Exploring the Story of Wonderland

Appreciating the history of Yellowstone National Park

My stepdad sent me this remarkable Yellowstone collectible album. I know it is after 1916 because it mentions that automobiles are permitted within the park, but I need to find out the exact publication date. Regardless, it's a beautiful piece of memorabilia that I will cherish. 

One of the reasons I love anything to do with Yellowstone history is from working on the book, Found Photos of Yellowstone, a look at Yellowstone's history through the eyes of tourists and employees from 1890 to 1940, that I wrote in 2020. My friend, Mike Francis, had collected individual photos and albums from estate sales and eBay for over 50 years. As you can imagine, it was mind-boggling to glean 220 photos from over 11,000 images that he had on file!

A Different Way of Cooking

It was a special project because I discovered images of Yellowstone features I never knew existed. One of my favorites was "Devil's Kitchen," a long-extinct geyser crater in the Mammoth area that, for some reason, was a popular tourist attraction in the early 1900s. People climbed down the wooden ladder and experienced feeling "queer sensations" during their stay at the bottom of the crater. Ummm… that would be the poisonous gases. Yet, this place was so popular that there was an ice cream stand called "Devil's Kitchenette" for many seasons.

What's fascinating is that Devil's Kitchen is still there. You just can't climb inside anymore, and the National Park Service definitely does not advertise it's location. But this is the same for many Yellowstone features. At one point, there were large, heated swimming pools at both Mammoth and Old Faithful that utilized the hot water from nearby hot springs or geysers. They are long gone. 

Lodging of the Past

Even some hotels are no more. The Fountain Hotel in the Lower Geyser Basin welcomed up to 350 guests beginning in 1891 during the height of the stagecoach days. These elegant accommodations were beautiful and luxurious, especially for that time period, with plenty of hot water— once again, piped in from Leather Pool. To this day, you can still see the pipe's location beneath the soil. 

The Fountain Hotel's last days occurred in 1916, when automobiles first entered the park, severing the accommodations along the stagecoach route. It stood for 11 years before it was demolished. 

At least in my eyes, the saddest hotel destruction is the third version of Canyon Hotel. Designed by Robert Reamer, the same architectural genius responsible for the stunning Old Faithful Inn, he incorporated the second version of Canyon Hotel into this grand final structure. Construction began in August 1910 and wrapped up in 1911, just in time for the summer tourist season. With a circumference of nearly a mile around, the new hotel was renowned for its magnificence in design and comfortable accommodations. 

It was not to last. From the beginning, the foundation needed to be moreufficient, partly due to the nature of the soil structure in this area, and by the mid-1950s, the National Park Service determined it could not be saved. Also motivated by "Mission-66," a project to modernize the national parks, the powers-that-be decided the fate of Canyon. It was sold to a firm for a pittance and slated for piece-by-piece demolition. 

But Canyon would have none of it. On August 10, 1960, Wyoming State Tribune reported: 

The Great Lady Chose Sudden Death

The Great Lady was outraged. She could not, she would not, accept the indignity of laborious, prolonged, and piecemeal destruction. She chose sudden death. And so Canyon Hotel, the once grand edifice of Yellowstone National Park, a 950-room and superb example of luxurious living in another era, burned to the ground.

Sharing the Changes of Yellowstone

The good news is that we are working on volume two, which will cover the period from 1940 to 2020. This will include images of Canyon Hotel, Quake Lake, wolves in the park, and changes resulting from the catastrophic flooding in June 2022, which dramatically changed the landscape around Gardiner and Mammoth. Keep in touch to find out when it will be available in 2025!