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.