American History Tellers - Encore: National Parks | The Great Disaster | 4

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the city of San Francisco was torn apart by a huge earthquake and devastating fire. As the city rebuilt, it also sought to ensure that if fire were to strike the city again, abundant water would available to fight it.But a new reservoir for the city would require flooding a treasured portion of Yosemite, the Hetch Hetchy Valley, one of John Muir’s favorite locations. He fiercely opposed the plan, setting up a showdown between Muir’s newly formed Sierra Club and political forces in both San Francisco and Washington, D.C. - including Muir’s former ally in the conservation movement, Teddy Roosevelt.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!Sleep Number - Discover the Sleep Number 360® smart bed. Special offers for a limited time. Only at Sleep Number stores or sleepnumber.com/TELLERS.SimpliSafe - To learn more about the exciting new SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera, visit SIMPLISAFE.com/tellers. What’s more, SimpliSafe is celebrating this new camera by offering 20% off your entire new system and your first month of monitoring service FREE, when you enroll in Interactive Monitoring.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. This is a special encore presentation of our series on America's national parks. As many of us return to traveling but remain mindful of social distancing, our national park system is experiencing record attendance. But many visitors may be unaware of the turbulent and sometimes controversial histories behind such natural wonders as Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. In this series, we'll meet the naturalists, politicians, and eccentrics who

fought to preserve the most beautiful and unblemished corners of our country, and we'll also meet the indigenous peoples and early settlers who sometimes fought back. Imagine it's the early hours of April 18th, 1906. The sun hasn't yet risen, but light peeks around the curtains of your apartment bedroom. Your husband lies asleep beside you, but you're wide awake. For the past two months, your newborn, Violet, has been waking you each morning before dawn to nurse. This is the first night since she was born that she's still soundly sleeping. You should be relieved, but you're a light sleeper and your body is tense, alert, waiting for a cry from the other room. Suddenly you hear something, but it's not what you expect. It's like the sound just before you're hit by a wave down by

the beach. The walls begin to tremble and your bed jerks sharply away from the wall. A whale rises from the other room. You bolt out of bed and shake your husband. Charles, wake up! It's an earthquake! Charles flings back to the covers, and before he can stand, a great portion of plaster from the ceiling crashes on his head. He's all right, but the room is suddenly filled with dust. You start to cough, but you're both thinking the same thing. Get violent! You rush to the nursery.

Out in the parlor, you can hear the crashes of china plates and knickknacks shattering and the heavy, clanging thud of your grandfather clock toppling over. The floor begins to slant, and you hear an explosion from the apartment across the hall. You grab your screaming daughter, shield her face with a blanket, and return to the living room, where Charles has cleared a path to the door. He holds your coat and the family cat under one arm. Hurry, the stairs! On the landing, you can see that your neighbor's door is off its frame. Smoke billows from their apartment into the staircase. You pray that you make it down the three stories before the place collapses, explodes, or bursts into flames.

By the time your family makes it to the bottom level, the shaking has mercifully stopped. Your neighbors are out in the street. One of them calls to you. The fire department's on its way! Your apartment doesn't appear to be burning yet, but your neighbor's unit is ablaze. It appears as if the whole building is sinking into the earth on one side, leaning on the building next door. If the firemen can contain the fire in time,

maybe you can rescue a few things before the fire spreads. Your grandfather's watch. Violet's christening gown. They're here! Make way! Firemen rush past you into the burning building, and others start to hook up their hoses. Two firemen grab the hose, expecting a rush of water. They're here! Make way! Turn the damn water on! It is on! The pipes must have broken during the shake! By now, above you, your apartment is in flames. Charles takes your hand, and you hold Violet tight. You're covered in plaster dust.

