L. W. Currey, Inc.

YOSEMITE STAGE AND TURNPIKE COMPANY. Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Trees via Berenda, Raymond and Wawona. The shortest and best equipped route. Easy stages. A. S. Mann, ticket agent. A. H. Washburn, general superintendent. Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Company, 613 Market Street, San Francisco, Cal. [cover title]. S[an] F[rancisco]: Robt. R. Hill, Printer, 22 Geary St., n.d. [circa 1890s]. 16.3x8.5 cm, pp. [1-16] (not paginated), 8 illustrations (including those on covers), pictorial self wrappers, stapled. First edition. Promotional brochure, issued circa between 1893 and 1897, describing the scenic attractions of the Yosemite region. The Yosemite Stage & Turnpike Co. was incorporated on November 1, 1877. Albert Henry Washburn, founder and largest stockholder, was made superintendent. The company maintained a livery business in addition to the freight, express, and passenger stage line from Merced to Big Tree Station (later Wawona), Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point, Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, and Madera. It was an extensive operation with a peak of 600 to 700 horses, and twenty-five stages, plus numerous freight wagons, water carts, buggies, and other conveyances. Stables were maintained at all ten or twelve stage stops, plus Raymond and Yosemite Valley. For an account of Yosemite's "Transportation King," see Shirley Sargent, Yosemite's Historic Wawona (Yosemite, California: Flying Spur Press, [1979]). Currey and Kruska 405. A very good copy. (#166819).