Wonderful old 1906 map of Yosemite

Some of you know about the old maps on line at the David Rumsey Map Collection. For the historically minded, I recommend the 1906 map showing the land grab from the 1890 boundaries, in order to enable the logging of the sugar pines north and south of El Portal and some mining to the west. Check out this link:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~224281~5506364:Yosemite-National-Park#

The map can be downloaded in several resolutions, including an incredible 20 MB zipped JPEG. But you don't need to download it, you can just view it in your browser and blowup what you want using the sliding bar within the lower center of the picture.

The map shows the 1890 boundary along the outside, and the new boundary inside of it, except for a small (commercially worthless) addition along the northern boundary.

But what may be more interesting is the road recommendations made by the commissioners. Here is a small blow-up around Yosemite Valley. It shows the existing roads, such as the Coulterville, Old Big Oak Flat, and Old Wawona roads:



In this map, the double black lines show existing roads and the solid line paired with a dashed line shows the roads recommended for an adequate road system. It shows a new road from Ft. Monroe (atop the current Wawona tunnel) to Glacier Point, but another from there more or less along the Panorama Cliffs to the top of Nevada Falls. From there it continues to Merced Lake and has a spur alongside Couds Rest to Tenaya Lake. It also shows a road down from Nevada Falls to the Valley. Oh, the blasting! On the north side of the valley, it shows a road from Gentrys to Porcupine Flat, more or less following the old northern branch of the Mono Trail (see link).

Of course, new replacement routes for the existing roads were not envisioned in 1906, so they remain unchanged. The Tioga Road still passes through Aspen Valley, and terminates at the old Tioga Mine. The Big Oak Flat Road still has the Great Zigzag. They show a proposed road and railroad up the river to El Portal, but have them on opposite sides of the river from how they ended up....

Your Congress at work.

In regards to the proposed road shown on the map, aren't the ones marked with a solid line plus the dashed line trails that they wanted to convert to full-fledged wagon roads?

In contrast where no existing trail existed, they show the proposed all-seasons road along the Merced River with double-dashed lines (no solid line on one side).

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plawrence
In regards to the proposed road shown on the map, aren't the ones marked with a solid line plus the dashed line trails that they wanted to convert to full-fledged wagon roads?

In contrast where no existing trail existed, they show the proposed all-seasons road along the Merced River with double-dashed lines (no solid line on one side).

No, the double dashed road labelled "dirt road" outside the park, and "macamized" inside the park is perhaps too speculative because it is mostly outside the park.





Somewhere there is a report to go with this map, but I've never seen it.

Thanks for pointing out the legend to me. I didn't notice it when I looked at the map. Funny though, they didn't list what the double-dashed lines represent in the legend.

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wherever

Somewhere there is a report to go with this map, but I've never seen it.

It's available at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/report-of-yosemite-park-commission-letter-from-the-secretary-of-the-interior-transmitting-the-report-of-the-yosemite-park-commission-appointed-to-ascertain-what-portions-of-said-park-are-not-necessary-for-park-purposes-and-also-at-what-place-a-substantial-road-can-be-built-from-the-boundary-of-said-park-to-the-yosemite-valley-grant-together-with-maps-etc/oclc/21622465?referer=di&ht=edition


One can also purchase a copy of it for $295 (plus shipping) from Abe Books:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=17425686018&searchurl=tn=Report%20Yosemite%20Park%20Commission

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wherever
The map can be downloaded in several resolutions, including an incredible 20 MB zipped JPEG. But you don't need to download it, you can just view it in your browser and blowup what you want using the sliding bar within the lower center of the picture.

Fascinating map (thanks for the link!)...I was looking to download the hi-rez jpeg you mentioned but I can't find where to do that (just saw a link to download in .sid format and the sid viewer won't run on my 64-bit machine). Can you tell me where you saw the link for the jpeg download?

OK. Go to the link shown. In the upper right corner is a small icon labelled "export". That will get you a list of different sized downloads. Clicking on one will produce a download of a (compressed) .zip file. The one called "large" is plenty big enough for most purposes. Windows File explorer, the windows file manager, handles zip folders automatically if you click on them, and offers up the underlying jpeg, but most competing operating systems can handle .zip files without much effort. Of course, jpegs are already compressed by quite a bit.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2015 03:46PM by wherever.

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wherever


In this map, the double black lines show existing roads and the solid line paired with a dashed line shows the roads recommended for an adequate road system. It shows a new road from Ft. Monroe (atop the current Wawona tunnel) to Glacier Point, but another from there more or less along the Panorama Cliffs to the top of Nevada Falls. From there it continues to Merced Lake and has a spur alongside Clouds Rest to Tenaya Lake. It also shows a road down from Nevada Falls to the Valley. Oh, the blasting! On the north side of the valley, it shows a road from Gentrys to Porcupine Flat, more or less following the old northern branch of the Mono Trail (see link).

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I love that map, along with all of the other old ones. And the plans, desires and schemes that to somebody at the time must have seemed like progress sometimes boggle the mond. Of course, what will people say a hundred years from now about us, right?

Here is something from a book that I have had for a long while, called "YV88", which was an "environmental eco-fiction" produced in the mid seventies about what Yosemite might look like in that way future year of 1988 (I was going to insert the "head pounding on desktop computer" here, but then realized that I may not have even had a desktop back then)

Thanks for the map and link...very interesting!


Thank goodness that the "future" above didn't materialize



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2015 10:21AM by hikerchick395.