One Hundred Years in Yosemite: The Story of a Great Park and Its Friends

by Carl Parcher Russell

The Ahwahnee Hotel, 1927 to Date

The Yosemite Park and Curry Company opened the Ahwahnee in 1927. Its interior has received quite as much study as has its exterior architectural values.

California Indian patterns have been used throughout the hotel in many ways. In the lobby, six great figures, set in multiple borders, rendered in mosaic, give color and interest to the floor. In the downstairs corridor and the dining room, other borders and simpler Indian motifs are rendered in acid-etched cement. Painted Indian ornaments play a number of different roles in the building.

In the main lounge the great beams have been related to the contents of the room with borders, spots, and panels of Indian motifs in the colors that appear in the rugs and furniture coverings, while the entire mantel end of the room serves as a bond between the ceiling and the floor with a composite of Indian figures built into one great architectural structure. At the top of each of the ten high windows is a panel of stained glass, each one different, the series forming a rhythmical frieze that bands the room. They are all composed of Indian patterns.

The arts of the whole world have been called together to give the Ahwahnee character and color. There are Colonial furniture, pottery, and textiles; furniture, cottons and linen, lights, and a clock from England; cottons from Norway; and irons from Flanders; more iron and furniture and fabrics from France; embroideries from Italy; rugs from Spain; designs from Greece and designs from Turkey; rugs, jars, and tiles, silks and cottons from Persia; more rugs from the Caucasus and tent strips from Turkestan; porcelains and paintings from China; the sturdy Temmoku ware from Japan; fabrics from Guatemala; terra cotta from Mexico, and so back to California, whence comes the basic motif of the whole, the Indian design.

On June 23, 1943, the Ahwahnee Hotel was taken over by the United States Navy and operated as a hospital. It functioned as the Naval Special Hospital until its formal decommissioning on December 15, 1945, and 6,752 patients were treated, the greatest number at one time being 853. A large and varied naval staff was assigned to duty at the Ahwahnee, including officers, nurses, Waves, and enlisted men. Representatives of the American Red Cross, Veterans’ Administration, and the United States Employment Service also participated in the hospital program. The Ahwahnee as a hospital became an adequately equipped and functioning rehabilitation center, capable of handling full programs of physical training, occupational therapy, and educational work. The department of occupational therapy, especially, was recognized as outstanding among service hospitals. The program of rehabilitation extended to the out-of-doors, both summer and winter.

CHAPTER IX
EAST-SIDE MINING EXCITEMENT

Frequently each summer, those who climb to the Sierra crest within the Yosemite National Park come upon the remains of little “cities” near the mountaintops. Because the story of these deserted towns, now within the boundaries of the park is so interwoven with the story of Mono mining affairs in general, this chapter will of necessity take some account of the events of the Mono Basin, immediately east of Yosemite.

The first white men to visit the Mono country were undoubtedly the American trappers, followed shortly afterward by the explorers and immigrants. The first records of mineral finds in this region, however, are those that pertain to Lieutenant Tredwell Moore’s Indian-fighting expedition to the Yosemite in June, 1852 (see [p. 46]), which crossed the Sierra at the northern Mono Pass and brought back samples of gold ore. The miners who soon followed and, with a few others, continued to work in the Mono region, were apparently unthought-of by their former associates west of the Sierra.

John B. Trask, in his report on mines and mining in California, made to the legislature of California in 1855, says: “In my report of last year, it was stated that the placer ranges were at that time known to extend nearly to the summit ridge of the mountains; but this year it has been ascertained that they pass beyond the ridge and are now found on the eastern declivity, having nearly the same altitude as those occurring on the opposite side. Within the past season, many of these deposits have been examined, and thus far are found to be equally productive with those of similar ranges to the west, and, with a favorable season ensuing, they will be largely occupied.” It is probable that Trask’s statements were based on reports of the work done by Lee Vining’s party.

At any rate, in 1857 it became known among the miners of the Mother Lode that rich deposits had been found at “Dogtown” and Monoville, and a rush from the Tuolumne mines resulted. The Mono Trail from Big Oak Flat, through Tamarack Flat, Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Meadows, and Bloody Canyon, following in general an old Indian route, was blazed at this time and came into great use. The Sonora Pass route was used also, and it was over this trail that the discoverer of the famous Bodie district, later to become the center of all Mono mining, made his way.

It is not my purpose, however, to write the history of Mono County, or even to make this a lengthy story of Mono mining camps. Rather would I present a concise account of the origin of the relics found by Sierra enthusiasts, and, incidentally, tell something about the astonishing town of Bodie.

The name Tioga and the beautiful region which its mention suggests are now familiar to thousands who annually drive over the route that bisects Yosemite National Park. The original location of the mineral deposit now known as the Tioga Mine was made in 1860. Consequently, it is here that our present chronicle of Yosemite summit events should begin. In 1874, William Brusky, a prospector, came upon a prospect hole, shovel, pick, and an obliterated notice at this place. The notice indicated that the mine had been located as “The Sheepherder” in 1860. It was presumed by Brusky that the original locators were returning to Mariposa or Tuolumne from Mono Diggings, Bodie, or Aurora when they made the find. He flattered the claim by supposing that “the original locators probably perished, as it is not likely that they would abandon so promising a claim”; he relocated it as the “Sheepherder.”

In 1878, E. B. Burdick, Samuel Baker, and W. J. Bevan organized the Tioga District. Most of the mines were owned by men of Sonora, although some Eastern capital was interested. The district extended from King’s Ranch, at the foot of Bloody Canyon, over the summit of the Sierra and down the Tuolumne River to Lembert’s Soda Springs. It was eight miles in extent from north to south. At one time there were 350 locations in the district. Bennetville (now called Tioga) was headquarters for the Great Sierra Mining Company offices, which concern was operating the old Sheepherder as the “Tioga Mine.”

The company apparently suffered from no lack of funds, and operations were launched on a grand scale. Great quantities of supplies and equipment were packed into the camp at enormous expenditure of labor and money. At first the place was accessible only via the Bloody Canyon trail, and Mexican packers contracted to keep their pack animals active on this spectacular mountain highway. A trail was then built from the busy camp of Lundy, and that new route to Tioga proved most valuable. The Homer Mining Index of March 4, 1882, describes the packing of heavy machinery up 4,000 feet of mountainside to Tioga in winter:

The transportation of 16,000 pounds of machinery across one of the highest and most rugged branches of the Sierra Nevada mountains in mid-winter, where no roads exist, over vast fields and huge embankments of yielding snow and in the face of furious wind-storms laden with drifting snow, and the mercury dancing attendance on zero, is a task calculated to appall the sturdiest mountaineer; and yet J. C. Kemp, manager of the Great Sierra Consolidated Silver Company of Tioga, is now engaged in such an undertaking, and with every prospect of perfect success at an early day—so complete has been the arrangement of details and so intelligently directed is every movement. The first ascent, from Mill Creek to the mouth of Lake Canyon, is 990 feet, almost perpendicular. From that point to the south end of Lake Oneida, a distance of about two miles, is a rise of 845 feet, most of it in two hills aggregating half a mile in distance. The machinery will probably be hoisted straight up to the summit of Mount Warren ridge from the southwest shore of Lake Oneida, an almost vertical rise of 2,160 feet. From the summit the descent will be made to Saddlebags Lake, thence down to and along Lee Vining Creek to the gap or pass in the dividing ridge between Lee Vining and Slate creeks, and from that point to Tunnel, a distance of about one mile, is a rise of about 800 feet—most of it in the first quarter of a mile. The machinery consists of an engine, boiler, air-compressor, Ingersoll drills, iron pipe, etc., for use in driving the Great Sierra tunnel. It is being transported on six heavy sleds admirably constructed of hardwood. Another, or rather, a pair of bobsleds, accompanies the expedition, the latter being laden with bedding, provisions, cooking utensils, etc. The heaviest load is 4,200 pounds. Ten or twelve men, two mules, 4,500 feet of one-inch Manila rope, heavy double block and tackle, and all the available trees along the route are employed in “snaking” the machinery up the mountain—the whole being under the immediate supervision of Mr. Kemp, who remains at the front and personally directs every movement. It is expected that all the sleds will be got up into Lake Canyon today, and then the work will be pushed day and night, with two shifts of men. Meantime, the tunnel is being driven day and night, with three shifts of men under Jeff McClelland.

Such difficulties prompted the Great Sierra Mining Company to construct the Tioga Road, that they might bring their machinery in from the west side of the Sierra. The road was completed in 1883 at a cost of $64,000.

In 1884, one of those “financial disasters” which always seem to play a part in mining-camp history overtook the Great Sierra Mining Company, and all work was dropped. Records show that $300,000 was expended at Tioga, and there is no evidence that their ore was ever milled.

Persons who have climbed into that interesting summit region above Gaylor Lakes have no doubt pondered over the origin of the picturesque village of long-deserted rock cabins clustered about a deep mine shaft. This is the Mount Dana Summit Mine, one of the important locations of the Tioga District. Its owners were determined to operate in winter, as well as in summer. In the Homer Mining Index, Lundy, of October 30, 1880, we are told that the superintendent of this mine visited Lundy and employed skilled miners to spend the winter there. In December of the same year one of them descended to Bodie to obtain money with which to pay those miners. “He got tripped up on Bodie whisky and was drunk for weeks. Some of the miners returned to Lundy from the Summit Mine. The distance is but seven miles, but they were two days making the trip and suffered many hardships.” Later F. W. Pike took charge of the Summit Mine, but no record appears to have been handed down of the final demise of the camp.

Another camp of the main range of the Sierra that received much notice and actually produced great wealth was Lundy, situated but a few miles north of Tioga. Prior to 1879, W. J. Lundy was operating a sawmill at the head of Lundy Lake. His product helped to supply Bodie’s enormous demand for timber. In the spring of 1879, William D. Wasson took his family to Mill Canyon, near Lundy Lake, and engaged in prospecting. He was followed by C. H. Nye and L. L. Homer, who located rich veins of ore. J. G. McClinton, of Bodie, investigated and was persuaded by what he found to bring capital to the new camp at once. Homer District was organized at Wasson’s residence at Emigrant Flat, in Mill Creek Canyon, September 15, 1879. Prior to this time the region was included in the Tioga District, but because the books of the Tioga recorder were kept at an inconvenient point, a new district was formed. L. L. Homer, for whom the district was named, bowed down by “financial troubles,” committed suicide in San Francisco a few months later.

It is worthy of mention that in 1881 the Sierra Telegraph Company extended its line from Lundy to Yosemite Valley, where it made connection with Street’s line to Sonora.

A trail was built from Tioga over the divide from Leevining Canyon into Lake Canyon, thence down Mill Creek Canyon to Lundy. In 1881 Archie Leonard, renowned as a Yosemite guide and ranger, put on a ten-horse saddle train between Lundy and Yosemite. The trip was made in a day and a half, and the fare was $8.00 one way.

Reports of the State Mining Bureau indicate that something like $3,000,000 was taken from the May Lundy Mine. The town of Lundy proved to be substantial for many years, and the Homer Mining Index, printed there, is the best of all the newspapers that were produced in the ephemeral camps of Mono. Something of the spirit of mining-camp journalism may be gathered from the following note taken from a December, 1850, number of the Index:

The Index wears a cadaverous aspect this week. It is the unavoidable result of a concatenation of congruous circumstances. The boss has gone to Bodie on special business. The devil has been taking medicine, so that his work at the case has been spasmodic and jerky. The printing office is open on all sides, and the snow flies in wherever it pleases. In the morning everything is frozen solid. Then we thaw things out, and the whole concern is deluged with drippings. It is hard to set type under such conditions. When the office is dry, it is too cold to work. When it is warm, the printer needs gum boots and oilskins. In fact, it has been a hell of a job to get this paper out.

