How should a national park be managed? Among all of the debates affecting America’s national parks, none has proved more enduring. Nor has any park, Alfred Runte reminds us, been in the spotlight more than Yosemite. Its cast of characters is especially rich, including James Mason Hutchings, Galen Clark, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Muir, David Brower, Joseph Grinnell, George M. Wright, and Ansel Adams. Not only was Yosemite the centerpiece of their careers, it was also the wellspring of their passion for nature. Now fully revised and updated, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness continues their story, from Yosemite’s path-breaking establishment in 1864 as a grant to California, 1890 expansion into a national park, boundary reductions and loss of the Hetch Hetchy Valley, evolution of wildlife protections and science, management practices threatening Yosemite Valley, and the fight for wilderness to the present day.

A natural wonder hewn by glaciers from the granite slopes of the western Sierra Nevada, Yosemite Valley reveals the power and beauty of nature's hand. Here, in the sublime "Incomparable Valley" of naturalist John Muir, alpine forests frame the legendary sites of Half Dome, El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite Falls, and other massive stone clefts. These marvels of rock and water have inspired writers, artists, and photographers ever since the American discovery of the valley by gold miners of the Mariposa Battalion acting as militia in l850. Within four years, Americans who realized the commercial value of Yosemite Valley began developing lodging facilities and promoting it as a tourist destination. Concerned Californians encouraged President Lincoln to grant the valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees to the State of California for the formation of a state park. This led to the creation of Yosemite National Park in l890.

A century and a quarter ago, the national park idea was born when Abraham Lincoln signed legislation setting aside Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias "for public use, resort, and recreation inalienable for all time." Over the next decade, the Yosemite park commissioners had to fight private land claims to the valley. By 1890, however, a public park system was firmly established in California when the Yosemite high country and much of what is now Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks were set aside as federally protected, public preserves. This collection of essays and photographs, originally published as a special issue of California History, documents the creation and management of California's first three national parks. As the essays remind us, the issues of park development so hotly debated today were raised first in Yosemite nearly a century ago. Yosemite's significance in landscape art, its role in the development of western tourism, and its promotion as one of the great icons of American culture are among the other major themes discussed here.