion piece published on The Hill that’s worth a read: Permitting reform push should include forest restoration
• A report of a roundtable meeting published on Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s website: Energy, Climate, and Conservation Task Force Focuses on Building Resilient Communities
• A Washington Post article with the headline: California’s giant sequoias are burning up. Will logging save them?
Want more?
GIANTSEQUOIANEWS.COM is also a website where you can find more information about giant sequoia trees, wildfire, the public land management conundrum and more.
Thanks for reading!