History of the Yosemite area drainages of two river watersheds. Preservation of watersheds was very important to Muir, who said "you cannot save Yosemite Valley without saving its Sierran fountains." The State of California retained control of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. Muir and 181 others founded the Sierra Club in 1892, in part to lobby for the transfer of the valley and the grove into the national park. Like Yellowstone National Park before it, Yosemite National Park was at first administered by various units of the United States Army. Captain Abram Wood led the 4th Cavalry Regiment into the new
History of the Yosemite area Muir died he expressed the hope that "some compensating good must follow" from the Raker Act. The fight over the dam strengthened the conservation movement by popularizing it nationally. The administration of Yosemite National Park was transferred to the newly formed National Park Service in 1916, when W. B. Lewis was appointed as the park's superintendent. Parsons Memorial Lodge and Tioga Pass Road, along with campgrounds at Tenaya and Merced lakes, were completed the same year; six hundred automobiles entered the east side of the park using Tioga Road that summer. The "All-Weather Highway" (now State Route 140) opened in