Stories

The granite cliffs and domes of Yosemite have been witness to human lives for thousands of years. The landscape itself inspired and influenced the events that occurred over time. Yosemite has been a home, a battleground of human conflict and ideas, a destination, a place of recovery, and more.

Exploring these stories gives us new insight into what has made Yosemite National Park into the place it is today.

 

• 

  Buffalo Soldiers
• 

  The Ahwahnee Naval Hospital
• 

  Mission 66 in Yosemite

 

Cultural History of Yosemite

 

Even after violent invasions and removal of American Indians, many survivors stayed in the area, adapting and taking on work such as making decorative baskets to sell to tourists. Members of the seven traditionally associated tribes continue to live in the area today.

Early Human Presence in Yosemite

People have lived in modern-day Yosemite National Park for at least 8,000 years. Little is known about these earliest inhabitants. Today and for the last several centuries, Yosemite is home to many tribes. Before its modern name, Yosemite Indians called Yosemite Valley “Ahwahnee,” meaning “gaping mouth-like place.” Numerous tribes gathered in Tuolumne Meadows in the summer to trade, take advantage of food sources, and escape the summer heat of the lowlands. Evidence suggests tribes seasonally occupied many areas across Yosemite such as the Hetch Hetchy Valley, Wawona, and Crane Flat.

1850s: Invasion, Settlement, and Early Tourism

The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought thousands of non-Indian miners to the Sierra Nevada. Many miners were ruthless in their search for gold, and thousands of Native people were killed by outsiders or died of starvation. Yosemite Valley was first entered by non-Indians in 1851 by the Mariposa Battalion, a state-sponsored militia. The battalion made two attempts to remove the Native people to the Fresno River Reservation, but those attempts, along with a U.S. Army punitive expedition in 1852, were ultimately unsuccessful in removing the Indian people from the Yosemite region.

As non-Indians began to settle in the Valley, some surviving Indians left Yosemite Valley, dispersing in nearby communities. Other Indians stayed close by and adapted, taking jobs as road laborers, guides, housekeepers, and artisans who sold goods to tourists.

Early Visitor Services in Yosemite Valley

Within a few years of the first outsiders entering Yosemite Valley and the displacement of its native residents, fortune seekers began to flock to the area. Most weren’t seeking gold, instead coming in search of riches, solitude, or both. James Hutchings, who later became one of Yosemite’s earliest European American residents, led the first known tourist party through Yosemite Valley in 1855.

In 1856, the Lower Hotel was the first lodging built for tourism in Yosemite Valley, offering extremely modest, barn-like accommodations. Enterprising new residents constructed bridges and operated ferries across the Merced River, charging travelers a fee to use them. Numerous non-Indian residents established pre-emption claims in Yosemite Valley, hoping to acquire land that had been dispossessed from American Indians. These residents planted orchards and grazed their stock in meadows, rapidly altering Yosemite Valley’s ecological, cultural, and scenic qualities.

 

Art plays a key role in Yosemite’s cultural history. Paintings and photography played a critical role in the original legislation that conferred protection for Yosemite. Creating and enjoying art of Yosemite continues to inspire visitors and conservationists today.

1860s to 1890s: The Yosemite Grant and Preservation for Public Enjoyment

In the mid-19^th century, the concept of a national park did not yet exist. Nevertheless, early conservationists believed that Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias needed formal protection to prevent these remarkable landscapes from being destroyed by commercial interests.

Advocates including steamship Captain Israel Ward Raymond and Senator John Conness worked to persuade Congress to enact these protections. At the same time, journalists and artists played a key role in conveying the grandeur of Yosemite to a broader national audience. The groundswell of advocacy proved successful when President Abraham Lincoln signed an act protecting the Yosemite Grant in 1864. This watershed legislation granted to the State of California Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias under the condition they remain protected for public enjoyment—the first time the US government protected public land for its scenic value.

Shortly after, the newly established board of commissioners for the Yosemite Grant designated Galen Clark, another early advocate of the Yosemite Grant, to be the park’s first formally appointed guardian. Clark served several non-consecutive terms, helping to protect the park for over twenty years.

