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.