Made by the Yosemite Park and Curry Company to promote tourism at Yosemite, this silent film dates to the late 1920s and features the “new Hotel Ahwanee”. (The Ahwanee (now the Majestic) opened in 1927.) The movie features various views of the park starting with Arch Rock Ranger Station at :30, and shows Cascade Falls (1:29), El Capitan (2:30), the mirror pools (3:40), elk in the park (6:00), Camp Curry (7:00 — now known as Half Dome Village) including the swimming pool (7:15), the Mirror Lake (7:35), the Ahwanee Hotel (7:54) including the view from the dining room (10:00), Vernal Falls (12:10), Nevada Falls (13:35), and the Merced River (14:00).
The Yosemite Park and Curry Company (YP&C C) was organized in 1925 when Yosemite National Park’s two largest concessionaires, the Yosemite National Park Co. (previously the D.J. Desmond Co.) which operated the Yosemite Lodge and other smaller enterprises at Yosemite, and the Curry Camping Co. which operated Camp Curry, merged. Creation of the new company was the culmination of a decade-long effort by NPS Director Stephen Mather to consolidate services at Yosemite to better serve the visiting public and more efficiently develop visitor services in the park.
The Ahwahnee Hotel is a grand hotel in Yosemite National Park, California, on the floor of Yosemite Valley, constructed from steel, stone, concrete, wood and glass, which opened in 1927. It is a premiere example of National Park Service rustic architecture and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. The hotel was built by two companies that were merged when the National Park Service began leasing concessions to a single concessionaire in 1925. The Curry Company, owned by David and Jennie Curry and the Yosemite Park Company, the owners of the Yosemite Lodge, became the new “Yosemite Park & Curry Company” headed by Donald Tressider. The structure originally served as both a luxury hotel and the company offices of YPC&CC. Despite financial struggles, the YPC&CC remained the concessioner for the Ahwahnee Hotel until 1993, before the National Park Service required a new concessioner to buy the YPC&CC, creating a new company, Delaware North. Delaware North’s contract ended on March 1, 2016 when The National Park Service selected Aramark as the new concessionaire.
The Ahwahnee was renamed the Majestic Yosemite Hotel on March 1, 2016, due to a legal dispute between the US Government, which owns the property, and the outgoing concessionaire, Delaware North, which claims rights to the trademarked name
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
