The Sierra Club, has promoted public awareness of environmental issues for more than a century. This document is the first official conservation pronouncement of the then-nascent Sierra Club, a petition to Congress protesting the Caminetti bill (H.R. 5764), proposed in 1892 to protect mining, livestock, and timber interests by reducing the size of the newly established Yosemite National Park. This bill addressed the interests of citizens from the counties surrounding Yosemite who had lost an important source of tax revenue and were denied access to the commercial resources of the upper Sierras. The Sierra Club’s petition was intended to dissuade Congress from passing the measure. Ultimately, the Caminetti bill died in committee.
Text adapted from “Sierra Club Petition to Congress Protesting the Proposed Diminution of Yosemite National Park” in the March 1993 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.
