1.
California State Capitol
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The California State Capitol is home to the government of California. The building houses the state legislature and the office of the governor. The building is based on the U. S. Capitol building in Washington, the west facade ends in projecting bays, and a portico projects from the center of the building. At the base of the portico, seven granite archways brace, eight fluted Corinthian columns line the portico. A cornice supports the pediment above depicting Minerva surrounded by Education, Justice, Industry, above the flat roof with balustrade are two drums supporting a dome. The first drum consists of a colonnade of Corinthian columns, the second, large arched windows line the drum walls. The dome is 64 m high, and supports a lantern with a dome capped with a gold-leafed orbed finial. The California Senate chamber seats its forty members in a chamber room decorated in red. The chamber is entered through a second floor corridor, from the coffered ceiling hangs an electric reproduction of the original gas chandelier. A hand-carved dais caps off a recessed bay framed by Corinthian columns, the Latin phrase Senatoris est civitatis libertatem tueri lines the cornice. A portrait of George Washington by Jane Stuart, the daughter of Gilbert Stuart, is on the wall above, statues of the Roman goddess Minerva once overlooked both chambers. Today, Minerva, sculpted by Michael H. Casey, appears only in the senate chambers, gilded Corinthian columns support the gallery above, and dark red curtains that can be drawn for privacy are tied back along the columns. High arched windows run along the bottom below rectangular pane windows, behind the rostrum, there are two chairs with red velvet cushions, reserved for the president pro tempore of the senate and the speaker of the assembly, but are never used. The California Assembly chamber is located at the end of the building. Its green tones are based on those of the British House of Commons, the dais rests along a wall shaped like an E, with the central projection housing the rostrum. Along the cornice appears a quotation from Abraham Lincoln in Latin, almost every decorating element is identical to the Senate Chamber
2.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
3.
John D. Sloat
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John Drake Sloat was a commodore in the United States Navy who, in 1846, claimed California for the United States. Sloat was brought up by his maternal grandparents, Sloat then commanded the schooner Grampus during which he fought the Action of 2 March 1825 against the pirate ship of Roberto Cofresí. He later served on the ships Franklin and Washington, and from 1828 commanded the sloop St. Louis with the rank of master commandant and he was promoted to captain in 1837, and from 1840 to 1844 was in charge of the Portsmouth Navy Yard. He was a Military Governor of California for only twenty-two days and he retired with the rank of Captain in December 1861, and was promoted to Rear Admiral on the retired list in July 1866. Sloat was a Freemason, and belonged to St. Nicholas lodge No.321 in New York City and he died in New Brighton, New York, and was buried in Brooklyns Green-Wood Cemetery. Two destroyers have been named USS Sloat in his honor as well as a World War II Liberty ship, a major street, Sloat Boulevard, and Commodore Sloat elementary school, both in San Francisco, are named after him. Local streets in Monterey, California, Sacramento, California, there is a large monument erected in his honor on the Presidio of Monterey U. S. Army post. An elementary school in Sacramento is also named for him and his home town in New York was also named Sloatsburg, after his grandfather Stephen and his family. Castleman,2016, State University of New York Press Proclamation to the Inhabitants of California and this article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here
4.
