Wawona’s Yesterdays (1961) by Shirley Sargent

- Cover [image]

- Title Page

- Foreword

- Contents

- Map of Wawona and Vicinity

- A Short History of Yosemite National Park

- Wawona’s First Settler

- The Washburns

- Homesteaders

- Indians

- Camp A. E. Wood

- Arboretum

- Roads and Trails

- Stages and Drivers

- Culture

- “Pike”

- Steve Cunningham

- Thomas Hill

- Famous Visitors

- First Ranger

- Stella Lake

- Logging

- CCC Camp

- Camp Hoyle

- Wildlife

- The Cemetery

- Chilnualna Falls

- Pioneer Yosemite History Center

- Sources

- Bibliography

- Index

- Photo Credits

- Chronology

- Back Cover

About the Author

Shirley Sargent was born July 12, 1927 in Pasadena, California. Her father, jobless because of the Depression, moved to Yosemite in 1936 to work as a surveyor helping rebuild the Tioga Road. So she had the good fortune of spending her childhood as a self-described “tomboy” in Yosemite. A rare crippling disease kept her to a wheelchair from age 14, but that didn’t stop her. Sargent received a AA from Pasadena City College in 1947 and worked as a nursery school teacher in Pasadena. In 1961 she moved to Foresta, near Yosemite Valley.

After writing Wawona’s Yesterdays, Sargent went on to write several other Yosemite History books, focusing on stories about people—making them come alive. Her most authoritative book is Galen Clark: Yosemite Guardian. Shirley self-published most of her books, with printer and historian Hank Johnson, under the name Flying Spur Press, and later under her own imprint Ponderosa Press. Other popular books of hers include Pioneers in Petticoats, John Muir in Yosemite National Park, Yosemite & Its Innkeepers, and Yosemite Chapel 1879-1989.

In 1961 she bought and built on Theodore Solomon’s homesite in Foresta, which had only a fireplace surviving from a 1936 fire. She called her home Flying Spur, but it burned in the 1990 A-Rock Fire, which also destroyed her historical papers. She rebuilt her home, but before her death she had to move to her parents’ old home in Mariposa, due to her illness. She died at her home in Mariposa, California December 3, 2004.

- Fernando Peñalosa, “In Memoriam: Shirley Sargent, Yosemite Historian,” Yosemite 67:1, pp. 6-7 (Winter 2005).

- Obituary, Fresno Bee, December 7, 2004.

- Obituary, Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2004.

- Obituary, New York Times, December 13, 2004.

Bibliographical Information

Shirley Sargent (1927 - 2004), Wawona’s Yesterdays (Yosemite: Yosemite Natural History Association, 1961). First published as Yosemite 40(4) (November 30, 1961), pp. 64 - 105. 48 pages. Illustrated. 24 cm. Paper wrappers. Saddle stitched.

Digitized by Dan Anderson, April 2005, from a personal copy. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose, provided this notice is left intact.
—Dan Anderson, www.yosemite.ca.us

COVER — Wawona Hotel about 1908

In cooperation with the National Park Service.

Yosemite Volume 40, Number 4, November 30, 1961

Yosemite is published by the Yosemite Natural History Association, Inc, in cooperation with tbe Naturalist Division, Yosemite National Park, John C. Preston, Superinterintendent; Douglass H. Hubbard, Chief Park Naturalist. Subscriptions are to be discontinued with Vol. 40, No. 16. Price of back issues upon request. The comments of this publication are not official in nature and do not necessarily reflect policy of the National Park Service. Address all correspondence to Editor, Yosemite, Box 545, Yosemite National Park, California.

WAWONA’S
YESTERDAYS

by
SHIRLEY SARGENT

Copyright 1961
by
Yosemite Natural History Association

FOREWORD

For years, I have driven by Wawona on frequent trips to Yosemite Valley, Big Meadows and Tuolumne Meadows with only brief, passing twinges of curiosity. In 1960, I began asking questions of Yosemite old-timers and learned that, in the stagecoach days which ended in 1916, Wawona was almost as remote and unknown to them as Bankok.

I began reading then, and in the literally hundreds of books, articles and pamphlets on Yosemite, few words were devoted to “Bankok” — adjectives and verbage from the 1850’s to date were spent prodigally on Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. Wawona was just an overnight stop. Just? I was challenged and began a quest for information by prowling around Wawona, interviewing residents, writing old-timers, consulting official records, tape recordings, newspapers and written manuscripts, finding photographs, letters, and poems.

The results of this quest were a fascinating hodge-podge of history, anecdote and colorful personalities which I have sorted, sifted and set down in this history. There are omissions — possible errors — that may cause someone to bring in further, relevant data on Yosemite’s Bangkok Wawona. The present study deals primarily with the period 1851 to 1932. I hope that a later writer will complete and expand the story.

Usually, a research writer is imagined as a lonely figure slumped et a table in a library, museum or courthouse reading books, newspapers, ledgers, manuscripts, letters — random words in elusive search of a few pertinent ones. For me, this picture hasn’t been completely true. There have been friendly people to suggest sources, find old photos, answer questions and give me encouragement.

My special thanks go to Ruth Glass, Doug Hubbard and Keith Trexler of the Yosemite Museum; Mary Isabel Fry, Rita Thurman and Carey Bliss of the Huntington Library; Ruth Allen of the Pasadena Public Library; Bertha Schroeder, Mariposa researcher; Yvonne Robinson Solomons, Mary and Bill Hood, fellow Yosemite devotees; Carl P. Russell, Yosemite historian; Virginia Alexander, typist extraordinary; Tim Smith, young mapmaker, and Laurence Degnan, Hattie Bruce Harris, Jay C. Bruce and Clarence Washburn, Yosemite settlers.

S. S.

CONTENTS

Map

82-83

Foreword

66

A Short History of Yosemite National Park

64

Wawona’s First Settler

62

The Washburns

69

Homesteaders

73

Indians

75

Camp A.E. Wood

76

Arboretum

78

Roads & Trails

79

Stages & Drivers

81

Culture

84

“Pike”

85

Steve Cunningham

88

Thomas Hill

89

Famous Visitors

91

First Ranger

92

Stella Lake

93

Logging

94

CCC Camp

95

Camp Hoyle

96

Wildlife

96

The Cemetery

97

Chilnualna Falls

98

Pioneer Yosemite History Center

99

Sources

100

Photo Credits

104

Bibliography

101

Index

102

Chronology

105

Wawona and Vicinity

[Credit: N.P.S. (from an original map by Y. R. Solomons).]

A Short History of YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

THE FRAMEWORK

A Short History of
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

Yosemite Falls

Until recently, the established date for the discovery of Yosemite Valley by the Mariposa Battalion was March 25, 1851. This group, in angry pursuit of marauding Indians, included Dr. Lafayette Bunnell, who chose the name Yosemite for the then unknown wonder. A diary kept by Pvt. Robert Eccleston of the Battalion re-established the discovery date as March 27, 1851, [1] but even that has been replaced significantly bye date two years earlier found in the diary of William Penn Abrams, a gold-seeker.

Sometime between October 7 and 17, 1849, Abrams, with his friend, U. N. Reamer, first saw Yosemite Valley, probably from a spot near the old Inspiration Point. The two men, working out from the Savage trading post on the South Fork of the Merced, were tracking a grizzly, became lost and, abruptly, came upon the stupendous sight of Bridalveil Foil, Cathedral Racks and Half Dome, which they called "The Rock of Ages.”

Evidently, their discovery was recorded in Abrams’ diary [2], and not with any notable impression upon others, because the 1851 date has been widely recognized as the first sighting of the Valley; although historians quarrel endlessly as to whether the Walker party looked down into it in their 1833 crossing of the Sierra.

Dates and disputes aside, Yosemite Valley with its magnificent granite cliffs and domes, grassy meadows and adjective deserving waterfalls received scant attention until James Hutchings visited it in 1855 and began to write and speak of its wonders in true Chamber of Commerce style.

Attracted by his rhapsodic descriptions, rugged visitors came on foot and horseback. They stopped overnight at Clark’s Station (Wawona) which, travel-wise, was about halfway from Mariposa on the only trail into the Valley from the south.

By 1864, the Valley’s unique grandeur and that of the sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, became a public trust of the State of California. From 1864 to 1905, these two valuable areas 35 miles apart and containing some 20,000 acres, were administered and protected as the Yosemite Grant — a California State Park. [3]

Galen Clark of Clark’s Station served as oble guardian of the Grant for thirteen years. One of his first and thorniest problems was to clear Yosemite Valley of the private holdings of James Hutchings and other pioneer homesteaders.

Thanks largely to the inspired and intelligent efforts of John Muir, Yosemite was made a National Park in 1890. [4] Conservation of scenic, scientific and historical features was assured forever. California, however, continued to manage the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley while the remainder of the new park was governed by the U. S. Department of the Interior with the help of Army cavalry units. Despite the conflicting dual control of a park within a park, conserving strides were made in no longer allowing sheep, cattle or hunters within the boundaries.

Wawona, which was private property surrounded by State and National Park lands, became Army headquarters. From there troopers patrolled extensively, exploring, building trails and mapping the rough scenic terrains California re-ceded the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the nation in 1905, [5] but coherent, truly progressive administration was not possible until 1916 when civilian rangers succeeded Uncle Som’s soldiers on a year-round basis. [6]

The Army left in 1914 and until the National Park Service was organized in 1916, Yosemite was under the summer jurisdiction of a handful of college boys and the watchful winter eyes of two reliable forest rangers. [7]

After 1916 the congressionally designated National Park Service took over its job, to conserve, interpet, explore and administer all of Yosemite’s approximately 1200 square miles for the fullest enjoyment of its millions of owners.

1. See Sources P. 100

WAWONA’S FIRST SETTLER

Galen Clark

Galen Clark was the grand old man of Yosemite and the founder of Wawona, which he called Clark’s Station. There are two famous (true) often-told stories about him. One, that he came to Wawona to homestead in 1856 because a doctor had told him he did not have long to live because of consumption. He was then 43 and lived to be 96.

At his ranch he went about bare-footed and bareheaded in a determined search for health. However, although his lungs healed, Clark was far from robust, and, in 1870, wrote a niece he couldn’t repay a debt to her father due to fourteen years of sickness and financial reverses. [8]

The other popular story about Clark is his twenty years of preparation for his burial. Early-day Yosemite visitor, Pinkie Ross, wrote, “I was riding . . . by the (Yosemite Valley) graveyard . . . and I found Galen digging a grave . . . We stopped and asked him who had died. He said, “I’m digging this for myself for then I will be sure of being buried here.” [8]

Later, Galen dug trenches around the grave and scattered pieces of broken glass on its edges to discourage rodents. About 1896 he planted six sequoias around his eventual burial place. Next he dug a well, built a hand pump to water the trees, (four of which survive) then selected a granite rock as a marker and carved his name upon it.

An anecdote about Clark illustrates his quiet, but humorous nature. Assaulted with questions from a woman visitor, he told her that his way with words was “not of the artesian type,” presumably referring to the vocal John Muir, but that he “could be pumped.” [9]

Although biographers argue whether Clark’s birthplace was Dublin, New Hampshire or Shipton, Canada, he, himself, wrote in 1880 in a reminiscence for the Bancroft Library, that he had been born in Massachusetts.

His early personal life was tragic. His marriage to Rebecca Marie McCoy of Missouri ended when she died in Philadelphia, February 16, 1848, after having had three sons and two daughters. None of the boys lived to be thirty. Solon McCoy Clark drowned, Joseph Locke Clark was killed at Bull Run, and Galen Alonzo Clark, who came to California to be near his father died in 1873 while studying for the law in San Francisco. Alonzo died at Wawona but was buried in Mariposa. [10]

In 1853, gold fever seized Clark and he left his children with Eastern relatives to go to the gold fields. Clark came to California by steamer. Intending to work at his trade of chair maker he instead headed for the Mariposa area where he worked variously as a miner, packer, camp-keeper and hunter. He camped at the meadows in Wawona in 1855 and returned there in 1856. Clark wrote that, after a hemorrhage of the lungs, he went to Wawona for his health and “spent the first season in leisure.”

