August 25, 2016: The National Park Service Turns 100

A Mirror of Us: Yosemite National Park

Yosemite Valley, Tunnel View, 2014

Courtesy of Alison Moore

In August 2009 my beloved and I were vacationing in San Francisco when suddenly I was presented with an idea . . . almost as if it was an order being given. . . . “Go to Yosemite National Park,” it said. Being from New Jersey, and never having been to California or a national park before, I had no idea what we were in for.

Tom Caverly, “Unexpected Amazement,” Inspiring Generations: 150 Years, 150 Stories in Yosemite (Yosemite Conservancy, 2014)

“Unexpected Amazement”

At Mirror Lake, Yosemite Valley, 1911

California Historical Society

This is the final blog in our series “A Mirror of Us: CHS Celebrates the National Park Service Centennial.” We chose to title our series “A Mirror of Us” for its slight play on words. The series began and now ends with the above photo of early tourists in Yosemite having their photo taken at Mirror Lake, a spectacular setting with selfie-like appeal. 

Mirror Lake, Yosemite

California Historical Society

“A Mirror of Us” also sought to show how the national parks have been a mirror of the times, environmentally, socially, and politically. No park came into being easily, and many presaged social and environmental battles that continue today. No park has been immune to issues affecting mainstream society.

In 1864 Yosemite was the first place to be set aside and preserved by the federal government when, at the height of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant. Later efforts by John Muir and others led to the park earning full National Park status on October 1, 1890. It didn’t take long for tourists to discover Yosemite—and the pilgrimage was on.

The creation of the park did not come without controversy, however. From its earliest days of discovery by Americans in the early 1850s, Yosemite was emblematic of the often tragic course of westward expansion, when its original native people, the Ahwahneechee, were driven out of Yosemite Valley to make way for American settlement.

Charles C. Pierce, Paiute Indian Acorn Granary, Yosemite National Park, c. 1901

California Historical Society

During the 1910s Yosemite became the site of one of the greatest environmental battles of all time—one that remains controversial today: the flooding of the park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley by the City of San Francisco.

Isaiah West Taber, View across Hetch Hetchy Valley before the O’Shaughnessy Dam, c. 1900

Sierra Club Bulletin 6, no. 4 (January 1908)

Hetch Hetchy Valley, 2002

Courtesy of Daniel Mayer

And later, in 1970, as the streets of the nation were erupting in protest, Stoneman Meadow in Yosemite Valley was the site of an all-out riot between young “hippies” and park police who differed in their opinions about what constituted appropriate ways of enjoying the valley’s sublime scenery.

Confrontation between Rangers and Hippies, July 4 weekend, 1970

Still from CBS News Archive film; courtesy of Kerry Tremain

No National Park exists in a vacuum.

It is a simple fact, though, that people have treasured Yosemite National Park since long before it obtained National Park status. To celebrate Yosemite, and the National Park Service Centennial, we share images of Yosemite National Park and memories of people simply and joyously celebrating there.

Two Women in Yosemite National Park, date unknown

California Historical Society 

  

My license plate in Kentucky reads: YOSMTE. It is my happy, soul-satisfying refuge from the world.

Ann Jones, “Working on Five Generations,” Inspiring Generations

Bridalveil Falls, 2014

Courtesy of Alison Moore

 As we approached the park, the landscape became more and more beautiful. I have never experienced anything quite like it. And once we entered the park I was blown away.

Tom Caverly, “Unexpected Amazement,” Inspiring Generations

 Panoramic View of Tourists, Yosemite National Park, c. 1917

California Historical Society

Half Dome, Evening, 2014

Courtesy of Alison Moore

Half Dome is more a beloved friend than a granite monolith keeping watch over the Valley. One year I climbed up his back just to see from his point of view. Yosemite is a place more dear than Grandma’s house . . . . I simply need it to stay alive.

Rebecca Waddell, “The Day I Discovered Ashes,” from Inspiring Generations

Yosemite Visitors atop Glacier Point, date unknown

California Historical Society

Tuolumne River, Tuolumne Meadows, 2014

Courtesy of Alison Moore

The air in the high mountains is so clean, and the trees, grass, birds and flowers are fascinating beyond description . . . . Beautiful flowers bloom in a stream of icy water. I feel only gratitude. I want to bring you and our friends here, and I will.

