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the

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history channel original podcast

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history this week july

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nineteen eighteen sixty

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nine i'm sally helm

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in the sierra nevada mountains naturalist

0:17

john muir watches the world

0:19

wake up the

0:22

tree tops begin to glow the

0:25

sun burns the edges of

0:27

the mountains he

0:29

writes everything awakening

0:32

alert and joyful the

0:34

birds begin to start every

0:37

calls beeps hi every life

0:39

sell rejoices the very

0:41

rocks seem to thrill

0:43

with life

0:46

you can feel something in john muir

0:49

waking up to he's

0:51

becoming so taken with

0:53

this landscape that he will decide

0:56

to stay in the yosemite valley

0:58

working as a shepherd and living off bread

1:01

and coffee mutton and beans

1:03

and soon

1:05

his published descriptions of the valley

1:08

will start to change american life

1:10

by advancing an idea that

1:12

is taking shape and a lot of people's minds

1:16

maybe nature is more

1:18

than just a resource for exploiting

1:21

maybe this wildness is

1:23

something we should protect

1:29

today

1:30

john muir how

1:33

did this barred of the wilderness

1:35

collide with the political forces that his day

1:37

and help bring about the national parks

1:39

as we know that and how did he

1:41

change the way it all of us think

1:44

about the natural world

1:55

am ryan reynolds at mid mobile we

1:57

like to do the opposite of what big wire

5:55

And

6:00

Muir is taking note of other threats

6:02

to the valley, including tourists.

6:06

Canny entrepreneurs eventually start putting

6:08

up new buildings and attractions to serve

6:10

them, like a ramshackle pub

6:12

with a huge dance floor that juts out

6:15

into a lake. Muir is

6:17

appalled. This is

6:19

not his way of appreciating nature.

6:22

He later writes that, Only by

6:24

going alone in silence, without

6:26

baggage, can one truly get into

6:29

the heart of the wilderness. All

6:31

other travel is mere dust and hotels

6:34

and baggage and chatter.

6:35

It was one of our first hippies. You

6:37

know, he's seeing God and the refraction of the

6:39

light through the waterfall. Muir

6:42

is hiking across the landscape, scribbling

6:44

down accounts of what he sees. He

6:46

uses a quill pen made from a golden

6:49

eagle feather he found on the ground.

6:51

More and more, he feels he's

6:54

a part of the natural world. He

6:58

climbs a tree in a storm to experience

7:01

the storm. There's

7:03

this harrowing wind and rain

7:05

and lightning, and he's up there swaying

7:07

back and forth. He just

7:09

wants to know what it's like to be a tree. You

7:12

know, it's really incredible.

7:16

It's helping him develop a philosophy

7:19

of the land. He had this mystical

7:22

religious experience where

7:24

he came to realize that, for him, this

7:26

was the greatest manifestation of God

7:29

in a holy place, in a place

7:31

that he thought that we could come to find

7:34

spiritual fulfillment.

7:37

So, when he sees it being

7:39

destroyed by tourists and

7:42

by his own sheep, he thinks, this

7:44

can't go on.

7:45

Muir saw that something needed to

7:47

be done. But what?

7:51

It's not like the Yosemite Valley was totally

7:53

unprotected. In 1864,

7:56

Abraham Lincoln had granted it to the state of

7:58

California for... public use, resort,

8:01

and recreation. It was one of the

8:03

first protected areas of its kind in

8:05

the United States. But

8:07

that protected area is only a small

8:10

part of what is now Yosemite National

8:12

Park. It stretches a few dozen

8:15

square miles. The entire park today

8:17

is nearly 1,200 square miles.

8:21

And Muir's vision has given him this

8:24

insight. That everything

8:26

is connected. You can't

8:28

just save the little valley. That's not how nature

8:31

works.

8:31

It's one whole

8:33

living, breathing entity that

8:36

won't survive if you just keep a piece

8:38

of it. Muir said that saving

8:40

the valley without saving the

8:43

hills around it and the streams and

8:45

rivers around it was like saving the palm of a hand

8:47

without saving the fingers. You

8:50

know, you couldn't do a lot with it. It wouldn't

8:52

work properly. And so

8:54

that's what he's going to campaign for.

