Lodging

A two story wood building with porches on both levels. Two men sit on chairs on the porch. — Leidig's Hotel in the late 1800s

Staying overnight in a national park has been a transformative experience for millions of people. Whether unrolling a sleeping bag under the stars or staying in a historic resort, travelers find peace and rejuvenation here. For early visitors, staying overnight was necessary due to the length and difficulty of the journey. Many people today find accommodation in nearby communities even if not staying within park boundaries. Even with the ease of modern travel, the national park offers many experiences that just can’t fit in a single day. Lodging has changed greatly over the years, adapting to the changing needs and styles of their guests.

In 1856, four miners began building a “stopping place” in view of the ‘High Falls’ in Yosemite Valley. Known as the Lower Hotel, the rough building offered travelers whiskey, gambling, and limited accommodations.

“I secured a bed, such as it was, for my wife, in a rough board shanty occupied by a family that had arrived a few days before to keep a sort of tavern, the woman being the only one within fifty or sixty miles of the place. For myself, a bed of shavings and a blanket under the branches of some trees formed my resting place.” –Yosemite visitor, 1858

Over the next several years, successive owners expanded the hotel and built a ferry, garnering enthusiastic reports from regional newspapers. The building itself remained a thin barricade between their guests and the "wilderness.”

“Our bedroom…consisted of a quarter of a shed screened off by split planks, which rose about eight or ten feet from the ground, and enabled us to hear everything that went on in the other ‘rooms,’ which were simply stalls in the same shed. Ours had no window, but we could see the stars through the roof. The door, opening out into the forest, was fastened with cow-hinges of skin with the hair on, and a little leather strap which hooked on to a nail…” –Yosemite visitor, 1860

The buildings were rough. Still, travelers were captivated by not just the surrounding natural beauty, but also the stories and expertise of their hosts. Although the expense and difficulty of the journey prevented most people from visiting themselves, artists and newspaper articles publicized the virtues of the natural landscape and the developing accommodations. To them, California and Yosemite presented new opportunities for the growing country.

“The hall upstairs is not finished off into chambers, but has spaces of eight feet square divided by cotton screens, within which beds without sheets are laid upon the bare floor. There are two rooms below which have beds on posts, and furniture for ladies. But what care we for rooms and furniture, when the windows are open, and we look out upon that opposite wall and the marvelous cascade, whose glorious music floods the air?

“’Mr. Peck, can you give us a broiled chicken, some bread and butter, and a cup of tea with fresh milk and cream?’ Clover grows six feet tall on the Yo-Semite meadows, but landlord Peck replies, ‘Gentlemen, I have no milk, for I do not keep a cow. There is no butter in the house, and chickens were never seen here.’ … Among those wilds of the Sierra we had on the table oysters and lobster from New York, with a bottle of Boston pickles. And the shellfish were cooked for us by a Chinaman! The crustaces finding their way from the Atlantic, and the cook from the Pacific, to that magnificent glen so lately the undisturbed camp of the grizzlies. Is it not a sign of the Union which California is destined yet to celebrate between the remote East and West?”– Thomas Starr King, Boston Evening Transcript, 1861.