diff --git a/ec2/spark_ec2.py b/ec2/spark_ec2.py
index 8080cc41720c3099e9d4da05c7a6a91efe21ecbf..182cbbbb7c210014b0498aa0c8f7a82cee489a31 100755
--- a/ec2/spark_ec2.py
+++ b/ec2/spark_ec2.py
@@ -73,8 +73,8 @@ def parse_args():
   parser.add_option("--spark-git-repo", 
       default="https://github.com/mesos/spark", 
       help="Github repo from which to checkout supplied commit hash")
-  parser.add_option("--hadoop-major-version", default="2",
-      help="Major version of Hadoop (default: 2)")
+  parser.add_option("--hadoop-major-version", default="1",
+      help="Major version of Hadoop (default: 1)")
 
   parser.add_option("-D", metavar="[ADDRESS:]PORT", dest="proxy_port", 
       help="Use SSH dynamic port forwarding to create a SOCKS proxy at " +