Christmas in August (Yellowstone)

Last updated

Christmas in August (formerly known as "Savage Christmas") is an annual tradition in Yellowstone National Park. The celebration includes decorating Christmas trees, singing Christmas carols, and gift exchanges. [1]

Yellowstone National Park first national park in the world, located in the US states Wyoming, Montana and Idaho

Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular features. It has many types of ecosystems, but the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.

Contents

Origin

According to the local legend, in the early part of the 20th century a freak blizzard stranded visitors and their stagecoach at the Old Faithful Inn. Rather than lament the fact that they were snowbound in a hotel, the guests decided to celebrate Christmas, since it looked like Christmas outside. Some stories place this blizzard as happening "shortly after the turn of the [20th] century" [2] while others specify the blizzard occurred in 1939 [3] and some place it in the 1920s. [4]

Old Faithful Inn place in Wyoming listed on National Register of Historic Places

The Old Faithful Inn is a hotel located in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States, with a view of the Old Faithful Geyser. The Inn has a multi-story log lobby, flanked by long frame wings containing guest rooms.

Some stories date the blizzard to the 19th century, prior to the creation of the Old Faithful Inn. [2] There is no historical record recording that a blizzard ever hit Yellowstone on or around August 25 of any given year. In fact, between 1904 and 1941, the most snow that Yellowstone received on any given day in August was 1.8 inches on August 18, 1932. [2] Interviews with older employees indicate that the celebration was not held prior to the 1930s. [2]

Historical origin

While the actual origins to the Christmas in August story are unknown, Yellowstone's Information Specialist Leslie Quinn speculates that the origins are based upon three factors. First, during the 1930s the celebration of Christmas in July was a popular celebration in the Rocky Mountains. Second, August 25th is the anniversary of the National Park Service. Third, there was an existing celebration in the park known as "Savage Days." [2] Quinn discovered a 1966 article published by the Park's Recreation department titled, "“Christmas Comes Twice a Year—Once At Home and Once Up Here.” In the article, Gene "Mr. Yellowstone Music" Quaw, indicated that there was no Christmas in August celebration while he worked in Yellowstone during the 1920s and 1930s. According to Quaw, there was a small Christmas in July celebration and that the employees would have an employee-only celebration called "Savage Days" wherein a park employee would dress as Santa Claus.

Christmas in July is a Christmas celebration held in July, the nature of which differs by hemisphere.

Savage Days

In 1977, park historian Aubrey L. Haines, indicated that the earliest reference in the 1947 employee handbooks was an indication that read “O. F. Savages held annual celebration, 7/25.” According to the August 1, 1947 issue of Yellowstone’s Weekly News the July 25th celebration had nothing to do with Christmas. "The 'savages' (concessionaire employees) at Old Faithful held a gala affair on July 25 known as “Savage Day.” Several floats were entered in the long parade up the main street at Old Faithful. The day concluded with a large masquerade ball in the evening." Haines indicates that he remembered the celebrations going back to 1939 when he worked at Old Faithful as an Assistant District Ranger, but that nobody paid the employee-only celebration much attention. [2]

By 1953, however, the annual celebration known as "savage days" had become a parkwide celebration and had attracted the attention of the park concessioners and National Park Service as it interfered with service quality. [2]

Savage Christmas

1953 was the last year "Savage Days" were celebrated in Yellowstone National Park. Starting in 1954, the park concessionaires made a concerted effort to merge Savage Days with the smaller "Christmas in July" celebration. Trevor Povah, the head of Hamilton Stores, one of the park concessioners claims that the park concessioners deliberately created the story of a blizzard at the Old Faithful Inn to obfuscate the origins of a new celebration called "Savage Christmas." [2] In 1955, the first publications came out mentioning "Savage Christmas." [2] From 1954–59, the celebration was held either on July 25 or August 25, but by 1959 August 25 became the permanent date. [2] Quinn speculates that there were two reasons why the August 25th date prevailed over the July 25th one. First, the tourist season in Yellowstone starts in May and ends at the end of August, by celebrating Christmas on August 25th, it became an end of the tourist season celebration. Second, Warren Ost, a bellhop at the Old Faithful Inn and founder of A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (ACMNP), had started a choir. The choir held its first celebration on August 7, 1949. Within two years, ACMNP was forming choirs at the Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, and Lake areas of the park with the intention of performing Handel's Messiah. Quinn reasons that having the Messiah, which was an annual tradition from the early 1950s through the 1990s, coincide with the Christmas celebration would have been a logical step. "But with only a short season in which to prepare, an August date for the concert would have been more reasonable, and this may have been a factor in the July-to- August switch." [2] Delmar J. Sicard, III, the author who wrote the article "Christmas Comes Twice A Year—Once At Home And Once Up Here" noted that the Christmas celebrations “began to take on a more serious and formal aspect” with the arrival of ACMNP serminarians. [2]

Related Research Articles

Old Faithful is a geyser within Yellowstone National Park.

Robert Reamer American architect

Robert C. Reamer (1873–1938) was an American architect, most noted for the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone fires of 1988 conflagration in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, U.S.

The Yellowstone fires of 1988 collectively formed the largest wildfire in the recorded history of Yellowstone National Park in the United States. Starting as many smaller individual fires, the flames quickly spread out of control due to drought conditions and increasing winds, combining into one large conflagration which burned for several months. The fires almost destroyed two major visitor destinations and, on September 8, 1988, the entire park closed to all non-emergency personnel for the first time in its history. Only the arrival of cool and moist weather in the late autumn brought the fires to an end. A total of 793,880 acres (3,213 km2), or 36 percent of the park was affected by the wildfires.

