John Muir National Historic Site

Muir Conservation Legacy Lives On

"Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?" John Muir asked. His remarkable vision – that all creation is one community made up of equal companions – still inspires people to love nature and work to save wild lands and wildlife. Muir is often called the father of national parks and forest reservations. Muir urged people to experience wild nature so they would be inspired to defend it and save it.

At the University of Wisconsin, Muir encountered Ralph Waldo Emerson’s and Henry David Thoreau’s writings about nature, the new geology of Louis Agassiz, and the plant science of Asa Gray and others. These were the tools of his later fame in conservation. Arriving in California by ship in 1868, Muir lived in the Yosemite area of the southern Sierra Range off and on for several years, studying its botany and geology. In 1871 Muir published an article in the New York Tribune that argued that glaciers had carved Yosemite Valley. California’s state geologist publicly ridiculed Muir, but Muir’s views were substantially correct. His Yosemite experience convinced Muir that lumbermen and sheepherders were ruining its wildness. But Muir’s most influential campaigning to save wilderness began after his intense fruit ranching years. Muir attacked the prevailing notion that nature’s only value was to provide commodities for humans. With Century magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir campaigned for the creation of Yosemite National Park. His articles in major magazines and newspapers and his books helped change Americans’ attitude toward wilderness and wildness. After Muir died, more books were made from his journals and other writings.

1836 – Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson published

1838 – John Muir born April 21, Dunbar, Scotland

1845 – Potato crop fails; famine in Europe

1849 – Family emigrates to Wisconsin farm

1854 – Walden by Henry David Thoreau published

1860 – Leaves home; inventions win state fair prize; meets mentor Jeanne Carr

1861 – Enters University of Wisconsin; Civil War begins

1862 – Postpones studies to teach school; Thoreau dies

1864 – Moves to Canada; botanizes; works in sawmill. Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh published

1866 – Civil War over; moves to Indiana; works in carriage factory

1867 – Factory accident damages eye; takes 1,000-mile walk, Kentucky to Gulf of Mexico; writes first journal en route

1868 – Moves to California; first sight of Yosemite

1871 – Finds glacier in Yosemite; meets Ralph Waldo Emerson there

1872 – Begins writing for Overland Monthly magazine; Yellowstone National Park established

1874-76 – Begins study of trees; advocates federal control of forests

1879 – Travels to Alaska

1880 – Second Alaska trip

1881 – Alaska travels on the ship Corwin

1882 – Emerson dies

1882-87 – Fruit ranching at Martinez

1888 – Health poor; climbs Mount Ranier; wife urges taking up conservation writing again

1889 – Campaigns for a Yosemite National Park

1890 – Writes Century magazine articles; Yosemite National Park established (without Yosemite Valley); explores what is now Muir Glacier in Glacier Bay, Alaska; U.S. census notes end of frontier

1892 – Helps found Sierra Club; elected as its first president; forest reserves established in three western states

1893-94 – Visits Europe; first book published, The Mountains of California

1896 – Serves on Forestry Commission; honorary degree from Harvard

1898 – Honorary degree from University of Wisconsin

1899 – With scientific Harriman Expedition in Alaska

1901 – Our National Parks published

1903-04 – Camps in Yosemite with President Theodore Roosevelt; makes world tour; the first federal wildlife reserve established

1905 – California cedes Yosemite Valley back to the Federal Government

1906 – Explores Arizona and Petrified Forest

1908 – Muir Woods National Monument established; begins fight against damming Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley

1909 – Stickeen published

1911 – My First Summer in the Sierra published; travels to South America and Africa; honorary degree from Yale

1912 – The Yosemite published

1913 – The Story of My Boyhood and Youth published; Hetch Hetchy battle lost; honorary degree from University of California

1914 – Dies December 24, age 76

2000 – Creation of Sequoia National Monument continues Muir’s conservation agenda

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. John Muir, 1890

A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

A machine shop accident blinded Muir in one eye for a month. His eyesight regained, he took a 1,000-mile walk from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico. Sickness altered his plan to go to South America. Muir went from Cuba to New York to California.

Muir fell in love with Yosemite and lived in the valley for five years. He worked as a shepherd, sawyer, and guide. He also found a living glacier that buttressed his theory that glaciers had shaped the valley.

President Theodore Roosevelt was a fan of Muir’s writings. They camped near Yosemite’s Glacier Point.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. John Muir, 1901

John Muir Biography continued here.