Sequoia is the second-oldest national park in the United States. It was established on 25 Sep 1890 to protect the Big Trees in Giant Forest, including the General Sherman Tree, the world's largest living thing. Sequoia also contains the Mineral King Valley and Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the U.S. outside of Alaska.

A small portion of what is now Kings Canyon was originally set aside in 1890 as General Grant National Park. In 1940, General Grant was absorbed into the new and larger Kings Canyon National Park which eventually grew to include the South Fork of the Kings River and 456,552 acres of backcountry wilderness. Managed as one park, together Sequoia and Kings Canyon total over 863,700 acres.

People first started coming to the sequoia forests in large numbers shortly after the end of the Civil War. The General Grant Tree was discovered in 1862 by Joseph Hardin Thomas and named in 1867 by Lucretia Baker. Five years later, on 01 March 1872, Ulysses Grant, now president of the United States, signed the bill designating Yellowstone as the world's first national park. The area around the Grant Grove of giant sequoias was set aside in 1890 as General Grant National Park. (Yosemite National Park was created in the same piece of legislation.) In 1940, General Grant was included in the newly created Kings Canyon National Park.