9:00

Save the land around the valley

9:03

to

9:03

expand this government protection.

9:06

This was an untested idea

9:08

at the time. How do we do that? How do we pass

9:10

laws to protect it? Who's going to enforce

9:13

those laws?

9:14

And John Muir, he's not like

9:16

a senator. He's a semi-hermit

9:18

living 2,300 miles from Washington, D.C.

9:21

and surviving on meat juice.

9:24

But there's one thing he can do. He

9:28

can write. His essays

9:30

start appearing in national publications.

9:33

He's looking closely at the wilderness

9:36

and describing it. He even

9:38

sees something that some scientists

9:41

have missed. Based on his

9:43

measurements and observations, he's confirmed

9:46

a controversial theory that the Sierra

9:48

Nevada mountains were carved out by

9:51

ancient glaciers.

9:53

So

9:53

he writes up his findings and

9:55

publishes them. The greatest

9:57

scientist in California calls him an ignorant

9:59

scientist. and Mere sheep herder and

10:02

really denigrates him, but Mere was right.

10:04

And other scientists rallied around him. So

10:06

he really became the bard of the valley

10:09

and the Sierra Nevada and developed a following

10:11

that way.

10:12

And he begins to lead his

10:14

readers to the questions of

10:16

preservation. He

10:19

writes articles with titles like, God's First

10:21

Temples, How Shall We Preserve Our

10:24

Forests, articles that urge

10:26

people to action,

10:28

and that waste and pure destruction are already

10:30

taking place at a terrible rate, he says.

10:33

Whether our loose jointed government is really

10:36

able or willing to do anything in the matter remains

10:38

to be seen.

10:41

And for a long time, nothing

10:43

happens.

10:46

All those things that he's observed are still

10:48

going on and he's frustrated by it. But

10:51

change is coming. One

10:55

of the editors that Mere has been working with is

10:57

a man named Robert Underwood Johnson.

11:00

Johnson first reached out in the fall

11:02

of 1877.

11:04

He was a young editor at what would become The

11:07

Century magazine.

11:09

And he was like, will you write a piece for me, John Muir? Maybe

11:11

about California farm life?

11:14

Muir turned that idea down. He didn't

11:16

like being told what to write, but something

11:18

good came out of it. The two men became

11:21

pen pals. They were a great compliment

11:24

to one another. Muir was more

11:26

able to go out into wilderness and

11:28

spend long periods of time alone observing.

11:31

Johnson was probably a bit more of a social

11:33

creature. He would have a salon-like

11:36

atmosphere at his home.

11:39

In May of 1889, Robert Underwood Johnson travels

11:43

to California on business.

11:46

He and Muir have been exchanging letters for

11:48

years, but they've never met.

11:50

So Johnson invites Muir to his

11:52

hotel. The two of them meet at

11:55

the famous Palace Hotel

11:57

where Johnson's staying, and Muir gets lost

11:59

in the hallway.

11:59

He starts yelling, Johnson, where are you? He

12:02

tells Johnson, look, I can find my way around the

12:04

mountains, but you put me in a sterile hotel like

12:07

this and I'm lost.

12:10

In Johnson's hotel room, they fall

12:12

into an easy conversation. I

12:15

think they really hit it off right from the start. Muir

12:18

has something big to say, but

12:20

he buys his time. They talk about a

12:22

series Johnson's editing about gold mining

12:24

in California. And then

12:27

Muir says what he came to say.

12:29

Johnson, you got to come out to Yosemite Valley

12:31

with me and you need to see it. Doesn't

12:34

take much arm twisting, Johnson agrees

12:36

and he wraps up some of the editorial

12:39

work he's doing and the two of them head out

12:41

to Yosemite Valley.

12:43

It's June of 1889, 20 years after Muir woke up

12:45

to that joyful sunrise

12:49

in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The

12:51

two of them go up out of the valley into

12:53

Tuolumne Meadows because Muir wants

12:55

to show him the wilds up there and the beauty

12:58

of that part of the Sierra Nevada.

