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Yosemite's Innkeepers Foreword by Horace M. Albright People of every nation in the world know of the extraordinary features of Yosemite National Park—its overwhelming magnificence and beauty that has attracted visitors for one hundred and twenty-four years, but few are aware of the human side. This new book, Yosemite and Its Innkeepers, details the development of both the Park and its entrepreneurs. It was my boss, Stephen T. Mather, first director of the National Park Service, who said, “Scenery is a hollow enjoyment to a tourist who sets out in the morning after an indigestible breakfast and a fitful sleep on an impossible bed.” From 1856 on Yosemite had had pioneer innkeepers such as Galen Clark, James Hutchings, and the Washburn brothers to provide visitors with beds (usually without bedbugs) , meals and roofs. Even John Muir contributed to the guest comfort by supplying lumber for buildings. It was 1899 when Jennie and David Curry set up a tourist camp, and quickly became a force in Yosemite Valley. That, too, was a pioneering venture. When Mr. Mather began to manage the national parks in 1915, two of the thorniest problems were to protect their unique natural features, and find concessionaires who would keep visitors content. In Yosemite we inherited competition between Curry, who was aggressively anti-regimentation, and the Washburn interests, and, unwittingly, fostered turmoil by sponsoring a new concessionaire, D. J. Desmond. Eventually a merger of the opposing forces into the Yosemite Park and Curry Co. made possible a wide variety of facilities and visitor accommodations under the management of Curry's widow, children, and sons-in-law. For three quarters of a century, the beneficial influence of the notable family was indeed great and good. Four generations of Currys not only loved Yosemite, but wanted every guest to love it, be grateful for its preservation, and inspired by its grandeur. Now that family has been succeeded by a conglomerate company which plans to continue the traditions of service and hospitality. This history chronicles not only the concessionaire's achievements, but those of the Park Service in the making of roads, trails, camps, protective and interpretive services. The seasonal urban ills of the 1970s are a far cry from the pastoral conditions of the 1850s, but they, as well as hitherto untold chapters about the depression and World Ware II's effects on Yosemite, are a definite part of this colorful book. I have had the pleasure of knowing Yosemite National Park and its concessionaires intimately since 1915, and warmly commend this volume as a valid contribution to Yosemite Literature. I have had, also, the good fortune to know and admire Shirley Sargent who has written Yosemite and Its Innkeepers after long and diligent research, and rendered it a saga of trials, triumphs, problems, and prestige, with people and nature in surroundings of the greatest beauty and magnitude. Horace M. Albright Since my tenure in Yosemite, the world=s best place, began as a child in 1936, I have been engrossed with its natural and human history, and that passion has led me to explore, collect, research, interview, and write of it. During the 1960s, I suggested separately to Mary Ellen Degnan, Mary Curry Tresidder, and Hilmer Oehlmann that a history of business development in the Park should be written, but none of them felt objective or energetic enough to tackle it. In January of 1972, Art Robinson, vice president of the Yosemite Park and Curry Co., convinced Alan Coleman, its president, that I should write such a history. After conferring with Mr. Oehlmann, honorary chairman of the Board of Directors, Coleman gave me a grant to enable me to research and write it. Three years, a hundred plus interviews, and five manuscript drafts later, Yosemite and Its Innkeepers, the story of a great Park and its chief concessionaires, was finished. A list of the legion of Yosemite devotees who generously shared memories, pictures, and documentation with me would read like a telephone book, beginning with A for Albright, and ending with Z for Zinser. To them I am everlastingly grateful, and, at least, fragmentary acknowledgment is given them in my source notes at the end of the book. A scattering of other people who gave me aid deserve gratitude here. My thanks to Kay Coffin, Ruth Massey, Louise Woelbing, and Donna Zinser, all faithful typists; Jack Gyer and Leslie Hart, curator and librarian of the Yosemite National Park archives; Ruth Wilson, historian for the Palo Alto Library; Elizabeth Miller, librarian of the Redwood City Tribune; Gladys Hansen, former head of the Californiana Department of the San Francisco Public Library, and now director of the San Francisco History Museum; Virginia Ried of the San Joaquin Valley Information Service; Dick Dillon, former Sutro librarian, and his assistant, Eleanor Capelle; Richard N. Schellens, Redwood City historian; Nancy Ortiz and Margaret S. Plummer, who helped me on exciting research trips; B. Weiss, Marilyn Fry and Hank Johnston who supplied editing; and Judith Whipple who designed the original book. Since this book was first published, in 1975, it went through several printings. For each, I updated the last chapter. In this revised edition I have made significant changes, including shortening the title, yet I have retained both Horace Albright's foreword and part of my preface as still fitting and valid. Many of the people who originally helped me are now dead, but remembered and appreciated. Now, in 2000, I need to acknowledge the skillful efforts of Peter Browning, editor and friend, and Larry Van Dyke, designer of the new cover. The revision has benefitted from the assistance of Linda Eade and Jim Snyder at the Yosemite Research Library, who have patiently helped find answers to my questions. Furthermore, Audrey Beck Wilson and Zada James aided me with the multitudinous changes. Sheila Tarvin, my typist and old friend, keyboarded the text into her computer following Peter Browning's instructions for his page-formatting program. That reduced my fairly orderly pages into a formless, unparagraphed, coded mess. I am one of the increasingly rare breed who still type with two fingers on a low-tech electric typewriter and do not understand computers. However, Peter assured me that the finished product would look like a book. As you see, he was right!! Shirley Sargent
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