Old Survivor, also known as the Grandfather Tree, is the last remaining old-growth coastal redwood of the redwood forest that once populated the

Oakland Hills Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

Description

Old Survivor has a unique shaggy appearance with several large branches drooping outward from its sparse upper crown. The tree is much taller than the surrounding trees, all of which are second growth. Despite its name, the tree, which dates to 1549–1554, is actually young for an old-growth coastal redwood, many of which live between 1200 and 1800 years old or more. Between 7-12 years before Old Survivor was seeded, Spanish/Portuguese explorer

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo ( pt, João Rodrigues Cabrilho; c. 1499 – January 3, 1543) was an Iberian maritime explorer best known for investigations of the West Coast of North America, undertaken on behalf of the Spanish Empire. He was the firs ...

had led the first expedition to explore the coast of what is now

. The tree can be observed at a distance from the York Trail of Leona Heights Park, or from the parking lot of Carl B. Munck Elementary School where there is a plaque detailing the tree's statistics and history.

History

From 1845 to 1860, logging of the coastal redwoods in the area for their valuable timber wiped out much of the dense coastal redwood forest that once populated the

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa countie ...

. A second wave of logging following the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity s ...

further contributed to the forest's destruction, leaving only a few scattered pockets of old-growth redwoods left in the entirety of

. However, Old Survivor's location on an exceptionally steep and rocky slope beside Horseshoe Creek made it unprofitable to log, and thus the tree was spared the fate of its neighbors. In 1916, the land where the tree stands was purchased by the city of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

in order to preserve the remaining redwoods in the area. The tree was rediscovered in 1969 by Oakland Parks naturalist Paul Covel in what was then McCrea Memorial Park (today called Leona Heights Park). A core ring count at the time made by Glen Strouse at Humboldt State University estimated the tree's age to be between 415 and 420 years old relative to 1969. Old Survivor was designated a City of Oakland Historic Landmark on June 24, 1980. In 2018, the documentary film ''Old Survivor'' celebrated the tree and reflected back on the history of Oakland's coastal redwood forests.

References

Individual coast redwood trees Oakland, California {{Tree-stub

Description

History

See also

References