The College no longer encourages students to smash mugs during freshman orientation and most of the '01s don't sport beanies, but not all traditions have died with the times.
Each year, freshmen look forward to constructing their own bonfire and to running around it as many times as they can without expiring from the heat. However, there's more to this woodpile than flames.
The first bonfires
The bonfire has held a special significance to each Dartmouth student since 1893, when the College's football team defeated Amherst College's team and the first fire was lit.
Early Dartmouth students -- who built a fire before each football rally -- weren't quite as ambitious as today's students, who try to run around the bonfire as many as 100 times.
These students only ran three laps around the bonfire the night before each football game.
The first Dartmouth Night bonfire -- the celebration that later evolved into Homecoming -- was built in 1946 by a volunteer freshmen committee.
Spectators greeted the flames enthusiastically. One older onlooker told The Dartmouth in 1946, the bonfire reminded him of "the time the old White Church burned down."
Dartmouth Night coincided with a football rally for each year after 1946, and a bonfire was built at most of the celebrations.
Of course, each class tried to surpass the height of the previous year's bonfire.
In 1948, editors of The Dartmouth commented the bonfire built for the football game against Cornell University was "probably the biggest and most scientifically designed bonfire in the history of pyromania."
"[The bonfire] did it's best to blister the paint on Dartmouth Hall as slightly dampened duos stood by to cheer while they toasted major portions of epidermis."
Burn baby burn
There was more to building each year's bonfire than putting one piece of wood on top of another. Each new class' effort was impeded by obstacles -- be they the sophomore class or nature itself.
The class of 1954 had to rebuild one football rally bonfire after it was lit prematurely and doused with water.
The Dartmouth reported that one unlucky freshman looked back at the sodden, dark mass and said "only kerosene can save us now."
In 1952, the bonfire was the backdrop for another kind of mishap -- a war between the classes of 1955 and 1956.
While their bonfire burned, over 100 freshmen tossed their beanies into the flames.
Luckily for the freshmen, Paleopitus -- a senior honor society -- was able to provide them with new beanies to wear for the remainder of their freshmen year.
The class of 1957 had even more obstacles than its predecessors.
At one Colgate rally in 1958, firefighters had to spray the fire for two hours after an abortive sophomore coup.
In the same year during "houseparties" weekend, a lack of wood almost foiled the freshmen's efforts to build the fire.
The supply of White River Junction Railroad ties were exhausted that year, and the director of bonfires told the students: "We are past the point where casual phone calls and leisurely drives around Hanover can round up enough wood. Each man in the College now shares the responsibility. This is not just a matter of a rally bonfire. This is a College tradition."
A local farmer came to the rescue, and donated his barn to go up in smoke for the sake of Dartmouth tradition, but only 20 freshmen turned out to build the bonfire.
While they were completing their work, sophomores attempted to ignite the fire, but the freshmen repelled them with railroad ties, street club and threats to "incinerate the sophomores."
In 1954, some over-enthusiastic freshmen and their dates walked barefoot over the hot coals of the bonfire chanting "Beat Columbia."
But not all classes were as eager to get their feet wet in Dartmouth traditions. In 1956, freshmen roasted weenies in one fire instead of running around it.
The Class of 1967 was out of luck when the Village Precinct Fire Department called off the bonfire because of an unusually dry season.
The freshmen, who had been working on the fire for three hours when they heard the news, valiantly tried to defend their fire and chanted "S.O.B. (save our bonfire)" before they allowed the College Building and Ground Department to take it apart.
"We're going to have a good bonfire here even if we have to wait until carnival," then president John Sloan Dickey told the eager class.
That November, the class built the largest bonfire in College history.
Three years later, the blaze was accidentally ignited three days early, but Hanover firefighters did not respond to the call because firefighters had been injured in past bonfire mishaps.
Students attempted to extinguish the fire with dormitory fire extinguishers, but to no avail.
In 1970, a representative of the Center for Human Survival condemned the fire as "wasteful," said it created unnecessary pollution and threatened the College with a court order if construction continued.
The complaint was withdrawn, but one reader wrote to The Dartmouth about bonfire pollution.
"Couldn't we have a fire and still be ecologically acceptable?" the reader asked. "Couldn't we turn to something that needed to be burned?"
The reader suggested the College sacrifice elm trees felled because they were infected with Dutch Elm disease.
In 1982, the bonfire was disassembled because of an explosives scare. After no explosives were found, students rebuilt the fire.
Building the bonfire
Bonfire building is down to a science: it now takes only two days for the freshman to erect the structure. The beams milled are used solely to be burned at the bonfire. The current structure, designed by a student from the Thayer School of Engineering, contains no nails, according to Erickson, and "falls in on itself as it burns."
According to Steve Ericson, Assistant Director of the Physical Education Department, the 36 feet tall bonfire is designed to "burn quick and burn bright."
The wood is ordered in the Spring and dries all summer. Green wood is heavy and does not burn as well. Dry wood burns up quickly and the effect is more appealing.
The beams are stacked so that they lean slightly toward the center at the top so it is easy to climb without much chance of getting hurt.
The pallet in the inner portion of the bonfire is scrapwood -fill which creates its own airspace as it burns which keeps the bonfire blazing.
Students attending the bonfire are cautioned to "just be safe," said Mark Hoffman, director of the Collis Center and Student Activities.
"You never know what could happen with sparks," said Hoffman said. Hoffman said he was concerned for people who might be wearing flammable materials and Halloween costumes around the fire.
"Be wise in your costume choice," Hoffman said. "We have a huge fire in the middle of the Green. It's about making sure your costumes are safe."
He also mentioned the danger of part of the bonfire tradition. "Inevitably we always have one or two people who burn themselves by going up to the fire and touching it."
Today's bonfire has a 33-tier six-pointed star-base which closes into a 22-tier hexagon and tapers to a seven tier square with class numerals on top, former assistant athletic director Ken Jones told The Dartmouth last year.
But past bonfires have not been quite as stable.
The bonfire of 1954 consisted of 200 railroad ties forming a polygon base. The center and top of the fire were filled with slab pine from Norwich, Vermont.
A rusty car bumper and mattresses were found among the embers of several early blazes.
While this year's bonfire-builders may not have to face the challenges of their predecessors, the blaze still promises to be unique.
