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 Richardson Grove State Park - California Posted by:  DougK
N 40° 01.369 W 123° 47.644
10T E 432241 N 4430590
Established in 1922, Richardson Grove State Park was one of California’s first redwood parks. It began with 120 acres. With the help of Save the Redwoods League and other generous donors, the park has grown to 1,800 acres.
Waymark Code: WMT77C
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 10/07/2016
Views: 2
At the Richardson Grove Visitor Center, you’ll find hands-on displays, friendly docents, and a schedule of activities. Most of the park’s ranger- or docent-led programs (including campfire talks, nature walks, and Junior Ranger programs) start up on Memorial Day weekend and end after Labor Day. Aimed at kids age 7 through 12, these programs offer games, crafts, hiking, and exploring with other children.
Richardson Grove has three family campgrounds, with a total of 169 sites, as well as one site for hikers and bicyclists and one group camp for 9 to 40 people. Some sites are open only in the summer. Huckleberry and Madrone family campgrounds and the Dawn Redwood Group Campground are open year round. Oak Flat Campground is open mid-June through mid-September.
The South Fork of the Eel River is popular for swimming and sunbathing in the summer and for salmon and steelhead catch-and-release fishing in the winter.
Park Type: Day Use, Overnight Camping
Activities:
Hiking
Camping
Fishing
Park Fees:
0
Background:
The first known inhabitants of this region, the Sinkyone people, hunted, fished, gathered food, and lived sustainably among Richardson Grove’s ancient redwoods, which they considered sacred. These Athabascan-speaking people trained their dogs to drive game toward waiting hunters. Both men and women were basket makers. Today’s Sinkyone descendants maintain cultural and spiritual ties to the Grove.
The first recorded settler in the area, Kentuckian Ruben Reed, bought land on the South Fork of Eel River in the late 1860s. His brother and their widowed father homesteaded 160 acres, now part of the park. In the early 1900s Henry Devoy bought Reed’s land; Devoy leased the redwood grove in 1920 to Edwin Freeman, who built a store, a dining room, and cabins at the site of today’s visitor center.
In 1922, Save the Redwoods League, concerned about the potential destruction of the trees by highway construction and logging, persuaded the state to acquire 120 acres of the redwood grove. Between 1922 and 1932, Freeman operated the new park as a concession and lobbied to name the park for Governor Friend W. Richardson. The Richardson Grove Lodge, which is now the visitor center, was built between 1928 and 1930. In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began building campgrounds, picnic facilities, trails, water systems, and restrooms in the main grove.
Periodic flooding of the Eel River, particularly during the floods of 1955 and 1964, damaged the CCC-built facilities. In February 1986, the river again overflowed its banks, destroying the campfire center and picnic area. Later, new facilities were built outside of the main grove. Today, only the visitor center remains in the main grove, lessening the human impact on its fragile ecosystem.
Date Established?: 1922
Link to Park: [Web Link]
Additional Entrance Points: Not Listed
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