WATCH: The iconic "Pioneer Cabin" tree was a popular tourist attraction to visitors of Calaveras Big Trees State Park in California because of the tunnel that earlier landowners had carved in its base.
An iconic living tree with a tunnel so big that visitors could once drive through it toppled on Sunday during a winter storm.
The sequoia, nicknamed the Pioneer Cabin, was located in Calaveras Big Trees State Park in Arnold, California—a park where trees are estimated to be over 1,000 years old.
The 150-foot tree had sported its giant tunnel since the 1880s, when the landowners at that time carved into a fire scar at the tree’s base to create the tourist-attracting feature. Though the tunnel was eventually closed off to cars, it remained a renowned landmark for hikers.
The Pioneer Cabin survived with a tunnel in its trunk longer than the Wawona, a competing sequoia tunnel tree in Yosemite National Park
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