The district includes visitor services areas, park personnel residences and administrative facilities.

[2] The Yosemite Village area was settled beginning about 1865, when James Mason Hutchings built a so-called winter cabin for his family as a permanent residence.

Nine years later he moved there, successfully lobbying the federal government to cede the valley to the State of California as a park.

The present built-up area was established in 1918, and includes several older buildings that were moved to Yosemite Village from elsewhere.

The Superintendent's Residence was extensively remodeled in the 1920s to National Park Service rustic standards.

The residential district was laid out in an informal style by Park Service landscape architect Charles Punchard.