_HOTELS AND THEIR KEEPERS_
The early public interest manifested in the scenic beauties of Yosemite
prompted a few far-sighted local men of the mountains to prepare for the
influx of travelers that they felt was bound to occur. J. M. Hutchings
had no more than related his experiences of his first visit in 1855
before Milton and Huston Mann undertook the improvement of the old
Mariposa Indian trail leading to the valley. The next year Bunnell
developed a trail from the north side of the gorge. The first visitors
were from the camps of the Southern Mines, chiefly, but there were a few
from San Francisco and interior towns, as well. During those first years
of travel the few visitors expected to “rough it”; they were men and
women accustomed to the wilds, and comforts were hardly required. Yet
those pioneer hotelkeepers who had provided crude shelters found that
their establishments were patronized. Hotelkeeping takes a place very
near the beginning of the Yosemite story.
The valley was then public domain. Although unsurveyed, it was generally
conceded that homesteads within it might be claimed by whosoever
persevered in establishing rights. The prospect of great activity in
developing Frémont’s “Mariposa Estate” caused certain citizens of
Mariposa to turn their attention to Yosemite Valley as the source of a
much-needed water supply. Bunnell reveals that commercial interests had
designs upon the valley as early as 1855. A survey of the valley and the
canyon below was made in that year by L. H. Bunnell and George K.
Peterson with the idea of making a reservoir.
[Illustration: The Cosmopolitan, 1870-1932]
[Illustration: The Lower Hotel, 1856-1869]
The first house to be constructed there was built in 1856 by the company
interested in this water project. Bunnell states: “It was of white cedar
‘puncheons,’ plank split out of logs. The builders of it supposed that a
claim in the valley would doubly secure the water privileges. We made
this building our headquarters, covering the roof with our tents.”
The first permanent hotel structure was also started that year. It
became known as the “Lower Hotel.” During the next decade it and the
Upper Hotel found no competitors. At the close of the ’sixties, however,
the hotel business of Yosemite Valley flashed rather prominently in the
commerce of the state.
A volume might be written on the efforts of honest proprietors to serve
the early tourist; on the scheming of less scrupulous claimants to
capitalize on their Yosemite holdings; on the humorous reaction of
unsuspecting visitors within the early hostelries; and, finally, on the
story of later-day developments which now care for the throng that,
annually, partakes of Yosemite offerings. The full history of Yosemite
hotels is eminently worth the telling, but the present work will be
content in pointing to interesting recorded incidents in the story.
The Lower Hotel
Messrs. Walworth and Hite were the first to venture in serving the
Yosemite public. Hite was a member of that family whose fortune was made
from the golden treasure of a mine at Hite’s Cove. Walworth seems to
have left no record of his affairs or connections. The partners selected
a site opposite Yosemite Falls, very near the area that had been
occupied by Captain Boling’s camp in 1851, and set up their hotel of
planks split from pine logs. The building, started in 1856, was not
completed until the next year, and in the meantime a second
establishment was started near the present Sentinel Bridge, so the first
became, quite naturally, the “Lower Hotel.” Cunningham and Beardsley,
the same Beardsley who packed Weed’s camera in 1859, elected to finish
construction of the Lower Hotel, and they employed Mr. and Mrs. John H.
Neal to run it for them. J. C. Holbrook, the first to preach a sermon in
Yosemite, writes of his stop with Mrs. Neal in 1859: “I secured a bed,
such as it was, for my wife, in a rough board shanty occupied by a
family that had arrived a few days before to keep a sort of tavern, the
woman being the only one within fifty or sixty miles of the place. For
myself, a bed of shavings and a blanket under the branches of some trees
formed my resting place.”
A London parson in his _To San Francisco and Back_, of the late
’sixties, offers the following description of his visit to this earliest
of Yosemite hotels:
There are in it [the valley] two hotels, as they call themselves, but
the accommodation is very rough. When G—— and I were shown to our
bedroom the first night we found that it consisted of a quarter of a
shed screened off by split planks, which rose about eight or ten feet
from the ground, and enabled us to hear everything that went on in the
other “rooms,” which were simply stalls in the same shed. Ours had no
window, but we could see the stars through the roof. The door, opening
out into the forest, was fastened with cow-hinges of skin with the
hair on, and a little leather strap which hooked on to a nail. We
boasted a rough, gaping floor, but several of the other bedrooms were
only strewed with branches of arbor vitae. As a grizzly bear had
lately been seen wandering about a few hundred yards from our “hotel,”
we took the precaution of putting our revolvers under our pillows. I
dare say this was needless as the bears have mostly retired to the
upper part of the valley, a few miles off, but it gave a finish to our
toilet which had the charm of novelty. Next morning, however, seeing
the keeper of the ranch with his six-shooter in his hand, and noticing
that it was heavily loaded, I asked him why he used so much powder.
“Oh,” said he, “I’ve loaded it for bears.”
At first G—— and I were the only visitors at this house, but several
were at the other one about half a mile off, and more were soon
expected.
Cunningham, A. G. Black, P. Longhurst, and G. F. Leidig all took their
turn at operating the crude establishment. It was under the management
of Black when Clarence King arrived on his pioneer trip with the
Geological Survey of California, and one Longhurst apparently even then
anticipated future proprietorship by engaging in guiding its guests
about the valley. King describes Longhurst as “a weather-beaten
round-the-worlder, whose function in the party was to tell yarns, sing
songs, and feed the inner man.” His account, in _Mountaineering in the
Sierra Nevada_, continues:
We had chosen, as the head-quarters of the survey, two little cabins
under the pine-trees near Black’s Hotel. [Black was then owner of the
Lower Hotel.] They were central; they offered us a shelter; and from
their doors, which opened almost upon the Merced itself, we obtained a
most delightful sunrise view of the Yosemite.
