Description

The Men of Mammoth Forest
By Floyd L. Otter

New, Hardbound, 6th printing, 169 pages

A Hundred-year History of a Sequoia Forest and its people in Tulare County, California written by career Forester, Historian and Naturalist; Floyd Otter.

The story begins with the old tragedy of the Indians who made their last stand at Battle Mountain with bows and arrows against Army guns. Then came the trail blazers, rarely finding passes as low as 10,000 feet through the two major divides between San Joaquin Valley and Owens Lake, and soon thereafter the hopeful toll road builders. Then there came the hogs and cattle, and alas, there came, and passed, the era of indefatigable shepherds.

Unless the reader knows the meaning of a true mountain escarpment rising at the rate of a thousand feet each horizontal mile from the San Joaquin Valley to where the mammoth forest lies, he would not easily appreciate the struggle of the iron-shod bulls and the jangling jerk line freight teams which are so important a part of this story. One of the fantastic tales that are a part of this big tree legend is the falling of one Giant Sequoia by chopping outward from the inside of the tree. Also included are valuable descriptions of unusual logging methods needed to harvest the mighty Giant Sequoias.

The book is arranged in three chronological parts respectively embracing the wilderness, the logging and, finally, the public acceptance of its responsibility for guardianship over this great Sequoia forest. There is a solid reference to source material, some place name origins and a list of memorable dates of droughts, fires, and floods.

Chapter

A Word to the Reader

I. The Forest—An Introduction

PART ONE. FIRST ATTACKS ON THE WILDERNESS

II. Far Back on the Trail

III. The Yaudanchi Lose Their Homeland

IV. First Discoveries, Trapping, Mining, and Hunting

V. Trails Across the Sierra

VI. Shepherd’s Empire

VII. First Settlers, Sawmills, Roads

VIII. An Old Stump and Two Caves

PART TWO. NOW WE’RE LOGGIN’

IX. A Word to the Wise

X. The Trees Come Down

XI. The Sawmills

XII. Mountain Retreats for the San Joaquin

XIII. Moves Toward Forest Conservation

PART THREE. THE PUBLIC ASSUMES RESPONSIBILITY

XIV. Uncle Sam’s Foresters

XV. Balch Park

XVI. The State Joins In

XVII. To Sit …. To Muse …. To Slowly Trace

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A. ORIGIN OF PLACE NAMES

APPENDIX B. MEMORABLE DATES

INDEX OF PEOPLE AND PLACES