When Yosemite Valley became part of a state park in 1864, Hetch Hetchy received no such designation. As the grazing of livestock damaged native plants in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, mountaineer and naturalist John Muir pressed for the protection of both valleys under a single national park. Muir, who himself had briefly worked as a shepherd in Hetch Hetchy, was known for calling sheep "hoofed locusts" because of their environmental impact. Muir's friend Robert Underwood Johnson of the politically influential "Century Magazine" and several other prominent figures were inspired by Muir's work and helped to get Yosemite National Park established by October 1, 1890. However, ranchers who had previously owned land in the new park continued their use of Hetch Hetchy Valley – a "sheep-grazing free-for-all threatened to denude the High Sierra meadows" – before disputes over state and private properties in respect to national park boundaries were finally settled in the early 1900s.