The NW 59th Street Giant Sequoia

Nobody has put a tape around the famous giant sequoia in Volunteer Park. This one, in a Ballard front yard, has been measured: 76 inches across the trunk, about 20 feet round. The figures are the city's. Seattle's tree inventory lists it as a Heritage Tree on the private frontage of 1525 NW 59th Street, 95 feet tall, about 29 metres, with a crown only 47 feet wide. On those numbers it is a tall, narrow tree rather than a spreading one. That inventory is the only source we have, and it also supplies the pin. Nobody has checked the point against the crown, so the address is the better guide. An iNaturalist observation from April 2026 falls within range of it; whether that record shows this sequoia has not been checked, so the register remains the firm word that the tree still stands. Giant sequoias grow wild only in a narrow band of California's Sierra Nevada, so every one in Seattle was planted by somebody. Who planted this one, and when, nobody has written down. The ground is private, so look from the sidewalk; at 95 feet there is no need to get closer. A Heritage bigleaf maple with a trunk 92 inches across stands about 300 metres to the north-west on NW 62nd Street, and a pair of Heritage poplars about 350 metres east along this same street. If you know when this sequoia went in, tell us.