His idea of “leisure” was to homestead a 160-acre ranch and build Clark’s Station, a rough overnight lodging place for tourists. His ranch was a logical stopping place for travelers as it was about halfway between Mariposa and Yosemite Valley. The Indians called Clark’s Station “Pallahchun,” meaning “A good place to stop.”

Travelers thought so too and one Charles Loring Brace described Clark’s Station and its owner thus: “This ranch is a long, rambling, low house, built under enormous sugar-pines, where travelers find excellent quarters and rest in their journey to the Valley. Clark himself is evidently a character; one of those men one frequently meets in California — the modern anchorite — a hater of civilization and a lover of the forest — handsome, thoughtful, interesting, and slovenly. In his cabin were some of the choicest modern books and scientific surveys; the walls were lined with beautiful photographs of the Yosemite; he knew more than any of his guests of the fauna, flora, and geology of the State; he conversed well on any subject, and was at once philosopher, savant, chambermaid, cook, and landlord.” [3]

Brace was among many notable, early, horseback tourists to Yosemite Valley who stopped at Clark’s Station. William Brewer, Clarence King and Josiah Whitney of the State Geological Survey visited there as did I. W. Raymond, Jessie and John Fremont. These educated, far seeing people recognized the need of preserving Yosemite for the public and had a great deal to do with its creation as a State Grant in 1864 and a National Park in 1890.

Clark was well loved for his erudition, gentleness, integrity, independence, modesty and devotion to the wonders of Yosemite. He was the second white man to see the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees [4] and publicized it to an amazed world. There are over 600 mature sequoias in the Grove, several of them, almost incredibly, over 3500 years old!

At the Grove, which was eight miles from his ranch, Clark built a small cabin where he stayed while guiding

Clark’s Station about 1867

awed tourists through the big trees. Today’s Mariposa Grove Museum occupies the old cabin site.

At first the self-assigned godfather of the Grove, Clark become, in 1864, the state appointed guardian of both Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove.

For all his many virtues, Clark was not a businessman and, in 1869, was forced to take in “Deacon” Edwin Moore as a full partner. The following year they mortgaged their ranch for $6000 at 2% interest to pay for a sawmill and defray $12,000 Clark had sunk into the building of the Chowchilla Mountain stagecoach road. [7] Clark was concerned about his debt, but optimistic that the next tourist season would pull him out of his financial hole.

The improvements, partnership and “woman’s touch” of Mrs. Moore helped business, but in December 1874 Clark and Moore sold out lock, lodging house and good will. [13]

Clark’s part in Wawona’s development was at an end, but he had forty years more of vigorous service, as guardian, author, interpreter and friend of Yosemite before his death in 1910, at a venerable 96. [14]

Wawona Hotel about 1890 — (L to R) Main Building, built 1879; The Long White; The Small White or Manager’s Cottage, built 1885. The cupoled structure was called the Small Brown and was constructed in 1886.

THE WASHBURNS

There were fourteen Washburn brothers and half brothers in Putney, Vermont. Three of them came to California to seek their fortunes and found modest ones in a mine and general store at Mormon Bar, two miles from Mariposa. Edward, John and Henry Washburn were stalwart, bearded men with pioneering, adventurous spirits. Their mine and store weren’t challenging enough so they improved the Chowchilla Mountain Road from Mariposa to Wawona and, on December 26,1874, purchased the stopping place then known as Clark and Moore’s. [15]

Wawona was called Clark’s Station, Clark and Moore’s, and Big Tree Station, but was named permanently Wawona, the Indian word for Big Tree, by Jean Bruce (Mrs. Henry) Washburn in 1884. [16] [Editor’s note: this is not true. Wawō'na is the Indian word for Evening Primrose (Boisduvalia densiflora). See Barrett & Gifford Miwok Material Culture, p. 152. —dea]

The Washburns bought the lodging house itself, the open bridge which they covered, irrigation ditch, sawmill, barn and 160 forested acres. The original hotel burned to the ground in 1878, but, undaunted, the brothers proceeded to erect in 1879 a new 140- by 32-foot hotel building, called the Long White. By the time U.S. Grant visited later that year, cedar trees had been planted and a large fountain installed. [17]

Partnerships with Wm. Coffman, E. W. Chapman, Charles and John Bruce were short-lived as the three brothers made a good, ambitious team. They not only ran the hotel, but also operated a winter ranch near Madera, the Wawona Road, which they built to Yosemite Valley in 1875, and the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company which they formed in 1882. [15]

Because of its isolated location, the hotel had to be self-sufficient. A post office was established about 1886; telephones came soon after 1905, electricity in 1908. Springs, wells, a large irrigation ditch supplying water for cattle, hogs, sheep, horses as well as crops of hay and timothy in the

The Washburn Brothers—
Julius, Henry, John, Edward

extensive meadows were developed. There was a store, a saloon, a truck garden, an apple orchard and a bear cage that was used occasionally for a jail! [15]

In his 1886 book, In the Heart of Sierras, James Hutchings described the Wawona scene eloquently. “The very instant the bridge is crossed, on the way to the hotel, the whole place seems bristling with business, and business energy. Conveyances of all kinds, from a sulky to whole rows of passenger coaches, capable of carrying from one to eighteen or twenty persons each, at a load, come into sight. From some the horses are just being taken out, while others are being hitched up. Hay and grain wagons; freight wagons coming and going; horses with or without harness; stables for a hundred animals; blacksmiths’ shops, carriage and paint shops, laundries and other buildings, look at us from as many different stand-points.”

The Washburn brothers superintended all of this together, but each had a few specific jobs. Henry ran the stage lines and was the contact man, making frequent business trips and arranging publicity. Edward P., the bachelor brother, kept the books and superintended the help, meals and rooms in such a way as to make guests happy, comfortable and eager to come back another time. John S., who greatly resembled General Grant, did the bookings and ran the outside—gardens, ice, water, firewood. etc. Clarence Washburn, John’s son, remembers that the brothers “all pulled together as a team and each could and did handle any hotel job.” [15]

Wawona was their main money-making concern, but the brothers had a financial finger in Glacier Point, almost all public transportation, and owned the Wawona stage road which was a toll road. By their energy and vision, they helped put Wawona, as well as Yosemite, on the map and in people’s hearts and minds.

The Washburns were considerate employers with loyal help including some who worked for them over fifty years. When the hotel was at its peak in the early 1900’s, twenty Chinese worked in the kitchen, garden and laundry.

Ah You was chef for half a century and was famed for his delicious pies. Most of the Chinese help lived up-stairs in a building near the smokehouse. At first when they were moved to a larger, newer building, with a bathtub, near the laundry, Ah You, Ah Louie, Ah Wee and the others complained of its large windows and spaciousness. [15]

Noted as fine, generous hosts the Washburns gave turkeys to their numerous employees at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Hattie Bruce Harris remembers, “We smoked our own ham, and bacon from a hog given each family, scraped and ready for pickling down, and along with this were big boxes of tenderloin and milk cans full of sausage. I spent weeks gathering oak bark for the smokehouse.” [18]

Charlotte Bruce Gibner wrote in 1955 that, “Wawona was famous for its food. It had its own garden from which all its vegetables came; they killed their own meat; they fished the rivers; milk came from their own dairy and, in game season, there was venison. A typical Wawona breakfast consisted of fruit in season, beefsteak, ham and eggs, hot cakes and corn-bread with home-made preserves. This was not to give the diner a choice, but to be eaten in its entirety. The rate for room and board was $4.00 a day.” [19]

For years, fresh trout was served at dinners. In the early days Indians caught them in the nearby river and streams; then Jay Bruce accounted for 32,000 of them in two seasons. But the biggest, most consistent fisherman of all was young Clarence Washburn. He was so busy catching from 75 to 300 fish a day he didn’t have time to think up fish stories. Several years he went back to college with $400 clear after paying for his horse’s summer feed. [15]

The Wawona operation was a great family enterprise. The superintending Washburn brothers were related by marriage to the Bruces who were active various hotel concerns. Albert O. Bruce ran the saloon and store, daughter Hattie worked first as a chambermaid in the hotel and later as a skilled telegraph operator in San Francisco, son Bert became a more or less official hotel photographer with his sister Hattie assisting in the dark room. Other Bruces worked in various capacities.

Wawona Hotel Store in 1914. The building at one time housed a saloon

The Bruces were intermarried with the Leitchs, Bruce M. Leitch was justice of the peace; and to the Baxters, in whose family was Ed Baxter, a State Assemblyman. Both Leitch and Baxter were friends of the Washburns and worked in the curio shop at Mariposa Grove.

Thomas Hill was closely associated with the hotel from 1885, when his daughter married John Washburn, until his death in 1908.

Aside from such family connections, the Washburns employed many Mariposans and Chinese for their hotel and turnpike company.

Tourist season — April to November — was hotel season; during the winter, when their own operation was snowbound, the Washburns spent a month or so at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. In season, they lived on the main building’s second floor. [15]

The hotel had charm, atmosphere and luxury. There were three fountains spaced across the grounds, one in front of Hill’s studio, another which still cascades in front of the main building and a third in back of the main hotel building.

Most of the hotel buildings front on the lovely, serene meadows which appear today much as they did in 1856 or 1910, although the golf course has tamed the lower end. In his book Yosemite Trails published in 1911, J. Smeaton Chase wrote that the “Wawona Meadows themselves might be called the Sleepy Hollow of the West. It is the most peaceful place that I know in America, and comes near being the most idyllic spot I hove seen anywhere . . . Here is unbroken meadow, green as heaven, a mile long, wing knee-high with all delicious grasses and threaded with brooklets of crystal water. It is surrounded with a rail-fence that rambles in and out and around about and hither and thither in that sauntering way that makes a rail-fence such a companionable thing . . .”

All the hotel buildings had names. The Long White, just to the right of the present main hotel building, was built by the Washburns soon after an 1879 fire destroyed the original lodging house they had bought from Clark and Moore.

About 1885, the Main Hotel building was built on the site of Clark’s original home and rude hotel. Today, it is a gingerbreaded, wide-parched, many-windowed building little changed appearance from the 1880’s. A high-ceilinged dining room and kitchen were added to it in 1917 and the Washburn’s apartments upstairs have been turned into guest rooms. The building may not possess any particular architectural merit, but its old-fashioned “western resort” style lends a kind of charming elegance and character unmatched in more modern hotels.

The Pavilion, Hill’s Studio, was built in 1884 and stands now as recreation building. In 1900 the Small White, now called the Manager’s Cottage, [20] was built and, for years, rented summers at a handsome price to a family from Los Angeles.

Hutchings wrote that the Washburns gave a true “New England welcome” to their guests and it is a matter of record that many of them came back season after season.

One satisfied visitor in 1911 was Jackson A. Graves, who wrote later, “Wawona Hotel is pleasantly located. It is an ideal place to rest in. There inertia creeps into your system. You avoid all unnecessary exercise. You are ever ready to drop into a chair and listen to the wind sighing through the trees and the river singing its never ending song . . .” [21]

Over the years, the hotel grew from one building to eight, from 160 acres to 4,000. Arrivals ranged from a few horse-drawn stages a day to many using over 700 horses and then, in 1916, motor stages, principally Thomas Fliers and Pierce-Arrows.

Henry Washburn died 1902, Edward in 1911, John in 1917. Clarence, who had been assistant manager and active in the hotel management since 1907, became general manager. In 1917, he added the Hotel Annex and the Sequoia building, a swimming pool, a 3,035 yard golf course in one end of the meadow and a landing field in the other. [15] He could and did accommodate 300 guests, half of them “repeaters.” At peak times, tents were used for the overflow.

