On the evening of May 11, 1901, a small group met in Visalia for a very specific purpose. The conversation centered on the mountains of Tulare County and how they might be both made more accessible for recreational purposes and better managed. By the time the evening ended, the diners had formed a club. To be a member one needed to have climbed Mt. Whitney. Thirty-two charter members met the criteria, including five women.
Looking back today at the list of charter members, two names stand out: George W. Stewart and Ben Maddox. By this time, both men had been involved in the mountains for many years. Stewart had led the campaign to create both Sequoia National Park and the Sierra Forest Reserve (the ancestor of the Sierra’s modern national forests). Maddox, for his part, had politicked to get adequate government funding to manage and improve these reservations.
In many ways, the formation of the club was a logical next step in an ongoing effort by these Tulare County men to protect and market the scenic wonders of the southern Sierra. Their effort to improve conditions in the Tulare County mountains had started in July 1899, when Maddox organized a trip into the mountains for Congressman J. C. Needham, a resident of Modesto who held the seat for Central California. That trip began in Mineral King, visited Mt. Whitney, and ended at the Giant Forest.
Throughout the trip, Maddox showed Needham both the grandeur of the scenery and the appalling conditions along the trails. Needham got the message, and the following year the annual budget for the Department of the Interior included $10,000 for improvements at Sequoia National Park and another $2,500 for General Grant. These appropriations marked the beginning of annual funding to support facilities in the two parks.
The new club built on this success, seeking trail-building funds from Congress for the Sierra Forest Reserve and raising money locally from the Visalia Board of Trade, the Tulare County government, and interested Inyo County citizens. Early efforts included a trail north from Sequoia National Park via JO Pass to connect with the route into the Kings Canyon and improved trails to the Kern Canyon.
Not surprisingly, the club paid special attention to Mt. Whitney and worked closely with several partners to improve trails in the immediate vicinity of the peak. The summer of 1903 witnessed real progress there, with cavalry troops from Sequoia National Park opening up a trail over Army Pass and an Inyo County effort pushing a stock trail up the east side of the mountain to within half a mile of the summit.
For several years, the club grew and seemingly prospered. Each May, for three consecutive years, the organization published an annual edition of the Mt. Whitney Club Journal, a paperback book-length effort that strongly resembled the Sierra Club Bulletin. Today, these publications offer us a wealth of information about the southern Sierra at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The third annual issue of the Journal came out in the spring of 1904, but then the club’s trail goes cold. The Mt. Whitney Club simply disappears from the public record. A century later, it is not easy to figure out what happened. Neither Stewart nor Maddox left the region, and both continued to work on issues related to the mountains.
Judging from the individuals involved and the issues they pursued, it is possible that the club decided to merge its efforts into those of the Sierra Club, then a Bay-Area based organization with very similar interests and a membership that overlapped considerably with the Visalia club. The two clubs had gone together into the Kern Canyon the previous summer on what is remembered today as the third annual outing of the Sierra Club.
What we can say for sure is that for a few short years the Mt. Whitney Club played a critical role on laying out and building the recreational trails system of the southern Sierra. And for that, at least, they should be remembered.
© Wm. Tweed