Tourism Expands in Yosemite Valley and Beyond

The enactment of the Yosemite Grant sealed Yosemite’s fate as a tourist destination. Local entrepreneurs quickly caught on to the opportunity, expanding visitor services quickly.In the early days of Yosemite tourism, reaching Yosemite Valley required a grueling, multi-day journey on horseback. To make the journey faster and more comfortable, local businessmen funded the development of stage roads, though even this improvement in travel remained very dusty and dangerous. The journey required highly skilled reinsman such as the acclaimed driver George Monroe to safely carry visitors to their destination.

The first road to reach Yosemite Valley, the Coulterville Road, was completed in June 1874, followed by the Big Oak Flat Road just one month later. The Wawona Road opened to traffic in 1875 after Chinese laborers worked to complete the road through a harsh winter season. Later, the Yosemite Valley Railroad, completed in 1907, marked another leap forward in visitor access. These methods of travel were gradually rendered obsolete by the invention and widespread adoption of the automobile.

After stage roads reached Yosemite Valley, a bevy of hotels, restaurants, photography studios, and other services multiplied to serve the nascent tourist economy, often leading to bitter rivalries between concessioners. More modest levels of development reached other areas of modern-day Yosemite, such as artist Thomas Hill’s studio and the Wawona Hotel, both located near the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, another popular destination.

Some of Yosemite Valley’s earliest enterprises still operate today. Irish immigrant Bridget Degnan began baking and selling bread to residents and visitors in the 1880s. Degnan’s Kitchen remained family-owned until 1972 and continues to serve visitors today.

Former schoolteachers David and Jennie Curry founded Camp Curry in 1899, offering low-budget accommodations and activities to visitors. Their initially small operation of tent cabins in the east corner of Yosemite Valley grew considerably over the years and continues as Curry Village today.

Numerous private interests identified the opportunity for trails to serve both practical and sightseeing purposes. Among them, John Conway designed and constructed several of the park’s earliest tourist trails in the late 19^th century, including the Yosemite Falls Trail, Chilnualna Falls trail, and the original Four Mile Trail.

 

Homesteaders Tom and Lizzie Hodgdon lived in this cabin in Aspen Valley. This cabin was built in 1879 by the Hodgdons’ neighbor Franklin Babcock and Chinese American cowboy Ah Hoy. Nearby Hodgdon Meadow was later named for this family. This cabin was later relocated to the Yosemite History Center.

Early Settlement and Resource Exploitation Outside Yosemite Valley

While the tourism economy burgeoned in Yosemite Valley, most of the land now encompassed by Yosemite National Park was not yet legally protected.

As outsiders and government authorities continued to disrupt American Indian ways of life and remove Indians to reservations, homesteaders and stockmen sought new uses for the land across the high country, mid-elevation meadows, and forests. Cattlemen and sheepmen led their animals to graze throughout many areas of modern-day Yosemite. Homesteaders often abandoned their claims relatively quickly due to the challenges of the remote, mountainous location. Tuolumne Meadows and the surrounding high country became particularly popular summer grazing destinations for sheepherders, many of whom were Basque.

In the 1880s, prospectors built mines in the high country, expecting to plunder the mountains for silver. To support these developing mines, crews of both Chinese and white laborers quickly built the Great Sierra Wagon Road across Yosemite’s high country. This road wound through the mountains along a similar route as present-day Tioga Road. A few years later, it became clear that these mines would not be profitable, and they were abandoned. Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, and his associates later acquired the road for $15,000 using their own funds. Congress accepted the title transfer of the road to the National Park Service in 1915.

 

Some early Yosemite visitors experienced perilous journeys over dusty roads on stages clinging to the side of steep slopes. This six-horse stage is shown traveling along Big Oak Flat Road.

1890s to 1910s: Yosemite Becomes a National Park

Early conservationists recognized that effective preservation of Yosemite Valley’s majestic cliffs and waterfalls necessitated protection of nearby areas as well. State Engineer William Hammond Hall first formally recommended protection of the watershed above Yosemite Valley in a report published after his 1881 visit to the area. John Muir became one of Yosemite’s most famous advocates, voicing his support for the expansion of Yosemite’s borders and designation as a national park. His and others’ activism led to U.S. Congress passing a bill designating Yosemite as the nation’s third national park in 1890. This legislation massively expanded the protected land, encompassing most of the upper reaches of the Merced River and Tuolumne River watersheds.

