Transportation
Balancing preservation with accessibility.
Toll Roads and Stages
Wawona—where the past and the present come together on a ride through time. Hop aboard Yosemite’s stage with driver “Buckshot” during a day in his life in Yosemite.
In July 1855, James Mason Hutchings wandered through California to gather material for a proposed magazine about the new state.
He’d read newspaper stories about the Mariposa Battalion’s expeditions and was eager to see the wonderous valley for himself.
Hutchings, with a small group, hired two former members of Tenieya’s tribe to lead them into the valley.
The expedition’s vivid descriptions and drawings were published first in the San Francisco Chronicle, and then in newspapers across the country.
By that fall work had begun on the first toll road to Yosemite.
Those who had seen Yosemite knew that it would be a popular travel destination. In the next decade several competing supply shops and toll roads sprung up.
Most were soon out of business.
Local businessmen, curious hunters, and roaming photographers and artists found their way into the valley, but the expected crowds took years to materialize.
A trip to Yosemite was expensive and difficult, requiring weeks of travel and dangerous risks.
When considering routes, road builders and travelers alike took into account both the difficulty and scenery of the road.
The competition was fierce, as burgeoning hotels made strategic deals with stage and supply companies.
To attract travelers, builders took care to include scenic vistas and even cut tunnels through trees for the thrill of passing through natural wonders.
The road from Wawona was widely regarded as the most impressive approach to the valley.
Wawona itself became a bustling stage center supporting stables, hay barns, granaries, blacksmith shops, and carriage repair works.
The Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Company employed between twenty and forty drivers and owned around forty stages and buggies.
During the summer, as many as eleven stages a day ran from the Raymond train station to Wawona, Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point, and the Mariposa Grove.
The forty-four mile trip from Raymond to Wawona took ten hours, while the twenty-seven miles on into Yosemite Valley from Wawona took six more.
For extra fare, the "Cannonball" from Raymond made the run to the Sentinel Hotel in twelve hours. It used six horses rather than four, changed every ten to fifteen miles.
Regular stages were more leisurely they carefully wound their way down steep, narrow grades covered with several inches of thick dust.
Travelers faced blind curves, fallen trees and rocks, and unguarded road edges with sheer drops to the valley floor.
Yielding to vehicles that had the right-of-way often meant passing precariously close to the road's edge; so close, in fact, that often stage drivers unloaded their passengers to walk up ahead and be picked up after the safe passage of the stage.
Everything depended on the stage driver's skill in managing his horses and being able to discern obstacles through clouds of swirling dust.
These drivers were renowned for more than their skill.
Some of the drivers became famous as well for their tall tales about the park and its inhabitants.
The Yosemite administrators, first under the control of California and then the federal government, recognized the importance of accessible roads in the park, but had little funding for construction or maintenance. Toll roads, in their view, were troubling, but necessary.
As the national park became more established, Yosemite’s administration busily bought up toll roads and proposed elaborate plans for an expanding park road system.
As they worked to ease transportation within the park, they also made partnerships with businesses that sought to bring people to the region.
Yosemite Railroads
One bright morning in the summer of 1907, a train arrived in El Portal.
After years of dreams, plans, and back-breaking work, the first railroad passengers to Yosemite had arrived.
Passengers boarded at Merced, then traveled up the scenic Merced River Canyon to El Portal where stages (and later automobiles) waited to take the travelers the final few miles into the national park.
The old, arduous two-day journey was now a simple four hour train ride.
Rail service later expanded to San Francisco and Los Angeles. The ease and speed of rail travel allowed more people to visit Yosemite, including new travelers with less expendable income and less leisure time.
Famous and wealthy travelers also enjoyed the train route; in one notable trip, the locomotive pulled President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s private car.
With more visitors came more opportunities within Yosemite, for both travelers and concessioners.
More lodging opened, from campgrounds to luxury resorts.
Concessioners built recreation facilities and rented outdoor equipment.
Although the Yosemite Railroad only carried passengers outside the park, it greatly benefited the park and all its visitors.
The railroad also served nearby lumber and mining operations.
These services helped the railroad survive the Great Depression, when few travelers were able to vacation in the national park.
Gradually though, those industries also declined.
Ultimately, it was the creation of the All-Year Highway and the rise of the automobile that spelled the end of the Yosemite Railroad. The last train pulled into the station in 1945. Caboose 15 can now be found on display in El Portal.
Cars
Have your ever jumped in your car and headed for the mountains to escape the summer heat? Tioga Road has provided an escape route to Yosemite's breathtaking high country for more than one hundred years.