Everything you own is burning. But you're all alive, even the cat. You turn away from your burning home, only to realize it's not just you. Across the city, buildings are toppled, crumbling, they're burning. You pray that the water pipes have held up better elsewhere than they did on your street. But for most of San Francisco, they did not. brand new podcast called The Best Idea Yet. You may have heard of it. It's all about the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new

book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, intimate moments, and shocking scandals that shaped our nation. From the War of 1812 to Watergate. Available now wherever you get your books. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history. Your story. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was one of the worst natural disasters in history. With an estimated magnitude of 7.8, it was felt from Los Angeles to Oregon and as far inland as Nevada. 3,000 people died. The disaster destroyed 28,000 buildings, leaving more than half the city's residents, 225,000 people, homeless. While the earthquake itself was hugely destructive, the majority of damage was actually caused by fires sparked by leaking gas. They spread quickly with the high

winds coming off the San Francisco Bay. At the same time, the quake had destroyed much of the city's water services, leaving firefighters with virtually no water pressure to fight the blazes. It would take them at least three days to contain the flames. Meantime, fire crews were forced to draft water from sewers and blow up buildings in order to prevent the conflagration from spreading. Over the next several years, city officials would argue that if San Francisco had had a reservoir on hand when the earthquake hit, its water supply wouldn't have failed. It would have been better prepared to fight the fires, and the city might have been saved. As it happened, some officials had been

pushing for just such a project for years, and they knew the perfect place for it, Yosemite National Park. In this episode, we'll learn how preservationists ran up against the political machine of San Francisco, and how a battle between two friends with different environmental philosophies led to the destruction of a sacred piece of Yosemite National Park. Long before the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco had a problem with water. During the gold rush, the city faced a severe shortage. The small streams that had once supplied local tribes such as the Ohlone couldn't meet the needs of the booming population. As a result, water costs fluctuated daily. Thirsty 49ers resorted to purchasing water at sky-high prices from

enterprising vendors who hauled it by mule from local streams twice a day. Tugboat captains made top dollar transporting water across the bay from Sausalito and selling it to locals. The shortage was a golden invitation to financiers and land barons eager to make a buck. Soon, big water companies were San Francisco's leading power players. They set the rules and answered to no one. The most powerful of these companies was the Spring Valley Water Company. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, the Spring Valley Water Company bought up its competition. Finally, in 1862, it secured a monopoly of the Lake Merced water supply. With no one to compete with and no incentive to improve or even maintain its equipment,

the company behaved with impunity. In 1897, San Francisco elected Mayor James Phelan. He argued that the Spring Valley Water Company was strangling the city's residents with its outrageous prices. He declared that the city needed to find a new, independent source of water. Three years later, in 1900, San Francisco's charter was amended to require the city to secure its own supply of water, finally breaking the monopoly of the Spring Valley Water Company. Phelan ordered the Public Utilities Commission to begin considering options for alternate sources. The commission eventually returned with its findings.

The best local source was the Tuolumne River. It was fed by Sierra snowmelt and therefore exceptionally pure. But the growing city would need a lot of water. The best way to collect it on a large scale would be to dam a valley called Hetch Hetchy. There was just one problem. The Hetch Hetchy Valley was part of Yosemite National Park. Hetch Hetchy was one of John Muir's favorite spots in Yosemite. Buttercups, wallflowers, monkeyflower, and lupin grew all along the valley floor, watered by pristine snowmelt. Deer and bighorn sheep grazed between Douglas firs, California black oaks, and ponderosa pines, while black bears fished for rainbow trout.

The valley was even home to over 17 different species of bat. For thousands of years, it was also home to the Miwok and Paiute tribes. Muir had camped and hiked in Hetch Hetchy many times, but to him the place also held a spiritual significance. For Muir, the Hetch Hetchy Valley was a church. He was outraged by Phelan's proposal to dam it. He felt the move set a dangerous precedent. If you could flood Hetch Hetchy, a jewel of biodiversity inside a protected national park, what was next? Others shared his views. Five years earlier, in 1892, Muir had co-founded the Sierra Club, an environmental association whose purpose was to protect the Sierra Nevada.

Its membership included scientists, lawyers, artists, and politicians, and many shared Muir's belief that development in Hetch Hetchy would equal desecration. But Phelan was confident his plan offered the best way to free the city from the clutches of the Spring Valley Water Company. And in February 1901, Congress passed the Federal Right-of-Way Act, allowing the government to undertake projects in national parks and forest reserves related to power, communication, and water supply. The Hetch Hetchy damning project appeared to fall under it. It seemed the way was clear. Then, in September, President William McKinley was assassinated. Theodore Roosevelt came into