At that time, the National Park Service had not been established, and thus there was not yet consistent, unified administration of the nation’s small network of national parks. In the interim, the U.S. Army served as the guardians of the park. Many troops, including the all-Black regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers, patrolled on horseback, curbing unwanted and illegal activities in the park such as wildlife poaching, illegal grazing, wildfire, and theft.

Tensions between Conservation and Resource Exploitation

In 1905, Congress redrew the boundaries of Yosemite National Park once again. The new boundaries traced the upper basin of the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers along the park’s northern and eastern boundaries. However, this change significantly reduced Yosemite’s area compared to its 1890 boundaries, in part due to pressures from mining, logging, and grazing interests. In 1906, management of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove shifted from the State of California to the federal government.

The fight to protect Yosemite soon faced another battle. The City of San Francisco had long been seeking a new water supply for the city, eyeing the pristine mountain waters of the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley. The proposal to construct a dam and impound water within a national park set off fierce debate; Hetch Hetchy was a tangible manifestation of the competing values of preservation and use. Ultimately, Congress passed the Raker Act in 1913, authorizing construction of O’Shaughnessy Dam. Since its completion in 1923, the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir continues to provide drinking water and hydroelectric power for millions of residents in the San Francisco Bay Area today.

The Hetch Hetchy controversy laid bare that without robust, centralized bureaucratic backing, the nation’s growing national park system would remain vulnerable to competing interests. In 1916, Congress passed an act establishing the National Park Service.

 

The Ahwahnee, shown here under construction in the 1920s, was an experiment in architecture. In addition to its unusual Y-shaped massing for the rustic era, most of the building was made of fireproof materials like concrete and granite that was stained and textured to look like wood.

1910s to 1960s: Growth and Challenges in the Early Days of the National Park Service

Building the National Parks

In the early days of the National Park Service, park administrators went to work outfitting the parks with infrastructure sufficient to support visitation and administration. In the 1920s, new construction proliferated particularly quickly in Yosemite Valley.

The Rangers' Club, built in 1920 as a home for seasonal rangers, was the first structure built in the newly established National Park Service Rustic architecture style. Architects designed and built Yosemite Village and its nearby employee housing as a new hub of administration and visitor services. Yosemite concessioners built The Ahwahnee in 1927, a large, resort-style hotel intended to attract wealthy visitors.

When the economy plummeted into the Great Depression, the parks benefited from government labor programs, allowing park development to continue despite nationwide economic turmoil. In the 1930s and early 1940s, the Civilian Conservation Corps completed projects around Yosemite such as construction of the Arch Rock Entrance, Glacier Point overlook, Ostrander Ski Hut, and many more.

Wartime Impacts in Yosemite

This spree of park development came to a halt during World War II, when funding and visitation to all national parks dropped precipitously. For over two years, The Ahwahnee temporarily became a naval convalescent hospital where medical staff treated thousands of recovering soldiers. Across Yosemite, low budgets and chronic understaffing led to infrastructure falling into disrepair as years of war ticked by.

After the conclusion of World War II, nationwide economic prosperity and an appetite for modernizing made its way to the parks, revitalizing infrastructure and visitation after a years-long lull.

Mission 66

After World War II, President Dwight Eisenhower passed a bill funding Mission 66, an ambitious, billion-dollar project to revitalize facilities, infrastructure, and staffing in the national parks. As visitation rose rapidly, infrastructure and park staffing levels were in urgent need of modernization to meet the needs of the growing crowds.

Mission 66 funded dozens of projects throughout Yosemite, including new and revitalized campgrounds, new employee housing, modernized utilities infrastructure, reconstruction of key segments of Tioga Road and Big Oak Flat Road, and many others. Park concessioners also funded new, modern buildings during Mission 66, including Degnan’s Kitchen, the Village Store complex, and Yosemite Valley Lodge. Collectively, these efforts streamlined and improved visitor experiences through increased staffing, better roads, expanded accommodations, and more readily available park information.

