The State Park Act provided that the Yosemite Grant and the Mariposa Big Trees should be managed by a board of commissioners, of whom the governor of the state was to be one. On September 28, 1864, three months after the grant was made, Governor F. K. Low proclaimed that trespassing upon the tracts involved must desist. His board of Yosemite commissioners was appointed in the same proclamation. Frederick Law Olmsted, even then an accomplished landscape architect, was made chairman of the board. As Brockman (1946, p. 106) has revealed in his article on Olmsted, the chairman was also the first administrative officer of the Yosemite Grant. Olmsted’s statement of 1890 substantiates this fact: “I had the honor to be made chairman of the first Yosemite Commission, and in that capacity to take possession of the Valley for the State, to organize and direct the survey of it and to be the executive of various measures taken to guard the elements of its scenery from fires, trespassers and abuse. In the performance of these duties I visited the Valley frequently, established a permanent camp in it and virtually acted as its Superintendent.” Legal acceptance of the gift could not be made until the next session of the state legislature. On April 2, 1866, the necessary provisions for administration were secured. The board of commissioners made the best possible selection of a guardian, the Yosemite pioneer, Galen Clark, and invited the settlers of the valley to vacate their holdings. J. M. Hutchings, as might be expected, was wrathy. It is probable that James Lamon, after eight years of permanent residence on his land, saw no justice in the act. The other claimants held out for what might be in it. Hutchings and Lamon refused to surrender their property, and a test suit was brought against Hutchings, which was decided in his favor. This was carried to the supreme court of the state and then to the federal Supreme Court. In these last actions the commissioners were sustained. That Hutchings and Lamon were deserving of consideration and remuneration cannot be denied, but millions of Americans are today indebted to the board of commissioners who pursued the case to a settlement favorable to the people. Private titles of the type held by the Yosemite Valley settlers would have been disastrous to all administration in the years that were to come.