no 



disappearing. "Areata Redwood was clear-cutting right 

 down to Highway 101, near Prairie Creek [State Park]," 

 recalls Lucille Vinyard, who promptly became an envi- 

 ronmental activist. "It was hideous," she says. 



In 1963, a National Geographic Society team discov- 

 ered what it proclaimed the ullest tree in the world, 

 measuring 367.8 feet, on timber-company land along 

 Redwood Creek. The environmentalist movement, just 

 beginning to gain strength, raised a cry to protect the 

 tall tree and its neighboring giants, as well as additional 

 old-growth redwoods, before it was too late. 



Over the next five years, half a dozen proposals were 

 made to carve a new national park out of old-growth red- 

 wood forests. Congress compromised on a park of 30,000 

 acres plus the stale land and incorporating Tall Trees 

 Grove. The final price paid to timber companies was 

 $210 million. Some federal land was swapped for private 

 old-growth timber. 



Instead of dying, the controversy worsened. As timber 



companies continued to clearcut the hillsides above Tall 



Trees, environmentalists protested that erosion, land- 



I slides and logging debris were threatening Tall Trees 



and choking the streams, and lobbied Congress to vastly 



expand park borders. 



The timber people erupted. Expansion, they argued, 

 would remove some of the region's best timberland from 

 production and take it off the tax rolls, with devastating 

 effects on the timber industry, the local economy and 

 local government-noi to mention that it would throw 

 large ninnbers of loggers out of work. In the end, howev- 

 er, a park expansion bill was passed by Congress and 

 signed by President Jimmy Carter, adding another 

 48,000 acres to the park and establishing a 30,000-acre 

 protection zone upstream from the big trees. 



To placate the anguished locals, Congress sprinkled 

 the bill with sweeteners. The U.S. Forest Service was di- 

 rected to study increasing the timber harvest in nearby 

 national forests to keep loggers at work. A revolving fund 

 was set up to develop new businesses; federal fimds un- 

 derwrote a marina and an improved airport. The two 

 counties were given comp>ensating payments to make up 

 for loss of taxes. A new freewav bypass was to be built 

 around Prairie Creek Redwoods Slate Park, to divert 

 hea\y highway traffic from "Blood Alley" where rubber- 

 necking tourists and speeding logging trucks shared a 