Next morning, in spite of early outcries from Longhurst, and a warning
solo of his performed with spoon and fry-pan, we lay in our
comfortable blankets pretending to enjoy the effect of sunrise light
upon the Yosemite cliff and fall, all of us unwilling to own that we
were tired out and needed rest. Breakfast had waited an hour or more
when we got a little weary of beds and yielded to the temptation of
appetite.
A family of Indians, consisting of two huge girls and their parents,
sat silently waiting for us to commence, and, after we had begun,
watched every mouthful from the moment we got it successfully impaled
upon the camp forks, a cloud darkening their faces as it disappeared
forever down our throats.
But we quite lost our spectators when Longhurst came upon the boards
as a flapjack-frier, a rôle to which he bent his whole intelligence,
and with entire success. Scorning such vulgar accomplishment as
turning the cake over in mid-air, he slung it boldly up, turning it
three times, ostentatiously greasing the pan with a fine centrifugal
movement, and catching the flapjack as it fluttered down, and spanked
it upon the hot coals with a touch at once graceful and masterly.
I failed to enjoy these products, feeling as if I were breakfasting in
sacrilege upon works of art. Not so our Indian friends, who wrestled
affectionately for frequent unfortunate cakes which would dodge
Longhurst and fall into the ashes.
In 1869 A. G. Black tore down the Lower Hotel and on its site
constructed the rambling building which became known as “Black’s.”
Upper Hotel
Prior to their interest in the Lower Hotel, S. M. Cunningham and Buck
Beardsley had essayed to start a store and tent shelter on the later
site of the Cedar Cottage. Cunningham, of later Big Tree fame, dropped
this venture; so Beardsley united with G. Hite and in the fall of 1857
began the preparation of the timbers which made the frame of the Cedar
Cottage. Mechanical sawmills had not yet been brought so far into the
wilderness, and the partners whipsawed and hewed every plank, rafter,
and joist in the building. It was ready for occupancy in May, 1859.
The proprietors of the Upper Hotel fared none too well in the returns
forthcoming from guests. Ownership changed hands a number of times, and
business dwindled to a point of absolute suspension. In 1864 it was
possible for J. M. Hutchings to purchase the building and the land claim
adjoining for a very nominal price. At this time the proposed state park
was being widely talked of, and, as a matter of fact, Hutchings stepped
into the ownership of the Upper Hotel property but a few months before
the Yosemite Valley was removed from the public domain and granted to
the state to be “inalienable for all time.” Mr. Hutchings was, and is to
this day, sharply criticized by some citizens for his presumption in
purchasing public lands that had not been officially surveyed. Whatever
may have been his legal claim, it must be admitted that his was the
moral right to expect compensation for the expenditure of thousands of
dollars for physical improvements made upon his Yosemite property.
[Illustration: _By George Fiske_
Mill Built by John Muir in 1869]
[Illustration: Glacier Point Mountain House, 1878 to date]
[Illustration: _By Thomas Hill_
Sentinel Hotel (left background), 1867 to 1938]
[Illustration: _By D. R. Brower_
The Ahwahnee Hotel, 1927 to date]
[Illustration: _By Ansel Adams_
Saddle Trip on a High Sierra Trail]
[Illustration: _By Ansel Adams_
Merced Lake High Sierra Camp, 1916 to date]
Hutchings brought his family to the Upper Hotel in 1864 and assumed a
proprietorship that awakened lengthy comments from many of his
journalistic guests. Being well educated, a great lover of nature, a
journalist himself, and blessed with a generous share of sentiment, it
can be understood why some of his guests felt that “there are better
things which he could do better.” Testimonies agree that if he was not a
huge success as a resort manager, his rich fund of information and
hospitable enthusiasm more than compensated for his defects.
Charles Loring Brace visited Yosemite a few years after Hutchings became
a local character there. He stopped at the Hutchings House and later
wrote about his experience:
One of the jokes current in the Valley is to carefully warn the
traveler, before coming to this hotel, “not to leave his bed-room door
unlocked, as there are thieves about!” On retiring to his room for the
night, he discovers to his amazement, that his door is a sheet, and
his partition from the adjoining sleeping-chamber also a cotton cloth.
The curtain-lectures and bed-room conversations conducted under these
circumstances, it may be judged, are discreet. The house, however, is
clean, and the table excellent; and Hutchings himself, enough of a
character alone to make up for innumerable deficiencies. He is one of
the original pioneers of the Valley, and at the same time is a man of
considerable literary abilities, and a poet. He has written a very
creditable guidebook on the Canyon. No one could have a finer
appreciation of the points of beauty, and the most characteristic
scenes of the Valley. He is a “Guide” in the highest sense, and loves
the wonderful region which he shows yearly to strangers from every
quarter of the world. But, unfortunately, he is also hotel-keeper,
waiter, and cook—employments requiring a good deal of close, practical
attention, as earthly life is arranged. Thus we come down, very
hungry, to a delicious breakfast of fresh trout, venison, and great
pans of garden strawberries; but, unfortunately, there are no knives
and forks. A romantic young lady asks, in an unlucky moment, about the
best point of view for the Yosemite Fall. “Madam, there is but one;
you must get close to the Upper Fall, just above the mist of the
lower, and there you will see a horizontal rainbow beneath your feet,
and the most exquisite—”
Here a strong-minded lady, whose politeness is at an end, “But here,
Hutchings, we have no knives and forks!” “Oh, beg a thousand pardons,
madam!” and he rushes off; but meeting his wife on the way, she gives
him coffee for the English party, and he forgets us entirely, and we
get up good-naturedly and search out the implements ourselves. Again,
from an amiable lady, “Please, Mr. Hutchings, another cup of coffee!”
