Sentinel Hotel

Item Details

Yosemite Valley, J. B. Cook, 1896

3 1/2" x 5 1/2". Fine. Contemporary manuscript date on Recto.

The Sentinel Hotel complex began in 1858 as Mr. and Mrs. John Neal opened their Upper House to compete with The Lower House completed two years earlier. James Mason Hutchings purchased the failing enterprise in 1864 renaming it The Yo-Semite Hotel. In 1875 George Coulter & A. J. Murphy, the new owners, added a new and superior structure on the river named The Yosemite Falls Hotel. In 1877 J. K. Barnard assumed control of the complex renaming it Barnard's Yosemite Falls Hotel. The original old clapboard house became Cedar Cottage in honor of the ancient cedar built into the hotel when Hutchings added a parlor on the rear of the hotel in 1867. At the end of the 1892 season Barnard left the valley for good and the commissioners awarded the concession to Albert  Baldwin (AB) Glasscock. With the loss of the Stoneman House in 1896 the commissioners encouraged Glasscock to increase accommodations for the 1897 season. Glasscock worked feverishly hiring dozens of tradesmen working from sunup to sundown. The new accommodations completed Glasscock was prepared to welcome the arrivals for the 1897 season when he suffered a fatal stroke on June 6, 1897. The board of commissioners awarded the Sentinel lease to J. B. Cook our current host.