Giants Fallen: The Destruction of Converse Basin Grove and its Giant Sequoias

The true tragic story of one of the worst environmental crimes in California history.

California has faced its share of environmental calamities. We’ve experienced wildfires that have denuded the landscape, destroying valuable forests and homes, and taking human lives. Oil spills have soiled coastlines and killed wildlife. But of all the great environmental crimes the state has faced, perhaps few rank as high as the destruction of Converse Basin Grove in the late 1800s. And yet very few people have ever heard of it.  

Located in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains east of Fresno, just outside Kings Canyon National Park, Converse Basin Grove spans over 6,000 acres and 700 feet of elevation.  The basin was once home to the densest and most majestic expanse of Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) on the planet. 

Between 1892–1918, the Sanger Lumber Company logged the grove using ruinous clearcutting practices, and cut down 8,000 giant sequoias, some of them over 2000 years old, in a decade-long event that has been described as “the greatest orgy of destructive lumbering in the history of the world.” Only 60-100 large specimens survived. Currently, The most expansive remaining sequoia domain is the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park, which has an estimated 8,400 giant sequoia trees that are more than one foot in diameter at their bases. The park is home to the world’s biggest tree, the General Sherman. 

(See our feature on the biology behind the immense size of redwoods and sequoias here.)

The grove’s discovery in the late 19th century coincided with a burgeoning demand for lumber in the wake of California’s Gold Rush and subsequent population boom, particularly in San Francisco. This demand drew the attention of loggers to the massive potential of sequoias. In particular, the Kings River Lumber Company, which secured this coveted area through both lawful and dubious means shortly after its incorporation in 1888. This marked the first instance of industrial-scale logging targeting the Sierra redwoods, a venture that required substantial initial investment due to the challenges of building a mill in the mountains and the engineering marvel needed to transport the colossal timber to lower elevations.

To get the logs to mills from the High Sierra Mountains the company, based in San Francisco, constructed a 54-mile-long flume, or log conveyor, from Converse Basic Grove to the town of Sanger, about 20 miles from Fresno. This giant wooden waterslide, balanced on trestles along steep canyon sides, allowed lumber to be swiftly transported to the nearest train station, some 60 miles away, in just half a day. Upon reaching the station in Sanger, a town that proudly proclaimed itself the “Flumeopolis of the West” at the flume’s inauguration in 1890, the lumber’s journey to the market began the following year. It should be noted that the massive flume also became an inspiration to modern amusement park log rides such as the Timber Mountain Log Ride at Knotts Berry Farm in Southern California. 

Rugged terrain and unnavigable streams had protected these big trees for decades. That it became possible to log so many magnificent trees in such a hard-to-reach place was due to the passage of one of the most unintentionally destructive environmental laws ever passed in the United States.

In 1878, the United States Congress enacted the Timber and Stone Act to promote the private ownership of timberland and support the logging industry. This legislation permitted individuals to claim federal lands in the Sierra Nevada mountains, acquiring individual parcels of 160 acres for a nominal fee upon filing a claim. 

Prior to this legislation, there was no legal framework allowing individuals to purchase timberland directly from the government specifically for logging purposes, as opposed to agricultural use. However, following the enactment of the law in 1878, it became possible to acquire nonarable, nonmineral public lands at a minimal cost of $2.50 per acre. To claim these 160-acre parcels, the claimant only needed to attest that their intention was to utilize the land for practical, non-speculative purposes, excluding any plans for resale or contractual transfer to another entity.

This enabled the easy transfer of vast expanses of land from the government to lumber companies, which commonly enlisted and compensated individuals to file claims on their behalf. Among these companies was the Kings River Lumber Company, which acquired some of the lands legally, but also got its hands on vast acreages using dubious and illegal tactics that took place right under the noses of government regulators. 

The Timber and Stone Act required buyers to use the land for personal, non-speculative purposes, but the company circumvented these restrictions by using a practice known as “dummying.” In this scheme, the lumber company recruited individuals to act as stand-ins or “dummies” to file claims on parcels of the Converse Basin under the pretense that these claims were for personal use. After securing the claims, these individuals would then transfer the parcels to the Kings River Lumber Company, often for a profit. This allowed the company to amass large areas of prime sequoia forest, much of which was still old-growth timber, under dubious legal pretenses.

