King were published in the Boston Evening Transcript in 1860 and 1861; Starr King became the first person with a nationally recognized voice to call for a public park at Yosemite. Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Greenleaf Whittier read and commented on Starr King's letters and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was prompted by the warnings to visit the Yosemite area in 1863. Pressure from Starr King and Olmsted, photographs by Carleton Watkins, and geological data from the 1863 Geological Survey of California prompted legislators to take action. Senator John Conness of California introduced a park bill in 1864 to the United States Senate to cede Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees to California. The bill easily passed both houses of the United States Congress, and was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on June 30, 1864. The Yosemite Grant, as it was called, was given to California as a state park for "public use, resort and recreation". A board of commissioners, with Frederick Law Olmsted as chairman, was formed in September 1864 to govern the grant, but it did not meet until 1866. Managing the state grant The commission appointed Galen Clark as the grant's first guardian, but neither Clark nor the commissioners had the authority to evict homesteaders. Josiah Whitney, the first director of the California Geological Survey, lamented that Yosemite Valley would meet the same fate as Niagara Falls, which at that time was a tourist trap with tolls on every bridge, path, trail, and viewpoint. Hutchings and a small group of settlers sought legal homesteading rights on of the valley floor. The issue was not settled until 1874 when the land holdings of Hutchings and three others were invalidated and the state legislature appropriated $60,000 ($ as of ) to compensate the settlers, of which Hutchings received $20,000. Conditions in Yosemite Valley and access to the park steadily improved. In 1878, Clark used dynamite to breach a recessional moraine in the valley to drain a swamp behind it. Tourism significantly increased after a Sacramento to Stockton extension of the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 and the Central Pacific Railroad reached Merced in 1872. The long horseback ride from Merced remained a deterrent to tourists. Three stagecoach roads were built in the mid-1870s to provide better access; Coulterville Road (June 1874), Big Oak Flat Road (July 1874), and the Wawona Road (July 1875).