Like the other camps, Lundy is now defunct. The May Lundy Mine has not operated for some years, and the building of a dam has raised Lundy Lake so that a part of the townsite is submerged.

Another old camp that many Yosemite fishermen and hikers come upon is the aggregation of dwellings about the “Golden Crown.” At the very head of Bloody Canyon, within Mono Pass, are to be found sturdily built log cabins in various stages of decay. From the Homer Mining Index it has been possible to glean occasional bits of information regarding this old camp. It is stated in an 1880 number of the Index that Fuller and Hayt (or Hoyt) discovered large ledges of antimonial silver there in 1879. The Mammoth City Herald of September 3, 1879, contains a glowing account of the wealth to be obtained from the “Golden Crown,” as the mine was christened, and predicts that thousands of men will be working at the head of Bloody Canyon within one year. The Mammoth City Herald of August 27, 1879, under the heading, “Something Besides Pleasure in Store for Yosemite Tourists,” contains an enthusiastic letter regarding these prospects.

When one observes the great number of mining claims staked out throughout the summit region about White Mountain, Mount Dana, Mount Gibbs, and Kuna Peak, it is not surprising to learn that some Yosemite Valley businessmen ventured to engage in the gamble. Albert Snow, proprietor of the famous La Casa Nevada between Vernal and Nevada falls, owned a mine in Parker Canyon; and A. G. Black, of Black’s Hotel, owned the Mary Bee Mine on Mount Dana.

Some twenty miles south of the Tioga District, in a high situation quite as spectacular in scenic grandeur as any of the camps of the main range of the Sierra, was Lake District, in which Mammoth and Pine City flourished for a time—a very brief time.

In June of 1877, J. A. Parker, B. N. Lowe, B. S. Martin, and N. D. Smith located mineral deposits on Mineral Hill at an altitude of 11,000 feet. Lake District was organized here that same summer. Activity was not great until 1879, when great riches seemed inevitable, and a rush of miners swelled the population of Mammoth and Pine City. A mill was built for the reduction of ores that were not in sight, and two printing establishments cut each other’s throats, the Mammoth City Herald, first on the ground, and the Mammoth City Times.

For a time hope was high. J. S. French built a toll trail from Fresno to Mammoth City. French’s saddle trains met the Yosemite stages at Fresno Flats, and traveled to Basaw (or Beasore) Meadows, Little Jackass Meadows, Sheep Crossing, Cargyle Meadow, Reds Meadow, through Mammoth Pass, and then to Mammoth City, a distance of fifty-four miles. Livestock to supply the Mammoth markets was driven from Fresno Flats over this trail, also.

The first winter after propaganda had inveigled capital to take a chance on Mammoth, all activities persisted through the winter. Like those hardy men who suffered the hardships of winter on Mount Dana, the inhabitants of Mammoth contended with great difficulties.

After the winter of 1879-80, it became apparent that the Mammoth enterprise was unwarranted. The mill, constructed with such optimism, was poorly built. Had it been mechanically perfect, the fate of the camp would have been no better, for the expected ore was not forthcoming. Mammoth was another of those camps which engulfed capital and produced little or nothing. In the winter of 1880-81 the place closed.

Benton, Bodie, and Aurora are quite removed from the area likely to be reached by Sierra travelers, yet to close this account without some mention of their birth, growth, and death would be to omit some of the most important affairs of Mono mining. The first settlement in the region immediately south of Mono was made by George W. Parker, who located the Adobe Meadows in 1860. In 1861 E. C. Kelty sent “Black” Taylor, a partner of the discoverer of Bodie District, to winter some cattle in Hot Springs Valley, where he was killed by Indians. William McBride entered the region in 1853 and engaged in ranching. Float rock was found in October, 1863, by Robinson and Stuart in the foothills of the White Mountains, east of Benton. In February, 1864, these men organized the Montgomery District and succeeded in attracting some attention to their find. The region flourished for a season, but soon declined and became deserted. A few very rich deposits existed, but there seem to have been no continuous veins.

SKETCH MAP OF YOSEMITE REGION
SHOWING EARLY ROUTES & CENTERS, & WITH PRESENT-DAY PLACE NAMES INCLUDED FOR REFERENCE.

EXPLANATION OF SKETCH MAP OF YOSEMITE REGION

DISCOVERY

In 1833 the Joseph Walker party crossed the Sierra, entering the Yosemite National Park region from the northeast and approximately following the route shown (Green Creek-Glen Aulin-present Tioga Road route). Several members looked into Yosemite Valley on a scouting trip from a camp along the Merced-Tuolumne divide. The party discovered the Big Trees (Tuolumne or Merced groves).

FIRST ENTRY

In 1849-50 J. D. Savage maintained a trading post and mining camp below Yosemite Valley at the confluence of the Merced and its South Fork. In the spring of 1850 this station was attacked by Indians.

Savage then removed his post to a safer location on Mariposa Creek. In December, 1850, Indians destroyed this post and murdered those in charge. Savage had established a branch store on the Fresno River, and this station was also burned in December, 1850.

As a result the white settlers organized a volunteer company to punish the Indians. A camp of 500 Indians was found on a tributary of the San Joaquin River. The savages were routed.

Governor McDougal then authorized organization of the Mariposa Battalion. On March 19, 1851, they set out for Yosemite (Mariposa-Wawona-Old Inspiration Point). The Battalion’s first Yosemite Valley camp was near Bridalveil Creek. Their second was at Indian Canyon. They explored the valley to the vicinity of Snow Creek Falls and the foot of Nevada Fall.

Later in 1851 Captain Boling and party returned to Yosemite to make final disposition of the Indians (Fort Miller-Mariposa-Wawona). After two weeks of scouting they located the Indians at Tenaya Lake (via Indian Canyon). The entire tribe was captured and brought to the reservation on the Fresno River. Old Chief Tenaya was later permitted to take his family back to Yosemite. Other members of his tribe soon ran away to join him.

In 1852, eight prospectors entered the valley and two of them were killed by the Yosemites. As a result regular soldiers from Fort Miller, under Lt. Moore, made a third expedition to Yosemite. They followed the fleeing Indians to Mono Lake (Tenaya Lake-Soda Springs-Mono Pass) but captured none of them. On Moore’s return (Soda Springs-Little Yosemite-Glacier Point vicinity-Wawona) to Mariposa he exhibited mineral specimens found in the summit region and Lee Vining was induced to go to the region to prospect. In 1853, according to Bunnell, wrathy Mono Indians, trailing stolen horses, came over the mountains and ended all Yosemite Indian troubles by virtually exterminating Tenaya’s band. But Maria Lebrado, a survivor, denied this (see [p. 47]).

EAST-SIDE MINING EXCITEMENT

In 1857, five years after Lt. Moore’s findings, word reached miners west of the range that rich placers had been found at Mono Diggings (Monoville). A rush from the Tuolumne Region followed. This excitement lasted but a few years.

In 1860 the Sheepherder Mine was located at Tioga. A prospect hole, shovel, pick, and obliterated notice were found in 1874 by William Breuschi, who relocated the lode. The Tioga District was organized October 18, 1878.

In 1859, Brodigan, Doyle, Garraty, and W. S. Body had located rich ground at Bodie. By 1879 there were 8,000 people in Bodie. More than $24,000,000 has been produced here.

In 1879 the Homer District was organized at Lundy, on ground discovered by C. H. Nye.

In 1882-83 a wagon road, following the old alignment of the present Tioga Road, was built from Crockers to Bennetville (Tioga) in order that machinery might be brought up the west slope. Road construction cost $64,000, and approximately another $300,000 was spent on development at Tioga. The mine never produced.

PRESENT-DAY CULTURE

The sketch map also shows the Yosemite National Park Boundary as of 1946. The boundaries at one time included Mount Ritter and the present Devils Postpile National Monument.

“Cherokee Joe” found lead ore in a long, low granite hill, which rises abruptly out of the valley west of the White Range, and it was here that Benton started in 1865. James Larne built the first house, and soon the camp became quite populous. Like the others, it attracted a printer, and for a time the Mono Weekly Messenger flaunted taunts at neighboring camps and exploited the virtues and possibilities of Benton. Like the others, too, the camp failed, and the printer moved, this time to Mammoth, where he founded the short-lived Mammoth City Herald.

When, in the late ’seventies, the turbulent town of Bodie was attaining its reputation as a tough place, a newspaper of Truckee, California, quoted the small daughter in a Bodie-bound family as having offered the following prayer: “Good-by, God! I’m going to Bodie.” An editor of one of the several Bodie papers rejoined that the little girl had been misquoted. What she really said was, “Good, by God! I’m going to Bodie.”

According to accounts printed when excitement at Bodie was high, the discoverer of the Bodie wealth, W. S. Body, came to California on the sloop Matthew Vassar in 1848. He had lived in Poughkeepsie, New York, and there left a wife and six children. In November, 1859, Body, Garraty, Doyle, Taylor, and Brodigan crossed Sonora Pass to test the Mono possibilities. On their way back to the west side of the mountains, they dug into placer ground in a gulch on the east side of Silver Hill, one of those now pock-marked hills just above Bodie.

The partners apparently remained on the ground and equipped themselves to work their claims. In March, 1860, Body and “Black” Taylor went to Monoville for supplies, and en route were overtaken by a severe snow-storm. Body became exhausted, and Taylor attempted to carry him but was forced to wrap a blanket around him and leave him. Taylor returned to their cabin, obtained food, and then wandered about all night in a vain search for his companion. It was not until May that Body’s body was found, when it was buried on the west side of the black ridge southwest of the present town. Taylor’s fate has already been mentioned.

Other miners came into the vicinity, and at a meeting, with E. Green presiding, “Body Mining District” was organized. Subsequent usage changed “Body” to “Bodie.” In the summer of 1860, prospectors located lodes a few miles north of Bodie that were destined to put the Bodie find “in the shade” for some years to come. This was the Aurora discovery, upon which the Esmeralda District, organized in 1860, centered. Aurora forged ahead and became a wildly excited camp, but its bloody career was little more than a drunken orgy. The rich ores which had induced extravagance and wild speculation disappeared when shafts had been sunk about one hundred feet, and the “excitement” came to a sudden end.

It is worthy of note that the first board of county supervisors of the county of Mono met in Aurora, June 13, 1861. By 1864 it was discovered that the camp was some miles within the state of Nevada; so Bridgeport was named the county seat. Just before the move was made, a substantial courthouse had been built in Aurora, and the old building still stands. E. A. Sherman, first editor of the Esmeralda Star of Aurora, journeyed to the Eastern States prior to 1863-64, and took with him a fifty-pound specimen of rich Aurora ore. This chunk of rock had been sold and resold at mining-camp auctions to swell the Sanitary Fund, the Civil War “Red Cross.” Thousands of dollars were added to the fund by this one specimen, just as had been done through repeated sale of the celebrated Austin (Nevada) sack of flour.

Mr. Sherman met Mr. Davis of the Pilgrim Society in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and exchanged the Aurora ore for a piece of Plymouth Rock. This fragment of Plymouth Rock was brought back to Aurora, and when the Mono County courthouse was built there, the Plymouth Rock fragment was placed in the cornerstone. The fifty-pound chunk of Aurora ore still may be seen in the Plymouth Society’s venerable museum.

Mark Twain at one time resided in Aurora and engaged in his humorous exaggerations. His cabin there, which even in 1878, when Wasson wrote his Bodie and Esmeralda, had become somewhat mythical, was recently located and moved to Reno, Nevada, where it is now exhibited. At any rate, an Aurora cabin was found which might have been occupied by Mark Twain. One part of the original Mark Twain cabin certainly did not reach Reno, according to the Mammoth Times of December 6, 1879. Bob Howland, who had lived with Mark Twain in Aurora, returned to their old domicile in 1879 and took down the flagpole. He had it made into canes, which he distributed among his friends.

