When was sequoia national park founded

But the thousands of acres surrounding these relatively small federal holdings were still subject to exploitation in the form of mining, logging, and grazing. The new park did not include the valley or Mariposa Grove, which were still part of the older Yosemite Valley Park, but it encompassed enormous tracts of surrounding wilderness.

With two administrations -- one overseeing the valley and big trees, and one overseeing the new park -- the expected overlap occurred and frustration mounted. In , legislators decided to add the valley and big trees to the new park and to reduce the park's size to follow the natural contours of the land, while excluding private mining and logging operations. Everyone was set to live happily ever after.

No one would have predicted that Yosemite would become one of the most popular places on the planet though some argue that tourism has accomplished the destruction that logging couldn't. Recent years have brought more and more human activity to this wilderness haven. Big changes are expected as the National Park Service grapples with the best way to permit access without causing more irreparable damage to this natural wonderland.

Who would have thought that preservation would wreak its own brand of havoc here? But we can only imagine how this beautiful place would look today had it been left in the hands of profiteers. Born in Scotland in , Muir emigrated with his family to Wisconsin at the age of After an accident nearly blinded him about a decade later, he dropped everything to pursue his fascination with the natural world and decided to go to the Amazon -- on foot.

He didn't make it, but traveling became a way of life for Muir, and his journeys eventually took him west. He discovered the Sierra Nevada area in and worked as a shepherd in the Yosemite area. He later ran a sawmill nearby.

Muir began writing about the Sierra Nevada the moment he arrived, and his passionate words started finding an audience in the late s. He wrote a number of books, contributed to numerous periodicals, and became a leading voice in the budding environmentalist movement. In , Muir helped found the Sierra Club. In , he took Teddy Roosevelt camping in the Yosemite backcountry and catalyzed Roosevelt's vision of an entire system of national parks. Muir is a legend not only for his words and his deeds, but also because he was something of an eccentric.

He never shaved, making way for an impressive beard. He experienced nature to its fullest -- he climbed a tree during an incredible storm, sledded down Yosemite Valley's steep walls on his rump to avoid an avalanche, and chased a bear so he could study the animal's stride. Not surprisingly, these actions have since been banned by the National Park Service. From the first moment a politician pondered Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Muir fought it.

Damming and drowning a place whose beauty rivaled that of Yosemite Valley was sacrilege to him. Since World War II, these neighboring parks have been administered jointly.

Today, more than 1. As we celebrate more than years of protecting this unique California landscape, learn more about these two incredible parks.

Sequoia was the first park created to protect a living organism. Found only in the unique environment of the western Sierra, the massive sequoia trees grow at between 5, and 8, feet in elevation. The relatively mild winters at that elevation, along with a traditional history of fire, has made the mid-Sierra zone the perfect habitat for sequoias. To protect the giant sequoias from logging, Sequoia National Park was established in In , Congress and President Franklin D.

Roosevelt created a new national park called Kings Canyon that incorporated the area of General Grant National Park with the spectacular canyons and high Sierra country to the east. Fire and proactive forest management play a unique role in the parks. Heat from low-intensity fires allows sequoia cones to open and drop their seeds in the fresh ash bed -- seeds the size of an oatmeal flake!

Sequoia and Kings Canyon were the first national parks west of the Mississippi to use prescribed burning as way to not only protect, but to ensure the long-term survival and rejuvenation of giant sequoias. Active fire and fuels management started here in the 's and is a practice that is used today to reduce hazardous fuel loads and to maintain a healthy forest.

Sequoia is home to the tallest mountain in the lower Sequoias are some of the largest and oldest trees in the world. These massive trees can live for over 3, years thanks to a chemical in their bark called tannin, which helps to protect against rot, boring insects and even fire. These magnificent trees can grow as tall as a story building, averaging between and feet tall.

The most famous resident of Sequoia National Park -- the General Sherman Tree -- stretches almost feet tall and over 36 feet in diameter, making it the largest tree in the world by volume. The First Peoples depended mostly on acorns, deer, and other small game for food, and soon developed a trading network that stretched across the mountains and into Owens Valley. A well-worn trail emerged, running east up Bubbs Creek to 11,foot-high Kearsarge Pass and dropping sharply into the valley, serving as the trade route between the tribes.

In , the first Europeans entered the area. Spaniard Gabriel Moraga and his expedition discovered a major river on January 6, the day of Epiphany. This is why Kings River and Kings Canyon are never spelled with apostrophes. These newcomers, searching for gold, began the first comprehensive exploration of the Sierras. Unfortunately, smallpox, measles, and other diseases traveled with them and devastated local Native American hamlets, and the Epidemic of almost wiped them out entirely.

The late 19th Century brought the first scientists to the region, and Harvard geology professor Josiah Dwight Whitney became the first director of the California Geological Survey. One of his first actions was to send five men to finally map the Sierra Mountains, and Mt. Whitney in Sequoia is named for his contributions to geography. In , John Muir, the famous naturalist, visited Kings Canyon, which impressed him with its similarity to the terrain of Yosemite Valley.

It was not long, however, before the pristine setting began to change. In the s, ranchers grazed their cattle and sheep - "woolly lawnmowers" - among the Big Trees, and sawmills were built. Timber companies proceeded to chop down and carry away one-third of the primeval sequoias for use as pencils, stakes, and other small items. But thanks to Muir and others, some sequoias still remain.

Local support for a park in the area started with George Stewart, editor of the Visalia Delta. In he publicly condemned the wholesale cutting of sequoias. In , he was joined by Muir and U. Senator John F.

Miller of California in an effort to enact a bill to protect the trees.