Richard Watkins me-retweet

🏴🇬🇧 Yosemite. The Sequoias. The Grand Canyon.🇺🇸
A boy from Dunbar, Scotland made the world protect all of it.
His name was John Muir. 🏔️
Born 1838 in Dunbar, East Lothian. From the age he could walk he roamed the cliffs and fields of the Scottish coast. Something about the wild world would not let him go.
In 1849 his family emigrated to Wisconsin. His father worked the family from dawn to dusk. John wanted to read. To think. To study.
So he invented a machine that tipped him out of bed at one in the morning. To give himself more hours in the day. 🕐
In 1867 a factory accident nearly blinded him. When he recovered his sight he made a decision.
He would turn his eyes to the fields and the woods. And never look back.
He walked a thousand miles from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico. Sailed to California. And walked into Yosemite. 🏔️
He lived there for three years in a simple cabin.
Emerson visited. Offered him a teaching post at Harvard.
Muir said no.
Sheep were destroying the meadows. Loggers were taking the trees. Muir started writing. Articles read by millions. In 1890 Congress created Yosemite National Park. In 1892 he founded the Sierra Club. 🏴
In 1903 President Roosevelt came to Yosemite. They camped for three nights under the open sky. Muir talked. Roosevelt listened.
Roosevelt went on to protect 148 million acres of forest. Five new national parks. Sixteen national monuments. ✅
All of it traces back to a boy from Dunbar.
He never lost his Scottish accent.
He died on Christmas Eve, 1914. He was 76.
Did they teach you his name? 🏴🇬🇧
Muir gave everything to keep what he loved alive.
Our history needs the same thing.
We need our keepers. proudofus.co.uk/support
Be Part Of Us.
Be Proud Of Us. 🇬🇧
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