Theodore Roosevelt, left, joins John Muir on Overhanging Rock. Continuing adventures out of state, Muir achieved an historic ascent of Mount Rainier in Washington in 1888 and numerous journeys to Alaska.

The wedded Muir continued to pursue his scientific study with fervor, and just three months after his marriage, he traveled to Alaska as a correspondent for the San Francisco Bulletin and again the following year with the Bulletin team to look for the lost naval exploration ship USS Jeanette. Louie’s fear of bears and her difficulty climbing at Muir’s pace, however, made her first trip to Yosemite her last. After his marriage, Muir’s visits to Yosemite became less frequent, but Muir returned with his wife to Yosemite in 1884. Nine years his junior, “Louie” was the 32-year-old daughter of a notable Polish horticulturist and fruit ranch owner in Martinez, California. While in the midst of his environmental efforts that turned political, Muir’s match-making friend, Jeanne Carr, insisted that the bachelor find a mate. Yosemite National Park became a reality in 1890. Congress that proposed creating a new federally administered park surrounding the old Yosemite Grant. Johnson’s publication of Muir’s exposés sparked a bill in the U.S. Muir convinced Johnson that the area could only be saved if it was incorporated into a national park. In 1889, Muir took Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of Century Magazine, to Tuolumne Meadows so he could see how sheep were damaging the land. Muir was alarmed at the extensive damage livestock animals caused to the delicate High Sierra ecosystems, especially the “hoofed locusts” he had so carefully guarded a few years earlier. During the 1880s, he focused his attention on the destruction of natural resources in areas surrounding the state-administered Yosemite Grant, set aside in 1864. Published in the Sacramento Record-Union in 1876, “In God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?” chided California legislators for standing by while the state’s woodlands were recklessly depleted.

The prolific writer became particularly concerned about natural landscape preservation. Throughout the 1870s, the popularity of Muir’s newspaper publications grew steadily. McChesney and John Swett, and photographer J.J. Botanists Asa Gray and Albert Kellogg, artist William Kieth, poetess Ina Coolbrith, editors Charles Warren Stoddard and Henry George, writer Jeanne Carr, educators J.B. His ability to cultivate connections with literary, scientific, and artistic celebrities rapidly enhanced Muir’s reputation as a naturalist. In September 1871, two months after leaving the sawmill, Muir wrote his first article for publication on glaciers, published in the New York Tribune. Muir’s newfound prominence as a Yosemite spokesman bothered Hutchings, who fancied himself the definitive authority on the subject. During the two years he worked at the mill owned by James Mason Hutchings, Muir started building his own Yosemite Creek cabin, if only so he could hear the sound of the water as he slept. (His experiences and illustrations were later published in My First Summer in the Sierra.) After a stint as a shepherd, Muir found regular work at a newly constructed sawmill alongside the present-day Lower Yosemite Fall trail in the Valley. While Muir guided a flock of 2,000 sheep to the Tuolumne Meadows in the High Sierra, he studied the flora and fauna and sketched the mountain scenery. The next year, he landed a shepherd job for $30 per month that suited him fine. He was so impressed with his week’s visit that he decided to return the following year, finding work as a ranch hand, as he settled in the area. He briefly studied natural sciences at the University of Wisconsin but, ultimately, chose to spend his lifetime enrolled in what he called the “University of Wilderness.”Īctor Lee Stetson portrays John Muir in one-person theatrical presentations at 7 p.m.

After he was nearly blinded by an industrial accident, Muir found himself driven to learn everything he could about a world unaltered by man or machine. The change proved to be inspiring but in an entirely unexpected way. Life on the homestead did not inspire him, and Muir soon found employment in a factory. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.” Muir, who came to California seeking the solitude of nature, decided to stay-dabbling as a glaciologist, a wilderness activist, and a writer who published persuasive ecological articles with a quill made from a golden eagle feather found on Yosemite’s Mount Hoffmann.īorn in Scotland in 1838, Muir immigrated to Wisconsin with his family when he was 11 years old. John Muir has inspired Yosemite’s travelers to see under the surface through his poetic imagery: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. John Muir, in his beloved Sierra Nevada, sparks dialogue leading to the creation of Yosemite National Park in 1890.

Glow in the dark sheep study