Spanish missions in California
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The missions were part of a major effort by the Spanish Empire to extend colonization into the most northern and western parts of Spains North American claims. Following a long-term secular and religious policy of Spain in Latin America, Mexico achieved independence in 1821, taking Alta California along with it, but the missions maintained authority over native neophytes and control of vast land holdings until the 1830s. At the peak of its development in 1832, the mission system controlled an area equal to approximately one-sixth of Alta California. The Alta California government secularized the missions after the passage of the Mexican secularization act of 1833 and this divided the mission lands into land grants, which became many of the Ranchos of California. In the end, the missions had mixed results in their objectives, to convert, educate, today, the surviving mission buildings are the states oldest structures, and its most-visited historic monuments. Prior to 1754, grants of lands were made directly by the Spanish Crown. The missions were to be interconnected by a route which later became known as the Camino Real. The detailed planning and direction of the missions was to be carried out by Friar Junípero Serra, work on the coastal mission chain was concluded in 1823, completed after Serras death in 1784. Plans to build a mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 were canceled. The Santa Ysabel Asistencia had been founded in 1818 as a mother mission, in addition to the presidio and pueblo, the misión was one of the three major agencies employed by the Spanish sovereign to extend its borders and consolidate its colonial territories. Each frontier station was forced to be self-supporting, as existing means of supply were inadequate to maintain a colony of any size. California was months away from the nearest base in colonized Mexico, to sustain a mission, the padres required converted Native Americans, called neophytes, to cultivate crops and tend livestock in the volume needed to support a fair-sized establishment. The scarcity of imported materials, together with a lack of skilled laborers, compelled the missionaries to employ simple building materials, although the missions were considered temporary ventures by the Spanish hierarchy, the development of an individual settlement was not simply a matter of priestly whim. The padres blessed the site, and with the aid of their military escort fashioned temporary shelters out of tree limbs or driven stakes and it was these simple huts that ultimately gave way to the stone and adobe buildings that exist to the present. The first priority when beginning a settlement was the location and construction of the church, once the spot for the church had been selected, its position was marked and the remainder of the mission complex was laid out. The cuadrángulo was rarely a perfect square because the missionaries had no surveying instruments at their disposal and it was a doctrine established in 1531, which based the Spanish states right over the land and persons of the Indies on the Papal charge to evangelize them. It was employed wherever the indigenous populations were not already concentrated in native pueblos, the civilized and disciplined culture of the natives, developed over 8,000 year, was not considered. A total of 146 Friars Minor, mostly Spaniards by birth, were ordained as priests, sixty-seven missionaries died at their posts, while the remainder returned to Europe due to illness, or upon completing their ten-year service commitment
5.
Cecil B. DeMille
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Cecil Blount DeMille was an American filmmaker. Between 1913 and 1956, he made a total of 70 features and he is acknowledged as a founding father of the cinema of the United States and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. His films were distinguished by their scale and by his cinematic showmanship. He made silent films of every genre, social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, DeMille began his career as a stage actor in 1900. He later moved to writing and directing stage productions, some with Jesse Lasky, DeMilles first film, The Squaw Man, was also the first feature film shot in Hollywood. Its interracial love story made it a hit and it put Hollywood on the map. The continued success of his productions led to the founding of Paramount Pictures with Lasky and his first biblical epic, The Ten Commandments, was both a critical and financial success, it held the Paramount revenue record for twenty-five years. In 1927 he directed The King of Kings, a biography of Jesus of Nazareth, the Sign of the Cross was the first sound film to integrate all aspects of cinematic technique. Cleopatra was his first film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, after more than thirty years in film production, DeMille reached the pinnacle of his career with Samson and Delilah, a biblical epic which did an all-time record business. Along with biblical and historical narratives, he directed films oriented toward neo-naturalism. He went on to receive his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director for his circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth and his last and most famous film, The Ten Commandments, is currently the sixth-highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. He was also the first recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B, DeMille Award, which was later named in his honor. There are several variants of DeMilles surname and his familys Dutch surname was originally spelled de Mil and then became de Mille. As an adult, he adopted the spelling DeMille for professional purposes, the family name de Mille was used by his children Cecilia, John, Richard, and Katherine. DeMilles brother William and his daughters, Margaret and Agnes, as well as DeMilles granddaughter, Cecilia de Mille Presley, Cecil Blount DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, while his parents were vacationing there, and grew up in Washington, North Carolina. His father, Henry Churchill de Mille, was a North Carolina-born dramatist and lay reader in the Episcopal Church and his mother was Matilda Beatrice DeMille, whose parents were both of German Jewish heritage. She emigrated from England with her parents in 1871 when she was 18, Beatrice grew up in a middle-class English household. DeMilles mother was related to British politician Herbert Louis Samuel, DeMilles parents met as members of a music and literary society in New York
6.
