Last week this column looked back at when Yellowstone was declared the nation’s first National Park. This week’s column will talk about early day travel into the park. Next week we will look at automobile roads and travel in the park.

Eleven years after President Grant declared it a national park in 1872, another president, Chester A. Arthur, traveled through the interior of Yellowstone. He was the first sitting president to see the Park’s wonders.

Here is the story of his trip from the Cheyenne Weekly Leader  Cheyenne, Thursday, August 2,1883 – The President’s Trip The trip of President Arthur to the northwest and the Yellowstone country will be unlike any other ever made by a presidential party in several particulars. In this case the president has so arranged bis plans as to cut off opportunity for demonstrations of any kind on the part of the public. After his visit to Louisville and Chicago be will proceed as rapidly as railway trains can carry him toward the frontier, and in a few days at the furthest will be in a region where popular demonstrations are unknown and out of the question.

The president will reverse the old order, and, entering the park from the south, travel over a route almost entirely new, and will go at the north. The president and his party will leave the Union Pacific railroad at Rawlins and drive in wagons to Fort Washakie, 140 miles. From this point they will proceed on horseback over the same route that General Sheridan explored last year, to the Yellowstone park. they will probably spend three or four days visiting the special curiosities and points of wonder in the park, and then proceed almost due north from the Upper Geyser to Livingston, on the Northern Pacific railroad. The party will consist of the president, Secretary Lincoln, Senator Vest and son. General Sheridan, Colonel Sheridan, and four others, including a surgeon. The escort will consist of sixty-five men.

They expect to travel at the rate of sixteen to twenty miles a day, and to leave at each camp three couriers, so as to enable the president or any of the party to communicate with the outside world. Messages will be sent regularly by three couriers each day both ways, thus enabling the president to keep in communication with the government officials at Washington each day. No newspaper reporter or anybody else connected with the press of the country has been invited or will be allowed on the excursion, but regular reports will be made to the Associated press of the progress of the party by a gentleman duly authorized to act in that capacity.

Cheyenne Weekly Leader, August 30, 1883

If General Sheridan and the president desire to take men of the press it would be next to impossible to do so, inasmuch as all supplies for the tourists have to be packed with them, and it would be exceedingly difficult to carry supplies for a large party. This explains why the number going is so small. It is not believed, however, that either the president or General Sheridan is desirous of having the company of newspaper men; indeed the president has given notice that he has taken this trip into the wilds of the western world on purpose to secure rest and absolutely avoid the espionage of the public.

The distance that the tourists will have to ride on horseback is estimated at 260 miles, which will be a pretty hard pull on any one not accustomed to horseback riding. It is understood, however, that the president for many months has been taking regular horseback exercise, with a view to prepare himself for the journey.

General Sheridan expects that the trip from Fort Washakie to Livingston, where they strike the Northern Pacific Road on their return, will occupy about twenty days. The country through which they pass is said to excel anything in the United States wilderness and grandeur.

Colonel Sheridan, who has been over the route and is also familiar with the Yellowstone park, says that the latter place is insignificant in comparison with a large portion of the country covered in this route. The party will reach Fort Washakie August 7, and expect to be at the Upper Geyser basin about August 20. The president will visit the grand canon but will leave the park by way of White Mountain hot springs. (now Mammoth Hot Springs)

To accommodate the guests who would come to Yellowstone to see the wonders, there would need to be hotels. The famous Old Faithful Lodge was completed in 1904.

But according to this tidbit in the Cheyenne Weekly Leader, Thursday, August 2,1883, an earlier hotel was being built in Yellowstone. The Yellowstone Hotel. – The mammoth hotel just erected in Wyoming’s park—the Yellowstone—is not yet ready for guests. All the furniture has been taken out to the end of the track, and is being transported on wagons to its destination. All the appointmentsof the hotel are first class in every respect, and the furniture is of the latest and most fashionable design. The largest size cooking range made will be used in the kitchen, and was ordered specially for this hotel. The top of the stove is twenty-two feet long and about six feet wide, end will require a corps of about fifteen cooks to keep it running. It is calculated to cook for 5,000 people.

Other dignitaries also visited the park in the early years.

The Laramie Republican, December 26, 1905 – The Story of a Trip Through Yellowstone Park. By Hon. B. B. Brooks, Governor of Wyoming. (Bryant Butler Brooks, second gov. of Wyoming from 1905- 1911) – Mr. A. Holmes of Cody, Wyo., camped near us. He has eight fine wagons, a splendid outfit and makes a business of taking eastern tourists through the park from Cody.

The next day we viewed the geysers in the Upper Basin, which are the most interesting of all. Old Faithful is as regular as a clock, and every hour belches forth a great column of boiling water to a height of 150 feet. The eruption lasts four minutes. There are over thirty active geysers in the basin, besides numberless boiling springs. Nowhere else can he seen, on so grand a scale, such clear evidence of dying volcanic action. The Old Faithful Inn is located in this basin. It is one of the most unique hotels in the world, built entirely of pine logs, several stories high, and large enough to accommodate 300 guests. The “regular tourists,” numbering several hundred daily, during the summer season, make the trip around the park in coaches, carriages or wagons belonging to the Yellowstone Park Transportation Company! They find accommodations at the big hotels.

This from the Powell Tribune, Friday, October 14, 1921 –Yellowstone Park Closes with a Great Season’s Record– Visitors to Yellowstone National Park, numbering 81,651 people during the 1921 tourist season just closed, again broke all travel records to America’s largest and best-known National playground.

Every state in the Union and thirteen foreign countries were represented by creditable numbers of motorists and rail visitors, showing the tremendous National popularity of the Yellowstone.

Automobile Travel – Though the total gain in tourists for the season is not large, the increase of 2,158 automobiles carrying 7,684 passengers is the outstanding feature of American tourist travel during the summer, which has been marked by financial difficulties, and other adverse travel conditions.

The character of the travel to Yellowstone National Park, seventy per cent of which came with their own means of transportation, has made it necessary to plan extensive developments of hotel and camp accommodations, and the facilities, especially for the motorist who is given every possible consideration and aid. Motoring seems to be the most popular way of touring the country and high railroad rates may be partly responsible for this, it although all three railroads reaching park gateways, the Burlington. The Northern Pacific and the Union Pacific offered liberal excursion rates during the summer.

Motorists as a rule, carried their own camping equipment, but many took advantage of the large hotels, and permanent camps, both of which rendered excellent service at very reasonable rates. Differing from the patronage of most summer resorts, Yellowstone tourists represent all classes of people, from every section of the United States, with especially large representations from California, Oregon, Washington, the Dakotas, Illinois, and hundreds from Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Indiana, Texas and Nebraska. The records show an increase of more than fifty per cent in motor travel from all of the above mentioned states.

The National Park Service fully anticipating the tremendous growth in automobile touring were prepared to direct in the interest of safety the stream of motor cars as they toured the park highways, and accidents were rare events. The roads were constantly kept in the best possible condition by many small road crews and sanitation conditions improved as the motorists thronged the park.

The greatest number of tourists entering the park in a single day in the history of the Yellowstone, 1659 registered at the park gateways on August 8, as compared with 1498, August 2, 1920; and 1255 on August 5, 1919.

Contrast these numbers to 2024, when there was an average of 12,963 visitors per day and 4.7 million visitors recorded for the year.

Next week this column will continue bringing the park up to the present day.