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.
By George Fiske Mill Built by John Muir in 1869
Glacier Point Mountain House, 1878 to date
By Thomas Hill Sentinel Hotel (left background), 1867 to 1938
By D. R. Brower The Ahwahnee Hotel, 1927 to date
By Ansel Adams Saddle Trip on a High Sierra Trail
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.