Page:Big Oak Flat Road (HAER No. CA-147) written historical and descriptive data.pdf/9

 marked the spot with this name. However, this name was reappropriated with better justification by the Washburn group to identify the major viewpoint on their Wawona Road [HAER No. CA-148) in 1875, and the vista on the Big Oak Flat Road is now known as "Rainbow View" after the rainbow sometimes formed in the mists of Bridalveil Fall directly across the Valley.

As an added inducement to travelers, the backers of the turnpike in 1878 induced David and James Lumsden to bore a hole through a massive dead tree in the Tuolumne Big Tree Grove. A large part of the slab, said to weigh one-half ton, was taken to Priest's Hotel west of the park as an attraction. Other chips from the tree can be seen in the ravine below the road. The "Dead Giant" is the only one of the park's tunnel trees which may still be driven through and remains one of Yosemite's more popular semi-natural curiosities.

Title to the Yosemite Turnpike Road Company was acquired by James M. Hutchings in 1878, who on 3 June 1879 conveyed it to the "Big Oak Flat and Yosemite Turnpike Company." By this point, the road was outstripping the Coulterville Road, and carried twice as many passengers. (However, the Wawona Road, which opened in 1875, soon began carrying more passengers than either of the routes north of the Merced). Unlike the Coulterville Road, the Big Oak Flat Road provided a modest return on its owners' investments. Many of the stockholders also had interests in the Yosemite Transportation Company, the stage company which utilized the line. The road company devoted considerable resources to maintenance. In early years, the unemployed of Big Oak Flat, Groveland and Coulterville were hired to clear the road of snow in the spring.

In 1880, the Yosemite Board of Commissioners asked the state legislature to purchase the roads within the boundaries of the Yosemite Grant, thereby freeing visitors from the onerous tolls. An appropriation was made 3 March 1885, and the following year the cliff-side section of the Big Oak Flat Road, the only portion lying within the Grant, was purchased for $3,500. [This, incidentally, was probably the most costly section of road to maintain in the entire Yosemite area.] However, when Yosemite National Park was created five years later, only the lower 4.37 miles of the route was a free road; the Big Oak Flat and Yosemite Turnpike Company retained ownership of the section between Gentry's and the park boundary and continued to collect tolls.

Traffic over the Big Oak Flat Road was boosted in 1897 when the Sierra Railway built a new line from Oakdale to Chinese Camp Station, reducing the stagecoach portion of the road to 60 miles.

In 1899, Secretary of War Russell A. Alger appointed a commission to investigate the park road situation. The commission took depositions from the various owners of the roads. W. C. Priest, president of the Big Oak Flat and Yosemite Turnpike Company, reported on the Big Oak Flat Road. He listed the length of the Big Oak Flat Road within the park as 19.03 miles; an additional 4.37-mile section within the boundaries of the Yosemite Grant had been built but had since been purchased by the state. The route was open from about 15 May till 1 November, and stage traffic was conducted over the road from