Calaveras Big Trees State Park in California’s Sierra Nevada protects two groves of giant sequoias, including the state’s northernmost grove, and has drawn visitors since the trees became widely known in 1852. Long known to Native American communities, the grove later became famous both for its enormous trees and for notorious acts of destruction, including the felling of the Discovery Tree and the stripping of the Mother of the Forest for exhibition. Public outrage over such losses helped advance preservation, influencing the Yosemite Grant and later campaigns that brought the North Grove into California State Parks in 1931 and added the larger South Grove in 1954.