Merced Grove Ranger Station

Built in 1935 (rustic architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. 14 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1897.

From the record

“The Merced Grove Ranger Station in Yosemite National Park was designed by the National Park Service and completed in 1935. The station is located near the Merced Grove of giant sequoias in the Crane Flat region of the park.”
Wikipedia article Merced Grove Ranger Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 44 National Register listings published here for Mariposa County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · built in 1935, rustic architecture, by National Park Service.

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 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. N of El Portal in Yosemite National Park, El Portal, 95389
When was it listed? June 1978
Category. building
Census division. Yosemite Valley
When was it built? 1935
Architectural style. rustic architecture
Architect. National Park Service
National Register reference number. 78000358 - 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.

Then and now

1897 to 2004

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 107 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Merced Grove Ranger Station, surveyed 2004

Topographic sheet covering Merced Grove Ranger Station, surveyed 1897

Fires near this property

116 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 116 fires within 5 miles of Merced Grove Ranger Station between 1992 and 2019, burning about 279 acres in total. 70 started naturally. 3 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
Natural	70
Recreation and ceremony	13
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	12
Equipment and vehicle use	9
Smoking	4
Arson/incendiarism	3
Debris and open burning	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
5 September 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	CENTURY
5 September 2004	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	LOOP 300
5 September 2004	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	LOG
27 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	PW3
26 September 2007	Natural	1.0 acres	Stanislaus National Forest	CROCKER
25 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Stanislaus National Forest	TRUMBULL
25 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Stanislaus National Forest	NEDS
25 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	BUCK

Every fire recorded in Mariposa County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 26 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 26 workings within 5 miles of Merced Grove Ranger Station: 20 occurrences, 3 producers, 3 past producers. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Tungsten, Gold, Stone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Grizzly Quarry	Stone	Producer
Big Bonanza	Gold	Occurrence
Deer Flat Group	Gold	Occurrence
New Discovery	Gold	Occurrence
New Discovery, Buzzard, Dreadnaught, Star King	Gold	Occurrence
P and L	Gold	Past Producer
Pine Grove	Gold	Past Producer
Rush Creek Consolidated	Gold	Occurrence
Unknown	Gold	Occurrence
Unknown	Gold	Occurrence

Every working 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

14 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 El Portal quadrangle1:62500 - 4 printings
1947 USGS El Portal quadrangle1:24000 - 6 printings
1947 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1948 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000
1949 USGS El Portal quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1957 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000 - 4 printings
1963 USGS Mariposa quadrangle1:250000
1976 USGS Yosemite Valley quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1992 USGS El Portal quadrangle1:24000
2004 USGS El Portal 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
Crane Flat Fire Lookout	1.3 miles	1996
McCauley and Meyer Barns	5.7 miles	1978
El Portal Old Schoolhouse	5.8 miles	2011
Hetch Hetchy Railroad Engine No.6	6.1 miles	1978
Track Bus No. 19	6.1 miles	1978
Yosemite Valley Railroad Caboose No. 15	6.1 miles	1978

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000358 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.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.