In the first, tire-blowing years of automobile travel, Huffman’s Garage at Wawona and Miami Lodge did a busy trade. They repaired cars so they could chug on into Yosemite Valley; then, if they made it back to Wawona, fixed them again for the onerous trip to Fresno. The hotel of course benefited by the enforced overnight stops of the cars’ passengers. [15]

Two Army pilots mode the first aircraft landing at Wawona December 8, 1925. Soon after that, Frank Gallison, a Mariposa native, made daily flights from Merced and hotel guests had mail and the San Francisco papers with their breakfast coffee. Also, Gallison flew guests over Yosemite Valley for $7.50, giving them thrills forbidden now by law. [15]

Clarence Washburn married Grace Brinkop in 1913, and their daughter, Wawona, was born at the hotel the following year. An only son died in youth, leaving no one to take over the family business. For that and other reasons, Clarence sold the Washburn holdings — lock, stock, hotel good name and 3,724 acres — to the Park Service in 1932.

The hotel furniture and fixtures were purchased by the Yosemite Park and Curry Company for whom Clarence managed the hotel in ’33 and ’34. After that he moved to Indio where he became a leading citizen and in 1961, at a vigorous 75, was managing the Hotel Potter as he has since 1936. [15]

An era had ended at Wawona. Since 1934 the hotel and its facilities have been managed by the Yosemite Park and Curry Company. Tennis courts have replaced the garage, two of the fountains are gone, Stella Lake is no more — yet the old time atmosphere is still there. The Company has restored a tiny bar downstairs in the main hotel and has always kept one room furnished in the grand old style.

The charm, compounded of sunny meadow, surrounding forest and timeless peace remains, the hotel as it was in Galen Clark’s time, Pallahchun — a good place to stop!

HOMESTEADERS

Galen Clark was NOT the first homesteader in the Wawona basin, although he was the on one to prove up on his land and have it patented. His 160 acres was claimed “for agricultural and grazing purposes” March 19th, 1856. William H. Leeper, Davis Potts, James D. May and Hiram Cartwright had all filed 160-acre claims earlier that same month. Excepting Cartwright, the other men had surveyed the Wawona basin and filed a land plot in the Mariposa County Recorder’s office. [22]

John T. Banton claimed a quarter section in 1862, and in 1868 Jarvis Kiel filed for another 160 acres “near Galen Clark’s house.” [22]

Hundreds of acres were homesteaded and patented in the 1880’s and ’90’s. The Albert Bruces, Van Campens and Washburns accounted for most of it, but Bruce Leitch, Roscoe Greeley, John E. Hammond, Archibald C. Stoddart, John Green and others received patents. An Emily V. Dodge had 480 acres patented to her in 1891 while both Thomas Hill and his wife, Willeta, homesteaded 160 acres apiece, for which patents were issued in 1891. [22]

Homesteaders had to be hardy in Wawona’s winter wilderness, and the Albert Brutes were. Hattie Bruce Harris, of eight children, remembers that the good old days were rough. Her parents “fenced and cross-fenced, plowed, sowed and reaped . . . Mother Bruce raked hay and canned everything she could. The winter of 1888 the snow piled six feet on the level, the hay gave out in the barn and it took from four o’clock in the morning till ten at night to get the team to the Washburn barn” about a mile and a half distant. [23]

The Bruces raised wheat and children on their 320-acre homestead. The

The Bruce Homestead about 1900 — Destroyed by fire in 1950

wheat grew ten feet high, and a heavily-headed shock of it stood in the Bruce parlor for years as a symbol of strength and fertility and ownership.

All the Bruces who were able worked on the homestead. One time a group of Scottish and English men passed by on their way to Chilnualna Falls and saw the toiling family. On their way back to the hotel, a horrified Scotchman told Albert Bruce, who had finished haying for the day, “I saw what I never thought I would see in America a brute of a mon out in a field, his bonny wife raking hay.” Bruce muttered something, but did not acknowledge that he was the “brute of a mon.” [23]

The Bruce homestead, patented April 1884, six years before Yosemite became a national park, had a boundary line in common with the Park.

Year after year, the superintendent’s report to the Secretary of the Interior stressed that all private lands in Yosemite, especially at Wawona, should be purchased. [5] Year after year, Congress failed to appropriate funds for this purpose, and administration of the lands became more difficult.

Fire was the most dreaded problem with water rights and sanitation becoming increasingly critical as the original homesteads were subdivided into numerous small lots. Privately owned acres still exist at Wawona, and independent commercialism is represented by motels, guest cabins, small grocery stores and a gas station.

In August, 1932, 8,785 acres were added to the Park. The Washburn Hotel Company sold their 3,724 acres and 5,061 of public domain acres were acquired for a total cost of $376,600, half of it donated and half appropriated by Congress. [24]

To the Park Service, the remaining private property constitutes “an ever present source of trouble,” since policing responsibility falls to the County, and there are no local County officers stationed at Wawona.

Wawona — When Haying and Logging were the Main Industries

INDIANS

Susan (Sukie) and John Lawrence and Sally Ann and Johnny Dick.
Both Couples are brother and sister. “Sukie” married Archie Leonard.

The Nutchu Indians were camped peacefully at Wawona when they were “surprised and captured,” in March, 1851, by the Mariposa Battalion led by James D. Savage. [3] Partly because the various tribes of the Yosemite region showed their natural resentment of the white gold seeker’s intrusion into their lands by plundering and killing, and partly because the whites coveted their lands, the Mariposa Battalion was organized to subdue, capture and herd the Indians to the reservation on the Fresno River.

The Nutchu’s, however, escaped en route to the reservation, but were captured again, 1852. [3] Numerous campsites, marked by potholed granite, attest to their long occupancy of the Wawona area.

Samuel Kneeland, zoologist, reported his Yosemite trips in The Wonders of the Yosemite Valley and California. He described an Indian sweat house observed in Wawona in 1871 as “. . . about eight feet long and two feet deep; over this a heavily-thatched dome-shaped roof, plastered with mud and leaves; on the mud floor is placed a circle of rounded stones . . . which when highly heated, water is poured raising an abundance of very hot steam a primitive but effective Russian bath.”

A handful of Chowchilla Indians lived at Wawona during its development as a resort. They were half breeds with such Americanized names as One-eyed Bullock, Short and Dirty and Bush-headed Tom.

Galen Clark wrote that the Indians Wawona and Yosemite Valley “. . . caused very little trouble.” [11] There was the much-discussed case in June 1889 when a white man caused trouble and justice was not done. That was when Jimmy Lawrence, a squaw-man, shot and killed Bush-head Tom Habridge at Wawona yet was discharged for lack of “sufficient evidence” the following week in the Mariposa Court.

Camp A. E. Wood

Camp A. E. Wood in 1891

For sixteen summers, sleep-shattering sounds of a bugle playing reveille resounded at what is now the public camp ground at Wawona. From 1891 till 1905, the level ground between the Wawona road and the South Fork, now filled in summer with campers’ tents and trailers, was an Army encampment, Camp A. E. Wood.

When Yosemite was created a National Park in 1890, Congress ordered the U. S. Army to administer it. This control was complicated from the first because it was not complete. Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, areas 35 miles apart, were administered by a board of commissioners as a California State Park and, after 1890, became a Park within a Park. [3]

There were other frustrating points to hamper smooth-running supervision. The Cavalry units assigned to Camp A. E. Wood from the Presidio in San Francisco were there only from May to October most years and were not given funds for developments.

Despite handicaps, the Army mapped and built miles of trails still in use, stocked remote lakes and rivers, eventually rid the Park of trespassing cattle and “hoofed locusts” that persistent sheepherders brought in, and were responsible for such physical improvements as telephone lines, roads and trails. Many lakes in the Sierra were named for Army personnel.

Camp A. E. Wood was the well-ordered hub for all these activities. Captain Abram Epperson Wood was the first acting superintendent of Yosemite National Park, serving in this responsible post from 1891 to 1894. His efficiency was undermined by a painful, debilitating cancer of the tongue which killed him in 1894. [24]

The camp had its gay times, notably the Field Day of August 7, 1896, when Companies B and K of the 4th Cavalry put on minstrel shows, military exercises and many track and field events. [27]

Over the years, there were e few untoward incidents at the Camp, a couple of accidental shootings, a desertion, a prowler and a drowning, but the overall discipline record was consistently good, and the cavalrymen were liked by their Wawona neighbors. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Bruce were known as the “Father and Mother” of the Troops thanks to their generosity with food and entertainment.

Major John Bigelow was acting superintendent in 1904 and ambitiously began an arboretum, a museum and a library. He succeeded also in having a small superintendent’s office built which now stands at the Wawona Pioneer Center.

Camp A. E. Wood was abandoned in August 1906 when the Army units were moved to Yosemite Valley. California had receded its twin grants of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to the United States in 1905. Yosemite National Park was now administered as a single, cohesive whole; by the Army until 1914, civilian rangers until 1916, and thereafter by the National Park Service. [5]

The sounds of the deserted camp after 1906 were no longer of bugle and marching feet, but of river and wind. In 1922, Camp Hoyle was established on the site and remained until 1932. [32]

The Hoyle site was used as a public camp ground from 1933, but was extended, improved and modernized in 1951 when it regained the name Camp A. E. Wood.

Troop F, 6h Cavalry on Fallen Monarch, Mariposa Grove

ARBORETUM

Yosemite was an odd place for a couple of troops of cavalry and a handful of officers to be stationed each summer. The Army’s “war” with the sheepherders and their grass-eating “troops,” but aside from that military-like action, the Army served in a caretaker-role.

Perhaps the strongest of all actions taken by the Army was the establishment of an arboretum across the river from Camp A. E. Wood in 1904.

Major John E. Bigelow, Jr., Ninth Cavalry, was acting superintendent from May until September of that year when he retired. [29] During his five months’ command at Wawona, he attacked his trail-building, sheep-chasing, Park protecting duties vigorously but still had time to worry about the trees and flowers of the region.

Under his ambitious direction, 75 to 100 “timbered, hilly acres,” almost directly across the South Fork of the Merced River from the camp, were developed as on arboretum. A new foot bridge to cross the river was built under Bigelow’s supervision. Trails were constructed, rustic benches were built, sixteen native trees were labeled in English and Latin on wide, plank boards; photographs were taken; plants identified and a careful list of nineteen additional trees and plants to be transplanted made. The actual work was done by First Lieutenant Henry R. Pipes who was the Assistant Surgeon and an enthusiastic amateur botanist, with the help of a non-commissioned officer and a private.

Bigelow and Pipes went to painstaking lengths to preserve the natural features of their arboretum. The inch thick 9 - by 11-inch plank signs were painted buff to blend with the tree trunks and nails attaching them were recessed so that their heads could not cause rust stains. Two Indian mortar rocks were present already and were duly labeled.

The fledgling arboretum was abandoned, as quickly as it had begun by Captain H. C. Benson, acting superintendent from 1905 to 1908. In his annual report to the Secretary of Interior in 1905, he reported that the arboretum had been started on patented land that had been thrown out of the Park by the boundary revision of 1905 and, furthermore, surveyors an electric railroad (never built) had knocked down many of the identifying signs. These were good official reasons, but it could have been that Benson, a notably relentless and ultimately successful foe of the sheepmen, had little sympathy for such an un-military project.

For a soldier, Bigelow showed remarkable naturalist vision. He wrote that Yosemite should:

“. . .. provide a great museum of nature for the general public free of cost. to preserve . . . trees . . . flora and fauna . . . animal life, and the mineral and geological features of the country comprised in the Park.”

