Ahwahnee Hotel
Grand hotel in Yosemite National Park, California
The Ahwahnee is a grand hotel in Yosemite National Park, California, on the floor of Yosemite Valley. It was built by the Yosemite Park and Curry Company and opened for business in 1927. The hotel is constructed of steel, stone, concrete, wood, and glass, and is a premier example of National Park Service rustic architecture. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
The Ahwahnee was temporarily renamed the Majestic Yosemite Hotel in 2016 due to a legal dispute between the U.S. government, which owns the property, and the outgoing concessionaire, Delaware North, which claimed rights to the trademarked name. The name was restored in 2019 upon settlement of the dispute.
Since 1980, The Ahwahnee is also known for being the inspiration for the interior scene design of the fictional Overlook Hotel in the Stanley Kubrick film The Shining.
History
The Currys
David and Jennie Curry were schoolteachers who arrived in Yosemite Valley in 1899. The couple ran a tent camp in the valley and, despite the two-week round-trip journey via horse and wagon from Merced, California, the camp registered 292 guests in its first year. The Curry Company went on to dominate the politics of the park for decades, and David wrote the Secretary of the Interior, Franklin Lane, in an effort to extend the park's tourist season so as to expand his business.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ahwahnee Hotel” as grand hotel in Yosemite National Park, California. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as grand hotel in Yosemite National Park, California. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4696448. VIAF identifies the subject as 140821251. The Library of Congress control number is n88023046. Authority coordinates are 37.746, -119.574. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1987, 2016 and 2019.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ahwahnee Hotel”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ahwahnee Hotel primary sources, Ahwahnee Hotel archive and Ahwahnee research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ahwahnee Hotel”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ahwahnee Hotel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.