![[John Muir on the establishment of Yosemite National Park.]](https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1205/thumbnail.jpg)
[John Muir on the establishment of Yosemite National Park.]
Files
Kimes Entry Number
183A
Original Date
10-1-1890
Publication
New York Evening Post [Oct.], 1890
Size/Description
Clipping, CStoC
Excerpt/Portion of
The quote from Muir is excerpted from no. 181, p. 487.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "[John Muir on the establishment of Yosemite National Park.]" (1890). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes (Muir articles 1866-1986). 206.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/206
William and Maymie Kimes Annotation
In an article entitled ""The New Yosemite Reservation"" the writer quotes Mr. [General William] Vandever's bill to establish the Yosemite National Park and, although complimenting it, urges an extension to include the watershed of the Yosemite streams, Hetch Hetchy Valley, Tuolumne Canyon and Meadow, and the Merced and Tuolumne Groves. Concerning the last, Muir is quoted: ""These King trees, all that there is of their kind in the world, are surely worth saving, whether for beauty, science, or bald use. But as yet only the isolated Mariposa Grove has been reserved as a park for public use and pleasure. Were the importance of our forests at all understood by the people in general even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of Government. At present, however, every kind of destruction is moving on with accelerated speed."" Muir then urges the extention of the reservation, saying that ""great is the need, not only for the sake of the adjacent forests, but for the valley itself. For the branching canons and valleys of the basins of the streams that pour into Yosemite are as closely related to it as are the fingers to the palm of the hand-as the branches, foliage, and flowers of a tree to the trunk. Therefore very naturally all the mountain region above Yosemite ... should be included in the Park to make it a harmonious unit instead of a fragment, great though the fragment be .... "" In conclusion, the writer states, ""The one condition necessary is that the new reservation shall be kept out of the hands of the California incompetents who have disgraced themselves and their State by their inefficient management of the present grant.""