His short-lived arboretum anticipated by 16 years the first guided nature walks in any National Park. Bigelow felt, too, that Yosemite should have a museum and library. [29]

The arboretum acreage was returned to the Park in 1932, and while the Army footbridges across the river exist only in memory and on film, any interested visitor can roll up his pants legs and wade the river in mid-summer. Once across from Camp A. E. Wood, turn slightly to the left and look for weathered signs identifying the trees first labeled in 1904.

ROADS and TRAILS

Wawona Supply Wagon

Soon after enthusiast James Hutchings began escorting sightseers to view Yosemite Valley in 1855, Andrew, Milton and Houston Mann built a 45-mile toll horse trail from Mariposa to the already-famous Valley via the South Fork. Mainly, they followed the old Indian trails. It was opened August 1, 1856, and operated as a toll route until 1862 when Mariposa County purchased it, declaring it a “Public Highway.” Until then, tolls were: [“]Man and horse each way, $2.00; pack mule or horse, each way, $2.00; Footman, $1.00.” [31]

In 1869, Galen Clark organized a stock company of eight men to build a wagon and stage road from Mariposa as far as Clark’s [22] (Wawona) which was used as a toll road from 1870 until 1917. As early as 1870, Clark had a survey made for a wagon road from his lodging at Wawona to Yosemite Valley. This road was begun by Chinese laborers, under the direction of John Conway and Edwin Moore and finished by Washburn, Chapman & Company in July, 1875. [32] Most of the 16-foot-wide road was constructed during severe winter weather. The era of the stagecoach, which was to continue, in jolting, dusty fashion for forty years, began for Yosemite-bound visitors.

By mid-April, 1875, the rough road was passable for stagecoaches except for a narrow, 300-yard section still under construction near the old Inspiration Point. To the passengers’ temporary inconvenience and amusement, they walked the unfinished stretch while their quickly-dismantled stage was carried in pieces by hand, then reassembled, harnessed up, reboarded and driven off with considerable aplomb. [32]

The Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Company (Washburn brothers), ran stages from Merced to Wawona via Mariposa where they had a livery stable.

The road from Raymond to Wawona generally followed the route of present State Highway 41, while the stage route from Mariposa, called the Chowchilla Mountain Road, exists today, rutty, dusty and little-changed from its 1870 route.

The Wawona Hotel was a logical and popular overnight stop for stage travelers, and the Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Company, operating two stage schedules and 700 horses, saw to it that their passengers traveled speedily and safely, though dustily.

In 1865, 369 hardy, saddle-sore travelers visited Yosemite. In 1875, mostly in stagecoaches, the Park had 2,423 visitors; 2,590 in 1885; 8,023 in 1902; and in 1914, when automobiles were allowed on the Wawona Road, 15,154. Travel doubled in 1915 when 31,546 visitors chugged in; 209,166 came in 1925 and 498,289 in 1932, [33] the last year of Washburn ownership.

The Wawona Road accounted for a number of Yosemite “firsts.” The first automobile to enter the Valley traveled it in 1900, and 32 miles of it had the honor of being the first paved road in the Yosemite region in June, 1902 [34] Mud and dust were tamed!

Soon increased automobile traffic made oiled roads a necessity and, in 1932, the new, modern Wawona Road was completed from the South (Fresno) Entrance to Yosemite Valley.

After 1932, one South Entrance Station replaced the three stops maintained by the Turnpike Company. Tolls had been abolished in 1917, but traffic in and out of the Park from the Washburn domain had been checked until it became part of the Park.

Stage and Four Approaching Wawona

STAGES and DRIVERS

The jingle of harness bells, the stomp of hooves, the whopping noise of a whip, grinding wheels and a all-enveloping cloud of dust were the familiar sounds and sights for forty galloping years as stagecoaches rolled to and from Wawona.

The mountain stage coaches, first with leather springs and later with steel, were of local design and construction. Excellent examples can be seen by the covered bridge and in the Wagon Shop of the Pioneer Yosemite History Center. The early traveler also saw freight, spring and “mud” wagons and even a classy buggy or two.

The Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company employed twenty to forty drivers and had some forty stagecoaches and buggies that were pulled by 700 horses. [15] In the height of the summer season, as many as eleven stages a day ran from the Raymond train station to Wawona, Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point and the Mariposa Grove. The teams had to be changed every few miles, so the Washburns kept stage stations at nine places between Raymond and Kennyville now the site of the Ahwahnee Hotel). [15] A great deal of hay and other provisions were hauled in by lumbering freight wagons with five-ton capacities pulled by a ten-mule team. The mules were driven by jerkline — one line — by a man riding one of the wheel animals. One man who did that was called simply “Jerkline Jones.” [36]

The trip from Raymond to Wawona, 44 dusty miles, took ten hours, including a lunch stop at Ahwahnee. [37] After passengers had rested overnight at Wawona, they spent six more jolting hours on the 20 miles to Yosemite Valley.

Dusters or shielding coats of some kind were more of a necessity than a convenience to stage passengers. Summer dust was thick, cloying and so covered passengers that vigorous use of feather dusters at hotel stops was needed before they could be recognized as to race or sometimes even sex.

The swift trips were frightening, occasionally injurious and usually hard on nerves and soft muscles. At all regular stops, the stagecoach was drawn up expertly to a wooden platform so that passengers could mount and dismount their high seats with relative ease. The stages were said to look like boats on the outside, sardine cans on the inside with passengers jammed together. [38]

This fantastically smooth-running operation was remarkably safe. There were few accidents and no fatalities to passengers during the Washburn tenure. There were holdups, though.

The Mariposa Gazette reported six stage robberies between 1883 and 1906. After one robbery, a group of passengers told their exciting experience when safely back at the hotel. An office employee asked a little old lady how much the robber had taken from her.

“Twenty-five dollars,” she replied.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” the clerk sympathized.

The lady spoke spiritedly. “I wouldn’t have missed it for a hundred!” [39]

Former stage driver Eddie Gordon tells of the time a robber foiled pursuers, looking for horse tracks, by escaping on crude walking boards. (These “trackers” may be seen in the Wagon Shop at the Pioneer Yosemite History Center).

Gordon drove his team, “a mighty good one,” from Wawona Point, above the Mariposa Grove, to the Hotel in 45 minutes and, once, by changing horses, galloped the 29 miles from Glacier Point to the Wawona Hotel in three hours! [40]

The stage drivers were the envy of small boys and admired by most of their passengers. They lived in the men’s bunkhouse, where the Sequoia Building is now, and had a special table in the back dining room. Pay earned was $60 a month plus room and board.

Most drivers were natives of Mariposa; Tom Gordon, Henry Hedges, Sam Uren, James Warner, John Stevens, C. K. Salmon, J. K. Ashworth, the Skelton brothers, E. W. Church, “Bright” Gillespie, Hy Rapelje, Johnny White, Ernest Stevens and Charles Fobes.

Some stagecoach drivers were deservedly famous. In article called “The Passing of the Sierra Knight,” in the July 1903 Overland Monthly, Ben C. Truman wrote that “After on experience of nearly 40 years, and having never known another such all-round reinsman as George Monroe. Just as there are the greatest of soldiers and sailors, artists and mechanics at times, so there are greater stage drivers than their fellows and George Monroe was the greatest of all. He was a wonder in every way. He had names for all his horses, and they all knew their name. Sometimes he spoke sharply to one or more of them, but generally he addressed them pleasantly. He seldom never used a whip, except to crack it over their heads.”

Although automobiles were in common usage from about 1905 on, Yosemite officials didn’t seem to think they were here to stay. They weren’t permitted in the Park at all until 1913, on the Wawona Road until 1914, and were not given general use of the roads until 1916.

There were some 60, annoying regulations protecting horses that drivers had to obey. Until August 8, 1914, automobile owners had to leave their at the Wawona Hotel and continue to Yosemite Valley by stage. [41] One frustrated motorist who mode the trip in 1911, wrote angrily, “On July 16th, we took our places with some other victims of this piece of transportation idiocy, on an open four-horse stage to Yosemite (Valley). The going was very slow. It was hot and dusty and we soon got irritable and uncomfortable. Why the traveling public should be subjected to this outrage is beyond me.” [31]

In May 1916, “Stonewall Jackson” Ashworth “cracked the last whip” as he drove the final Washburn stagecoach from the Valley to Wawona. [12]

The automobile was here to stay, replacing the horse and ending the romantic but rugged era of the stagecoach.

CULTURE

Wawona was a veritable cultural oasis from the time Galen Clark, his educated mind and library, settled there in 1856. From 1875 on, when the Washburns began running the then-small hotel, culture pursuits developed naturally. There was a Big Tree Literary Society that, among other topics, debated Thomas Paine [42]

The hotel supplied no regular entertainment, but often there were impromptu musicales or ploys. There was always lively conversation among the guests, most of whom were well-educated.

The Washburn brothers had been educated ably in Vermont and had wide interests John Washburn had married Estella Hill, who was a practiced soprano.

Azelia Von Campen Bruce, who had a homestead with her husband across the river from the hotel, was an excellent organist and former singer with the San Francisco Opera Company in the old Mission House. [36]

Thomas Hill’s studio was a regular meeting place for various vocal and inquiring residents. Two of the Bruce sisters were accomplished, published poetesses. One poem by Fannie Bruce Cook appears in Hutching’s In the Heart of Sierras. Several of Jean Bruce Washburn’s poems were printed in the Mariposa Gazette, and some of her work appeared in a slim book, Yosemite and Other Poems, issued by a San Francisco publisher in 1887.

When Galen Clark was in his nineties and a resident of Yosemite Valley, he wrote two books on Yosemite: [Indians of the] Yosemite Valley and Vicinity, 1904, and The Yosemite Valley, Its History, 1910.

In May, 1891, Mariposa County created the Wawona School District, although the eight-grade grammar school did not open until May of 1892. 44, [45] It ran through the summer and was held near the men’s rooming house where the Sequoia Building of the Wawona Hotel now stands.

The Washburns wanted the school on the grounds so that their children and those of employees and visitors could attend. The first schoolroom was separated by a thin partition from the stagecoach drivers’ quarters. Readin’, writin’ and oaths could be learned[.]’

Gertrude (“Cosie”) Hutchings, 25, was the first teacher. Cosie was the daughter of James Hutchings and the second white girl to be born in Yosemite Valley. Among the early students were Bert and Jay Bruce, the Leonard twins, Mary Ellen Degnan, Clarence Washburn, an Indian boy named Joe Ann, the Bruce dog and frequently the hotel peacocks. [45]

The parents of these children were making Yosemite history. Azelia and Albert O. Bruce were homesteading 320 acres under pioneer hardships, Archie Leonard served notably as the first Yosemite ranger, the John Degnans ran a Yosemite Valley bakery and delicatessen that their daughter, Mary Ellen, is active in today, and the Washburns were running the Wawona Hotel.

The session lengthened from May 1st until November 1st and the student body expanded to 38. After 20 years, the school had a building to itself which stood until 1960 to the right of the road just above the covered bridge. [45]

School keeps today in a brown shingled building on Chilnualna Road. Readin’, writin’ and ’rithmetic and other jetaged subjects are learned by its handful of students.

But no peacocks!

“PIKE”

“Pike” — on his San Francisco Trip

Pike was the town character of Wawona in the 1890’s. It was supposed that Nathan Bennett Phillips earned his nickname from references to Pike County, Missouri, but he was born 1839 in Tennessee and there is record of his having lived in Missouri. [48] He was known simply and widely as Pike gained a reputation as a colorful character from his actions, stories and looks.

