There will be no Firefall.' Curry felt that a rival company, the Desmond Park Service Company, had influenced the Park Service against him. Miller told him, 'I'm going to take the Firefall away. Miller had a confrontation over the Curry Camping Company's lease. On May 31, 1913, Curry and Assistant Secretary of the Interior Adolph C. He would call up to Glacier Point to signal when the Firefall should begin: He sent his employees to build a fire on the point and push it off on special occasions.Ĭurry prided himself on his booming voice. Sometime in the early 1900s, Curry reestablished the Firefall during the summer season, when guests were at Camp Curry. Soon he heard visitors reminiscing about the Firefall when McCauley ran the hotel at Glacier Point. In 1899 David Curry established Camp Curry in Yosemite Valley. Camp Curry Years Ī 1921 advertisement for Camp Curry featured the Firefall and the voice of the Stentor. The McCauley family sold it to the Sierra Club in 1912, and the Sierra Club sold it to the National Park Service in 1973. He and his sons built a small cabin on the property at Tuolumne Meadows today the 'McCauley Cabin' houses park personnel. The following year, McCauley bought John Lembert's homestead in Tuolumne Meadows and ran cattle there. In 1897, the Washburn brothers, who owned the Wawona Hotel, had the Guardian of the State Grant evict James McCauley and took over his hotel at Glacier Point. The park placed a warning sign which read: It is 3,000 feet to the bottom And no undertaker to meet you TAKE NO CHANCES There is a difference Between bravery and just plain ORDINARY FOOLISHNESS Later, dropping the fire from there was made illegal. Then he would kick over the campfire coals. He would light the sack and wave it as a signal that the Firefall was about to begin. James McCauley tied a gunny sack to a long pole and dipped in 'coal oil'. They gathered wood for a larger fire, carrying it up the mountain on their burros. Tell your father to have another firefall tonight.' The sons decided this was a way to earn a little money. Some visitors gave them money, saying things like 'Here's two bits. People in the valley were fascinated by the falling embers and mentioned it to McCauley's sons. At the end of the evening, McCauley would kick the glowing coals over the edge of the cliff. James McCauley often made a large campfire for his guests on the point of the granite cliff that jutted out over the valley. His twin brother John told Ranger-Naturalist Bob Fry in 1961 that the Firefalls began spontaneously one day. McCauley's son Fred had an apple orchard just outside the park. In 1883, James McCauley sent for his niece, Elizabeth McCauley, to come from Ireland and help with the hotel. McCauley and his wife Barbara operated the hotel during the summer months. When the trail was completed, McCauley built a small hotel called the Glacier Point Mountain House. In 1871, before Yosemite became a National Park, an Irish immigrant named James McCauley hired John Conway to build the Four Mile Trail from Yosemite Valley, where McCauley lived, to Glacier Point. seven nights a week as the final act of a performance at Camp Curry. The Glacier Point Hotel was destroyed by fire 18 months later and was not rebuilt. The NPS wanted to preserve the valley, returning it to its natural state. Hartzog, then the director of the National Park Service, ordered it to stop because the overwhelming number of visitors that it attracted trampled the meadows, and because it was not a natural event. The Firefall ended in January 1968, when George B. History has it that David Curry, founder of Camp Curry, would stand at the base of the fall, and yell 'Let the fire fall,' each night as a signal to start pushing the embers over. The owners of the Glacier Point Hotel conducted the firefall. From a distance it appeared as a glowing waterfall. The Yosemite Firefall was a summer time event that began in 1872 and continued for almost a century, in which burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park to the valley 3,000 feet below. Long-exposure photograph of the Firefall taken from the Ahwahnee Meadow
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