“Certainly, Madam!” When the English lady from Calcutta asks him about
some wild flowers, he goes off in a botanical and poetical
disquisition, and in his abstraction brings the other lady, with great
eagerness, a glass of water. Sometimes sugar is handed you instead of
salt for the trout, or cold water is poured into your coffee; but none
of the ladies mind, for our landlord is as handsome as he is obliging,
and really full of information.
Maria Teresa Longworth, known as Therese Yelverton, Viscountess
Avonmore, visited Yosemite in 1870, where she wrote _Zanita: A Tale of
the Yosemite_, published in 1872. She made the Hutchings’ entourage a
part of her melodrama, and Florence, eldest daughter of the Hutchingses,
was the heroine, “Zanita.” John Muir, of whom in real life the
Viscountess was enamored, was the hero, “Kenmuir.” A good analysis of
Yelverton’s relationships, actual and fictional, with the Hutchings
family and the other pioneer residents of the valley is contained in
Linnie Marsh Wolfe’s great book, _Son of the Wilderness_.
Not all of the Hutchings House features were within its walls. J. D.
Caton, who availed himself of the Hutchings hospitality in 1870, “walked
over to the foot of the Yosemite Falls and lingered by the way to pick a
market basket full of enormous strawberries in Hutchings’ garden.” One
of the first acts of the homesteaders was to plant an orchard and
cultivate the above-mentioned strawberry patch. The strawberries long
ago disappeared, but many of the one hundred and fifty apple trees still
thrive and provide fruit for permanent Yosemite residents.
During his regime of ownership, Hutchings added Rock Cottage, Oak
Cottage, and River Cottage to his caravansary. In 1874 the state
legislature appropriated $60,000 to extinguish all private claims in
Yosemite Valley, and the Hutchings interests were adjudged to be
entitled to $24,000.
Coulter and Murphy then became the proprietors of the old Hutchings
group and in 1876 they built the Sentinel Hotel. Their period of
management was brief, and the entire property passed to J. K. Barnard in
1877, who for seventeen years maintained it as the Yosemite Falls
Hotel.[6] This unit among the pioneer hostelries was torn down in
1938-1940.
Clark’s Ranch, Now Wawona
Galen Clark accompanied one of the 1855 Yosemite-bound parties that had
been inspired by Hutchings, when that pioneer related his experiences in
Mariposa. Upon his first trip to the valley over the old Indian trail
from Mariposa, he recognized in the meadows on the South Fork of the
Merced a most promising place of abode. His health had been impaired in
the gold camps; he had, in fact, been told by a physician that he could
live but a short time. The lovely vale of the Nuchu Indians offered
solace, and in April of 1857 he settled there on the site of the camp
occupied by the Mariposa Battalion in 1851. Nowhere in his writings does
Clark intimate that he expected to be overtaken by early death at the
time of his homesteading. Rather we may believe that it was with
foresight and careful plan that he erected his cabin beside the new
trail of the sight-seer and prepared to accommodate those saddle-weary
pilgrims who mounted horses at Mariposa and made their first stop with
him en route to the new mecca.
His first cabin was crude. A rough pine table surrounded by three-legged
stools facilitated his homely service. As the number of visitors
increased, Clark enlarged his ranch house. When ten years of his pioneer
hotel keeping had passed, Charles Loring Brace was among his visitors.
Brace writes:
After fourteen miles—an easy ride—we all reached Clark’s Ranch at a
late hour, ready for supper and bed.
This ranch is a long, rambling, low house, built under enormous
sugar-pines, where travelers find excellent quarters and rest in their
journey to the Valley. Clark himself is evidently a character; one of
those men one frequently meets in California—the modern anchorite—a
hater of civilization and a lover of the forest—handsome, thoughtful,
interesting, and slovenly. In his cabin were some of the choicest
modern books and scientific surveys; the walls were lined with
beautiful photographs of the Yosemite; he knew more than any of his
guests of the fauna, flora, and geology of the State; he conversed
well on any subject, and was at once philosopher, savant, chambermaid,
cook, and landlord.
From the scores of books written by early Yosemite visitors, one might
extract a great compendium of remarks on Clark and his ranch. The
proprietor, like the Grizzly Giant, was impressive. He was invariably
remembered by his guests. They wrote of his generous hospitality, his
simplicity, kindness, honesty, wit, wisdom, and unselfish devotion to
the mountains he loved. Had they known, they might have written that he
gave too freely of all his mental and physical assets and that as a
businessman he was not a success. The season of 1870 found the ownership
of his ranch divided with Edwin Moore.
Moore assumed general management, and Clark’s became known as “Clark and
Moore’s.” The ladies of Moore’s family introduced a new element in the
hospitality of the place, and for a few years it assumed an aspect of
new ambition. Extensive improvements, however, resulted in foreclosure
of mortgages, and the firm of Washburn, Coffman, and Chapman secured
ownership in 1875 and changed the name to “Wawona.”
