Mariposa Grove 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

“Mariposa Grove Museum is an historic log cabin in the Mariposa Grove of Yosemite National Park. Galen Clark, the first guardian of the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grant, built the first cabin on approximately the same site in May 1864 as an office and information center for visitors.”
Wikipedia article Mariposa Grove 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 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. SE of Wawona in Yosemite National Park, Wawona
When was it listed? December 1978
Category. building
Census division. Yosemite Valley
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
National Register reference number. 78000381 - 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

174 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 174 fires within 5 miles of Mariposa Grove Museum between 1992 and 2020, burning about 8,502 acres in total. 59 started naturally. 2 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	59
Recreation and ceremony	49
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	24
Smoking	12
Debris and open burning	8
Equipment and vehicle use	7
Power generation/transmission/distribution	6
Other causes	6
Arson/incendiarism	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
8 September 1993	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sierra National Forest	DOME
7 September 1993	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sierra National Forest	BUFFIN
3 September 2011	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Yosemite National Park	CHILNUALNA
28 September 2008	Recreation and ceremony	3.3 acres	Sierra National Forest	LAUREL
26 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sierra National Forest	FRESNO
26 September 2001	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sierra National Forest	RAYMOND
25 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Sierra National Forest	TENAYA
25 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Sierra National Forest	SUMMER

Every fire recorded in Mariposa County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 24 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 24 workings within 5 miles of Mariposa Grove Museum: 10 prospects, 5 past producers, 4 occurrences, 4 unknowns. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Copper, Gold, Iron, Zinc. 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	Recorded
Beechnut Claim	Magnesite	Producer
Beechnut Claim	Manganese	Prospect
Indian Camp	Sand and Gravel, Construction, Tungsten	Prospect
Mt. Raymond Mines	Copper, Lead, Zinc, Silver	Prospect
S.P. Group	Zinc, Lead	Prospect
Webber	Silver, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Gold	Prospect
Biladeau	Copper, Zinc, Lead	Past Producer	Chalcopyrite, Galena, Magnetite, Pyrite, Sphalerite
S.P. Group	Lead, Zinc, Copper	Past Producer	Vein
Scandia	Copper, Zinc, Lead	Unknown
Star	Lead, Zinc, Copper	Past Producer	Chalcopyrite, Galena, Magnetite, Pyrite, Sphalerite

Every working recorded in Mariposa County

Storms near this property

6 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Wawona, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2005 and 2014: 6 heavy rain. 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
December 2014	Heavy Rain	Wawona	-	Mesonet station Yosemite at Wawona /YWAC1/ rainfall 1.78 inches.
November 2012	Heavy Rain	North Wawona	-	Twenty four hour rainfall total at Wawona was 3.98 inches.
November 2012	Heavy Rain	North Wawona	-	Twenty four hour rainfall total at Wawona was 4.56 inches.
November 2012	Heavy Rain	North Wawona	-	Twenty four hour rainfall total at Wawona was 3.06 inches.
October 2009	Heavy Rain	North Wawona	-	The RAWS weather station at Wawona measured 7.84 inches 24 hour rainfall.
August 2005	Heavy Rain	Wawona	-	A thunderstorm cell near Wawona in Mariposa County produced an estimated 2 to 2.5 inches of rain in an hour on the afternoon of the 16th.

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 Mariposa Grove quadrangle1:24000
1992 USGS Mariposa Grove quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
2004 USGS Mariposa Grove 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
Wawona Hotel and Pavilion	3.4 miles	1975
Wawona Covered Bridge	3.5 miles	2007
Yosemite Transportation Company Office	3.5 miles	1978
Acting Superintendent's Headquarters	3.5 miles	1978
Chris Jorgenson Studio	3.6 miles	1979
Hodgdon Homestead Cabin	3.6 miles	1978

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000381 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.