The Degnan concession in the “Old Village” is not and never was a hotel or lodge. However, it has catered to Yosemite tourists since 1884 and is the oldest business in the park. John Degnan, an Irishman, built his first Yosemite cabin on the site of the present Degnan store. Soon thereafter, on the occasion of a spring meeting of the Yosemite Valley Commissioners, of which the governor of the state was a member, Mr. Degnan appeared before the managing body to obtain the privilege of building a suitable home. The board listened to his plea, and the Governor observed, “He seems to be the kind of man we want as an all-year resident—one who will take care of the place when it needs care.” Mr. Degnan, in an interview with a National Park Service official in 1941, stated, “After that meeting the Commissioners came over to my cabin, and the Governor then assigned to me the land which I now occupy, extending from the road to the cliff.”
Mrs. Degnan, who was a party to all of Mr. Degnan’s pioneering in Yosemite Valley, met the tourists’ demand for bread. Gradually, her bakery expanded until her ovens could turn out one hundred loaves at a baking. The business and the home grew as did the Degnan family. Mary Ellen Degnan, one of the several children born to Mr. and Mrs. Degnan, now manages the modern store and restaurant which evolved from the pioneer venture.
The record of John Degnan’s activities in Yosemite National Park stands as ample testimony to the accuracy of the governor’s appraisal, “He seems to be the kind of man we want.” He was a respected party to much of the early physical improvement in and about the valley and to the general growth and development of facilities and services.
Mrs. Degnan died Dec. 17, 1940, and Mr. Degnan’s death occurred on Feb. 27, 1943.
The demand for more pretentious accommodations than those afforded by the pioneer hotels of Yosemite was met in 1887, when the state built a four-story structure that would accommodate about 150 guests. The legislature in 1885 appropriated $40,000 to be expended on this building. Another $5,000 was secured for water supply and furniture. A site near the present Camp Curry garage was selected, and the building contract let to Carle, Croly, and Abernethy. Upon its completion J. J. Cook, who had been managing Black’s Hotel, was placed in charge.
The bulky structure was not beautiful architecturally, and the first few years of its existence demonstrated that its design was faulty. In 1896 the Stoneman House burned to the ground.
Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Curry originated an idea in tourist service which rather revolutionized the scheme of hostelry operation in Yosemite and other national parks. The Currys came to Yosemite in 1899. They were teachers who had turned their summer vacations into profitable management of Western camping tours in such localities as Yellowstone National Park. Their first venture in Yosemite involved use of seven tents and employment of one paid woman cook. The services of several college students were secured in return for summer expenses. The site chosen for that first camp is the area occupied by Camp Curry.
Success of the hotel-camp plan was immediately apparent. The first year 292 people registered at the resort. However, success was not attained without striving. The camp was dependent upon freight-wagon service requiring two weeks to make the round trip to Merced. Sometimes even this service failed.
Informal hospitality has always characterized Camp Curry. Popular campfire entertainments have been a feature from the beginning. In one of the first summers in Yosemite, D. A. Curry revived the firefall,[9] which it is presumed originated with James McCauley, of the Mountain House. Employees from Camp Curry were occasionally sent to Glacier Point to build a fire and push it off for a special party. This was done more and more frequently, until it became a nightly occurrence. Mr. Curry’s “Hello,” his “All’s well,” and “Farewell,” delivered with remarkable volume, won for him the appellation, “The Stentor of Yosemite.”
The coming of the Yosemite Valley Railroad in 1907 gave a powerful new impetus to the growth of Camp Curry. Automobile travel, of course, provided the climax. In 1915 the camp provided accommodations for one thousand visitors. Today, it maintains nearly 500 tents and 200 bungalow and cabin rooms.
The successful operations of the Curry business induced would-be competition. Camp Yosemite, later known as Camp Lost Arrow, was started in 1901 near the foot of Yosemite Falls. It continued to function until 1915. Camp Ahwahnee, at the foot of the Four-Mile Trail, was established in 1908 and continued for seven years. The Desmond Park Service Company secured a twenty-year concession to operate camps, stores, and transportation service in 1915. This company purchased the assets of the Sentinel Hotel, Camp Lost Arrow, and Camp Ahwahnee. The two camps were discontinued, and a new venture made in the present Yosemite Lodge. The Desmond Company prevailed until 1920, when reorganization took place, and it became the Yosemite National Park Company.
The Curry Camping Company maintained its substantial position through all of the years of varying fortunes of its less substantial contemporaries. In 1925, the Yosemite Park and Curry Company was formed by the consolidation of the Curry Company and the Yosemite National Park Company. The new organization has contracted with the government to perform all services demanded by the public in the park. Some 1,250 people are employed during the summer months, and the investment in tourist facilities totals $5,500,000.
David A. Curry did not live to witness the realization of all his plans. However, prior to his death in 1917, the march of progress had so advanced as to make evident the place of leadership the Curry operation was to maintain. “Mother” Curry, as “Manager Emeritus,” still devotes personal attention to the business of the pioneer hotel-camp but the active management is in the hands of persons trained by her and her daughter, Mary Curry Tresidder. Her son-in-law, Dr. Donald B. Tresidder, until 1943 actively managed the operations and still retains the presidency of the extensive Yosemite Park and Curry Company, which has grown from the modest start made in 1899.
The Yosemite National Park Company in 1920 established a tent camp in the upper section of the Mariposa Grove, which consisted of a rustic central building constructed around the base of the tree, Montana, and a group of cabins and tents. The camp persisted in this form until 1932, when it was razed by the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, and a new lodge was built near Sunset Point in the Grove. In its design the new building reflects the charm of pioneer structures of the Sierra Nevada.
