1890
Vernal Fall, Yosemite, photographed by Carleton Watkins in the 1860s.Image: Carleton Watkins · Public domainworld · Americas
Yosemite National Park is created
On 1 October 1890 President Benjamin Harrison signed the act of Congress that set aside the forests and mountains around Yosemite Valley in California as a reserved park, now Yosemite National Park. John Muir’s articles describing the Sierra Nevada helped win public support for it. Yosemite Valley itself and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, already granted to California in 1864, stayed under state control until 1906.
Source: Sierra Club: Legislation about the Yosemite (John Muir, The Yosemite, appendix A) ↗
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