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Originally, privately developed, the Wawona complex became part of the National Park System in the depths of the Depression, 1932. Thomas Hill, landscape artist, used a studio on the grounds of the Wawona Hotel to paint in the summers between 1886 and 1908.

The Wawona Hotel complex was built a short distance from Clarks Station (also called Big Trees Station), a trail and stage coach stop operated by a former gold miner, Galen Clark. Clark operated his inn for Yosemite tourists from about 1856-1875. The inn complex ran under different ownership until 1878, when most of it was destroyed by fire. Only the "Long White" or Clark Cottage (1876) and a stable escaped destruction. As it stood in 2008, the Wawona Hotel complex consisted of seven, wood-frame buildings lining a circular driveway: "Long White," the Main Wawona Hotel (1879), "Little White," the hotel manager's cottage (1884), the painter Thomas Hill's Studio (1886), "Little Brown" or Moore Cottage (1894), "Long Brown" or Washburn Cottage (c. 1899), and Wawona Hotel Annex (1918). A few other ancillary service buildings built in 1920 perished before 2008, including a retail store and employee bunkhouse.