above: John Muir was a mountain wanderer, glaciologist, defender of Yosemite National

Park, and co-founder of the Sierra Club. Helen Lukens Jones photograph, in Kings Canyon in
1902, courtesy of the Library of Congress LC-USZ62-52000. below: His hair and beard were
untrimmed, but John Muir’s personality showed in his lively, kindly-looking eyes. Courtesy
National Park Service, RL_01339.
left: Gifford Pinchot was a close advisor to
President Theodore Roosevelt and founded
the U.S. Forest Service to promote sustainable
use of timber resources. Circa 1910 photograph
courtesy the Library of Congress LC-DIG-
ggbain-18121. below: When he met Muir
in his 20s, Pinchot was handsome, wealthy,
intelligent, and dedicated. Frances Benjamin
Johnston photograph from the early 1890s courtesy
the Library of Congress LC-DIG-ppmsca-19459.
right: In 1893, Pinchot and Muir first met at
the Pinchot family mansion at #2 Gramercy Park
in New York City. 2018 photograph by the author.
below: The night that Muir and Pinchot met, Muir
told the story of exploring Alaska’s Brady Glacier
with the dog Stickeen. Although the glacier has
likely retreated since then, this photo still portrays
the immensity of the country. Photo courtesy National
Park Service.
above: The youthful Muir was intense and outdoorsy, a spellbinding storyteller with a thick
Scottish brogue. This picture was used in a magazine in 1883. Courtesy John Muir National
Historic Site, JOMU 3521. below: With his marriage to Louie Strentzel in 1880, John Muir
moved onto this vineyard in the Alhambra Valley near Martinez, California. George H. Knight
photo, undated, courtesy Yosemite National Park, RL_01363.
above: An editor at Century magazine, Robert Underwood Johnson was Muir’s friend and
lobbyist. Albert Bigelow Paine photograph, from The Critic magazine, vol. 42 (1903), courtesy
Wikimedia. below: In 1889 at Tuolumne Meadows, high above the Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy
valleys, John Muir arranged Johnson’s blankets as if tucking a child into bed. Steve Dunleavy
photo courtesy Wikimedia.
above: John Muir, aged 57, near the Hetch Hetchy valley in 1895, photographed by
conservationist Theodore Lukens. Lukens departed the Yosemite valley looking for Muir, and
found this man, lacking food, pack animals, or companions—and perfectly content. Courtesy
Wikimedia. below: In 1885, this map identified routes to the remote Yosemite valley via rail
and stagecoach. The map also shows Martinez, on the northeast edge of San Francisco Bay,
the home of John Muir. Doxey & Co. map courtesy Wikimedia.
above: Muir was a captivating storyteller, especially in outdoor settings. Here he’s instructing
at front left, probably on the 1909 Sierra Club summer outing to Hetch Hetchy. George R. King
photo first published in the Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan, 1916), 4; courtesy National Park
Service, RL_01344. below: In a famous 1903 photograph, John Muir and President Theodore
Roosevelt posed at Overhanging Rock in Yosemite National Park, with a view of Yosemite
Falls behind them. Courtesy Wikimedia.
above: President Roosevelt (third from left), John Muir (next to Roosevelt), and others gathered
at Yosemite in 1903. The man in back is sometimes mis-identified as Gifford Pinchot, but is in
fact Dr. Presley Marion Rixey, Roosevelt’s physician. Joseph N. LeConte 1903 photograph courtesy
National Archives 7002905. For full list of names see https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1190-
john-muir-save-the-redwoods, accessed Jan 25, 2018. below: To protect a grove of redwood trees
north of San Francisco, William Kent donated them to the federal government in 1908, and
insisted that they be named Muir Woods. Eric Poelzl 2005 photograph courtesy Wikimedia.
top left: William Kent is shown here
between Muir and J.H. Cutter of the Tamal-
pais Conservation Club at Muir Woods
National Monument, circa 1912. Courtesy
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, GOGA
32470-0314. center left: Although Muir,
shown here at Muir Woods, loved nature as a
holistic spiritual presence, gigantic redwood
and sequoia trees were physical representa-
tions of nature’s wonders. Courtesy Golden
Gate National Recreation Area Park Archives,
GOGA 32470-0292. bottom: In this photo
from the early 1900s, the Tuolumne River
flows through the lower portion of a remote
Yosemite valley called Hetch Hetchy. John
Muir famously opposed building a dam in
this valley. Isaiah West Taber photo originally
published in the Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. VI.
No. 4 (Jan, 1908), 211, courtesy Wikimedia.
John Muir and President William Taft (in the center, with other unidentified men) pose at the
Grizzly Giant in Yosemite in 1909. Muir showed Taft the Hetch Hetchy valley, persuading
the President to personally oppose the dam, although he never quite killed it. Courtesy National
Park Service, C27AD878-155D-4519-3E4980889538DE19.
Nature writer John Burroughs, at age 70, and John Muir, age 72, in Yosemite in May 1909.
Frustrated by Muir’s quixotic argumentativeness about Hetch Hetchy and the spirituality of
nature, Burroughs said, “I love you, though at times I want to punch you or thrash the ground
with you.” Fred Payne Clatworthy photograph courtesy Yale University Art Gallery 2011.164.4.
right: At Yale, where he graduated in
1889, Gifford Pinchot was voted “Most
Handsome.” Courtesy USDA Forest Service,
Grey Towers NHS. bottom left: Vermont’s
George Perkins Marsh wrote Man and
Nature, a seminal book on conservation that
Pinchot received for his 21st birthday. Marsh
poses here in 1850 for a daguerreotype by
Matthew Brady. Courtesy Library of Congress,
2004664024. bottom right: The landscape
architect Frederick Law Olmsted hired young
Gifford Pinchot for his first real forestry job,
at the Biltmore mansion in North Carolina.
Courtesy Wikimedia.
above: In 1895, the Biltmore estate was in its infancy. The job of Frederick Law Olmsted and
