Dartmouth's first bonfire celebrated a baseball victory, and started the tradition of freshmen building bonfires after each home game.
"In those days there were certain things freshmen had to do," former Dean of the College Ralph Manuel '58 said. "Building the bonfire was considered a one-year investment for a three-year dividend."
Freshmen were sent out to find wood and trash that could be used as fill, sometimes with unexpected results. Manuel recalled a story about students who went to tear down a barn for bonfire materials in 1982, but accidentally tore down the wrong one.
For the most part, however, contacts within the Hanover community facilitated finding material for the bonfire. After the dean's office cut funding for bonfires in 1971, the Dartmouth athletic department decided to place costs temporarily under the cheerleading budget.
Joe Walsh'84, who served as one of two upperclassmen supervising bonfire construction, remembered that then-athletics associate director Ken Jones coordinated the delivery of railroad ties, handled communication with Upper Valley contacts and organized transportation for students sent to retrieve these materials.
Bonfire construction typically took three to four days, with the bulk of the work being done in the afternoon.
Throughout the years, changing standards have caused bonfires to become more regulated. Bonfires are now required to be extinguished by 2 a.m. in compliance with the New Hampshire Air Pollution Control Commission. Other regulations include the requirement to obtain a permit and the limiting of burning material to wood. Walsh noted that safety was probably the biggest change in Dartmouth bonfires.
"Nobody wore hard hats or safety belts," Walsh said. "We rode on the back of the dump trucks going out to the barns and getting the fill and we rode back on top of the fill."
Patrick Connolly '85 said bonfires were subject to fewer regulations when he was at Dartmouth, which had both its advantages and disadvantages.
"A lot of safety measures have gone into place that make sense which were not standard practice 30 or 40 years ago, so I think a lot of safety measures make sense now, and there are things common in workplace and in bonfire that were not as common then," Connolly said.
Bonfire safety standards were reviewed further following the collapse of the bonfire at Texas A&M University in 1999, which killed 12 students and injured 27. A document entitled "Bonfire Construction Safety Policies and Procedures" prohibits students who are not working on the bonfire from climbing up the structure, limits the number of students allowed on top of the bonfire and restricts lighting the bonfire without adult supervision.
The tradition of running around the bonfire possibly gained popularity following the administration's decision to restrict the height of bonfires in 1990, which led to students placing a wooden sign of their class year on the top of the bonfire.
"I guess the class feels it bonds them, but my concern is that it's pretty dangerous," Manuel said. "As Dean, I had to deal with instances when students were seriously injured."
Dartmouth students did not always support the bonfires. Some said that by focusing on the football team, the bonfire demonstrated commitment to male athletics over other activities, encouraged traditions that ignored the diversity of the student body and negatively impacted the environment.
Connolly acknowledged that there had always been some critics, but said that Dartmouth bonfires foster a sense of community among students. "You saw alums there who had graduated 50 or 60 years ago, you saw parents and children, you saw little kids with Dartmouth shirts. You really felt like you were a part of something bigger," he said. "It is a magical thing to see the huge pyre of flames and to see it reflecting off the windows of the Hopkins Center. That you won't forget."
