Wawona: The Victorian Resort at the Edge of Wilderness
Near Wawona, California
The Wawona Hotel stands at the edge of a green meadow on the South Fork of the Merced River, a sprawling white Victorian hotel complex that has welcomed travelers since eighteen seventy nine. It is the oldest resort structure in California still in operation, and it sits at what has long been the southern gateway into Yosemite. The name Wawona comes from the Southern Sierra Miwok people who lived here for thousands of years.
Scholars disagree on its precise meaning. Some say it echoes the call of the great gray owl, a sound the Miwok considered the spirit of the giant sequoias. Others translate it simply as big tree.
Either way, the word was very old before any hotel stood in this meadow. The hotel that anchors the property today was built by the Washburn family, who acquired the site in eighteen seventy four and transformed a rough way station into a polished resort. Henry Washburn and his brothers built the first proper building, known as the Long White, in eighteen seventy six, and added the main structure facing the meadow in eighteen seventy nine.
They understood that travelers approaching Yosemite Valley by stagecoach needed a comfortable place to rest, and Wawona was perfectly positioned. The Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias was two miles up the road. The route over the mountains to the valley began just beyond the hotel yard.
For fifty years before the automobile age, the Wawona Hotel was where Yosemite began for most visitors. The Washburns added a swimming tank fed by natural spring water, stables for the horses, and farms that supplied the kitchen with fresh produce. They laid out a golf course in eighteen ninety one, one of the first in California.
Thomas Hill, the great landscape painter, built a studio here in eighteen eighty three and painted there for twenty five years. The National Park Service purchased the property in nineteen thirty two. The complex was designated a National Historic Landmark in nineteen eighty seven.
In two thousand sixteen the concessionaire changed the name to Big Trees Lodge, a choice that irritated many who grew up calling it the Wawona Hotel, and the Park Service restored the original name in two thousand nineteen. Whatever you call it, the white buildings and the long veranda looking out over the meadow are among the most quietly beautiful sights in any national park.
