Redwood

The Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP) are a combined unit along the northern California coast, made up of one national park and three state parks: Redwood National Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Spanning 139,000 acres (217 square miles, or 560 square kilometers), these parks protect 45 percent of the remaining old-growth coast redwood forests.

Situated in Del Norte and Humboldt counties, the four parks safeguard the endangered coast redwood (*Sequoia sempervirens*), which is the tallest tree species on Earth, among the oldest, and one of the most massive. It thrives in the humid temperate rainforest. The region is highly seismically active and prone to tsunamis. The parks also preserve 37 miles (60 kilometers) of undeveloped coastline, native plants and animals, grassland prairies, cultural resources, waterways, and threatened species like the Chinook salmon, northern spotted owl, and Steller's sea lion.

Before 1850, redwood forests covered more than 8,100 square kilometers (3,100 square miles) of the California coast, and the area now within the parks remained largely untouched. The Gold Rush and the timber industry that followed brought intense activity, harming the region's Indigenous peoples and supplying lumber to the West Coast. After decades of unrestricted clear-cut logging, conservation efforts gained momentum. In the 1920s, the Save the Redwoods League helped establish Prairie Creek, Del Norte Coast, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks, among others. Following lobbying from the league and the Sierra Club, Congress created Redwood National Park in 1968 and expanded it in 1978. In 1994, the National Park Service and the California Department of Parks and Recreation merged Redwood National Park with the three adjacent state parks into a single administrative unit. Today, park management aims to protect and restore the coast redwood forests to their pre-1850 condition, including through controlled burning.

In 1980, the United Nations designated the parks a World Heritage Site in recognition of their rare ecosystem and cultural history. In 2023, local tribes declared an Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area, protecting the park region, coastline, and coastal waters. Admission is free except for special permits, and visitors can camp, hike, bike, and ride horseback along roughly 200 miles (320 kilometers) of park system trails.

**History**

**Native Americans**

Modern-day Native American nations—including the Yurok, Tolowa, Karuk, Chilula, and Wiyot—have deep historical ties to the region, which has been inhabited by various Indigenous peoples for millennia. Historian David Stannard described "a diversity in an area that size that probably has never been equaled anywhere else in the world," noting more than thirty native nations lived in northwestern California. Scholar Gail L. Jenner estimates that at least fifteen tribal groups inhabited the coastline.

The Yurok, Chilula, and Tolowa were most closely connected to the current park areas. Based on an 1852 census, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber estimated the Yurok population that year at around 2,500. Historian Ed Bearss described the Yurok as the most populous in the area, with roughly 55 villages. Until the 1860s, the Chilula lived in the middle region of the Redwood Creek valley, close to the redwood trees, primarily settling along Redwood Creek between the coast and Minor Creek, California. In summer, they ranged into and camped in the Bald Hills. The Tolowa were located near the Smith River and on lands now part of Jedediah Smith State Park; 21st-century excavations found that area has been inhabited for at least 8,500 years.

Indigenous peoples living within the park areas used redwood as a construction material, and some featured the trees in their mythology. The Chilula, for example, viewed redwoods as gifts from a creator. Tribes harvested coast redwoods and processed them into planks, using them for boats, houses, and small villages. To build structures, planks were set side by side in a narrow trench, with upper portions lashed with willow or hazel and held by notches cut into supporting roof beams. Redwood boards formed two- or three-pitch roofs.

**Arrival of European Americans**

Historians believe the first Europeans to visit land near what is now the parks were members of the Cabrillo expedition led by Bartolomé Ferrer. In 1543, Ferrer’s ship made landfall at Cape Mendocino and may have reached waters off Oregon as far north as the 43rd parallel, though Hubert Howe Bancroft disagreed, believing the ship did not travel that far north. Explorers including Francis Drake sailed past the foggy, rocky coast but generally did not anchor until 1775, when Bruno de Heceta and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra of Spain spent about ten days at the Yurok village of Tsurai south of the parks. George Vancouver and Francisco de Eliza followed in 1793. American fur trading ships under contract to Russians stopped at Tsurai during the early 19th century.

Before Jedediah Smith in 1828, no other European-descended explorer is known to have explored the interior of the Northern California coastal region. Smith and nineteen companions left San Jose, California, and explored what are now called the Trinity, Smith, and Klamath rivers, passing through coast redwood forests and trading with Native American groups. They reached the coast near Requa, parts of which lie within the parks’ boundaries.

The California Gold Rush of 1848 brought hundreds of thousands of Europeans and Americans to California, and the discovery of gold along the Trinity River in 1850 brought many to the park region. This quickly led to conflicts in which native peoples were displaced, raped, and enslaved.