Gifford Pinchot was to turn the scraggly trees and exhausted soils of the surrounding area into
a landscape that would match the opulence of George Vanderbilt’s newly-built chateau atop
the hill. Harry Shartle photograph courtesy Library of Congress LC-USZ62-71822. below left:
German-born Bernhard Fernow, Pinchot’s predecessor as chief U.S. government forester, was
a knowledgeable scientist who struggled to implement forestry ideals in the political arena.
Courtesy Library of Congress, cph 3a49593. below right: In addition to founding the U.S.
Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot spent the Roosevelt administration as the President’s chief
advisor on environmental issues. They’re shown here on a riverboat in 1907. Courtesy Library
of Congress, ppmsca.36197.
This cartoon from the humor magazine Puck compared 1912 Republican party infighting to
the Tower of Babel. Theodore Roosevelt jumps hysterically atop a block labeled “Me-ism”;
below him, a toga-clad President Taft gestures at Gifford Pinchot while standing atop a block
labeled “Conservationism.” In the aftermath of the Pinchot-Ballinger affair, everywhere people
are arguing while the tools and blocks that would build their legacy sit idle. L.M. Glackens in
Puck Vol. 71, No. 1841 (Jun 12, 1912), courtesy Library of Congress, 2011649355.
Gifford Pinchot, second from left, acts as an elder statesman observing his acolytes’
implementation of forestry principles at a 1921 forestry convention. “Keep your hillsides
wooded,” says the sign, with the model on the left demonstrating how vegetation retains water
and soil compared to the flood- and erosion-prone bare hillside on the right. P.C. Crass 1921
photograph courtesy National Archives 7002905.
above: Pinchot, shown here in the 1925
inaugural parade, had a rich post-forestry
career including two terms as governor
of Pennsylvania. 1925 photograph courtesy
National Archives 7002540. left: Con-
gressman William Holman of Indiana,
“The Great Objector,” inserted a for-
estry clause into an 1891 bill designed
to prevent homesteading fraud. Brady-
Handy photograph collection, Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-DIG-cwpbh-03815.
Yellowstone geologist Arnold Hague persuaded President Benjamin Harrison to use Holman’s
Forest Reserve Act to set aside the Yellowstone Timber Land Reserve, the world’s first
national forest, east and south of the park. 1892 General Land Office map courtesy WyoPlaces
and WyoHistory.org.
above: Hague wanted forest reserve status for the scenic, habitat-rich Absaroka mountains
east of Yellowstone as a stepping-stone to add these lands to the national park. 2015 Sunlight
Creek photograph by the author. below: On May 10, 1891, President Benjamin Harrison visited
Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Five months later, he created the nearby White River Timber
Land Reserve, with unclear purposes that split the town politically. Courtesy Glenwood Springs
Historical Society’s Frontier Museum.
above: Was the White River Timber Land Reserve set aside for sustainable logging and water
supply, or was it intended to become a national park? Carol M. Highsmith 2017 photograph courtesy
Library of Congress, LC-DIG-highsm-48495. below: When the hunter, conservationist, and
editor George Bird Grinnell helped the federal government purchase a portion of the Blackfeet
Indian Reservation—for a forest reserve, which was later converted to a national park—he
demonstrated the drawbacks of early public land models. Photo from Popular Science magazine,
1893, courtesy Wikimedia.
An aerial view of the Crown of the Continent, or Backbone of the World, in Glacier National
Park. In 1891, George Bird Grinnell stayed at a cabin between the Upper and Lower St. Mary
Lakes, at the right of the picture, and conceived a plan to take the land from the Blackfeet
Indian reservation and convert it to a national park. Joe Mabel photo-panorama courtesy Wikimedia.
above: The horticulturalist Charles Sprague Sargent chaired the National Forest Commission
of 1896 because he knew more than anyone in the country about plants. But his imperious
personality made him a poor political influencer. Thomas E. Mori photo (c. 1904) courtesy Library
of Congress, 91784665. below: In their 1896 visit to what would eventually become Glacier
National Park, Muir, Pinchot, Sargent, and other members of the National Forest Commission
took the steamboat F.I. Whitney, shown here at a dock, nine miles up Lake McDonald to their
hotel. 1896 photograph courtesy Glacier National Park Archives.
above: From the steamboat, Muir, Pinchot, and company gazed into the heart of the
wilderness now enshrined in Glacier National Park. Their shared love of natural landscapes
enabled them to overcome their differences and work together for public lands. 2017
photograph by the author. below: At Lake McDonald, most of the National Forest Commission
stayed here at the Snyder Hotel, site of the present Lake McDonald Lodge. Gifford Pinchot
chose instead to camp nearby. John Muir joined him. 1896 photograph courtesy Glacier National
Park Archives.
 left: On their last day in office in
1897, President Grover Cleveland and
his Interior Secretary, David Francis,
faced a momentous decision about the
future of public lands. Six years later,
Cleveland (left) and Francis (right)
posed with then-President Theodore
Roosevelt. Courtesy Library of Congress,
LC-DIG-ppmsca-35675.

right: This map of national

parks and forest reserves as of
1901 was published in John
Muir’s book Our National
Parks. At the time there were
just five national parks (in
black: Yellowstone, Yosemite,
General Grant, Sequoia, and
Mount Rainier). More than
half of the forest reserves
(shaded)—including what
are now Glacier, Olympic,
and Grand Teton National
Parks—resulted from the
work of the 1896–97 National
Forest Commission. Courtesy
Sierra Club John Muir exhibit
website, from Our National
Parks by John Muir, 1901.