Silicon Valley
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Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the northern part of the U. S. state of California. The valley in its name refers to the Santa Clara Valley in Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and surrounding cities and towns, where the region has been traditionally centered. The region has expanded to include the half of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County. It was in the Valley that the integrated circuit, the microprocessor. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of an information technology workers. The term is now used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The first published use of Silicon Valley is credited to Don Hoefler, hostler used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News. The series, entitled Silicon Valley in the USA, began in the papers January 11,1971, the term gained widespread use in the early 1980s, at the time of the introduction of the IBM PC and numerous related hardware and software products to the consumer market. The silicon part of the name refers to the concentration of companies involved in the making of semiconductors. These firms slowly replaced the orchards and the fruits which gave the area its initial nickname — the Valley of Hearts Delight, Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valleys early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success, the ship had been outfitted with a wireless telegraph transmitter by a local newspaper, so that they could prepare a celebration on the return of the American sailors. Local historian Clyde Arbuckle states in Clyde Arbuckles History of San Jose that California first heard the click of a key on September 11,1853. It marked completion of an enterprise begun by a couple of San Francisco Merchants Exchange members named George Sweeney and it was known as the Inner Station, the second, as the Outer Station. Both used their primitive mode of communication until Messrs, Sweeney and Baugh connected the Outer Station directly with the Merchantss Exchange by electric telegraph Wire. According to Arbuckle Sweeney and Baughs line was strictly an intra-city, San Francisco-based service, allen and C. Burnham led the way to build a line from San Francisco to Marysville via San Jose, Stockton, and Sacramento. Delays to construction occurred until September 1853, but, …San Jose became the first station on the line when the wire arrived here on October 15, the line was completed when Gambles northbound crew met a similar crew working southward from Marysville on October 24. The Bay Area had long been a site of United States Navy research. In 1909, Charles Herrold started the first radio station in the United States with regularly scheduled programming in San Jose
7.
Golden Gate Bridge
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The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate strait, the one-mile-wide, one-point-seven-mile-long channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and it has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Frommers travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed and it opened in 1937 and was, until 1964, the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet. Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. A ferry service began as early as 1820, with a scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for the purpose of transporting water to San Francisco. Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacifics automobile ferries became very profitable, the trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building took 27 minutes. Many wanted to build a bridge to connect San Francisco to Marin County, San Francisco was the largest American city still served primarily by ferry boats. Because it did not have a permanent link with communities around the bay, experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and operation. San Franciscos City Engineer estimated the cost at $100 million, which would have been $2.12 billion in 2009 and he asked bridge engineers whether it could be built for less. One who responded, Joseph Strauss, was an engineer and poet who had, for his graduate thesis. At the time, Strauss had completed some 400 drawbridges—most of which were inland—and nothing on the scale of the new project. Strausss initial drawings were for a massive cantilever on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment, Local authorities agreed to proceed only on the assurance that Strauss would alter the design and accept input from several consulting project experts. A suspension-bridge design was considered the most practical, because of recent advances in metallurgy, Strauss spent more than a decade drumming up support in Northern California. The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources, the Department of War was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic. The navy feared that a collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs, in May 1924, Colonel Herbert Deakyne held the second hearing on the Bridge on behalf of the Secretary of War in a request to use federal land for construction. Another ally was the automobile industry, which supported the development of roads. The bridges name was first used when the project was discussed in 1917 by M. M
8.
James W. Marshall
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The mill property was owned by Johan Sutter who employed Marshall to build his mill. The wave of gold seekers turned everyones attention away from the mill eventually fell into disrepair and was never used as intended. Neither Marshall nor Sutter ever profited from the gold find, James Wilson Marshall, of English descent, was born to Philip Marshall and Sarah Wilson at the family homestead in Hopewell Township, New Jersey on October 8,1810. The family homestead was known as the Round Mountain Farm and is known as Marshalls Corner. He was the oldest of four children, and the only male, in 1816, the Marshall family relocated to nearby Lambertville, where Philip constructed a house on approximately five acres of land. James left New Jersey in 1834 and headed west, after spending time in Indiana and Illinois, he settled in Missouri in 1844, and began farming along the Missouri River. It was there that he contracted malaria, an affliction in the area. On the advice of his doctor, Marshall left Missouri in the hopes of improving his health and he joined an emigrant train heading west and arrived in Oregons Willamette Valley in the spring of 1845. He left Oregon in June 1845 and headed south along the Siskiyou Trail into California, eventually reaching Sutters Fort, the founder of Sutters Fort, an agricultural settlement. Sutter was also the alcalde of the area, as California was still a Mexican possession in 1845, Sutter hired Marshall to assist with work at the sawmill, and around the fort. He also helped Marshall to buy two leagues of land on the side of Butte Creek and provided him with cattle. It was here that Marshall began his stint as a farmer. Soon after this, the Mexican-American War began in May 1846, Marshall volunteered and served under Captain John C. Frémonts California Battalion during the Bear Flag Revolt, when he left the battalion and returned to his ranch in early 1847, he found that all his cattle had either strayed or been stolen. With his sole source of income gone, Marshall lost his land, Marshall soon entered into a partnership with Sutter for the construction of a sawmill. Marshall was to oversee the construction and operation of the mill, after scouting nearby areas for a suitable location, he eventually decided upon Coloma, located roughly 40 miles upstream of Sutters Fort on the American River. He proposed his plan to Sutter, and construction began in late August and his crew consisted mainly of local Native Americans and veterans of the Mormon Battalion on their way to Salt Lake City, Utah. Construction continued into January 1848, when it was discovered that the portion of the mill was too narrow and shallow for the volume of water needed to operate the saw
9.