In 1923, Superintendent Lewis advocated the creation of a service that would enable the hiker to enjoy the wonders of the Yosemite high country and yet be free from the irksome load of blankets and food necessary to the success of a trip away from the established centers of the park. T. E. Farrow, of the Yosemite Park Company, projected tentative plans for a series of “hikers’ camps,” and in the fall of 1923 I was dispatched on a journey of reconnaissance for the purpose of locating camp sites in the rugged country drained by the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne. The sites advocated were Little Yosemite, Merced Lake,[10] Boothe Lake, the Lyell Fork (Mount Lyell), Tuolumne Meadows,[10] Glen Aulin, and Tenaya Lake.[10] In 1924, these sites, with the exception of Lyell Fork and Glen Aulin, were occupied by simple camps, consisting of a mess and cook tent, a dormitory tent for women, and a dormitory tent for men. Attendants and cooks were employed for each establishment. With two exceptions, the camps were removed from roads, and equipment and supplies were of necessity packed in on mules. Yet it was possible to offer the facilities of these high mountain resorts at a very low price, and it became apparent that saddle parties, as well as hikers, would take advantage of them. Consequently they have become known as High Sierra Camps.
The camp beside the White Cascade at Glen Aulin was established in 1927 and has been very popular. In 1938, the Tenaya Lake Camp was moved to a beautiful location in a grove of hemlocks on May Lake, just east of Mount Hoffmann. New trails were built to make this spot more readily accessible from the Snow Creek Trail and from Glen Aulin. The Boothe Lake Camp, after a few years of operation, was abandoned in favor of a new camp near the junction of the Vogelsang, Rafferty Creek, and Lyell Fork trails. In 1940, this camp was rebuilt on the banks of Fletcher Creek. The Tuolumne Meadows Lodge is now the only one of these camps situated on a road. Each camp has a setting of a distinctive mountain character on lake or stream. All the camps represent a joint effort on the part of the National Park Service and the concessionaire to encourage and assist travel beyond the roads, where the visitor may appreciate the wild values of the park which he can hardly observe from the highways.
The Yosemite Park and Curry Company opened the Ahwahnee in 1927. Its interior has received quite as much study as has its exterior architectural values.
California Indian patterns have been used throughout the hotel in many ways. In the lobby, six great figures, set in multiple borders, rendered in mosaic, give color and interest to the floor. In the downstairs corridor and the dining room, other borders and simpler Indian motifs are rendered in acid-etched cement. Painted Indian ornaments play a number of different roles in the building.
In the main lounge the great beams have been related to the contents of the room with borders, spots, and panels of Indian motifs in the colors that appear in the rugs and furniture coverings, while the entire mantel end of the room serves as a bond between the ceiling and the floor with a composite of Indian figures built into one great architectural structure. At the top of each of the ten high windows is a panel of stained glass, each one different, the series forming a rhythmical frieze that bands the room. They are all composed of Indian patterns.
The arts of the whole world have been called together to give the Ahwahnee character and color. There are Colonial furniture, pottery, and textiles; furniture, cottons and linen, lights, and a clock from England; cottons from Norway; and irons from Flanders; more iron and furniture and fabrics from France; embroideries from Italy; rugs from Spain; designs from Greece and designs from Turkey; rugs, jars, and tiles, silks and cottons from Persia; more rugs from the Caucasus and tent strips from Turkestan; porcelains and paintings from China; the sturdy Temmoku ware from Japan; fabrics from Guatemala; terra cotta from Mexico, and so back to California, whence comes the basic motif of the whole, the Indian design.
On June 23, 1943, the Ahwahnee Hotel was taken over by the United States Navy and operated as a hospital. It functioned as the Naval Special Hospital until its formal decommissioning on December 15, 1945, and 6,752 patients were treated, the greatest number at one time being 853. A large and varied naval staff was assigned to duty at the Ahwahnee, including officers, nurses, Waves, and enlisted men. Representatives of the American Red Cross, Veterans’ Administration, and the United States Employment Service also participated in the hospital program. The Ahwahnee as a hospital became an adequately equipped and functioning rehabilitation center, capable of handling full programs of physical training, occupational therapy, and educational work. The department of occupational therapy, especially, was recognized as outstanding among service hospitals. The program of rehabilitation extended to the out-of-doors, both summer and winter.
Frequently each summer, those who climb to the Sierra crest within the Yosemite National Park come upon the remains of little “cities” near the mountaintops. Because the story of these deserted towns, now within the boundaries of the park is so interwoven with the story of Mono mining affairs in general, this chapter will of necessity take some account of the events of the Mono Basin, immediately east of Yosemite.
The first white men to visit the Mono country were undoubtedly the American trappers, followed shortly afterward by the explorers and immigrants. The first records of mineral finds in this region, however, are those that pertain to Lieutenant Tredwell Moore’s Indian-fighting expedition to the Yosemite in June, 1852 (see p. 46), which crossed the Sierra at the northern Mono Pass and brought back samples of gold ore. The miners who soon followed and, with a few others, continued to work in the Mono region, were apparently unthought-of by their former associates west of the Sierra.
John B. Trask, in his report on mines and mining in California, made to the legislature of California in 1855, says: “In my report of last year, it was stated that the placer ranges were at that time known to extend nearly to the summit ridge of the mountains; but this year it has been ascertained that they pass beyond the ridge and are now found on the eastern declivity, having nearly the same altitude as those occurring on the opposite side. Within the past season, many of these deposits have been examined, and thus far are found to be equally productive with those of similar ranges to the west, and, with a favorable season ensuing, they will be largely occupied.” It is probable that Trask’s statements were based on reports of the work done by Lee Vining’s party.
At any rate, in 1857 it became known among the miners of the Mother Lode that rich deposits had been found at “Dogtown” and Monoville, and a rush from the Tuolumne mines resulted. The Mono Trail from Big Oak Flat, through Tamarack Flat, Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Meadows, and Bloody Canyon, following in general an old Indian route, was blazed at this time and came into great use. The Sonora Pass route was used also, and it was over this trail that the discoverer of the famous Bodie district, later to become the center of all Mono mining, made his way.
It is not my purpose, however, to write the history of Mono County, or even to make this a lengthy story of Mono mining camps. Rather would I present a concise account of the origin of the relics found by Sierra enthusiasts, and, incidentally, tell something about the astonishing town of Bodie.
