Yosemite Highway Dedicated to John Muir

Press Release by Yosemite/Mariposa County Tourism Bureau

MARIPOSA, Calif. - June, 2010 - (Business Wire) The boards of supervisors in both Mariposa and Tuolumne counties have designated Highway 132 from Coulterville to Highway 120, a major route into Yosemite National Park, as the John Muir Highway. The highway generally follows the path that the world renowned explorer and preservationist took on an early journey into Yosemite.

The scenic region is chronicled in Muir’s celebrated book, My First Summer in the Sierra and serves as a picturesque alternative route into Yosemite. Muir wrote the following about Coulterville in his 1869 Journal:

Found a lovely lily in a shady adenostoma thicket near Coulterville…It is white with a faint purplish tinge inside at the base of the petals, a most impressive plant, pure as a snow crystal, one of the plant saints that all must love and be made so much the purer by it every time it is seen. It puts the roughest mountaineer on his good behavior… During the afternoon we passed a fine meadow bounded by stately pines, mostly the arrowy yellow pine, with here and there a noble sugar pine, its feathery arms outspread above the spires of its companion species in marked contrast; a glorious tree, its cones fifteen to twenty inches long, swinging like tassels at the ends of the branches with superb ornamental effect.

The two counties and a host of dignitaries will commemorate the dedication on Saturday, June 5, 2010 in Coulterville, with a formal dedication ceremony beginning at 11 a.m. Muir’s great grandson, Bill Hanna, will be the keynote speaker at the event. “It is an honor and fitting tribute to my great grandfather,” Hanna said. “The route continues to be filled with the picturesque beauty he first saw nearly 100 years ago.”

John Muir impressionist, Lee Stetson, who was featured in the Ken Burn’s Public Television series on the national parks, will perform. A permanent John Muir exhibit is being announced at the event which will be housed at the Northern Mariposa Museum in Coulterville.

For Yosemite/Mariposa County Tourism Bureau
Marc Gendron,
559-326-2037
mgendron@astone.com

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