13:01

And Muir takes Johnson down into

13:03

what will become Muir Gorge, where

13:05

there are just granite walls

13:08

and water flowing down into a river

13:10

very, very wild and Johnson

13:13

is just amazed at how he can move through

13:15

the stubborn manzanita bushes that

13:18

are very prickly and grab onto him.

13:20

Johnson sees Muir in his element.

13:24

Muir wants him to see, of course, the

13:26

grandeur of it, but also what's

13:28

happening to it. What are they seeing

13:31

that is worrying as they

13:33

come into Yosemite? As they're

13:35

approaching the valley, they see heaps

13:37

of garbage have been left behind by miners

13:41

and shepherds and they see that tourist

13:44

houses, some have been built

13:46

in shabby ways. Others

13:48

have cut down trees and erected

13:50

hog pins. There

13:51

are forces grazing willy-nilly

13:54

around the valley. Roads

13:57

have been carved through the sequoia

13:59

groves. Muir points out a new

14:01

first-class hotel and saloon, and

14:04

he tells Johnson, one developer has

14:06

a plan to attract more tourists by

14:08

projecting colored lights onto

14:10

the waterfalls. Johnson

14:13

asks Muir, where are the mountain

14:15

meadows that you once described? What did you write?

14:18

Those fields of golden and purple

14:20

bloom?

14:21

Muir

14:23

tells him, eaten by

14:25

sheep. They're

14:27

appalled by this lack

14:30

of attention to the landscape there in

14:32

this really spectacular place. And

14:34

one night around the campfire, Johnson says, look,

14:37

Muir, you write me two articles. I'm

14:39

going to run them. Then I'm going to take them down to Washington,

14:41

D.C. and put them on the desk of every

14:44

congressman. We're going to get a bill passed

14:46

to protect this area.

14:47

We're going to create a national park.

14:50

That's essentially what Muir has been after

14:52

for a decade. And

14:55

no results. He tells Johnson that,

14:57

from what he's seen so far, the love of

14:59

nature among Californians is desperately

15:02

moderate. So

15:03

he's a bit skeptical, but he trusts Johnson

15:06

and agrees to write the articles?

15:08

Those articles appear in print

15:11

the following summer. They're full

15:13

of details that bring Yosemite

15:16

alive. Muir advocates

15:18

for the creation of Yosemite National

15:20

Park, which would be 35 times the size of the valley

15:23

controlled by the state.

15:26

And on October 1,

15:30

1890, Johnson sends a wire from Washington,

15:32

D.C.

15:33

The bill has passed. Johnson

15:38

tells Muir, your very outspoken

15:40

reference to the depredations in that region

15:43

was key to the victory. But

15:45

of course, Muir has been writing for years.

15:48

Johnson's connections and social

15:50

graces and political savvy, that

15:52

was key too.

15:54

It's a watershed moment for

15:56

Muir and for environmentalism,

15:58

really. Now this

16:00

new approach to nature exists.

16:03

This thing called environmentalism.

16:07

But not everyone agrees on exactly

16:09

how the government should be guided

16:11

by it. There's

16:13

lots of discussion. And by discussion,

16:16

I mean heated debate. And

16:19

of course, John Muir will be

16:21

in the thick of it.

16:30

It's the summer of 1903. And

16:33

the man in the White House is Theodore

16:36

Roosevelt, a true lover

16:39

of the outdoors. He can't get enough

16:41

of hunting and adventuring. He

16:43

became president back in 1901

16:46

after President McKinley was assassinated.

16:48

True to form, Vice

16:50

President Roosevelt was hiking in

16:52

the Adirondack Mountains when he got the news.

16:55

He had to rush back to the Capitol to be

16:57

sworn in. And this summer, 1903,

17:01

he's setting out on a long West

17:03

Coast

17:04

tour. For him to go out and really

17:06

shake hands and speechify

17:08

from the back of the train was something he was very

17:10

good at.

17:11

Before he leaves D.C., Theodore Roosevelt

17:14

hears from Robert Underwood Johnson,

17:16

John Muir's editor. And said, President

17:19

Roosevelt, when you go out there, you're going to want to go

17:21

to Yosemite Valley, of course, and you need John

17:23

Muir as your guide. And Roosevelt had

17:25

heard of Muir and knew of his writing and

17:27

said, sure, I would love to do that.

