General Grant Tree

This is the only living thing the United States has declared a national shrine. President Eisenhower gave the General Grant Tree that title in 1956, as a memorial to Americans who died in war, thirty years after President Coolidge had proclaimed it the Nation's Christmas Tree. Two presidents, two designations, one trunk. The trunk is the reason. It stands 81.5 metres tall and measures 32.8 metres round at the base, and it holds about 1,320 cubic metres of wood. By trunk volume alone only the General Sherman, in neighbouring Sequoia National Park, is bigger. Count the branches as well and the park service drops it to third, behind the President Tree, so its rank depends on what you measure rather than on anyone getting it wrong. It was named in 1867 for Ulysses S. Grant, which makes the name younger than almost every ring inside it. How much younger is the part nobody has pinned down: a recent estimate cited on Wikipedia puts the tree at roughly 1,650 years, while the park service publishes no age at all, so treat that figure as one careful guess rather than a count. The paved loop from the Grant Grove car park is short and accessible, with benches along the way. It is the largest tree in the grove, and the grove's second largest, the Robert E. Lee, ranks among the dozen biggest sequoias known.