A. P. Vivian stopped at Wawona in January, 1878, and wrote:
Although still called a “ranche,” this establishment has long ceased
to be mainly concerned with agriculture. Clark himself exists no
longer, at any rate in this locality; that individual sold his
interests some years ago to Messrs. Washburn, who “run the stage,” and
are now the “bosses of the route” between this and Merced. The ranche
is now a small but comfortable and roomy inn, and during the tourists’
season is filled to overflowing.
Besides having constructed the twenty-five miles of capital road hence
into the Yosemite Valley, Messrs. Washburn are again showing their
enterprise by making a road direct to Merced, the object of which is
to save thirty miles over the present Mariposa route.
[Illustration: _By Ralph Anderson, NPS_
Badger Pass Ski House]
[Illustration: _By Ralph Anderson, NPS_
Ski Patrol at Work]
[Illustration: _By D. R. Brower_
Winter in the Yosemite High Sierra: Clark Range]
[Illustration: _By Ralph Anderson, NPS_
Snow Gaugers Entering Tuolumne Meadows]
The Yosemite Park and Curry Company now owns and operates Wawona. It has
become one of the largest and most favorably known family resorts in the
Sierra Nevada and retains some of the flavor of its earlier years.
Black’s Hotel
A. G. Black was a pioneer of the Coulterville region. In the late
’fifties, he resided at Bull Creek on the Coulterville trail. Visitors
who entered the valley from the north during the first years of tourist
travel have left a few records of stops made at the “Black’s” of that
place. The “Black’s” of Yosemite Valley did not come into existence
until the advent of the ’sixties, when Mrs. Black is reported to have
purchased the old Lower Hotel. In 1869 this first structure was torn
down, and an elongated shedlike structure built on its site, near the
foot of the present Four-Mile Trail to Glacier Point. This was the
“Black’s” that for nineteen years served a goodly number of Yosemite
tourists. In 1888, after the opening of the Stoneman House, there was
among the commissioners “a unanimity of feeling that the old shanties
and other architectural bric-a-brac, that had long done service for
hotels and stables, and the like, should be torn down.” Black’s Hotel
was accordingly removed in the fall of 1888, and the lumber from its
sagging walls went into the construction of the “Kenneyville” property,
which stood on the present site of the Ahwahnee Hotel.
Leidig’s
The family of George F. Leidig arrived in Yosemite Valley in 1866. For a
time the old Lower Hotel was in their charge, but, when its owner, A. G.
Black, assumed its management personally, the Leidigs secured rights to
build for themselves. They selected a site just west of the old
establishment and constructed a two-story building to become known as
Leidig’s. This was in 1869. Charles T. Leidig, the first white boy to be
born in the valley, was born in the spring of that year.
Mrs. Leidig’s ability as a cook was quickly noted by visitors, and, no
doubt, the popularity of her table did much to draw patrons. Many are
the printed comments in the contemporary publications of her guests.
Here is an example:
Leidig’s is the best place in the line of hotels. Mrs. L—— attends to
the cooking in person; the results are that the food is well cooked
and intelligently served. There is not the variety to be obtained here
as in places more accessible to market. After traveling a few months
in California, a person is liable to think less of variety and more of
quality. At this place the beds are cleanly and wholesome, although
consisting of pulu mattresses placed upon slat bedsteads. This house
stands in the shadow of Sentinel Rock, and faces the great Yosemite
Fall; is surrounded with porches, making a pleasant place to sit and
contemplate the magnificence of the commanding scenery. (From Caroline
M. Churchill, 1876.)
When A. P. Vivian continued on to Yosemite in January of 1878, he found
the Leidig family in the valley and commented as follows on his winter
reception:
Our host was glad enough to see us, for tourists are very scarce
commodities at this time of the year, and he determined to celebrate
our arrival by exploding a dynamite cartridge, that we might at the
same time enjoy the grand echoes. These were doubtless extraordinary,
but I am free to confess I would rather have gone away without hearing
them than have experienced the anxiety of mind, and real risk to body,
which preceded the pleasure.
Leidig’s, with Black’s, was torn down after the Stoneman House provided
more fitting accommodations. The little chapel which had been built near
these old hotels in 1879 was moved to its present site in the Old
Village. In 1928 the picturesque old well platform and crane, which had
marked the Leidig site, was destroyed. Only a group of locust trees now
indicates where this center of pioneer activity existed.
The Cosmopolitan, 1872-1932
But the wonder—among the buildings of Yosemite—is the “Cosmopolitan,”
containing saloon, billiard hall, bathing rooms, and barber-shop,
established and kept by Mr. C. E. Smith. Everything in it was
transported twenty miles on mules; mirrors full-length, pyramids of
elaborate glassware, costly service, the finest of cues and tables,
reading-room handsomely furnished and supplied with the latest from
Eastern cities, and baths with unexceptionable surroundings, attest
the nerve and energy of the projector. It is a perfect gem. The end of
the wagon-road was twenty miles away when the enterprise began, and
yet such skill was used in mule-packing that not an article was
broken. I have not seen a finer place of resort, for its size. The
arrangements for living are such that one could spend the summer there
delightfully, and we found several tourists who remained for weeks.
The foregoing from J. H. Beadle is but one of scores of enthusiastic
outbursts from amazed tourists who wrote of their Yosemite experiences.
