Yosemite History - continued
Around the turn of the century, Hetch Hetchy Valley became the center of a bitter political struggle when the City of San Francisco wanted to dam the Tuolumne River inside Yosemite National Park as a source of drinking water and hydroelectric power. In 1913, conservationists led by John Muir lost the battle when Congress passed the Raker Act, authorizing the construction of O'Shaughnessy Dam.
The day of the horse-drawn stage drew to a close in 1907 with the construction of the Yosemite Valley Railroad from Merced to El Portal. While a few automobiles entered the park in 1900 and 1901, they were not officially permitted until 1913.
In 1925, two major concessioners were consolidated into the Yosemite Park and Curry Company in order to reduce competitive expansion of facilities in the park.
Impacts resulting from increasing visitation in Yosemite Valley became apparent. People camped throughout meadows and dramatically increasing automobile traffic driving on unpaved roads left the Valley dull with dust each summer. As visitation and need for year-round services increased, Yosemite Village was relocated from a location in the floodplain on the south side of the Merced River to the present Yosemite Village site to the north.
Visitation exceeded one million in 1954 for the first time, and by 1976 over two million people visited Yosemite. In the mid-1990s, visitation topped four million. In the early 1970s, the National Park Service established one-way road traffic patterns, eliminated cars in the far east end of the Valley, offered free shuttle bus transportation in the Valley, converted the parking lot in front of the Valley Visitor Center to a pedestrian mall, and generally encouraged visitors to enjoy the park by walking or using public transportation.