Ash Mountain Entrance Sign

The Ash Mountain Entrance Sign at Sequoia National Park was constructed in 1935 by Civilian Conservation Corps craftsmen. Featuring a carved Native American face, the sign was made from blocks of sequoia wood and fastened with wrought iron brackets.[2]

Ash Mountain Entrance Sign
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Nearest city	Three Rivers, California
Coordinates	36°29′15″N 118°50′9″W
Built	1935
Architect	George Muno, Harold Fowler
NRHP reference No.	78000367
Added to NRHP	April 27, 1978[1]

The design was first proposed by National Park Service architect Merel S. Sager in 1931, who designed a small log sign for the Ash Mountain entrance. In 1935 resident park landscape architect Harold G. Fowler created a much larger design. He recruited CCC worker George W. Muno, who had displayed a talent for woodworking, and they selected a piece of fallen sequoia wood from the Giant Forest. Fowler sketched the profile in blue chalk on the wood using an Indian Head nickel as a guide. Muno carved the wood over a several-month period and the sign was assembled and erected over the winter of 1935-36. It was moved in 1964 to make room for a new park entrance station.[3]

The sign is supported by a four-foot-diameter sequoia log rising from a two-tiered masonry platform. The sign panel is ten feet wide by four feet high and one foot thick, carved into a profile reputed to signify Sequoyah, whose Cherokee tribe never inhabited California. The sign was originally unpainted, but assumed its present appearance in the 1950s. As originally built, a matching log pylon stood on the opposite side of the road. The pylon was removed when the sign was relocated.[3]