Yosemite Firefall - Camp Curry Years

Camp Curry Years

In 1899 David Curry established Camp Curry in Yosemite Valley. Soon he heard visitors reminiscing about the Firefall when McCauley ran the hotel at Glacier Point. Some time in the early 1900s, Curry reestablished the Firefall during the summer season, when guests were camping at Camp Curry. He sent his employees to Glacier Point to build a fire and push it off on special occasions.

David Curry prided himself on his booming voice. He fancied himself to have a voice like the Greek herald Stentor. He would call up to Glacier Point to signal when the Firefall should begin. At first the calls went something like this:

• David Curry: Hello, Glacier Point.

  Glacier Point: Hello.

  David Curry: Let 'er go, Gallagher.

On May 31, 1913, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Adolph C. Miller and David Curry had a confrontation over the Curry Camping Company's lease contract. Miller said, "I'm going to take the Firefall away. There will be no Firefall." Curry felt that a rival company, the Desmond Park Service Company, had influenced the Park Service against him. From that time on, he would begin the nightly entertainment program at Camp Curry by saying "Welcome to Camp Curry, where the Stentor calls and fire used to fall." In 1916, Desmond built the Glacier Point Hotel, a large chalet-style hotel with a commanding view of Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall.

On March 8, 1917, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane granted the Curry Camping Company a five-year lease and said that the Firefall could be reinstated as a nightly summertime event. David Curry died soon after, on April 30. His widow, Jennie, and son Foster opened Camp Curry the summer of 1917 and presided at the reintroduction of the Firefall. Foster Curry shouted "Let 'er go, Gallagher" that night and continued to be the caller during his tenure.

Later the calls were changed to the ones that were repeated each summer night as long as the Firefall continued. The job of making the calls was one that loud-voiced employees vied for.

• Camp Curry: Hello, Glacier Point.

  Glacier Point: Hello, Camp Curry.

  Camp Curry: Is the fire ready?

  Glacier Point: The fire is ready.

  Camp Curry: Let the fire fall.

  Glacier Point: The fire falls.

By 1960, the middle exchange of calls ("Is the fire ready?"; "The fire is ready.") was eliminated.

As the fire fell, the "Indian Love Call" was sung at Camp Curry while visitors enjoyed the sight of what seemed to be a waterfall of fire. At the campground sites where Ranger-Naturalists (as they were called then) gave nightly summer talks, "America the Beautiful" was played, and the audience sang along. The time of the Firefall was established as 9:00 p.m. The Ranger-Naturalists had to be careful to end their programs in the campgrounds and at Camp Curry right at 9:00, or the "fire would fall on the program." In 1962, President John F. Kennedy visited Yosemite National Park, and on that night an especially large fire was built on the Point to make a spectacular Firefall. President Kennedy was on the telephone at 9:00, so the Firefall was delayed until he finished, and the Firefall occurred around 9:30 p.m.

Sometime, probably by 1920, red fir bark was found to be the best fuel to produce an even flow of coals, so fires were made of red fir bark instead of wood. Employees would gather huge piles of the bark, which they stored near the hotel; each day a stack of the bark would be placed on the Valley side of the Point, to be lit that night and to burn for a couple hours to produce a bed of coals. Through the years, visitors to Glacier Point enjoyed watching the hotel employees gradually push the glowing embers off the cliff with long-handled metal pushers.

In 1925 all the rival business companies in the Park united to form the Yosemite Park and Curry Company under the direction of the Curry family. YPCC continued to be the concessionaire of Yosemite National Park until 1993 (Although the YPCC has been owned by various corporations in recent decades, the name remained unchanged).

During World War II the Firefall was discontinued. Some people in both the National Park Service and the Yosemite Park and Curry Company hoped that it would not be continued after the war. The NPS considered it an unnatural event in a natural area, and the task of presenting the Firefall each night was burdensome to YPCC. Employees drove trucks farther to find the red fir bark, because they were allowed to collect it only from trees that were dead and down. Before the Firefall ended, they were going as far as the Tioga Road. After World War II, the public demanded the Firefall's return. So it did, and was an attraction for the next two decades.

Finally, in January 1968, George Hertzog, Director of the National Park Service, ordered that the Firefall be discontinued. He stated his reasons: the Firefall was a man-made event, which detracted from National Park Service policy to encourage appreciation of natural wonders. He said that if people wanted to see something like that, they could go to Disneyland. Also, the traffic was increasingly problematic, as each night a stream of cars left the campgrounds and meadow areas where people had gone to get the best views.

The last Firefall was on Thursday, January 25, 1968. Since it was winter, no crowd was present.

The Firefall might have been discontinued by natural means the following year anyway. The winter of 1968-1969 had very heavy snow. The Glacier Point Hotel was damaged by snow pack, and needed to be razed and rebuilt, hence no guests were booked that summer. A few employees lived in the old Mountain House (then the oldest building in the Park), selling snacks to Glacier Point daytime visitors. In early July 1969, an electrical fire began in the lower floor of the unattended Glacier Point Hotel, and the hotel, Mountain House, and many trees burned. The pile of red fir bark near the hotel, left from previous summers, helped fuel the fire. Glacier Point was closed to visitors for the rest of the summer of 1969 while workers cleared the debris.

The next summer the Yosemite Park and Curry Company built a small snack shop to serve daytime visitors to Glacier Point. YPCC considered rebuilding a hotel at Glacier Point, but the Park Service would not permit rebuilding at the same location; it would have to be placed further back from the precipice.

Water was always a problem at Glacier Point. Some summers the hotel was closed in August due to insufficient water. So the Glacier Point Hotel and McCauley's old Mountain House, like the famous Firefall, became only memories.