Greeting family, friends and neighbors! A nearly century old postcard is the inspiration for this ramble about The Old Faithful Inn and a camping trip Yellowstone National Park thirty six summers ago.........Bill
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OLD FAITHFUL INN
Fabled Yellowstone was protected as a park in 1872, administered by the U.S. Army in 1886, and reached National Park status in 1899. In the early years access to the thermal wonders of Yellowstone during the short summer season was by horse or stagecoach with the nearest comfortable overnight accommodations to Old Faithful Geyser a bone jarring ten miles away. When the rough and tumble Upper Geyser Basin Hotel, known locally as the “Shack Hotel”, burnt to the ground the Yellowstone Park Association hired 29 year old architect Robert Reamer to design the lobby and original guest rooms of the Inn which was completed in the winter of 1903-1904. Built in phases through 1927, Reamer’s designed a rustic seven story gabled log structure, known as “The Old House” dominated by a steep pitched shingled roof using lodge pole pine logs and rhyolite stone
collected from the nearby forest. The open lobby contained an imposing forty foot stone fireplace, and was decorated with twisted branches and iron work.
It was early July in 1988 when we made the decision to go ahead with our long planned camping trip to Yellowstone even though there were several small lightning caused fires burning in the park
and occasional road closures reported at the south entrance. The fires had been burning in remote locations since mid-June within National Park policy guidelines of letting naturally started, non threatening fires burn freely without intervention. Happily the highway from Jackson Hole was open the day we arrived and our mile long caravan of vehicles were escorted by park rangers through the burn area when fast moving flames threatened the highway ahead and causing the park entrance to be closed once again.
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