The old elevator's history is murky, and obscured by myth, politics, and outright lies. As you can see by the enlarged image to the left, the historic elevator is a frame structure and believed to have been constructed by friends of John Muir in anticipation of the planned visit by President Theodor Roosevelt.
As the story goes, Muir was concerned that, being a "flat-lander" Teddy wouldn't be willing to expend the necessary energy to really witness the beauty of Yosemite Valley, and John's friends wanted to help Muir's efforts in preserving it for future generations. After learning of these concerns during a fireside chat one night, they decided to surprise Muir with an unusual gift. Since they were not expecting the President for several months and since that winter was unusually mild, they started to work.
Now, if you think that such an undertaking was beyond them, just take a close look at the roads going into Yosemite, as well as Old Priest Grade, and Mammoth Mine. These were the men that felled the Redwoods with hand axes, lowered the average elevation of Columbia and the surrounding area by sixteen feet, and buried the huge Central Valley of California in two feet of silt (O.K. Not the most admirable examples, but try not to hold that against them). The point is, these were men of deeds, undaunted, and daring. And, yes, sometimes uneducated, uncouth, and uncaring. But in any case, up the elevator went and up and up.
Revealed to me by long time friend, ornithologist, and "Keeper of the Smithsonian's Keys", John, who also asked me not to use his last name, (starting to see a pattern here?), assisted my search of the hidden vaults in the belly of the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. for secretive photos that documented the elevator's origins. During that clandestine search photos were unearthed that support this theory about why the elevator was built. As you can see in the section that has been enlarged shows Muir and Roosevelt using the elevator and that the President was immensely impressed is, as they say, history.
During the construction of the elevator it was written that Native Americans would not be of any assistance. It is now conjectured that because they knew of the natural lift - they felt that the elevator was an inappropriate waste of time and energy. It is also believed that the natural lift was a Native American escape route used to avoid the militia that often pursued them, which explain why they kept the lift a secret. But all that is unsubstantiated and cannot be confirmed.
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