The name Tioga and the beautiful region which its mention suggests are now familiar to thousands who annually drive over the route that bisects Yosemite National Park. The original location of the mineral deposit now known as the Tioga Mine was made in 1860. Consequently, it is here that our present chronicle of Yosemite summit events should begin. In 1874, William Brusky, a prospector, came upon a prospect hole, shovel, pick, and an obliterated notice at this place. The notice indicated that the mine had been located as “The Sheepherder” in 1860. It was presumed by Brusky that the original locators were returning to Mariposa or Tuolumne from Mono Diggings, Bodie, or Aurora when they made the find. He flattered the claim by supposing that “the original locators probably perished, as it is not likely that they would abandon so promising a claim”; he relocated it as the “Sheepherder.”
In 1878, E. B. Burdick, Samuel Baker, and W. J. Bevan organized the Tioga District. Most of the mines were owned by men of Sonora, although some Eastern capital was interested. The district extended from King’s Ranch, at the foot of Bloody Canyon, over the summit of the Sierra and down the Tuolumne River to Lembert’s Soda Springs. It was eight miles in extent from north to south. At one time there were 350 locations in the district. Bennetville (now called Tioga) was headquarters for the Great Sierra Mining Company offices, which concern was operating the old Sheepherder as the “Tioga Mine.”
The company apparently suffered from no lack of funds, and operations were launched on a grand scale. Great quantities of supplies and equipment were packed into the camp at enormous expenditure of labor and money. At first the place was accessible only via the Bloody Canyon trail, and Mexican packers contracted to keep their pack animals active on this spectacular mountain highway. A trail was then built from the busy camp of Lundy, and that new route to Tioga proved most valuable. The Homer Mining Index of March 4, 1882, describes the packing of heavy machinery up 4,000 feet of mountainside to Tioga in winter:
The transportation of 16,000 pounds of machinery across one of the highest and most rugged branches of the Sierra Nevada mountains in mid-winter, where no roads exist, over vast fields and huge embankments of yielding snow and in the face of furious wind-storms laden with drifting snow, and the mercury dancing attendance on zero, is a task calculated to appall the sturdiest mountaineer; and yet J. C. Kemp, manager of the Great Sierra Consolidated Silver Company of Tioga, is now engaged in such an undertaking, and with every prospect of perfect success at an early day—so complete has been the arrangement of details and so intelligently directed is every movement. The first ascent, from Mill Creek to the mouth of Lake Canyon, is 990 feet, almost perpendicular. From that point to the south end of Lake Oneida, a distance of about two miles, is a rise of 845 feet, most of it in two hills aggregating half a mile in distance. The machinery will probably be hoisted straight up to the summit of Mount Warren ridge from the southwest shore of Lake Oneida, an almost vertical rise of 2,160 feet. From the summit the descent will be made to Saddlebags Lake, thence down to and along Lee Vining Creek to the gap or pass in the dividing ridge between Lee Vining and Slate creeks, and from that point to Tunnel, a distance of about one mile, is a rise of about 800 feet—most of it in the first quarter of a mile. The machinery consists of an engine, boiler, air-compressor, Ingersoll drills, iron pipe, etc., for use in driving the Great Sierra tunnel. It is being transported on six heavy sleds admirably constructed of hardwood. Another, or rather, a pair of bobsleds, accompanies the expedition, the latter being laden with bedding, provisions, cooking utensils, etc. The heaviest load is 4,200 pounds. Ten or twelve men, two mules, 4,500 feet of one-inch Manila rope, heavy double block and tackle, and all the available trees along the route are employed in “snaking” the machinery up the mountain—the whole being under the immediate supervision of Mr. Kemp, who remains at the front and personally directs every movement. It is expected that all the sleds will be got up into Lake Canyon today, and then the work will be pushed day and night, with two shifts of men. Meantime, the tunnel is being driven day and night, with three shifts of men under Jeff McClelland.
Such difficulties prompted the Great Sierra Mining Company to construct the Tioga Road, that they might bring their machinery in from the west side of the Sierra. The road was completed in 1883 at a cost of $64,000.
In 1884, one of those “financial disasters” which always seem to play a part in mining-camp history overtook the Great Sierra Mining Company, and all work was dropped. Records show that $300,000 was expended at Tioga, and there is no evidence that their ore was ever milled.
Persons who have climbed into that interesting summit region above Gaylor Lakes have no doubt pondered over the origin of the picturesque village of long-deserted rock cabins clustered about a deep mine shaft. This is the Mount Dana Summit Mine, one of the important locations of the Tioga District. Its owners were determined to operate in winter, as well as in summer. In the Homer Mining Index, Lundy, of October 30, 1880, we are told that the superintendent of this mine visited Lundy and employed skilled miners to spend the winter there. In December of the same year one of them descended to Bodie to obtain money with which to pay those miners. “He got tripped up on Bodie whisky and was drunk for weeks. Some of the miners returned to Lundy from the Summit Mine. The distance is but seven miles, but they were two days making the trip and suffered many hardships.” Later F. W. Pike took charge of the Summit Mine, but no record appears to have been handed down of the final demise of the camp.
Another camp of the main range of the Sierra that received much notice and actually produced great wealth was Lundy, situated but a few miles north of Tioga. Prior to 1879, W. J. Lundy was operating a sawmill at the head of Lundy Lake. His product helped to supply Bodie’s enormous demand for timber. In the spring of 1879, William D. Wasson took his family to Mill Canyon, near Lundy Lake, and engaged in prospecting. He was followed by C. H. Nye and L. L. Homer, who located rich veins of ore. J. G. McClinton, of Bodie, investigated and was persuaded by what he found to bring capital to the new camp at once. Homer District was organized at Wasson’s residence at Emigrant Flat, in Mill Creek Canyon, September 15, 1879. Prior to this time the region was included in the Tioga District, but because the books of the Tioga recorder were kept at an inconvenient point, a new district was formed. L. L. Homer, for whom the district was named, bowed down by “financial troubles,” committed suicide in San Francisco a few months later.
It is worthy of mention that in 1881 the Sierra Telegraph Company extended its line from Lundy to Yosemite Valley, where it made connection with Street’s line to Sonora.
