His first cabin was crude. A rough pine table surrounded by three-legged stools facilitated his homely service. As the number of visitors increased, Clark enlarged his ranch house. When ten years of his pioneer hotel keeping had passed, Charles Loring Brace was among his visitors. Brace writes: After fourteen miles—an easy ride—we all reached Clark’s Ranch at a late hour, ready for supper and bed. This ranch is a long, rambling, low house, built under enormous sugar-pines, where travelers find excellent quarters and rest in their journey to the Valley. Clark himself is evidently a character; one of those men one frequently meets in California—the modern anchorite—a hater of civilization and a lover of the forest—handsome, thoughtful, interesting, and slovenly. In his cabin were some of the choicest modern books and scientific surveys; the walls were lined with beautiful photographs of the Yosemite; he knew more than any of his guests of the fauna, flora, and geology of the State; he conversed well on any subject, and was at once philosopher, savant, chambermaid, cook, and landlord. From the scores of books written by early Yosemite visitors, one might extract a great compendium of remarks on Clark and his ranch. The proprietor, like the Grizzly Giant, was impressive. He was invariably remembered by his guests. They wrote of his generous hospitality, his simplicity, kindness, honesty, wit, wisdom, and unselfish devotion to the mountains he loved. Had they known, they might have written that he gave too freely of all his mental and physical assets and that as a businessman he was not a success. The season of 1870 found the ownership of his ranch divided with Edwin Moore. Moore assumed general management, and Clark’s became known as “Clark and Moore’s.” The ladies of Moore’s family introduced a new element in the hospitality of the place, and for a few years it assumed an aspect of new ambition. Extensive improvements, however, resulted in foreclosure of mortgages, and the firm of Washburn, Coffman, and Chapman secured ownership in 1875 and changed the name to “Wawona.” A. P. Vivian stopped at Wawona in January, 1878, and wrote: Although still called a “ranche,” this establishment has long ceased to be mainly concerned with agriculture. Clark himself exists no longer, at any rate in this locality; that individual sold his interests some years ago to Messrs. Washburn, who “run the stage,” and are now the “bosses of the route” between this and Merced. The ranche is now a small but comfortable and roomy inn, and during the tourists’ season is filled to overflowing. Besides having constructed the twenty-five miles of capital road hence into the Yosemite Valley, Messrs. Washburn are again showing their enterprise by making a road direct to Merced, the object of which is to save thirty miles over the present Mariposa route.