Chiura Obata to Haruko Obata, 1927, from Obata’s Yosemite

Yosemite Indian Squaw, 107 Years Old, date unknown

California Historical Society

 After a few months of living in Yosemite I decided I never wanted to leave. I met a Yosemite Indian woman, an Ahwahneechee who was a direct descendant of Chief Tenaya. We married and had two children. We all love Yosemite. It is a park of our culture, our ceremonies . . . . We are fighting to protect and preserve it for the future of humanity. Ah Ho. All my relations.

Tom Vasquez, “Yosemitebear,” Inspiring Generations

Bridal Couple, 2014

Courtesy of Alison Moore

Group of Women at Camp Curry, Yosemite National Park, date unknown

California Historical Society

 I live in Yosemite . . . . It’s not that I am ashamed. No, quite the contrary—I am proud to call Yosemite my home. However, you drop the Y-bomb, and suddenly the pleasant vapidity of get-to-know-you banter veers down an ever-predictable and utterly confounding path.

“Wow.”  (The first word of response is always “wow.”) …”What’s that like?”

Amazing, drop-dead amazing.

Katie Wallace, “Where Are You From?,” Inspiring Generations

Happy Tourist, 2014

Courtesy of Alison Moore

Alison Moore

Strategic Initiatives Liaison

amoore@calhist.org

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Read more in the Mirror of Us: CHS Celebrates the National Park Service Centennial series:

Death Valley National Park; http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-mirror-of-uschalliss-gore.html

Joshua Tree National Park; http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-national.html

Pinnacles National Park, http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-national.html

Lassen Volcanic National Park, http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-nps-and.html

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-nps-and.html

Redwood National and State Parks

http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-national.html

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Learn more about the NPS Centennial Initiative

http://www.nps.gov/nava/learn/management/centennial-initiative-2016.htm

A Mirror of Us: CHS Celebrates the National Park Service Centennial

Redwood National and State Parks   

Coast Redwoods and Fog, Redwood National and State Parks 

Courtesy National Park Service 

From Redwood National Park in the north to Joshua Tree in the south, California’s parks are as varied and diverse as the population of the Golden State itself. The oldest, Yosemite, was established in 1890; the youngest, Pinnacles, graduated from monument to park just three years ago, on January 10, 2013. Each California park has its own kind of beauty and all are a reflection of the society into which they were born—a reflection of us. With this offering in the “Mirror of Us” series, the California Historical Society celebrates Redwood National and State Parks.

Bowing to Sovereigns

Boy (foreground) amidst Grove of Giant Redwood Trees, Humboldt County  

Historical Society; photo Redwood Empire Association 

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time. 

—John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America, 1962 

Redwood National and State Parks in northwestern California is unique among the state’s National Parks. As its name implies, it is a National Park comprised of three State Parks: Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in Humboldt County, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, both in Del Norte County.  

Humboldt County Brochure 

California Historical Society 

With the National Park designation, these three formerly distinct parks now form one contiguous unit, which runs from just south of the Oregon border down Highway 101 for approximately 60 miles. It is jointly managed by the National Park Service and the California Department of Parks and Recreation. 

All three State Parks were created in the 1920s as concern grew among Californians about the loss of original Redwood forests due to logging. Beginning in the 1850s with the Gold Rush, the immediate and tremendous need for quality lumber and the relative accessibility of these forests made them good candidates for the burgeoning lumber industry. By the time Redwood National Park was created in 1968, it is estimated that 90 percent of original growth redwoods had been cut down for timber. 

Redwood Loggings, Scotia, California, before 1918 

Courtesy Save the Redwoods, www.savetheredwoods.org  

A pivotal actor in early efforts to save the trees was the San Francisco-based organization, Save the Redwoods League. Encouraged by National Park Service head Stephen Mather, conservationists John C. Merriam, Madison Grant, and Henry Fairfield Osborn first explored the state of the redwood forests in 1917.  

(Left to right) John C. Merriam, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Stephen Mathers, and Madison Grant 

Composite of Public Domain Images

Based on their concern about what they encountered, including automobile traffic on the Redwood Highway, they formed the League in 1918.

