Intermountain Histories

Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir Adventures in Yosemite: Story 3 of 8 of the President Theodore Roosevelt in the West Tour

2025-10-24T15:03:18+00:00

President Theodore Roosevelt and his guide John Muir explored California’s beautiful National Park, Yellowstone, resulting in a nationwide conservation effort.

With a fondness for adventure, the outdoors, and the American West, President Theodore Roosevelt itched to experience the natural landscapes in California he’d heard so much about. Yosemite was one of only two national parks at the turn of the century, and he felt it fitting to include that stop in his 1903 Western tour. Roosevelt wrote a letter to John Muir, a Scottish botanist and conservationist who caught the President’s attention with his non-fiction novel “Our National Parks,” and asked him to be his guide. “I do not want anyone with me but you, and I want to drop politics absolutely for four days and just be out in the open with you.” Muir had an overseas journey planned in Europe and Asia at that time that he didn’t think he could cancel. After explaining the situation to the President of the University of California, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, he got an appeal and joined Roosevelt in the mountains, “I might be able to do some forest good in freely talking around the campfire,” Muir mused. As per Roosevelt’s request, politics were not discussed, but Muir’s agenda was nonetheless accomplished: to advocate for the land in the American West. Roosevelt and his contingent arrived at Yosemite’s Wawona Hotel on May 15, 1903. With others remaining there, Muir, Roosevelt, a cook, two packers, and four mules left for the trees. They traveled through the giant sequoias, wandered through Mariposa Grove in the valley, and one night after camping at Glacier Point, they woke up to a blanket of snow, five inches atop them. If Roosevelt didn’t have forty wool blankets his men laid down for him and a warm fire by his side, he would have froze! Nonetheless, the men had great conversations. Charles Leidig was the cook and documented that “they talked a great deal about the conservation of forests in general and Yosemite in particular.” He also said, “he heard them discussing the setting aside of other areas in the United States for park purposes.” Muir had, indeed, done the “forest good.” This trip jump-started Roosevelt's efforts to preserve public lands and natural resources across the nation. He was impressed to immediately go to Congress when returning to Washington and implement some of Muir’s ideas. He pushed for wildlife reserves, and on June 8, 1906, he signed the Antiquities Act which allowed the President to “declare by public proclamation historic landmarks” to be “national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” Roosevelt famously said in a speech in Sacramento after his experience in Yosemite, “We are not building this country for a day. It is to last through the ages.” Yosemite laid the groundwork for protecting other national forests in California and across the nation.

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Indian Removal from Yosemite National Park

2019-09-21T02:50:19+00:00

Unlike in other National Parks, the American Indians living in Yosemite Valley were allowed to remain in the park after its creation. They worked as laborers and facilitated the tourist trade. In the 20th century, park officials slowly pushed them out of the valley and destroyed their homes in an attempt to ‘purify’ the park.

The Southern Sierra Band of Miwok Indians, also known as the Ahwahnechee, lived in Yosemite Valley beginning in the 14th century. The Sierra Miwoks interacted with other Miwok bands and nearby Paiutes, some of whom also settled in the valley.

Miners came to Yosemite in the 1850s following the California Gold Rush. Tourism to the valley increased in the late 1800s as John Muir advocated for the area’s preservation. The Yosemite Indians had been largely ignored by government officials in the past and had no official relationship with the federal government. As more people camped in or visited the valley, the resources of the Yosemite Indians diminished. In the 1880s, Yosemite leaders sent a petition to Congress, claiming that the “destruction of every means of support for ourselves and our families by the rapacious acts of whites will shortly result in the total exclusion of the remaining remnants of our tribes from this beloved valley.” They asked for $1 million for the “future support of ourselves and our descendants,” but received no reply.

Yosemite National Park was created in 1890. The Natives were not removed, but their way of life was restricted, and they depended on money from tourism. They sold baskets, charged tourists for photographs, and participated in the Indian Field Days, a showcase of Native American skills, crafts, and games beginning in 1916. Soon after the Field Days began, the Yosemite Indians merged their camps into one village.