Lumber production began in Converse Basin in 1891, launching with 20 million board feet of timber flowing down the flume. But the company had been created through the issuance of massive debt, and the company was under pressure to increase output to become profitable. However, the flume frequently required costly repairs. In 1895, following an unsuccessful reorganization attempt, the firm was taken over by creditors and renamed Sanger Lumber. The new management pushed for maximum production, extending the narrow-gauge railroad deeper into the basin and constructing a new sawmill in 1897.

During its operation, Sanger Lumber was responsible for the felling of approximately eight thousand mature sequoias within the 5,000-acre Converse Basin, leaving only one giant standing. At the northern edge of the grove, overlooking Kings Canyon, loggers spared a single large tree, now among the world’s ten largest, and named it after their foreman, Frank Boole. The Boole Tree still stands today. It is the eighth tallest sequoia in the world and ranks No. 1 in base circumference, at 112 feet. Estimated to be more than 2,000 years old, the behemoth is the largest tree in America’s national forests, but it stands less as a monument to the grandeur of the trees themselves than as a testament to human avarice and recklessness. 

The operation peaked in 1903 with a production of 191 million board feet, employing up to seven hundred men. However, the process was notoriously unsafe and wasteful. Decades later, the superintendent of Sequoia National Park noted the profound damage and inefficiency of the logging, with many fallen trunks left unprocessed, free to decompose over time.

The entire operation ended without profit, leading to the sale of the company in 1905 and the eventual destruction of the Converse Basin mill. What followed was a period of secondary logging, akin to scavenging, that persisted into the 1910s. In a Harpers’ essay titled The Last Stand of the Redwoods, the Yale English professor Henry Seidel Canby wrote that a visit to the basin evoked a deep sense of melancholy, describing what he saw as “a vast and lonely cemetery”.

By 1905, after depleting the majestic stand of trees without turning a profit, a Michigan lumberman acquired the operation and shifted focus to a lower-elevation, mixed-species forest. The remaining structures at Converse Basin were deliberately burned, and logging continued on a smaller scale, resembling scavenging more than harvesting.

In 1935, the U.S. government repurchased the ravaged land for fifteen dollars per acre, incorporating it into what is now the Giant Sequoia National Monument. This area, marked by fields of blackened stumps and surrounded by new growth, stands as a public testament to the historic exploitation and a somber reminder of the past.

The devastation of Converse Basin helped to catalyze the conservation movement in the early 20th century. Galvanized by the widespread destruction of such majestic trees, naturalists and conservationists, led by figures like John Muir, began to advocate more vehemently for the protection of natural landscapes. Their efforts were instrumental in the establishment of national parks and protected areas, ensuring that other groves and natural habitats were spared from the fate of Converse Basin.

Today, most remaining sequoia groves are publicly owned and managed for conservation purposes. Giant sequoia forests have faced extensive fire exclusion over the past century and suffer from the lack of frequent low-intensity fires that are necessary for giant sequoia reproduction. The long-term trend of Sierra snowpack reduction, in combination with warmer temperatures and widespread fir, pine, and cedar tree mortality from drought and pests, is greatly increasing the risk of severe fire and threatening the giant sequoia ecosystem. 

The 2020 Castle Fire, part of the larger SQF Complex Fire in California, was particularly devastating for the giant sequoia population. Estimates suggest that approximately 7,500 to 10,600 mature giant sequoias were killed by this fire, which represents 10-14% of the total population. These numbers underscore the severe impact of intense wildfires on these ancient trees, which are typically resilient to fire but have been increasingly vulnerable due to factors like drought and climate change. This event has highlighted the need for new strategies in forest management and fire prevention to protect these iconic trees.

Today, the area, with its fields of blackened stumps encircled by new growth, stands as a testament to both the destructive power of industrial logging and the fragility and resilience of nature.