FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED

Posthumous

America's preeminent landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted came to California in 1863 to manage John C Frémont's Rancho Las Mariposas in the Sierra Nevada. He then became an important leader of the nascent conservation movement in the United States.

Considered to be an expert on Caliƒornia, he proposed through Senator John Conness, that Congress desgignate Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees as public reserves, making it the first wilderness set aside by a government for public use. His recommendations laid an ethical framework for the government to preserve public lands, to protect their "value to posterity."

Olmsted described the "sublime" and "stately" landscape, emphasizing that value of the landscape was not in any one individual waterfall, cliff or tree, "but in the miles of scenery where cliffs of awful height and rocks of vast magnitude and of varied and exquisite coloring, are banked and fringed and draped and shadowed by the tender foliage of noble and lovely trees and bushes, reflected in the most placid pools and associated with the most tranquil meadows, the most playful streams, and every variety of soft and pastoral beauty.'"

Olmsted Point in Yosemite National Park identifies the importance which he held to the park's preservation. He is revered as the designer of New York's Central Park and the grounds of UC Berkeley and Stanford University. Though, his influence in preserving wild places including Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks and Presque Isle forever endear him to anyone who appreciates the untouched landscape.