The Hollow Log of

Balch Park Balch Park is a county park in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains of California that features a grove of Giant Sequoia trees. It also has archaeological sites relating to the early Native Americans of the area, and to the late 19th- and ear ...

is the naturally hollowed out log of a fallen

Giant Sequoia ''Sequoiadendron giganteum'' (also known as the giant sequoia, giant redwood, Sierra redwood or Wellingtonia) is a species of coniferous tree, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae. Giant sequoia specimens are the la ...

tree. It is also one of the best known features of the

Mountain Home Grove Mountain Home Grove is a grove of giant sequoia trees located in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, and includes some of the largest trees in the world. Description Mountain Home Grove is located partly in Balc ...

, a stand of Giant Sequoia trees that surrounds Balch Park in

Tulare County, California Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great La ...

History

The Hollow Log was known to early Native Americans who frequented the

Tule River The Tule River, also called Rio de San Pedro or Rio San Pedro, is a river in Tulare County in the U.S. state of California. The river originates in the Sierra Nevada east of Porterville and consists of three forks, North, Middle and South. Th ...

watershed, but its first recorded mention is in 1856 when soldiers used it as a headquarters for patrols hunting Indian renegades during the Tule River Indian War. Known for many years as the "Soldiers Log", it was a popular destination for settlers visiting the surrounding grove of Giant Sequoia trees. Among these early visitors was a local sheep farmer named Clinton T. Brown, who carved his initials and the date 1870 on the log. The log was part of a parcel of land that John J. Doyle in 1885 acquired, with plans to make the area into a resort to be called "Summer Home." He first used the log as a dwelling, and then as a fruit cellar for an apple orchard that he planted a few miles away. Doyle next had the rough end of the log sawed off in 1888 so that the rest of the log could be moved to a railroad siding and mounted on wheels to be used as a railroad dining car for a promotion tour to the eastern United States. However, the log was spared when measurements revealed that it was too large fit through the railroad tunnels on the planned journey. Ultimately Dole's Hollow Log became the center attraction for his Summer Home resort, which for a few years was a popular tourist destination. Doyle's fortunes waned in later years, and he sold his property, along with the log and surrounding grove, in 1906 to the Mt. Whitney Power Company. The land eventually passed to Allan and Janet Balch, who in 1930 donated the property to Tulare County for a park, so that the Hollow Log and nearby Giant Sequoia trees would be preserved for future generations.

Dimensions

The Hollow Log is about long with a diameter of . It originally was longer, but in 1888 the end was sawed off. Although steel cables are bound around the log to prevent it from collapsing, it is still possible to walk and crawl all the way through it from one end to the other.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balch Park Individual giant sequoia trees Natural history of Tulare County, California

History

Dimensions

See also

References