The General Sam was the Big Fake Tree that stood as the icon at one of the entrances to Bugs Bunny World, the kids area at Magic Mountain. In the early 90s, when Time Warner owned the Six Flags chain and was attempting actual theming, BBW and the surrounding area became the High Sierra Territory.
By the way, BFT does indeed stand for Big Fake Tree, and not Big Fucking Tree, which is just an urban legend.
In August of 1995, I took a bunch of photos (on film no less) at Six Flags Magic Mountain using an inexpensive camera. I was working as an Operations supervisor at the time, and the purpose of the project was to create a slide show for an employee appreciation party for our Operations staff. I’ve carted these slides around for over 25 years and I finally had them digitally transferred this year. About 2/3s of them aren’t available for posting because they are crew pictures and I have no way to request permission to post them. But I do have 50+ available that are just various shots of the park. Enjoy this time capsule from August 1995.