Hetch Hetchy Valley

• once a deep, flat-bottomed valley of lush meadows with stands of oak and pine.
• The Tuolumne river flows into Hetch Hetchy.
• visited by the Awahneechee and Paiute Natives in order to gather acorns & grind them in the bedrock mortars.
• very similar to Yosemite Valley – rock formations, waterfalls, etc.
• valley's name comes from a Native American , "Atch Atchie"
• 1840's- Nate or Joe Screech (Depending on who you ask/ the source you read) encountered/viewed the Hetch Hetchy Valley, and was unable to get down to the valley floor
• Several years later, Screech and company made it into the valley, using it for grazing land.
• 1871 - John Muir first visits Hetch Hetchy
• 1873 - John Muir writes in Overland Monthly of the beauty of Hetch Hetchy Valley.
• 1882 - City of San Francisco begins searching for cheap, plentiful water to serve its growing population, and begins to consider Hetch Hetchy Valley as the location of a reservoir.
• 1890 - Yosemite National Park is established, including Yosemite Valley's less famous cousin, Hetch Hetchy.
• 1890 - San Francisco Mayor James Phelan first proposed damming the valley to create a reservoir for San Francisco.
• 1903 - Mayor Phelan applied to the Interior Department for rights to Hetch Hetchy's water. Secretary of the Interior Ethan Hitchcok denied the request.
• 1904 - First of many Sierra Club "High Trips" to include Hetch Hetchy Valley.
• 1905 - Mayor Phelan again applies for water rights to Hetch Hetchy, and the permit is once again denied. John Muir and William E. Colby launch 8 - year campaign to prevent Hetch Hetchy from being dammed for a reservoir.
• 1906 - The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire gives new impetus to the idea of enlarging the city's water supply.
• 1907 - Sierra Club submits a resolution fo the Secretary of the Interior opposing damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley.
• 1908 - Muir writes in the Sierra Club Bulletin that to dam Hetchy Hetchy one "may as well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man." Nonetheless, the City's permit was approved by the Interior Department. Eighty-six percent of the voters in San Francisco authorize the Hetch Hetchy project and to provide $600,000 to purchase the "lands, rights, and claims" of Hetchy Hetchy.
• 1909 - President Taft visits Yosemite - Muir and Taft see "eye-to-eye" (agree) along with Department of the Interior Secretary Richard Ballinger. The Taft administration took office, new Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger suspended the Interior Department's approval for the Hetch Hetchy right-of-way.
• 1910 - Poll of Sierra Club members votes 589 - 161 (79%) in support the Club's position on Hetch Hetchy
• 1912 - Woodrow Wilson is elected President, and appoints former San Francisco City Attorney Franklin Lane as Secretary of the Interior.
• 1913 - Congressman John E. Raker, with the aid of others, pushed a bill through Congress -  the Ranker Act, allowing flooding of Hetch Hetchy Valley, but stipulating that the city could not sell water or power for resale. President Woodrow Wilson signs the bill on December 19.
• 1914 - Last Sierra Club outing to Hetchy Hetchy Valley. John Muir dies on December 24.
• 1923 - Construction of O'Shaughnessy Dam (after chief engineer M. M. O'Shaughnessy) completed, at a cost of $100 million and the lives of 67 men and one woman, 390,000 cubic yards of concrete used,and  6 million board feet of limber used. (wood did come from the park).
• 1934 - The project transports water 160 miles by gravity alone to customers in San Francisco and 32 other Bay Area communities.
• 1924 - San Francisco voters approve a bond proposition for $10 million to pay for a series of tunnels that would deliver water through the Sierra and Coast Range mountains.
• 1928 - San Francisco voters approve $24 million in bonds to help further the Hetch Hetchy Dam Project.
• 1938 - The O'Shaughnessy Dam is raised to its current 430-foot height providing a final reservoir area of 1972 acres with a volume of over 117 billion gallons.
• 1947 - San Francisco voters approve $25 million for a second pipeline for the system. 1870- John Muir first encountered Hetch Hetchy
• Which valley was lost? Which valley was saved.