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Chapter Three One August evening, sitting in the moonlight above Tenaya Lake in what is now Yosemite National Park, LeConte and Muir were struck silent by the wonder of the place. As LeConte remembered, the stillness of the evening, the shadows of the mountains, the glittering of the ruffled water, "all these seemed exquisitely harmonized with one another and the grand harmony made answering music in our hearts." It was a moment, and a place, that LeConte would not forget. In 1889 Muir embarked on an excursion in northern Yosemite with Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of the influential Century Magazine. Sitting around a campfire at Soda Springs in Tuolumne Meadows, the two planned a campaign for a Yosemite National Park--a campaign that succeeded the following year when Congress established the park. But Muir and Johnson soon realized that an organization would be necessary to ensure Yosemite's protection. At the same time, a group at the University of California, led by J. Henry Senger, was interested in promoting recreation by making the Sierra--and especially the Yosemite region--more accessible and better known. Muir joined these and others in the San Francisco Bay Area who were interested in creating an alpine club. Among the organizers were the artist William Keith, attorney Warren Olney, professors LeConte, Senger, and Cornelius Beach Bradley, and Stanford University President David Starr Jordan. Olney and Senger drew up articles of incorporation. On May 28, 1892, in a meeting at Olney's office in San Francisco, the Sierra Club was incorporated "to explore, enjoy, and render accessible the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast; to publish authentic information concerning them," and "to enlist the support and cooperation of the people and government in preserving the forests and other natural features of the Sierra Nevada." These three purposes, recreational, educational, and conservationist, constituted the Club's motives, means, and final object. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