office and made conservation a cornerstone of his agenda. But Phelan went ahead with his plans. In October, he applied on behalf of the city to the federal government for the right to damn Hetch Hetchy. Initially, it seemed the application had been approved. But then, in December 1903, word came that the application was being rejected by Roosevelt's Interior Secretary, Ethan Hitchcock. Hitchcock was a strong admirer of John Muir. He felt Yosemite's status as a national park called for the preservation of its natural curiosities or wonders in their natural condition, and he disagreed with Phelan's claim that Hetch Hetchy was the most viable source of water for the city. He rejected Phelan's application. The city of San Francisco appealed

the decision, arguing that flooding Hetch Hetchy would actually enhance the beauty of the park. When Muir heard this argument, Muir reportedly snorted, as well-made damming New York Central Park would enhance its beauty. The appeal was rejected. Phelan applied again in 1905. After his tenure as mayor had ended, he received the same answer. No. Imagine it's winter of 1905. You're sitting in the office of Gifford Pinchot. The two of you met at a fundraiser in the red room of the Willard Hotel two nights prior. You used to be a public works commissioner for San Francisco under Mayor Phelan. Not anymore, though.

Now you're a private citizen, and you've come to D.C. under your own steam. You're hoping, somehow, to convince the administration to approve the Hetch Hetchy project. You believe it's important. When you bumped into Pinchot, head of the newly created Department of Forestry, you hoped you might have an ally. Pinchot seemed interested in hearing about your mission. After a few minutes chatting at the party, he suggested the two of you meet formally at his office. And two days later, here you are, in a quiet room with a wintry gloom shining in through the window. The door opens, and two men enter. Mr. Manson, nice to see you again. Glad you could make it. Good to see you again, Mr. Pinchot. Please call me Gif. This other gentleman is James R. Garfield, director of the

Bureau of Corporations at the Department of Commerce and Labor, and the son of our late president, I may add. He shares our interest in the Hetch Hetchy project. Nice to meet you, Mr. Garfield. Garfield greets you and sits on a couch along the wall. Pinchot moves back behind his desk. So, Mr. Manson, what can you tell me about this dam? As I said the other night, our intention is to build a reservoir in the Valley of Hetch Hetchy. You see, the water supply there is incredibly pure. We could build water reserves for our entire city by simply constructing this one reservoir, but we can't move forward without approval. Have you reached out to Ethan Hitchcock? He's the Secretary of the Interior.

Yes, the previous mayor, Mr. Phelan, has applied to Mr. Hitchcock several times, but he's denied us. Denied? On what grounds? He feels that because Yosemite is a national park, there shouldn't be a dam. Pinchot leans back in his chair and strokes his chin thoughtfully.

Well, now, that's an interesting argument. There are plenty of people who would agree with him. John Muir, for one. Yes, John Muir has made his feelings on the matter known to Mayor Phelan. He thinks there are other places that could do just as well. Isn't that it? Have you looked into some of these other locations? We have, sir.

But none are so pure or so practical as Hetch Hetchy. We could buy land cheaply there since it's owned by the government. We have, sir, but none are so pure or so practical as Hetch Hetchy. We could buy land cheaply there since it's owned by the government. So it's mainly a financial consideration. Well, no, not exclusively. In fact, I've got a letter from you right here that says, the scheme for securing these water rights is as full of graft as any of the lumber company's plans to obtain big blocks of the best timberlands. Is that true, Mr. Manson?

You're a throne. You had hoped this would be a friendlier meeting. But you gather your thoughts and respond. Not to my knowledge, sir. I'm an engineer. I leave the politicking to other people. And yet, here you are in my office in Washington making your appeal. You're starting to feel a bit warm. You stand. Mr. Pinchot, I'm sorry if I've inconvenienced you. I think I'd better go. But Pinchot has a twinkle in his eye. Sit down, Mr. Manson. John Muir and I are old friends. I happen to disagree with him on this matter. You feel your blood pressure drop a bit and you sit back down. But if you're going to pursue this plan, you better be prepared for one hell of a fight.

Now you say the plans for the dam are solid. Quite solid, sir. Then I suggest you proceed. But we've tried, sir. Secretary Hitchcock won't give his approval. Pinchot looks meaningfully at Garfield, who nods. You leave that to me. You see, James and I serve as informal advisors to the president. We have his ear, and he's always happy to hear our input. Isn't that right, James? Garfield nods again. Hitchcock has been bucking the president since we first got into office. If he keeps at it, he won't be in his job for long.