The truly important activity in the Esmeralda region prompted the building of the Sonora Pass wagon road. The Mono County supervisors ordered that road bonds on the “Sonora and Mono road” be issued on November 5, 1863. The road was projected in 1864 and opened to travel in 1868.[11]

Bodie, in the meantime, had not given up the ghost, although only a comparatively few miners occupied the camp. From its discovery until 1877 an average of twenty votes were polled each year. In 1878, however, the Bodie Mining Company made a phenomenally rich strike of gold and silver ore, and the entire mining world was startled. Stock jumped from fifty cents to fifty-four dollars a share. The news swept all Western camps like wildfire, and by 1879 Bodie’s crowd and reputation were such that the little girl’s prayer of “Good-by, God! I’m going to Bodie” was representative of the opinion held by contemporaries.

Even W. S. Body, whose body had moldered in a rocky grave for nearly twenty years, was not undisturbed by the activity. In 1871 J. G. McClinton had discovered the forgotten Body grave while searching for a horse. He made no move to change the burial site, however, until some one of Bodie’s several newspapers launched erroneous reports of the whereabouts of Body’s remains. In the fall of 1879 McClinton and Joseph Wasson exhumed the skeleton, exhibited it to Bodie’s motley populace, and then gave it an elaborate burial, not excluding an eloquent address by Hon. R. D. Ferguson. Now these honored bones occupy a grave that is quite as neglected as the sage-grown niche in which they originally rested, but at least they share a place with the other several hundred dead disposed of in Bodie’s forgotten cemetery.

To make Bodie’s story short, let it suffice to say that for four years the camp maintained the same high-pressure activity. Men mined, milled, played, fought, and hundreds died. Some fifty companies tunneled into Bodie Bluff and all but turned it inside out. Probably twenty-five millions in bullion were conveyed in Bodie stage coaches to the railroad at Carson City, Nevada. Perhaps an amount almost as great was sunk into the hills by the numerous companies that carried on frenzied activity but produced no wealth. Only the Standard and the Bodie had proved to be immensely profitable, and in 1881 the stock market went to pieces. Bodie’s mines, one after another, closed down. In 1887 the Standard and the Bodie consolidated and operated sanely and profitably for some twenty years longer. But the camp’s mad days of wild speculation and excessive living were done. Gradually activities ceased, and a few years ago the picturesque blocks of frame buildings were consumed by flames. To meet the opportunities of 1941 some several hundred people occupied Bodie to salvage minerals from her old mine dumps. But there was little progress in rebuilding the town. It is interesting to note, however, that the Bodie Miners’ Union Hall of the ’seventies still stands. Within it Mr. and Mrs. D. V. Cain have exhibited the relics of Bodie’s boom days.

CHAPTER X
THE INTERPRETERS

The superlative qualities of the scenic features and such outstanding biological characteristics as the forests of the Yosemite region compelled the interest of scientists as soon as the area received wide mention in the press. The miners’ concern with mineral values directed the attention of mining engineers upon the sections both east and west of Yosemite Valley. As early as 1853 Professor John B. Trask attempted to explain the geology of the Tuolumne-Merced watersheds.

The California State Geological Survey was established in 1860. Josiah Dwight Whitney, of Harvard University, was made State Geologist. He enlisted the services of several young men who were destined to become leaders in American geological and topographical work. William H. Brewer, William Ashburner, Chester Averill, Charles F. Hoffmann, William M. Gabb, James T. Gardiner, and Clarence King were among the members of the Whitney Survey. Over a period of ten years they penetrated the remote and unknown canyons and climbed the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, recording their findings and mapping the wild terrain. They made the first contribution to accurate and detailed knowledge of the region embraced in the present Yosemite National Park.

In 1863, Whitney himself began studies in the Yosemite region.[12] He concluded that the Yosemite Valley resulted from a sinking of a local block of the earth’s crust. His assistant, King, recognized evidences of a glacier’s having passed through the valley, but Whitney, although he published this fact in his official report, later stoutly denied it. Whitney at first believed the domes to have risen up as great bubbles of fluid granite.

Galen Clark, while not a trained geologist, was a careful observer and commanded considerable respect from the public. He believed that Yosemite Valley originated through the explosion of close-set domes of molten rock and that water action then cleared the gorge of debris and left it in its present form.

King, although he was the first to observe glacier polish and moraines in the Yosemite Valley, did not attribute any great part of the excavation of the valley to the glacier. He regarded the Yosemite as a simple crack or rent in the crust of the earth.

John Muir, who followed these early students, maintained that ice had accomplished nearly all the Yosemite sculpturing.

H. W. Turner, on the other hand, found no reason to believe that anything other than stream action, influenced by the peculiar rock structure, had had an important role in the origin of the valley, although he recognized that it had been the pathway of a glacier.

Joseph LeConte,[13] W. H. Brewer, M. G. Macomb,[14] George Davidson,[15] I. C. Russell,[16] George F. Becker, Willard D. Johnson, E. C. Andrews, Douglas W. Johnson, F. L. Ransome, J. N. LeConte, A. C. Lawson, Eliot Blackwelder, Ernst Cloos, John P. Buwalda, M. E. Beatty, and George D. Louderback have all studied the geology of the Yosemite Valley or the Yosemite region and have published the results of their work. The influences of the topography of the Sierra Nevada upon meteorological conditions were studied and reported upon by W. A. Glassford in the early ’nineties.

Prior to 1913, however, no one had made a comprehensive study of the geology of the entire Yosemite region. Ideas regarding the origin of the valley and related features were still hazy. In 1913, at the instance of the Sierra Club, the U. S. Geological Survey sent out a party of scientists to begin a systematic and detailed investigation. These men were François E. Matthes and Frank C. Calkins. The former was to study especially the history of the development of the Yosemite Valley; the latter to study the different types of rock. In the years that have elapsed, Matthes has carried his investigations over the entire Yosemite region and into the areas to north and south. Thus he has worked out quite definitely, back to its beginning, the story of the origin of the Yosemite and of the other valleys of the same type in the Sierra Nevada. His conclusions, published by the government, have stood the test of criticism by other members of his profession.

An extensive bibliography of the geology of Yosemite appears in A Bibliography of National Parks and Monuments West of the Mississippi River, Vol. I, 1941, pp. 95-106. The list of Matthes’ contributions to Yosemite literature is long. Probably the most significant and generally useful item is Geologic History of the Yosemite Valley. This is a thorough report on the author’s study and also contains a paper by Frank C. Calkins on the granitic rocks of the Yosemite region.

Indians provided the motive for the first penetration of the whites into Yosemite Valley, but the ethnology of the region received scant attention during the first years of contacts with the aborigines. Lafayette H. Bunnell, a member of the “discovery” party of 1851, has provided satisfying accounts of the primitive Ah-wah-nee-chees in the valley, and Galen Clark, who was intimately acquainted with members of the original band, recorded their history, customs, and traditions many years after his early contacts with them. In the early ’seventies, Stephen Powers gave to them the attention of a professional ethnologist, and Constance F. Gordon-Cumming studied them in the ’eighties.

In 1898, the Bureau of American Ethnology investigated the Indians of the Tuolumne country, and William H. Holmes published the findings. Samuel A. Barrett first published on the geography and dialects of the Miwok (of which the Yosemite Indians were a part) in 1908. Barrett’s work with the Miwok continued for many years, and he is credited with several important papers. Alfred L. Kroeber, a leading authority on California Indians, first published on the Miwok in 1907 and since has published extensively on the Ah-wah-nee-chees and all their neighbors. E. W. Gifford, who has been associated with both Barrett and Kroeber in the ethnological work of the University of California, has made important contributions to the published history and culture of the Miwok. His first paper on his work in the Yosemite region appeared in 1916. C. Hart Merriam devoted careful study to the myths, folk tales, and village sites of the Yosemite Indians early in the 1900’s, and his published accounts appeared in 1910 and 1917. Mrs. H. J. Taylor, working in Yosemite Valley, obtained much important data from one of the last members of the Yosemite band, Maria Lebrado, and since 1932 has published several significant items. In 1941, Elizabeth H. Godfrey, of the Yosemite Museum staff, compiled a popular summary of the work done on the Yosemites entitled, “Yosemite Indians Yesterday and Today,” Yosemite Nature Notes, 1941. The Yosemite Museum collections of objects and documents include valuable local Indian materials, which provide a most interesting and convincing story of the Ah-wah-nee-chees.

In the field of biology, the Yosemite forests attracted the first attention of scientists. Botanists generally agree that in the Big Tree, the sugar pine, the yellow pine (ponderosa and Jeffrey), the red and white firs, and the incense cedar of the Sierra is the finest and most remarkable group of conifers in the world. The Big Tree (Sequoia gigantea), of course, is the most phenomenal and claims first place, chronologically, in the scientific literature. In the number of workers concerned with it and in the quantity of their writings, the Big Tree also holds a respected place.

Among the early writers who dealt with the Big Tree groves of the present Yosemite National Park were Hutchings, Whitney, Asa Gray, Isaac N. Bromley, J. Otis Williams, Muir, Bunnell, and Clark. The latter was among the first to study the Sequoia groves of the Yosemite but he did not publish for nearly half a century after he made his first observations. Following the early announcements of the existence of the Tuolumne, Merced, and Mariposa groves, another group of botanists and semiprofessional workers concentrated upon the study of the Big Tree. Walter G. Marshall, Charles Palache, Paul Shoup, Julius Starke, George Dollar, and W. R. Dudley made their contributions at this time, and Muir redoubled his initial efforts. After the turn of the century, botanists and foresters in numbers concentrated upon the Big Tree. Their publications are too numerous to list, but special mention must be made of the work of Willis L. Jepson, George B. Sudworth, Ellsworth Huntington, James C. Shirley, L. F. Cook, and the continued inspired writing of Muir. The sequoia, oldest living thing, is now and always will be a fascinating subject for scientific and philosophical study. Until a thorough investigation of the ecology of a grove of giant sequoias has been made and its result published, there remains a practical need for research in this realm.

Botanical studies other than investigations of the Big Tree were limited in the pioneer days to the work of John Muir. In the early 1900’s, Harvey M. and Carlotta C. Hall did important work in the present national park, and their published Works continue to be dependable guides for present-day botanists. Enid Michael, long a resident in Yosemite Valley, was untiring in her field studies, and her many published articles about the flora of the park are of importance to all investigators. Carl W. Sharsmith has studied intensively in the high mountain “gardens” of the park. Mary C. Tresidder published a very useful guide to the trees of the park in 1932. Emil F. Ernst has studied the forests and forest enemies in the park for many years. Willis L. Jepson’s work constitutes a substantial basis for all botanical studies in Yosemite as it is for other parts of the State, and the investigations of LeRoy Abrams, 1911, have been important to subsequent workers. The studies of George M. Wright, during his residence in the park in the 1920’s, resulted in significant papers on life zones in Yosemite and were the groundwork for the later important studies by him and his associates in founding and conducting broad biological surveys in the entire national park system—an undertaking briefly described later in this chapter.

The Yosemite fauna elicited no particular attention from pioneers other than James Capen Adams, who in 1854 captured grizzly bears for exhibit purposes, and John Muir, who applied himself to certain bird and mammal studies quite as enthusiastically as he did to botany and geology. In the opening years of the twentieth century, a few bird students, among them W. Otto Emerson, W. K. Fisher, Virginia Garland, C. A. Keeler, M. S. Ray, and O. Widman, published on their observations in the present park, but not until Joseph Grinnell initiated his publication program in 1911 did Yosemite zoölogy find reasonable representation in scientific journals. Grinnell and his staff from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoölogy of the University of California began formal field work in Yosemite in the fall of 1914 and continued through 1920 in making a complete survey of the vertebrate natural history of the region. Grinnell, Tracy I. Storer, Walter P. Taylor, Joseph Dixon, Charles L. Camp, Gordon F. Ferris, Charles D. Holliger, and Donald D. McLean participated in the work. The results of this survey, Grinnell and Storer’s Animal Life in the Yosemite, published by the University of California Press in 1924, constitutes an exhaustive and most useful reference on the subject. David Starr Jordan considered it the best original work on life histories published in the West. This study, like the geological work by Matthes, was endorsed and facilitated by the Sierra Club.