 

Construction laborers at work on the new registration office at Yosemite Valley Lodge during Mission 66. Before this project, the lodging office was in an old building that had been converted from army barracks.

1960s to Modern Day: Post-War Revitalization and Cultural Movements

For much of its early history, Yosemite and other national parks were managed with a “people first” philosophy, meaning that the comfort, convenience, and enjoyment of park visitors was at the forefront of decision-making. Sometimes, this caused harm to the natural world, such as the killing of certain predators or the long-standing fire suppression policy.

The late 20^th century to the modern day have brought significant changes in park management practices to more ecologically sound practices. Scientific evidence and traditional knowledge now play a more important role in park management decisions. Visitation patterns and ways of experiencing Yosemite have changed, too.

New Frontiers in Outdoor Sport

In the mid-20^th century, rock climbing was not yet a mainstream sport. The walls of Yosemite became an incubator where new styles and best practices for climbing were born. Early climbers set their sights on Yosemite Valley, launching the sport into a period of rapid growth in culture, techniques, and athletic achievement. In the 1940s and ‘50s, prominent athletes such as John Salathé, Royal Robbins, and Warren Harding pioneered numerous first ascents of Yosemite Valley’s iconic big wall climbs, such as Sentinel Rock, Half Dome, and El Capitan.

Beginning in the 1950s and for several decades after, climbers camped in Camp 4 for long periods, often with little to no money or belongings, devoting their time and money to training and attempting new, difficult climbing routes and techniques. In 2003, Camp 4 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its significance in the development of modern rock climbing. Today, Yosemite’s towering granite walls remain an epicenter of rock climbing culture for both recreational and professional athletes.

 

Stoneman Meadow was once a popular gathering place for leisure and socializing. Later, this meadow was the scene of a violent altercation between park visitors and authorities.

Parks for All People

Much like the free-spirited rock climbers, the 1960s and 70s brought another new type of visitor to Yosemite: hippies and youth of the countercultural movement. Park officials initially viewed this type of visitor as disruptive and undesirable. On July 4, 1970, tensions erupted during the Stoneman Riot, where authorities stormed scenic Stoneman Meadow below Half Dome, a preferred social destination for youth, arresting hundreds of visitors. In the months following the riots, authorities continued to target young hippies, turning visitors away at entrance stations based on their appearance and sweeping campgrounds in the middle of the night to oust youth. Hippies and their allies pushed back, asserting their right to enjoy national parks peacefully. As negative press and public outcry mounted, National Park Service director George Hartzog intervened, replacing Yosemite’s superintendent and personally visiting the park to help solve the ongoing tensions. In the summer of 1971, a year after the explosive riots broke out, Yosemite authorities shifted their stance, establishing new campgrounds, policies, and even ranger programming to engage youth.

Amid the deep cultural divides of the 1970s, these painful moments of conflict on the Valley floor led Yosemite and the National Park Service to rethink its previously narrow approach, embracing the ever-changing needs and goals of increasingly diverse visitors.

Beginnings and Endings for Fire

The famous Camp Curry Firefall, a dazzling nightly display where workers pushed hot coals over Glacier Point after dark, ended in 1968. National Park Service director George Hartzog mandated the end of the long-standing tradition due to the unnatural nature of the attraction in addition to severe traffic congestion. The end of the Firefall was emblematic of the broader sea change in park management philosophies.

The role of fire in Yosemite changed in more profound ways shortly after. For thousands of years, lightning-caused wildfires burned freely, and Yosemite Indians actively managed the land by intentionally starting low-intensity fires. When European Americans violently removed Yosemite Indians and claimed administrative control over Yosemite, the newcomers implemented a major shift to total fire suppression. Despite being a fire-adapted ecosystem, fire suppression was the prevailing practice in Yosemite for over one hundred years, finally ending in the 1970s. The legacy of fire suppression caused significant alterations in habitat and vegetation of the area still evident today. Modern fire and forest management policies seek to restore the natural role of fire in maintaining healthy ecosystems in Yosemite.

Wildlife Management

Much of California was once part of grizzly bears’ native range, including Yosemite. The last known grizzly bear in the park was killed in 1895. Even though Yosemite was a national park at the time, regulations in that era did not mandate protection for wildlife; large predators were considered undesirable and large numbers of them were killed.

