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.