A trail was built from Tioga over the divide from Leevining Canyon into Lake Canyon, thence down Mill Creek Canyon to Lundy. In 1881 Archie Leonard, renowned as a Yosemite guide and ranger, put on a ten-horse saddle train between Lundy and Yosemite. The trip was made in a day and a half, and the fare was $8.00 one way.
Reports of the State Mining Bureau indicate that something like $3,000,000 was taken from the May Lundy Mine. The town of Lundy proved to be substantial for many years, and the Homer Mining Index, printed there, is the best of all the newspapers that were produced in the ephemeral camps of Mono. Something of the spirit of mining-camp journalism may be gathered from the following note taken from a December, 1850, number of the Index:
The Index wears a cadaverous aspect this week. It is the unavoidable result of a concatenation of congruous circumstances. The boss has gone to Bodie on special business. The devil has been taking medicine, so that his work at the case has been spasmodic and jerky. The printing office is open on all sides, and the snow flies in wherever it pleases. In the morning everything is frozen solid. Then we thaw things out, and the whole concern is deluged with drippings. It is hard to set type under such conditions. When the office is dry, it is too cold to work. When it is warm, the printer needs gum boots and oilskins. In fact, it has been a hell of a job to get this paper out.
Like the other camps, Lundy is now defunct. The May Lundy Mine has not operated for some years, and the building of a dam has raised Lundy Lake so that a part of the townsite is submerged.
Another old camp that many Yosemite fishermen and hikers come upon is the aggregation of dwellings about the “Golden Crown.” At the very head of Bloody Canyon, within Mono Pass, are to be found sturdily built log cabins in various stages of decay. From the Homer Mining Index it has been possible to glean occasional bits of information regarding this old camp. It is stated in an 1880 number of the Index that Fuller and Hayt (or Hoyt) discovered large ledges of antimonial silver there in 1879. The Mammoth City Herald of September 3, 1879, contains a glowing account of the wealth to be obtained from the “Golden Crown,” as the mine was christened, and predicts that thousands of men will be working at the head of Bloody Canyon within one year. The Mammoth City Herald of August 27, 1879, under the heading, “Something Besides Pleasure in Store for Yosemite Tourists,” contains an enthusiastic letter regarding these prospects.
When one observes the great number of mining claims staked out throughout the summit region about White Mountain, Mount Dana, Mount Gibbs, and Kuna Peak, it is not surprising to learn that some Yosemite Valley businessmen ventured to engage in the gamble. Albert Snow, proprietor of the famous La Casa Nevada between Vernal and Nevada falls, owned a mine in Parker Canyon; and A. G. Black, of Black’s Hotel, owned the Mary Bee Mine on Mount Dana.
Some twenty miles south of the Tioga District, in a high situation quite as spectacular in scenic grandeur as any of the camps of the main range of the Sierra, was Lake District, in which Mammoth and Pine City flourished for a time—a very brief time.
In June of 1877, J. A. Parker, B. N. Lowe, B. S. Martin, and N. D. Smith located mineral deposits on Mineral Hill at an altitude of 11,000 feet. Lake District was organized here that same summer. Activity was not great until 1879, when great riches seemed inevitable, and a rush of miners swelled the population of Mammoth and Pine City. A mill was built for the reduction of ores that were not in sight, and two printing establishments cut each other’s throats, the Mammoth City Herald, first on the ground, and the Mammoth City Times.
For a time hope was high. J. S. French built a toll trail from Fresno to Mammoth City. French’s saddle trains met the Yosemite stages at Fresno Flats, and traveled to Basaw (or Beasore) Meadows, Little Jackass Meadows, Sheep Crossing, Cargyle Meadow, Reds Meadow, through Mammoth Pass, and then to Mammoth City, a distance of fifty-four miles. Livestock to supply the Mammoth markets was driven from Fresno Flats over this trail, also.
The first winter after propaganda had inveigled capital to take a chance on Mammoth, all activities persisted through the winter. Like those hardy men who suffered the hardships of winter on Mount Dana, the inhabitants of Mammoth contended with great difficulties.
After the winter of 1879-80, it became apparent that the Mammoth enterprise was unwarranted. The mill, constructed with such optimism, was poorly built. Had it been mechanically perfect, the fate of the camp would have been no better, for the expected ore was not forthcoming. Mammoth was another of those camps which engulfed capital and produced little or nothing. In the winter of 1880-81 the place closed.
Benton, Bodie, and Aurora are quite removed from the area likely to be reached by Sierra travelers, yet to close this account without some mention of their birth, growth, and death would be to omit some of the most important affairs of Mono mining. The first settlement in the region immediately south of Mono was made by George W. Parker, who located the Adobe Meadows in 1860. In 1861 E. C. Kelty sent “Black” Taylor, a partner of the discoverer of Bodie District, to winter some cattle in Hot Springs Valley, where he was killed by Indians. William McBride entered the region in 1853 and engaged in ranching. Float rock was found in October, 1863, by Robinson and Stuart in the foothills of the White Mountains, east of Benton. In February, 1864, these men organized the Montgomery District and succeeded in attracting some attention to their find. The region flourished for a season, but soon declined and became deserted. A few very rich deposits existed, but there seem to have been no continuous veins.
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.
Mark Twain at one time resided in Aurora and engaged in his humorous exaggerations. His cabin there, which even in 1878, when Wasson wrote his Bodie and Esmeralda, had become somewhat mythical, was recently located and moved to Reno, Nevada, where it is now exhibited. At any rate, an Aurora cabin was found which might have been occupied by Mark Twain. One part of the original Mark Twain cabin certainly did not reach Reno, according to the Mammoth Times of December 6, 1879. Bob Howland, who had lived with Mark Twain in Aurora, returned to their old domicile in 1879 and took down the flagpole. He had it made into canes, which he distributed among his friends.