To say that C. E. Smith figured in early Yosemite affairs is hardly
expressive. His baths, his drinks, and the various unexpected comforts
provided by his Cosmopolitan left lasting impressions that vied with El
Capitan when it came to securing space in books written by visitors. The
ladies exclaimed over the cleanliness of the bathtubs; a profusion of
towels, fine and coarse; delicate toilet soaps, bay rum, Florida water,
arnica, court plaster; needles, thread, and buttons; and late copies of
the _Alta_ and the _Bulletin_ for fresh “bustles.” The men found joy in
“a running accompaniment of ‘brandy-cocktails,’ ‘gin-slings,’ ‘barber’s
poles,’ ‘eye-openers,’ ‘mint-julep,’ ‘Samson with the hair on,’
‘corpse-revivers,’ ‘rattlesnakes,’ and other potent combinations.”
The Cosmopolitan boasted of a certain Grand Register, a foot in
thickness, morocco-bound, and mounted with silver. Within it were the
autographs and comments of thousands of visitors both great and lowly.
The relic is now a part of the Yosemite Museum collection.[7]
Tommy Hall, the pioneer barber of Yosemite, found sumptuous quarters in
the Cosmopolitan. The old building continued to house a barber shop
until it was destroyed by fire on December 8, 1932.
La Casa Nevada
For fifteen years after the coming of visitors, the wonders of the
Merced Canyon above Happy Isles were accessible only to those hardy
mountaineers who could scramble through the boulder-strewn gorge without
the advantage of a true trail. In 1869-70 one Albert Snow completed a
horse trail from Yosemite Valley to the flat between Vernal and Nevada
falls, and there opened a mountain chalet, which was to be known as “La
Casa Nevada.” The popularity of the saddle trip to the two great falls
of the Merced was immediate, and the pioneer trail builder, John Conway,
extended the trail from Snow’s to Little Yosemite Valley the next year.
It then was usual for all tourists to ascend the Merced Canyon to La
Casa Nevada and Little Yosemite. Some hikers undertook the trip from
Little Yosemite to Glacier Point, but another fifteen years were to
elapse before Glacier Point was made accessible by a truly good horse
trail from Nevada Fall.
Snow’s was opened on April 28, 1870. One of the prized possessions of
the Yosemite Museum is a register from this hostelry, which dates from
the opening to 1875. Upon its foxed pages appear thousands of
registrations and numerous comments of more than passing interest. Among
these is a very interesting two-page manuscript by John Muir, describing
an 1874 trip to Snow’s via Glacier Point and the Illilouette. P. A. H.
Laurence, once editor of the _Mariposa Gazette_, contributed to its
value by inscribing within it an account of his visit to Yosemite Valley
in 1855, years before the chalet was built.
A party with N. H. Davis, United States Inspector General, commented
upon their destination and added: “This party defers further remarks
until some further examinations are made.” Under the date of the
original entry is a significant second autograph by a member of the
General’s party: “A preliminary examination develops an abundance of
mountain dew.”
A great pile of broken containers, which had once held the “mountain
dew,” is about the only remnant of La Casa Nevada which may be viewed by
present-day visitors, for the chalet was destroyed by fire in the early
’nineties.
Peregoy’s
Another pioneer hotel is represented in the Yosemite Museum collections
by a register.[8] It was known as the Mountain View House and occupied a
strategic spot on the old horse trail from Clark’s to Yosemite Valley.
Its site is known to present-day visitors as Peregoy Meadows, and the
remains of the log building now repose quite as they fell many years
ago. The hospitality of its keepers, Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Peregoy,
was utilized by those travelers who, coming from Clark’s, took lunch
there, or by those who departed from the valley via Glacier Point and
made it an overnight stopping place.
The Mountain View House register indicates that guests were entertained
as early as the fall of 1869. It was not, however, until the spring of
1870 that the little resort made a bid for patronage. Its capacity for
overnight accommodation was sixteen; so it is not surprising that a
number of writers of the ’seventies were forced to record, in their
published Yosemite memoirs, that they arrived late and sat around the
kitchen stove all night. In June of 1872, fifty-six tourists were
overtaken by a snowstorm in the neighborhood of Peregoy’s. It is to be
surmised that on that night even the little kitchen did not accommodate
the overflow.
The construction of the Wawona road in 1875 revised the route of all
Yosemite travel south of the Merced. Peregoy’s was left far from the
line of travel and no longer functioned in the scheme of Yosemite
resorts.
The Harris Camp Grounds
By 1878, the demand for recognition of private camping parties
introduced the idea of public camp grounds in Yosemite. Large numbers of
visitors were bringing their own conveyances and camping equipment so as
to be independent of the hostelries. The commissioners set aside a part
of the old Lamon property in the vicinity of the present Ahwahnee Hotel
as the grounds upon which to accommodate the new class of visitors. Mr.
A. Harris was granted the right to administer to the wants of the
campers. He grew fodder for their animals, offered stable facilities,
sold provisions, and rented equipment. The Harris Camp Ground was the
forerunner of the present-day housekeeping camps and public auto camps,
which accommodate, by far, the greater number of Yosemite visitors.
An exceedingly interesting register, kept for the comments of campers of
that day, was recently presented to the Yosemite Museum by the
descendants of Harris. For ten years Yosemite campers recorded their
ideas of Yosemite, its management, and particularly the kindness of
Harris, upon its pages. The following is representative:
Yosemite Valley,
Tuesday, July 20th, 1880
We have tented in the Valley and been contented too.
