John Muir Biography - John Muir Exhibit the john muir exhibit - life - john muir biography - john muir exhibit John Muir: A Brief Biography John Muir - farmer, inventor, sheepherder, naturalist, explorer, writer, and conservationist - was born on April 21 , 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland. Until the age of eleven he attended the local schools of that small coastal town. In 1849, the Muir family emigrated to the United States, settling first at Fountain Lake and then moving to Hickory Hill Farm near Portage, Wisconsin. Muir's father was a harsh disciplinarian and worked his family from dawn to dusk. Whenever they were allowed a short period away from the plow and hoe, Muir and his younger brother would roam the fields and woods of the rich Wisconsin countryside. John became more and more the loving observer of the natural word. He also became an inventor, a carver of curious but practical mechanisms in wood. He made clocks that kept accurate time and created a wondrous device that tipped him out of bed before dawn.

In 1860, Muir took his inventions to the state fair at Madison, where he won admiration and prizes. Also that year he entered the University of Wisconsin. He made fine grades, but after three years left Madison to travel the northern United States and Canada, odd-jobbing his way through the yet unspoiled land. In 1867, while working at a carriage parts shop in Indianapolis, Muir suffered a blinding eye injury that would change his life. When he regained his sight one month later, Muir resolved to turn his eyes to the fields and woods. There began his years of wanderlust. He walked a thousand miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He sailed to Cuba , and later to Panama, where he crossed the Isthmus and sailed up the West Coast, landing in San Francisco in March, 1868. From that moment on, though he would travel around the world, California became his home. It was California's Sierra Nevada and Yosemite that truly claimed him. In 1868, he walked across the San Joaquin Valley through waist-high wildflowers and into the high country for the first time.

Later he would write: "Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called no the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light...the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen." He herded sheep through that first summer and made his home in Yosemite. By 1871 he had found living glaciers in he Sierra and had conceived his controversial theory of the glaciation of Yosemite Valley. He began to be known throughout the country. Famous men of the time - Joseph LeConte , Asa Gray and Ralph Waldo Emerson - made their way to the door of his pine cabin. Beginning in 1874, a series of articles by Muir entitled "Studies in the Sierra" launched his successful career as a writer. He left the mountains and lived for awhile in Oakland, California. From there he took many trips, including his first to Alaska in 1879, where he discovered Glacier Bay. In 1880, he married Louie Wanda Strentzel and moved to Martinez, California , where they raised their two daughters, Wanda and Helen.

Settling down to some measure of domestic life, Muir went into partnership with his father-in-law and managed the family fruit ranch with great success. But ten years of active ranching did not quell Muir's wanderlust. His travels took him to Alaska many more times, to Australia, South America, Africa, Europe, China, Japan, and of course, again and again to his beloved Sierra Nevada. . In later years he turned more seriously to writing, publishing 300 articles and 10 major books that recounted his travels, expounded his naturalist philosophy, and beckoned everyone to "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings." Muir's love of the high country gave his writings a spiritual quality. His readers, whether they be presidents, congressmen, or plain folks, were inspired and often moved to action by the enthusiasm of Muir's own unbounded love of nature. Through a series of articles appearing in Century magazine, Muir drew attention to the devastation of mountain meadows and forests by sheep and cattle. With the help of Century 's associate editor, Robert Underwood Johnson , Muir worked to remedy this destruction.

In 1890, due in large part to the efforts of Muir and Johnson, an act of Congress created Yosemite National Park . Muir was also personally involved in the creation of Sequoia , Mount Rainier , Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon national parks. Muir deservedly is often called the "Father of Our National Park System ". Johnson and others suggested to Muir that an association be formed to protect the newly created Yosemite National Park from the assaults of stockmen and others who would diminish its boundaries. In 1892, Muir and a number of his supporters founded the Sierra Club to, in Muir's words, "do something for wildness and make the mountains glad." Muir served as the Club's president until his death in 1914. In 1901, Muir published Our National Parks , the book that brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1903, Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite. There, together, beneath the trees, they laid the foundation of Roosevelt's innovative and notable conservation programs.