After the Museum of Vertebrate Zoölogy paved the way, wildlife studies in the park increased, and Yosemite found better representation in the biological literature. Most of the workers who had participated in Grinnell’s survey published extensively. Others who made notable contributions are Charles W. and Enid Michael, Barton W. Evermann, A. B. Howell, Vernon Bailey, J. M. Miller, John A. Comstock, E. O. Essig, and Edwin C. Van Dyke.

After 1920, when the National Park Service instituted a park-naturalist program in Yosemite, the regular and seasonal employees of the Naturalist Department made many contributions to the scientific knowledge of the park. Among the permanent park naturalists who conducted biological investigations are Ansel F. Hall, Carl P. Russell, George M. Wright, C. A. Harwell, C. C. Presnall, A. E. Borell, M. E. Beatty, James Cole, C. Frank Brockman, M. V. Walker, Harry Parker, and Russell Grater. D. D. McLean, who participated in the Grinnell Survey, also made further contributions as a regular employee of the Naturalist Department. Dr. H. C. Bryant, first as a seasonal employee and later as a regular member of the Director’s staff, published extensively on his studies in the park and was influential in starting many other workers on investigations of biological nature.

One important development in biological research in Yosemite had an influence on the wildlife program of the entire National Park Service. George M. Wright, ranger and Assistant Park Naturalist, during the late 1920’s sensed the dangers of the uncoördinated wildlife policy of the National Park Service and determined that there should be better administrative understanding of the normal biotic complex of Yosemite and all other national parks. In 1929, Wright was placed on a field status in order that he might organize a central unit of wildlife investigators to survey the wildlife problems of the National Park Service and recommend a broad Service-wide policy of wildlife management. Joseph S. Dixon and Ben W. Thompson were employed by Wright to assist him in this undertaking. Their work during the next several years was conducted from headquarters in Berkeley, California, and from Washington, D. C. It demonstrated that a Wildlife Division was an important administrative adjunct in the Director’s organization. In 1936, Wright lost his life while in the course of his significant work. Such progress had been made in establishing policy and procedure that the program persisted. It holds a strategic place in the regular administrative set-up of the Director’s office and reaches all field areas with its guidance.

The bibliography of scientific work done in Yosemite National Park since World War I is too extensive to be included here. A goodly part of it is contained in A Bibliography of National Parks and Monuments West of the Mississippi River. References to research projects published since the appearance of that bibliography appear in the publications of the Yosemite Natural History Association, particularly the monthly journal, Yosemite Nature Notes. Especially significant items dealing with wildlife policy and trends in park management are included in the references appended to the present volume. In brief, it may be said that the wildlife problems of Yosemite National Park are now fairly well defined and that administrative and technical practices are so aligned as to assure preservation of the faunal and floral characteristics of the reservation within the concept of “public enjoyment and use” of today and tomorrow. As Director of the National Park Service, Newton B. Drury has said, “It is national park policy to display wildlife in a natural manner. The normal habits of animals are interfered with as little as possible, and artificial management is refrained from except for protective purposes and then only as a last resort. The pauperizing or domestication of the native animals is avoided, as is also the herding or feeding of these animals to provide ‘shows.’ Under this policy the park is a wildlife refuge but it is neither a circus or a zoo.”

The wildlife of Yosemite, like its forests and wildflower displays, its renowned cliffs and waterfalls, its glacial pavements, its meadows and valleys, and its spectacular mountaintops, has enthralled its lay visitors quite as it has galvanized the scientist and technician. When Stephen T. Mather assumed the directorship of the national parks in 1916, he determined at the outset to provide park visitors with the information on the natural and historic features which they wanted. Educational endeavors were made a part of his projected program even before a staff had been organized. Surveys of outdoor educational methods and nature teaching as practiced in several European countries had been made in 1915 by C. M. Goethe, and his reports of the success of this work had inspired a few Americans to establish similar educational work in the United States. The California Fish and Game Commission in 1918 sent its educational director, Dr. Harold C. Bryant, into the Sierra to reach vacationists with the message of the conservationist. Yosemite National Park and the playground areas about Lake Tahoe witnessed the introduction of “nature guiding” several years prior to the inclusion of the work in the broad field program of the National Park Service.

In 1920, Mr. Mather and some of his friends joined in supporting this nature teaching in Yosemite, and Dr. Bryant and Dr. Loye Holmes Miller were employed to lay the foundation of what has continued to be an important part of the program of the Branch of Natural History.

A personal letter from Dr. Miller, University of California, Los Angeles, provides a firsthand account of his pioneering in interpretive work in Yosemite:

I think John Muir was the first Yosemite guide (see A Son of the Wilderness, by L. M. Wolfe). We smaller folk could only strive to emulate. My first experience in the valley involved a six-week period during the summer of 1917 under private auspices. Professor M. L. Maclellan (geology) and I (biology) held a summer school for public school teachers who were largely from Long Beach, California. The work consisted of lectures and field trips about the valley floor and the trails to the rim and to Merced Lake.

During the summer of 1919 I was doing similar work at Tahoe when Mr. Stephen T. Mather came through on a flying trip. He asked me to confer with him on the subject of Nature Guide work in Yosemite and urged me to come at once to the valley and begin the work there. It was late in the season and I had spent most of my free time for the year. Furthermore, it seemed to me that there should be some preparation made for the work, including a measure of publicity in the park guidebooks. I therefore urged Mr. Mather to wait until 1920 for the inauguration of an official Nature Guide service. He agreed and we parted with a definite plan for 1920.

In the meantime Mr. C. M. Goethe of Sacramento had become interested in the movement and had engaged Dr. H. C. Bryant in a tour of certain summer camps. I also urged the appointment of Dr. Bryant for the Yosemite work in 1920. My University schedule was such that Dr. Bryant was able to report earlier than I. He therefore gave the first official work in the valley. We coöperated in it after my arrival. I knew that I could not devote many summers to the service because of other duties as an officer of the University. Furthermore, it seemed to me that Dr. Bryant was just the man to carry on to a larger field of development. I therefore urged repeatedly that he make a full-time activity of the movement. This end was ultimately realized. Bryant made all the official reports of our work (with my endorsement). Those reports are in the files of the Superintendent’s office in the park.

During the month of January, 1921, Dr. Bryant and I gave our services to the cause in an extended lecture tour through the eastern and middle western states. This effort was underwritten personally by Mr. Mather. The purpose and theme in this series was to publicize and stimulate interest in the natural history values of the park and the appreciation of nature through an increased knowledge and understanding.

I returned to Yosemite in the summer of 1921—again in coöperation with Dr. Bryant. The movement seemed to be well on its feet so I withdrew at the end of that summer. We were appointed as temporary rangers with duties informally defined. Each morning a field trip was conducted by one or the other of us alternately, the alternate holding office hours for questions by visitors. (Questions averaged 45 to the hour). In the afternoon a children’s field class was held. In the evening we alternated with talks at Camp Curry and the “Old Village” near Sentinel Bridge. They were busy days but interest was good. Week ends were devoted to overnight trips by one or the other of us.

At the urgent request of Mr. Ansel Hall I initiated the same type of work at Crater Lake Park, Oregon, in 1926 and continued it in 1927. My son, Alden Miller, was associated with me and two students, Miss Leigh Marian Larson and Miss Ruth Randall, acted as volunteers in charge of wildflower display. Reports of this work should be in the Crater Lake files. During the summer we were visited by Mr. Mather, by Dr. John C. Merriam, and by Mr. John D. Rockefeller and family. The interest of these men was immediate and finally bore material fruit in improvement of Crater Lake Park and the whole Nature Guide movement in America. Just as had been the case at Yosemite, we were appointed as rangers. My duties at Crater Lake included nature guiding, directing traffic, comforting crying babies, rounding up stray dogs, and a wild drive down the mountain to Medford Hospital with a writhing appendicitis patient and his distracted wife in the rear seat.

I have not been officially connected with the work since but have sent many graduate students to the Yosemite Field School with what I hope was the right point of view. My own retirement at 70 years leaves me out of the picture except in an advisory capacity. Just last week in conference with my associates here, I urged Park Naturalist activity as one of the public services for which our department should train young men. So you see that my interests are still with the movement. It is a field of infinite horizon. Sincerely yours, Loye Miller

March 18, 1946.

Dr. H. C. Bryant, the coworker referred to by Dr. Miller, became Assistant Director of the National Park Service in charge of interpretive work for all national parks. To Dr. Miller’s statement may be added Bryant’s words about interpretive work:

In the spring of 1921, through a coöperative arrangement with the California Fish and Game Commission, the National Park Service instituted a free nature-guide service in Yosemite. The aim of this service was to furnish useful information regarding trees, wildflowers, birds, and mammals, and their conservation, and to stimulate interest in the scientific interpretation of natural phenomena. The means used to attain this aim were: trips afield; formal lectures, illustrated with lantern slides or motion pictures; ten-minute campfire talks, given alternately at the main resorts of the park; a stated office hour when questions regarding the natural history of the park could be answered; a library of dependable reference works, and a flower show where the commoner wildflowers, properly labeled, were displayed. Occasionally, visiting scientists helped by giving lectures.

About this same time, a Yosemite ranger, Ansel F. Hall, conceived the idea of establishing a Yosemite museum to serve as a public contact center and general headquarters for the interpretive program. Superintendent W. B. Lewis endorsed the plan, and the old Chris Jorgenson artists’ studio was made into a temporary museum; Hall was placed in charge as permanent educational officer. The same year found a museum program under way in Yellowstone National Park, where Milton P. Skinner was made park naturalist, and in Mesa Verde National Park, where Superintendent Jesse Nusbaum organized a museum to care for the archeological treasures brought to light among the ruins of prehistoric man’s abode. Glacier, Grand Canyon, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia, and Zion quickly organized educational programs similar to those established by Yosemite and Yellowstone, and in 1923 Hall, with headquarters in Berkeley, was designated to coördinate and direct the interpretive work in all parks. Working with Dr. Frank R. Oastler, Hall in 1924 organized a comprehensive plan of educational activities and defined the objectives of the naturalist group.

In 1924, C. J. Hamlin was president of the American Association of Museums. The opportunities opened by national park museums were called to his attention by Hall, and the American Association of Museums immediately investigated the possibilities of launching adequate museum programs in the parks. In response to recommendations made by the Association and the National Park Service, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial made funds available with which to construct a fireproof museum in Yosemite National Park. This, one of the first permanent national park museums, became the natural center around which revolves the educational program in Yosemite. Even before the Yosemite museum installations had been opened to the public, demonstration of the effectiveness of the institution as headquarters for the educational staff and visiting scientists convinced leaders in the American Association of Museums that further effort should be made to establish a general program of museum work in national parks. Additional funds were obtained from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and new museums were built in Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national parks. Dr. Herman C. Bumpus, who had guided the museum planning and construction in Yosemite, continued as the administrator representing the association and Rockefeller interests, and Herbert Maier was architect and field superintendent on the construction projects. It was Dr. Bumpus who originated the “focal-point museum” idea.

When the museums of Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone had demonstrated their value to visitors and staff alike, they were accepted somewhat as models for future work, and upon the strength of their success, the Service found it possible to obtain regular government appropriations with which to build several additional museums in national parks and monuments. When P.W.A. funds became available, further impetus was given to the museum program, and a Museum Division of the Service was established in 1935, embracing historic areas of the East as well as the scenic national parks. It was my privilege to serve as the first head of this unit. The work of the Museum Division has expanded until there are more than one hundred small national park and monument museums and historic-house museums; more are planned for the future.