So would like to add a chapter to this _bible_ for review
Of campers who come hither for study or for fun
In this Valley—of God’s building the grandest ’neath the sun.
When you come into the Valley—for information go
To the owner of this Record, and directly he will show
You where to go, and how to go, and what to see when there
And will sell you all things needful, at prices that are fair.
Like Moses in the wilderness, he’ll furnish food and drink
For all the tribes that come to him—cheaper than you’d think.
His bread is not from Heaven—but San Francisco Bay
And that is next thing to it—so San Franciscans say.
The water that he gives you—running through granite rock
Is the same as that which Moses gave his wonder-stricken flock.
If you ask him where to angle—he’ll tell you—on the sly
Down in the Indian Camp—with silver hook and fly.
In a word this Mr. Harris is a proper kind of man,
And as a friend to campers in the Valley—leads the van.
Wm. B. Lake
Fred W. Lake
San Francisco
E. D. Lake
Nat Webb
Sacramento
If the reader thinks this poetry—don’t judge me by the style,
For ’tis the kind that rhymsters make to peddle by the mile.
W B L
It may be said that from the Harris service grew the idea of camp
rental, which was first practiced by the commissioners in 1898 and is
now a recognized business of the housekeeping-camps department of the
present operators in the park.
Glacier Point Mountain House
After the construction of Snow’s trail to Little Yosemite in 1871, some
good mountaineers made the Glacier Point trip via Little Yosemite and
the Illilouette basin. Prior to this time, J. M. Hutchings had been
guiding parties of hikers to the famous Point over a most hazardous
trail, which he had blazed up the Ledge and through the Chimney.
Occasional references to a shack at Glacier Point indicate that Peregoy
had made some attempt to locate there about the same time that his
Mountain View House of Peregoy Meadows was opened for business. However,
the real claim for Glacier Point patronage came from one James McCauley,
who in 1870-1871 met the expense of building a horse trail from Black’s
and Leidig’s over a four-mile route up the 3,200-foot cliff to the
famous vantage point. This new route was at first a toll trail. For
sixty years it has been climbed and descended by countless thousands of
riders and hikers. It has been known as the Four-Mile Trail for more
than half a century, and it was not until 1929 that its grades, surveyed
and built by John Conway, were changed by more skilled engineers.
It is likely that McCauley, owner of the Four-Mile Trail, made use of
the insufficient little building on Glacier Point while his trail was in
the making. Few records regarding the “shack” or his later Mountain
House are to be found, but Lady C. F. Gordon-Cumming wrote on the tenth
of May, 1878: “The snow on the upper trail [Four-Mile] had been cleared
by men who are building a rest-house on the summit.” After arriving at
Glacier Point, she records: “The cold breeze was so biting that we were
thankful to take refuge, with our luncheon-basket, in the newly built
wooden house.” Later, “On our way down through the snow-cuttings, we had
rather an awkward meeting with a long file of mules heavily laden with
furniture—or rather, portions of furniture—for the new house.”
It is believed that the first firefall from Glacier Point was the work
of James McCauley in 1871 or 1872. He sold his trail to the state. His
Mountain House was operated on a lease basis from the commissioners. One
of his visitors of the early ’eighties was Derrick Dodd, who concocted
something of a classic in the way of Glacier Point stories. It is too
good to pass into oblivion.
DERRICK DODD’S TOUGH STORY
As a part of the usual programme, we experimented as to the time taken
by different objects in reaching the bottom of the cliff. An ordinary
stone tossed over remained in sight an incredibly long time, but
finally vanished somewhere about the middle distance. A handkerchief
with a stone tied in the corner, was visible perhaps a thousand feet
deeper; but even an empty box, watched by a field-glass, could not be
traced to its concussion with the Valley floor. Finally, the landlord
appeared on the scene, carrying an antique hen under his arm. This, in
spite of the terrified ejaculations and entreaties of the ladies, he
deliberately threw over the cliff’s edge. A rooster might have gone
thus to his doom in stoic silence, but the sex of this unfortunate
bird asserted itself the moment it started on its awful journey into
space. With an ear-piercing cackle that gradually grew fainter as it
fell, the poor creature shot downward; now beating the air with
ineffectual wings, and now frantically clawing at the very wind, that
slanted her first this way and then that; thus the hapless fowl shot
down, down, until it became a mere fluff of feathers no larger than a
quail. Then it dwindled to a wren’s size, disappeared, then again
dotted the sight a moment as a pin’s point, and then—it was gone!
After drawing a long breath all round, the women folks pitched into
the hen’s owner with redoubled zest. But the genial McCauley shook his
head knowingly, and replied:
“Don’t be alarmed about that chicken, ladies. She’s used to it. She
goes over that cliff every day during the season.”
And, sure enough, on our road back we met the old hen about half up
the trail, calmly picking her way home!
In 1882, the Glacier Point road was built. Traffic to the Mountain House
was, of course, doubled by the coming of those who would not walk or
ride a horse up steep trails. Glacier Point trails did not fall into
disuse, however. On the contrary, attempts were made to make them more
attractive. Anderson’s Trail from Happy Isles to Vernal Fall was
constructed at great loss to its builder in 1882. The present
Eleven-Mile Trail from Nevada Fall to Glacier Point was built in 1885.
