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The next time you stand in the deep shadows of Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove, marveling at the boggling mass and height of the giant sequoia trees, take a moment also to marvel at some remarkable foresight of a few folks 154 years ago. In a sense, the notion of setting aside land for conservation and public enjoyment began right here in this grove of big trees.

Amazingly, the legislation that set aside Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove — the Yosemite Grant Act — reached the desk of Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War. The president could have been forgiven for having other things on his mind. But Lincoln signed the act on June 30, 1864, giving California the right and responsibility to manage the area “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation [and] shall be inalienable for all time.”

“It was such a unique concept for the time,” says Yosemite’s public affairs officer Scott Gediman. “It was truly the birth of the national parks idea — the first time land had been set aside, not just for preservation, but for all of the people.”

Mariposa Grove, a 250-acre stand of nearly 500 mature trees in the southern part of Yosemite, has actually been closed to the public for nearly three years for restorations, so the reopening, set for June 15, is a big deal. A 3-acre asphalt parking lot and paved tram roads were removed, a gift shop was torn down, native vegetation planted, natural wetlands restored, and an accessible boardwalk was constructed. For anyone who loves the park and its big trees, it’s a thrilling prospect. The restoration promises to evoke a sense of the grove as it stood at the time of Lincoln.

Of course, Lincoln himself never set foot in Yosemite. At the time, the major advocates for the valley and the grove were a Canadian carpenter named Galen Clark, who wrote newspaper articles about the big trees, and American photographer Carleton Watkins, whose images managed to capture the mind-boggling scale of the trees. (John Muir didn’t make his first trip to the Sierra until 1868.)

Their primary ally in Congress was California Sen. John Conness, who introduced the Grant Act in May 1864. He extolled Mariposa Grove even above Yosemite Valley. “The Mariposa Big Tree Grove is really the wonder of the world,” he told his colleagues. He also assured all concerned that both Yosemite tracts, though containing great wonders, were “for all public purposes worthless.” That is, the remote parcels were of no value for farming, lumber or precious minerals.

But if Yosemite was the birthplace of protected lands, it was also the birthplace of the challenge of balancing that protection with public enjoyment. Yosemite Commissioner Frederick Law Olmsted sounded the alarm the very next year, citing “the slight harm which the few hundred visitors of this year might do, if no care were taken to prevent it, would not be slight, if it should be repeated by millions.” Years later, John Muir fretted about “blunt-nosed mechanical beetles” being allowed “to puff their way into all the parks.”

Ultimately, cars were allowed to puff their way into Mariposa Grove — and to accommodate them, a giant parking lot in the lower grove placed a swath of pavement just above the shallow roots of giant sequoia trees. The prevailing philosophy of the day was to make access to natural wonders as convenient as possible. “People coming to the parks became advocates for preserving them,” Gediman says.

The restoration project signals a shift away from unrepentant commercialization of places like Mariposa Grove. By removing the parking lot and gift shop and eliminating motorized tram tours, park managers have eliminated theme park trappings that detracted from the essence of the grove: its magnificent trees. “It’s the biggest restoration project in the history of the park,” says Gediman, “and it’s emblematic of how we’re managing parks today. We manage for systems. So, for example, the paving of the lower grove was meant to attract tourists and enhance their visit. But today, if a parking lot is harming tree roots, we’re going to remove it.”

The National Park Service hasn’t permitted any previews of the restored grove. We don’t know exactly where the new boardwalk is, if other parts of the trail system have changed, or what the restored vegetation looks like. We do know that we will park in a large new lot near the park’s South Entrance and shuttle a couple of miles into the grove.

We also know that the trees will retain their majesty. We will walk, gape, crane our necks, wish we had Carleton Watkins’ photographic skill, and marvel at the scale of girthy giants 90 feet around, soaring nearly 300 feet into the sky, that have stood for more than 2,000 years. We might hike to the upper grove, where the cabin that Galen Clark built still stands.

Doubtless we’ll have plenty of company. And why not? We’re all drawn to places like Mariposa Grove for similar reasons. Inspiration. Reinvigoration. Awe. And we have each other to provide scale as we stand in the presence of the world’s largest trees.

Robert Earle Howells wrote the Yosemite chapter for National Geographic’s “Secrets of the National Parks,” as well as the Just Ahead smartphone audio guide to Yosemite.

If You Go

Mariposa Grove will reopen at 9 a.m. June 15. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/mg.htm.