Old Goliath was one of the largest trees in the grove until it came crashing down during a violent windstorm in December of 1861 as Alexander Jackson “Trapper” Smith listened from inside his nearby tree cabin (The Smith Cabin Tree). He didn’t dare to venture outside as the force of the storm tossed tree tops about, twisted branches off and hurled entire trees to the ground. He wondered if his creaking and trembling tree would be the next to go. The earth shook when the enormous Old Goliath fell, and Smith was certain that his end had come. Luckily, both Smith and his tree survived this wild storm. Although it has been over 140 years since this tree fell, it still has much of its bark.

This photo was taken by a Kowa/SIX medium format film camera and KOWA 1:3.5/55mm lens with a Kowa L39 3C(UV) ø67 filter using Kodak Portra 800 film, the negative scanned by an Epson Perfection V600 and digitally rendered with Photoshop.