In order to stimulate balanced development of interpretive programs, Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior, appointed a committee of educators under the chairmanship of Dr. John C. Merriam to study the broad educational possibilities in national parks (see Wilbur, 1929). In 1929, this committee recommended that an educational branch, with headquarters in Washington, be established in the Service. It was further recommended that the committee continue to function on a permanent basis as an advisory body, “whose duty it shall be to advise the Director of National Parks on matters pertinent to educational policy and developments.”

Dr. Bryant, who since 1920 had served as a summer employee on the Yosemite educational staff and who had been a member of the Committee on Study of Educational Problems in National Parks, was made head of the new branch on July 1, 1930. Antedating the establishment of the branch by one year was the previously mentioned wildlife survey instituted in national parks by George M. Wright, who began his career in the National Park Service as a park ranger in Yosemite in 1927.

Thus it is evident that the pioneer interpretive work done in Yosemite projected its influence and its personnel into the wider fields of “nature guiding” and museum programs throughout the National Park Service. It may be shown, also, that the educational work done by the Yosemite staff has been instrumental in advancing the naturalist programs in state parks and elsewhere where out-of-door nature teaching is offered to the public.[17] Some three hundred public areas and agencies in the United States provide naturalist services modeled on the Yosemite plan. Only ten per cent of these are in the National Park System.

One of the far-reaching influences of the Yosemite naturalist department is the Yosemite School of Field Natural History, a summer school for the training of naturalists, where emphasis is placed on the study of living things in their natural environment. The school was founded in 1925 by Dr. H. C. Bryant in answer to a demand for better trained naturalists for the Yosemite staff. There was need for a training not furnished by the universities. The California Fish and Game Commission coöperated with the National Park Service in starting this school program. The staff is composed of park naturalists and the regular Yosemite ranger-naturalist force, aided by specialists from universities and other government bureaus. The last week of the field period is spent in making studies at timberline.

As the name implies, emphasis is placed on field work. The work is of university grade, although no university credit is offered. Graduates of this school are filling positions as nature guides in parks and summer camps throughout the country. Many of the naturalist and ranger-naturalist positions in the National Park Service are held by graduates of this field school.

The Park Naturalist position in Yosemite National Park has been held by Ansel F. Hall, 1922-1923; Carl P. Russell, 1923-1929; C. A. Harwell, 1929-1940; C. Frank Brockman, 1941-1946; and now, Donald Edward McHenry. These men and their assistants have supervised the naturalist activities including the Yosemite Museum program, directed the Yosemite School of Field Natural History, and the activities of the Yosemite Natural History Association, including the editing and publishing of Yosemite Nature Notes. This last-named organization has existed since 1924 as a society coöperating with the National Park Service in advancing the work of the Yosemite Naturalist Department. It is the successor of the Yosemite Museum Association formed by Ansel F. Hall in 1920. On April 24, 1925, members of its advisory council and board of trustees defined these purposes of the Association:

1. To gather and disseminate information regarding birds, mammals, flowers, trees, Indians, history, geology, trails, scenic features, and other subjects so well exemplified by Nature in Yosemite National Park and elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada.

2. To develop and enlarge the Yosemite Museum (in coöperation with the National Park Service) and to establish subsidiary units, such as the Glacier Point Lookout and branches of similar nature.

3. To contribute in every way possible to the development of the educational activities of the Yosemite Nature Guide Service.

4. To publish (in coöperation with the National Park Service) Yosemite Nature Notes, a periodical containing articles of scientific interest concerning the matters referred to in this statement of purposes.

5. To promote scientific investigation along the lines of greatest popular interest and to publish from time to time bulletins or circulars of a nontechnical nature.

6. To maintain in Yosemite Valley a library containing works of historical, scientific, and popular interest.

7. To study the living conditions, past and present, of the remaining Indians of the Yosemite region, for the purpose of preserving their arts, customs, and legends.

8. To strictly limit the operations, business, property, and assets of the association to purposes which shall be scientific and educational, in order that the association shall not be organized, constituted, or operated for profit, and so that no part of the net income of the association shall inure to the benefit of any member or other party thereto.

These objectives in almost every particular are also the objectives of the Naturalist Department of Yosemite National Park. In 1937 the Congress authorized park naturalists and other government employees to devote their regular working hours to the program of the Yosemite Natural History Association and similar “coöperating societies” in national parks which might be designated by the Secretary of the Interior. In effect, the Yosemite Natural History Association is an auxiliary of the naturalist department. For nearly twenty-five years it has adhered to its defined purposes, and the support it has given to the interpretive program has furthered research in the park, enriched the collections of the Yosemite Museum, and promoted the dissemination of the Yosemite story.

The function of the interpreters has been, and their purpose must be, to enrich the mountain experience of the Yosemite traveler and thereby demonstrate that a national park is far more than a tourist’s way station. Upon today’s visitor and his full awareness of national-park values the future of the national-park concept must depend. A public which, in its enjoyment of the parks, comprehends the importance of “the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein” will insist that they remain unimpaired.

CHAPTER XI
GUARDIANS OF THE SCENE

In the body of Indian fighters who first entered Yosemite Valley, there appears to have been but one man who sensed the possibilities of public good to be derived from the amazing place just discovered. A year prior to the entry of the Mariposa Battalion, L. H. Bunnell, in climbing the trail from Ridley’s Ferry (Bagby) to Bear Valley, had descried in the eastern mountains an immense cliff which, apparently, loomed, column-like, to the very summit of the range. He looked upon the “awe-inspiring sight with wonder and admiration, and turned from it with reluctance to resume the search for coveted gold.”

When, on March 25, 1851, Bunnell stood at Inspiration Point with other members of Savage’s command and gazed upon the extravagance of natural wonders, he recognized “the immensity of rock” which had, the previous year, astonished him from afar. He writes:

Haze hung over the valley—light as gossamer—and clouds partially dimmed the higher cliffs and mountains. This obscurity of vision but increased the awe with which I beheld it, and as I looked, a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being, and I found my eyes in tears with emotion.

He withdrew from the trail and stationed himself on a projecting rock, where he might contemplate all that was spread before him. Major Savage, bringing up the rear of the column, brought him out of his soliloquy in time to join the battalion in its descent to the floor of the valley.

The party that night discussed the business of naming the valley as they sat about their first campfire, near the foot of Bridalveil Fall. Bunnell comments:

It may appear sentimental, but the coarse jokes of the careless, and the indifference of the practical, sensibly jarred my more devout feelings, while this subject was a matter of general conversation; as if a sacred subject had been ruthlessly profaned, or the visible power of Deity disregarded.

Bunnell’s later discussions with residents of the Mariposa hills and his very tangible evidence in the form of personal funds expended on the Coulterville trail to Yosemite, indicate that he was the first to strive for public recognition of the assets available in the new scenic wonderland. Other men of the region were understandably slow to develop aesthetic appreciation for that which only thrilled and produced no gold.

By 1855 rumor and conjecture regarding the mysteries of the valley had created sufficient interest among the old residents and the many newcomers in the mining camps to prompt fascination in J. M. Hutchings and his story when he returned to Mariposa after his first “scenic banqueting” under Yosemite walls. With the publication of the Hutchings articles and the Ayres drawings, curiosity may be said to have become general, and the trek to the valley was started.

The entire mountain region was, of course, public domain, and, though it had not been surveyed, it was generally conceded that preëmption claims could be made upon it. Homesteaders were establishing themselves in numerous mountain valleys above the gold region, and such “squatting” was done with the assent of state and federal officers. It is hardly surprising that some local aspirants laid claim to parts of Yosemite Valley. The company that expected to develop a water project in 1855 was apparently the first to attempt to establish rights. Then came the series of would-be hotel owners, whose activities have been described. James C. Lamon was a mountaineer who came to Yosemite in 1859 and aided in the building of the Cedar Cottage. While so engaged, he established himself in the upper end of Yosemite Valley and there developed the first bona fide homestead by settlement. For many years his log cabin was a picturesque landmark in the valley, and today two orchards near Camp Curry serve as reminders of his pioneering.

With the advent of the ’sixties California began to recognize the aesthetic value of some of her mountain features. The acclaim of leaders from the East and the expressed wonder of notables from abroad played a part in the development of a state pride in the beauties of Yosemite, and, gradually, it became apparent that only poor statesmanship would allow private claims to affect an area of such world-wide interest.

On March 28, 1864, Senator John Conness,[18] of California, introduced in the U. S. Senate a bill to grant to the State of California tracts of land embracing the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. On May 17, his bill was reported out of committee. On the occasion of the debate which followed, Senator Conness entered into the record of American conservation the first evidences of national consciousness of park values as we conceive of them today. He started the long train of legislative acts which have given the United States the world’s greatest and most successful system of national parks. It is a fact, of course, that the Senate action of 1864 did not create a national park but it did give Federal recognition to the importance of natural reservations in our cultural scheme, and charged California with the responsibility of preserving and presenting the natural wonders of the Yosemite.

John Muir

By George Fiske Galen Clark

Colonel H. C. Benson

James M. Hutchings

By J. N. LeConte Sierra Club Headquarters in Yosemite, 1898

By Ansel Adams William E. Colby

Senator Conness explained to the Senate that it was the purpose of his bill “to commit them [Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees] to the care of the authorities of that State for their constant preservation, that they may be exposed to public view, and that they may be used and preserved for the benefit of mankind.... The plan [of preservation] comes from gentlemen of fortune, of taste, and of refinement.... The bill was prepared by the commissioner of the General Land Office, who also takes a great interest in the preservation both of the Yosemite Valley and the Big Trees Grove.”[19]

The bill was passed by the Senate on May 17, referred to the House Committee on Public Lands on June 2, debated and passed by the House on June 29, and signed by President Lincoln on July 1, 1864. These deliberations, which designated the first scenic reservation for free public use, were consummated under the stress of waging war.

In order to eliminate friction and delays in the operation of legislative machinery, proponents of the Yosemite bill secured its passage without recognition of the private claims made by Yosemite settlers. Lamon, clearly a bona fide homesteader; Hutchings, who had a short time before the passage of the act purchased the Upper Hotel property; Black, the owner of Black’s Hotel; and Ira Folsom, interested in the Leidig property, pressed their claims and involved the new state park in prolonged litigation.

The State Park Act provided that the Yosemite Grant and the Mariposa Big Trees should be managed by a board of commissioners, of whom the governor of the state was to be one. On September 28, 1864, three months after the grant was made, Governor F. K. Low proclaimed that trespassing upon the tracts involved must desist. His board of Yosemite commissioners was appointed in the same proclamation.

Frederick Law Olmsted, even then an accomplished landscape architect, was made chairman of the board. As Brockman (1946, p. 106) has revealed in his article on Olmsted, the chairman was also the first administrative officer of the Yosemite Grant. Olmsted’s statement of 1890 substantiates this fact: “I had the honor to be made chairman of the first Yosemite Commission, and in that capacity to take possession of the Valley for the State, to organize and direct the survey of it and to be the executive of various measures taken to guard the elements of its scenery from fires, trespassers and abuse. In the performance of these duties I visited the Valley frequently, established a permanent camp in it and virtually acted as its Superintendent.”

Legal acceptance of the gift could not be made until the next session of the state legislature. On April 2, 1866, the necessary provisions for administration were secured. The board of commissioners made the best possible selection of a guardian, the Yosemite pioneer, Galen Clark, and invited the settlers of the valley to vacate their holdings.

J. M. Hutchings, as might be expected, was wrathy. It is probable that James Lamon, after eight years of permanent residence on his land, saw no justice in the act. The other claimants held out for what might be in it. Hutchings and Lamon refused to surrender their property, and a test suit was brought against Hutchings, which was decided in his favor. This was carried to the supreme court of the state and then to the federal Supreme Court. In these last actions the commissioners were sustained. That Hutchings and Lamon were deserving of consideration and remuneration cannot be denied, but millions of Americans are today indebted to the board of commissioners who pursued the case to a settlement favorable to the people. Private titles of the type held by the Yosemite Valley settlers would have been disastrous to all administration in the years that were to come.