The truly important activity in the Esmeralda region prompted the building of the Sonora Pass wagon road. The Mono County supervisors ordered that road bonds on the “Sonora and Mono road” be issued on November 5, 1863. The road was projected in 1864 and opened to travel in 1868.[11]
Bodie, in the meantime, had not given up the ghost, although only a comparatively few miners occupied the camp. From its discovery until 1877 an average of twenty votes were polled each year. In 1878, however, the Bodie Mining Company made a phenomenally rich strike of gold and silver ore, and the entire mining world was startled. Stock jumped from fifty cents to fifty-four dollars a share. The news swept all Western camps like wildfire, and by 1879 Bodie’s crowd and reputation were such that the little girl’s prayer of “Good-by, God! I’m going to Bodie” was representative of the opinion held by contemporaries.
Even W. S. Body, whose body had moldered in a rocky grave for nearly twenty years, was not undisturbed by the activity. In 1871 J. G. McClinton had discovered the forgotten Body grave while searching for a horse. He made no move to change the burial site, however, until some one of Bodie’s several newspapers launched erroneous reports of the whereabouts of Body’s remains. In the fall of 1879 McClinton and Joseph Wasson exhumed the skeleton, exhibited it to Bodie’s motley populace, and then gave it an elaborate burial, not excluding an eloquent address by Hon. R. D. Ferguson. Now these honored bones occupy a grave that is quite as neglected as the sage-grown niche in which they originally rested, but at least they share a place with the other several hundred dead disposed of in Bodie’s forgotten cemetery.
To make Bodie’s story short, let it suffice to say that for four years the camp maintained the same high-pressure activity. Men mined, milled, played, fought, and hundreds died. Some fifty companies tunneled into Bodie Bluff and all but turned it inside out. Probably twenty-five millions in bullion were conveyed in Bodie stage coaches to the railroad at Carson City, Nevada. Perhaps an amount almost as great was sunk into the hills by the numerous companies that carried on frenzied activity but produced no wealth. Only the Standard and the Bodie had proved to be immensely profitable, and in 1881 the stock market went to pieces. Bodie’s mines, one after another, closed down. In 1887 the Standard and the Bodie consolidated and operated sanely and profitably for some twenty years longer. But the camp’s mad days of wild speculation and excessive living were done. Gradually activities ceased, and a few years ago the picturesque blocks of frame buildings were consumed by flames. To meet the opportunities of 1941 some several hundred people occupied Bodie to salvage minerals from her old mine dumps. But there was little progress in rebuilding the town. It is interesting to note, however, that the Bodie Miners’ Union Hall of the ’seventies still stands. Within it Mr. and Mrs. D. V. Cain have exhibited the relics of Bodie’s boom days.
The superlative qualities of the scenic features and such outstanding biological characteristics as the forests of the Yosemite region compelled the interest of scientists as soon as the area received wide mention in the press. The miners’ concern with mineral values directed the attention of mining engineers upon the sections both east and west of Yosemite Valley. As early as 1853 Professor John B. Trask attempted to explain the geology of the Tuolumne-Merced watersheds.
The California State Geological Survey was established in 1860. Josiah Dwight Whitney, of Harvard University, was made State Geologist. He enlisted the services of several young men who were destined to become leaders in American geological and topographical work. William H. Brewer, William Ashburner, Chester Averill, Charles F. Hoffmann, William M. Gabb, James T. Gardiner, and Clarence King were among the members of the Whitney Survey. Over a period of ten years they penetrated the remote and unknown canyons and climbed the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, recording their findings and mapping the wild terrain. They made the first contribution to accurate and detailed knowledge of the region embraced in the present Yosemite National Park.
In 1863, Whitney himself began studies in the Yosemite region.[12] He concluded that the Yosemite Valley resulted from a sinking of a local block of the earth’s crust. His assistant, King, recognized evidences of a glacier’s having passed through the valley, but Whitney, although he published this fact in his official report, later stoutly denied it. Whitney at first believed the domes to have risen up as great bubbles of fluid granite.
Galen Clark, while not a trained geologist, was a careful observer and commanded considerable respect from the public. He believed that Yosemite Valley originated through the explosion of close-set domes of molten rock and that water action then cleared the gorge of debris and left it in its present form.
King, although he was the first to observe glacier polish and moraines in the Yosemite Valley, did not attribute any great part of the excavation of the valley to the glacier. He regarded the Yosemite as a simple crack or rent in the crust of the earth.
John Muir, who followed these early students, maintained that ice had accomplished nearly all the Yosemite sculpturing.
H. W. Turner, on the other hand, found no reason to believe that anything other than stream action, influenced by the peculiar rock structure, had had an important role in the origin of the valley, although he recognized that it had been the pathway of a glacier.
Joseph LeConte,[13] W. H. Brewer, M. G. Macomb,[14] George Davidson,[15] I. C. Russell,[16] George F. Becker, Willard D. Johnson, E. C. Andrews, Douglas W. Johnson, F. L. Ransome, J. N. LeConte, A. C. Lawson, Eliot Blackwelder, Ernst Cloos, John P. Buwalda, M. E. Beatty, and George D. Louderback have all studied the geology of the Yosemite Valley or the Yosemite region and have published the results of their work. The influences of the topography of the Sierra Nevada upon meteorological conditions were studied and reported upon by W. A. Glassford in the early ’nineties.
Prior to 1913, however, no one had made a comprehensive study of the geology of the entire Yosemite region. Ideas regarding the origin of the valley and related features were still hazy. In 1913, at the instance of the Sierra Club, the U. S. Geological Survey sent out a party of scientists to begin a systematic and detailed investigation. These men were François E. Matthes and Frank C. Calkins. The former was to study especially the history of the development of the Yosemite Valley; the latter to study the different types of rock. In the years that have elapsed, Matthes has carried his investigations over the entire Yosemite region and into the areas to north and south. Thus he has worked out quite definitely, back to its beginning, the story of the origin of the Yosemite and of the other valleys of the same type in the Sierra Nevada. His conclusions, published by the government, have stood the test of criticism by other members of his profession.
An extensive bibliography of the geology of Yosemite appears in A Bibliography of National Parks and Monuments West of the Mississippi River, Vol. I, 1941, pp. 95-106. The list of Matthes’ contributions to Yosemite literature is long. Probably the most significant and generally useful item is Geologic History of the Yosemite Valley. This is a thorough report on the author’s study and also contains a paper by Frank C. Calkins on the granitic rocks of the Yosemite region.