Muir and the Sierra Club fought many battles to protect Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, the most dramatic being the campaign to prevent the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley within Yosemite National Park. In 1913, after years of effort, the battle was lost and the valley that Muir likened to Yosemite itself was doomed to become a reservoir to supply the water needs of a growing San Francisco. The following year, after a short illness, Muir died in a Los Angeles hospital after visiting his daughter Wanda. John Muir was perhaps this country's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage. His words have heightened our perception of nature. His personal and determined involvement in the great conservation questions of the day was and remains an inspiration for environmental activists everywhere. Father of national parks John Muir called Wisconsin home FacebookEmail Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest Father of national parks John Muir called Wisconsin home Skyscraping mountains and plunging canyons, sweeping deserts and towering trees — all dramatic landscapes most readily associated with the national park system.

Post to Facebook Father of national parks John Muir called Wisconsin home Skyscraping mountains and plunging canyons, sweeping deserts and towering trees — all dramatic landscapes most readily associated with the national park system. Check out this story on jsonline.com: CancelSend A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Join the Conversation Activate your digital access. Father of national parks John Muir called Wisconsin home Chelsey Lewis , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Published 11:41 p.m. CT July 30, 2016 | Updated 2:49 p.m. CT Aug. 4, 2016 John Muir grew up in this meadow near his family’s first home in Marquette County, which is now a park dedicated to the famous naturalist. (Photo: Meg Jones, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Skyscraping mountains and plunging canyons, sweeping deserts and towering trees — all dramatic landscapes most readily associated with the national park system.

But it was a different vista, one of a small, clear lake in central Wisconsin, rimmed by lilies and rushes and lighted by thousands of neon-green lightning bugs, surrounded by lush meadows, woods and farmland, that first inspired the protection of those great landscapes. It was there that a young John Muir — known as the father of the national parks — and his family settled after emigrating from Scotland in 1849. Muir was just 11 when his family settled in Wisconsin. His father was a demanding, strict, religious man who put the Muir family to work on the new homestead. Muir and his siblings often worked 17-hour days, six days a week, on the farm. But the young Scot made the most of the limited free time he had, riding horses through meadows and woods blanketed in flora from oaks and hickories to orchids and ferns. He feasted on strawberries and cranberries that grew along the Fox River and learned to swim in Fountain Lake by imitating the frogs that called it home.

"The water was so clear that it was almost invisible, and when we floated slowly out over the plants and fishes, we seemed to be miraculously sustained in the air while silently exploring a veritable fairyland," he wrote in his book "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth." "This sudden splash into pure wilderness — baptism in Nature's warm heart — how utterly happy it made us!" he wrote. "Nature streaming into us, wooingly teaching her wonderful glowing lessons, so unlike the dismal grammar ashes and cinders so long thrashed into us. Here without knowing it we were still at school; every wild lesson a love lesson, not whipped but charmed into us. Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness!" That glorious wilderness playground is still there, now part of John Muir Memorial Park in Marquette County, between Portage and Montello. The lake where Muir learned to swim still glimmers in the summer sun; the meadows are still blanketed with goldenrod and aster; burly oaks and hickory trees still dot the landscape. But it's not entirely the same.

Gone are the prairie chickens and their booming mating ritual Muir wrote of, gone are the passenger pigeons that migrated overhead in droves, what Muir described as "a mighty river in the sky." There are more trees now, too, as fire suppression has allowed for more hardwoods to sprout. A monument in honor of John Muir sits in the county park. The famous naturalist was born in 1838 in Scotland, moved to Wisconsin with his family as a boy and grew up in Marquette County. (Photo: Meg Jones, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Visitors today can follow Muir's footsteps in exploring the land, although the path is a little more defined. A 1.7-mile segment of the Ice Age Trail loops around the 30-acre kettle lake, now known as Ennis Lake. From the parking lot off Highway F, the trail cuts through an oak opening and past a prairie on the north end of the lake, where the Muir family farm was located. Look for black-eyed Susans, prairie blazing star, lupine and Canada goldenrod.

Continue following the trail through a stand of hardwood trees, including burr and black oaks and shagbark hickories, before crossing a bridge over a small creek that passes through a sedge meadow on its way to the lake. It was that meadow that was one of Muir's first targets for preservation. "The preservation of specimen sections of natural flora — bits of pure wilderness — was a fond, favorite notion of mine long before I heard of national parks," Muir said in an 1896 speech to the Sierra Club , noting that he had asked his brother-in-law (who owned the land) to sell him 40 acres of the lake meadow to "keep in untrampled for the sake of its ferns and flowers; and even if I should never see it again, the beauty of its lilies and orchids are so pressed into my mind I shall always enjoy looking back at them in imagination, even across seas and continents, and perhaps after I am dead." Muir's brother-in-law didn't share his vision for preservation, but the conservationist's wish came true in 1957 when Marquette County bought the first bit of land on Ennis Lake that would become his namesake park.

