Bridalveil Fall Bridges 1913 architectural drawing sheet

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Bridalveil Fall, a slender cascade that drops roughly 600 feet off the valley's south wall, is the subject here, and this sheet records the bridges built to carry travelers across the water and the rock below it. Drawings like this one show how early park roads and footpaths were engineered in Yosemite Valley in the years before the National Park Service was created in 1916. Its plans and notations offer a useful look at how builders worked with the valley's steep terrain and seasonal runoff. Viewers interested in the valley's development will find in it a practical record of infrastructure that shaped how visitors first experienced the falls.

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