Indians provided the motive for the first penetration of the whites into Yosemite Valley, but the ethnology of the region received scant attention during the first years of contacts with the aborigines. Lafayette H. Bunnell, a member of the “discovery” party of 1851, has provided satisfying accounts of the primitive Ah-wah-nee-chees in the valley, and Galen Clark, who was intimately acquainted with members of the original band, recorded their history, customs, and traditions many years after his early contacts with them. In the early ’seventies, Stephen Powers gave to them the attention of a professional ethnologist, and Constance F. Gordon-Cumming studied them in the ’eighties.
In 1898, the Bureau of American Ethnology investigated the Indians of the Tuolumne country, and William H. Holmes published the findings. Samuel A. Barrett first published on the geography and dialects of the Miwok (of which the Yosemite Indians were a part) in 1908. Barrett’s work with the Miwok continued for many years, and he is credited with several important papers. Alfred L. Kroeber, a leading authority on California Indians, first published on the Miwok in 1907 and since has published extensively on the Ah-wah-nee-chees and all their neighbors. E. W. Gifford, who has been associated with both Barrett and Kroeber in the ethnological work of the University of California, has made important contributions to the published history and culture of the Miwok. His first paper on his work in the Yosemite region appeared in 1916. C. Hart Merriam devoted careful study to the myths, folk tales, and village sites of the Yosemite Indians early in the 1900’s, and his published accounts appeared in 1910 and 1917. Mrs. H. J. Taylor, working in Yosemite Valley, obtained much important data from one of the last members of the Yosemite band, Maria Lebrado, and since 1932 has published several significant items. In 1941, Elizabeth H. Godfrey, of the Yosemite Museum staff, compiled a popular summary of the work done on the Yosemites entitled, “Yosemite Indians Yesterday and Today,” Yosemite Nature Notes, 1941. The Yosemite Museum collections of objects and documents include valuable local Indian materials, which provide a most interesting and convincing story of the Ah-wah-nee-chees.
In the field of biology, the Yosemite forests attracted the first attention of scientists. Botanists generally agree that in the Big Tree, the sugar pine, the yellow pine (ponderosa and Jeffrey), the red and white firs, and the incense cedar of the Sierra is the finest and most remarkable group of conifers in the world. The Big Tree (Sequoia gigantea), of course, is the most phenomenal and claims first place, chronologically, in the scientific literature. In the number of workers concerned with it and in the quantity of their writings, the Big Tree also holds a respected place.
Among the early writers who dealt with the Big Tree groves of the present Yosemite National Park were Hutchings, Whitney, Asa Gray, Isaac N. Bromley, J. Otis Williams, Muir, Bunnell, and Clark. The latter was among the first to study the Sequoia groves of the Yosemite but he did not publish for nearly half a century after he made his first observations. Following the early announcements of the existence of the Tuolumne, Merced, and Mariposa groves, another group of botanists and semiprofessional workers concentrated upon the study of the Big Tree. Walter G. Marshall, Charles Palache, Paul Shoup, Julius Starke, George Dollar, and W. R. Dudley made their contributions at this time, and Muir redoubled his initial efforts. After the turn of the century, botanists and foresters in numbers concentrated upon the Big Tree. Their publications are too numerous to list, but special mention must be made of the work of Willis L. Jepson, George B. Sudworth, Ellsworth Huntington, James C. Shirley, L. F. Cook, and the continued inspired writing of Muir. The sequoia, oldest living thing, is now and always will be a fascinating subject for scientific and philosophical study. Until a thorough investigation of the ecology of a grove of giant sequoias has been made and its result published, there remains a practical need for research in this realm.
Botanical studies other than investigations of the Big Tree were limited in the pioneer days to the work of John Muir. In the early 1900’s, Harvey M. and Carlotta C. Hall did important work in the present national park, and their published Works continue to be dependable guides for present-day botanists. Enid Michael, long a resident in Yosemite Valley, was untiring in her field studies, and her many published articles about the flora of the park are of importance to all investigators. Carl W. Sharsmith has studied intensively in the high mountain “gardens” of the park. Mary C. Tresidder published a very useful guide to the trees of the park in 1932. Emil F. Ernst has studied the forests and forest enemies in the park for many years. Willis L. Jepson’s work constitutes a substantial basis for all botanical studies in Yosemite as it is for other parts of the State, and the investigations of LeRoy Abrams, 1911, have been important to subsequent workers. The studies of George M. Wright, during his residence in the park in the 1920’s, resulted in significant papers on life zones in Yosemite and were the groundwork for the later important studies by him and his associates in founding and conducting broad biological surveys in the entire national park system—an undertaking briefly described later in this chapter.
The Yosemite fauna elicited no particular attention from pioneers other than James Capen Adams, who in 1854 captured grizzly bears for exhibit purposes, and John Muir, who applied himself to certain bird and mammal studies quite as enthusiastically as he did to botany and geology. In the opening years of the twentieth century, a few bird students, among them W. Otto Emerson, W. K. Fisher, Virginia Garland, C. A. Keeler, M. S. Ray, and O. Widman, published on their observations in the present park, but not until Joseph Grinnell initiated his publication program in 1911 did Yosemite zoölogy find reasonable representation in scientific journals. Grinnell and his staff from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoölogy of the University of California began formal field work in Yosemite in the fall of 1914 and continued through 1920 in making a complete survey of the vertebrate natural history of the region. Grinnell, Tracy I. Storer, Walter P. Taylor, Joseph Dixon, Charles L. Camp, Gordon F. Ferris, Charles D. Holliger, and Donald D. McLean participated in the work. The results of this survey, Grinnell and Storer’s Animal Life in the Yosemite, published by the University of California Press in 1924, constitutes an exhaustive and most useful reference on the subject. David Starr Jordan considered it the best original work on life histories published in the West. This study, like the geological work by Matthes, was endorsed and facilitated by the Sierra Club.
