Yosemite Firefall - Nineteenth Century

Nineteenth Century

In 1871, before Yosemite was a National Park, James McCauley retained trail builder John Conway to build the Four-Mile Trail from Yosemite Valley, where McCauley had a home at the trailhead, to Glacier Point. After the trail was completed in 1872, McCauley built a small hotel on Glacier Point, the Glacier Point Mountain House. In 1879, he married, and he and his wife Barbara operated the hotel during the summer. Twin sons, John and Fred, were born in 1880; and in 1883, James McCauley sent to Ireland for his niece, Elizabeth McCauley, to come to Yosemite to help them with the hotel and the boys.

In later years, James McCauley's son Fred had an apple orchard just outside the Park, and he died in the 1930s. Fred's twin brother John (who died in the 1970s) recounted the history of the firefall to Ranger-Naturalist Bob Fry in 1961 at a party at the home of Yosemite historian Shirley Sargent in Foresta. John said that the famous Firefall began in a spontaneous way. When they lived at Glacier Point during the summer, the two boys rode burros down the Four-Mile Trail each day to school. While they were in the Valley after school, the boys talked to visitors, who commented on the campfire they had seen the night before at Glacier Point.

Many nights James McCauley would build a large campfire for his guests on the point of the granite cliff that jutted out over the Valley, and they would sit around the fire and talk and sing. When everyone was ready to go back to the hotel, he would kick the coals off the edge of the cliff. This is what people in the Valley occasionally saw. They would say to the McCauley boys something like "Mighty fine campfire your father had last night." Some visitors gave them money, saying things like "Here's two bits. Tell your father to have another firefall tonight." John McCauley indicated that he and Fred got the idea that this was a good way to earn a little money, so they encouraged visitors to donate. This way, the boys might collect a dollar or two or possibly more. Then they gathered wood for the larger fire they had promised (wood was scarce on Glacier Point) before hiking up Four-Mile Trail, leading the burros, now laden with wood. Many campers expressed disappointment because they had missed the firefall, having no way of knowing when the event would occur. James McCauley devised a signal to notify those in the Valley when the "firefall" would occur. He tied a gunny sack to a long pole and dipped the gunny sack in "coal oil". At the appropriate time, he lit the gunny sack and waved it back and forth, a signal that could be seen clearly by those below. Then he would kick over the campfire coals. Later someone suggested that he signal by sound; one night he set off a charge of one-half stick of dynamite, but he did it only the one time. It was too loud and scared people. Dropping the fire there was later made illegal, for the Government placed a warning sign. The sign was somewhat blunt and 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"

In 1897 the Washburn brothers, who then owned the Wawona Hotel, had the Guardian of the State Grant (before Yosemite was a National Park) evict James McCauley, and they took over the hotel at Glacier Point. They did not continue McCauley's practice of the Firefall.

The following year, McCauley bought John Lembert's homestead in Tuolumne Meadows and ran cattle there. He and his sons built a small cabin on the property at Tuolumne Meadows; it still stands today, and houses Park personnel. It is called "the McCauley Cabin" and has a historical marker in front of it. James McCauley died in 1903, and the McCauley family continued to use the Tuolumne Meadows property until they sold it to the Sierra Club in 1912; the Sierra Club sold that property to the National Park Service in 1973.