On September 25, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation establishing America’s second national park. Created to protect the giant sequoia trees from logging, Sequoia National Park was the first national park formed to protect a living organism: Sequoiadendron giganteum. One week later, General Grant National Park was created and Sequoia was enlarged.
Tasked with protecting these new parks, U.S. Army Cavalry troops were detailed from the Presidio of San Francisco from 1891 through 1913 when the first civilian administrator of the park, Walter Fry, was appointed. The National Park Service was established three years later in 1916.
Early access to the Giant Forest to see the sequoia trees was limited to little more than a pack road. Under the leadership of Captain Charles Young, then the only African American commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, the road into the Giant Forest was completed in August 1903. For the first time the “big trees” were accessible by wagon.
