"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."
"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."
Ralph Sidney Smith escorted state officials into Big Basin in November 1887 and cherished the redwood forest's savage beauty. He grew up on the Peninsula and frequently fished and rambled among towering trees over 300 feet tall. He sought state purchase of land in Pescadero or Butano creek canyons to establish a public park for future generations. He used his newspaper platform to warn that rampant logging was destroying California's coastal redwoods and appealed to political figures including Leland Stanford. He estimated at least 100,000 acres of primeval forest remained and urged immediate, properly executed preservation efforts. Smith was shot ten days later.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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