After the Museum of Vertebrate Zoölogy paved the way, wildlife studies in the park increased, and Yosemite found better representation in the biological literature. Most of the workers who had participated in Grinnell’s survey published extensively. Others who made notable contributions are Charles W. and Enid Michael, Barton W. Evermann, A. B. Howell, Vernon Bailey, J. M. Miller, John A. Comstock, E. O. Essig, and Edwin C. Van Dyke.
After 1920, when the National Park Service instituted a park-naturalist program in Yosemite, the regular and seasonal employees of the Naturalist Department made many contributions to the scientific knowledge of the park. Among the permanent park naturalists who conducted biological investigations are Ansel F. Hall, Carl P. Russell, George M. Wright, C. A. Harwell, C. C. Presnall, A. E. Borell, M. E. Beatty, James Cole, C. Frank Brockman, M. V. Walker, Harry Parker, and Russell Grater. D. D. McLean, who participated in the Grinnell Survey, also made further contributions as a regular employee of the Naturalist Department. Dr. H. C. Bryant, first as a seasonal employee and later as a regular member of the Director’s staff, published extensively on his studies in the park and was influential in starting many other workers on investigations of biological nature.
One important development in biological research in Yosemite had an influence on the wildlife program of the entire National Park Service. George M. Wright, ranger and Assistant Park Naturalist, during the late 1920’s sensed the dangers of the uncoördinated wildlife policy of the National Park Service and determined that there should be better administrative understanding of the normal biotic complex of Yosemite and all other national parks. In 1929, Wright was placed on a field status in order that he might organize a central unit of wildlife investigators to survey the wildlife problems of the National Park Service and recommend a broad Service-wide policy of wildlife management. Joseph S. Dixon and Ben W. Thompson were employed by Wright to assist him in this undertaking. Their work during the next several years was conducted from headquarters in Berkeley, California, and from Washington, D. C. It demonstrated that a Wildlife Division was an important administrative adjunct in the Director’s organization. In 1936, Wright lost his life while in the course of his significant work. Such progress had been made in establishing policy and procedure that the program persisted. It holds a strategic place in the regular administrative set-up of the Director’s office and reaches all field areas with its guidance.
The bibliography of scientific work done in Yosemite National Park since World War I is too extensive to be included here. A goodly part of it is contained in A Bibliography of National Parks and Monuments West of the Mississippi River. References to research projects published since the appearance of that bibliography appear in the publications of the Yosemite Natural History Association, particularly the monthly journal, Yosemite Nature Notes. Especially significant items dealing with wildlife policy and trends in park management are included in the references appended to the present volume. In brief, it may be said that the wildlife problems of Yosemite National Park are now fairly well defined and that administrative and technical practices are so aligned as to assure preservation of the faunal and floral characteristics of the reservation within the concept of “public enjoyment and use” of today and tomorrow. As Director of the National Park Service, Newton B. Drury has said, “It is national park policy to display wildlife in a natural manner. The normal habits of animals are interfered with as little as possible, and artificial management is refrained from except for protective purposes and then only as a last resort. The pauperizing or domestication of the native animals is avoided, as is also the herding or feeding of these animals to provide ‘shows.’ Under this policy the park is a wildlife refuge but it is neither a circus or a zoo.”
The wildlife of Yosemite, like its forests and wildflower displays, its renowned cliffs and waterfalls, its glacial pavements, its meadows and valleys, and its spectacular mountaintops, has enthralled its lay visitors quite as it has galvanized the scientist and technician. When Stephen T. Mather assumed the directorship of the national parks in 1916, he determined at the outset to provide park visitors with the information on the natural and historic features which they wanted. Educational endeavors were made a part of his projected program even before a staff had been organized. Surveys of outdoor educational methods and nature teaching as practiced in several European countries had been made in 1915 by C. M. Goethe, and his reports of the success of this work had inspired a few Americans to establish similar educational work in the United States. The California Fish and Game Commission in 1918 sent its educational director, Dr. Harold C. Bryant, into the Sierra to reach vacationists with the message of the conservationist. Yosemite National Park and the playground areas about Lake Tahoe witnessed the introduction of “nature guiding” several years prior to the inclusion of the work in the broad field program of the National Park Service.
In 1920, Mr. Mather and some of his friends joined in supporting this nature teaching in Yosemite, and Dr. Bryant and Dr. Loye Holmes Miller were employed to lay the foundation of what has continued to be an important part of the program of the Branch of Natural History.
A personal letter from Dr. Miller, University of California, Los Angeles, provides a firsthand account of his pioneering in interpretive work in Yosemite:
I think John Muir was the first Yosemite guide (see A Son of the Wilderness, by L. M. Wolfe). We smaller folk could only strive to emulate. My first experience in the valley involved a six-week period during the summer of 1917 under private auspices. Professor M. L. Maclellan (geology) and I (biology) held a summer school for public school teachers who were largely from Long Beach, California. The work consisted of lectures and field trips about the valley floor and the trails to the rim and to Merced Lake.
During the summer of 1919 I was doing similar work at Tahoe when Mr. Stephen T. Mather came through on a flying trip. He asked me to confer with him on the subject of Nature Guide work in Yosemite and urged me to come at once to the valley and begin the work there. It was late in the season and I had spent most of my free time for the year. Furthermore, it seemed to me that there should be some preparation made for the work, including a measure of publicity in the park guidebooks. I therefore urged Mr. Mather to wait until 1920 for the inauguration of an official Nature Guide service. He agreed and we parted with a definite plan for 1920.
In the meantime Mr. C. M. Goethe of Sacramento had become interested in the movement and had engaged Dr. H. C. Bryant in a tour of certain summer camps. I also urged the appointment of Dr. Bryant for the Yosemite work in 1920. My University schedule was such that Dr. Bryant was able to report earlier than I. He therefore gave the first official work in the valley. We coöperated in it after my arrival. I knew that I could not devote many summers to the service because of other duties as an officer of the University. Furthermore, it seemed to me that Dr. Bryant was just the man to carry on to a larger field of development. I therefore urged repeatedly that he make a full-time activity of the movement. This end was ultimately realized. Bryant made all the official reports of our work (with my endorsement). Those reports are in the files of the Superintendent’s office in the park.
