Great Sierra Wagon Road

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 Great Sierra Wagon Road was a route through the Sierra Nevada in California, built to bring supplies to the Great Sierra Mine on Tioga Hill in the high country of what was to become Yosemite National Park. The road was built in 1882 by the Great Sierra Silver Mining Company, extending over 56.25 miles (90.53 km), in 130 days.”
Wikipedia article Great Sierra Wagon Road, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 32 National Register listings published here for Tuolumne County · listed in 1978 · category: Structure.

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

The listing

Address. N of Yosemite Village, Yosemite Valley
When was it listed? August 1978
Category. structure
Census division. Twain Harte-Tuolumne City
National Register reference number. 78000373 - 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 1997

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 100 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Great Sierra Wagon Road, surveyed 1997

Topographic sheet covering Great Sierra Wagon Road, surveyed 1897

Fires near this property

120 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 120 fires within 5 miles of Great Sierra Wagon Road between 1992 and 2020, burning about 19,604 acres in total. 112 started naturally. None was 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	112
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Recreation and ceremony	3
Debris and open burning	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 1998	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	GULCH
5 September 2007	Natural	121 acres	Yosemite National Park	BALD SUPPRESSION
30 September 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	133 acres	Yosemite National Park	HARDEN
29 September 1997	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	ASPEN WEST
27 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	VIKING
27 September 2005	Natural	84 acres	Yosemite National Park	HARDEN
27 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	HUFF
25 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	WALKER

Every fire recorded in Tuolumne County

Maps showing this location

13 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, 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 Hetch Hetchy Reservoir 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 Tamarack Flat quadrangle1:24000
1992 USGS Tamarack Flat quadrangle1:24000
1997 USGS Tamarack Flat quadrangle1:24000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000373 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Tuolumne County	All 32 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.