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

by Carl Parcher Russell

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.