He had long, yellowish hair, a mustache and a chin-enveloping beard of the same yellowish hue. Customarily, he wore boots, Levis, a heavy blue shirt with white buttons and a brood, white cowboy hat. Phillips drank heavily, swore frequently and had a unique, gruff whispering voice. An attack of diphtheria had so injured his vocal cords that he could speak only in a hoarse, guttural whisper. No one had any trouble understanding him though and his favorite reply, when questioned as to how he had lost his voice, was a husky, offhand, “telling lies to the tourists.” [48]

His “lies” were repeated, even in 1882 San Francisco newspaper, by and to appreciative listeners. There was the one about a bear that chased Pike up a pine tree and out on a limb. At the top of his damaged vocal chords, Pike whispered fiercely, “Get back you fool or we’ll both be killed!”

Pike lived in Yosemite Valley for years, but when asked how long by tourists, he replied that he had lived there ever since “they were hauling in the dirt to build it.” [46]

On bear story Pike liked to tell on himself was about the time he was on foot, without a gun and being chased by a bear. “That bear had the downhill pull on and soon caught up and was about to grab me.” As open-mouthed as his pursuer, Pike’s listeners would ask breathlessly, “What did you do to save yourself?” “Why, I turned around right quick, shoved my arm down the bear’s throat, grabbed his tail and turned him inside out.” [37]

Still another story was of the time an Englishman found the guide playing cards in the hotel saloon and asked him to take him on a grizzly bear hunt. Pike refused with his characteristic growl. The Englishman told him to name his price and again the guide refused.

Unhappily, the Englishman asked, “Why won’t you go?”

With verbal embellishments, Pike told the saloon audience that the last time he hunted grizzlies with an Englishman, he had been armed with an old musket with which he had wounded a grizzly. When the enraged bear turned toward Pike, “John Bull” dropped his own high-powered rifle and raced for the nearest tree.

Pike threw himself on the ground, feigning death because it was thought that grizzlies would not harm a dead man. The bear come over anyway, rolled the guide over a few times, then whispered, “Pike, don’t you ever go hunting with an Englishmen again.”

After all that, Pike agreed to guide the spellbound “John Bull” an a grizzly hunt. [37]

One memorable time he stayed in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel as the guest of a Southern Pacific official whom he had met at Wawona. A bell-boy took him to the top floor in on elevator, then showed him to his room and the button to push if he needed anything.

No sooner had the helpful bellboy left when Pike pressed the service button and upon the boy’s return asked for a hatchet.

“A hatchet?” The boy looked at Pike in his cowboy hat, Levis, outdoorsman shirt and boots with bewilderment.

“Yes,” Pike rasped. “I want to blaze a trail out of here.” [37]

For years, Pike guided early horseback visitors to Yosemite Valley and Glacier Point. He was always over-solicitous to any pretty woman riding in his party, having them ride back of him at the head of the line. This did not set well with the men or plain women.

One dusty trip, a snooty, plain woman who was a member of the British nobility became annoyed at Pike’s inattention to her and called imperiously, “Guide, there is something wrong with my stirrup. It hurts my foot.”

Pike dismounted dutifully, examined the stirrup carefully; then announced in his gruff, carrying whisper, “Lady, there ain’t nothing wrong with that stirrup — yer blasted foot is too big.”

That same day, he had a unique chance to redeem himself with “Lady Bigfoot.” When the party was dismounting for lunch at Peregoy Meadow, Pike was predictably assisting a pretty girl from her sidesaddle. Lady Bigfoot became impatient, slid off her horse unaided, and her skirt which had been draped around the sidesaddle, caught on the curved saddle horn and there she stood with her back to the horse, her skirt up to her neck, exposed to wind, weather and eyes.

Quickly, Pike ran to her side, gallantly swept off his brood-brimmed hat and shielded her embarrassing state with it, at the same time unhooking her skirt from the saddle horn. There is no memory of what Lady Bigfoot said, if anything, as her skirt fell into place and Pike clapped his hat back on, but later her grateful husband gave the guide twenty dollars for his presence of mind and hat. [37]

It was said that Pike made more money than any other guide of that time and, once, received a tip of $40. From early tourists he had learned the names of many plants and wildflowers and for later parties he interspersed that information with his tall tales. [38]

Besides guiding, story-telling, drinking, chewing tobacco and caring for his mule, Brigham, Pike had a number of useful talents. He hunted deer, bear and grouse, trapped, fished, did roadwork with a pick and shovel and played a mean, memorable fiddle. Even this he did with an individual flair, using a homemade willow bow strung with black hair pulled from the stage horses’ tails. One of his favorite pieces was “Ten Little Injuns and One Old Squaw.” [39]

Pike and his eccentricities delighted Wawona’s small boys. Jay Bruce, later State trapper, was an impressionable, ambitious youngster who skinned rattlers and sold skin and rattles to Thomas Hill, the famous artist, for resale in his studio. Hill paid him only a dollar per skin, rattles and unpleasant work; so Jay watched Pike speculatively as he spliced broken sets of rattles together to make one truly impressive string.

Pike confided hoarsely that he was “fixing up some rattles for John Bull.” He fixed up stories to match his rattles and, once, Jay witnessed him selling a long string to a credulous Englishman for a twenty dollar gold piece. Then Pike proceeded to treat all the barroom loungers to “a drink on John Bull!”

Jay “fixed up” rattles too until his indignant mother discovered Pike’s influence was corrupting her son. [39]

When he was about fifty-five, Pike died as he had lived — colorfully. In the summer of 1894, he took Jay’s brother fishing and spent most of a day wading in the river. That night his ankles began to swell and later he was treated at the Mariposa hospital. The Mariposa Gazette for August 11, 1894, reported that he was “threatened with paralysis from too much exposure in the cold water.”

He was such an outdoorsman that, after his return to Wawona, he refused to move inside to the store attic, stubbornly insisting on sleeping as usual in his bed on the west porch. Even during the cold nights of October, though he became sicker, Pike continued to sleep outside, announcing on October 30 that he felt much better and would soon go back to work with the road crew. But suddenly, that afternoon, he died. [40]

An inquest was held the next day and the official findings were “that the cause of death was neuralgia of the heart, resulting from a sickness of about two months’ duration.” [41]

Pike was buried in the Wawona graveyard in a marked grave. The story goes that a young couple paid for the tombstone because once the guide had done something chivalrous for them. [42] Presumably, the wife was pretty! However, one Wawona old-timer remembers that the generous couple were Lady Bigfoot and her husband. [40] [*]

* Folktales are invariably clouded in obscurity, and disagreements arise as to original sources and content. Some 20 Yosemite stories are told in Laurence Degnan and Douglass Hubbard’s Yosemite Yarns, available from the Yosemite Natural History Association.

STEVE CUNNINGHAM

History is not always made up of notable events and people, but often of misadventures and wanderers. Stephen Mandeville Cunningham was on adventurer who claimed to be the second white man in Yosemite Valley. Born in New York state in 1820, he sailed around the Horn in 1849, prospected for gold, taught school, served as Justice of the Peace for Mariposa in 1852 and was associated in business with James Savage. 48, [49]

Whether he was the second non-Indian in Yosemite Valley or not, Cunningham was there in 1857 when he was “hotel-keeping and trading in blue tent while preparing the timbers for the building.” [50] Besides the pioneer building, Cunningham built the first, steep ladders at Vernal Fall and helped construct the trail to the Fall.

During the Civil War, he served for ten months with the California Infantry and then returned to Yosemite Valley and later the Mariposa Grove where he served as guide, guardian and curio seller. Frequently, when visitors stayed overnight to marvel at the Sequoias, he would give them his cabin and sleep in a hollow tree. [48]

That Cunningham was intimately associated with the Wawona area is attested by the fact that he was Grand Marshall for a parade held July 22, 1875, to celebrate the opening of the Wawona Road. [51]

In the 1870’s he filed many mining and grazing claims in Yosemite Valley, Little Yosemite and above Bridalveil Fall. He homesteaded land at the mouth of Rush Creek which empties into the South Fork near Cunningham Flat in the present public campground.

Cunningham built a fairly-large, 18- by 21-foot cabin there in the 1860’s which was about 85 yards from the South Fork of the Merced. It was constructed with neatly-notched yellow pine logs, had a shake roof and a granite fireplace. He had a wood lathe in it and spent his spore time using it to make curios to sell at Mariposa Grove. [53]

After Cunningham’s death, the Washburns bought his and and held it until 1932. The rotting remains of the cabin were cleared from the ground in the 1940’s for the Cunningham Flat campground. 54

Jack Leidig, Yosemite old-timer, liked to tell a story about the time Cunningham came into Mariposa for his winter’s supply of groceries, among them a large slab of bacon, chunk of cheese, a ten pound box of crackers and a five gallon jug of whiskey. Driving down the Cold Springs grade on the old Chowchilla Mountain Road, he hit a chuckhole and the demijohn broke.

Moaned Cunningham, as he watched he whiskey pouring onto the ground, “There goes half my winter provisions!” [12]

In 1883, a Mariposa Gazette columnist reported that Cunningham, then sixty-three, was working on repairing the road between Wawona and the Mariposa Grove.

He never married and his early enterprise and energy deteriorated to an old age that included drinking and an Indian woman called “Short and Dirty.” [48]

On October 5, 1898, he entered the Sawtelle Veterans’ Hospital in Southern California. He died July 3, 1899, and was buried there, far from the pines and granite of Wawona. [55]

THOMAS HILL

Thomas Hill was not only a Western artist of world renown, he was Wawona’s own! His daughter, Estella, married John Washburn in 1885 and Hill had a studio, now the recreation building, at the hotel from the year of their marriage until his death. A gushing fountain in front of a long porch made Hill’s Studio a popular place for hotel guests to lounge as well as browse and buy.

In addition to paintings, Hill sold such curios as squirrel pelts, dried flowers and rattlesnake skins. His vine-covered studio was crowded with a splendid collection of Indian war implements, bear skins and wasps’ nests. [58] He liked to dine on quail and smoked cigars incessantly. He had studied under Paul Mayerheim in Paris, mainly used browns and yellows in his paintings and did some of his best work when his studio was crowded with friends. [59] He was a hard and prolific worker and thanks, partly, to the fact that hotel guests were the elite of the tourist trade, many of his Yosemite landscapes were carried to England and Europe.

According to Hutchings, Hill was “. . . a very genial gentleman, who has been everywhere, almost — if not a little beyond — seen about as much as most men, and can tell what he has seen pleasantly, including haps and mishaps . . .” [50]

He was born in England September 11, 1829, came to Massachusetts in 1841 and moved to California for his health in 1861; and, later, established his summer studio at Wawona and his winter quarters in Raymond.

His wife, after years of invalidism, died in the early 1900’s. They had four children and he was noted as a family man. He sought commercial success, gained it, but invested his money poorly and lost several small fortunes. [15] From 1900 on, Hill was constant ill health, and he died in Raymond on June 30, 1908. [60]

Hill’s most famous painting “Driving the Last Spike,” had nothing to do with Yosemite, but pictures the driving of the last spike to unite the transcontinental railway at Promontory, Utah, in 1869. Not even painters were safe from politics, Hill found to his dismay long before he finished the huge painting.

Leland Stanford, of California’s famous Big Four, had commissioned it for $50,000, Hill said, but he kept having Hill rearrange the recognizable personages in it. Of some 400 people pictured witnessing the union of the two railroads, seventy were the VIP’s of the 1860’s and Stanford decreed who should and shouldn’t be displayed prominently.

When a powerful opponent objected to Stanford’s own showy place in the painting, the rail magnate abruptly refused to pay for it. Hill was sick at heart, out of four years’ and pocket on large expenditures for the canvas. [63] He fled east, but his health suffered anew in the rigorous climate and he was forced to return to the land of sunshine.

Because of its historical significance, the disputed painting was purchased for $10,000 after Hill’s death by the E. B. Crocker Gallery of Sacramento and hangs now in the California capitol building.