Coast Redwoods Dwarf Cars along the Redwood Highway before 1918 

Courtesy savetheredwoods.org; photo by H.C. Tibbitts 

Members of the Women’s Save the Redwoods League, 1919 

Courtesy, savetheredwoods.org 

During the 1920s the League raised funds—then matched by the state—to begin purchasing tracts of land to be set aside as State Parks. Prairie Creek Redwoods gained State Park designation in 1923, followed by Del Norte in 1925 and Jedediah Smith in 1929. Efforts began early to create a National Park, but that would not come to pass for many years. In the meantime, the League purchased a total of 100,000 acres between 1920 and 1960, and at the birth of the National Park—signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on October 2, 1968—the new National Park included 58,000 acres beyond those of the original State Parks.  

Although the League was successful in setting aside significant groves of trees early on, over time an increase in understanding of the entire forest ecosystem has led to the inclusion of non-forest areas, including parts of the Pacific coastline, rivers, streams, estuaries, meadows, and prairies. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter added an additional 48,000 acres to the park. 

 

Cow Parsnip on Yurok Loop Trail, Redwood National and State Parks 

Courtesy National Park Service 

It goes without saying that redwood forests inspire a near-religious awe in those who visit them. In addition to noted authors like John Steinbeck and John Muir, countless others have also been inspired by the redwood landscape. 

One notable exception to the legions of the awestruck was Ronald Reagan, who is often reported to have said about the trees, “If you’ve seen one redwood tree you’ve seen them all.” Reagan’s actual words, spoken as a gubernatorial candidate to a wood products association in March 1966, were:  

I think, too, that we've got to recognize that where the preservation of a natural resource like the redwoods is concerned, that there is a common sense limit. I mean, if you've looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees—you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at? 

The Big Tree, Redwood Highway 

© Patterson; California Historical Society 

Apparently however, a redwood may not just be any old tree. In 2016—fifty years after Reagan’s comments—a new benefit to preserving California’s redwoods has been discovered. According to researchers from Humboldt State University and UC Berkeley, with the assistance of the Save the Redwoods League, redwood trees are champions at combatting global warming. Because of their massive size and long lives, through photosynthesis they are able to absorb far larger quantities of carbon than any other known forests.   

Visiting the redwoods in 1962 John Steinbeck wrote, “One feels the need to bow to unquestioned sovereigns.” As it turns out, places like Redwood National Park may hold even greater powers than Steinbeck could ever have imagined.  

Sunset on Rocky Coast, Redwood National and State Parks 

Courtesy National Park Service 

Alison Moore 

Strategic Initiatives Liaison 

amoore@calhist.org 

Sources 

David Mikkelson, “If You’ve Seen One Tree..."; http://www.snopes.com/quotes/reagan/redwoods.asp  

National Park Service/Department of Parks and Recreation, Redwood National and State Parks; 

https://www.nps.gov/redw/index.htm 

Redwood National and State Parks; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_National_and_State_Parks 

Redwood National and State Parks: Official Map and Guide (U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service/Department of Parks and Recreation, State of California, 2001) 

Paul Rogers, “Are California Redwood Trees the Answer to Global Warming?” Mercury News, July 6, 2016; http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_30094332/weapon-against-global-warming-california-redwoods-store-more 

Save the Redwoods League; http://www.savetheredwoods.org/ 

John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America (New York: Curtis Publishing, 1962) 

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Read more in our series A Mirror of Us: CHS Celebrates the National Park Service Centennial:

Death Valley National Park; http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-mirror-of-uschalliss-gore.html

Joshua Tree National Park; http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-national.html

Pinnacles National Park, http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-national.html

Lassen Volcanic National Park, http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-nps-and.html

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-nps-and.html

Redwood National and State Parks, http://californiahistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-mirror-of-us-chs-celebrates-nps-and.html  

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Today the National Park Service cares for 409 park sites spread over more than 84 million acres (131,250-plus square miles) in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.

Learn more about the NPS Centennial Initiative

http://www.nps.gov/nava/learn/management/centennial-initiative-2016.htm