CHAPTER PAGE I Discovery 1 II Mariposa Hills 9 III White Chief of the Foothills 15 IV Pioneers in the Valley 36 V Tourists in the Saddle 50 VI Stagecoach Days 61 VII Explorers 71 VIII Hotels and Their Keepers 92 IX East-side Mining Excitement 117 X The Interpreters 129 XI Guardians of the Scene 146 Chronology 176 Bibliography 195 Index 217 ILLUSTRATIONS FOLLOWING PAGE Frontispiece, by Ralph H. Anderson ii The Yosemite Museum x The First Drawing Made in Yosemite xviii Mariposa in the ’Fifties 8 Joseph R. Walker 44 Maria Lebrado 44 Captain John Boling 44 Lafayette H. Bunnell 44 A Freight Outfit 44 Early Tourists in the Saddle 44 First Yosemite Photograph—“Upper Hotel” 60 The Big Tree Room 60 The Big Oak Flat Route 60 The First Automobile—July, 1900 60 Early Yosemite Buses 60 Old Tioga Road 60 New Tioga Road 60 John Conway, a Pioneer Trail Builder 76 On the First Trail to the Top of Vernal Fall 76 Mount Conness and the Observatory Camp 76 James T. Gardiner and Clarence King, Early Mappers 76 Professor Davidson (right) and the Conness Observatory 76 Present-Day Trail Work—Oiling the Eleven-Mile Trail 80