Q 01/05

Yosemite National Park is in which U.S. state?

A) Nevada

B) California

C) Oregon

D) Colorado

Answer · why

B) California

Yosemite National Park lies in California, spread across four counties in the central Sierra Nevada, roughly 140 miles east of San Francisco.

Q 02/05

Which president signed the 1864 Yosemite Grant, the first US land set aside for preservation?

A) Ulysses S. Grant

B) Abraham Lincoln

C) Andrew Johnson

D) James Buchanan

Answer · why

B) Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant on June 30, 1864, in the middle of the Civil War; it set the precedent for Yellowstone in 1872.

Q 03/05

Under the 1864 grant, the valley and the big sequoia grove were handed to whom to manage as a park?

A) The U.S. Army

B) The Sierra Club

C) The State of California

D) The Central Pacific Railroad

Answer · why

C) The State of California

The State of California ran the valley and the sequoia grove as a state park until 1906, when Congress and the president accepted them back into feder...

Q 04/05

In what year did Congress create Yosemite National Park after a naturalist's campaign?

A) 1890

B) 1899

C) 1906

D) 1916

Answer · why

A) 1890

Congress passed the act creating Yosemite National Park on October 1, 1890, protecting the high country surrounding the state-run valley grant.

Q 05/05

Which Scottish-born naturalist led the campaign for the 1890 park and co-founded the Sierra Club?

A) John Muir

B) Galen Clark

C) Ansel Adams

D) Frederick Law Olmsted

Answer · why

A) John Muir

John Muir, born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838, co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892 and argued that glaciers, not a catastrophic collapse of the floor, c...