Now, I think President Roosevelt would be very interested in your plans for Hetch Hetchy. Pinchot did just what he said he would. He introduced Manson to President Roosevelt and permitted the engineer to lay out the plans for the reservoir firsthand. Roosevelt was impressed. Manson left D.C. believing that if the city were to push again to damn Hetch Hetchy, this time the federal government would approve it. But city politics were working against him. Manson was no longer part of the administration. A new party was in power. And after James Phelan left office, his successor, Mayor Handsome Gene Schmitz, let the plans for the water reservoir fall to the wayside. Until the great disaster on April 18, 1906. The earthquake changed everything. 300 water mains were damaged during the shaking,

leaving water gushing out of broken cast iron pipes while fire hoses went dry. The public blamed the Spring Valley Water Company for the failure of infrastructure. Advocates for the dam saw the perfect moment to pounce. Only a steady supply of fresh water could avoid another similar disaster, they argued. San Francisco was built on a bay, but saltwater couldn't be used to fight fires in an emergency since it corrodes machinery. Perhaps if the dam had been built before the disaster, its backers argued, the city would have had the water reserves it needed.

In truth, it was water distribution, pipes, hydrants, and spigots, not the water supply, that had caused the devastation. But the supporters of the dam were persuasive, and they used the crisis to galvanize public support. Still, the project could not move forward without an official go-ahead from the federal government. Ethan Hitchcock, who previously denied plans for the dam, was still Secretary of the Interior and appeared to have no change of opinion on the matter. Then, six weeks after the earthquake, Engineer Mardsen Manson received a letter. It was from Pinchot.

The note read, I hope sincerely that in the regeneration of San Francisco, its people will be able to make provision for a water supply from the Yosemite National Park, which will probably be equal to any in the world. It was an intriguing letter, but it still wasn't an official approval. The Hetch Hetchy leaders were grateful for the show of support, but with Hitchcock still positioned as gatekeeper, it appeared there was little chance of getting the project to move forward. But back in Washington, the political machine was working against Hitchcock. Within the White House, it was becoming clear that the Interior Secretary and the President did not see

eye to eye. The chief architect of that realization was Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt's right-hand man, and someone John Muir had once considered a close friend and protege. But those days had long since passed. Instead, the dam proposal would pit two of America's most important environmental minds, Pinchot and Muir, against each other in a battle to decide the fate of Hetch Hetchy. American History Tellers is sponsored by SimpliSafe. There's big news from my favorite home security company. SimpliSafe just launched their new wireless outdoor security camera. SimpliSafe, the system that U.S. News & World Report names the best home security system of 2021, just got even better.

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Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities. From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast, The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author

Bram Stoker raided ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science, and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of The Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus and the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Like his future boss, President Theodore Roosevelt, Pinchot came from a well-to-do family. The son of a Pennsylvania lumber baron, he was surrounded by wealthy and influential people growing up. His parents took pains to teach him the art of political maneuvering. They saw it as an essential part of his education, and Pinchot excelled at it.

This skill would serve him immensely once he eventually became the first chief forester of the United States Forest Service. As a young man, Pinchot demonstrated strong moral and religious convictions. He served as a class deacon at Yale, where he graduated in 1889. He even briefly considered a life in the ministry. But one day, his father asked him a question that would change his life. How would you like to become a forester? It was an odd question coming from a timber magnate, but Pinchot jumped at the suggestion.

At the time, forestry as a science and profession didn't yet exist in the United States, so Pinchot's family sent him to Europe for schooling. The Swiss forestry system inspired him. He said, It brought together all the qualities a pioneer public forester must have to succeed in a country like ours. Practical skills in the woods, business common sense, and a close touch with public opinion. When he returned from Europe, Pinchot was troubled that no similar system existed in the United States. He would later write in his autobiography, Breaking New Ground,

