Artifact Spotlight: Items on Loan

This post is part of our ongoing series of posts about our newest exhibit, The Redwoods Provided:  Stories from Redwood National and State Parks​. This week, we'll be checking out some of the incredible items that are on loan to the museum for our exhibit.

---

The Redwoods Provided is the second main hall exhibit that I've put together since I started working at the Museum last September. One thing I've learned from both the Fraternal Orders exhibit and this new Redwood National and State Park one is that it takes a community to build a truly strong and vibrant exhibit. Through this most recent exhibit, I've had the chance to work with many local groups to borrow items for our display. I'd like to share some of those items and a bit of information about the organizations that made this exhibit- and the stories in the exhibit- come to life.

Old Growth Redwood Chainsaw
Courtesy of Timber Heritage Association

This incredible chainsaw, with a 6 foot bar, was used to cut old growth redwoods in the forests of Humboldt County. It is on loan to the museum during our exhibit from Timber Heritage Association, an organization that is building a world-class collection of logging tools, machinery, and more in Samoa. They're locally known for their Speeder Car rides that run all around the county in the summertime.

NO! Angry Logger Poster
Courtesy of Redwood National and State Parks

When I first started scouting items to borrow for the exhibit, this poster appeared in the Redwood National and State Parks Archives. With it's scowling face and furrowed eyebrows with bold text, I thought it would make a great presentation piece in the exhibit. This photo is a reprint of the original. The Parks Archives loaned us many of the high-impact pieces on display, including the standing map displaying the expansion of the Park, the Clean Logged and Seeded sign in the pro-logging propaganda case, the vibrant photos taken by Don Anthrop throughout the exhibit, and the burls on display in the center of the exhibit. 

Lucille Vinyard Case
Courtesy of Humboldt State University Special Collections Interns

This case contains a number of personal items from Lucille Vinyard, whom many call the mother of Redwood National Park. Items related to her work to establish the parks can be found at Humboldt State University or online here.
This case offered interns at Humboldt State the opportunity to apply skills from their ongoing internship, sponsored by the National Parks Service, in bringing archives into the public eye. 

KEK Stereoscope
​Donated by Natural Resource Management Corp

This tool was used to map out the expansion of the Redwood National Park in the 1970s and 1980s. it uses aerial photos, mirrors, and magnifying glasses connected to a movable frame to allow the user to trace out the terrain onto a separate map.

These types of tools were used to create what later became base maps for GIS and GPS, and for programs like Google Maps.