History

Native American tribes such as the Yurok, Tolowa, and Wiyot inhabited this area for hundreds of years before European settlers moved west into the present day Northern Redwoods. The redwoods ecology flourished under natural conditions that included large amounts of rain, summer fog, rich soil, and few natural competitors. In 1850, old-growth redwoods covered more than two million acres of the California coast. This changed dramatically with a flood of timber companies and gold miners in the 1850s coming to harvest the region's valuable trees and extract minerals. When the gold rushes failed to make white settlers rich, many turned to the lumber industry for work, and the old-growth forest was harvested at an incredible rate. It wasn't until the 1920s when conservation efforts really gained traction to protect the few surviving redwoods. These conservation efforts led to the creation of Jedediah Smith, Prairie Creek and Del Norte Coast State Parks in the 1920s, with the eventually integration of the Redwood National Park in 1968. By 1968 when the current land was protected on the state and federal level, nearly 90 percent of the old-growth redwood trees had already been logged. The park has a unique history of state and federal protection districts, with the current parks consisting of three state parks and national park land. Combined, these protect the region's remaining old-growth redwood forests. In 1994, the federal and state parks were administratively combined into what is known as Redwood National and State Parks.