Spring  Summer  Fall  Winter

SUMMER
GALLERY

by TOM BOPP

     So, what do you do when you live upstairs in the Wawona Hotel from spring to fall (as was my privilege for four years)?  Sit out on the front deck with a beer, and friends, and good music, and stare through the railing at the fountain...

     The fountain was built in 1918, at the end of several years of remodeling and construction at the Wawona Hotel.  The manager at the time, Clarence Washburn, was busy turning the forty-year-old complex into a first-class resort.  Washburn oversaw the addition of tennis courts, a swimming pool, golf course, beauty salon, extra dining room, and the new Annex building.

Hunting, fishing (in stocked streams), horseback riding and dancing provided additional diversions for the busy guests, who now arrived in Pierce-Arrow "auto-stages," rather than the slow, dusty horse-stages of previous decades.

The fountain that this one replaced had been installed in 1889, inspired by a painting by Thomas Hill in which he added a fountain where none had been.  An etching from the painting (below) appeared in James Hutching's book, "In The Heart Of The Sierras" (1886).