Biologists Joseph Grinnell and Tracy Storer performed some of the earliest wildlife surveys of Yosemite National Park in the 1910s, which they published in their book Animal Life in the Yosemite. Through their research, these visionary scientists emphasized the importance of managing national parks as wildlife refuges in addition to their mandate for public enjoyment. In the 1920s and 30s, Grinnell’s student George Meléndez Wright continued this legacy in his work in Yosemite, where he taught, wrote about the area’s natural history, and conducted wildlife surveys. Wright went on to help found the National Park Service’s Wildlife Division in 1934 and advocate for groundbreaking wildlife management policies in his seminal text, Fauna No. 1. Policies conferring protection to native wildlife took decades to change, in part due to the advocacy of these early wildlife biologists and followed by their ideological successor Aldo Starker Leopold in the 1960s.

Conflict between humans and the remaining large wildlife, especially black bears, has been a long-standing challenge, especially as Yosemite became an increasingly popular tourist destination. Practices like open garbage dumps and even bear-feeding shows in the early and mid-20^th century worsened matters. These human-bear conflicts led to the destruction of property and even human injuries. Improvements to human-bear management policies in Yosemite over more recent decades have led to massive decreases in human-bear conflicts, improving both human safety and wildlife welfare.

Many other animals have benefitted from modern conservation initiatives. After being extirpated from Yosemite in the 1940s, peregrine falcons began to make a comeback in the late 20^th century thanks to nationwide rehabilitation efforts. When peregrine falcons began returning to Yosemite’s cliffs, avid rock climbers partnered with wildlife biologists to monitor and protect these birds’ sensitive nest sites. This ongoing program has led to a remarkable recovery to the peregrine falcon population.

Today, rare wildlife such as wolverines and California condors are occasionally seen passing through the area. Even though not all species who visit make a home here, these non-human visitors find a temporary haven in Yosemite’s vast wilderness.

 

Overcrowding and traffic congestion has plagued Yosemite for decades. Scenes like this holiday weekend in 1975 spurred the creation of the 1980 General Management Plan.

Management Plans for Changing Needs

On the heels of Mission 66’s postwar modernization efforts, Yosemite administrators embarked on a long effort to create a general park management plan. With aging infrastructure, traffic congestion, and ever-growing visitation, park planning was becoming increasingly complex. After nearly a decade of planning and gathering input from tens of thousands of visitors, Yosemite National Park rolled out the 1980 General Management Plan. This documented outlined an ambitious plan to remove cars and non-essential administrative functions from Yosemite Valley.

While aspects of this plan were heavily modified or never fully came to fruition due to a host of obstacles, some key changes implemented from this plan include the free shuttle system in Yosemite Valley and the relocation of many utilities and administrative functions to El Portal, outside the park boundary, reclaiming valuable space in Yosemite Valley.

Alongside these changes, the 1980s also brought significant advancement in natural resource conservation. Parking lot construction plans were axed to protect habitat for the endangered great grey owl. Wildlife biologists reintroduced Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep to their native range in the park. Critically, the passage of the California Wilderness Act in 1984 designated 89% of the park as legally protected wilderness as defined in the Wilderness Act of 1964. This percentage has grown even higher through additional designations in the years since. Congressionally designated wilderness means that these areas will remain free from roads and most other human-made infrastructure or interference. This legislation protects the wildlife, vegetation, and watersheds that are vital to California’s ecosystems and human residents.

As both visitation patterns change and our understanding of our environment evolves, park management strategies continue to change to keep pace. Building on the work of the 1980 General Management Plan, the park created the Merced Wild and Scenic River Final Comprehensive Management Plan between 2000 and 2014. Likewise, the Tuolumne Wild and Scenic River Final Comprehensive Management Plan was developed between 2006 and 2014. Both plans were the result of lengthy collaborative processes involving tribal consultation, scientific data, substantial public input, and more. The management strategies in these plans seek to improve hydrologic function within the river corridors and improve scenic qualities of these invaluable watersheds.

Just like fire, rockfall, and weather cause Yosemite to change a little bit each day, so too does the human history of Yosemite continue to be written.