History-rich Madera County ranch protected from development by nonprofit land trust
Since the gold mines dried up and automobiles replaced stagecoaches as the primary means of travel for Yosemite visitors, not much on Michael Wright’s Madera County ranch has changed.
Now, thanks to a conservation easement with the Sierra Foothill Conservancy, Wright can rest assured not much will ever change. His family’s 1,729 acres of oak woodlands, chaparral, grasslands and riparian corridor roughly 10 miles west of Oakhurst will continue to be used for cattle grazing while protected from development forever.
Which is exactly what Wright’s father and grandfather, who started running cattle on the property nearly 100 years ago, would’ve wanted.
“I looked at it and said, ‘This is nice land. I’d like to pass it to my kids, and I’d like to keep it as it is,’ ” Wright said during a recent tour. “I reserved three sites for three houses, but short of that this land will never have any development on it.”
The Wright Ranch conservation easement is the latest acquisition of the Sierra Foothill Conservancy, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit land trust dedicated to preserving open space areas between Yosemite and Kings Canyon national parks. Now in its 26th year, the SFC manages 52,495 acres between the 11 preserves it owns and conservation easements where the property owner retains many of their rights.
Few of those acres — if any — are more rich in local history than Wright Ranch.
At the western edge of the property, a flat open area along Road 600, there once stood the “very lively mining town” of Grub Gulch, which featured two two-story hotels, five saloons, a general store, post office and school. Between 800 and 5,000 people lived here, depending on which historical account you believe.
Today, all that remains of Grub Gulch is a historical plaque and, atop a nearby hill, an overgrown cemetery with lichen-covered headstones. The structures themselves either burned down or were dismantled long ago. But if you examine the ground closely, it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to find hand-forged nails and small fragments of brown, green and blue glass.
Actual gold-mining remnants, along with a Native American settlement, are located down the hill from Grub Gulch near the banks of the Fresno River. Here sits the heavy iron wheel (with cams and hammers still attached) of an old stamp mill, a machine that crushed the quartz ore from which gold was chemically extracted.
On a nearby hillside, two segments of metal penstock pipes lay broken. More broken penstock segments, along with a large nozzle, can be seen at the bottom of a 12-foot-deep pit near the stamp mill. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture water traveling down the slope inside those penstocks and shooting out the nozzle with enough force to turn the wheel and power the mill.
I would’ve loved to have been there to see it.
From gold mining to Yosemite tourism
Hard-rock gold mining near Grub Gulch reached its peak in the 1880s and early 1890s. By this point a new industry had arrived: Yosemite tourism.
To service the Wawona Hotel, a passenger railway line was built as far as Raymond. The rest of the journey was made by stagecoach. Grub Gulch was one of several rest stops where tired horses were exchanged for a fresh team. In May 1903 the town received its most famous visitors: President Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir, who were en route to Yosemite Valley for their historic camping trip.
By then, though, Grub Gulch was already in decline as gold ore strikes petered out. The 1908 opening of the Yosemite Valley Railroad, and later Highway 140, put the final nails in the coffin.
“Once gold mining stopped, people left,” Wright said. “The town was falling down.”
Wright’s grandfather, Lindsay R. Wright, a cattleman and rancher, began with an original land purchase of 320 acres in 1916 and grew his holdings from there. While Michael Wright no longer owns cattle, he continues to lease the property for grazing. That fits neatly into the Sierra Foothill Conservancy’s core mission of protecting natural and cultural resources. The nonprofit land trust, which also has a grazing program, financed the easement through grants from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and California Department of Conservation.
“The property is still owned by the Wright family, but we ensure it’s properly managed so that future generations can appreciate it and Mike’s family and beyond will know it remains in its beautiful state forever,” said Allyson Brooks, SFC’s community engagement program manager.
Besides conserving land, SFC also offers numerous guided hikes and a variety of field classes, mostly in the spring and fall. March’s annual open house at the 2,960-acre McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve, visible from Auberry Road north of Fresno and Clovis, drew 500 visitors. Check sierrafoothill.org for a schedule of upcoming events, or look the group up on Instagram and Facebook.
Good people doing important work.