California Gold Rush
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The California Gold Rush began on January 24,1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutters Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States, the Gold Rush initiated the California Genocide, with 100,000 Native Californians dying between 1848 and 1868. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory to the state of the first nominee for the Republican Party. The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial, whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called forty-niners. The first to hear confirmed information of the rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Latin America. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California, in 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by vote, and the future states interim first governor. In September,1850, California became a state, at the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of staking claims was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service, by 1869 railroads were built across the country from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, Gold worth tens of billions of todays dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with more than they had started with. The Mexican–American War ended on February 3,1848, although California was firmly in American hands before that, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided for, among other things, the formal transfer of Upper California to the United States. The California Gold Rush began at Sutters Mill, near Coloma, on January 24,1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he found to John Sutter, and the two tested the metal. However, rumors started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher
10.
Napa Valley AVA
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Napa Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in Napa County, California, United States. Napa Valley is considered one of the wine regions in the world. Records of commercial production in the region date back to the nineteenth century. The combination of Mediterranean climate, geography and geology of the region are conducive to growing quality wine grapes, John Patchett established the Napa Valleys first commercial vineyard in 1858. In 1861 Charles Krug established another of Napa Valleys first commercial wineries in St. Helena, Napa Valley is now a major enotourism destination. The valley floor is flanked by the Mayacamas Mountain Range on the western and northern sides the Vaca Mountains on the eastern side, several smaller valleys exist within these two ranges. The floor of the valley gradually rises from sea level at the southern end to 362 feet above sea level at the northern end in Calistoga at the foot of Mount Saint Helena. The Oakville and Rutherford American Viticultural Areas lie within an area known as the Rutherford Bench in the center of the valley floor. Several of the hills that emerge from the middle of the valley floor near Yountville are indicators of the regions volcanic past. Several mesoclimates exist within the due to various weather and geographical influences. The open southern end of the floor is cooler during the growing season due to the proximity of San Pablo Bay while the sheltered, closed northern end is often much warmer. The eastern side of the valley tends to be more arid because winter storms tend to much more precipitation on the western mountains. Early pioneer and settler George C, Yount is generally credited to have been the first to grow grapes in the Napa Valley. In 1864, on the marriage of one of his granddaughters to Thomas Rutherford, Yount gave the couple around 1,000 acres of land, commercial production started in 1858, with John Patchett selling wine for $2 per gallon. His wine cellar, built in 1859, narrowly predates that established in 1861 in St. Helena by Charles Krug, captain Gustave Niebaum established Inglenook Winery in 1879 near the village of Rutherford. This was the first Bordeaux style winery in the USA, Inglenook wines won gold medals at the 1889 Worlds Fair in Paris. In 1868 H. W. Crabb bought land near Oakville close to the Napa River, Crabb established a vineyard and winery named To Kalon, and by 1877 had planted 130 acres and was producing 50,000 US gallons of wine per year. Crabb experimented with over 400 grape varieties to find the types best suited for the area, by the end of the nineteenth century there were more than one hundred and forty wineries in the area
11.
