At the center of our “Redwood Time” project is a re-envisioning of the monumental Redwood Round on Fort Bragg’s Main Street. But before we reconsider our relationship to this memorial erected in 1943 in honor of the founders of Fort Bragg and the natural majesty they encountered here, we first need to understand what they intended to memorialize. What – specifically – does this Redwood Round that stands at the heart of Fort Bragg celebrate? And more importantly, how can a historically-informed understanding of this mid-20th century memorial help us understand our own relationship to the land they claimed and named?

Join us on July 20th as former Fort Bragg resident and current UC Davis professor of English and American Studies Jeff Solomon draws upon the historical record and recent cultural and ecological scholarship to illuminate the history behind the memorial and the people it celebrates.

We’ll take a close look at the timeline it presents, the contested histories of settlement and progress that it celebrates (or overlooks), and then connect all of that to a discussion about the redwood forest that remains as its own form of memorial.