In spite of the variety of routes offered, it was planned as early as
1887 to provide a passenger lift to the famous vantage-point. The plan
progressed as far as the making of a preliminary survey. Accommodations
at the point remained unchanged until 1917, when the Glacier Point Hotel
was built by the Desmond Park Service Company adjacent to the Mountain
House. The two structures function as a unit of the Yosemite Park and
Curry Company operation.
The John Degnan Bakery and Store
The Degnan concession in the “Old Village” is not and never was a hotel
or lodge. However, it has catered to Yosemite tourists since 1884 and is
the oldest business in the park. John Degnan, an Irishman, built his
first Yosemite cabin on the site of the present Degnan store. Soon
thereafter, on the occasion of a spring meeting of the Yosemite Valley
Commissioners, of which the governor of the state was a member, Mr.
Degnan appeared before the managing body to obtain the privilege of
building a suitable home. The board listened to his plea, and the
Governor observed, “He seems to be the kind of man we want as an
all-year resident—one who will take care of the place when it needs
care.” Mr. Degnan, in an interview with a National Park Service official
in 1941, stated, “After that meeting the Commissioners came over to my
cabin, and the Governor then assigned to me the land which I now occupy,
extending from the road to the cliff.”
Mrs. Degnan, who was a party to all of Mr. Degnan’s pioneering in
Yosemite Valley, met the tourists’ demand for bread. Gradually, her
bakery expanded until her ovens could turn out one hundred loaves at a
baking. The business and the home grew as did the Degnan family. Mary
Ellen Degnan, one of the several children born to Mr. and Mrs. Degnan,
now manages the modern store and restaurant which evolved from the
pioneer venture.
The record of John Degnan’s activities in Yosemite National Park stands
as ample testimony to the accuracy of the governor’s appraisal, “He
seems to be the kind of man we want.” He was a respected party to much
of the early physical improvement in and about the valley and to the
general growth and development of facilities and services.
Mrs. Degnan died Dec. 17, 1940, and Mr. Degnan’s death occurred on Feb.
27, 1943.
The Stoneman House
The demand for more pretentious accommodations than those afforded by
the pioneer hotels of Yosemite was met in 1887, when the state built a
four-story structure that would accommodate about 150 guests. The
legislature in 1885 appropriated $40,000 to be expended on this
building. Another $5,000 was secured for water supply and furniture. A
site near the present Camp Curry garage was selected, and the building
contract let to Carle, Croly, and Abernethy. Upon its completion J. J.
Cook, who had been managing Black’s Hotel, was placed in charge.
The bulky structure was not beautiful architecturally, and the first few
years of its existence demonstrated that its design was faulty. In 1896
the Stoneman House burned to the ground.
Camp Curry
Mr. and Mrs. D. A. Curry originated an idea in tourist service which
rather revolutionized the scheme of hostelry operation in Yosemite and
other national parks. The Currys came to Yosemite in 1899. They were
teachers who had turned their summer vacations into profitable
management of Western camping tours in such localities as Yellowstone
National Park. Their first venture in Yosemite involved use of seven
tents and employment of one paid woman cook. The services of several
college students were secured in return for summer expenses. The site
chosen for that first camp is the area occupied by Camp Curry.
Success of the hotel-camp plan was immediately apparent. The first year
292 people registered at the resort. However, success was not attained
without striving. The camp was dependent upon freight-wagon service
requiring two weeks to make the round trip to Merced. Sometimes even
this service failed.
Informal hospitality has always characterized Camp Curry. Popular
campfire entertainments have been a feature from the beginning. In one
of the first summers in Yosemite, D. A. Curry revived the firefall,[9]
which it is presumed originated with James McCauley, of the Mountain
House. Employees from Camp Curry were occasionally sent to Glacier Point
to build a fire and push it off for a special party. This was done more
and more frequently, until it became a nightly occurrence. Mr. Curry’s
“Hello,” his “All’s well,” and “Farewell,” delivered with remarkable
volume, won for him the appellation, “The Stentor of Yosemite.”
The coming of the Yosemite Valley Railroad in 1907 gave a powerful new
impetus to the growth of Camp Curry. Automobile travel, of course,
provided the climax. In 1915 the camp provided accommodations for one
thousand visitors. Today, it maintains nearly 500 tents and 200 bungalow
and cabin rooms.
The successful operations of the Curry business induced would-be
competition. Camp Yosemite, later known as Camp Lost Arrow, was started
in 1901 near the foot of Yosemite Falls. It continued to function until
1915. Camp Ahwahnee, at the foot of the Four-Mile Trail, was established
in 1908 and continued for seven years. The Desmond Park Service Company
secured a twenty-year concession to operate camps, stores, and
transportation service in 1915. This company purchased the assets of the
Sentinel Hotel, Camp Lost Arrow, and Camp Ahwahnee. The two camps were
discontinued, and a new venture made in the present Yosemite Lodge. The
Desmond Company prevailed until 1920, when reorganization took place,
and it became the Yosemite National Park Company.
The Curry Camping Company maintained its substantial position through
all of the years of varying fortunes of its less substantial
contemporaries. In 1925, the Yosemite Park and Curry Company was formed
by the consolidation of the Curry Company and the Yosemite National Park
Company. The new organization has contracted with the government to
perform all services demanded by the public in the park. Some 1,250
people are employed during the summer months, and the investment in
tourist facilities totals $5,500,000.
David A. Curry did not live to witness the realization of all his plans.
