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Yosemite: the Park and its Resources (1987) by Linda W. Greene

CHAPTER X: SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL PROPERTIES IN YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

A. The National Register of Historic Places 1045

1. Properties Listed in the National Register 1046
2. Properties Determined Eligible for Listing in the National Register 1048
3. Properties Nominated to the National Register, Status Uncertain 1048
4. Properties Nominated to the National Register by the National Park Service, Concurred in by State Historic Preservation officer, Returned by National Register for Additional Data or Revisions Potential National Register Properties 1049
5. Properties to be Nominated to the National Register, 1987 1049

a) Architecture 1050
b) Transportation and Landscape Architecture 1051
c) Conservation/Commerce 1052
d) Conservation/Parks and Recreation 1052

(Note: Yosemite Valley became California registered historical landmark No. 790 in 1964)

A. The National Register of Historic Places

A number of evaluations of historical properties in Yosemite National Park have been made over the past fifteen years. A 1971 inventory by Historian F. Ross Holland, Jr., of the Denver Service Center was followed in 1974 by a historic resources survey of Yosemite Valley by Historian Erwin N. Thompson of the Denver Service Center. The significant properties determined by those studies, plus those in developed areas and those potentially affected by proposed actions of the General Management Plan, were studied further in a Historic Resources Inventory published in 1979 that provided data necessary for the cultural resources component of the GMP.

In the 1979 study all of the previously studied properties were evaluated against National Register criteria. The National Register of Historic Places is the nation’s official list of its cultural resources worthy of preservation. Maintained by the National Park Service, it is part of a national program coordinating public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect historic and archeological resources. The list contains districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects significant in American history, archeology, architecture, engineering, and culture. The National Register includes places of regional and local significance as well as those resources qualified for designation as National Historic Landmarks.

The National Register evaluation process in 1979 eliminated most properties less than fifty years old from further consideration. The remaining ones were studied and, where appropriate, either nominated to the National Register, recommended for future nomination based on additional research, or determined ineligible due to marginal importance or complete lack of historical or architectural significance. The data base for park historical resources had been further expanded with completion of this parkwide Historic Resource Study, which has resulted in additional nominations to the National Register. The status of significant sites and structures in Yosemite National Park follows.

1. Properties Listed in the National Register

5. Properties to be Nominated to the National Register, 1987

The 1979 case study recommended certain properties for further evaluation under the National Register criteria. Those included:

Valley Area
Arch Rock stone retaining walls, entrance sign, and buildings
Cascades residences
Ahwahnee Row Houses
Lewis Memorial Hospital
Camp Curry Footbridge
Happy Isles Museum
Snow Creek Cabin

South Rim Area
Wawona tunnel
Chinquapin ranger residence, comfort station, and lunchroom
Henness Ridge Fire Lookout
Badger Pass ski house
Ostrander Lake ski hut
Wawona CCC and WPA structures
Wawona Washburn barn
South Entrance ranger duplex, office, and comfort station
Mariposa Grove comfort station
Chilnualna Fall ranger station (ruins)
Buck Camp ranger station

North Rim Area
Crane Flat Blister Rust Control camp
White Wolf Lodge

Miscellaneous
Backcountry patrol cabins
Yosemite Lumber Company grades and camps
El Portal, Aspen Valley, and Foresta inholdings

After further study of the above and of additional sites within Yosemite National Park, the writer determined that the following structures meet the criteria for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places under the following park themes:

a) Architecture

A variety of structures were selected for significance in architecture, displaying a wide range of styles and uses. The South Entrance ranger duplex (No. 4600), office building (No. 4604), and comfort station (No. 4606); the Mariposa Grove comfort station (No. 4726); the Henness Ridge fire lookout (No. 5300); and the Hetch Hetchy comfort station (No. 2104) are considered significant in rustic architecture. The Crane Flat and Henness Ridge fire lookouts are two of only four rustic-style lookouts in the state. The Crane Flat structure is not being nominated because of alterations that have been made to the original structure. The Henness Ridge structure is also significant in conservation.

