Joseph Nisbet LeConte (known as "Little Joe") was the son of Professor Joseph LeConte, the University of California geology professor who had confirmed John Muir's glacial theory of the origin of Yosemite Valley.
"Little Joe" LeConte served the Club for 50 years, beginning as a director of the Sierra Club from from 1898 to 1940. He was the Club's second president, serving after John Muir and before William E. Colby, for the years 1915-1917.
He served for many years in various other capacities of the Club, including vice-president, secretary, treasurer, chair of the Outings Committee, and as a member of the LeConte Memorial Lodge Committee. In 1931, he was made an honorary president, and held that position until his death in 1950.
Joseph N. LeConte loved Yosemite, not just the valley itself, but the whole extent of it. His photographs of Hetch Hetchy Valley before it was flooded remain an inspiration.
Joseph N. LeConte made many mountaineering trips in the Sierra beginning in 1887. He made a series of triangulations of major peaks from Mt. Ritter to Mt. Whitney to facilitate accurate mapmaking. He recounted numerous Sierra Club outings in the Sierra Club Bulletin, both in writing and in some of the finest early photographs available.
"Little Joe" was a professor of mechanical and hydraulic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
See examples of LeConte's photographs, or his 1896 Sierra Nevada map.