not a single acre of government, state, or private timber was under systematic forest management anywhere on the most richly timbered of all continents, the American people had no understanding of what forestry was or the bitter need for it. Pinchot set out not only to make the American public understand forestry, but to ensure efficient, productive, and scientific use of the nation's forests. And he was occasionally willing to bend the rules to serve those environmental ideals. In 1892, he got his first job as a consulting forester for George Vanderbilt's Baltimore estate. Eager to prove his mantra that it is not necessary to destroy a forest to make it pay, Pinchot cooked the books. He didn't factor his own salary or the cost of the land taxes into the estate's accounting in order to

make the venture seem profitable. In reality, Pinchot was operating at a loss. Later that year, while visiting attractive land in the Adirondacks with the Vanderbilts, Pinchot first met John Muir. The two bonded immediately and spent several days hiking together. Muir was older and already a famous environmentalist. He founded the Sierra Club that same year. Pinchot looked up to him as a mentor. He would later describe their meeting as the most pleasant trip I have ever had in the woods. Grateful for their time together, Pinchot later mailed Muir a hunting knife as a thank you. That following summer, Pinchot's parents invited Muir to a dinner party at their home in Gramercy Park.

They were impressed by Muir's celebrity as a writer and founder of the Sierra Club, but they had ulterior motives. They understood that connecting their son with Muir would help boost Pinchot's budding Forrester career. Muir was a hit, regaling guests with tales of his days tramping through the West. The night helped cement Muir and Pinchot's friendship. In the coming years, Muir advised the younger man to set aside book learning. The best way to learn about forests, he counseled, was to spend time in them. Muir called this getting rich, an ironic reference to the fact that Pinchot, the son of a timber tycoon, had sacrificed wealth in order to devote himself to forestry and conservation.

Three years later, in 1896, the two men took a three-month-long tour of the West with the National Forest Commission. The commission's goal was to survey 21 million acres of land that had been set aside as potential national forests. By this time, Pinchot's political savvy was coming in handy, and he had been appointed the commission's youngest member. Muir had remained stubbornly independent. He was worried about appearing ethically compromised if he'd join the commission. Together, the pair hiked in Montana, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. They often broke away together to engage in hijinks, camping, and doing handstands on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

But despite their closeness, cracks were beginning to emerge in their friendship, driven by their differing views about environmental protection. Muir was an ardent preservationist. He believed that the best way to keep nature pristine was to close it off from the public. He often used religious language to make his point. Pinchot, on the other hand, was more pragmatic. He often used religious language to make his point. Pinchot, on the other hand, was more pragmatic. He wanted nature to be preserved, but also used. He felt forests should be managed for the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run. His utilitarian philosophy aligned him squarely with Teddy Roosevelt's conservationist views.

Some historians believe Pinchot and Muir had their first falling out at Seattle's Rainier Grand Hotel in September 1897. The two supposedly got in a heated argument over Pinchot's support of sheep grazing in national forests. But the real reason may have been the report that emerged the same year following the National Forest Commission's survey. Muir, along with the head of the commission, wanted to close off the forests, prevent development, and have the U.S. Army patrol their borders. Pinchot, on the other hand, wanted to see the forests regulated and administered through a civil service like the ones he'd seen in Europe. Crucially, he wanted them to stay open to the public. The commission went with the first plan.

Pinchot was livid. He thought the commission was making a mistake, but apart from threatening to write a minority report, attacking his friends' views, there was little he could do. The gulf widened between the two as Pinchot progressed in his career. By 1898, Pinchot had been named the head of the Division of Forestry under the Department of Agriculture. Here, Pinchot would build a close relationship with Theodore Roosevelt. The president affectionately nicknamed Pinchot Giff, and later historians would refer to him as the crown prince of Teddy Roosevelt's tennis court cabinet. Their similar upbringings and love of nature led to a close relationship built on shared ideals. For both men, those

ideals included putting nature in service of human needs, or conservation through use. Pinchot wanted to use scientific methods to maximize efficiency and productivity. He liked to refer to forestry as tree farming, explaining, The purpose of forestry is to make the forest produce the largest possible amount of whatever crop or service will be the most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees. A well-handled farm gets more and more productive as the years pass. So does a well-handled forest. His friend Muir, meanwhile, had come to believe that forestry and wilderness preservation were incompatible. In 1905, the Division of Forestry was renamed the United States Forestry Service,

and Pinchot became the head of it all. But he wanted control of the national parks as well. He had even proposed this idea to Congress in 1904. There was talk about creating a national park service, but Pinchot strongly opposed the suggestion. In his view, a national park service was no more needed than two tails on a cat. As he would write a few years later,