During the month of January, 1921, Dr. Bryant and I gave our services to the cause in an extended lecture tour through the eastern and middle western states. This effort was underwritten personally by Mr. Mather. The purpose and theme in this series was to publicize and stimulate interest in the natural history values of the park and the appreciation of nature through an increased knowledge and understanding.
I returned to Yosemite in the summer of 1921—again in coöperation with Dr. Bryant. The movement seemed to be well on its feet so I withdrew at the end of that summer. We were appointed as temporary rangers with duties informally defined. Each morning a field trip was conducted by one or the other of us alternately, the alternate holding office hours for questions by visitors. (Questions averaged 45 to the hour). In the afternoon a children’s field class was held. In the evening we alternated with talks at Camp Curry and the “Old Village” near Sentinel Bridge. They were busy days but interest was good. Week ends were devoted to overnight trips by one or the other of us.
At the urgent request of Mr. Ansel Hall I initiated the same type of work at Crater Lake Park, Oregon, in 1926 and continued it in 1927. My son, Alden Miller, was associated with me and two students, Miss Leigh Marian Larson and Miss Ruth Randall, acted as volunteers in charge of wildflower display. Reports of this work should be in the Crater Lake files. During the summer we were visited by Mr. Mather, by Dr. John C. Merriam, and by Mr. John D. Rockefeller and family. The interest of these men was immediate and finally bore material fruit in improvement of Crater Lake Park and the whole Nature Guide movement in America. Just as had been the case at Yosemite, we were appointed as rangers. My duties at Crater Lake included nature guiding, directing traffic, comforting crying babies, rounding up stray dogs, and a wild drive down the mountain to Medford Hospital with a writhing appendicitis patient and his distracted wife in the rear seat.
I have not been officially connected with the work since but have sent many graduate students to the Yosemite Field School with what I hope was the right point of view. My own retirement at 70 years leaves me out of the picture except in an advisory capacity. Just last week in conference with my associates here, I urged Park Naturalist activity as one of the public services for which our department should train young men. So you see that my interests are still with the movement. It is a field of infinite horizon. Sincerely yours, Loye Miller
March 18, 1946.
Dr. H. C. Bryant, the coworker referred to by Dr. Miller, became Assistant Director of the National Park Service in charge of interpretive work for all national parks. To Dr. Miller’s statement may be added Bryant’s words about interpretive work:
In the spring of 1921, through a coöperative arrangement with the California Fish and Game Commission, the National Park Service instituted a free nature-guide service in Yosemite. The aim of this service was to furnish useful information regarding trees, wildflowers, birds, and mammals, and their conservation, and to stimulate interest in the scientific interpretation of natural phenomena. The means used to attain this aim were: trips afield; formal lectures, illustrated with lantern slides or motion pictures; ten-minute campfire talks, given alternately at the main resorts of the park; a stated office hour when questions regarding the natural history of the park could be answered; a library of dependable reference works, and a flower show where the commoner wildflowers, properly labeled, were displayed. Occasionally, visiting scientists helped by giving lectures.
About this same time, a Yosemite ranger, Ansel F. Hall, conceived the idea of establishing a Yosemite museum to serve as a public contact center and general headquarters for the interpretive program. Superintendent W. B. Lewis endorsed the plan, and the old Chris Jorgenson artists’ studio was made into a temporary museum; Hall was placed in charge as permanent educational officer. The same year found a museum program under way in Yellowstone National Park, where Milton P. Skinner was made park naturalist, and in Mesa Verde National Park, where Superintendent Jesse Nusbaum organized a museum to care for the archeological treasures brought to light among the ruins of prehistoric man’s abode. Glacier, Grand Canyon, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia, and Zion quickly organized educational programs similar to those established by Yosemite and Yellowstone, and in 1923 Hall, with headquarters in Berkeley, was designated to coördinate and direct the interpretive work in all parks. Working with Dr. Frank R. Oastler, Hall in 1924 organized a comprehensive plan of educational activities and defined the objectives of the naturalist group.
In 1924, C. J. Hamlin was president of the American Association of Museums. The opportunities opened by national park museums were called to his attention by Hall, and the American Association of Museums immediately investigated the possibilities of launching adequate museum programs in the parks. In response to recommendations made by the Association and the National Park Service, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial made funds available with which to construct a fireproof museum in Yosemite National Park. This, one of the first permanent national park museums, became the natural center around which revolves the educational program in Yosemite. Even before the Yosemite museum installations had been opened to the public, demonstration of the effectiveness of the institution as headquarters for the educational staff and visiting scientists convinced leaders in the American Association of Museums that further effort should be made to establish a general program of museum work in national parks. Additional funds were obtained from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and new museums were built in Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national parks. Dr. Herman C. Bumpus, who had guided the museum planning and construction in Yosemite, continued as the administrator representing the association and Rockefeller interests, and Herbert Maier was architect and field superintendent on the construction projects. It was Dr. Bumpus who originated the “focal-point museum” idea.
When the museums of Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone had demonstrated their value to visitors and staff alike, they were accepted somewhat as models for future work, and upon the strength of their success, the Service found it possible to obtain regular government appropriations with which to build several additional museums in national parks and monuments. When P.W.A. funds became available, further impetus was given to the museum program, and a Museum Division of the Service was established in 1935, embracing historic areas of the East as well as the scenic national parks. It was my privilege to serve as the first head of this unit. The work of the Museum Division has expanded until there are more than one hundred small national park and monument museums and historic-house museums; more are planned for the future.
In order to stimulate balanced development of interpretive programs, Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior, appointed a committee of educators under the chairmanship of Dr. John C. Merriam to study the broad educational possibilities in national parks (see Wilbur, 1929). In 1929, this committee recommended that an educational branch, with headquarters in Washington, be established in the Service. It was further recommended that the committee continue to function on a permanent basis as an advisory body, “whose duty it shall be to advise the Director of National Parks on matters pertinent to educational policy and developments.”