A number of parties of miners, emboldened by the news of the disbanding of the Yosemites, visited the valley in the fall of 1853. During 1854 no white men are known to have entered Yosemite Valley.
By 1855 several accounts written by members of the three punitive expeditions that had entered Yosemite had been published in San Francisco papers. The difficulties of overcoming hostile Indians in the search for gold were far more prominent in the minds of these writers than the scenic wonders of the new-found valley. Nevertheless, the mention of a thousand-foot waterfall in one of these published letters awakened James M. Hutchings, then publishing the California Magazine, to the possibilities that Yosemite presented. Hutchings organized the first tourist party in June, 1855, and with two of the original Yosemites as guides proceeded from Mariposa over the old Indian trail via Wawona and Inspiration Point to the valley. Thomas Ayres, an artist, was a member of the party and during this visit he made the first sketches ever made in Yosemite. Ten of these original pencil drawings are now preserved in the Yosemite Museum.
In 1853, James Alden, then a commander in the United States Navy, came to California on a commission to settle the boundary between Mexico and California. He remained until 1860. Some time between 1856 and 1860 he visited Yosemite Valley. Probably on his return to San Francisco he came upon Ayres’s work, which appealed to him as the best mementos of his Yosemite experience, and he procured ten originals and one lithograph. Mrs. Ernest W. Bowditch, Mrs. C. W. Hubbard, and Mrs. A. H. Eustis, descendants of Admiral Alden and heirs to these priceless drawings, have presented them to the Yosemite Museum, which stands near the spot where some of them were made.
In the years that have elapsed since these drawings were created, they have journeyed on pack mules, sailed the seas in old United States men-of-war, jolted about in covered wagons, and at last made a transcontinental journey to come again to the valley that gave them birth.
CHAPTER V
TOURISTS IN THE SADDLE
Hutchings and his first sight-seers “spent five glorious days in luxurious scenic banqueting” in the newly discovered valley and then followed their Indian guides over the return trail to Mariposa. Upon their arrival in that mountain city, they were besieged with eager questioners, among whom was L. A. Holmes, the editor of the Mariposa Gazette, which had recently been established. Mr. Holmes begged that his paper be given opportunity to publish the first account from the pen of Mr. Hutchings. His request was complied with, and in the Gazette of July 12, 1855, appears the first printed description of Yosemite Valley, prepared by one uninfluenced by Indian troubles or gold fever.
Journalists the country over copied the description, and so started the Hutchings Yosemite publicity, which was to continue through a period of forty-seven years. Parties from Mariposa and other mining camps, and from San Francisco, interested by Hutchings’ oral and printed accounts, organized, secured the same Indian guides, and inaugurated tourist travel to the Yosemite wonder spot.
Milton and Houston Mann, who had accompanied one of these sight-seeing expeditions, were so imbued with the possibilities of serving the hordes of visitors soon to come that they set to work immediately to construct a horse toll trail from the South Fork of the Merced to the Yosemite Valley. Galen Clark, who also had been a member of one of the 1855 parties, was prompted to establish a camp on the South Fork where travelers could be accommodated. This camp was situated on the Mann Brothers’ Trail and later became known as Clark’s Station. It is known as Wawona now. The Mann brothers finished their trail in 1856.
Old Indian trails were followed by much of the Mariposa-Yosemite Valley route. The toll was collected at White and Hatch’s, approximately twelve miles from Mariposa. At Clark’s Station (Wawona), the trail detached itself from the Indian route and ascended Alder Creek to its headwaters. Here it crossed to the Bridalveil Creek drainage and passed through several fine meadows, gradually ascending to the highest point on the route above Old Inspiration Point on the south rim of Yosemite Valley. From this point it dropped sharply to the floor of the valley near the foot of Bridalveil Fall. The present-day Alder Creek and Pohono trails traverse much of the old route.