On the other hand, Hutchings and Lamon were deserving of certain sympathy. No man had done more than J. M. Hutchings to call attention to the fact that the Yosemite was a wonderland, eminently worthy of the distinction bestowed upon it by the state. For a decade prior to the creation of the state park, he had devoted himself to disseminating knowledge on its “charming realities.” Much of this was done through his California Magazine and the lithographic reproductions of the Ayres drawings. Some of it was accomplished with his volume, Scenes of Wonder, which ran through several editions. The many published testimonials of his worth as guide and informant while operating his Hutchings House in Yosemite Valley indicate that his efforts to engender a public love for the place were not spared even after his difficulties arose with the state. And, finally, during the ten-year fight for reimbursement he lectured throughout the country, bringing home to the dwellers in Eastern cities the fact that a phenomenally beautiful area in California was worthy of their visit. Some of the manuscripts of these Eastern lectures are possessed by the Yosemite Museum. Their text reveals none of the commercialism and selfishness with which Hutchings sometimes has been charged.

The earnest efforts which Hutchings had expended in interesting the public in Yosemite had not failed to create an interest in him as well. The court had refused further consideration of the claims of the settlers, but the state legislature, influenced by public feeling and the expressed approval of the Yosemite commissioners, appropriated $60,000 to compensate the four claimants. Of this Hutchings received $24,000; Lamon, $12,000; Black, $13,000; Folsom, $6,000, and the remaining $5,000 was returned to the State Treasury. Because of this prolonged litigation, the commissioners did not secure full control of the grant until 1875.

To what extent such troubles would dissipate the best directed efforts of a board of managers of any business can well be imagined. Further difficulties developed when road privileges were granted. The state legislature failed to sustain the position of the commissioners in the matter of exclusive rights for a road on the north side of the valley, and again a controversy arose which directed heated criticism upon the management of the state park. Public hostility alternated with general indifference. The state failed to provide adequate funds with which to accomplish the important work before the commissioners, and the lack of a well-defined policy handicapped the administration to a point of ruin. In 1880 a new law removed the first board and appointed a new one.

The next decade saw important developments take place in the park, but policies adopted were sure to displease someone or some faction. Criticism still prevailed. Gradually the seethings of the press brought about the development of intelligent public interest in Yosemite affairs. Indifference was replaced by discriminating attention, and Yosemite administration arrived in a new era.

In these pages not enough has been said about John Muir. His contributions to the preservation of Yosemite National Park, to the determination of scientific facts regarding it, and to public understanding of its offerings place him in the front rank of conservationists who have been instrumental in saving representative parts of the American heritage. The role he played as explorer, researcher, interpreter, and defender of the public interests in the Yosemite may well become the subject of another book of Muiriana; however, at this juncture, it is only possible to relate him rather inequitably to the field of Yosemite administrative history.

John Muir arrived in Yosemite for the first time in 1868. Intent upon making deliberate studies of all that fascinated him, he determined to remain a resident of the Yosemite region. In order to do so, he attached himself to a sheep ranch. He gave the first winter to work on the foothill ranch and the next summer to herding in the Yosemite Sierra. With the intimate acquaintance so made with sheep and their ways, he was destined to create a wave of public interest in Yosemite that would eclipse all former attentions and revolutionize the administrative scheme.

For eight years after his first Sierra experience, John Muir rambled over his “Range of Light.” He tarried for some time in Yosemite Valley and was employed by J. M. Hutchings, at times, to operate a sawmill, which Muir immortalized merely by inhabiting it.

Some impression of his first employment in Yosemite Valley and his early outlook upon the Yosemite scene may be gained from these paragraphs of his memoirs published by Badè.[20]

“I had the good fortune to obtain employment from Mr. Hutchings in building a sawmill to cut lumber for cottages, that he wished to build in the spring, from the fallen pines which had been blown down in a violent wind-storm a year or two before my arrival. Thus I secured employment for two years, during all of which time I watched the varying aspect of the glorious Valley, arrayed in its winter robes; the descent from the heights of the booming, out-bounding avalanches like magnificent waterfalls; the coming and going of the noble storms; the varying songs of the falls; the growth of frost crystals on the rocks and leaves and snow; the sunshine sifting through them in rainbow colors; climbing every Sunday to the top of the walls for views of the mountains in glorious array along the summit of the range, etc.

“I boarded with Mr. Hutchings’ family, but occupied a cabin that I built for myself near the Hutchings’ winter home. This cabin, I think, was the handsomest building in the Valley, and the most useful and convenient for a mountaineer. From the Yosemite Creek, near where it first gathers its beaten waters at the foot of the fall, I dug a small ditch and brought a stream into the cabin, entering at one end and flowing out the other with just current enough to allow it to sing and warble in low, sweet tones, delightful at night while I lay in bed. The floor was made of rough slabs, nicely joined and embedded in the ground. In the spring the common pteris ferns pushed up between the joints of the slabs, two of which, growing slender like climbing ferns on account of the subdued light, I trained on threads up the sides and over my window in front of my writing desk in an ornamental arch. Dainty little tree frogs occasionally climbed the ferns and made fine music in the night, and common frogs came in with the stream and helped to sing with the Hylas and the warbling, tinkling water. My bed was suspended from the rafters and lined with libocedrus plumes, altogether forming a delightful home in the glorious Valley at a cost of only three or four dollars, and I was loath to leave it.”

When he was not running Hutchings’ mill, he was making lonely trips of discovery or guiding visitors above the valley walls. Perhaps Muir knew of the use he would make of the natural history data he was gathering, but few of his associates sensed the fact that he would soon make the nation quicken with new views of Yosemite values.

He first made his influence felt in the early ’seventies, when he began publishing on Yosemite in journals and periodicals. His material awakened responses everywhere. On February 5, 1876, he published an article in the Sacramento Record Union which was one of the initial steps in his forceful appeal to America to save the Yosemite high country from the devastations of sheep and the incendiary fires of sheepherders.

It is likely that few who today enjoy the Yosemite High Sierra realize that sheep, “hoofed locusts,” were responsible for the creation of Yosemite National Park. The people of California, awakened to the danger by the warnings of Muir and others, attempted to secure an enlargement of the state park. Selfish local interests frustrated the plan. In 1889, John Muir allied himself with the Century Magazine, and a plan was launched which was designed to arouse a public sentiment that could not be shunted. Muir produced the magic writings, and Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of the Century, secured the support of influential men in the East. On October 1, 1890, a law was enacted which set aside an area, larger than the present park, as “reserved forest lands.” Within this reserve were the state-controlled Yosemite and Mariposa Grove grants.

The reactions of residents of the regions adjacent to the new national park to this legislation was typical of the period. Citizens of the counties affected could not foresee the coming of unbroken streams of automobile traffic, which eventually would bring millions of dollars to their small marts of trade. The thought of losing some thousands of acres of taxable land caused county seats to seethe with unrest. The local press painted pictures of dejected prospects and near ruin. The following summary of a lengthy wail from a contemporary paper reveals the fears that prevailed:

Let us summarize the result of our analysis. On the one side, we have 932,600 acres of land taken away from the control and use of the people at large, and of the people of Mariposa, Tuolumne, Mono, and Fresno counties in particular, for the ostensible purpose of preserving timber, mineral deposits, and natural curiosities or wonders within said reservation—for whose benefit, the act does not say, but presumably for the benefit of tourists.

On the other side, we find: That the avowed object of preserving forests appears to be only a false pretense to cover up the real object of the scheme, whatever it may be—that to preserve mineral deposits will prevent untold treasures from being employed in industry and commerce, and prevent the employment of thousands for many years to come in the exploration of these mineral deposits—that to preserve natural curiosities and wonders, it is not necessary to fling away nearly a million acres of land, when all that is necessary can be accomplished by attaching to each wonder as much land, as, through natural formation, contributes in any measure towards its maintenance—that, if on the one hand, these claims are respected, it will condemn hundreds of American settlers to poverty, if, on the other hand, these claims are bought out, it will entail an expense of many millions on the country, whilst the claimants, themselves, will never receive anything like the amount their properties would be worth, in the course of time, if this part of the country is left to its own development without Government interference, and all the settlements now existing will be left to fall into decay and ruin, or will have to be worked by a system of tenantry, a curse, as contemporary history shows, which ought never be allowed to take root in our country.

The preservation of the full watershed of the Yosemite Valley is not only a legitimate, but a desirable object; the same holds good with the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, or any other grand work of nature. Every alienation of land, beyond this, is of evil.

This local feeling resulted in immediate attempts to change the park boundaries. The first attempt was frustrated largely through the efforts of the Sierra Club. This organization came into existence shortly after Yosemite National Park was created and has always been one of the most important agencies that have promoted the safety of Yosemite treasures. Its publication, the Sierra Club Bulletin, which first appeared in 1893, is a rich source of Yosemite history. For twenty-two years John Muir was the president of the club. His vim in leaping to the defense of the great natural preserve was no less than had been his vigor in working for its creation. Muir aided in the preservation of national monuments as well. In early May, 1903, Theodore Roosevelt, then president, visited Yosemite via Raymond and the Mariposa Grove. Governor George C. Pardee, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, president of the University of California, and John Muir were among those who interpreted the scene for the President. Conservation matters were discussed by Muir and the legislation which was to become famous as the Antiquities Act of 1906 was given some definition at this time. It was truly an important occasion.

Chief among the Sierra Club defenders of Yosemite who have carried on since the death of Muir is William E. Colby. He served forty-four years as secretary of the organization, two years as president, and is now, as a director, a frequently sought source of counsel. He led the club’s summer outings for more than three decades. Throughout this period Colby has unceasingly built the Sierra Club’s prestige in the field of conservation. For the past six years he has served as a member of the Yosemite Advisory Board, and has been in close touch with past and current park problems.

The failure of the national government to provide funds with which to extinguish private claims within the park involved the administration in difficulties which are being felt even yet. By 1904 relations between administrative officers and the large number of owners of private holdings had become so strained that legal action was imperative. Boundary revisions were required. Major Hiram M. Chittenden headed the commission appointed to investigate possible boundary changes. Upon the recommendation of this commission large areas on the east and west were lopped off. In 1906 a tract on the southwest was cut off, and since that time small changes have been rather numerous. Private lands still exist within the park and constitute an ever-present source of trouble.

From the first the control of Yosemite National Park has been vested in the Secretary of the Interior. Immediately after the passage of the act of creation, military units were detailed to take charge of all national park lands. The state retained its plan of administration of the original Yosemite Grant, and so came about the dual control which for sixteen years colored the Yosemite administration with petty misunderstandings and hindered progress in the maintenance of the entire region.

Galen Clark’s old ranch (Wawona) became headquarters for the Acting Superintendent of the federal preserve. From this eccentric hub, patrols of cavalrymen were sent into the unbounded wilderness area of the new preserve. A trail system and accurate maps did not exist. One of the first undertakings of the early superintendents was to make the rough country accessible by horse trail. The topography was studied, and a good map was prepared. Following the practice established in Yellowstone National Park, patrolling stations were established, and the United States Army had the safety of Yosemite’s fauna and flora fairly within its keeping.

Since pioneer days, sheep and cattlemen had enjoyed unrestricted use of the excellent range which was now forbidden them. Naturally they were reluctant to abandon it. Their trespass was the most formidable threat with which the troopers were confronted, and concerted, ingenious work was necessary to expel the intruders. When the first culprits were taken into custody, it was found that no law provided for their punishment. Congress had failed to provide a penalty for the infraction of park rules. Nothing daunted, the superintendents put the captured herders under arrest and escorted them across the most mountainous regions to a far boundary of the park. There they were liberated. The herder’s sheep were driven out of the reserve at another distant point. By the time the herder had located his animals, his losses usually were so great as to represent a more severe punishment than could have been meted out by the court had the law applied. Several years of this practice caused neighboring ranchers to keep their animals out of the forbidden territory.

