John Muir – Father of the National Park Service

Fruit Rancher, Family Man, Writer…Father of the National Park Service!

John Muir played many roles in his life, all of which helped him succeed in his role as an advocate for Nature. As America’s most famous naturalist and conservationist, Muir fought to protect the wild places he loved, places we can still visit today. Muir’s writings convinced the U.S. government to protect Yosemite, Sequoia, Grand Canyon and Mt. Rainier as national parks.

Muir and Today’s National Park System

Muir’s love for wild nature aided the creation of several national parks. Our National Parks (1901), a collection of articles he wrote for the Atlantis Monthly about Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant (now part of Kind’s Canyon) national parks, is still in print.

John Muir: A Passion for Nature

A leaf, a flower, a stone – the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Muir shared his love of nature through writing and inspired people to protect our country’s wild places, fueling the formation of the National Park Service and the modern conservation movement.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir

Muir loved all things wild and saw humans as one small part of nature. He valued the natural world not only for economic gain, but for its beauty and healing powers. Muir championed the revolutionary idea that wild spaces should be set aside for all to enjoy.

Life in the Wild

“Tracing the ways of glaciers, learning how Nature sculptures mountain-waves in making scenery…beauty that so mysteriously influences every human being, is glorious work.” – John Muir

Muir’s passion for nature brought him to every continent except Antarctica. He experienced fantastic adventures – climbing a 100-foot tree in a thunderstorm, inching across a narrow ice bridge in Alaska, and spending a night in a blizzard on Mt. Shasta. Muir transformed his adventures into articles and books that sparked peoples’ interest in nature.

Muir’s grandfather helped kindle Muir’s love of nature at an early age by taking him on walks through the Scottish countryside. In 1849, when Muir turned 11, his family moved to Wisconsin and started a farm, where his nature lessons continued. As a young man, Muir studied biology, botany and geology at the University of Wisconsin before venturing to see nature’s wonders.

With a plant press in his backpack, Muir walked more than 1,000 miles from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico, gathering specimens along the way. His curiosity carried him further to California and Alaska, where he tracked the movements of glaciers. He discovered glaciers in Yosemite and was the first to suggest that ice shaped its valleys.

Sharing a Progressive Vision

“Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind.” – John Muir

Muir’s descriptions of glaciers and sequoias brought the beauty of nature to readers nationwide. His ideas on saving land changed how the United States viewed wilderness. As increased settlement ended the western frontier in 1890, people began to worry about using resources wisely.

Muir urged people to write politicians and “make their lives wretched until they do what is right by the woods.” In 1890, unchecked grazing, logging and tourism were damaging Yosemite. Muir’s articles “The Treasures of Yosemite” and “Features of a Proposed Yosemite National Park” appeared in Century Magazine, which boasted more than one million readers. A month later, Congress designated Yosemite a national park.

Friends and family encouraged Muir to write. He struggled with writing, yet recognized the power of prose and worked tirelessly in his “Scribble Den,” his upstairs office in his Martinez home.

Words into Action

Muir’s popular writings caught the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who invited him camping in Yosemite. Roosevelt left behind reporters and his Secret Service agents for the company of two park rangers, an army packer, John Muir and the wild. They spent three days exploring meadows and waterfalls and three nights discussing conservation around campfires. One night, five inches of snow fell, and the president arose to white flakes on his blankets. Inspired by his trip with Muir, Roosevelt set aside more than 230 million acres of public land – an area bigger than the size of Texas – that included five national parks and 18 national monuments.

Muir’s advocacy helped create several national parks, including Sequoia (1890), Mount Rainier (1899) and Grand Canyon (1908). He wrote “only Uncle Sam” could save our country’s land for future generations to enjoy, an idea that led to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.

Muir and other concerned citizens also founded the Sierra Club, a nonprofit organization promoting outdoor recreation and environmental advocacy. With more than one million members, this grassroots group continues Muir’s work to this day.

Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir at Yosemite. Library of Congress.

Muir’s Conservation Legacy

Thanks to Muir’s vision, you can visit over 400 National Park Service sites. Called “America’s Best Idea,” the United States’ unique system of protecting natural and cultural heritage spurred other countries to do the same. Muir’s writings and the places he fought to protect continue to inspire people worldwide to discover and connect with nature.

Muir’s conservation legacy lives on at the John Muir National Historic Site and in our daily actions. There will always be a need for people to stand up and change their communities for the better.

Muir’s Conservation Legacy Lives On

“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?” John Muir asked. His remarkable vision – that all creation is one community made up of equal companions – still inspires people to love nature and to work to save wildlands and wildlife. Muir is often called the father of national parks and forest reservations, forerunners of national forests. Muir urged people to experience wild nature so they would be inspired to defend it and save it.

At the University of Wisconsin, Muir read Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau on nature. He studied Louis Agassiz’s new geology and Asa Gray’s plant science. Later, he used these tools to achieve success in conservation. Muir arrived in California in 1868. He lived in the Yosemite area of the southern Sierra Range off and on for several years, and studied its botany and geology. In 1871, in an article in the New York Tribune, Muir argued that glaciers had carved Yosemite Valley. California’s state geologist ridiculed his views, which were substantially correct. After five years as an active fruit rancher, Muir began his most important campaign to preserve the American wilderness. Muir enraged critics with the charge that lumbermen and sheepherders, with their “hoofed locusts,” were ruining Yosemite’s wildness. He attacked the prevailing notion that nature existed only to provide commodities for humans. With Century magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir pushed for the creation of Yosemite National Park. His magazine and newspaper articles helped change Americans’ attitude toward wilderness and wildness. After Muir’s death, his journals and other writings provided material for many more books.

From the National Park Service websites – www.nps.gov