Glacier Point Trailside Museum

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. 13 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1897.

From the record

“The Glacier Point Trailside Museum was one of the first projects in Yosemite National Park by Herbert Maier in what would become the National Park Service Rustic style. Located at Glacier Point, it was funded by Laura Spelman Rockefeller's estate as a project for the Yosemite Museum.”
Wikipedia article Glacier Point Trailside Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 44 National Register listings published here for Mariposa County · listed in 1978 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. E of El Portal in Yosemite National Park, El Portal
When was it listed? April 1978
Category. building
Census division. Yosemite Valley
Architectural style. rustic architecture
Architect. Herbert Maier
National Register reference number. 78000357 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

367 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 367 fires within 5 miles of Glacier Point Trailside Museum between 1992 and 2020, burning about 7,242 acres in total. 84 started naturally. 8 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Recreation and ceremony	143
Natural	84
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	78
Smoking	37
Arson/incendiarism	8
Debris and open burning	7
Equipment and vehicle use	6
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Other causes	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2007	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	STOCK TRAIL
9 September 1995	Smoking	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	MALL
9 September 1992	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	INDIAN
8 September 1995	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	SUNRISE
7 September 2015	Natural	415 acres	Yosemite National Park	TENAYA
7 September 2012	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	FALLS
6 September 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	TAFT
6 September 2001	Smoking	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	TERRACE

Every fire recorded in Mariposa County

Storms near this property

7 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names El Portal, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 1999 and 2023: 3 flood, 1 lightning, 1 wildfire, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2003	Wildfire	El Portal	$1,280,000	The Woodlot Fire inside Yosemite National Park burned 458 acres. The cause is unknown but no structures or fatalities occurred.
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	El Portal	$20,000	no account filed
January 2023	Flood	El Portal	-	Mariposa County Emergency Manager reported debris flow flooding captured in a gabion about 750 feet above El Portal at the west end of Yosemite National Park which threatened nearly all of the residences and buildings in El Portal and prompted the issuance of an evacuation advisory for the area. A Flood Watch had been in effect and several Flood Advisories had been issued for the Sierra Nevada during the day and evening on January 9.
December 2022	Flood	El Portal	-	California Highway Patrol reported SR 140 entrance to Yosemite closed due to a rockfall 3 miles east of the tollbooths.
November 2018	Debris Flow	El Portal	-	California Highway Patrol reported water and rocks covering State Route 140 near El Portal in the Ferguson Fire burn area.
January 2017	Flood	El Portal	-	California Highway Patrol reported large boulders blocking westbound lane of Highway 140 near El Portel just west of Yosemite National Park entrance.
September 1999	Lightning	El Portal	-	Two (2) lightning strikes observed by OES Fire official in the vicinity of Crane Flat, NNW of El Portal, in the mid to late afternoon hours. Both strikes produced small fires but were controlled. No reported damage other than fire suppression.

Every storm recorded in Mariposa County

Maps showing this location

13 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1897 USGS Yosemite quadrangle1:125000
1900 USGS Yosemite quadrangle1:125000
1903 USGS Yosemite quadrangle1:125000 - 2 printings
1909 USGS Yosemite quadrangle1:125000 - 7 printings
1947 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1948 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000
1956 USGS Yosemite quadrangle1:62500 - 4 printings
1957 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000 - 4 printings
1963 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000
1976 USGS Yosemite Valley quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1990 USGS Half Dome quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1992 USGS Half Dome quadrangle1:24000
1997 USGS Half Dome quadrangle1:24000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
LeConte Memorial Lodge	0.7 miles	1977
Camp Curry Historic District	0.9 miles	1979
Ahwahnee Hotel	1.1 miles	1977
Yosemite Valley Chapel	1.2 miles	1973
Degnan's Restaurant	1.4 miles	2017
Yosemite Valley	1.4 miles	2006

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000357 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Mariposa County	All 44 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.