The three students had, just an hour before, emptied the barrels of kerosene oil that would be used to light the bonfire. Replacing the fuel with water, the upperclassmen hoped to teach the freshmen not to brag about their bonfire's superiority.
"It was pretty good revenge on freshmen who weren't as smart as they thought they were," George Kain III '70, one of the pranksters, said. "It was great poetic justice."
After 20 minutes of watching the bewildered freshmen douse the wood with water, Kain and the other pranksters, Charles Allen '71 and Dudley Thompson Jr. '70, sent a note to the cheerleaders that revealed the location of the kerosene they had saved. Soon, the bonfire was ablaze as usual.
"We didn't want to totally disappoint everyone," Kain said. "We just wanted to humiliate the freshmen. It was hilarious."
The pranksters had no intention of fully sabotaging the bonfire -- they were simply carrying on the tradition of class pride, Kain said.
"I think [the tradition] is fabulous," he added.
The beginnings of tradition
As the iconic center of Dartmouth Night, the Homecoming bonfire has a rich history of developments and setbacks that demonstrate many facets of the Dartmouth spirit.
The College's first bonfire was built in 1888 after a baseball victory over Manchester College.
"The convulsive joy of the underclassmen burst forth," The Dartmouth then reported. Although The Dartmouth was of the opinion that the original bonfire "did no one any good," students continued the practice of building victory fires.
Dartmouth's first official bonfire burned in 1893. After a 34-0 defeat of Amherst College's football team, Dartmouth students constructed the "first strictly honest bonfire that the college ever saw," in that there was "not a borrowed box, barrel, or contraband combustible of any kind" used in the fire, The Dartmouth reported.
College President William Jewett Tucker announced the official inception of Dartmouth Night in 1895. But it was not until 1904, when Lord Dartmouth and Winston Churchill visited campus for Dartmouth Night, that the tradition fully began to take shape. On that night, the freshmen paraded first around town, then around the bonfire, wearing only pajamas.
By 1920, this practice was already referred to as the "traditional pajama rush." It was also then that the singing of the alma mater at the celebration's close began.
Evolution of bonfire construction
Although it is now an example of hard work and innovative engineering, the bonfire began as a 25-foot improvised pile of miscellany. In 1911, The Dartmouth listed "sundry frontdoor steps and backdoor steps," front-lawn fences and "numerous hen houses" as examples of wood that comprised early bonfires.
"With zeal like unto the operations of a fine-toothed comb, the builders searched every inch of ground for anything that could be made to burn," The Dartmouth reported in 1911. Though the purchase of materials for the bonfire began in 1893, when 12 cords of wood and two barrels of kerosene were used, the practice of wood-hunting through Hanover continued for decades.
In 1950, an alumnus who owned a Maine railroad company donated railroad ties for the bonfire. This donation changed the structure of the bonfire, introducing the use of a hexagonal base and allowing future bonfires to grow in size.
By 1979, 400 ties were used to build the bonfire. Only four years later, the bonfire doubled its use of ties, reaching approximately 70 feet in height and 30 feet across.
"We used to have bonfires every home game," Andrew Gettinger '76, professor at Dartmouth Medical School, said. "But as the availability of railroad ties dwindled, the number of bonfires dropped down to house parties and Homecoming. Now, I guess, the bonfire is only used the night of Homecoming."
Today, the bonfire uses special, non-treated wood and is constructed to collapse in on itself when it burns out -- a design devised by students from the Thayer School of Engineering. Because falling debris could still potentially injure a near-by student, Safety and Security and the Hanover Police maintain a strict safety zone around the fire.
Mishaps through the decades
The majority of bonfire setbacks were due to the upperclassmen's now-extinct tradition of attempting to prematurely burn the freshmen's bonfire.
In 1953, the threat of sabotage was serious enough for freshmen to guard the bonfire around the clock. An upperclassman, however, was still able to toss a match onto the lumber. Speedy work by Hanover firemen prevented much damage, but 1966 saw the complete destruction of the bonfire a mere 20 minutes after construction was finished.
The bonfire of 1976 was burned two days early, but in a demonstration of Dartmouth spirit, underclassmen, upperclassmen and faculty rallied together to rebuild the 80-tier bonfire for Dartmouth Night.
The most notable mishap in the annals of bonfire lore took place at an unsuspecting barn in 1971.
"One year, someone in Vermont said that they had a barn we could tear down and use for the inside of the bonfire," Bob Barr '73 said. "So we found the barn we tore it down, and used it for the fire."
It was not until a few days later that another farmer informed them they had demolished his barn, and not the one donated, according to Barr.
"Luckily, the farmer wasn't too upset," he said. "He only asked that we bring back his wagon wheels."
Bonfire politics
Homecoming has often developed into a reflection of students' political unrest regarding campus and global issues. Beginning in 1967, with student interest in festivities low because of the Vietnam War, the College suspended celebration of Dartmouth Night until 1972.
A group of Dartmouth women used the 1986 Dartmouth Night as a venue to protest the traditional alma mater, which, at the time, had no mention of Dartmouth's women.
One year later, the entire bonfire was disassembled after a bomb scare forced police to conduct a fruitless search for dynamite within the superstructure.
In response to the 1989 bonfire, the organization that is now Panarchy placed a large advertisement in The Dartmouth that protested the bonfire itself. The advertisement argued that the bonfire was a waste of wood and money and was an unnecessary cause of pollution. The resources the bonfire used, it said, were enough to fuel three needy Upper Valley homes for an entire winter.
In 1991, Homecoming was used once again as a forum for demonstration -- this time against the College's ban on open alcohol sources. Students chained themselves to the bonfire and chanted, "We want kegs! We want kegs!"
The colorful history of the College's bonfire tradition has left its mark on alumni for over a century now and, "lest the old traditions fail," will likely continue to spark class competition, controversy and political activism, even if the bonfire itself fails to ignite.
-- Carol Brown and Katie Edkins contributed to the reporting of this article.
