South Whidbey State Park is a Washington state park in Island County. It consists of 347acres of old-growth forest and tidelands with of shoreline on Admiralty Inlet. The park contains many mature specimens of western red cedar, Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, and western hemlock, some of the largest on Whidbey island, including one "Giant Cedar" over 500 years old.HistoryWhen the park was created in 1974 it consisted of approximately 87 acres of shoreline along Puget Sound. In 1977 local citizens filed a lawsuit against the Washington Department of Natural Resources, which managed the park, when they learned that the state agency planned to grant logging contracts on an adjacent 267 acre parcel of land known as "Classic U," which contained one of the few remaining stands of old-growth conifers on the island. Activists pursued legal solutions to prevent logging of the parcel, forming a nonprofit foundation called Save the Trees and seeking a temporary injunction on logging from the state government. Many also practiced civil disobedience—laying down in front of bulldozers to prevent the destruction of ancient trees.