Captain Abram Epperson Wood was the first superintendent. With detachments from the Fourth Cavalry he arrived in the park on May 19, 1891, and continued in charge until his death in 1894. Each year the troopers came in April or May and withdrew in the fall. During the winter two civilian rangers attempted to patrol the area. With such inadequate winter protection, it is small wonder that poachers grew to feel that the wild life of the reserve was their legitimate prey. It was not until 1896, in fact, that a determined effort was made to keep firearms out of the park at any time of the year.

For twenty-three years the Department of the Interior continued to call upon the War Department for assistance in administering Yosemite National Park. Eighteen army officers took their turn at the helm. Some of them assumed leadership after some years of Yosemite experience as subordinate officers. Others were placed in command with no previous service in the park. Lieutenant (later Colonel) Harry C. Benson and Major W. W. Forsyth were perhaps the most distinguished of the superintendents. Benson was certainly more than a superintendent; he was an explorer, map maker, trail builder, fish planter, and nemesis of the sheepmen. Among the subordinate officers and enlisted men a number left their mark by way of accomplishments. N. F. McClure and Milton F. Davis are remembered for their explorations and excellent map making. William F. Breeze and W. R. Smedberg worked with McClure and Benson in stocking the headwaters of the Yosemite rivers with trout. A. Arndt pioneered in exploration of some of the northern sections of the park. Many others in the military organizations are remembered in place names throughout the Yosemite High Sierra.

Yosemite was fortunate in having within its National Park Service personnel one man, Gabriel Sovulewski,[21] who pioneered with these army units and who was acting superintendent of the park in 1908-1909 and again in 1914. For thirty-five years Mr. Sovulewski was actively engaged in caring for Yosemite. An unpublished manuscript on his National Park Service experiences is preserved in the Yosemite Museum. Within it he comments upon the Yosemite work of United States troops.

National Parks in California, and Yosemite especially, owe much to the late Colonel H. C. Benson. No one who has not participated in those strenuous years of hard riding and incessant fighting of natural and human obstacles can ever realize the need for indomitable spirit and unselfish devotion to a cause that existed during those first years in Yosemite National Park. Sheep and cattle overran the country. They were owned by men who knew every foot of the terrain. We were ordered to eliminate them. There were few or no trails, and maps did not exist. Reliable guides were unobtainable, and we had more than a thousand square miles to cover.

Officers with detachments set out upon patrols that would keep them away from our base of supplies for thirty days at a time. Many times rations were short, and sixteen to twenty hours of action per day, covering sixty miles in the saddle was not unusual. Constant hammering at the offending cattlemen continued for several years, and at last they were convinced that they must vacate the territory set aside for National Park purposes. The would-be poachers and the entire countryside were taught a moral lesson which still has its effect today. Some of the present-day administrative problems are made easier because of the foundation laid in those first years of the park’s existence.

The duplication of effort and expense which resulted from the anomaly of state and federal administration within the reserve brought about controversies which finally caused many Californians to conclude that their Yosemite State Grant of 1864 might well be placed in the hands of the federal government, to be managed by the same officers who controlled the surrounding national park. The Sierra Club and many civic organizations took the lead in urging recession. Not a few citizens felt that the proposed move was an affront to state pride. This group proved to be an obstacle but was overcome in 1905, when the state legislature re-ceded to the United States the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove. A formal acceptance by Congress brought the Yosemite State Park to an end on August 1, 1906. Major Benson removed military headquarters from Camp A. E. Wood (Wawona), and Fort Yosemite came into existence on the site of the present Yosemite Lodge.

For seven years the administrative organization set up by the military continued to function. The succeeding superintendents found their responsibilities increased considerably. Other national parks were coming into existence, and a national conscience was beginning to recognize the value of wilderness preserves. In 1910 the American Civic Association had launched a campaign for the creation of a national park bureau. President Taft favored central administration of the parks, and bills were introduced creating such a bureau. Major William T. Littebrant was in command in Yosemite when Dr. Adolph C. Miller, a civilian, became assistant to Secretary Lane and was placed in charge of the national parks. The next year troops did not come to Yosemite. Mark Daniels was made superintendent, and civilian employees undertook the work that had been done by the troopers.

A few civilian rangers had assumed the care of the park each winter when troops were withdrawn. Archie O. Leonard had been the first of these and he remained in the service when the administrative change was made. In 1914 “park rangers” came into existence under authorization of Secretary Lane. They patrolled the park as had the troopers, but, unlike the troopers, they remained in touch with their problems throughout the year.

In 1916 Congress created the National Park Service. Dr. Miller, in the meantime, had been called to other work, and Stephen T. Mather, who had followed Dr. Miller as assistant to the secretary, was made Director of the National Park Service. He was authorized by law to “promote and regulate the federal areas known as the national parks, monuments, and reservations.” Conservation of scenery and wildlife of the areas was declared by Congress to be a fundamental purpose of the new organization. Mr. Mather’s first undertaking was to balk exploitation schemes. Unfortunately, Yosemite had already been raided. In 1913 Congressman John E. Raker had introduced a bill granting to San Francisco rights to the Hetch Hetchy as a water reservoir. Secretary Garfield had opened the way to this move in 1908. In spite of much opposition, the Raker Bill was passed by the House and Senate and approved by President Wilson. Since that time the Hetch Hetchy dam has become a reality and provides all the administrative difficulties and troubles that were expected.[22]

Private holdings in Yosemite were rather large even after the boundary changes of 1905 and 1906 were made. Timber companies possessing tracts of choice forest constituted the greatest menace. Some of these private lands have been bought up, and others have been exchanged.

During 1930 much progress was made in the acquisition of private holdings in the national park. There were 15,570 acres of land involved, which cost approximately $3,300,000. Half of the cost of purchasing these lands was defrayed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the remainder coming from the fund provided by Congress for the acquisition of private holdings in national parks.

The following statements regarding timber holdings in and near Yosemite National Park are taken from the Report of the Director of National Park Service for 1930:

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this Yosemite forest acquisition. It brought into perpetual Government ownership the finest remaining stands of sugar-pine timber in the area and reduced the total area of private holdings in that park to 5,034 acres. This total will be materially reduced when two pending deals are consummated. A tract containing 640 acres is now in course of acquisition with funds contributed by George A. Ball, of Muncie, Indiana, as is another of about 380 acres, half the funds for the latter transaction being contributed through the co-operation of Dr. Don Tresidder, president of the Yosemite Park and Curry Company.

Additional timber holdings in the Tuolumne River watershed—fine stands of sugar and yellow pine—remain in private ownership outside the park. One cannot help regretting that they are imperiled, and it is hoped by all friends of these majestic forests that they may yet be saved.

In order that the beauty of the Big Oak Flat Road may be unimpaired, arrangements have been made between the Sugar Pine Lumber Co., the Forest Service, the State, and the Park Service to preserve the roadsides through selective cutting of the larger trees and careful removal of any trees that are taken out. Particularly interesting and valuable stands of timber which should be preserved untouched will be made the subject of exchanges between the Forest Service and the Sugar Pine Lumber Co.

This land acquisition program was finally assured of success in July, 1937, when legislation authorized the Secretary of the Interior to acquire the Carl Inn Tract, comprising some 7,200 acres of magnificent sugar pine forest bordering the western boundary of the park. After a year and a half of negotiations with the Yosemite Sugar Pine Lumber Company, owner of most of the tract, agreement was reached on a price of $1,495,500 to be paid by the United States. The purchase was consummated early in 1939. Senator William Gibbs McAdoo and Representative John S. McGroarty, both of California, were the ardent supporters who introduced the bills, S. 1791 and H.R. 5394, in their respective houses.

Policies regarding the toll roads by which tourists could enter the park constituted another perplexing problem with which the young National Park Service was confronted. The routes had been privately constructed and were privately owned and controlled by turnpike companies. Government funds were not available with which to purchase them outright. One company was persuaded to turn the Wawona Road over the public in exchange for a grant for the exclusive rights to the route during a certain number of years. The government assumed responsibility for the maintenance of the road during this period. The owners of the Coulterville Road could not be persuaded to agree to such a plan. As a result, that part of it which is within the park has not been maintained and, because of erosion, has fallen into disuse.

The Tioga Road had been constructed in 1882-1883 by the Great Sierra Consolidated Silver Mining Company for the purpose of serving the Tioga Mine. The mining venture terminated in 1884 after an expenditure of $300,000 had been made. The road had become impassable during the many years of neglect, but it was still the property of private owners when the region through which it passes became a national park. Stephen T. Mather and some of his friends bought it privately and in 1915 turned it over to the federal government. The state of California purchased the portions of the route which were outside of the park and extended the road eastward, down Leevining Canyon, so giving Yosemite a remarkable high mountain highway, free from toll, which connects Yosemite Valley with the routes of the Mono basin. Tolls were also removed from the Big Oak Flat route. Every effort was made to put all recognized routes in the best of condition consistent with government appropriations. Travel to the park grew apace, and Yosemite had, indeed, entered a new era.

The first scheme of centralized administration of the national park system was promising in theory but proved faulty in practice. More than a few difficulties appeared on the parks horizon. The national preserves were regarded in Washington somewhat as orphans and were not receiving the specialized attention so necessary for their proper administration. The introduction of Mather ideals and methods was required to bring about coördination.

The story is told that one day in 1915 Stephen Mather walked into the office of Secretary Lane and expressed indignation over the way things were run in Sequoia and Yosemite.

“Steve,” said Lane, “if you don’t like the way those parks are run, you can run them yourself.”

“Mr. Secretary, I accept the job,” was Mather’s rejoinder.

By J. V. Lloyd W. B. Lewis and Stephen T. Mather

By J. N. LeConte A Presidential Party at the Grizzly Giant Pardee Roosevelt Muir Wheeler

By J. N. LeConte Hetch Hetchy Valley before Inundation

By J. N. LeConte Devils Postpile, Excluded from Yosemite in 1905

The genial Secretary of the Interior showed him into a little office and said, “There’s your desk, Steve; now go to work.” With that Lane went out and closed the door, but presently opened it and said, “By the way, Steve, I forgot to ask what your politics are.”

With such brief preliminaries did Stephen T. Mather assume directorship of the national parks. He served through the presidential administrations of Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge, but the matter of his politics was never inquired into by any party.

Stephen Mather was born on the Fourth of July, 1867, in San Francisco. His ancestry traces back to Richard Mather, a Massachusetts clergyman of the days of the Pilgrim Fathers. Stephen T. Mather was not a scion of wealth. As a young man, he made his way through college by selling books. He graduated from the University of California in 1887 and for several years was a newspaper reporter. Thereafter, he entered the employ of the Pacific Coast Borax Company and was identified with the trade name, “Twenty-Mule Team Borax,” that became well known around the world. For ten years he engaged in the production of profits for his employers and then organized his own company. It was in borax that he built up his business success and accumulated the fortune which “he later shared so generously with the nation through his investments in scenic beauty on which the people receive the dividends.”

For more than twenty-five years Stephen Mather resided in Chicago, Illinois, but his loyalty to his native state, California, never waned. He was the leading spirit in the organization of the California Society of Illinois and, as its secretary, always secured donations of a carload of choice California fruits to be served at the Society’s annual banquets. Mather then saw to it that these affairs were well written up by the press and telegraphed throughout the country on the Associated Press wires. In this publicity the spirit and motives of the present Californians, Inc., had their birth.

As might well be expected, Mather was a member of the Sierra Club and participated in many of its summer outings. (See Farquhar, 1925, pp. 52-53.) He became acquainted with national park areas on these trips, and it is said that his ideal of a unified administration of the parks resulted from the intimacies so acquired. It was his ambition to weld the parks into a great system and to make them easily accessible to rich and poor alike.

