The Most Photographed Tree in the World

Everybody loves to discover a hidden history. Unraveling a mystery, giving voice to an unspoken hero, or finding the needle in the archival haystack allows a truer picture of the past to emerge. The story of the Wawona Tunnel Tree is not a mystery. Located in the Mariposa Grove of Yosemite National Park, the Wawona tree is not the tallest, the largest, or the oldest of the giant sequoia. Nonetheless, it has earned the reputation of the most photographed tree in the world. In today’s selfie obsessed world, that may seem insignificant. But in the case of the Wawona Tunnel Tree, it shows the evolution of an icon that has proven itself to be worthy of our protection time and time again. 

James Mason Hutchings was one of the first non-native settlers in Yosemite Valley. A former miner and budding publisher, Hutchings first visited Yosemite in 1855 with a tourist party that included artist Thomas Ayres. A year later Hutchings released Hutchings’ California Magazine, along with the earliest published illustrations of Yosemite Valley by Ayres. Its first article, the “The Yo-ham-ite Valley”, touts the beauty of California, “There are but few lands that possess more of the beautiful and picturesque than California. Its towering and pine covered mountains; its widespread valleys, carpeted with flowers; its leaping waterfalls; its foaming cataracts; its rushing rivers; its placid lakes; its evergreen forests; its gently rolling hills, with shrubs and trees and flowers, make this a garden of loveliness, and a pride to her enterprising sons.”

The magazine continued through 1861 and contributed greatly to the popularization of California as a destination in general, and to the Yosemite Valley in particular. Hutchings would go on to publish Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California (1862), In the Heart of the Sierras (1888), and Souvenir of California: Yo-Semite Valley and the Big Trees: What To See and How To See It (1894).

Thirty miles south of Yosemite Valley, in the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, tourism dates to 1857, when Galen Clark built a tourist stop in what is now Wawona, California. Clark moved to the area in order to convalesce from a bout of tuberculosis. After he came upon the sequoia grove, he spent his time studying the trees and sharing his interest in them with others. His health improved. “Clark’s Station” provided visitors with food, shelter, a place to graze their horses, and access to the big trees. Trails and bridges to Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove were established. More concerned with preservation of the trees than luring in customers, Clark wrote to Congress urging official protection of the grove. In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Act, establishing both Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove as protected wilderness areas under the care of the state of California. Clark was employed as “Guardian of the Grant”, keeping watch for illegal timber harvesting and vandalism. He remained in Yosemite until his death in 1910 at the age of 96.

While Clark was essential in the protection of the grove, he wasn’t a great business man and in 1874 he sold his property to a trio of brothers- Edward, John and Henry Washburn. The completion of the Transcontinental railroad in 1869 created a tourist boom out west and the Washburns saw potential in the Mariposa Grove. The brothers had been working on improving the road from the gold rush town of Mariposa, about forty-five miles away, to Yosemite Valley. Better roads meant supplies and equipment to build better facilities for tourists. Better facilities meant accessibility for more people, not just the adventurous ones. By 1876 they had expanded area amenities to include a hotel and a toll road to Yosemite Valley. They formed the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company in 1877, employing 40 stage drivers and 700 horses. Wawona became a transportation hub, with a barn to shod your horse, and a store to restock your provisions.

Despite such improvements, the Mariposa Grove was a commitment to get to. In 1881, in an effort at sensationalism, the Washburns paid the Scribner brothers to tunnel out a giant sequoia, routed a road through it, and began photographing its visitors. It was a hit. Twenty years earlier, photographers such as Carleton Watkins and Edward Muybridge took the most gorgeous photographs we have of the Mariposa Grove. There is no doubt that these images contributed to its preservation. But nothing enticed the public more than the opportunity to drive through a tree and brag to their friends about it.

In In the Heart of Sierras (1886), Hutchings sets the scene in Wawona, writing “The very instant the bridge is crossed, on the way to the hotel, the whole place seems bristling with business, and business energy. Conveyances of all kinds, from a sulky to whole rows of passenger coaches, capable of carrying from one to eighteen or twenty persons each, at a load, come into sight. From some the horses are just being taken out, while others are being hitched up. Hay and grain wagons; freight wagons coming and going; horses with or without harness; stables for a hundred animals; blacksmiths’ shops, carriage and paint shops, laundries and other buildings, look at us from as many different stand-points.” The Wawona Hotel and barn still stand today.

[expand on tunnel tree specifically, project to remove the parking lot 2018…]

The Wawona Tunnel Tree fell in a storm in 1969. You can still visit it, although it is on its side, left where it fell in order to deteriorate and replenish the ecosystem around it. 

The Mariposa Grove is one of three sequoia groves in Yosemite National Park, containing about 580 giant sequoias. Giant Sequoia trees are the world's largest and oldest trees. They exist only in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. The bulk of the trees in the Mariposa Grove are over 2,000 years old. The oldest trees in the grove, such as the Grizzly Giant, are over 3,000 years old. Giant Sequoias are a fire adapted species, and historically, fire rarely kills mature giant sequoias. But, recent high severity fires in California are a threat. In many cases forest fires in California are left to burn when they don’t threaten human life. It is unsafe work, and often too risky, too expensive, perhaps too inconsequential, to fight them. But in 2022 when the Washburn fire threatened the Mariposa Grove, the response was immediate and extreme. Crews wrapped the tree’s massive trunks in fire-resistant foil and installed sprinkler systems to increase humidity. President Biden was briefed on efforts to protect the giant sequoias. Stories about “Saving the Sequoias” made international headlines. Nearly a month later, the fire was contained after burning almost 5,000 acres. No giant sequoias were lost. 

The effort to save the trees was extraordinary. The trees are a major attraction, in a major national park, and therefore a considerable money maker for the park and its concessionaires. But in that moment, the threat of losing them reminded the world that these trees deserve to exist regardless of what they do for us.