Hotel Del Portal was one of the early first-class hotels established by the

Yosemite Valley Railroad The Yosemite Valley Railroad (YVRR) was a short-line railroad operating from 1907 to 1945 in the state of California, mostly following the Merced River from Merced to Yosemite National Park, carrying a mixture of passenger and freight traffic. ...

to take passengers from Merced to the

terminus Terminus may refer to: * Bus terminus, a bus station serving as an end destination * Terminal train station or terminus, a railway station serving as an end destination Geography *Terminus, the unofficial original name of Atlanta, Georgia, United ...

El Portal, California El Portal (Spanish for "The Gateway") is a census-designated place in Mariposa County, California, United States. It is located west-southwest of Yosemite Village, at an elevation of . The population was 372 at the 2020 census, down from 474 at ...

, just outside of

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...

. The hotel set the standard for elegance in the Yosemite area. When automobiles replaced horses and wagons for transportation to Yosemite, business at the Del Portal Hotel started to slow. A fire destroyed the hotel in 1917.

History

Work on a four-story Hotel Del Portal began in the fall of 1907 and completed in 1908 by a subsidiary corporation of the

. It was located at

Mariposa County Mariposa County () is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 17,131. The county seat is Mariposa. It is located in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, north of Fresno, east of ...

, west-southwest of Yosemite Village, at an elevation of 1,939 feet (591 m); on the western boundary of

. The hotel was a $100,000 guest resort that had steam heat, electric lights, private baths at four or five dollars per day. The hotel set the standard for elegance in the Yosemite area. The hotel was a four-hour ride from Merced via a railway coach. The new hotel replaced a number of tents that had been the first lodging for passengers. When passengers arrived at the

at El Portal in the late afternoon, they spent the night at the Del Portal Hotel, then left to Yosemite Valley after breakfast the next morning. On October 1, 1917, the Desmond Park Service moved to the Hotel Del Portal during the winter. The hotel was owned by the Yosemite Valley Railroad company, but the Desmond Company leased and operated it and the automobile stage line between El Portal and Yosemite Valley. The Desmond Park Service Company changed its name to the Yosemite National Park Company in December 1917 and was reorganized in 1920. Automobile stages soon replaced horses and wagons for the transportation to the Yosemite. Business at the Del Portal Hotel started to slow down as passengers were loaded from the train at El Portal to buses that took them to Yosemite Valley. During

World War 1 World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, tourist travel slowed. On October 27, 1917, a fire destroyed the hotel including the Desmond Company's records. The fire was started by a defective attic

flue A flue is a duct, pipe, or opening in a chimney for conveying exhaust gases from a fireplace, furnace, water heater, boiler, or generator to the outdoors. Historically the term flue meant the chimney itself. In the United States, they are ...

. In April 1918, the new El Portal Inn replaced the Hotel Del Portal. The smaller and less elegant Inn was a two-story, twenty-room hotel. It was operated by the Yosemite Terminal Company, a subsidiary of the Yosemite Valley Railroad. On July 9, 1932, the El Portal Inn was burned down due to defective kitchen equipment. A new hotel, next to highway 140, was built by December 1932.

External links

Hotel Del Portal, Sunset Magazine
(1911)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hotel Del Portal Yosemite National Park Hotels in California Hotel buildings completed in 1908 Hotels established in 1908 1908 establishments in California National Park lodges

History

See also

External links

References