The Chinquapin ranger station (No. 5000) and the Wawona ranger stations (Nos. 4000 and 4001) are representative of a cultural theme not used in other western parks. Although the buildings are reminiscent of colonial New England-style buildings, with their simple lines, white paint, and Cape Cod look, National Park Service Assistant Architect John B. Wosky designed them to continue the nineteenth-century building tradition of Yosemite exemplified by the early Sentinel and Wawona hotels and the later White Wolf Lodge. The latter resort is also being nominated for architectural significance and in the social/humanitarian field as being representative of the types of small resorts once so prevalent in the region.

A different type of architecture is displayed by the Yosemite Valley group utility building (no. 527), a reinforced concrete structure designed to be fireproof and to centralize many functions relative to visitor safety and comfort previously housed in a multitude of unsightly frame shacks in the valley utility area. Despite its size and utilitarian function, the building has some attractive architectural details and was designed with consideration of proper landscaping and harmonious blending with the environment.

b) Transportation and Landscape Architecture

Several structures in the park are considered to be of local significance in this field. The early roads and trails are being added to the National Register because of their significance in engineering, exploration/settlement, and association with famous people. They were important in the development of the park, of mountain climbing, and of enjoyment of the High Sierra backcountry. The Wawona tunnel was not only a skillful engineering project with an innovative ventilation system, but was also constructed with due respect for landscape and environmental concerns. The tunnels, bridges, and retaining walls on the new Big Oak Flat Road display stonework of quality and craftsmanship, in addition to being part of an important park road system. The retaining walls and entrance sign near the Arch Rock checking station also exemplify the best in Park Service stonework and rustic signage.

c) Conservation/Commerce

The High Sierra camps possess local significance as important early interpretive branches of the Yosemite educational program and as an early long-range planning attempt to relieve valley congestion. The Snow Creek cabin has local significance in the development of winter sports activities in Yosemite National Park and within California, as does the Ostrander Lake ski hut, which also possesses significance in architecture (late rustic design) and social/humanitarian themes, as the last CCC-aided construction project in the park.

d) Conservation/Parks and Recreation

National Park Service snow survey/backcountry patrol cabins at Merced Lake (No. 3400), Lake Vernon (No. 2450), Sachse Springs (no No.), Snow Flat (No. 3501), and Buck Camp (No. 4800) served as storage places and as shelters for men taking hydrologic measurements within the park as part of a statewide snow survey program. A similar structure at Lake Wilmer was crushed in an avalanche during the winter of 1985-86. The Frog Creek cabin aided in patrol work and egg-taking operations.

The following structures noted in the 1979 case study have been determined ineligible for the National Register due to a lack of historical or architectural significance:

Cascades residences
Happy Isles Museum
Lewis Memorial Hospital
Badger Pass ski house
Washburn barn

The Camp Curry footbridge should be part of the recommended parkwide trail, bridge, and dam survey and, if found eligible for the National Register, could be included in a thematic nomination resulting from that study. The Crane Flat blister rust control camp has been found ineligible due to a lack of integrity, the buildings have been altered for use by the Yosemite Institute. The remaining CCC structures at Wawona are ineligible due to lack of integrity. The Chilnualna Fall ranger cabin is also deemed to lack integrity, having fallen into ruin over the past few years. As mentioned earlier, on the basis of current information the Ahwahnee row houses are not considered eligible for the National Register.

Individual El Portal, Foresta, Aspen Valley, and Section 35 structures, numbering in the hundreds, will have to be researched and evaluated on an individual basis. At this time no structures of National Register significance have been found in El Portal, Section 35, or Foresta. The majority of the Aspen Valley properties, after a cursory examination by the writer, were not considered significant architecturally, although the older cabins should be more carefully inspected and their construction history researched for architectural and historical significance. The Yosemite Lumber Company grades and camps should be studied as part of the proposed wilderness survey.