However, prior to his death in 1917, the march of progress had so
advanced as to make evident the place of leadership the Curry operation
was to maintain. “Mother” Curry, as “Manager Emeritus,” still devotes
personal attention to the business of the pioneer hotel-camp but the
active management is in the hands of persons trained by her and her
daughter, Mary Curry Tresidder. Her son-in-law, Dr. Donald B. Tresidder,
until 1943 actively managed the operations and still retains the
presidency of the extensive Yosemite Park and Curry Company, which has
grown from the modest start made in 1899.
Big Trees Lodge
The Yosemite National Park Company in 1920 established a tent camp in
the upper section of the Mariposa Grove, which consisted of a rustic
central building constructed around the base of the tree, Montana, and a
group of cabins and tents. The camp persisted in this form until 1932,
when it was razed by the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, and a new
lodge was built near Sunset Point in the Grove. In its design the new
building reflects the charm of pioneer structures of the Sierra Nevada.
High Sierra Camps
In 1923, Superintendent Lewis advocated the creation of a service that
would enable the hiker to enjoy the wonders of the Yosemite high country
and yet be free from the irksome load of blankets and food necessary to
the success of a trip away from the established centers of the park. T.
E. Farrow, of the Yosemite Park Company, projected tentative plans for a
series of “hikers’ camps,” and in the fall of 1923 I was dispatched on a
journey of reconnaissance for the purpose of locating camp sites in the
rugged country drained by the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne. The
sites advocated were Little Yosemite, Merced Lake,[10] Boothe Lake, the
Lyell Fork (Mount Lyell), Tuolumne Meadows,[10] Glen Aulin, and Tenaya
Lake.[10] In 1924, these sites, with the exception of Lyell Fork and
Glen Aulin, were occupied by simple camps, consisting of a mess and cook
tent, a dormitory tent for women, and a dormitory tent for men.
Attendants and cooks were employed for each establishment. With two
exceptions, the camps were removed from roads, and equipment and
supplies were of necessity packed in on mules. Yet it was possible to
offer the facilities of these high mountain resorts at a very low price,
and it became apparent that saddle parties, as well as hikers, would
take advantage of them. Consequently they have become known as High
Sierra Camps.
The camp beside the White Cascade at Glen Aulin was established in 1927
and has been very popular. In 1938, the Tenaya Lake Camp was moved to a
beautiful location in a grove of hemlocks on May Lake, just east of
Mount Hoffmann. New trails were built to make this spot more readily
accessible from the Snow Creek Trail and from Glen Aulin. The Boothe
Lake Camp, after a few years of operation, was abandoned in favor of a
new camp near the junction of the Vogelsang, Rafferty Creek, and Lyell
Fork trails. In 1940, this camp was rebuilt on the banks of Fletcher
Creek. The Tuolumne Meadows Lodge is now the only one of these camps
situated on a road. Each camp has a setting of a distinctive mountain
character on lake or stream. All the camps represent a joint effort on
the part of the National Park Service and the concessionaire to
encourage and assist travel beyond the roads, where the visitor may
appreciate the wild values of the park which he can hardly observe from
the highways.
The Ahwahnee Hotel, 1927 to Date
The Yosemite Park and Curry Company opened the Ahwahnee in 1927. Its
interior has received quite as much study as has its exterior
architectural values.
California Indian patterns have been used throughout the hotel in many
ways. In the lobby, six great figures, set in multiple borders, rendered
in mosaic, give color and interest to the floor. In the downstairs
corridor and the dining room, other borders and simpler Indian motifs
are rendered in acid-etched cement. Painted Indian ornaments play a
number of different roles in the building.
In the main lounge the great beams have been related to the contents of
the room with borders, spots, and panels of Indian motifs in the colors
that appear in the rugs and furniture coverings, while the entire mantel
end of the room serves as a bond between the ceiling and the floor with
a composite of Indian figures built into one great architectural
structure. At the top of each of the ten high windows is a panel of
stained glass, each one different, the series forming a rhythmical
frieze that bands the room. They are all composed of Indian patterns.
The arts of the whole world have been called together to give the
Ahwahnee character and color. There are Colonial furniture, pottery, and
textiles; furniture, cottons and linen, lights, and a clock from
England; cottons from Norway; and irons from Flanders; more iron and
furniture and fabrics from France; embroideries from Italy; rugs from
Spain; designs from Greece and designs from Turkey; rugs, jars, and
tiles, silks and cottons from Persia; more rugs from the Caucasus and
tent strips from Turkestan; porcelains and paintings from China; the
sturdy Temmoku ware from Japan; fabrics from Guatemala; terra cotta from
Mexico, and so back to California, whence comes the basic motif of the
whole, the Indian design.
On June 23, 1943, the Ahwahnee Hotel was taken over by the United States
Navy and operated as a hospital. It functioned as the Naval Special
Hospital until its formal decommissioning on December 15, 1945, and
6,752 patients were treated, the greatest number at one time being 853.
A large and varied naval staff was assigned to duty at the Ahwahnee,
including officers, nurses, Waves, and enlisted men. Representatives of
the American Red Cross, Veterans’ Administration, and the United States
Employment Service also participated in the hospital program. The
Ahwahnee as a hospital became an adequately equipped and functioning
rehabilitation center, capable of handling full programs of physical
training, occupational therapy, and educational work. The department of
occupational therapy, especially, was recognized as outstanding among
service hospitals. The program of rehabilitation extended to the
out-of-doors, both summer and winter.
[Illustration: Half Dome]