The first automobile bumped its way into Yosemite Valley in 1900, dramatically expanding access for tourists. Roads were improved, Tioga Pass opened to cars in 1919, and in the same year, the first “aeroplane” landed in the Valley. Highway 140 opened in 1927 providing all-year access to the park through the Merced River canyon. Visitation increased from about 5,500 in 1906 when Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove were incorporated into Yosemite National Park, to 210,000 visitors in 1925, to 490,000 in 1927 after Highway 140 opened, to over a million in 1960, two million in 1970, three million in 1987, and four million in 1996. Visitation reached a high of 5.2 million in 2016.
Click and drag the circle at the center of the photos left and right to compare the then and now images.
Left image
An auto stage on its way from Yosemite Valley to Wawona.
Credit: Photographer: Julius Theodore Boysen; Yosemite NP Archives RL_01873
Right image
A hike on the old Wawona Road provides a lot of solitude.
Credit: NPS Photo / Ted Barone 2020
First Auto Stage, 1913
Mr. Jack Reischel drove the first auto stage into Yosemite Valley on November 16, 1913. It took nearly three hours from El Portal. The trip was a success and in 1915, auto stages replaced horse-drawn stages on the run from the railroad station at El Portal into Yosemite Valley.
An auto stage was any motor vehicle that carried passengers between towns with their luggage on a regular schedule of time and rates.
Left image
The first car drives over the old Great Sierra Wagon Road.
Credit: Photographer: Unknown; Yosemite NP Archives RL_02474
Right image
Tioga Road (a continuation of Hwy. 120 inside the park) crosses the Sierra Nevada heading east to Mono Lake.
Credit: NPS Photo / Ted Barone 2020
First Car Over Tioga Pass, 1915
The Tioga Road was first built in 1883 and was called the Great Sierra Wagon Road, also known as the "Road to Broken Dreams". The western end of the road was at Crocker’s Station east of Groveland and the part from Crane Flat generally followed the Mono Trail, an old Indian trail crossing the Sierra crest from the Mono Lake Basin. The Tioga Road was built by the Great Sierra Consolidated Silver Company to service their mining operations in the Bennettville area, east of Tioga Pass. It was built in 130 days by 160 Chinese and white European laborers, covering 56.5 miles. It rose from 4,200 feet elevation at Crocker’s Station to nearly 10,000 feet at Tioga Pass.
No silver was ever extracted from the Bennettville mines and by 1888, the mining operations and road were sold at auction. Stephen Mather, soon to be named the founding director of the National Park Service, bought the road for $15,500 in 1915 and then sold it to Yosemite National Park for $10.
Left image
A drive on the Tioga Road, just east of Tioga Pass.
Credit: Photographer: Unknown; Yosemite NP Archives RL_17309
Right image
A view across Tioga Lake towards Mammoth Peak.
Credit: NPS Photo / Ted Barone 2020
Tioga Lake Auto, ca. 1930
As visitation to Yosemite increased throughout the 1920s and into the early ‘30s, so did traffic on the Tioga Road. Business interests, particularly on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, urged earlier opening dates but park officials pushed back, cautious about costly snow removal and maintenance costs. Nevertheless, government produced leaflets and advertisements promoted the road as the “world’s greatest mountain tour through Yosemite to Lake Tahoe.”
Left image
The original eastern entrance to Yosemite at Tioga Pass.
Credit: Photographer: W. Harris; Yosemite NP Archives RL_01566
Right image
The entrance station on Highway 120 at Tioga Pass.
Credit: NPS Photo / Ted Barone 2020
Tioga Pass Entrance, 1939
The trip across Tioga Pass was not without its challenges. In the mid-1920s, California suffered through an epidemic of hoof and mouth disease. As a result, travelers crossing into Nevada were required to undress and be fumigated. In addition, the dirt road didn’t match with the smooth, well-paved thoroughfares that American drivers were becoming accustomed to. The Tioga Road remained an all-dirt road until 1937 when funds from San Francisco’s “rental” of the Hetch Hetchy area were used to pave the road.
Left image
Washburn Point was named for the family that built the road to this view.
Credit: Photographer: Unknown; Yosemite NP Archives RL_02839
Right image
Looking east to Little Yosemite Valley, early in the morning.
Credit: NPS Photo / Ted Barone 2019
Automobile at Washburn Point, 1930
The road to Glacier Point follows an old saddle trail from Chinquapin Flat. The Washburn family rebuilt the fourteen-mile trail into a wagon road in 1882. The federal government took control of the road in 1917, the same year the Glacier Point Hotel opened. Over the course of the next 15 years, campgrounds, comfort stations, stone lookouts, roadside pullouts, bridges, drainages, trailheads, and a ranger station at Glacier Point were completed. Paving of the road was completed in 1935.
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