It would have surprised Muir to learn that the Hetch Hetchy Valley he enjoyed in 1871 was not really a wilderness, but rather a landscape managed by California Indians long before he or any other Euro-American ever laid eyes on it. It was their home, at least in the summer and fall. The Central Miwok and their ancestors had inhabited the valley as long as they could remember. They did not change it drastically, but they did alter it to their liking. Of course, the great granite cliffs and waterfalls could not be shaped by human hands, but the valley could. Anthropologists know that the California Indians used fire often in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada and in such valleys as Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy.9 Burning would increase the grasses and ferns, which would, in turn, increase the population of deer and other game. It would also clear away brush, making the narrow valley more open and easily traversed. It is, of course, impossible to compare the Hetch Hetchy Valley of 1870 with the valley today, but an 1866 photograph of Yosemite Valley taken by Carleton Watkins reveals much more meadow and open space than a rephotograph taken in 1961, the difference likely the result of recurrent fire, possibly natural but probably 111
Aside from Hetch Hetchy's abundant meadows, its great attractions were the black oak trees (Muir called them Kellogg oaks and they are given the Latin name Queercus kelloggi), which provided valley Indians with bumper crops of acorns that they annually stored in what they called "chuck-ahs." Compared to the canyon live oak, or scrub oak-a tree one sees today on the trails surrounding Hetch Hetchy-the black oak was more massive, a substantial tree in both productivity and longevity. These mountain dwellers, according to anthropologist Helen McCarthy were the Indians' "preferred species in many localities." Because the black oak was such a valued food source, we can assume that if natural fire (lightning) did not clear the competing brush, the Indians would have. Although they valued these Hetch Hetchy oaks, or "acorn orchards," as Muir called them, the California Indians did not purposefully plant or tend them. It would take nearly 30 years for the first acorns to appear on a black oak. At 8o years one could expect a bumper crop, and at 175 years the black oak was fully mature. One Mono Indian laughingly remarked that she would never plant a black oak acorn: "I'd be dead before it was grown. Let the blue jays do the planting, it's their job.."I I
FIGURE 2. This small but noisy waterfall marked the entrance of the Tuolumne River into the Hetch HetchyValley. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library.
In harvesting the black oak acorns, the Hetch Hetchy Valley Indians may have used a technique called "knocking..""2 Using long branches or poles, Indians would hit or shake the branches of the oak, thus loosening the acorns. In this way they might win out over competitors such as blue jays, woodpeckers, squirrels, gophers, deer, and even bears, of which there were many in the Hetch Hetchy. Valley. Such a technique would also prune the trees of dead branches and encourage lateral growth. The downside was that the black oak acorns took two years to mature, so knocking the outside branches might result in the loss of some of next year's crop. Nevertheless, that trade-off might have seemed worthwhile to the Indians, especially considering the large population of black bears and, no doubt, some grizzlies. Thus it was that these Central Miwok bands knew the Hetch Hetchy Valley as a welcoming place in the summer, a secluded valley where they might hunt but would primarily gather and store the treasured black oak acorns. To enhance both these activities, they, like all human beings, altered their environment to make their lives easier.
