Virtual Guidebook to the Northern California Coast and Coast Ranges
Dyerville Flats
Humboldt Redwoods State Park California

The Dyerville Flats, at the confluence of the South Fork and main Eel River, are famed for some of the most impressive redwood groves. The Founders Grove honors the founders of the Save the Redwoods League, with a monument at the base of the beautiful Founders Tree. Further back in the grove stood a larger tree known as the Dyerville Giant, always considered to be one of the very tallest. In March 1991 several adjacent trees toppled and brought it down. Measurements after its fall indicated it may well have been the tallest tree in the world at the time, around 370 feet.

At the very back of the grove there is an inconspicuous plaque commemorating Laura and James Mahan, who while hiking here in 1924, discovered that logging had begun and some of the huge trees were already down. They raised the alarm in Eureka and Sacramento and with the help of conservationists, the state government, and the lumber company, logging was stopped and the grove eventually acquired for the park.