17:32

Roosevelt boards a buggy to begin

17:35

the last leg of his journey to the valley.

17:38

Sitting right behind him is John

17:40

Muir. His job

17:43

is to tell the president about the waterfalls

17:45

and ravines that they're seeing out the window.

17:47

And on May 15, the group arrives

17:50

at Yosemite National Park.

17:53

And there's a whole other group there ready to

17:55

have a big banquet in celebration

17:58

for him. A banquet with a family. famous

18:00

chef and a fireworks display.

18:02

But Roosevelt? He says, no, I

18:05

wanna go camping with John Muir

18:07

out in the wilderness. I need to be alone for a little while.

18:10

Well, not totally alone.

18:13

The president brings with him two park rangers

18:15

and a packer, and also, of

18:17

course, John Muir. I

18:19

think the two guys really hit it off. Muir

18:22

even ignites a dead tree so

18:24

that he can see the exploding flames. They're

18:28

like young boys enjoying the wilderness

18:30

together, and so they bond on that level.

18:34

Muir and Roosevelt

18:37

sit by a campfire eating fried chicken

18:39

off tin plates. They

18:42

bed down under blankets near the base

18:44

of Bridal Dale Falls. And

18:47

they stand on the solid rock of

18:49

Glacier Point, looking out over

18:51

the distant pines.

18:53

That moment becomes a famous

18:56

photo. Roosevelt is in

18:58

riding pants and a heavy Western coat,

19:01

looking like the outdoorsman he wants everyone

19:03

to know he is. And next

19:05

to him is tall, gangly

19:08

John Muir in a three-piece suit.

19:11

He looks like an academic,

19:14

or with his long gray beard, he

19:16

could pass as a prophet.

19:18

One thing I love about the

19:21

photo, and you really have to look

19:23

closely to see it, is that Muir

19:26

has a sprig of flower in his

19:28

lapel. Oh, wow. Yeah, and he thought

19:30

this was sort of the embodiment

19:32

of him having that little delicate

19:35

piece of nature in his lapel.

19:36

Right, that poet that he'd had in his pocket

19:39

back as a kid who didn't want to step on a flower. Exactly,

19:41

exactly. By

19:45

the time the camping trip is over, Muir

19:47

has left an impression on the president.

19:49

And when he leaves the woods, just

19:52

as soon as he can, Roosevelt wires

19:54

DC and says, I

19:56

want to protect more of the

19:58

California mountains.

20:01

But Muir and Roosevelt don't

20:03

agree on everything. Muir,

20:05

who is not bashful, stands right

20:08

up to President Roosevelt and tells him, you

20:10

know, when are you gonna get over all this childish hunting

20:13

like you do? You don't need to be doing this,

20:15

but we do need to preserve nature. And

20:18

Roosevelt is very diplomatic, but of course,

20:20

he's gonna continue to hunt, it's a true love

20:22

of his.

20:24

The two men both love nature,

20:27

but they don't totally agree

20:29

on how best to manage it.

20:31

Muir says, we can use

20:34

nature to help mankind, but

20:36

largely we should preserve it

20:39

so that people can feel wonder at its

20:41

beauty and awe at how grand

20:43

it is.

20:44

Roosevelt agrees in some

20:47

cases, but he's also about

20:50

using nature to serve humanity,

20:52

like with hunting or public works

20:54

projects.

20:56

For those things, nature needs to

20:58

be conserved. You have two

21:00

strains of environmentalism meeting

21:03

here. Roosevelt's which will be

21:05

more associated with the practical

21:08

use of nature, using our natural resources

21:10

to make life more comfortable and

21:13

easier. In contrast to Muir,

21:15

who wanted to preserve nature

21:17

more for its spiritual

21:19

value, for people to go out and

21:22

connect with their souls and find

21:24

meaning in life.

21:26

These are largely theoretical

21:28

debates until something happens

21:31

that literally shakes the bedrock

21:33

of California.

21:38

In the early morning of April 18, 1906,

21:42

San Franciscans wake up to an earthquake.