In 2014, the park got a big boost when the Natural Heritage Land Trust purchased a 198-acre farm on its northern edge. That farm included 38 acres of the original Muir homestead (60 of the original 320 acres were already part of the park). Part of the purchased land will become part of the Fox River National Wildlife Refuge, which is just west of the park, while the eastern portion of the land will go to the Ice Age Trail Alliance for continuation of the segment that circles Ennis Lake. All of the land will be open for hiking, cross-country skiing, bird watching, hunting, fishing and trapping. The current trail segment continues around the southern edge of the lake, passing more oak openings and vibrant fern colonies that Muir wrote of, before finishing back at the parking lot. There, a granite monument pays tribute to the man who in addition to fighting for the national park system was the founding president of the Sierra Club. And it wasn't just this land that helped shape Muir into one of our country's greatest conservationists. The hard labor and long days on the farm instilled in Muir a work ethic and tenacity that would serve him well in his wanderings out west.

It was those wanderinga that led him to the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite, which he would convince President Theodore Roosevelt to visit and camp in 1903. Three years later Roosevelt signed legislation designating Yosemite Valley as a national park, following a 17-year fight by Muir and the Sierra Club. Ten years after that and two years after Muir's death, Congress officially established the National Park Service. Upcoming events: The Wisconsin Friends of John Muir and the Ice Age Trail Alliance will celebrate the National Park Service's centennial at John Muir Memorial Park on Saturday. The event will include an early morning bird hike, speeches from national park service officials and local politicians, children's activities, group hikes around Ennis Lake and various workshops. Registration is required at iceagetrail.org/nps100. The Wisconsin Historical Society is celebrating Muir and the NPS centennial with a special traveling exhibit, "Wisconsin's John Muir." The free display looks at Muir's time in Wisconsin, his fight for the national parks and his views on the environment.

It's traveling to libraries around the state through the end of the year and will be on display at the New Berlin Public Library through Monday, the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center Aug. 2-15, and in Fort Atkinson Aug. 16-29. See wisconsinhistory.org/muirexhibit. More information: John Muir Memorial Park is on County Highway F in the Town of Buffalo, about 11 miles north of Portage and eight miles south of Montello. For more on the park and John Muir in Wisconsin, see johnmuir.org/wisconsin. 174 CONNECT TWEET 1 LINKEDIN COMMENTEMAILMORE Read or Share this story: Frequently Asked Questions - John Muir National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service) Frequently Asked Questions WHEN WAS JOHN MUIR BORN? He was born April 21, 1838. WHERE WAS JOHN MUIR BORN? Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland. Dunbar is about 28 miles east of Edinburgh. WHO WAS JOHN MUIR?

John Muir was a writer, a lecturer, a geologist, a botanist, a glaciologist, an explorer, a school teacher, an inventor, a fruit rancher, a husband, and a father. John Muir was perhaps this country's most famous and influential naturalist. If it weren't for John Muir and his writings, we probably would not have Yosemite National Park as we know it today. He was also involved in the creation of the Grand Canyon, Kings Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Mt. Rainier National Parks. Additionally, his writings about Alaska led to further preservation of the landscape over time. Because of his influential writings and role in the creation of multiple parks, he is often called "The Father of Our National Park System." John Muir also co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892 and was its first president until his death in 1914. Wanda Muir Hanna, eldest daughter of John Muir, explained her father to one of his biographers (Linnie Marsh Wolfe), "If you had known him, you would have seen only one side of him, and he had many sides.

No two people -- even his closest friends ever had quite the same idea of him." (Son of the Wilderness, Preface, pg. vii). WHAT DID JOHN MUIR WRITE? He wrote and had published over 300 magazine articles and 12 books. These books and articles bubble over with his love of adventure, nature, wildness and the inter-connectivity of it all. At the time of his death he was working on a book about his travels in Alaska. He had plans and enough material in his notebooks for ten more books. WHAT ARE THE NAMES OF THESE BOOKS AND WHEN WERE THEY PUBLISHED? Picturesque California My First Summer In The Sierra 1911 The Story of my Boyhood and Youth 1913 A 1000 Mile Walk To The Gulf 1916 1918 WHY DID JOHN MUIR CHOOSE TO LIVE IN MARTINEZ? He married Louisa (Louie) Strentzel in 1880. Her family owned and operated a large 2600-acre ranch here in the Alhambra Valley. John Muir went into partnership with his father-in-law, Dr.