It was likely either the Ahwahneechee or the Tuolumne tribe-both bands of the Central Miwoks-that gave the valley its peculiar but memorable name. Hetch Hetchy is thought to be a derivation of the word hatch- atchie, which refers to a species of grass with edible seeds that once grew in the lower end of the meadow In late summer, when the seeds had ripened, Indians could be found gathering the grain and then pounding it into meal for porridge.13 One early white visitor noted that the natives were preparing a variety of grass and edible seeds. When he asked the name, they responded "hatch hatchy," providing the valley's nomenclature. 14
However, another account disputes such an interpretation. According to Tenaya, an Ahwahneechee chief associated with Yosemite Valley, hetchy means "tree." Supposedly at the end of the Hetch Hetchy Valley, where a trail entered the meadow, two yellow pine trees thrived; hence, "Hetch Hetchy," or the "Valley of Two Trees." We will likely never know the authoritative name origin, which perhaps allowed William Jennings Bryan, caught between the passions of Muir's and Phelan's view, to quip that he had been led to believe that Hetch Hetchy was some sort of Indian war dance.15
Precision regarding the first Euro-Americans' visit seems equally elusive. Spaniards limited their exploration to the coastal regions of California; thus it was near 1850 that one or more Americans penetrated the Hetch Hetchy Valley, seeking placer gold and, if that was unavailable, at least some game to hunt.16 Food was scarce and expensive, and gold was increasingly difficult to find; so the "forty-niners" began to reconnoiter the rivers and valleys to the east. With their insatiable optimism and energy, they explored the headwaters of every river and stream in search of "color" and, perhaps, even the "mother lode." In all likelihood, miners stumbled on the Hetch HetchyValley as they struggled up the lower canyon of the Tuolumne River in a search that left no stream untried. Ironically, the first white to enter Hetch Hetchy may not have been an American but rather jean-Nicolas Perlot, an adventurous Belgian miner who spent a great deal of time in the Sierra Nevada foothills. He, a fellow miner named Debrai, and his dog, Miraud, explored up the branches of the Tuolumne River, and according to his account, he may have spent a night in the valley.17
We can be a little more certain regarding the Screech brothers. Joseph and Nathan spent plenty of time in the mountains, hunting and prospecting. On one outing for deer or bear, Nate spotted a deep valley to the east, but it was too far to visit. Nate later recalled that "on getting home I asked the Indian chief the name of the valley and he said . . . `there is no valley. It is only a cut in the hills through which the Tuolumne River runs but if you think there might be a valley keep looking and if you find such a place I will give it to you."' Nate went on looking for the valley, and in a couple of years he entered the western opening and then "walked up toward the center and faced the Indian chief and his wives." The chief instructed the women to pack up and prepare to leave. He intended to keep his promise, saying to Nate, "The valley is yours.."1S We are obviously treading on the path of mythology here, but the Screeches remain the first non-Indian visitors of record. John Muir designated Joseph as the "discoverer" who laid out the first trail and claimed the valley for his use. Although the Indian-chief-andgift story is unlikely, the brothers undoubtedly encountered Indians living in their bark shelters, collecting acorns, and living peaceably. As time passed, more Americans arrived, finding remains of Indian occupation but no Indians. In all likelihood the gold rush activity from 1850 to 1855 forced out the Central Miwoks, who moved to Yosemite Valley to work in tourist-related fields or to labor in the mines. The miners were not known for their compassion, and they probably cleared the valley, forcing the displaced Indians to find a home elsewhere.
These early miners found no gold along the banks of the Tuolumne, which surely saved the river and valley from desecration. Since they were itinerant and sometimes illiterate, they left no written record. Their thoughts as well as their eyes were cast downward in search of gold-bearing gravel. Miners seldom could be enticed from their purpose by sheer cliffs or imposing waterfalls. These early Argonauts did, however, note the luxuriant meadows with their profusion of ferns, flowers, and grasses. Within a short time a few of these hopeful Americans, discouraged and often destitute, turned to more prosaic livelihoods, such as sheep raising. They remembered the Hetch HetchyValley. By 186o wool growers instructed their drovers to seek out the level, fertile pastures. The 1,2oo-acre meadow provided nourishment for "thousands of head of sheep and cattle that entered lean and lank in the spring, but left rolling fat and hardly able to
negotiate the precipitous and difficult defiles out of the mountains in the fall."19 This account exaggerates in number, but as grazing competition increased, wool growers and cattlemen filed homestead land entries to protect their rights. They put up rude cabins, intended for summer use only. When Muir descended into the valley in 1871, he explored "a couple of shepherd's cabins" as well as some Indian huts, which he thought rather quaint but not intrusive.20 It was late in the season, early November, and the "hooved locust," as he delighted in calling sheep, had long departed for lower elevations.21
There were other early visitors. Perhaps the most famous was Josiah Whitney. The professor wrote a glowing description, characterizing the valley as "almost an exact counterpart of the Yosemite." While denyingYosemite Valley the possibility of a glacial origin, he accepted that the "beautifully polished" rocks of Hetch Hetchy were surely evidence of slow, powerful glacial action. For Whitney, as well as Muir, the valley was useful to explain basic origins of land masses. In his opinion "if there was no Yosemite, the Hetch Hetchy would be fairly entitled to a world-wide fame." He encouraged visitation "if it be only to see how curiously nature has repeated herself." In describing the three-mile-long valley, Whitney noted that "a spur of granite" (Kolana) split the vast meadow into two parts. The waterfalls also drew his attention, and he exclaimed that "Hetch Hetchy Fall" (Wapama) was so large in the spring that "the whole of the lower part of the Valley is said to be filled with spray" This lower, most westerly meadow terminated in "an extremely narrow canon, through which the river has not sufficient room to flow at the time of the spring freshets, so that the Valley is then inundated, giving rise to a fine lake." It was, of course, this narrow outlet canyon that would attract San Francisco engineers, although they christened Whitney's "fine lake" a mosquito-filled swamp. But Whitney saw only the positive and the aesthetic, describing the i,8oo-foot granite cliffs and the waterfalls with surprising passion, noting that "were they anywhere else than in California, they would be considered . . . wonderfully grand.."22 Whitney's topographer, Charles F. Hoffman, visited the valley shortly after, reiterating his chief's enthusiasm.