Deservedly, his fine landscapes won 36 medals and prizes as well as world-wide sale and written praise. [62] Some of them can be viewed at the Yosemite Museum, the Wawona Hotel and the restored Jorgenson’s Studio in the Pioneer History Center at Wawona.

Artists Virgil Williams and Thomas Hill

FAMOUS VISITORS

President Theodore Roosevelt arriving at the Wawona Hotel, 1903.

George Washington didn’t sleep at the Wawona Hotel, but U. S. Grant and Rutherford Hayes did. [46]

James Garfield visited Yosemite and. Wawona as a congressman in 1875, six years before he became President of the United States.

Grant visited, as an ex-President, in 1879 at the end of a world tour. The Mariposa brass band accompanied him to the Wawona Hotel where he spent the night of October 7, 1879, before visiting the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees and Yosemite Valley. [47]

Rutherford Hayes visited Yosemite with a party of twelve in 1883, two years after his presidential term expired. [46] He spent one night at the Wawona Hotel before visiting the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees.

Hattie Bruce Harris told an amusing story in connection with the visit of the William Jennings Bryan party to the Hotel. Mrs. Bryan wanted to go horseback riding but didn’t have the proper clothes. Jean Bruce Washburn (Mrs. A. H.) presented the problem to her sister-in-law, Azelia VanCampen Bruce, who took a new skirt of her daughter Hattie’s and seamed it up, making one of the first pair of culottes. [36]

FIRST RANGER

Archie Leonard’s claim to Yosemite fame lies in the fact that he was one the first two civilian rangers to protect the area from fire, sheepherders, poachers and all enemies—natural or otherwise.

He was an early guide in the region and, in 1881, had run a ten-horse pack train between Lundy and Yosemite for a day and a half trip that cost $8.00 one way. [3] After 1875, he was foreman of the Washburn road gang until the Spanish-American War called away many of the troopers from their summer Camp A. E. Wood. [70]

In 1899, Leonard and Charlie Leidig, first white boy born in Yosemite Valley, were appointed forest rangers by the Government. During the winter,

they patrolled and guarded the vast, forested acres of Yosemite National Park and, summers, guided and helped patrolling troopers. [71]

Leonard’s efforts were appreciated and praised by different Army Acting Superintendents in their yearly reports to the Secretary of Interior, and he continued to serve as a Ranger after 1916 when the National Park Service took over administration of the Park.

Between 1914, when the soldiers left to guard the Mexican border, and 1916, when the NPS took over, Leonard, Leidig and seven summer “college boy” rangers guarded the Park. Alan Sproul, later president of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York went straight to patrolling the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees from his high school graduation and saw a lot of Leonard.

In his article published in the April, 1952, issue of Yosemite Nature Notes, Sproul remembered, “. . . Leonard was not very communicative. He was always pleasant, and I should say tolerant of the ‘college boy rangers’ . . . He knew the Park by long association and by years of travel over its trails, but he was too diffident, too inarticulate, too old to share much of his knowledge with us . . . His hair was gray and rather long, and his mustache drooped. His uniform was a dirty slouch hat, distinguished in its slouchiness, a grayish-colored shirt which wouldn’t show the dirt of a season, and overalls (now called jeans) worn low on the belt. He spoke in a soft, indistinct voice, surrounded by a pleasant smile. His badge couldn’t lend him authority, but his recognized knowledge of the whole region did.”

A Wawona old-timer says that Leonard lived in a rough, board house near the Indian camp with his half-Indian wife, twin sons and two daughters. [70] He died at Stockton, Calif., on June 19, 1921 after a career which added immeasurably to the preservation of Yosemite National Park. [72]

STELLA LAKE

Stella Lake — Persian Wheel in Operation

To the left of Forest Drive, about a quarter mile up from the covered bridge are the remains of what looks like ancient reservoir. This was called Stella Lake after Estella Hill Washburn who was John Washburn’s wife. It was a popular spot for walking, picnicking, swimming, boating and, at the eastern secluded end, lovers. It was stocked with fish, too.

Actually, Stella Lake had been built by damming and diverting the river for an extremely practical purpose. It was an ice pond and summer recreational pleasures were incidental. The Washburn brothers had to have tons of ice to supply their hotel. By temperature tests, they found the coldest place in the river and proceeded to dig a ice pond, roughly 100 to 180 feet wide and 1,000 feet long, about 1886. [63] By early January, the ice on the still lake water would be about four and a half inches thick. Cutting began then and lasted a week or so and, by that time, the ice would be six inches thick. [64]

The ice cut by hand into large floating blocks, poled to the dock and then lifted by an endless belt out of the lake, up and over the earth dam and into the nearby ice house. The belt was moved by a horse operated “Persian wheel” whose principle has been known and used for over 2,000 years.

The horse walked around a vertical axis which was converted by gear to a horizontal axis. A wheel at the end of this ran the chain on two sprockets that carried the ice blocks. [64]

The ice house had walls eight inches thick, stuffed with sawdust insulation. [64] Sawdust can still be found on the site of the building just below the dam. During summers, the stored ice was used by the hotel.

John Conway, pioneer Yosemite trail builder, manufactured charcoal for the blacksmith shop in a pit near the lake. [36]

For years, Stella Lake was both pretty and practical, but after 1934, when the Yosemite Park and Curry Company began running the hotel, refrigeration replaced “homemade” ice, the lake’s banks were allowed to crumble and, sadly, after the flood of 1955 it became the wreck it is today.

Logging

Logging Operations Near Wawona — Note “Donkey” Engines

“Timber!” was a familiar cry in the Wawona basin area from Galen Clark’s day on, yet a surprisingly fine, though too-thick forest has grown up the first denuding. Extensive since logging was done legally as the entire Wawona area was privately owned until 1932.

The Washburns sold timber rights to their many acres to the Madera Sugarpine Company which was responsible for most of the logging, operating from the spring of 1897 until the 1930’s. They had a large mill at Sugarpine, three miles south of Fish Camp, and literally miles of narrow-gauge railway trucks. Logs were hauled to this mill on flat cars pulled by locomotives having geared drive wheels.

When large lumber camps were moved, the wooden houses were loaded atop flat cars and rolled to new locations. [48]

From the Sugarpine mill, rough milled lumber was carried seventy miles to Madera in an open flume.

Such logging accounted for the destruction of much of the fine sugarpine stands around Wawona and for a time severely damaged the watershed.

The Wawona Hotel itself consumed a great deal of lumber for buildings, stables and shops. In 1874, along with the lodging house, blacksmith shop and bridge, the Washburns had purchased a small sawmill from Clark and Moore. [65] Soon after, Albert Bruce built a water power sawmill for the Washburns which was crushed in the heavy snows of 1888. In the 1900’s several Wawona homesteaders established small mills and most of their production was sold to the Washburns for new buildings. [66]

Four of the Bruce brothers took part in sawmill operations and around Wawona. Bert Bruce did the first selective cutting there, taking only mature timber and big trees on 60 acres of the Bruce homestead. He logged over two million board feet and almost all of it went into building Camp Curry. [67]

Bert and his brother Joy built a circular sawmill which was powered by undershot Pelton water wheel with water from Chilnualna Creek. In 1913, Jay built another mill which furnished $4,000 worth of lumber which went into the building of an addition to the Wawona Hotel’s dining room and kitchen. This mill was totally destroyed by fire in 1915. [48]

Bill and Robert Bruce ran the sawmill built by their older brothers in 1912. Their lumber production was sold mainly to Camp Curry, although some of it went into the building of Camp Hoyle and some to Sierra Lodge which was on the Scroggs property at Wawona. [68]

C.C.C’s

The depression-born Civilian Conservation Corps benefited jobless young men and the places they camped. From 1933 to 1942 the three-C m at Wawona built roads and trails, removed stumps, dead trees and debris from the forest, particularly along roads in the Mariposa Grove, and worked on control of blister rust.

There were three CCC camps at Wawona, two at the far end of the meadows and a large, well-ordered one above the Pioneer Center.

CCC Boys and Morning Call, Camp 6, Wawona

Camp Hoyle

Camp Hoyle — the Only Known Photo

Camp Hoyle was established on the site of Camp A. E. Wood in 1922 by Bert Hoyle who filed three mining claims there. [73] He carried a flask of gold in his pocket to substantiate his claim, but Yosemite officials tried to make him prove there was gold or silver on it. Hoyle explained then that he had filed a claim for a granite quarry and, since literally thousands of granite rocks were part of the landscape, the officials let him be. [70]

Hoyle’s “gold”—what there was of it—came from tourists’ wallets. His up-to-date camp afforded a dining room, fountain, store, six tents, six cabins and a gas station at rates below those of the Wawona Hotel. [28]

The camp catered to touring families who couldn’t afford hotel lodging, fishermen, and — oddly enough — dogs. [74] Dogs were not allowed in the Park and there we no special kennels for them at that time so they were left in custody of the Hoyles while their owners “did” the Park.

The Park Service bought Hoyle’s interest in 1932 and demolished the buildings in 1933. Hoyle, his wife and two sons, moved to Long Barn Tuolumne County where he “mined” more tourist gold with a hotel there until his death in 1937. [28] His former Wawona campsite became a public campground—now Camp A. E. Wood.

WILDLIFE

Today’s Wawona campers probably will see deer and squirrels, maybe a porcupine, raccoon, fox, wildcat, bear, coyote, or beaver and, rarely, a mountain lion.

Frequently beavers have been observed building dams in the small creek that cuts through the golf course only yards distant from the present highway.

The Wawona area was a private “island” in Yosemite until 1932, and as such was good hunting grounds for Indians and white men. Jay C. Bruce, son of a Wawona settler and State Lion Hunter for 28 years, estimates that he shot 40 mountain lions, 40 wildcats and 11 black bears around Wawona between 1915 and 1932. [39]

Two grizzly bears were killed near Wawona in the late 1800’s. One skin, roughly eight by five, hung in Hill’s Studio from 1887 until 1918 when the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California purchased it. [44]

Now, it is kept in a refrigerated room for “long time preservation.” [45]

Many men visiting Yosemite are interested, almost obsessively, in one thing—fishing! John L. Murphy, early-day guide, was the first to anticipate this popular, recreational demand by stocking Tenaya Lake in 1878. [31]

In 1895, the Washburns established fish hatchery [3] at Wawona where a Big Creek empties into the South Fork of the Merced. It was operated by the State and, each spring for ten years, Army troopers distributed thousands of trout in the streams, rivers and lakes of Yosemite National Park.

The hatchery was torn down in 1933 by the CCC [46] after it had been succeeded by a larger one in Yosemite Valley which in turn was superseded in 1957 by the fish hatcheries at Moccasin Creek and the San Joaquin. [47]

Today’s fishermen owe thanks to these State Hatcheries that plant over a million fingerlings a year in Yosemite, and to the tireless troopers who first distributed the breeding stock which has had much to do with the present fish population in the Yosemite back country.

THE CEMETERY

Wawona’s Boot Hill lies on the low hill a tenth of a mile north of the Pioneer Center, behind and above the stables. There are two parts to this rude, unremembered graveyard, both surrounded by neat, brown fences. Their are no memories or markers for the smaller plot, just pine-needled ground and the mysterious fence.

When ranger-naturalist Jack F. Fry began putting frustrating weeks interviewing old-timers and searching Mariposa County records, he couldn’t “find enough people to fill the graves that were obviously there.” After checking “various accounts of who is buried there, I have too many people for the graves!” [56]

Three of the graves have wooden markers. Nathan B. Phillips (see Pike), H. R. Sargent and John L. Yates are so remembered. Reportedly, Sargent was either a carpenter or a stage driver who died in 1878 or 1879. [42] Yates was an Army private, stationed at Camp A. E. Wood, who drowned August 2, 1905, in the Merced River trying to save Mary Garrigan who drowned too. [57]

Presumably, Bush-head Tom (see Indians) is buried in one of the unmarked graves, as are two suicide victims and possibly John Hammond and Homer or Jim Snedecker. [42]

It is hoped that some of the confusion and mystery that mark this graveyard’s history may be cleared up by readers of this brief account so that the occupants may rest in remembered peace.