In the summer of 1900 Yosemite residents and visitors caught a glimpse of the future.
Crowds gathered at Wawona and the Valley, eager for a glimpse of the first automobile to ascend the mountain roads.
Their arrival and speed (three hours from Wawona to Yosemite Village) became the talk of the park.
For the next few weeks, the drivers gave rides to curious travelers and took astonishing photos of their horseless carriage amidst the natural wonders.
The Locomobile was owned by a Los Angeles businessman who operated a photography company.
His trip to Yosemite was planned to generate publicity for Yosemite and his future shop in the park.
It also acted as an endorsement for the Locomobile manufacturing company, who used the photographs taken there in advertisements for years.
Only seven years later, however, automobiles were banned entirely from Yosemite.
The park’s new administrators (the U.S. army led by Major Harry Benson) determined that the roads were “too steep and narrow” for cars.
The ban was overturned by the secretary of the interior in 1913.
The same year, the first “bus” (an open-air, eighteen passenger automobile stage) carried travelers from the Yosemite Railroad station in El Portal to the Sentinel Hotel in Yosemite Valley.
Strict regulations were imposed on private cars; among other rules, motorists needed to cede right-of-way to horse teams and park their cars in a tent garage for the duration of their stay.
Nevertheless, 739 cars drove into Yosemite the following year.
As the national parks gained funding, Yosemite administration took ownership of roads, eliminated tolls, built new routes, and paved existing roads.
In 1915, the Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Company replaced their horse-drawn stages with automobile shuttles. With better roads and fewer horses, restrictions on automobiles eased.
The next year, the park welcomed 4,043 cars.
The better road system did more than help more visitors reach Yosemite. It improved their experience in the park, and even benefited the natural environment.
Although a clear sign of human development, the paved roads prevented the large dust clouds that vehicles on dirt tracks created.
The roads also outlined where vehicles were allowed, and where they were not.
Like the stage routes before them, the roads were designed to maximize scenic views.
Additionally, roads and accompanying infrastructure, like bridges and tunnels, were constructed along the emerging Rustic architecture style and landscape design, so they integrated with their natural setting.
Scenic road trips became a hallmark of national parks.
An expansive road system benefited both the parks and park concessioners. Passing motorists stopped for fuel, food, and souvenirs in stores in and outside of park boundaries.
Growing numbers of visitors meant increasing support for the national parks, and more opportunities for park businesses.
In the 1920s, Yosemite administration and the Yosemite Park & Curry Company (YP&CC), the newly consolidated park concessioner, had high hopes for one new highway in particular.
The All-Year Highway (California Highway 140) could bring travelers to Yosemite even in snowy Sierra winters.
Superintendent Lewis and YP&CC President Don Tresidder dreamed of a Yosemite that was a year-round resort and retreat.
With this road, not only could the existing lodges stay open all year, but YP&CC could expand their operations.
Soon Badger Pass Ski Area was established and visitors were enjoying the majesty of Yosemite in fall, winter, and spring.
YARTS and Shuttles
The success of these early efforts ultimately posed new challenges for park managers.
At the beginning of the 20th century, efforts were devoted to bringing in as many visitors as possible; by its end, Yosemite administrations were pioneering policies to manage large crowds in wilderness.
In the midcentury, road trips, assisted by modernized park infrastructure, revolutionized the way Americans experience national parks.
As traveling became faster and easier, visitors increasingly eschewed month-long stays in favor of roadside sightseeing.
Park managers and concessioners facilitated this change, building more roads that reached farther than ever before.
More roads brought more travelers, and more travelers meant more support for park infrastructure.
In 2019, 4,586,463 visitors drove over 214 miles of paved road.
Today, transportation plays a key role in balancing the needs of visitors and the needs of protected ecosystems.
Beginning in 2000, Yosemite Area Regional Transportation (YARTS) provides regular bus transportation into Yosemite.
This service keeps thousands of cars off Yosemite roads every year. The park and its concessioner also offer shuttle service throughout Yosemite Valley, hikers shuttles, and bus tours.
All of these services help relieve traffic congestion and lessen air pollution from vehicle exhaust.
Reliable, accessible transportation was essential to the creation of Yosemite National Park. Terrain, technology, and competing commercial ventures once made this trip prohibitive to many travelers. Park managers and concessioners recognized the connection between accessible travel and Yosemite’s success. Their efforts to bring new visitors to the national park paved the way for American travel for generations to come. For many visitors today, the journey here is as treasured as the destination.
