66 FOREST OUTINGS 



intensification and congestion. The horns of the dilemma are familiar and 

 evident: First, such parks or forests must generally be readily accessible to 

 obtain popular political support and to be usable. Second, their very 

 proximity tends to defeat their stated purpose. 



State Parks grew first from a patriotic wish to preserve historical places 

 of the American Revolution. Washington's headquarters at Xewburgh on 

 the Hudson, acquired in 1849, and Valley Forge were the first State parks 

 of importance. From the standpoint of forest recreation the Yosemite 

 Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, ceded from the public domain 

 by act of Congress in 1864. are important. Passed during the throes of the 

 Civil War. and at a time when the national philosophy was that all the 

 public domain should be passed to private ownership rapidly and under 

 the most liberal terms possible, this act provides evidence of a dawning 

 change of sentiment. 



The Yosemite Valley had been discovered by Capt. Joseph Reddeford 

 Walker in the spring of 1851. The next decade brought growing and none 

 too scrupulous use, and the location of several private claims in the valley. 

 It was a jewel of a place, and the desirability of defending it in its own 

 natural setting for the common enjoyment became plain. In 1864 the efforts 

 of "various gentlemen of fortune, of taste, of refinement,'' led Senator 

 Conness to obtain the act granting the Valley and the Big Trees to the 

 State of California. These natural wonders were to be managed by a 

 commission, and the thought was that such beauty should be held and 

 developed for public use, resort, and recreation, and should be inalienable. 



Almost at once the commissioners had trouble. They had trouble getting 

 funds to care for the growing crowds. The unfortunate results of toll-road 

 permits which they had to grant because of lack of public money made 

 more trouble, and the growing encroachments of destructive sheep grazing 

 on the surrounding unmanaged public domain (the State park was only 

 56 square miles in area) presented still another problem. John Muir, a 

 great naturalist, led a movement to create a national park surrounding 

 Yosemite State Park. Congress did so by an act of October 1, 1890 — 

 another legal landmark in the conservation movement. 