But few Californians read either Whitney's or Hoffman's account. Those who did cared much more for information regarding mineral wealth than for scenery. John Muir's 1873 article in the Overland Monthly opened a few more eyes to the valley's attractions, but generally it was unknown to all but a handful. This obscurity distressed Muir, and he noted that if he could place the io,ooo Americans who had visited Yosemite Valley by 1873 in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, they would not know the difference. Their only questions might be "What part of the Valley is this? Where are the hotels?"23
Although Muir urged his readers to visit Hetch Hetchy, few did. Travel was difficult. There were no wagon roads and no facilities. Commercial interests did nothing to promote the valley. Guidebooks to theYosemite country generally mentioned Hetch Hetchy only in passing or not at all. The best known of Sierra Nevada boosters, James M. Hutchings, totally ignored Hetch Hetchy in his guidebook, while devoting some five hundred pages to Yosemite Valley. Of course, Hutchings ran a tourist operation in Yosemite and thus saw no advantage in publicizing a competing landscape.24
While most early photographers and artists followed Hutchings's advice and ended up working their magic in Yosemite Valley, Hetch Hetchy attracted at least one famed landscape artist. Albert Bierstadt came to San Francisco with his paints and palette in the fall of 1872, looking for sublime mountain scenery, the kind that would guarantee him an income as well as enhance his reputation as a landscape artist. He visited Yosemite Valley, of course, but an encounter with Jeanne Carr, wife of University of California geologist Ezra Carr, led him to the lesser-known valley.25 Carr suggested that if Bierstadt visited Hetch Hetchy, he would not be merely replicating other artist's impression of Yosemite Valley, but rather creating images of a hitherto unobserved, but equally sublime, mountain valley.
Bierstadt found the idea intriguing, and in July 1873 he set out with his wife and three friends on a six-week pack trip to the Hetch Hetchy region. We do not know if he consulted with Muir, but the artist found the valley as enchanting as the writer. He noted the inaccessibility of Hetch Hetchy but told friends it was worth the effort. "It is smaller than the more famous valley," he explained, "but it presents many of the same features in its scenery and is quite as beautiful.."26 When Bierstadt emerged from the mountains in late August, a San Francisco reporter noted that he was "laden with sketches, from a spot which as yet is almost untrodden soil."We know that from those sketches Bierstadt produced at least four oil paintings, possibly more.27 In 1876 Mount Holyoke College acquired one of Bierstadt's paintings-simply called Hetch Hetchy Canyon-to hang in its art museum, an example of the impact of art in publicizing the little-known valley.2
Other artists, scientists, and adventurers trickled into the valley toward the close of the century, often at Muir's urging. That was the case with Charles Dormon Robinson. In the early 188os the artist had risen in prominence as a landscape specialist, challenging Thomas Hill as the dean of Yosemite painters. Looking for new subjects, in 1884 Robinson ventured on an overland trek to Hetch Hetchy, recording his impressions and even writing a description of the trip for the San Francisco Chronicle. More literal in his style than Bierstadt, Robinson's depictions give us an accurate view of the valley 29
One other artist who found inspiration in Hetch Hetchy was William Keith, Muir's Scottish friend. The two often traveled together in the Sierra Nevada, and Keith recorded that in 1873 he and Muir undertook a life threatening descent into the Tuolumne Canyon, the first "white party" to do so.30 No paintings resulted from that difficult trip, but in the years to follow, Keith recorded his mountain impressions. He spent two memorable Hetch Hetchy outings with Muir in 1895 and 1907. Unfortunately, the earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed some of his earliest and finest works. Keith and other artists gave much needed publicity to the valley, a place far from the amenities of civilization. Muir occasionally felt compelled to comment on Keith's visual interpretation of the valley. Once, in Keith's studio, Muir complained that a Hetch Hetchy waterfall (probably Wapama) was too thin. Any man can see, insisted Muir, "that the great masses of snow in the vast watershed that leads down to the brink of that waterfall would result in a thundering cataract and not a mere thread like that." Keith feigned outrage, but then, at Muir's urging, he brushed in a more ample waterfall.31
FIGUUI 3. "Little Joe" LeConte took a number of superb photographs shortly before loggers and workers stripped the valley. This scene is of the lower meadow with Wapama Falls in the background. Courtesy of the Bancroft Literary.
