Published Sources
PUBLISHED WORKS dealing directly with the history of
Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks are surprisingly few, a
situation that inspired this book. Nevertheless, a number of useful
volumes shed light on some portion of the history of the region. The
following are volumes the authors found useful.
As a general history, Francis P. Farquhar's
History of the Sierra Nevada (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1966) still stands alone. This wonderful
book brings together, in a way never attempted elsewhere, the broad
history of California's great mountain range. Students of the southern
Sierran national parks should pay special attention to the chapters on
the California Geological Survey, Kings Canyon, and Mt. Whitney.
Farquhar's history drew heavily on more than forty years of research,
much of which was published over many decades in the Sierra Club
Bulletin. Any serious student of the Sierra history should consult
these articles as well.
The only general history of Sequoia and Kings Canyon
national parks to appear previously is the slim volume by Douglas
Hillman Strong, Treesor Timber? The Story of Sequoia and Kings
Canyon National Parks (Three Rivers: Sequoia Natural History
Association, 1968). Strong's main areas of research, which are
summarized in much more detail in his unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
were the founding and early enlargement of Sequoia National Park. In
these areas he is likely to remain the ultimate source. Strong made no
attempt to explore the Kings Canyon National Park campaign in 1939-40 or
later management of either park.
Tulare County and the Tulare Lake country have
inspired many books, most of which are outside our focus. Standing alone
in quality and significance, however, is William L. Preston,
Vanishing Landscapes, Land and Life in the Tulare Lake Basin
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press,
1981). In Vanishing Landscapes Preston did for the southern San
Joaquin Valley what this book hopes to accomplish for the southern
Sierra.
The California Geological Survey is unique among the
early western scientific endeavors in the amount and quality of the
literature it generated. Two books authored by participants in the
survey remain in print, and together they still present a concise and
extremely readable summary of the survey's efforts and adventures. The
two classics are William H. Brewer, Up and Down California in
1860-1864, first published in 1930, and Clarence King's
Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, originally issued in 1872 by
James R. Osgood and Company of Boston.
The logging of the Big Trees also generated a number
of books, two of which stand out. Hank Johnston's They Felled the
Redwoods (Los Angeles: Trans-Anglo Books, 1966) tells the story of
the destruction of the sequoia forests surrounding General Grant Grove,
while Floyd Otter's The Men of Mammoth Forest (Ann Arbor,
Michigan: Edwards Brothers, 1963) does equal justice to the Tule River
country immediately south of the parks. Both are recommended. Another
view of late-nineteenth-century Sierran logging can be found in William
C. Tweed, Kaweah Remembered, The Story of the Kaweah Colony and the
Founding of Sequoia National Park (Three Rivers: Sequoia Natural
History Association, 1986).
The story of Mineral King Valley and its mining rush
and later development battles has been explored in a number of
publications. The best summary of the mining rush remains Samuel Thomas
Porter's privately published The Silver Rush at Mineral King,
California, 1873-1882, but unfortunately, this volume is now quite
rare. A recent book that adds considerably to Porter and to the story of
the area's middle years is Louise Jackson, Beulah, A Biography of the
Mineral King Valley of California (Tucson: Westernlore Press, 1988).
Henry McLauren Brown, Mineral King Country, Visalia to Mount
Whitney (Fresno and Springville: Pioneer Publishing Company, 1988)
consists largely of reprinted items from Mineral King's
twentieth-century history. The most complete attempt to date to
summarize the Mineral King ski development controversy can be found in
John L. Harper, Mineral King, Public Concern with Government
Policy (Arcata, California: Pacifica Publishing Company, 1982).
Harper's account is quite useful, but it must be understood that he was
a protagonist in the controversy and that his account is biased in favor
of preservation.
John Muir has received more historical attention than
any other comparable figure in American history. Many biographies exist
including the recent and very useful Rediscovering America, John Muir
in His Time and Ours by Frederick Turner (San Francisco: Sierra Club
Books, 1985). Another way to approach Muir is through his own writings,
many of which remain surprisingly readable. Students of Sequoia and
Kings Canyon should seek out Muir's Our National Parks, first
published in 1901 (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston) for an
interesting account of his first visit to the Giant Forest, and Frederic
Grunsky (editor), South of Yosemite, Selected Writings by John
Muir (Garden City, New York. Natural History Press, 1968). Grunsky
contains a good variety of Muir's otherwise scattered writings on the
Sequoia-Kings region.
Yet another way to approach Muir is through the
organization he founded, the Sierra Club. A good start is Michael P.