John Strentzel, and for ten years directed most of his energy into managing this large fruit ranch. WHAT WAS THE POPULATION OF MARTINEZ, CA. IN JOHN MUIR'S TIME? Martinez in 1888 - 875 people 1890 - About 1000 (statistics destroyed in fire) 1900 - 1,380 1910 - 2,115 (Martinez City Hall and Martinez City Museum) WAS JOHN MUIR A WEALTHY MAN? When he was young he was not wealthy. He took odd jobs to support himself as he rambled about the United States and Canada. He worked in sawmills, on farms, in a broom factory, in a carriage factory, and as a sheepherder. After his marriage and 10 year partnership in the fruit ranch, John had accumulated a sizeable wealth for his time and felt he had made enough to take care of his family. He then retired from active ranching and turned to writing and working for the preservation cause. Eventually, his writings and lectures brought in additional money. DID JOHN MUIR HAVE ANY CHILDREN?

Yes, John and Louie had two daughters. Wanda, born March 25, 1881, died July 29, 1942 (61 years of age) and Helen, born January 23, 1886, died June 7, 1964 (78 years of age). ARE THERE ANY DESCENDANTS OF JOHN MUIR? Yes, there were ten grandchildren Wanda married Thomas Hanna; they had six children: John Hanna - deceased Jean Hanna de Lipkau Clark (only granddaughter) - deceased Helen married Buel Funk; they had four sons: Walter Muir - deceased John Muir - deceased Muir Funk - deceased Helen and three of her sons changed their name from Funk to Muir in 1940. Muir Funk did not because his first name was Muir and also because he was involved in competition for a job at the time. (Information in a letter from Walter Muir). WHAT IS THE SQUARE FOOTAGE OF THE MUIR HOUSE? 10,010 square feet according to the architect's drawing. This includes all the porches, attic, and the basement.

IS ALL THE FURNITURE IN THE HOUSE ORIGINAL? Much of the furniture exhibited in the house is similar to furniture owned by the Muirs. Many of the original furniture pieces are still owned by family members. The architectural elements in the house are original, including the fireplaces, staircases, and stove. Authentic Muir objects are located throughout the house in exhibit cases and in the furnished rooms. One original furniture piece of interest is Muir's desk in his study. We invite you to read labels throughout the house to discover more about the mixture of original and period pieces that recreate Muir's home. DID THEODORE ROOSEVELT EVER VISIT HERE? No he did not, according to Helen Muir in a letter she wrote to friend Hattie in 1958. WHAT FAMOUS PEOPLE VISITED JOHN MUIR IN THE HOUSE? William Keith - premier California artist John Swett - Superintendent of California Schools, Father of California Public Schools Charles Keeler - Berkeley poet and noted ornithologist Robert Underwood Johnson - editor of Century magazine William Colby - Sierra Club co-founder John Burroughs - famous American naturalist WAS JOHN MUIR REALLY A LOUSY FATHER AND HUSBAND?

John Muir did cause controversy because he did not lead the same sort of life as most people in the area. However, from diaries and letters it appears the family had a very loving and understanding relationship. Louie Muir often urged her husband to go to the mountains for his health and was very supportive of his fight for preservation. When his girls were young he took them on nature walks around the ranch, and as they grew older they accompanied him on Sierra Club outings and trips to the southwest. HOW OLD WAS JOHN MUIR WHEN HE DIED AND WHERE IS HE BURIED? John Muir was 76 years old when he died in a Los Angeles hospital on December 24th, 1914. He had been visiting his daughter Helen and her family in Daggett when his cold developed into pneumonia. His funeral was held in the Muir House. He is buried beside Mrs. Muir in a small family cemetery about one mile south of the home. Louie Muir died August 9, 1905. TO WHICH CLAN DID JOHN MUIR BELONG? The Muir family belonged to the Gordon Clan. HOW LONG HAS THE SITE BEEN A NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE?