Hearst Castle
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Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark and California Historical Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan, between 1919 and 1947, as a residence for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951, in 1954 it became a California State Park. The site was opened to visitors in 1958, since that time it has been operated as the Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument where the estate, and its considerable collection of art and antiques, is open for public tours. Despite its location far from any urban center, the site attracts millions of travelers each year, Hearst formally named the estate La Cuesta Encantada, but usually called it the ranch. Hearst Castle and grounds are sometimes referred to as San Simeon without distinguishing between the Hearst property and the adjacent unincorporated area of the same name. Invitations to Hearst Castle were highly coveted during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, the Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estates airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. While guests were expected to attend the formal dinners each evening, since the Ranch had so many facilities, guests were rarely at a loss for things to do. The estates theater usually screened films from Hearsts own movie studio, Hearst Castle was the inspiration for the Xanadu mansion of the 1941 Orson Welles film Citizen Kane, a fictionalization of William Randolph Hearsts career. Hearst Castle was not used as a location for the film, commercial filming is rare at Hearst Castle and most requests are turned down. U. Y. One condition of the Hearst Corporations donation of the estate was that the Hearst family would be allowed to use it when they wished. Patty Hearst, a granddaughter of William Randolph, related that as a child, the house is screened from tourist routes by a dense grove of eucalyptus to provide maximum privacy for the guests. In 2001, Patty Hearst hosted a Travel Channel show on the estate, Hearst Castle joined the National Register of Historic Places on June 22,1972 and became a United States National Historic Landmark on May 11,1976. Hearst Castle was included as one of Americas 10 Amazing Castles by Forbes Travel. com, the estate itself is five miles inland atop a hill of the Santa Lucia Range at an altitude of 1,600 feet. The region is sparsely populated because the Santa Lucia Range abuts the Pacific Ocean, the surrounding countryside visible from the mansion remains largely undeveloped. Its entrance is approximately five miles north of Hearst San Simeon State Park, Hearst Castle was built on Rancho Piedra Blanca that William Randolph Hearsts father, George Hearst, originally purchased in 1865. The younger Hearst grew fond of this site over many childhood family camping trips and he inherited the ranch, which had grown to 250,000 acres and 14 miles of coastline, from his mother Phoebe Hearst in 1919. The Hearst Castle area has a mediterranean climate that is moderated by its relative proximity to the Pacific coastline. Hearst first approached American architect Julia Morgan with ideas for a new project in April 1915, I get tired of going up there and camping in tents
12.
Yosemite Valley
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Yosemite Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. The valley is about 8 miles long and up to a deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan. The valley is drained by the Merced River and a multitude of streams and waterfalls including Tenaya, Illilouette, Yosemite, Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America, and is a big attraction especially in the spring when the water flow is at its peak. The valley is renowned for its beauty, and is widely regarded as the centerpiece of Yosemite National Park. The Valley is the attraction in the park for the majority of visitors. On July 2,2011 there was a record 20,851 visitors to the valley, most visitors enter the valley from roads to the west and pass through the famous Tunnel View entrance. Visitor facilities are located in the center of the valley, there are both hiking trail loops that stay within the valley and trailheads that lead to higher elevations, all of which afford glimpses of the parks many scenic wonders. Yosemite Valley is located on the slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains,150 miles due east of San Francisco. It stretches for 7.5 miles in a roughly east-west direction, Yosemite Valley represents only one percent of the park area, but this is where most visitors arrive and stay. More than half a dozen creeks tumble from hanging valleys at the top of cliffs that can rise 3000–4000 feet above the valley floor. These streams combine into the Merced River, which flows out from the end of the valley. The flat floor of Yosemite Valley holds both forest and large meadows, which provide breathtaking views of the surrounding crests and waterfalls. The first view of Yosemite Valley many visitors see is the Tunnel View, so many paintings were made from a viewpoint nearby that the National Park Service named that viewpoint Artist Point. The view from the end of the Valley contains the great granite monolith El Capitan on the left. Just past this spot the Valley suddenly widens with the Cathedral Spires, to this point, the Valley has been curving gently to the left, to the north. Now a grand curve back to the right begins, with Yosemite Falls on the north, followed by the Royal Arches, opposite to the south is Glacier Point,3,200 feet above the Valley floor. At this point the Valley splits into two, one section slanting northeast, with the other curving from south to southeast, between them both, at the eastern end of the valley, is Half Dome, the most famous and most recognizable natural feature in the Sierra Nevada. Above and to the northeast of Half Dome is Clouds Rest, at 9926 feet, snow melting in the Sierra forms creeks and lakes
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