In the 1930s, Park Superintendent Thomson planned to build a medical clinic in the place of the Indian village. There was no talk of expelling the Indians, as park officials valued their contribution to the tourist trade and needed them as laborers. Instead, the park decided to build a new ‘Indian Village,’ starting construction on cabin houses in 1933. Thomson wanted to use the new village as a means of controlling the Indian population in the park. Residents were charged rent and utilities, a difficulty when park officials refused to hire them. David Parker wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1933 saying, “I don’t see why we are not getting any chance, we are dependable as any men.” Once a resident lost employment in the park or retired, Thomson would end their lease and they would be forced to leave the valley. By the 1940s, the park’s Native population had been cut in half.

In 1953, the park service instituted the Yosemite Indian Village Housing Policy, allowing only permanent government employees to remain in the village. Park officials destroyed the homes of those who left in order to stop newcomers from taking their place, gradually pushing every Native family out of the park. By the 1960s the park service had burned all of the cabins except one, which they converted into a management office. Any remaining Indian workers were moved to park employee housing. Jay Johnson, the final Native employee to retire, left the park in 1996.

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John Muir and Yosemite

2019-02-13T01:20:23+00:00

John Muir is known as the Father of Conservationism. He spent his life roaming the Sierra Nevada mountain range and writing articles that convinced the nation that the land should be protected. His biggest success was helping Yosemite receive National Park status in 1890.

John Muir was an American preservationist. Born in Scotland in 1838, Muir came to love the natural world. At age eleven, Muir’s family immigrated to the United States and settled in Wisconsin working as farmers. John loved inventing mechanical contraptions, and he took them to the Wisconsin State Fair. Impressed with his ingenuity, faculty at the University of Wisconsin invited him to apply. Once accepted, he studied geology and botany for four years. Before graduating, Muir felt a drive to leave the university and explore the world. He walked a thousand miles to Florida and then boarded a ship to California. Upon arriving, he inquired where the wildest place in California was, and people referred him to Yosemite.
Yosemite derives its name from an indigenous tribe living in Yosemite Valley. Known as extremely violent tribe, their neighboring tribes called the people yohhe’meti, meaning “they are killers.” As white settlers moved in, they called the place Yosemite. One of the first settlers in the area was James Mason Hutchings. He built a hotel and a sawmill in the valley and advertised Yosemite as a tourist attraction. When Congress passed the bill declaring Yosemite as protected land, Hutchings received permission to stay. As his business grew, he hired a Scottish immigrant named John Muir to work in his sawmill.
Upon arriving in Yosemite Valley, Muir felt “overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower.” He decided to stay and obtained a job working in a sawmill in the valley. In his spare time, Muir explored the land and conducted botanical and geological studies. Muir felt a spiritual connection to the Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountains in general. He called them a “temple of nature,” a place to connect to God.
John despaired that the extractive lumber and mining industry throughout the Sierra Nevada was destroying the natural beauty and would keep future generations from finding that spiritual connection. Muir wrote articles for a number of magazines and newspapers to describe to the public the value of these beautiful lands. He explained the horrors of the deforestation and mining that were destroying irreplaceable wonders. The nation responded, and called upon Congress to protect these places for future generations.
In 1864, Abraham Lincoln had signed a bill passed by Congress to set aside land in the Sierra Nevada Mountains called Yosemite. Yosemite’s creation marked the first time in American and perhaps world history, where a government passed a law to preserve land as a park for future generations. Yosemite became the first state park of California, and in 1890 became the nation’s second national park.
Yosemite remains one of the United States’ most popular National Parks to this day. Each year millions of visitors enjoy its breathtaking beauty. Among its many famous features are Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, and Mirror Lake. The efforts to protect Yosemite from human development led the way to a string of state and national parks that we still enjoy today.
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