CHILNUALNA FALLS

Yosemite visitors admire Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil, Ribbon, Vernal and Nevada Falls. Even if they do not hike up to see the latter two, they can view them from Glacier Point or on a “living color” postcard.

Lovely, little-known Chilnualna Falls (pronounced Chilnoo-al-na) cannot be seen from an automobile nor is it pictured on a card, but those willing and able to take the 4.1 mile trail will be awed by the boisterous foaming series of cascades and cataracts that form the falls during the spring of the year.

Chilnualna Falls by Thomas Hill

The upper trail, built by John Conway for Washburns in 1895, [69] starts from the Chilnualna Park road, 1.6 miles east of the main road (see map.)

Another short foot trail to the base of the lower falls takes off from the parking place 1.9 miles east of Wawona Road. This was built in 1870 by Albert Bruce, John Washburn and two Chinese on land that is still private today [60] The view, while well-worth seeing, is ordinary compared to the spectacular one afforded from the longer, steeper trail to the upper falls.

According to one source Chilnualna means “leaping waters” and was so-named by the Piute Indians. [69] Another Wawona native insists that on Indian told him that Chilnualna means “many rocks” because the falls are in a very rocky canyon. [66] [Editor’s note: the origin of the word Chilnualna is unknown.—dea]

Thomas Hill did a pen and ink drawing of the falls in 1886 to illustrate James Hutchings’ book In the Heart of the Sierras, and later painted them.

John Washburn had a preemption claim on the lower falls prior to 1885. There he had tables, benches and a picnic ground, built a foot bridge out onto a large rock, and made the area a regular stage stop for visitors. Thousands knew the lower fall and other thousands received postcards of it, then sold at the Wawona Hotel.

After Albert Bruce homesteaded the area which included the lower Falls in 1885, they were no longer a stopping place. People have so desecrated ferns and woodwardia there that the Bruces have posted no tresspassing signs and wrathily stop unwelcome, would-be visitors. [69]

The longer, upper fall trail is on Park property and the falls and cascades splash unconcernedly down, appreciated only by the exploring hiker or photographer, but remembered by all who have observed their singular, neglected beauties.

PIONEER YOSEMITE HISTORY CENTER

The Original Wawona Bridge — Photo Taken in 1866

For 103 years the covered bridge has spanned the South Fork of the Merced River at Wawona. From 1857 when Galen Clark built it, “it existed a simple, open structure (see cut) until 1875 when the Washburn brothers rebuilt it as a covered bridge reminiscent of their native Vermont. It carried all traffic—foot, horse, stage and car—until 1931 when modern concrete bridge on the new Wawona road replaced it.[”]

After its back was broken by the damaging floods of 1955, the covered bridge was restored authentically and painstakingly, even to using square nails, [75] by the National Park Service under its ambitious Mission 66 program.

It stands now as the only covered bridge left in any National Park and one of the few in the West. It is used daily by horses and visitors as the central feature of the Pioneer Yosemite History Center. On the south side of the river in the old wagon shop are historical exhibits showing the transportation used by early pioneers. On the north side is a collection of authentic, historic buildings, furnished to show the type of housing the pioneers had—including the fieldstone jail.

The Pioneer Center which opened officially in 1961, attracts many visitors who appreciate its unique historical values. It is significant that these old buildings are gathered together at Wawona where the first pioneer activity of any magnitude took place in the early 1850’s. Exhibits, self-guiding pamphlets and tape recordings in each building assure visitors of sharing the history of Yosemite and its human builders.

SOURCES

YNN Yosemite Nature Notes, published by Yosemite Natural History Assoc.
MG — Mariposa Gazette
a.c. — author’s collection
YNP Yosemite National Park
Unless otherwise noted all materials are in Yosemite Museum collections.

1. YNN, Feb , 1958
2. YNN, Apr., 1957
3. 100 Years in Yosemite, Russell
4. Handbook of Yosemite National Park, Hall
5. YNP, Report of Acting Superintendent, 1890-1914
6. YNN, Apr. 1952
7. Clark Letter, Dec. 18, 1870
8. Ross Mss. ND
9. The Big Oak Flat Road, Paden & Schlichtmann, 1955
10. Mariposa Gazette, Apr. 25, 1873
11. Clark Mss., 1880
12. MG, Centennial Edition, 1954
13. MG, Dec. 26, 1874
14. The Call, March 24, 1910
15. Interview with Clarence Washburn, Jan. 25, 1961
16. MG, July 19, 1885
17. MG, Oct. 4, 1879
18. Harris Mss., ND
19. Gibner Mss., 1955
20. YNN, June, 1948
21. California Memories, Graves, 1911
22. Vol. K, Land Claims, Mariposa Courthouse
23. Harris Mss., author’s collection.
24. Annual Report, NPS, 1932
25. Degnan Letter, a.c., July 26, 1960
26. Bruce Mss., a.c., Oct, 1960
27. MG, August 15, 1896
28. Hoyle letter, a.c., Jan. 31, 1961
29. YNP, Report of Acting Superintendent, 1904
30. YNP, Report of Acting Superintendent, 1905
31. Supervisor’s Minutes, Vol. A, Mariposa County
32. YNN, July, 1943
33. Ibid, Sept., 1943
34. MG, June 4, 1902
35. Interview with D. H. Hubbard, March 27, 1961
36. Interview with Hattie Bruce Harris, Aug. 5, 1960
37. Bruce letter, Feb., 1961, a.c.
38. (p. 81) Granite Crags, Gordon-Cummings (p. 87) Stevents Mss., Aug. 12, 1940
39. (p. 81, 87) Phillips file (p. 97) Congar Killer, Bruce, 1953
40. (p. 81) The Sounds of Yosemite, Gilstrap record, 1960 (p. 87) Bruce letter, a.c., Jan., 1961
41. (p. 84) YNN, Aug., 1943 (p. 87) Report of Inquest, Mariposa County
42. (p. 87, 97) YNN, Dec., 1959 (p. 84) MG, Dec., 1879
43. (p. 85) MG, May 9, 1891 (p. 87) YNN, March 1949
44. (p. 85) MG, May 21, 1892 (p. 97) Animal Life in the Yosemite,
45. (p. 85) Gertrude Hutchings, Mss. (p. 97) Benson letter, a.c., Jan. 31, 1961
46. (p. 91) YNN, Feb., March, April, 1959 (p. 86, 97) Swallow Interview, Feb., 1961
47. (p. 91) MG, Oct. 11, 1879 (p. 97) YNN, Jan., 1944
48. (p. 85, 86) Degnan letter, Jan. 19, 1961, a.c. (p. 88, 94, 95) Driscoll Mss., July 13, 1936
49. Official Bands, 1852, Mariposa County
50. In the Heart of Sierras, Hutchings, 1886
51. MG, July 31, 1875
52. Land Claims, 1870, Mariposa County
53. YNN, Sept., 1956
54. Russell letter, Feb., 1961, a.c.
55. Sawtelle letter, Feb. 4, 1952
56. Fry letter, Feb. 15, 1961
57. MG, Aug. 12, 1905
58. YNN, March, 1944
59. WPA Project No. 2874, 1936
60. MG, July 4, 1908
61. Hill file
62. Who’s Who, 1907
63. Bruce letter, a.c., Oct., 1960
64. YNN, June, 1957
65. MG, Dec. 26, 1874
66. Bruce letter, a. c., Feb. 20, 1960
67. Sawmill History, Hurt
68. Harris Mss., Feb. 23, 1950
69. Harris letter, a.c., Sept. 24, 1960
70. Bruce letter, a.c., Feb. 6, 1961
71. MG, Jan 21, 1899
72. Leidig Mss., June 6, 1939
73. Mining Claims, 1902, Mariposa County
74. Interview with Bert Sault
75. YNN, Nov., 1957

BIBLIOGRAPHY
of
SUGGESTED READING

1. Anderson, Ralph H., “We Will Pitch Camp at Bridalveil,” Yosemite Nature Notes, May, 1951.
2. Bassett, Neil R., “The Discoverers of Yosemite,” Yosemite Nature Notes, April, 1957.
3. Brewer, William H., Up and Down California in 1860-1864, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1930.
4. Brockman, C. Frank, “Development of Transportation to Yosemite,” Yosemite Nature Notes, June through December, 1943.
5. Brubaker, Lloyd, Laurence Degnan and Richard Jackson, “Guide to the Pioneer Cemetery,” Yosemite Nature Notes, May, 1959.
6. Bruce, Jay C., Cougar Killer, New York, Comet Press, 1953.
7. Bunnell, L. H., Discovery of the Yosemite, Chicago, 1880.
8. Chamberlain, Newell D., The Call of Gold, Mariposa, 1936.
9. Chase, James S., Yosemite Trails, Boston and New York, 1911.
10. Clark, Galen. Indians of the Yosemite Valley, Yosemite, 1904.
11. __________. The Yosemite Valley, Its History, Yosemite, 1910.
12. Crampton, C. Gregory, “The Discovery of Yosemite and the Mariposa Indian War, Etc.,” Yosemite Nature Notes, February, 1958.
13. Ernst, Emil, “Fastidious Beavers,” Yosemite Nature Notes, March, 1949.
14. Farquhar, Frances P., Yosemite, The Big Trees, and the High Sierra; A Selective Bibliography, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1948.
15. Fox, Jim, “Galen Clark’s Library,” Yosemite Nature Notes, December, 1959.
16. Fry, Jack F., “Saving the Wawona Covered Bridge,” Yosemite Nature Notes, November, 1957.
17. Fry, Jack F., “Who is Buried in the Wawona Pioneer Cemetery?” Yosemite Nature Notes, December, 1959.
18. Godfrey, Elizabeth H., “Thumbnail Sketches of Yosemite Artists,” Yosemite Nature Notes, Thomas Hill, March, 1944.
19. __________. “Yosemite Indians,” Special Issue. Yosemite Nature Notes, July, 1941.
20. Gordon-Cummings, C.F., Granite Crags, Edinburg and London, William Blackwood and Sons, 1874.
21. Graves, Jackson A., California Memories, Los Angeles, Times-Mirror Press, 1930.
22. Grinnell, Joseph and Tracy Irwin Storer, Animal Life in the Yosemite, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1924.
23. Grinnell, Joseph, Joseph S. Dixon and Jean M. Lansdale, The Fur-Bearing Mammals of California, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1937.
24. Hall, Ansel (Ed.), Handbook of Yosemite National Park, New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921.
25. Hutchings, James M., Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California, San Francisco, 1882.
26. __________. In the Heart of the Sierras, Oakland, Pacific Press, 1888.
27. Hurt, Bert, “Sawmill History,” (Sierra National Forest), Ms in Yosemite Museum.
28. King, Clarence, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, New York, W. W. Norton Co., 1935.
29. Kneeland, Samuel, The Wonders of the Yosemite Valley, Boston and New York, Lee, Sheppard and Dillingham, 1872.
30. Koller, Marvin R., “Presidential Visits to Yosemite,” Yosemite Nature Notes, February, March and April, 1959.
31. LeConte, Joseph N., Ramblings Through the High Sierra, San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1930.
32. Mariposa Gazette, “Centennial Issue,” Mariposa, 1954.
33. Mills, Cosie Hutchings, Letter to Mrs. Elizabeth Godfrey, Ms. in Yosemite Museum.
34. Nelson, Arthur, “Privately Owned Lands Within National Parks and Monuments,” Yosemite Nature Notes, December, 1950.
35. Paden, Irene and Margaret Schlichtmann, The Big Oak Flat Road, privately printed, San Francisco, 1955.
36. Robinson, Homer W., “The History of Business Concessions in Yosemite National Park,” Yosemite Nature Notes, June, 1948.
37. Rodin, Robert J., “Old Ice House,” Yosemite Nature Notes, June, 1957.
38. Russell, Carl P., One Hundred Years in Yosemite, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1947.
39. __________. Revised edition, Yosemite Natural History Association Inc., 1957, 1959.
40. Sargent, Shirley, “Pike Phillips Had Unique Place in Yosemite History,” Mariposa Gazette, August 25, 1960.
41. Schroeder, Bertha, “Index to Mariposa Gazette 1859-1908,” (Ms. Mariposa County Historical Society[)].
42. Smith. Bertha H., Yosemite Legends, San Francisco, Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco, 1904.
43. Sproul, Alan, “The ‘First’ Yosemite Rangers,” Yosemite Nature Notes, April, 1952.
44. Taylor, Katherine Ames, Lights and Shadows of Yosemite, H.S. Crocker, San Francisco, 1926.
45. __________. Yosemite Trails and Trails, Stanford University Press, 1948.
46. Thomson, Charles C., “Ecology of the Wawona Road,” Yosemite Nature Notes, 1937.
47. Truman, Ben C., “The Passing of the Sierra Knight,” Overland Monthly, July, 1903.
48. United States National Park Service, Annual Reports, 1916 to date.
49. Van Name, William G., The Yosemite National Park: It’s Boundaries Have Been Trimmed, privately printed, January, 1924; Ms. copy in Yosemite Museum.
50. Vivian, A.P., Wanderings in the Western World, London, 1879, 426 pages, illustrated.
51. Wallis, O. L. “Yosemite’s Pioneer Arboretum,” Yosemite Nature Notes, September, 1951.
52. Whitney, J. D., The Yosemite Guide Book, California State Legislature, 1874.
53. Williams, John A., Yosemite and Its High Sierra, San Francisco. 1921.
54. W.P.A. Project #2874, “Thomas Hill,” San Francisco, 1936.
55. Yeager, Dorr G., National Parks in California, Menlo Park, Lane Publishing Co., 1959.
56. Yosemite Advisory Board, “Reports,” Ms. Yosemite Museum, 1928-1948.
57. Yosemite National Park, Report of the Acting Superintendent, 1892-1914.

