The New York Times has made scans of early articles avaialble for free. A quick search of “Yosemite” turned up some interesting results between 1870 and 1913:
1870 A letter to the editor from one of the people who’d settled in Yosemite before 1864 when the valley was taken over by the state of California “COMMUNICATIONS; The Yosemite Valley.”
1880 Snow! “THE VALLEY OF THE YOSEMITE.; ITS VISITORS AND HOW THEY REACH IT– SOME HINDRANCES TO PLEASURE.”
1898 Sheep “YOSEMITE PARK THREATENED.”
1900 Crime “BROOKLYN GIRL ROBBED; Masked Yosemite Bandit Interrupts Her Pleasant Stage Trip. Bows as He Takes $50 from Her — Sec- ond Stage Load Increases His Spoils.”
1903 Rescue “NEW YORK WOMAN FALLS 300 FEET BUT LIVES; Mrs. A.E. Johns’s Hairbreadth Escape in Yosemite Valley Crevasse. Lay on Narrow Ledge Above Yawning Chasm All Night — Thrilling Rescue Effected with Ropes.”
1903 President Teddy Rosevelt is stuck in the snow. “PRESIDENT IN SNOWSTORM; It Rages in Mountains Above Yosemite Valley. Mr. Roosevelt Eludes the Crowds and Proceeds to Glacier Point”
1908 Fire “Troops Fight Yosemite Forest Fire.”
1909 Lions? “LONG RIDE FOR TAFT THROUGH YOSEMITE; Spends a Day in Traveling in Stage 34 Miles Among the Mountains. HOPE OF LION HUNT IS VAIN Walks a Mile Up Hill and Has Luncheon on Improvised Tables at Foot of Huge Pines.”
1909 Fire “BIG TREE GROVE MENACED.; Forest Fire Starts at the Entrance to Yosemite Valley.”
1909 Roads in Yosemite “TOPICS OF THE TIMES.”
1909 Hetch Hetchy “BEGIN FIGHT TO SAVE THE YOSEMITE PARK; Historic and Scenic Preservation Society Protests Against Its Use as a City Watershed.”
1910 Yosemite Valley’s Old Gusrdlan Dead. Obituary of Galen Clark
1913 May Sign Hetch Hetchy Bill To-day Passage of the Raker Act.