MTFCA Forum

still pop up.

Great pics. Thank you for posting.

Doesn’t it make you wonder if one of those T’s might be one that we now own?

Belliott3 wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:47 am

Doesn’t it make you wonder if one of those T’s might be one that we now own?

Or maybe we own a part of them. My grandpa used parts of cars and made a whole new car, maybe some of the parts on our car (or cars) are from these photos.

I wonder if the picture showing a car going into a tree trunk was taken at Yosemite Park. I saw that tree. Unfortunately, it fell in winter of 1968 - 1969, as I recall.

Art Mirtes

At first when I saw the car in the trees, I thought the same thing, however, if you look very carefully, you will see that it is actually between several smaller trees, and there looks like a lake in the background. No lake in Yosemite. I will attach a picture of us at that old tree. It is not in a Model T, however you can see how the tree was. That was a 49 Cadillac Fleetwood. My first time there was 1946 in a 1936 Ford Tudor with my parents and sister. Next was in 1962 with Dolores in a 1931 Model A Phaeton. We might have some of those old pictures somewhere in an album, but not on the computer. The 49 Cadillac would have been somewhere around 1967.
Norm

The "T in the Tree" picture caught my attention my first glance through this thread (THANK YOU again Tom R!). I knew it was not any of the more famous drive through trees, not Yosemite, not any of the four or five others I have been aware of. I also noticed that it does appear to be redwood, and there appears to be considerable devastation behind the tree. It may or may not have been a single tree? Or a cluster of smaller trees. Difficult to tell that close up. The burn scars also caught my attention. Big Basin Redwoods State Park has been a favorite place for most of my life. Less than an hours drive (depending upon traffic?) from where I grew up, my family visited there and nearby Santa Cruz areas and beaches often. So I am somewhat familiar with the area's history. I had to google (no small task these incompetent almost everyone days?) to be sure of the years. However, the area was somewhat at risk of being totally destroyed by logging in spite of considerable efforts by conservationists in the latter half of the 1890s, until a major part of the area was declared a State Park (California's first!) in 1902! A major women's club in the very early years sponsored a "clean out all poison oak" drive after some members suffered severe reactions from early visits there. So the park is one of the few California coastal areas that has virtually no poison oak in it!
Several other surrounding areas also became parks, both local and state. Logging was curtailed, and hopefully the redwoods can survive a few more centuries.
Sadly, disaster hit in 1904 when most of the park, and considerable surrounding areas were devastated by a forest fire! The park has been a monument to survival ever since. While mostly not noticeable to most tourists, by the time I was growing up, most of the park had recovered from the fire. Still, scars remained clear up until the recent fire a few years ago which also destroyed so much of that beautiful park. Once again, the redwoods are on the road to slow recovery.

Without more information to go on? I cannot be certain. But I would speculate that photo may have been taken twelve to fifteen years after the fire of 1904.
The T appears to be 1917 or earlier based upon the top's rear curtain. It has aftermarket Firestone type demountable wheels with spare carrier, and oil tail lamp. I couldn't say for sure, but it may have a 1915/'16 flat curve rear fender? The burn scars appear to be no more than a decade or two old. There are several areas in California that have redwoods. It could be any of them. But a high likelihood it was in the Santa Cruz mountains. And fairly likely in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

It seems to me, that somewhere north of San Francisco along Highway 101 the (Redwood Highway) somewhere there was a sign to the west side of the highway, about a tunnel tree. But I never went there. We just drove by.
Norm

There used to be at least two of them near Leggett California. The Chandelier Tree, and I forget the other one's name. I have taken the family through the Chandelier tree a few times. But I never had one of my antiques there for them to go through. Still on my bucket list.
A quick look at google says there are still three remaining in the redwood world. However, a quick look did not reveal the locations. Other links likely would.

Thanks for the pics, Tom. I always enjoy them. I find the 1911 Torpedo interesting, it does not have a Torpedo horn on it...