At the time Mather undertook his big task, there were thirteen parks. Some of them were difficult of access and provided few or no facilities for the accommodation of visitors. Government red tape stood in the way of action in the business of park development, but Mather cut the red tape. When government appropriations could not meet the situation, he usually produced “appropriations of his own.” It was such generosity on his part which gave the Tioga Road to the government and saved large groves of Big Trees in the Sequoia National Park. In his own office it was necessary for him personally to employ assistants. Because of the lack of government funds, he expended twice his own salary in securing the personnel needed to set his parks machine in operation. The national benefits derived from the early Mather activity in the parks were recognized by Congress, and that body took new cognizance of national park matters. Larger appropriations were made available, and Mather’s plans were put into effect.

For fourteen years he gave of his initiative and strength, as well as his money. His ideas took material form, and the park system came into being as he had planned. His work was recognized and appreciated. In 1921 George Washington University bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Law. His alma mater, the University of California, conferred the same degree in 1924. President W. W. Campbell on that occasion characterized him as follows:

“Stephen Tyng Mather, mountaineer and statesman; lover of Nature and his fellow-men; with generous and farseeing wisdom he has made accessible for a multitude of Americans their great heritage of snow-capped mountains, of glaciers and streams and falls, of stately forests and quiet meadows.”

In 1926 he was awarded the gold medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences for his service to the nation in national parks development. The American Scenic and Historical Preservation Society awarded the Pugsley gold medal in recognition of his national and state park work, and he was made an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects.[23]

In the fall of 1928, Mather’s health failed. He suffered a stroke of paralysis which forced his retirement from public service in January, 1929. For more than a year he fought to regain his strength but in January, 1930, he was suddenly stricken and died quickly. Indeed, “the world is much the poorer for his passing, as it is much the richer for his having lived.”

One of Mather’s first acts as Director of the National Park Service was to appoint a strong man to the superintendency of Yosemite National Park. On the staff of the Geological Survey was an engineer of distinction, Washington B. (“Dusty”) Lewis. Mather appointed him to the Yosemite task and he became the first park superintendent on March 3, 1916. The Yosemite problems were complicated and trying from the beginning. The park was, even then, attracting more visitors than had been provided for. Public demands kept steadily ahead of facilities that could be made available through government appropriations. For more than twelve years W. B. Lewis expended his energy and ingenuity in bringing the great park through its formative stages.

Under his superintendency practically all the innovations which today characterize the public service of a national park were instituted in Yosemite. Motor buses replaced horse-drawn stages; tolls were eliminated on all approach roads; the operating companies were reorganized and adequate tourist accommodations were provided at Glacier Point and Yosemite Valley; a modern school was provided for local children; the housing for park employees was improved; the best of electrical service was made available; the park road and trail system was enlarged greatly and improved upon; the construction of an all-year highway up the canyon of the Merced made the park accessible to a degree hardly dreamed of; provision of all-year park facilities met the demands of winter visitors; a new administrative center was developed; the Yosemite High Sierra Camps were opened; and an information service was devised. The ranger force was so organized as to make for public respect of national park ideals and personnel. The interpretive work, which makes for understanding of park phenomena and appreciation of park policies, was initiated in Yosemite and has taken a place of importance in the organization of the entire national park system.

In short, the present-day Yosemite came into existence under the hands of Lewis and his assistants. How well the demands of the period were met and future requirements provided for is evidenced by the continued healthy growth and present success of the Yosemite administrative scheme.

In the fall of 1927 Lewis was stricken by a heart attack. He later returned to his office, but in September, 1928, it became apparent that he should no longer subject himself to the strain of work at the high altitude of Yosemite Valley. He removed to West Virginia, and there partly regained his strength. Director Mather then sought his services as Assistant Director of the National Parks, and in that capacity he functioned until the summer of 1930. His physical strength, however, failed to keep pace with his ambitious spirit, and after another attack, he died at his home in a Washington suburb on August 28, 1930.

Soon after Lewis accepted his Washington appointment, Director Mather experienced the breakdown which brought about his resignation as Director. There was but one man to be thought of in connection with filling the difficult position. That man was Horace M. Albright, who had been Mather’s right-hand man since the National Park Service had existed. A native of Inyo County, California, and a graduate of the University of California, he became an assistant attorney in the Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C., in order to advance his learning, and there took a keen interest in plans then developing for the establishment of the National Park Service. He was detailed to work in connection with park problems and had already become familiar with them when Stephen T. Mather assumed their directorship. The Secretary of the Interior assigned him to Mather as a legal aid, which position quickly grew in responsibilities as the two men became acquainted. From the first, Albright was the Director’s chief reliance, and when the National Park Service was organized in 1916, he was made Assistant Director. In 1917, 1918, and 1919 he aided in the creation of Mount McKinley, Grand Canyon, Acadia,[24] and Zion national parks. At twenty-nine, he was made superintendent of the largest of all parks, Yellowstone, and in addition shouldered the job of Field Director of the Park Service. In that capacity he compiled budgets, presented them to congress, and handled general administrative problems in the West.

Outstanding among his special interests in park problems was his vigorous participation in programs launched to conserve and reëstablish the native fauna of national parks. He gained an intimate understanding of the needs of American wild life and actively engaged in attempts to supply its wants. He allied himself with such organizations as the National Geographic Society, the American Game Protective Association, the American Forestry Association, the American Bison Society, the American Society of Mammalogists, the Boone and Crockett Club, the Save-the-Redwoods League, and the Sierra Club. He became an expressive factor in American conservation and in his own domain, the national parks, practiced what he preached. He recognized the importance of ecological study of the great wilderness areas, with the safety of which he was charged, and pressed into service a special investigator to work on Yellowstone mammal problems. Later he seized upon the opportunity to extend this research to all parks. In keeping with his desire to assemble scientific data for the preservation of fauna and flora, he had an ambition to popularize the natural sciences as exemplified in the varied park wonderlands. He engaged actively in the development of plans for the museum, lecture, and guide service which today distinguishes the national parks as educational centers as well as pleasure grounds.

Upon the resignation of Director Mather in 1929, it was but natural that Albright should succeed him. He entered into the Yosemite administrative scheme by actual residence in the park and study of its problems. From the Yosemite personnel he drew new executives for other parks, field officers for the service at large, and administrative assistants for his Washington office. He turned to Crater Lake National Park to obtain a superintendent who would succeed Lewis. Colonel C. G. Thomson had distinguished himself as the chief executive of Crater Lake and in 1929 was called to Yosemite.

Some of the developments in Yosemite for which Thomson was largely responsible included the construction and improvements of the Wawona Road and Tunnel, improvement of the Glacier Point Road, commencement of the Big Oak Flat Road and Tioga Road realignment, the installation of improved water systems at the Mariposa Big Trees, Wawona, and Tuolumne Meadows, construction of the new Government Utility Building, and many smaller projects. Such important land acquisition programs as the Wawona Basin project and the Carl Inn sugar pine addition constituted heavy administrative responsibilities imposed upon the superintendent’s office during his regime. The establishment of “emergency programs,” C.C.C., C.W.A., W.P.A., and P.W.A., greatly expanded the developmental activities in the park after 1933, and the inclusion of the Devils Postpile National Monument and Joshua Tree National Monument in the Yosemite administrative scheme increased the duties of the superintendent.

In 1937, Colonel Thomson was stricken by a heart ailment and died in the Lewis Memorial Hospital on March 23. In eulogy, Frank A. Kittredge said:

“Colonel Thomson has, through his dynamic personality and energy and the wealth of his experience, been an influence and inspiration not only to the thousands of Park visitors with whom he has had personal contact, but especially to the Park Service itself. His keen sense of the fitness and desire for the harmony of things in the national parks has made itself felt in the design of every road, every structure, and every physical development in the Park. He recognized the importance and practicability of restricting and harmonizing necessary roads and structures into a natural blending of the surroundings. He has set a standard of beauty and symmetry in construction which has been carried beyond the limits of Yosemite into the entire National Park system. The harmony of the necessary man-made developments and the unspoiled beauty of the Yosemite Valley attest to the Colonel’s injection of his refinement of thought and forceful personality, into even the everlasting granite itself of the Yosemite he loved so well.”

In June, 1937, Lawrence Campbell Merriam, a native Californian, was transferred to the superintendency of Yosemite National Park. He had received a degree in forestry from the University of California in 1921, had become a forest engineer, and had later gone into emergency conservation work in the state parks throughout the United States. Upon the death of Thomson, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes appointed Merriam Senior Conservationist in the National Park Service and designated him Acting Superintendent of Yosemite.

During his four years as the chief executive of the park he renewed the service’s efforts to restore the natural appearance of the valley, and modified the master plan to provide suitable areas for the operators’ utilities.

In August, 1941, Merriam became Regional Director of Region Two, National Park Service, with headquarters at Omaha, Nebraska. Frank A. Kittredge succeeded him in Yosemite.

During World War I, Kittredge served as an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers and saw service in France. Afterward, while with the Bureau of Public Roads, he was identified with park work; he made the location survey of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Glacier National Park, did the first road engineering in Hawaii National Park, and devoted his attention to national park road matters handled by the Bureau.

In 1927, Kittredge was appointed chief engineer of the National Park Service and continued in that capacity for ten years, when he was made Regional Director, Region Four, a position involving supervision over Park Service programs in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah; Glacier National Park in Montana; and the territories of Alaska and Hawaii. In August, 1940, he was made Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, from which position he was transferred in 1941 to the chief executive position in Yosemite National Park. In all this varied experience with the scenic masterpieces of the national park system, Frank Kittredge maintained a sincerity of purpose in safeguarding the natural and historic values of the parks.

As was true of Mather and Albright, succeeding directors of the National Park Service have taken personal interest and active part in the management of Yosemite National Park. On July 17, 1933, Arno B. Cammerer, formerly Associate Director, succeeded Albright in the Washington post. During his incumbency, 1933-1940, the national park system increased from 128 areas to 204 units, and in addition to regular appropriations, nearly 200 million dollars was expended by the Service in connection with the programs of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, and the Emergency Relief Appropriation acts. Under Cammerer’s directorship, five C.C.C. camps were established in Yosemite National Park. With the help of C.C.C., C.W.A., and P.W.A., many management and construction projects in the park were advanced far ahead of regular schedule. The Wawona Road tunnel project was completed, and notable progress was made in constructing the Tioga and Big Oak Flat roads on modern standards. Winter use of the park increased mightily, and the Yosemite Park and Curry Company developed the Badger Pass ski center in accordance with Service plans.

Because of failing health, Cammerer resigned as Director in 1940, and Newton B. Drury, a Californian and a member of the Yosemite Advisory Board, was appointed to the position on June 19, 1940. Since 1919, Drury had been a leader in the movement to preserve distinctive areas for park purposes. As executive head of the Save-the-Redwoods League, he had become a nationally recognized authority on park and conservation affairs and was intimately acquainted with the problems of Yosemite National Park through personal study. The normal problems of the park and of the Service, generally, were greatly complicated by the circumstances resulting from World War II, and the years 1942-1945 were probably the most critical in the history of national parks. But in spite of pressure exerted by production interests and those who sought to capitalize on the park’s assets under the guise of “war necessity,” the natural values of Yosemite were held inviolate. And it is to the everlasting credit of Director Drury and his staff and associates in central offices and the field that during the years of all-out warfare serious inroads were nowhere made upon national park values.

Each year, more than a half million people benefit by the great park’s offerings, and each year witnesses new demands for expansion of public utilities provided by the operators and the Government. To meet these demands and at the same time guarantee “benefit and enjoyment” of Yosemite values for future generations of visitors is one of the most exacting tasks engaged in by public servants anywhere.