Since August 31, 1964. WHAT IS HETCH HETCHY? Hetch Hetchy is a valley along the Tuolumne River located northeast of Yosemite Valley. Although smaller, its beauty was ruggedly spectacular and similar to Yosemite. In the early 1900s, calls were made to dam the valley in order to provide water and hydraulic power for the growing city of San Francisco. John Muir tried to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley by leading the opposition against the dam. However, the need proved more persuasive than preservation and in 1913, after three political battles, the Northern California politicians won. The O'Shaughnessy Dam spanning the Hetch Hetchy Valley was completed in 1923. John Muir's Yosemite | History | Smithsonian John Muir's Yosemite The father of the conservation movement found his calling on a visit to the California wilderness “Everybody needs beauty... places to play and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike,” wrote Muir (c. 1902).

(Corbis) By Tony Perrottet Smithsonian Magazine | Subscribe July 2008 The naturalist John Muir is so closely associated with Yosemite National Park—after all, he helped draw up its proposed boundaries in 1889, wrote the magazine articles that led to its creation in 1890 and co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892 to protect it—that you'd think his first shelter there would be well marked. But only park historians and a few Muir devotees even know where the little log cabin was, just yards from the Yosemite Falls Trail. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, for here one can experience the Yosemite that inspired Muir. The crisp summer morning that I was guided to the site, the mountain air was perfumed with ponderosa and cedar; jays, larks and ground squirrels gamboled about. And every turn offered picture-postcard views of the valley's soaring granite cliffs, so majestic that early visitors compared them to the walls of Gothic cathedrals. No wonder many 19th-century travelers who visited Yosemite saw it as a new Eden.

From This Story Wild at Heart Leading me through the forest was Bonnie Gisel, curator of the Sierra Club's LeConte Memorial Lodge and the author of several books on Muir. "Yosemite Valley was the ultimate pilgrimage site for Victorian Americans," Gisel said. "Here was the absolute manifestation of the divine, where they could celebrate God in nature." We were in a cool, shady grotto filled with bracken fern and milkweed, as picturesque a place as fans of the drifter who would become America's most influential conservationist might wish. Although no structure remains, we know from Muir's diaries and letters that he built the one-room cabin from pine and cedar with his friend Harry Randall, and that he diverted nearby Yosemite Creek to run beneath its floor. "Muir loved the sound of water," Gisel explained. Plants grew through the floorboards; he wove the threads of two ferns into what he called an "ornamental arch" over his writing desk. And he slept on sheepskin blankets over cedar branches. "Muir wrote about frogs chirping under the floors as he slept," Gisel said.

"It was like living in a greenhouse." Today, Muir has become such an icon that it's hard to remember that he was ever a living human being, let alone a wide-eyed and adventurous young man—a Gilded Age flower child. Even at the Yosemite Visitor Center, he's depicted in a life-size bronze statue as a wizened prophet with a Methuselah beard. In a nearby museum, his battered tin cup and the traced outline of his foot are displayed like religious relics. And his pithy inspirational quotes—"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees"—are everywhere. But all this hero worship risks obscuring the real story of the man and his achievements. "There are an amazing number of misconceptions about John Muir," says Scott Gediman, the park's public affairs officer. "People think he discovered Yosemite or started the national park system. Others assume he lived here all his life." In fact, says Gediman, Muir lived in Yosemite off and on for only a short but intense period from 1868 to 1874, an experience that transformed him into a successor to Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Later in life, Muir would return to Yosemite on shorter trips, burdened with his own celebrity and the responsibilities of family and work. But it was during the happy period of his relative youth, when he was free to amble around Yosemite, that Muir's ideas were shaped. Some of his most famous adventures, recounted in his books The Yosemite and Our National Parks, were from this time. "As a young man, Muir felt he was a student in what he called the ‘University of the Wilderness,'" Gisel said. "Yosemite was his graduate course. This is where he decided who he was, what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it." When he first strode into Yosemite in the spring of 1868, Muir was a scruffy Midwestern vagabond wandering the wilderness fringes of post-bellum America, taking odd jobs where he could. In retrospect, visiting Yosemite might seem an inevitable stop on his life's journey. But his later recollections reveal a young man plagued with self-doubt and uncertainty, often lonely and confused about the future. "I was tormented with soul hunger," he wrote of his meandering youth. "I was on the world.

