Yosemite National Park is a national park in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers 759,620 acres in four counties – centered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada.
Yosemite Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California, United States. The valley is about 7.5 mi (12.1 km) long and 3,000–3,500 ft (910–1,070 m) deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan, and densely forested with pines. The valley is drained by the Merced River, and a multitude of streams and waterfalls flow into it, including Tenaya, Illilouette, Yosemite and Bridalveil Creeks. Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America and is a big attraction, especially in the spring, when the water flow is at its peak. The valley is renowned for its natural environment and is regarded as the centerpiece of Yosemite National Park.
Mariposa is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in and the county seat of Mariposa County, California, United States. The population was 1,526 at the 2020 census. The community is named after the flocks of monarch butterflies seen overwintering there by early explorers.
John McDougal was an American politician who served as the second Governor of California from January 9, 1851, until January 8, 1852. Prior to this, he served from 1849 to 1851 as the first Lieutenant Governor of California.
Human habitation in the Sierra Nevada region of California reaches back 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. Historically attested Native American populations, such as the Sierra Miwok, Mono and Paiute, belong to the Uto-Aztecan and Utian phyla. In the mid-19th century, a band of Native Americans called the Ahwahnechee lived in Yosemite Valley. The California Gold Rush greatly increased the number of non-indigenous people in the region. Tensions between Native Americans and white settlers escalated into the Mariposa War. As part of this conflict, settler James Savage led the Mariposa Battalion into Yosemite Valley in 1851, in pursuit of Ahwaneechees led by Chief Tenaya. The California state military forces burned the tribe's villages, destroyed their food stores, killed the chief's sons, and forced the tribe out of Yosemite. Accounts from the Mariposa Battalion, especially from Dr. Lafayette Bunnell, popularized Yosemite Valley as a scenic wonder.
The Ahwahnechee or Ahwahneechee are a Native American people who traditionally lived in the Yosemite Valley and still live in surrounding area. They are the seven tribes of Yosemite Miwok, Northern Paiute, Kucadikadi Mono Lake people. As one of the most documented tribes the tribe still fights for Federal Recognition. The Ahwahnechee people's heritage can be found all over Yosemite National Park.
Tenaya was a leader of the Ahwahnechee people in Yosemite Valley, California.
Vernal Fall is a 317-foot (96.6 m) waterfall on the Merced River just downstream of Nevada Fall in Yosemite National Park, California. Like its upstream neighbor, Vernal Fall is clearly visible at a distance, from Glacier Point, as well as close up, along the Mist Trail. The waterfall flows all year long, although by the end of summer it is substantially reduced in volume and can split into multiple strands, rather than a single curtain of water.
Lafayette Houghton Bunnell was an American physician, author, and explorer. He is most well known for his involvement with the Mariposa Battalion, the first non-Indians to enter Yosemite Valley, and his book Discovery of the Yosemite and the Indian War of 1851. Bunnell led the battalion members in a vote to name the valley, and for this reason he is often credited as the person who named Yosemite. He was also a soldier and surgeon in the United States war with Mexico and the Civil War.
The Mariposa War, also known as the Yosemite Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the indigenous people of California's Sierra Nevada in the 1850s. The war was fought primarily in Mariposa County and surrounding areas, and was sparked by the discovery of gold in the region. As a result of the military expedition, the Mariposa Battalion became the first non-indigenous group to enter Yosemite Valley and the Nelder Grove.
James D. Savage (1823–1852) was a California pioneer. He was a 49er, businessman, American soldier in the Mexican–American War, and commander of the California Militia, Mariposa Battalion in the Mariposa War and the first alleged non-Native American visitor to the Yosemite Valley.
The Plains and Sierra Miwok were once the largest group of California Indian Miwok people, indigenous to California. Their homeland included regions of the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and the Sierra Nevada.
Clouds Rest is a mountain in Yosemite National Park, located east-northeast of Yosemite Village, California. Although there are many peaks in the park having far greater elevation, the proximity of Clouds Rest to the valley gives it a very high degree of visual prominence.
Visalia, California, commonly known in the 1850s as Four Creeks, is the oldest continuously inhabited inland European settlement between Stockton and Los Angeles. The city played an important role in the American colonization of the San Joaquin Valley as the county seat of Old Tulare County, an expansive region comprising most if not all of modern-day Fresno, Kings, and Kern counties.
Mariposa Battalion was a California State Militia unit formed in 1851 to defeat the Ahwahnechee and Chowchillas in the Mariposa War, a part of the California genocide.
Hutchings' Illustrated California Magazine was a magazine published between 1856 and 1861, in San Francisco, which played an important role in popularizing California in general, and to a large extent Yosemite National Park in particular.
The Tule River War of 1856 was a conflict where American settlers, and later, California State Militia, and a detachment of the U. S. Army from Fort Miller, fought a six-week war against the Yokuts in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
The Willard Bunnell House is a historic house museum in Homer, Minnesota, United States. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 for having state-level significance in the themes of architecture, commerce, and exploration/settlement. It was nominated for being Minnesota's first permanent house south of Saint Paul, as well as for its Gothic Revival architecture and association with brothers Willard (1814–1861) and Lafayette Bunnell (1824–1903), who helped develop the area during its frontier days. It is now managed by the Winona County Historical Society.
Tulare County Election Tree also called the Charter Oak is historical site in Visalia, California in Tulare County, California. The site of the Election Tree is a California Historical Landmark No. 410 listed on November 15, 1948. Under Tulare County Election Tree on July 10, 1852, Tulare County was founded. The election under the tree was headed by Major James D. Savage. The first county seat was in Woodville, California about one-half mile south of the Tulare County Election Tree. The Visalia and Woodville area near the Kaweah River delta, was known as the Four Creeks County, before the vote. A marker at the site was place there by the Tulare County Historical Society on February 5, 2011, near the St. Johns River.