the first principle of conservation is development. Conservation proposes to secure a continuous and abundant supply of the necessaries of life, which means a reasonable cost of living and business stability. It was a view that would strain his relationship with John Muir to the breaking point. By 1905, the city of San Francisco had made multiple failed attempts to gain approval to Dam Hetch Hetchy. Muir's opposition had turned the project into a political minefield, and Secretary of the Interior Ethan Hitchcock stood steadfast against the dam. But after the earthquake in 1906, Pinchot recognized the administration now had precisely the sort of momentum needed to get the project back on track and push Hitchcock out. In November 1906, seven months after the San Francisco earthquake, Mardsen Manson, now city engineer, received

another letter from Pinchot. This one read, My dear Mr. Manson, I cannot, of course, attempt to forecast the action of the new Secretary of Interior on the San Francisco watershed question, but my advice to you is to assume that his attitude will be favorable and to make the necessary preparations to set the case before him. If the possibility of a supply from the Sierras is still open, you should, I think, by all means, go ahead with the idea of getting it. The new Secretary of the Interior that Pinchot was referring to was James R. Garfield, the other man sitting quietly in the room while Manson and Pinchot discussed the dam a year prior.

Garfield took office in March 1907. Months later, that summer, the city applied again for a permit. Muir was incensed by this turn of events. In hopes of putting an end to the matter, he turned to the kindred spirit he had bonded with over three nights camping in Yosemite back in 1903. On April 21, 1908, Muir's 70th birthday, he wrote a letter to his friend, President Theodore Roosevelt. In the letter, he criticized the miserable dollarish motives of the capitalists who wished to damn Hetch Hetchy. In response, Roosevelt wrote,

My dear Mr. Muir, Pinchot is rather favorable to the Hetch Hetchy plan. I have sent him your letter with a request for a report on it. I will do everything in my power to protect not only the Yosemite, which we have already protected, but other similar great natural beauties of this country. But you must remember that it is out of the question permanently to protect them unless we have a certain degree of friendliness toward them on the part of the people of the state in which they are situated. Roosevelt had sided with Muir felt betrayed. He had been certain that if anyone would understand his opposition to Hetch Hetchy, it would be the president.

Now the battle lines were drawn. On the one side were Gifford Pinchot, Teddy Roosevelt, and ex-mayor Phelan, pushing for a dam at Hetch Hetchy. On the other side were John Muir, Ethan Hitchcock, and the Sierra Club, whose official position, despite internal disagreement, was that Hetch Hetchy needed to be preserved as it was. In May 1908, as the Roosevelt administration was entering its last year, Pinchot organized a White House conference on the conservation of natural resources.

It was a chance for the country's leading voices in progressive conservation to discuss how to protect natural resources from exploitation and develop them for the public good. Muir was not invited. Two days before the conference opened, on May 11, 1908, James Garfield made his decision. He issued a permit allowing San Francisco to begin work on construction of the Hetch Hetchy Dam. It was a serious blow. It looked like defeat for John Muir and the preservationists. But the opposition movement was just getting started. Imagine it's a cool early spring morning in 1908. You and your son Gregory are finishing breakfast as you both leaf through the paper. Suddenly, he snorts and puts down his cup of coffee, nearly sloshing it onto the table. Unbelievable. Beg your pardon? That

Muir fool is still harping on this Hetch Hetchy business. The people of San Francisco are yelling to flood the valley, but Muir just seems to flood the magazines with articles about how much he loves nature. It's such a shame how they're destroying that valley. Oh, mother, not you too. One of nature's rarest and most precious mountain mansions. Give me a break. You don't think it's important to protect beautiful places for the future? When your father was alive, we took you to see some of them. Niagara Falls, for one. I seem to recall you liking it. That's different. How? You've never been to Hetch Hetchy. I've never been there. We'll never go there, Mother. Let the people of San Francisco decide what to do with their land. Well, speak for yourself.

I hope to one day see a place like Hetch Hetchy with my grandchildren, if I ever have grandchildren. Mother, please. Well, it doesn't matter if you think John Muir is a sentimentalist. I do. Or anti-progress. I do. Because my women's club and I are already writing letters.

