When Disneyland opened to the public on July 17, 1955, one of the first rides was the Storybook Land Canal Boats. Guests board a small boat to view charming miniature models of settings from beloved animated films, including Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Cinderella.
In the Pinocchio model, a three-foot-tall tree stands towering over the Italian village. The tree is not a model, however, but a dwarf Bolander Pine that some argue is the oldest living thing in Disneyland. The tree didn’t originally grow in Anaheim, but in the pygmy forests in Mendocino County near Van Damme State Park, where a forest of dwarf pine and cypress trees stand only a few feet tall, some less than a foot. One woman from Mendocino County played a large hand in protecting these trees so they remain today.
Born in 1874 in Comptche, Charlotte “Lottie” Hoak was the eldest daughter of Lizzie and Newman Hoak. When she was born, her father planted seven redwood trees on their property, which she nicknamed her “Birthday Grove.” She grew to love nature early in life, an interest cultivated by growing up on a ranch in the redwoods with her parents.
In a chapter titled “Child in a Garden of Yesterday” that Charlotte wrote for Pioneer American Gardening, Charlotte recalled her extensive family garden, trips to nurseries across Northern California, and their dining table “piled high” with plant catalogs from around the world.
Charlotte earned her teaching degree, an established path for a woman to obtain higher education and a wage in the late 19th century, and returned to school for a graduate degree. While studying English and botany at the University of California, Berkeley, she taught in Mendocino County.
After university, Charlotte moved to Southern California and began her involvement in the California Garden Club, becoming the Horticulture Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the club’s publication, Golden Garden. She was named “Miss Horticulture” in 1958 and won the first “Horticulturist of the Year” award in 1960 for her contributions to the field.
But her roots remained in the redwoods, and Charlotte began advocating for the preservation of Mendocino’s pygmy forests. She organized fundraisers with the Garden Club to purchase forestland and donate it to California State Parks. In September 1969, a year after Charlotte’s death, the Charlotte M. Hoak Memorial Pygmy Forest was dedicated in her honor.
Averee McNear is the curator at the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino, Calif.
TIL – always wondered who was behind the name of the forests.