Cohen, The History of the Sierra Club, 1892-1970 (San Francisco:
Sierra Club Books, 1988). The early recreational explorations of the
Sierra Club are still best read in the early editions of the Sierra
Club Bulletin. Few other organizational journals hold interest as
effectively as these wonderfully written and illustrated volumes. Look
especially for articles prior to 1915 by Bolton Coit Brown, Joseph N.
LeConte, and Marion Randall Parsons. Also by LeConte is the very
pleasant volume A Summer of Travel in the High Sierra (Ashland,
Oregon: Lewis Osborne, 1972), which recounts LeConte's 1890 visit to
Kings Canyon and Mount Whitney.
Only a very few items address directly National Park
Service activities in the two parks. In this department Robert
Shankland's Steve Mather of the National Parks (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1954) still reads well. The important story of Colonel John R.
White and Sequoia National Park is now available through the efforts of
Rick Hydrick, "The Genesis of National Park Management: John Roberts
White and Sequoia National Park, 1920-1947," in the April 1984 issue of
the Journal of Forest History. Another journal article that still
stands alone as the only exploration of its field is William C. Tweed,
"Sequoia National Park Concessions: 1898-1926," in the spring 1972 issue
of the Pacific Historian. Another first attempt at Park Service
history is the same author's Guide and History to the High Sierra
Trail (Three Rivers: Sequoia Natural History Association, 1982).
Finally, simply because they don't seem to fit
anywhere else in this bibliographic essay, we must mention two efforts
which address two of the region's most colorful and eccentric figures,
William C. Tweed's Shorty Lovelace, Kings Canyon Fur Trapper
(Three Rivers: Sequoia Natural History Association, 1980), and Gene
Rose, High Odyssey (Fresno: Panorama West Publishing, 1987),
which tells the story of Orland Bartholomew and the first ski trip from
Mt. Whitney to Yosemite in 1928-29.
Archival Resources
WORKING WITH THE ARCHIVES on these two parks is a
daunting task, but rich information can be found by one who is willing
to search. Three sources of material are available in government
holdings. First, early records (up to 1936 and especially before 1915)
are found in Washington, D.C., at the National Archives and Records
Center. However, all correspondence between park superintendents and
national officials prior to 1908 has been microfilmed from this source
and is now available at the Ash Mountain Headquarters Library, Sequoia
National Park.
In 1937 the National Park Service was reorganized
with Sequoia and General Grant national parks henceforth reporting to a
regional director in San Francisco instead of the director in
Washington, D.C. The regional branch of the National Records Center at
San Bruno, California, received the records and correspondence generated
by the regional office and the parks since this change. However, former
Sequoia archivist Betty Knight and the authors have recalled some
thirty-one boxes of the most pertinent material and these are now also
at Ash Mountain.
The third and most important holdings are those that
have never left the Ash Mountain Headquarters. However, their
distribution and organization demand explanation. The greatest
repository is the museum-archives collection which contains, in addition
to the recalled San Bruno Center boxes, all the annual and monthly
superintendent's reports, and some twenty file drawers of other
historical correspondence. Many old maps, reports, old subject files,
and nearly 12,000 historic photos loom like a lost treasure in this
basement collection. Upstairs are the "Central Files." These are the
current working files for the parks, dating primarily from the 1970s and
later, although much historical data can be found in the forty to
forty-five file drawers.
Within the headquarters area are a number of other
scattered nuggets in addition to these two huge collections. The
resources management division contains nearly every report and study on
the parks' resources ever compiled. The chief ranger's office contains
assorted reports as well. The parks' maintenance office has many maps,
plans, and reports on park roads and buildings, while the Sierra
District ranger's office holds some thirty boxes and file drawers of
studies and correspondence on the backcountry. Finally, the research
scientist's office holds substantial research collections, principally
on ecology and wildlife management issues. In addition to these
archives, the Ash Mountain library contains pertinent rare and recent
books and papers, a ten-drawer subject file, the aforementioned
microfilm, and a microfiche collection of maps, plans, and studies done
on the parks over the last forty years.
Despite the vastness and relative richness of these
collections, there are other nongovernment data that a researcher should
check. Principal among these are the Francis Farquhar Collection and the
Sierra Club Archives, both housed at the Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley. The Sierra Club collection in particular is huge
(thirty-six boxes on Sequoia and Kings Canyon alone) but is only
partially described. Colonel John White's papers are currently housed at
the University of Oregon Library in Eugene. Each of the above sources is
a worthwhile addition to the hundreds of thousands of document pages
located at Sequoia National Park.
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