Lake Hotel

The Lake Hotel is one of a series of hotels built to accommodate visitors to Yellowstone National Park in the late 19th and early 20th century. Built originally in 1891, it was re-designed and substantially expanded by Robert Reamer, architect of the Old Faithful Inn in 1903. In contrast to the Old Faithful Inn, the Lake Hotel is a relatively plain clapboarded Colonial Revival structure with three large Ionic porticoes facing Yellowstone Lake.

Old Faithful Historic District

The Old Faithful Historic District in Yellowstone National Park comprises the built-up portion of the Upper Geyser Basin surrounding the Old Faithful Inn and Old Faithful Geyser. It includes the Old Faithful Inn, designed by Robert Reamer and itself a National Historic Landmark, the upper and lower Hamilton's Stores, the Old Faithful Lodge, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and a variety of supporting buildings. The Old Faithful Historic District itself lies on the 140-mile Grand Loop Road Historic District.

Hamilton's Stores were concessioners in Yellowstone National Park from 1915 to 2002. The stores were founded by Winnipeg native Charles Hamilton, who arrived in Yellowstone in 1905, aged 21, to work for the Yellowstone Park Association. The stores provided food, souvenirs and sundries to tourists at the major attractions along Yellowstone's Grand Loop Road. Several of the buildings constructed for Hamilton's are significant examples of the National Park Service Rustic style of architecture and have assumed prominence as attractions in their own right. Most or all are included as contributing structures in National Register of Historic Places historic districts.

Old Faithful Lodge

Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone National Park is located opposite the more famous Old Faithful Inn, facing Old Faithful geyser. The Lodge was built as a series of detached buildings through 1923 and was consolidated into one complex by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood in 1926-27. The Lodge is included in the Old Faithful Historic District.

Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District

The Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District in Yellowstone National Park comprises the administrative center for the park. It is composed of two major parts: Fort Yellowstone, the military administrative center between 1886-1918, and now a National Historic Landmark, and a concessions district which provides food, shopping, services, and lodging for park visitors and employees.

Outline of Yellowstone National Park Wikimedia list article

The following articles relate to the history, geography, geology, flora, fauna, structures and recreation in Yellowstone National Park.

A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (ACMNP) is the largest and the oldest ecumenical Christian ministry in the United States National Parks, serving since the 1950s.

Dr. Rev. Warren William Ost was the Presbyterian Minister who founded A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (ACMNP) in 1952.

Marshalls Hotel

Marshall's Hotel, subsequently known as the Firehole Hotel was the first public accommodations built in the Firehole River geyser basins of Yellowstone National Park and among the earliest tourist hotels in Yellowstone. The first hotel was built in 1880 by George W. Marshall (1838-1917) and his partner John B. Goff and was located just west of confluence of the Firehole River and Nez Perce Creek. A second hotel, the Firehole Hotel, was built in 1884 in partnership with George Graham Henderson very near the present day Nez Perce Picnic area. The hotels operated for eleven years under various ownership ceasing operation in 1891. By 1895, all the structures except a few cabins associated with the two hotels had been razed.

The Old Faithful Museum of Thermal Activity was one of a series of four "trailside" museums built in Yellowstone National Park in 1929. Funded by a grant of $118,000 from Laura Spelman Rockefeller, the museums interpreted park features for visitors, and represented an early version of the visitor information center concept that became widespread throughout the National Park Service. The four museums were notable examples of the National Park Service Rustic style, and all were designed by Park Service architect Herbert Maier. The surviving Norris Museum, Fishing Bridge Museum and the Madison Museum are collectively listed as National Historic Landmarks.

Hotels and tourist camps of Yellowstone National Park

Since before the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, entrepreneurs have established hotels and permanent tourist camps to accommodate visitors to the park. Today, Xanterra Parks and Resorts operates hotel and camping concessions in the park on behalf of the National Park Service. This is a list of hotels and permanent tourist camps that have operated or continue to operate in the park.

Harry W. Child American businessman

Harry W. Child (1857–1931) was an entrepreneur who managed development and ranching companies in southern Montana. He was most notable as a founder and longtime president of the Yellowstone Park Company, which provided accommodation and transportation to visitors to Yellowstone National Park from 1892 to 1980. Child was, with park superintendent and National Park Service administrator Horace Albright, singularly responsible for the development of the park as a tourist destination and for the construction of much of the park's visitor infrastructure.

Canyon Hotel

The Canyon Hotel was built in Yellowstone National Park in 1910 by the Yellowstone Park Company to accommodate visitors to the area of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone Falls. The hotel was built on a huge scale, with a perimeter measurement of one mile. Situated on a hill to the west of the falls, it dominated the landscape. It had an elegant resort-like air when first built. After World War II it was regarded by the National Park Service as outdated. Suffering from neglect, it was abandoned in the late 1950s and was in the process of demolition when it was destroyed by fire in 1960.

References

  1. ↑ "Yellowstone: 125 Anniversary" . Retrieved Apr 14, 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Quinn, Leslie (Summer 2001). "Savage Christmas: "...the best of times"" (PDF). Yellowstone Science: A quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources Volume 9 Issue 3. Retrieved April 15, 2009.
  3. ↑ "Yellowstone National Park". USAToday. Aug 23, 1999. Retrieved Apr 14, 2009.
  4. ↑ "National Park System Quiz 34: Christmas in the Parks". National Parks Traveler. Retrieved Apr 14, 2009.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.