Ten days before 31-year-old newspaper editor Ralph Sidney Smith was shot and killed by an angry reader on the streets of Redwood City, he enjoyed a final visit to his favorite place on Earth.
In November of 1887, as editor of the Redwood City Times and Gazette, Smith escorted a party of state officials deep into the redwood forest of Big Basin in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. He was well acquainted with what he called the “savage beauty” of this lush, rugged landscape. Growing up on the Peninsula, he escaped to the forest every chance he got – to fish in its creeks or to ramble amongst the towering trees, some more than 300 feet tall and older than the Roman Empire. He wanted to convince the state to purchase acres in either the Pescadero or Butano creek canyons to create a public park for the benefit of future generations.
Like other early environmental activists, including John Muir, Smith used his writing to sound the alarm about rampant logging that was destroying California’s coastal redwoods, telling the public and the politically connected — including industrialist and US Senator Leland Stanford — that the state was on the brink of losing a vital natural resource. “At least 100,000 acres of this land is forest primeval,” he wrote about Big Basin. “It ought to be saved, and it can be saved, if the attempt is made in the right way – NOW.”
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As editor, Smith prioritized covering logging’s widespread destruction of ancient redwood forests throughout the state. The industry exploded after the Gold Rush, as people coming to California relied on local forests’ seemingly infinite supply of lumber to build their homes and businesses.
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