Oh, mother. Don't be short-sighted, Gregory. One day you'll thank me. And if you ever find a wife, she and your children will too. Following Garfield's approval of the Hetch Hetchy project, Muir and the Water Company created a nationwide media blitz to oppose the dam. Muir instructed Edward T. Parsons, director of the Sierra Club, to target mountaineering clubs, and particularly women's clubs, in the campaign to save Hetch Hetchy. He told Parsons he wanted to stir up a storm of letters, filling the Senate chamber with the protesting leaves fathoms deep. The public debate was plastered over the pages of publications like Harper's Weekly

and National Geographic. Women's literary and civic clubs, Jewish women's groups, singing groups, and self-improvement clubs all lobbied Congress in favor of preserving Hetch Hetchy. While D.C. and San Francisco had embraced the conservationist movement, the rest of the nation took a decidedly preservationist attitude. Muir would not relent on Hetch Hetchy through the remainder of the Roosevelt administration. He and Pinchot dug in on opposite sides of the issue. But power is a fickle thing, and presidencies don't last forever. In the battle to save Hetch Hetchy, that would work for and against the preservationists. American History Tellers is sponsored by Sleep Number.

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debate over Hetch Hetchy. No more competent conductor of a scenic expedition in that region could be had, but Mr. Muir is hopelessly wrong on this most important question. He represents a group of noisy sentimentalists who would let the valuable resource of the valley lie fallow forever rather than an unimportant modification of its natural features should be made for the good of a population of a million people. In that view, Mr. Muir's close attendance on the president is regarded with suspicion. As the dam supporters feared, the trip was enough to turn Taft against the project. Progress was halted as the administration suspended approval and ordered the city to investigate alternate sources of water.

Incredibly, it seemed Muir had once again been able to save his beloved Hetch Hetchy from destruction by speaking directly to the highest power in the country. While Taft's support on Hetch Hetchy worked in Muir's favor, the administration was overall a pro-business one. Taft's Secretary of the Interior was Richard Ballinger, a man who became infamous when he decided to take three million acres of public land set aside by the previous administration and sell it for private use. The move was a slap in the face to Roosevelt's conservation legacy. The following year, in 1910, Pinchot publicly accused Ballinger of colluding

with private interests to line his pockets. He demanded Congress make inquiries into Ballinger's conduct and connections to the coal and water power industries. In retaliation, though, Taft had Pinchot fired from the Forest Service. Upon hearing of Pinchot's dismissal, Muir wrote that he was sorry to see poor Pinchot running amok after doing so much good, hopeful work, from sound conservation going pell-mell to destruction on the wings of crazy, inordinate ambition. Ballinger was officially cleared of wrongdoing by both the president and a sympathetic Congress, but by then, public opinion had turned against him and the Taft administration. It was a win for the conservation movement, but the damage was done. Their ally Pinchot, Muir's longtime nemesis,

was out. Taft lost the next election to Woodrow Wilson. The new president appointed Franklin K. Lane as his interior secretary. Lane had been the city attorney for San Francisco during the administration of James Phelan, the mayor who had first pushed for damning Hetch Hetchy. But days before Wilson's inauguration, Taft's outgoing Interior Secretary ruled that the government would not approve the project without congressional approval. The move took the decision out of Lane's hands and placed it before Congress. A congressman from California lent his name to a bill granting San Francisco the right to build a reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy Valley. It was called the Raker Act.

Imagine it's fall of 1913, and you are walking back from an overpriced lunch to your office at the U.S. Capitol. It's been a year since your grandfather pulled some strings and was able to get you a job clerking for the progressive Republican Senator Miles Poindexter from Washington State. As you cross the street, you notice your friend, Frank Garner. He's a clerk too, but he worked for Senator John Raker of California. Afternoon, Frank. Don't give me that afternoon business. What? Your boss is still fighting us on the Raker bill. People are upset. They don't want the dam. You guys don't give a damn about the dam.

