Adventure 003, Site 003, Site 014-Soda Springs Cabin

Gary and the Cabin at Soda Springs

Capture California, the Game-2013

Adventure: 003, Site 003, Site 014-Soda Springs Cabin

National Registry ID: 79000282

Team: YOLT

Date:  June 27, 2013

Location:

Coordinates: 37°52′44″N 119°21′56″W

Address: Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite

The Soda Springs

Description:

Date Built: 1885

Architect: Lembert, John Baptiste

As we were hiking the John Muir Trail, we came to Tuolumne Meadows, a place of refreshment and history. One of the places of history is Soda Springs. Water bubbling to the surface. This particular spring has been enclosed in a log cabin structure—does not look old. There are several other springs in the area. The cabin is close to Parson's Lodge, just across the hill from the Lodge.

John Baptist Lembert found this place in 1885, then built his cabin in 1889. The cabin is all which survives of Lembert's homestead. He used the meadows to graze his flock of angora goats. Later when the Great Western Wagon Road—the prelude to the current Tioga Pass Road—was built, Lembert became a noted guide to the area, having acquired the titles of entomolist and naturalist. This sort of happens as you get to know the area. In his youth, he was educated in Latin, so the biological names were not an issue for him.

The cabin, which the ruins are around the springs, was built to keep animals out of the springs, keeping the water fresh and pure. The current cabin is a replica of the old cabin, without a roof. Around 1896 or 1897, Lembert was murdered in Yosemite Valley, as part of a robbery. Lembert Dome, on the east side of Tuolumne Meadows, was named in his honor. Also, because of his role in collecting several plant species for the Smithosian and Dept of Agriculture, he has a moth named after him: Hepialis lemberti.

PLACE:
Erroneously spelled LAMBERT on many maps and references.
John Baptist Lembert took up a homestead quarter-section of land in Tuolumne Meadows in 1885. The property included the soda springs and the meadow land across the river. He had previously lived in and around Yosemite. He built a log cabin on his claim and lived there, raising angora goats until the winter of 1889—go when he lost his goats in the storms. Thereafter he collected butterflies and botanical specimens, which he sold to museums. In 1895 he was issued a United States patent on his claim.
He continued to live on his soda-springs property during the summers, but spent the winters in a cabin near Cascade Creek below Yosemite Valley. Here, in the winter of 1896-97, his body was found, evidently murdered.
The Tuolumne Meadows property passed to his brother, Jacob Lembert who sold it in 1898 to the McCauley brothers. In 1912 it was purchased by members of the Sierra Club and held in trust for the club.
The Dome, being the most prominent object in the neighborhood, came to be known by the name of the hermit settler. (William E. Colby.—See, also, S.C.B., 1913, IX:1, pp. 36-39.)






References:

• Wikipedia
  
• National Registry of Historic Places: Documentation and Pictures
  
• Place Names of the High Sierra (1926), by Francis P. Farquhar (PLACE)
  
• NoeHill
  

Overall Landmark References:

• National Registry of Historical Places (NRHP)
  
• NoeHill (NOE)