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 several months 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 (1.2 m) sequoia log rising from a two-tiered masonry platform. The sign panel is ten feet (3.0 m) feet wide by four feet (1.2 m) high and one foot (0.30 m) 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]
The Ash Mountain Entrance Sign, wrapped in protective foil during the approach of the KNP Complex Fire in 2021.