21:46

Houses collapse and 80%

21:48

of the city is destroyed. Most

21:52

of it by fire, and

21:54

you fight fire with water.

23:59

and they were throwing up their hands, what

24:02

is this? They had never seen this before, this

24:04

incredible outcry of the people

24:07

to preserve Hetch Hetchy Valley and not

24:09

to dam it up and destroy it.

24:12

But dam supporters are signing petitions

24:14

and writing letters, too, like

24:16

a San Francisco women's club that says, someone

24:19

who adores every bush

24:21

and tree and would sacrifice the rights

24:24

and needs of a great city is irrational

24:27

and unjust. Another

24:29

argues Hetch Hetchy might look just

24:31

as beautiful as a dam as it does

24:33

as a valley.

24:35

You had William Randolph Hearst

24:37

and his newspaper empire fighting

24:39

the Sierra Club. They would produce

24:42

a newspaper for the day of

24:44

the vote in Congress to determine

24:46

the fate of Hetch Hetchy. And when each

24:48

congressman arrived at their desk, that

24:50

newspaper was sitting there telling them that

24:53

they must vote in favor of San Francisco.

24:56

The debate grows so intense that a Missouri

24:58

senator wonders aloud, why is a two-square-mile

25:02

patch of land plunging the country into

25:05

hysteria?

25:07

Public opinion may be split,

25:09

but in Congress, it is

25:11

not close. The Senate

25:14

votes 43 to 25 in favor of the dam. The

25:19

New York Times bemoans the verdict with the headline,

25:22

one national park lost. Johnson

25:25

is crestfallen and Muir's telling Johnson, don't

25:28

worry, we did what was right, we

25:30

fought the good fight, and it's going to prevail eventually.

25:33

As Muir writes in his journal, the people

25:36

are now aroused. The

25:38

controversy over Hetch Hetchy has engaged

25:40

thousands of Americans in debates

25:43

about the environment. Muir wouldn't have

25:45

dreamed of that when he first arrived in Yosemite

25:47

all those years before. And sure

25:50

enough, while they lost that battle, they

25:52

would win the war. The Hetch Hetchy

25:54

bill is signed in December of 1913.

25:59

On Christmas Eve. the next year, Muir

26:01

dies of pneumonia. But

26:04

two years later, Congress establishes

26:07

the National Park Service to

26:09

protect the then 14 national

26:11

parks and to preserve them from overdevelopment.

26:14

The single most important

26:16

thought that I think Muir brought to

26:18

us was that if you bring people

26:20

to nature, they'll love nature and they'll protect

26:23

nature. And this is really the proof of that.

26:26

Today, the US has 63 national

26:28

parks. The

26:31

year Muir died, 15,000 people visited Yosemite.

26:36

In 2022, that number was over 3.6 million.

26:48

Thanks for listening to History This

26:51

Week. For more moments throughout history

26:53

that are also worth watching, check your local TV

26:55

listings to find out what's on the History Channel

26:57

today. If you wanna get in touch, please

27:00

shoot us an email at our email address, historythisweekathistory.com,

27:04

or you can leave us a voicemail, 212-351-0410. Special

27:10

thanks to our guest, Dean King, author

27:13

of Guardians of the Valley, John

27:15

Muir and the Friendship that Saved

27:17

Yosemite.

27:18

This episode was produced

27:20

by Julia Press. It was

27:22

story edited by Jim O'Grady, fact-checked

27:25

by Nate Barksdale and Catherine Nuhan,

27:27

and sound designed by Dan Rosato. You

27:30

heard some of Dan's own field recordings from

27:32

visits to US national parks throughout

27:34

this episode.

27:36

History This Week is also produced by Corinne

27:39

Wallace, Chloe Weiner, and me, Sally

27:41

Helm. Our associate producers are

27:43

Hazel May and Jonah Buchanan. Our

27:45

senior producer is Ben Dickstein. Our

27:48

supervising producer is Mckamey Lynn, and

27:50

our executive producer is Jesse Katz. Don't

27:53

forget to subscribe, rate, and review History

27:55

This Week wherever you get your podcasts, and

27:58

we will see you next week.

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