Description
Mrs. Crocker was friendly with many notables associated with Yosemite, including Galen
Clark, John Muir and William F. Badé. Her devotion to conservationist causes is
represented by a substantial correspondence---most notably with Sierra Club President,
William F. Badé. Mrs. Crocker's European Grand Tour (1922) is represented by much
descriptive correspondence from Mrs. Crocker to her Lodi friends and family. The Crocker
Collection also contains legal documents pertaining to the Crocker Yosemite property,
conservationist publications and ephemera.
Background
Henry R. Crocker, who came to California from Michigan in 1853, operated a hotel on the
Big Oak Flat route to Yosemite at Sequoia, Tuolumne County (ca 1870-1904). May Hall, a
school teacher from Michigan, married Crocker early in the 1870s. Following Henry
Crocker's death (1904), May Hall Crocker attempted briefly to run Crocker's Station hotel
alone, but, finding the task too difficult, she sold out and moved to Lodi where she
lived with her daughter and son-in-law until her death (1935). Perhaps the major event of
Mrs. Crocker's final thirty years was a lengthy tripto Europe, financed by her daughter
and son-in-law (1922).