Entrance to the Stump House, Eureka, CA, circa 1943

About this postcard

The view looks into the dark doorway cut through the base of an enormous redwood stump. A painted sign above the opening records the tree's dimensions, including its 302-foot height and the 361,366 board feet of lumber it yielded. The printed caption gives the town as Eureka, Calit., likely a shortened "Calif." The Stump House was one of the redwood novelty stops that drew motor tourists along the Redwood Highway in the early twentieth century, when giant stumps were hollowed out as rooms and roadside attractions. The posted visiting hours on the sign point to the commercial tourist trade that grew up around the region's old-growth redwoods.