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Pathways: A Story of Trails and Men (1968), by John W. Bingaman

PREFACE

The following reports, accounts, sketches, and material may serve as an authentic source of information that otherwise would be lost to future generations.

Therefore I am writing this historical information obtained from various journals, pamphlets, Army Officers reports, Yosemite Nature Notes, and my personal diary. In my long tenure, 35 years a Yosemite Ranger, I have accumulated valuable historical information on the beginning of trail and road building in the Yosemite National Park, and a few men that shared in this experience.

When I was a new ranger in Yosemite National Park, Doctor L. H. Bunnell’s book, “Discovery of the Yosemite,” a source of information of his adventure with the Mariposa Battalion, stirred my interest. Now in the course of half a century I feel it worth my efforts to compile and add my experiences of the past fifty years. I would like to contribute to the historic facts of the early trail building and to tell about the men that had much to do in the expansion of Yosemite National Park. Men, such as Gabriel Sovulewski, Stephen T. Mather, Horace M. Albright, W. B. Lewis, Major Harry C. Benson, and many others played a leading role in this important work and have left their imprints on the pages of history. They have been guiding influences on my life’s work in the Yosemite Ranger Service, 1921 – 1956 and have left memories that will never die. Even as the days and years grow shorter, there comes to me a very rewarding satisfaction that I was privileged to share a small part in this most interesting life with Men and Nature.

“To him who in the love of nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language.”

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