"The name is from a tribe of Indians that lived on the banks of the lower Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers, in the vicinity of Knights Ferry. (Kroeber, 64.) The tribe was called Taulamne -- and also Tahualamne -- by Padre Munoz. (Arch. MSB, vol. 4, Oct. 3, 1806, ff.) The Moraga-Munoz party named the Tuolumne River the Delores, from the time of its discovery, October 1, the 'Dolores of September,' but that name did not prevail.
Fremont and Preuss, on their 1845 map, mistakenly called the Tuolumne River the 'Rio de los Merced.' On the 1848 map, they corrected it to 'Rio de los Towalumnes.' The modern spelling is on Derby's 1849 map. It is said that the Indians pronounced the word Tu-ah-lum'-ne. (Sanchez, 222.)
The Whitney Survey named 'Tuolumne Meadows;' it is on Hoffmann's 1873 map, the peak on the Wheeler Survey atlas sheet 56D, 1878-79, and the pass on the first Mt. Lyell 30' map, 1901. The grove was not named on USGS maps until publication of the 15-minute quad in 1956."
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