Yosemite Chapel

Yosemite Chapel is a small red wooden church in Yosemite Valley, the valley’s oldest structure. It’s a worthwhile pause if you like historic buildings or want a quieter few minutes with Cook’s Meadow and Yosemite Falls beyond. If you’re rushing between the valley’s headline sights, this is a modest stop, not a grand church interior. The chapel is still used for worship, so don’t count on being able to go inside when no service is underway.

The chapel sits among trees and open meadow on Southside Drive, with Yosemite’s granite cliffs around it and Yosemite Falls across the meadow. For a photo, step back enough to include the little red building and the open valley; that gives the chapel its Yosemite setting better than a tight shot of the facade.

Permission for an undenominational chapel was granted in 1878, and it was built the next year with funds from the California State Sunday School Association. San Francisco architect Charles Geddes designed a simple New England-style building: one 26-by-50-foot room intended to seat 250. It remains an active place of worship as well as the oldest structure in the valley.

The chapel first stood near today’s Four Mile Trailhead, then moved to its present Old Village site in 1901 as the Lower Village disappeared. A rear addition came later. The foundation was raised three feet in 1965 to reduce flood damage; the 1997 flood damaged the building, and it was restored. One unexpected chapter: composer Arthur Sullivan played the organ at an 1887 memorial service for Ulysses S. Grant.

There’s parking beside the chapel, and NPS lists a restroom and designated accessible parking; a wheelchair lift on the east side provides access to the building. The interior may be locked outside worship services, so treat it as an active church if a service is underway.