Few non-Indians knew of the existence of Yosemite Valley prior to 1851. The discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada foothills in 1848 brought thousands of gold seekers to the area. By 1851, the continued theft of Indian lands and murder of native people resulted in the Mariposa Indian War. On March 27, 1851, in an attempt to subdue a group of Indian people, the state-sanctioned Mariposa Battalion entered Yosemite Valley. They became the first group of non-Indians to record their entry into the Valley.
Word of Yosemite's beauty gradually spread, and in 1855, the first party of tourists arrived. Nine years later, in the middle of the Civil War, a group of influential Californians persuaded Congress and President Abraham Lincoln to grant Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to the state as the country's first public preserve.
The drive for federal protection of the Yosemite region began shortly after the first non-Indian settlers arrived and before conservationist John Muir first visited in 1868.
Abraham Lincoln provided this protection when he signed the Yosemite Grant on June 30, 1864. This grant is considered the foundation upon which national and state parks were later established. The grant deeded Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees to the state of California. However, no such protection existed for the vast wilderness surrounding the Valley and sequoia grove.
In 1889, John Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson, the influential editor of Century Magazine, found the high country overrun with flocks of domestic sheep. Muir wrote of the devastation that these "hoofed locusts" wrought upon the land as early as 1869. The sheep not only voraciously consumed meadows and wildflowers, but also destroyed the soul of the land. As they camped together in Tuolumne Meadows, Muir urged Johnson to do something about it. Johnson responded by using his influence on key citizens and politicians back east to help preserve the region. Johnson's resolve became as strong as Muir's. Together, they planned a campaign to make the high country surrounding Yosemite Valley into a national park.
While Johnson lobbied for the park, Muir spoke and wrote eloquently of the need for legislation to designate the land for a national park, as was done when Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872. Remarkably, their efforts were rewarded in just one year. On October 1, 1890, the U.S. Congress set aside more than 1,500 square miles of "reserved forest lands" soon to be known as Yosemite National Park. It included the area surrounding Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. However, it took a meeting between President Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir in 1903, and the effective lobbying of railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman, to have Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove ceded from the state of California's control and included with Yosemite National Park in 1906. Following this victory, Muir did not cease battles of preservation in Yosemite. Muir and others launched a national campaign to protect Hetch Hetchy Valley from being dammed and used as a reservoir for San Francisco. This battle was lost, but it served to awaken the nation to the idea of preservation of wilderness for wilderness' sake.
In the early part of the 20th century, the park was under the watch of the U.S. Army's 24th Mounted Infantry and the 9th Cavalry, also known as "Buffalo Soldiers." In the absence of a National Park Service—which wasn't created until 1916—these African American men were charged with the protection of the newly formed Yosemite National Park.
News of Yosemite Valley's wonders spread, bringing with it tourists and the need to accommodate them. Thus, hotels were built. Crops were planted and livestock grazed in Valley meadows. People camped wherever they could lay a drop cloth. In the 1920s, "nature guides" were hired to help educate visitors about the park's special values and the Field School for Natural History was established to train future interpreters.
Over the years, many things have changed in the park—except for its popularity. Annual visitation reached a peak of over 4 million in the mid 1990s. Today, the hardworking staff of the National Park Service—along with its park partners and legions of volunteers—continues to meet the challenge of protecting Yosemite's unique natural and cultural treasures for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations.
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