national parks

Below please find a piece that I wrote in April of 2005 about our first trip to Yellowstone National Park. I decided to share it in honor of Yellowstone’s birthday coming up on Friday. (Please excuse any of the outdated cost information found in here as the piece is about 14 years old.) Enjoy! —————————– Unemployment equals time minus money. In 2002, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I faced a summer calendar randomly decorated with a handful of interviews, but mostly the dark black numerals stared back at us yelling out our available time. One night at dinner early in the summer, Steve said, “Let’s do it. Let’s drive out to Yellowstone and go camping. What else do we have to do?” A smirk of surprise hopped on my face and I replied, “Can we afford it? There’s gas, food, camping fees, and park fees.” “When else in our lives will we be able to take off for a couple of weeks? Besides that, we have to pay for food and gas even if we stay in town.” A few weeks later, we loaded up our Nissan Maxima with the essential camping gear, cooler of food, and maps in hand. After several days of driving and making a few fun stops, we rolled into Yellowstone National Park. I had always heard about this park – the buffalo roaming all over; the bears surprising visitors randomly; the old times when rich people took the train and stayed in lodges; Old Faithful going off every 90 minutes; kids pointing at herds of elk; and the ability to gaze at millions of stars that ignite the nights. From a distance, you could see the grand stone building standing high above all else in the area. The Roosevelt Arch seemed to wave us towards the park as we continued to drive closer. The Roosevelt Arch debuted as the first major entrance for Yellowstone at the north side. Before 1903, trains would bring visitors to Cinnabar, Montana, located a few miles northwest of Gardiner, Montana (just outside the northwest entrance of Yellowstone. People would climb onto horse-drawn coaches in Cinnabar and then ride to enter the park. In 1903, the railway finally came to Gardiner, and people entered through an enormous stone archway. Robert Reamer, a famous architect in Yellowstone, designed the immense stone arch for coaches to travel through on the way into the park. At the time of arch’s construction, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the park. He consequently placed the cornerstone for the arch, which then took his name. “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people” inscribed at the top of the Roosevelt Arch, which comes from the Organic Act of 1872, the enabling legislation for Yellowstone National Park. After driving under the famous Arch, we pulled the Nissan up to the tollbooth-like station. A ranger donned in their usual Stetson hat and uniform greeted us hello and gave us our maps. Steve pressed lightly on the gas pedal and we crept further into Yellowstone National Park. Around the next bend, a herd of about 50 elk strolled across the two-lane road. We paused in delight to witness such wildlife. The male antlers towered several feet in the air. The female elk guarded their young elk closely. America created Yellowstone National Park, our first national park, in 1872. In 1873, 500 people visited America’s first national park. By 1888, Yellowstone hit a record number of 6,000 visitors. In 2004, 2,900,971 people journeyed to Wyoming to visit this park. As we traveled through this park, I visualized who traveled here over 100 years ago and who traveled to this amazing this amazing area over the last century. Were these people all rich and loved to travel? Did any of them camp like us? How did they get around the park before the invention of automobiles? Questions swarmed my heard of the past while balancing my eyesight on the breathtaking views. I tried to picture myself here if I visited the park in the late 1800’s. Would I be a hunter, trapper, or poacher as those who comprised the visitation demographics during that era? When Yellowstone first opened its doors, people could hunt within the national park. Today, rangers will arrest people for hunting in efforts to help preserve animal life. The other types of visitors back then included the wealthy train visitors. Few people could afford the $116.75 train ticket from Omaha, Nebraska to Corinna, Montana in 1873. Local residents of nearby towns also made random visits to the area using their own wagons, horses, carriages, or pack animals. Other visitors included military officers from not only the United States military, but also from European countries’ military forces. I imagined riding a wagon or escorting my military husband back then. I do know that Yellowstone really struggled with a target audience and sustaining visitation rates over the early years. Visitation numbers fluctuated throughout this time. As Steve and I continued to drive through Yellowstone, I noticed the other cars originated from all states. We must have seen at least 30 states. Their automobile license plates looked as diverse as this landscape around us. I had always envisioned the early visitors only stayed at the lodges. However, in 1905, visitors split down the middle between camping and lodging. Nearly half of the visitors at this time camped during their Yellowstone visit. Over 80 years ago, Yellowstone allowed automobiles (like our little Nissan) to enter the park in 1915. With the usage of cars, an increase of visitation occurred that created another need in the park – lodging for all these new visitors. Democracy came to Yellowstone in 1926 with the creation of the Lake Lodge. Prior to this time, visitors only had the options of the luxurious Lake Hotel or rustic tent camps. Lake Lodge offered guests intermediate style of lodging. In order for the park to promote accommodations and also reach out to all classes, they created three-tiered system of accommodation including: