Automobiles to Yosemite by Zina Abbott

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From June of 1874, when the first through stagecoach route from Coulterville reached Yosemite. tourists wishing to visit arrived on one of three stagecoach routes. Stagecoach travel soon increased tourist visits to Yosemite.

 

The first automobile to enter Yosemite National Park arrived in June of 1900. Oliver Lippincott, encouraged by the Washburns of Wawona fame, brought his steam-powered locomobile to Yosemite National Park for publicity. He visited several well-known attractions within the park, where he had his photograph taken.

Oliver Lippincott with associate. Edward E. Russell, and steam-powered locomobile at Mirror Lake

From that point in, more and more automobiles made their way into the park, including on the Big Oak Flat Road, as shown in this picture of two locomobiles, whose drivers made a stop at the Crocker Station.

Steam-powered locomobiles at Crocker Station, Big Old Flat Road

Like all three stagecoach roads, Big Oak Flat Road was a toll road, with posted tolls which included automobiles.

Toll charges, Big Oak Flat Road

However, many Yosemite residents, the Army acting park superintendents, and naturalists opposed the increasing incursion of automobiles within Yosemite. They felt the noisy, back-firing, exhaust-spewing menaces—what naturalist John Muir called “blunt-nosed mechanical beetles”—detracted from the natural wonders. In 1907, automobiles were totally banned from Yosemite National Park.

Early automobile on Coulterville Road

Due to the increase of popular demand, finally, beginning August 23, 1913, automobiles were allowed to enter Yosemite, but only on the Coulterville Road. Since stagecoach travel on this road had diminished by the early 1900s, this road was seldom used. The State of California bough it, and it was no longer a toll road. That did not mean it was greatly improved since its stagecoach days.

The Department of the Interior ordered an entrance station to be built at the Merced Grove of Giant Sequoia trees, which was included just inside the boundary of Yosemite National Park. All motorists were required to pay a five dollars to enter—an expensive fee at that time—and to observe sixty-five restrictive regulations. If they arrived at the entrance station after 3:30pm, they were not allowed entry but must wait until the following day.

Giant Sequoias at Merced Grove

Other regulations included only parking in front of hotels and camps to unload passengers or luggage for a time not to exceed five minutes and being required to have all vehicles off of the road by seven o’clock in the evening, required parking in a specially built garage opposite Army headquarters. The garage was equipped with bench tools and a complete blacksmith shop. It averaged twenty-five dollars-worth of business for every car that came into Yosemite.

Merced Grove Ranger Station-Coulterville Road circa 1930s

Maximum speed was ten miles per hour on straight stretches and a six-mile-per-hour limit at all other points. Rule number 53 stated,  “When teams, saddle horses, or pack trains approach, automobiles shall stop and remain at rest until the former have passed, or until drivers or riders are satisfied regarding the safety of their horses. If approaching animals manifest signs of fear, the engine must be stopped.”

That did not stop motorists from entering the park. From August twenty-third on, 127 autos were admitted into Yosemite Valley.

Arched Rock-Merced River Drive-Yosemite

 Soon, automobile stages replaced stagecoaches for transporting tourists from the Yosemite Valley Railroad to Yosemite Valley, 

and from traveling between Yosemite Valley and Wawona.

 

Auto Stage from Yosemite Valley to Wawona

Where stagecoaches used to thrill tourists by driving through tunnel trees, automobiles soon did the same.

 

1918 Wawona Tree

  

~oOo~ 

In my book, Emily Yosemite Bride, by 1915, Emily had inherited Pop’s 1911 Ford Model T Touring car. Like this image of a 1911 Model T, Emily’s was blue. 1911 was one of the last few years Ford offered color options for its automobiles. Once it developed assembly line manufacturing, the color options became "anything as long as it is black."

1911 Ford Model T Touring with two spare tires.

At that time, there was no interstate highway system designed for convenient automobile travel, so she put her Model T into a railroad cargo car for the trip to California. Once she learns Joey, her best friend from the time they were both in school, was working in Yosemite, she decided to drive her Model T there…over the rough Coulterville Road…because Pops taught her how to drive…and to repair her own Ford…and she was not about to let anyone tell her she could not do it, just because she was female.

 

Emily Yosemite Bride is scheduled for release on September 11, 2026. For the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

 

 

Sources:

Wikimedia Commons 

Sargent, Shirley, Yosemite's Innkeepers. Ponderosa Press, Yosemite, California: 2000. Chapter 5, “David and Goliath”

https://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?3,26509

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merced_Grove_Ranger_Station# 

https://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/one_hundred_years_in_yosemite/stagecoach.html

 

Teddy Roosevelt Visits Yosemite National Park by Zina Abbott

 

The majority of this  post was a originally published on this blog almost ten years ago on August 8, 2016. With my inclusion of this incident in my current book, Ardith Yosemite Bride, I felt it appropriate to share it again. In fact, if you have already read Part 1 of the book, in which I fictionalized several characters, you might almost feel like you are reading the account from the point of view of Ardith and her two friends, Lucy and Julia Leonard.

~oOo~ 

In 1903, President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt visited Yosemite National Park. Guided into the Yosemite wilderness by naturalist John Muir, the president went on a three-day wilderness trip that started at the Mariposa Grove. 

 

Pres. Roosevelt, John Muir and the official presidential delegation at Grizzly Giant Tree in Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park

He also visited Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point, and Yosemite Valley among other points of interest in the park. Muir seized the opportunity "to do some forest good in talking freely around the campfire," and the President, referring to John Muir, is quoted as saying "Of course of all the people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite."

 

President Theodore Roosevelt and his Official Delegation enter the part at Wawona

President Roosevelt, accustomed to being surrounded by enthusiastic crowds, wanted his experience to the park to be one of isolation and “roughing it.” For most of his journey he was accompanied by only four others: John Muir, two of the men hired as the first civilian park rangers in 1898, Charlies Leidig and Archibald C. Leonard, and a packer (Army packer Jacker Alder). President Roosevelt slept on a stack of forty wool blankets covered by a shelter half. Food for the party was cooked over an open campfire by Charlie Leidig.

 

Pres. Theodore Roosevelt leads party including John Muir, Charles Leidig, Park Ranger and cook, Archie C. Leonard, Park Ranger and Army packer, Jacker Adler

From Charlie Leidig’s Report of President Roosevelt’s visit: “On May 3/16, 1903, …they broke camp at Mariposa Grove and were on horses by 6:30a.m. The president directed Leidig to “outskirt and keep away from civilization.” Leidig led the party down the Lightning Trail. They crossed the South Fork at Greeley’s and hit the Empire Meadows Trail. They especially avoided approaching the Wawona Hotel for fear the President would be brought in contact with members of his own official party which had remained for the night at Wawona. They had a cold lunch on the ridge east of Empire Meadows. There was lots of snow as they crossed towards Sentinel Dome; they took turns breaking trail through deep snow. In the Bridalveil Meadows the party plowed through5 ft. of snow. The President mired down and Charley had to get a log to get him out. It was snowing hard and the wind was blowing.”

From Charlie Leidig’s report of President Roosevelt’s visit: “On May 4, the party went down to Glacier Point for pictures that had been prearranged….”

 

President Theodore Roosevelt at Glacier Point

 

From Charlie Leidig’s report of President Roosevelt’s visit:

As they left Glacier Point, the President rode in front dressed in civilian attire. The rangers wore blue overalls, shaps and spurs. They went into Little Yosemite Valley for lunch. Here they encountered a considerable crowd of valley visitors, since it had been widely advertised in the papers that the President was visiting the park.

 

Pres. Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir at Glacier Point

There was considerable disagreement in the matter of plans for the Presidential visit. The President wanted a roughing trip and through Pardee, Wheeler and Muir such a trip had been worked out. On the other hand, Mr. John Stevens, Guardian of the Valley under State administration, and certain of the commissioners, especially Jack Wilson from San Francisco, had made plans for a large celebration. The Chris Jorgensen studio home had been set aside for the President’s official use. A cook had been set engaged from one of the best hotels in San Francisco to serve a banquet. The commissioner had arranged a considerable display of fireworks, which John Degnan claims amounted to some $1800 worth….

 

Yosemite National Park map

So there was considerable party awaiting the President at the top of Nevada Falls and Little Yosemite. The President requested that all the people be kept at a distance in order that he could carry out his desire for a “roughing trip”, so everybody was kept at a respectful distance.

When the party reached Camp Curry at 2 P.M., they found a big crowd of women in front of the camp. They had formed a line across the road in an attempt to stop the President. They all wanted to shake hands with him. Charlie Leidig states, he was riding second in line with a Winchester rifle and six shooter. His horse was a high spirited animal. The President said, “I am very much annoyed, couldn’t you do something?” Leidig replied, “follow me.” He gave spurs to his horse and as he reared, women fell apart and the President’s party went through the gap. The President waved his hat to the group in the road.

 

Camp Curry, circa early 1900s

 

…..Accompanied by five or six members of his party, the President walked back across the Sentinel Bridge to his horse. Muir had accompanied the President to the Jorgensen studio. The original party of five mounted their horses and started down the valley to pick a camp site near Bridalveil Falls where Muir had suggested they spend the last night in camp….They went down the south side of the [Merced] river followed by a big string of people on horseback, in buggies, surries, and others on foot. Leidig stated there must have been between 300 or 500, or possibly 1000 of them in the crowd, filling the Bridalveil Meadows. As they reached their camping places on a grassy slope just south of the present road through Bridalveil Meadows, the President said to Leidig, “These people annoy me. Can you get rid of them?” Charlie said he walked out and told the crowd that the president was very tired and asked them to leave. They went—some of them even on tiptoe, so as not to annoy their President.

When Charlie returned to the camp site the President said, “Charlie I am hungry as Hell. Cook any dam thing you wish. How long will it take?”

Charlie told him it would take about 30 minutes, so the President lay on his bed of blankets and went to sleep and snored so loud that Leidig could hear him even above the crackling of the campfire.

After dinner, Muir and the President went out int the meadow until way after dark. When they returned they sat around the campfire where the President told them of his lion hunting trips.

People came again in the morning. Crowds could be seen all through the brush. Leidig kept them away. The stage came down containing the President’s official party. After breakfast, the President and Muir got into the stage and as they left the President called Leidig and Leonard to him and said, “Boys, I am leaving you. Good-bye, and God Bless you.”

 

Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in rear seat on way to Inspiration Point, Yosemite National Park

Roosevelt is quotes as saying, "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias...our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their Children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred." While he was president, Theodore Roosevelt established five national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests.

It was my privilege as a volunteer in the Merced California Family History Center to have worked with sisters, then-living Lucille C. Davenport as well as Joyce C. Hammer, descendants of Park Ranger Archibald C. Leonard. With their permission, I will be telling a bit of their grandparent’s story in next month’s blog.

 

Ardith Yosemite Bride, my second book published in the multiple-author series, National Park Brides, is now available for sale as an ebook or for no additional cost with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

 

 

 

 

 

Also, through May 14th, my first book in the National Park Brides series, Anthelia Yosemite Bride, is on a Kindle Countdown sale for 99 cents. It is also available on Kindle Unlimited. For that book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Bingaman, John W., “Guardians of the Yosemite”http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/guardians_of_the_yosemite/history.html

Charlie Leidig’s Report of President Roosevelt’s Visit in May, 1903

Theodore Roosevelt, The John Muir Exhibit, http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/people/roosevelt.aspx