History of the Yosemite area the Yosemite area in 1863. Pressure from Starr King and Olmsted, photographs by Carleton Watkins, and geological data from the 1863 Geological Survey of California prompted legislators to take action. Senator John Conness of California introduced a park bill in 1864 to the United States Senate to cede Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees to California. The bill easily passed both houses of the United States Congress, and was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on June 30, 1864. The Yosemite Grant, as it was called, was given to California as a state park for "public use, resort
Fresno Yosemite International Airport headquarters were located in the city until it declared bankruptcy in 2000, and the new CEO moved its headquarters to a suburb of Las Vegas. In 1996, the airport's name was changed from Fresno Air Terminal to Fresno Yosemite International Airport to attract out-of-state and international visitors to Yosemite National Park to the airport. Despite the new name, scheduled international commercial flights would not begin operating in Fresno for nearly a decade. At the time, airport managers petitioned the FAA for a new identifier code to replace FAT, which carries a negative connotation and no longer matched the initials of