PBA Galleries

Engraved document filled out in ink, signed by H.H. Markham as Governor of California, with large embossed gold paper seal. 41x27.5 cm. (16¼x10¾"), matted and framed under plexiglass.

Handsome document officially appointing a Yosemite Commissioner, a significant action in the early decades of the American conservation movement. The initial chapter in the movement was the Act of Congress that set aside the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees as a Grant to the State of California “for public use, recreation and enjoyment, inalienable for all time.” Those words are the cornerstone of the American conservation movement and President Abraham Lincoln himself signed the bill in 1864. When Yellowstone was set aside seven years later, the area to be protected was in Indian Territory and no state existed there to administer a grant. The U.S. Department of the Interior therefore had to administer and protect the area on its own. In contrast to this federal control of Yellowstone, in 1864 the State of California was able to administer the Yosemite Grant by creating a Board of Commissioners with the responsibility of governing and protecting the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. The present document, reflective of that state administration, features an engraved vignette of a robed woman lying on a sleeping bear, with miners, factories, and the Golden Gate in the background.