Named for Charles Henry “Mountain Charlie” McKiernan, one of the first white settlers in the Santa Cruz Mountain area, Mountain Charlie Big Tree is one of the largest trees of its species, a Sequoia sempervirens originally over 300 feet high. After being broken off in a storm years ago, it stands today at 260 feet from the ground, measuring 18 feet in diameter at the base, 60 feet in circumference, and over 5 feet in diameter at the top. In 1880, when Mountain Charlie began to timber this area, he planned to cut both the big tree, then known as “King of the Forest,” and the “Queen,” whose stump remains as testimony to that grand tree. Problems with the “Queen” changed that decision, and the “King” still stands today as it has for over a thousand years.