Additional structures which have been evaluated and found to be ineligible due to a lack of historical, architectural, or associative significance, or a lack of integrity, include the:

Lake Eleanor residences
Hetch Hetchy residences
Miguel Meadow guard station and barn
El Portal National Lead Company houses
El Portal Murchison house
El Portal barium mines
Yosemite Valley water-stage recorders
Eight-Mile insect control laboratory
Wawona district ranger office, #4027
Wawona ranger office, #4002
Wawona barn
Wawona wagon shop

B. The Historic American Buildings Survey

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), initiated in 1933 as a program administered by the National Park Service, was the federal government’s first major step in establishing a comprehensive program for recording important examples of American architecture. Such documentation ensures that historical building techniques, fabrics, styles, and technology will be available for study and comparison long after the actual structures are gone. The program was initially conceived to utilize unemployed architects, draftsmen, and photographers to secure complete graphic records of endangered examples of early architecture and historic structures throughout the United States. In 1934 the Park Service, the American Institute of Architects, and the Library of Congress signed a memorandum of agreement to ensure continuance of the program on a permanent basis. Under the agreement, the AIA would identify and catalog significant structures, the Park Service would take photographs and prepare measured drawings, and the Fine Arts Division of the Library of Congress would serve as repository for the inventory forms, drawings, and photographs.¹ The work almost ceased during World War II, but revived.

[1. Unrau and Willis, Expansion of the National Park Service, 178, 180.]

In 1969 the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) was established as a companion program to document structures of technological and engineering significance as opposed to the residential and commercial structures on which HABS concentrated. HABS/HAER surveys involve varying levels of documentation for a specific building or complex and can include measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written architectural and historical data. The HABS/HAER collections, housed in the Library of Congress, are open to the public.

The following structures in Yosemite National Park have been documented by the HABS/HAER division of the National Park Service:

C. The National Historic Landmarks Program

Landmark designation is a unique status accorded a limited number of properties meeting the criteria of national significance. A national historic landmark is a district, site, building, structure, or object nationally significant in American history, architecture, archeology, or culture, and, as such, a special part of the nation’s heritage possessing significance for all Americans. The National Historic Landmarks program, authorized by the Historic Sites Act of 1935, underwent rapid growth in the early 1960s. The study, identification, and review of potential landmarks is a cooperative process in which state and local agencies, professional historians, architects, and archeologists, and the professional staff of the Park Service share knowledge and expertise. In the final review of potential landmarks, experts in relevant disciplines contribute their judgement to ensure that only qualified properties are declared eligible. Survey findings on potentially significant sites are presented in formal studies related to themes in the field of American history. A consulting committee of authorities reviews the study reports, as does the Secretary of the Interior’s Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings, and Monuments. The Secretary of the Interior has final responsibility for declaring sites eligible for designation as National Historic Landmarks. All properties eligible for National Historic Landmark status are automatically entered in the National Register as soon as the Secretary of the Interior determines them to be of national significance.

Architectural Historian Laura Souilliere recently completed an evaluation of structures within the National Park System for national significance in architecture. A selected number of properties in Yosemite National Park were determined to possess national significance in architecture’ as well as individual historical importance and on 28 May 1987 were approved for landmark status. They include:

Wawona Hotel, including all guest accommodations, and Hill Studio
Ahwahnee Hotel (main structure only)
LeConte Memorial Lodge
Parsons Memorial Lodge
Rangers’ Club and Garage

D. The List of Classified Structures for Yosemite National Park as of 12 December 1984

Current Department of the Interior management policies state that the central List of Classified Structures should only include historic structures within Park Service units that might meet the criteria for listing in the National Register or that are elements of sites, districts, or structural complexes that might meet the criteria. A few other structures determined to warrant preservation for their cultural values may also be included.

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