Title 16, ConservationRelease 119-102

§48 Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove Reserved and Made Part of Yosemite National Park

Title 16 › CHAPTER 1 — NATIONAL PARKS, MILITARY PARKS, MONUMENTS, AND SEASHORES › SUBCHAPTER VI — SEQUOIA AND YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARKS › § 48

Last updated Aug 21, 2026|Official source

Summary

On June 11, 1906, the land called Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove was removed from settlement, occupancy, or sale under U.S. law and set aside as national forest land that will be part of Yosemite National Park. The area includes Yosemite Valley (about 15 miles long and about 1 mile wide on average back from the cliff edges), the headwaters of the Merced River, the Mariposa Big Tree Grove (no more than four sections, taken in quarter-section pieces), and parts of fractional sections 5 and 6 in township 5 south, range 22 east, Mount Diablo meridian, lying south of the South Fork of the Merced River and mostly between the grove and the park’s south boundary. These lands must follow the limits and rules in sections 61, 471c, 471d, and 46 of this title.

Full Legal Text

Title 16, §48

Conservation, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

The tracts of land embracing the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, described as the “Cleft” or “Gorge” in the granite peak of the Sierra Nevada mountains, situated in the county of Mariposa, in the State of California, and the headwaters of the Merced River, and known as the Yosemite Valley, with its branches or spurs, in estimated length fifteen miles, and in average width one mile back from the main edge of the precipice, on each side of the valley, and the tracts embracing what is known as the “Mariposa Big Tree Grove”, not to exceed the area of four sections, and to be taken in legal subdivisions of one quarter section each, together with that part of fractional section 5 and 6, township 5 south, range 22 east, Mount Diablo meridian, California, lying south of the South Fork of Merced River and almost wholly between the Mariposa Big Tree Grove and the south boundary of the Yosemite National Park, on June 11, 1906, are reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States and set apart as a national forest, subject to all the limitations, conditions, and provisions of section 61, 471c and 471d of this title, as well as the limitations, conditions, and provisions of section 46 of this title, and shall hereafter form a part of the Yosemite National Park.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

16 U.S.C. § 48

Title 16, Conservation

Last Updated

Aug 21, 2026

Release point: 119-102