But was I in it?" John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838, the eldest son of a Calvinist shopkeeper father. When John was 11, the family immigrated to the United States, to homestead near Portage, Wisconsin. Though his days were consumed with farm work, he was a voracious reader. By his mid-20s, Muir seemed to have a career as an inventor ahead of him. His gadgets included an "early-rising bed," which raised the sleeper to an upright position, and a clock made in the shape of a scythe, to signify the advance of Father Time. But after being nearly blinded in a factory mishap in 1867, Muir decided to devote his life to studying the beauties of Creation. With almost no money and already sporting the full beard that would become his trademark, he set off on a 1,000-mile walk from Kentucky to Florida, intending to continue to South America to see the Amazon. But a bout of malaria in Florida's Cedar Key forced a change in plans. He sailed to San Francisco via Panama, intending to stay only a short time.

Muir would later famously, and perhaps apocryphally, recall that after hopping off the boat in San Francisco on March 28, 1868, he asked a carpenter on the street the quickest way out of the chaotic city. "Where do you want to go?" the carpenter replied, and Muir responded, "Anywhere that is wild." Muir started walking east. Single Page Previous Page 1 of 3 Next 1 2 3 Like this article? Happy John Muir Day! | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian Happy John Muir Day! The work of naturalist John Muir inspired some of the first conservation legislation in the United States Muir, known as the "Father of National Parks" is honored in this 1998 stamp as a pioneer for nature preservation. (Courtesy of the National Postal Museum) smithsonian.com April 21, 2010 John Muir (1838-1914) is remembered as one of the country's best conservationists, responsible for inspiring some of the country's earliest conservation legislation with his writings about nature and his travels around the world. Today, Muir would have turned 172.

In California, residents still celebrate John Muir Day to recognize his contributions to preservation. But long before he took on conservation as a cause, Muir was an inventive craftsman whose job almost made him lose the very gift that made him such a successful conservationist: his sight. In 1867, John Muir, a Scottish immigrant, was working as an engineer at a carriage factory in Indianapolis. Inventive by nature, Muir was charged with creating a way to produce the carriage parts more efficiently. But on March 5, an awl (a sharp hand tool) pierced the 28-year-old's right eye, and immediately, both of his eyes went blind. Bedridden, Muir vowed to leave factory work and travel the world if he regained his ability to see. Miraculously, he did two weeks later, and set out on one of the earliest of his most famous travels: a 1,000 mile walk to Cuba. His journal from that trip turned into a book, called A Thousand Mile Walk Into the Gulf, which chronicled his journey as he sketched new plants, explored Mammoth Cave, slept in a Georgia cemetery and fought off malaria.

He spent the summer of 1869 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, writing of the experience in a book he later called My First Summer in the Sierra, where with his recovered sight he was able to produce some of the most inspirational and poetic prose ever to be written about the landscape: "The pale rose and purple sky changing softly to daffodil yellow and white, sunbeams pouring through the passes between the peaks and over the Yosemite domes, making their edges burn; the silver firs in the middle ground catching the glow on their spiry tops, and our camp grove fills and thrills with the glorious light. Everything awakening alert and joyful …" During the next few years, Muir enchanted politicians, scientists and residents around the country as he chronicled his journeys into mountaintops and rivers. He began to lead tours of the Yosemite region and by 1876, he was advocating for a federal program that would protect the country's forest from destruction—he warned that without action, much of the country's natural beauty would perish. And there were many people that heard him. In 1890, Congress approved the creation of Sequoia National Park, followed shortly by the creation of Yosemite National Park.

Over the years, Muir was visited by many famous figures, including writer Ralph Waldo Emerson. But perhaps his most significant visit was a camping trip with former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. For three days, the president and the Scottish-born writer traveled the Yosemite Valley alone, envisioning what kind of national system would be able to protect the country's forests. Roosevelt went on to establish 150 national forests, 18 national monuments and five national parks, which amounted to 230 million acres of American soil. The president honored Muir in 1908 by naming a donated redwood forest near San Francisco "Muir Woods." Among the places protected because of Muir's influence are Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks; Mount Rainer; Petrifed Forest; and Grand Canyon national parks. And the Sierra Club —which he co-founded in 1892—is still a successful preservation organization that today includes outreach programs to engage people young and old in nature.

Today, Muir is known as the "Father of the National Park Service." Though the service wasn't created until 1916, two years after Muir's death, many say it is largely thanks to him that the organization, which today protects nearly 400 National Parks, exists. Here in Washington, the service also protects all of the national monuments on The National Mall. So on Wednesday, stop by as a birthday tribute to Muir—much of the country's preserved parks and landmarks wouldn't be possible without him. Like this article? John Muir Association.org Contact Us The magic of John Muir lives today in our public parklands and wilderness areas, the orchards and vineyards of Contra Costa County, sunsets atop Mt. Wanda, and in writings and teachings that spread the word about nature and our place in it. About John Muir John Muir is known as the one of the first conservationists, one whose influence is felt worldwide. Named the Father of our National Park System, Muir has inspired many generations to cherish an preserve our planet’s natural resources. Statue of the young John Muir in Dunbar, Scotland.

