Q 01/05

Kings Canyon National Park lies in which US state?

A) Colorado

B) California

C) New Mexico

D) Arizona

Answer · why

B) California

California. The park began in 1890 as four square miles around one sequoia grove, and the canyon it is now named for stayed outside its borders until ...

Q 02/05

A giant sequoia felled in 1891 for museums in New York and London left a Kings Canyon stump named for which writer?

A) Bret Harte

B) Walt Whitman

C) Mark Twain

D) Ambrose Bierce

Answer · why

C) Mark Twain

Mark Twain. The trunk section was split into pieces, hauled out by wagon and sent east by rail, and a slice 16 feet across still stands in London's Na...

Q 03/05

Which president signed the 1890 law creating General Grant National Park, the small reserve that grew into Kings Canyon?

A) Benjamin Harrison

B) Grover Cleveland

C) William McKinley

D) Chester A. Arthur

Answer · why

A) Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison. The clause creating it was tacked onto another park's bill at the last minute, and historians have never established who wrote it.

Q 04/05

Which president signed the bill that enlarged General Grant National Park and renamed it Kings Canyon?

A) Herbert Hoover

B) Harry S. Truman

C) Dwight D. Eisenhower

D) Franklin D. Roosevelt

Answer · why

D) Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt. To win over valley irrigators who still hoped for reservoirs, his bill left the canyon floor and Tehipite Valley outside the ne...

Q 05/05

Kings Canyon's Grant Tree was thought the world's largest until 1931, when measurements favoured which rival?

A) The President

B) General Sherman

C) Washington

D) Lincoln

Answer · why

B) General Sherman

General Sherman. Grant's huge base had made it look the bigger tree, but Sherman's trunk held more wood, and trunk volume has been the usual way to ra...