PICTURE CREDITS

(Unless otherwise noted photos herein are copies of originals in the Yosemite Museum Collections. Copy work by M. V. and A. W. Wood and K. A. Trexler.)

Front Cover:     From B. M. Leitch, Mariposa Grove and Big Trees, 1908, privately printed.
Page 65:     Anderson, N.P.S.
Page 66:     Watkins
Page 67:     Watkins (orig. at Stanford U.)
Page 68:     Boysen (Stereo)
Page 69:     Boysen
Page 71:     Unknown
Page 73:     H. B. Harris
Page 74:     Pidgeon
Page 75:     Fiske (courtesy L. Degnan)
Page 76:     U. S. Army
Page 77:     U. S. Army
Page 79:     Pidgeon
Page 80:     Unknown
Page 82-83:     N.P.S. (From an original map by Y. R Solomons)
Page 85:     Bradey and Rulofson
Page 88:     Fiske
Page 90:     Watkins (Stereo)
Page 91:     Boysen
Page 92:     Unknown
Page 93:     Anderson, N.P.S.
Page 94:     Pidgeon
Page 95:     N.P.S.
Page 96:     E. Hoyle, Long Barn, Calif.
Page 98:     Hill (From Hutchings, In The Heart Of the Sierras)
Page 99:     Watkins (Stanford U.)
Back Cover:     Hubbard, N.P.S.

WAWONA CHRONOLOGY

1851 Nutchu Indian camp at Wawona “surprised and captured” by Mariposa Battalion led by Major James D. Savage.
1855 Mann brothers built toll horse trail from Wawona to Yosemite Valley. Finished in 1856.
1856 Galen Clark homesteaded, established crude overnight lodging-house at Wawona.
1857 Clark built an open bridge over South Fork of Merced River.
1864 Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove of Big Trees granted to California as public trust. Administered by Board of Commissioners.
1869 Edwin Moore acquired half interest in Clark’s Station.
1874 Washburn, Coffman and Chapman bought hotel, blacksmith shop, sawmill and open bridge from Clark and Moore, December 26.
1875 Stephen M. Cunningham grand marshal for parade celebrating opening of Wawona stage road from Wawona to Yosemite Valley, June 12.
1882 Washburn brothers formed Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Co.
1885 Artist Thomas Hill established studio at Wawona Hotel.
1888 Six feet of snow.
1890 Yosemite created a National Park.
1891 Army headquarters — Camp A. E. Wood — established of Wawona.
1892 Wawona school opened in May with James Hutchings’ daughter first teacher.
1895 State fish hatchery erected.
1904 Army began arboretum across river from Camp A. E. Wood.
1905 Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove re-ceded to US to become part of Yosemite National Park.
Camp A. E. Wood abandoned as troops move to Yosemite Valley.
1914 Army withdrawal. Replaced by civilian rangers.
1916 Yosemite under jurisdiction of newly-created Notional Park Service. Last Washburn stagecoach driven by J. K. Ashworth in May.
1917 Nine-hole golf course, air strip and hotel building added.
1922 Camp Hoyle built on site of Army camp.
1925 Airplane landed on Wawona field, December 8.
1932 Wawona basin, 8,785 acres, bought by National Park Service.
Wawona Hotel operated by Yosemite Park and Curry Co.
1933 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps established upper end Wawona Meadows.
1937 Flood.
1942 CCC discontinued.
1955 Flood wrecked Stella Lake and badly damaged covered bridge.
1957 Covered bridge authentically reconstructed.
1959 Old Yosemite buildings moved to Yosemite Pioneer Center at Wawona.
1961 Pioneer Center officially opened.

Back Cover

An Open Door To Adventure

Original Army Headquarters

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PIONEER YOSEMITE HISTORY CENTER
Wawona

INDEX

A

Abrams, William Penn 64
Ahwahnee (Town) 81
Ah You 70
Air Strip 72
Arboretum 78
Ashworth, J. K. 84

B

Banton, John T. 73
Baxter, Ed 71
Benson, Capt. H. C. 78
Big Tree Station 69
Big Tree Literary Society 84
Bigelow, Major John E 77, 78
Brace, Charles Loring 67
Brewer, William 67
Brinkop, Grace 72
Bruce, Albert O. 70, 73, 77, 85, 95, 98
Bruce, Azelia Van Campen (Mrs, Albert Bruce) 77, 84, 85, 91
Bruce, Bert 70, 85, 95
Bruce, Bill 95
Bruce, Charles 69
Bruce, Jay C. 70, 85, 87, 95, 97
Bruce, John 69
Bruce, Robt. 95
Bryan, Wm. Jennings 91
Bunnell, Lafayette 64

C

California State Park 76, 77
Camp A. E. Wood 76, 77, 78, 92, 96, 97
Camp Curry 95
Camp Hoyle 77, 95, 96
Cartwright, Hiram 73
Champman, E, W. 69, 79
Chase, James Smeaton 71
Chilnaulna Falls 74, 98
Chilnaulna (Name) 98
Chowchilla Indians 75
Chowchilla Mountain Road 68, 69, 80, 89
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 95, 97
Clark, Galen 64, 66-68, 69, 72, 73, 75, 79, 84, 85, 94, 99
Clark, Galen Alonzo 66, 67
Clark, Joseph Locke 66
Clark, Solon McCoy 66
Clark and Moore’s 68, 69, 94
Clark’s Station 64, 66-68, 69’ 79
Coffman, William 69
Conway, John 79, 93, 98
Cook, Fannie Bruce 84
Covered Bridge 99
Cunningham, Flat 89
Cunningham, Stephen M. 88-89

D

Degnan, Mary Ellen 85
Degnan, John 85
Dodge, Emily V. 73

E

Eccleston, Pvt. Robert 64

F

Fish Camp 94
Fish Hatchery 97
Fremont, Jessie 67
Fremont, John 67
Fry, Jack F. 97

G

Gallison, Frank 72
Garfield, James 91
Garrigan, Mary 97
Gibner, Charleste Bruce 70
Glacier Point 70, 81, 86, 98
Golf Course 72, 97
Gordon, Eddie 81
Grant, U. S. 70, 91
Graves, Jackson A. 72
Greeley, Roscoe 73
Green, John 73

H

Hambridge, Bush-head Tom 75, 97
Hammond, John E. 73, 97
Harris, Hattie Bruce 70, 73, 91
Hays, Rutherford B. 91
Hill, Estella 84, 89, 93
Hill, Thomas 71, 73, 87, 89-90, 98
Hill, Wiletta 73, 90
Hill’s Studio, (Pavilion) 84, 87, 89-90
Hoyle, Bert 96
Huffman’s Garage 72
Hutchings, Gertrude (Cosie) 85
Hutchings, James M. 64, 69, 72, 79. 84, 89, 98

I

Indians 75

K

Kiel, Jarvis 73
King, Clarence 67
Kneeland, Samuuel 75

L

Lawrence, Jimmy 75
Leidig, Chas. 92
Leidig, Jack 89
Leeper, William H. 73
Leitch, Bruce M. 71, 73
Leonard, Archie 85, 92

M

Madera Sugarpine Co. 94
Mann Brothers 79
Mariposa Battalion 64, 75
Mariposa Grove 64, 65, 67-68, 76 77, 81, 88, 89 91, 92, 95
Mariposa (Town) 67, 69, 71, 72 75, 79, 80, 89, 91
May, James D. 73
Miami Lodge 72
Mission 66 99
Monroe, George 84
Moore, Edwin 68, 79
Mormon Bar 69
Muir, John 64’ 66
Murphy, John 97

N

National Park Service 65, 77, 92, 99
Nutchu Indians 75

P

Pallahchun 67, 72
Phillips, Nathan Bennett (“Pike”) 85, 87, 97
“Pike”, See Phillips
Pioneer Yosemite History Center 77, 81, 90, 95, 97, 99
Post Office, Wawona 69
Pipes, Lt. Henry R. 78
Potts, Davis 73

R

Railroad, Electric 78
Rangers 92
Raymond (Town) 80, 81, 89, 90
Raymond, I. W. 67
Reamer, U. N. 64
Roosevelt, Theodore 91

S

Sargent, H. R. 97
Savage, James D. 75, 88
Sequoias 64, 67-68
Sierra Lodge 95
Snedecker, Homer (Jim) 97
Sproul, Alan 92
Stagecoach Drivers 83-84
Stanford, Leland 90
Stella Lake 72, 93
Stoddart, Archibald C. 73

T

Truman, Ben C. 84

U

U. S. Army 65, 76-78, 92, 97
Utilities 69, 77

V

Van Campen (family) 73

W

Walker Party, The 64
Washburn Brothers 69, 73, 73, 79, 80, 84, 85, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99
Washburn, Estella Hill (Mrs. John Washburn) 84, 89, 93
Washburn, Jean Bruce (Mrs. Henry Washburn) 69, 84, 91
Wawona Hotel 69-72, 74, 80, 81, 84, 85, 89, 90, 91, 94, 96, 98
Wawona, Naming 69
Wawona Point 81
Wawona Post Office 69
Wawona Road 69, 79-80, 81, 82, 84, 88
Wawona School 85
Whitney, Josiah 67
Williams, Virgil 90
Wood, Capt. A. E. 77

Y

Yates, John L. 97
Yosemite Grant 64, 67, 77
Yosemite National Park 64-65, 67, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 92, 97, 99
Yosemite Park & Curry Co. 72, 93
Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Co. 69, 80, 81
Yosemite Valley 64, 66, 69, 72, 76, 77, 81, 84, 85, 88, 91, 97

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