Besides promoting the seldom visited valley, Keith and the other artists, and a few photographers as well, were engaged in more than recording special landscapes and making a living. They were explorers in the sense that they were uncovering the aesthetic wonders and visual frontiers of the West. Just as the forty-niners sought nuggets of gold, these painters sought nuggets of Nature. They provided the American people with a new perspective and appreciation of the American West. Such artists gave the nation a sense of pride in the uniqueness of the land that only a few had or would know firsthand. It has been said that European nations gain their identity from antiquity-from civilizations that preceded them. Americans, however, would find meaning in the natural spectacle, much of it found in places like the Hetch HetchyValley. To some degree it became a national-or naturalicon.
While Hetch HetchyValley languished in isolation,YosemiteValley was attracting worldwide attention. All of this notoriety resulted in the first step in the establishment of Yosemite National Park, of which Hetch HetchyValley would become a part.Yosemite Valley had been in the possession of Indian tribes, primarily the Ahwahneechee, who lived a life of hunting and gathering, moving in and out of the valley-and altering it-at will. That lifestyle changed in 1851, when the almost inevitable clash between American miners and local Indians led James Savage and his militia, known as the Mariposa Batt
alion, to mount a reprisal expedition. Up the Merced River they went, intent on capturing Chief Tenaya and his band. In the course of that pursuit Savage "discovered" Yosemite Valley. Tenaya escaped, fleeing across the mountains to join the Mono Indians. In time, the Central Miwok Indians returned to Yosemite to take up a rather dual existence that one visitor described as a "curious mixture of tradition and civilization." While still gather ing acorns and storing them in their "chuck-ahs," family members might earn wages by washing and ironing white men's clothes, while others would industriously weave baskets to sell to tourists.32
While herders drove thousands of sheep into Hetch Hetchy in the late 1850s,Yosemite Valley played host to increasing numbers of curious Americans. With the boosterism of the young Englishman James M. Hutchings, Yosemite Valley moved from obscurity to renown within a decade. With their talent for description, such visitors as Horace Greeley, the Reverend Thomas Starr King, and geologist Clarence King spread the word. The creative ability of photographer Carleton Watkins and artists Thomas Ayres and Bierstadt augmented immeasurably the writers' efforts. By 1863 the famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, particularly concerned with the American instinct to "privatize" anything of scenic value, was busy advocating Yosemite Valley as a public park.
It was, no doubt, Olmsted who led a group of Californians "of fortune, of taste and of refinement" to Senator John Conness's office in early 1864 to ask that he introduce a bill granting custodianship of Yosemite Valley to the state of California. The bill required the state to agree to hold the valley "for public use, resort and recreation for all time."33 California, therefore, was not free to do with the valley what it might, but rather became its trustee for the federal government. When a preoccupied President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law on June 30, 1864, he authorized a state park with certain federal conditions, but the new law did prove to be a model in concept and language for theYellowstone National ParkAct of 1872.
The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism Page 3