Reviews that the Trump administration is working to transfer part of Yosemite National Park to a non-public land developer have heightened concerns among park advocates and the public about privatization of public land.
The proposed deal, which a authorities spokesperson stated has not been finalized, would contain a land swap: The federal government would give the developer a small space of the park’s land on which to build a private access road between a proposed resort and the park itself. In trade, the developer would purchase land of comparable worth close to the park, or elsewhere in California, and switch that land to federal possession.
Environmental advocates and park employees have nervous for greater than a 12 months that the administration’s cuts to the National Park Service’s budget and staffing would result in additional privatization of the nationwide parks’ land and enterprise operations.
The nation has a protracted historical past of comparable efforts, together with a wildly unpopular 1980 try by Reagan administration Inside Secretary James Watt to promote development and expand private concessions within the parks. However debate over utilizing public nationwide park land for personal revenue dates again greater than a century earlier than that.
As I clarify in my e-book, “The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park,” no park has performed a extra central position in that debate than Yosemite, in California.
Early issues
In early 1864, Central American Steamship Transit Firm consultant Israel Ward Raymond wrote a letter to John Conness, a U.S. senator from California, urging the government to move swiftly to protect the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of big sequoia bushes to forestall them from falling into personal palms. 5 months later, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant Act, ceding the valley and the grove to the state of California, “upon the specific circumstances that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation.” This was years earlier than Yellowstone grew to become the first federal land designated a national park in 1872.
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Controversy arose shortly at Yosemite. Two males – James Lamon and James Hutchings – had claimed land in the valley earlier than the federal authorities gave it to California. Each started business operations, Lamon growing cash crops and Hutchings operating a hotel.
California stated their companies threatened the state’s capability to develop roads and trails in Yosemite by competing for vacationer {dollars}. A authorized battle ensued and was not resolved till an 1872 U.S. Supreme Court ruling discovered that the boys’s land claims had not been totally validated in response to the procedures of the time. The California legislature paid both men compensation for their land, and each left the park.
In 1890, neighboring parts of the Yosemite area grew to become America’s third nationwide park – and in 1906, the federal authorities once more took possession of the Yosemite Valley itself and the Mariposa Grove, particularly to incorporate them into an expansion of the national park.
Improvement rights
But, as my analysis has discovered, the position of personal pursuits within the park remained unsolved. Personal corporations below contract to the Nationwide Park Service have lengthy supplied wanted facilities such as lodging and food inside the nationwide parks. However questions over what is suitable in nationwide parks within the pursuit of revenue have formed Yosemite’s historical past for generations.
In 1925, I discovered, the query centered on the best to construct the primary gasoline station contained in the park, in Yosemite Valley. Two personal companies, the Curry Tenting Firm and the Yosemite Nationwide Park Firm, had lengthy competed for vacationer {dollars} inside the park. Every wished to construct a gasoline station to spice up earnings.
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Frustrated over the need to decide, Nationwide Park Service Director Horace Albright ordered the rival companies to simplify administration of the park’s concessions. The businesses merged, and the newly shaped Yosemite Park and Curry Firm was granted the unique rights to run lodges, eating places and different amenities inside the park, together with the brand new gasoline station.
However as I discovered in my analysis, the park service and the concessions firm didn’t at all times see eye to eye on the aim of the park. The battle between revenue and preservation is maybe most clearly illustrated by the development of a ski space inside the park within the early Nineteen Thirties. The park service initially opposed the event of Badger Cross Ski Space as not conducive to the national park ideal, however the Yosemite Park and Curry Firm insisted it was key to boosting winter use of the park.
In 1973, the Music Company of America, an leisure conglomerate, purchased the Yosemite Park and Curry Firm. The corporate already had a vacationer attraction working close to Hollywood, the place guests might pay to tour movie sets, however had not but modified its title to Common Studios or launched main theme parks in Florida and California. Its buy of the park’s concessions set off a firestorm of controversy over fears of turning Yosemite right into a theme park.
That didn’t occur, however annual park customer numbers climbed from 2.5 million to 3.8 million over the 20 years MCA ran the concessions, which sparked issues about improvement and overcrowding within the park. Conservationists argued the park service had allowed the company big to advertise and develop the park in ways in which threatened the very aspects of the park most people came to enjoy.
With three eating places, two service stations with a complete of 15 gasoline pumps, two cafeterias, two grocery shops, seven memento retailers, a delicatessen, a financial institution, a skating rink, three swimming swimming pools, a golf course, two tennis courts, kennels, a barbershop, a magnificence store, Badger Cross Ski Space and three lodges, the Yosemite Valley was a busy commercial district. Critics argued that such improvement contradicted the park service’s mandate to go away nationwide parks unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.
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Who owns the names?
Falling earnings and consolidation inside the music trade led MCA to promote its concessions rights in Yosemite in 1993. The Delaware North Corporations, a worldwide hospitality company, took over and ran the park’s concessions till 2016, when it offered the rights to Aramark.
However in that sale, the query of public assets and personal earnings arose once more. Delaware North demanded $51 million in compensation for Aramark persevering with to make use of the names of a number of historic properties inside the park, such because the Ahwahnee, a hotel, and Curry Village, one other group of customer lodging. The corporate claimed these names have been part of its belongings below its contract with the park service.
The park service rejected the declare, saying the names, which dated again greater than a century, belonged to the American individuals. However to keep away from authorized issues in the course of the transition, the agency temporarily renamed several sites, together with calling the Ahwahnee the Majestic Yosemite Resort and altering Curry Village to Half Dome Village. Public outrage erupted, denouncing the declare by Delaware North as commercial overreach that threatened to distort Yosemite’s heritage. In 2019, the park service and Aramark agreed to pay Delaware North a total of $12 million to settle the dispute, and the unique names have been restored.
Renewed curiosity in business efforts
In June 2025, Yosemite once more took middle stage within the dispute over the position of federal funding versus personal pursuits firstly of the second Trump administration when a gaggle of climbers unfurled an American flag upside down off El Capitan in protest of the administration’s cuts in personnel and slashing of the park service’s price range.
Conservationists, together with former Nationwide Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, argued that by defunding the park service and shedding as a lot as a quarter of its workforce, the Trump administration was “laying the groundwork to privatize” the national parks by permitting corporate interests more access to public lands. These issues echo ones raised in the course of the first Trump administration, when the White Home argued privatization would better serve the American public by bettering customer experiences and saving federal {dollars}.
Members of Congress and former park service officers say the reported effort in 2026 to show over park land to a non-public proprietor could be a major blow to federal efforts to protect parks and preserve land.
Whichever aspect prevails within the quick time period, the controversy over the position of personal pursuits inside nationwide parks like Yosemite will undoubtedly proceed.
This text comprises material previously published July 31, 2025.