Photo by Will Collin John Muir was also one of the founders of the Sierra Club, and the organization’s John Muir Exhibit gives a comprehensive view of Muir, his life and work: . For the last 24 years of his life, Muir lived in Martinez, California, where his 1882 Victorian home and 335 acres of his once vast, 2,600-acre fruit ranch have been preserved for visitors around the world to enjoy. He was born in Dunbar, Scotland, and John Muir’s Birthplace is now a museum and educational center: . In the 1950s, the destruction of the historic Muir home was imminent. Plans to build shops and homes on the property were in the works. It was largely through the efforts of Faire and Henry Sax, two individuals who purchased the dilapidated property, that the home was spared. They set about making the many substantial repairs needed, and galvanizing the community in their desire to establish the home and orchards as a national monument. They held teas and tours to interest as many people as possible in their enterprise. Faire and Henry Sax did capture the attention of many who shared their goal.

The John Muir Association was established in 1956 in order to help preserve the Muir home as a national treasure. The John Muir National Historic Site was established after the house, the Martinez Adobe and surrounding orchards were purchased by the National Park Service in 1964. In 1993, and additional 326 acres of Muir’s original property (now open space) were purchased, known as Mt. Wanda. Visit the John Muir National Historic Site website at . Plan to stop by and learn more about John Muir where he lived, raised his family and wrote many influential works. Mt. Wanda, Martinez, California National Park Getaway: John Muir National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service) John Muir National Historic Site By Jim MacDonald, Lead Interpretive Ranger, John Muir National Historic Site The Strenzel-Muir House NPS Photo This year is the centennial anniversary of the National Park Service - celebrate by visiting the place where the idea for the National Park Service began! Stop by the John Muir National Historic Site and visit the home of prominent naturalist and writer John Muir in Martinez, California.

Experience the famous "scribble den," the room where John Muir compiled many of his most influential writings. Stroll through historic orchards tended to by Muir himself and saunter through more than 300 acres of a nature preserve where he taught his daughters, Wanda and Helen, about nature. Not only is the park conveniently located right off Highway 4 at the Alhambra Avenue exit, it is also a perfect place to begin your national park experience in the San Francisco Bay area. The historic Italianate Victorian home, originally built in 1882 by John Muir’s father-in-law, John Strenzel, is open daily from 10 am to 5 pm for a self-guided experience or ranger-led tours. The three levels of the house contain museum exhibits, historic artifacts, and original features of the home. Stop by the visitor center to see a 20-minute film about John Muir’s life and legacy. You can also walk through nine acres of orchards with surviving examples of some of the many varieties of fruits cultivated on what was once a ranch of over 2,600 acres.

On the grounds sits the 167-year-old Martinez Adobe, the oldest structure in the town of Martinez. The Martinez Adobe features exhibits about the historic 1776 expedition of Lt. Col. Juan Bautista de Anza. The expedition began in present-day Mexico and successfully established Spain’s northernmost colony of Alta California. It is now part of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail . If, like Muir, you are hungry for nature and wilderness, head to the other side of Highway 4 to find the Mt. Wanda area trailhead. Sauntering up the main trail will transport you away from the city into a peaceful bit of wilderness surrounded by diverse plants and numerous birds. Visitors regularly join rangers for nature walks and spring wildflower hikes. From spring through fall, rangers lead full moon hikes bringing you to the top of Mt. Wanda to see the sunset and the full moon rise. Check John Muir National Historic Site's calendar before visiting. The park offers many other public programs, such as seasonal guided hikes, campfire programs full of stories and songs, and opportunities to learn about the night sky as you peer through the park’s powerful telescope.

Or make a day of it and visit three national parks within driving distance; tour award-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill's house in Danville, learn about the homefront effort during World War II at Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, or visit Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial in Concord, the site of the worst homefront disaster during World War II. Plan your visit to John Muir National Historic Site today. Park rangers and docents are excited to share the full story of the man known as “the Father of the National Park Service.”

Question: John Muir is known as the father of which US national institution?
Answer: National Park service