Calm down. This isn't the first time we've been on opposite sides of an issue. I grew up in San Francisco. I was there during the earthquake. My home burnt down. But even before that, the water company even used to barge into my parents' house to make sure we weren't stealing water. We were treated like criminals, but gouged by thieves for water. You catch yourself. Frank is usually so put together, and you never expected him to get so worked up about a hole in the National Park. Frank, I'm sorry. I didn't realize this was such a sensitive subject. Every day,

we're inundated with letters from John Muir's lackeys calling us monsters. But we're trying to help our city in the only way we know how. But the people aren't saying, don't build the dam. They're saying, build it elsewhere. Point Extra says you have other options. McLeod or Eel River. Those can't give us the quantity or the purity we need. Why are you and so many others still fighting us?

You're not the only ones getting letters from John Muir's people, Frank. Well, it just seems that the farther away from San Francisco you go, the more people hate the idea of the dam. But none of them are people that will ever see the Hetch Hetchy Valley anyway. Does that make it any less of a tragedy? Frank looks annoyed again. He leans in. We're going to win this. You know that, right? Well, I'm sure you are, but if we don't fight it, our own constituents are going to turn on Poindexter. And I have every intention of staying in D.C. In the run-up to the congressional vote on the Raker bill, public debate reached a fever pitch. The Independent, a weekly magazine based in New York, argued, there is not a shadow of excuse for this vandalism unless our national parks are to

be held subject to demand by the nearest greedy municipality that wants to profit by the nation's foresight. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Bulletin printed a story calling the bill's opponents a crowd of nature lovers and fakers who are waging a sentimental campaign to preserve the Hetch Hetchy Valley as a public playground, a purpose for which it has never been used. Representatives from both sides made speeches on the floors of Congress. Pinchot testified, from the standpoint of enjoyment of beauty and the greatest good to the greatest number, they will be conserved by the passage of this bill, and there will be a great deal more use of the beauty of the park than there is now. When asked whether he was familiar with Muir and his objections, Pinchot replied, Yes, sir. I know him very well. He is an old and very good friend

of mine. I have never been able to agree with him in his attitude toward the Sierras. In this case, I think he has unduly given away to beauty as against use. The debate kept the issue in front of the American public up until the last minute. I still think we can win, John Muir wrote in November, adding, I'll be relieved when it's settled, for it's killing me. Muir himself was too ill to attend the hearings. On December 2, 1913, Congress passed the Raker Act, 43 to 25. President Wilson signed the bill two weeks later. The elderly Muir was devastated.

He wrote to his friends, the Kelloggs, It's hard to bear. It goes to my very heart. But in spite of Satan and company, some sort of compensation must surely come out of even this dark damn damn damnation. Having lost this final battle, Muir never truly recovered. The year after the Hetch Hetchy Bill passed, Muir came down with pneumonia. With his daughter at his bedside, he died on Christmas Eve, 1914. Muir would leave a legacy as a free thinker, an activist, and patron saint of the American wilderness, and for some, as a misguided zealot. For him, the fight to preserve Hetch Hetchy was about much more than the future of one splendid valley.

As he told the Sierra Club in an address years earlier, the battle for conservation will go on endlessly. It is part of the universal battle between right and wrong. Five years after Muir's death, in 1919, engineers began working to flood the Hetch Hetchy Valley. The dam would eventually be named after its lead engineer, Michael O'Shaughnessy. Construction would take another four years, but once completed, the dam would hold a capacity of 360,000 acre-feet. The valley floor Muir loved so much now lay under 300 feet of one of the purest water supplies in California. It would take another decade

before the dam was fully functional. But in 1934, the first trickles of water from the Hetch Hetchy Valley began flowing from San Francisco taps. While Muir and the Sierra Club lost the battle over Hetch Hetchy, its destruction would become an enduring battle cry for preservationists. If a valley in Yosemite could be destroyed, they argued, was any national park safe from harmful government intervention?

The dam would not be the last time the government exerted its control over the land and wildlife that roamed through national parks. But it was becoming clear the country needed something else. A single organization whose job it would be to defend and protect the parks. An organization that would fight for the parks for generations to come. On the next episode of American History Tellers, a millionaire marketing genius promotes national parks as a vacation spot for all Americans. And a lack of understanding for a predator's place in the circle of life almost drives the federal government into hunting wolves into extinction.

From Wondery, this is Episode 4 of National Parks for American History Tellers. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Granford Airship. Audio production by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Jarrett Palmer. Edited and produced by Jenny Lauer Beckman.

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