After a long trip on a warm day, through clouds of Yellowstone dust, the passengers presented an amusing spectacle. Men in yellow dusters, women in gray ones, topped off by Shaker bonnets. Hungry, weary, and dejected, they would alight on limbs half-paralyzed from inactivity. It was then that a person needed a friend, and that detail was not overlooked by the hotel management.
Perhaps Larry Matthews was more unique than typical, but a description of him will convey the idea of nineteenth-century Park hospitality. For several seasons Larry was chargé d’affaires at the Norris lunch station. Later he was advanced to the management of an inn at Old Faithful. When coaches pulled up to Larry’s he would address each passenger in his genial Irish brogue. Every man received a title of dignity, while he referred to himself as the “Mad Irishman” or “Larry Geeser.” Here is a picture of Larry in action:
Step right up, Judge, eat all you can, break the company, it’s all right with me. Fine spring lamb (spring of ’72). Eggs, fresh eggs! Just laid this morning (on the table).
Thus he kept up a constant rattle that was very funny. As the coaches rolled away one could hear the tourists remark, “The jolliest man I ever saw ... such hypnotic ways, such spontaneous wit; surely no such mortal ever lived before.”[232]
This growing business of transportation and accommodations was characterized by vigorous competition. Probably the first conveyance to enter the Park was a stagecoach owned by J. W. Marshall and his partner, named Goff. It left Virginia City, Montana, on October 1, 1880. Sixteen hours were required in traversing the ninety-five miles to Marshall’s National Park House, a two-story, log-hewed structure located in the Lower Geyser Basin, near the junction of Firehole and Nez Percé Creek. These men also built mail stations at Riverside, four miles east of the West Entrance, and at Norris Geyser Basin.
Frank Jay Haynes, a youthful photographer from St. Paul, started a stage and photo business in 1881. His efforts have produced eminent success, and the end is not yet. The photography side of the business descended from father, Frank Jay, to son, Jack Ellis. The Haynes Studio still enjoys a flourishing trade, and its beautiful products are known all over the world.
The Northern Pacific Railroad extended its terminal to Cinnabar in 1883, where it remained until 1902, when Gardiner was reached. The next year an impressive ceremony was held at the North Gate when the Triumphal Arch was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1883 the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company organized regular tourist travel. The usual routine consisted of alternating sojourns, whether in Concord stagecoaches, surreys, formation or spring wagons, and canvas “hotels.” A trip around the Park cost twenty-five dollars, or a saddle horse could be secured for two-fifty per day. The following year (1884) George W. Wakefield put a line of coaches into operation from Cinnabar through the Park. W. Hoffman was also engaged in the stage business. These firms were rivals among themselves, and with other less formidable competitors, for the Northern Pacific’s business. However, in 1886, the railroad effected a gentlemen’s agreement with the new and energetic Yellowstone Park Association. Unless the purchaser of a railroad ticket objected he found a coupon attached to his ticket that delivered him into the care of the Yellowstone Park Stage Line and its associated hotels. Coupon holders paid nine dollars a day while in the Park. Five dollars were assigned to staging and four dollars to hotel and meals. Upon alighting from the train, each person was accosted from several quarters, much as by hackmen in cities, “Are you a coupon, sir?” “No.” “Would you like my team then?”[233] Thus, each would press the bewildered tourist for his business. In 1892 the Huntley, Child, and Bach interests organized the Yellowstone Park Transportation Company. They soon dominated the North Entrance business, and other operators were bought out in 1903. Four years later this firm was prepared to receive one hundred and fifty passengers daily at the North Gate. An inventory of its rolling stock included four six-horse Concord coaches, of thirty-three seats capacity; ninety four-horse Concords, of eleven and seven seats; and one hundred two Glens Falls two-horse surreys, of five and three seat models. It was undoubtedly one of the best-equipped organizations of the kind in history.[234]
Passengers entering the Park by way of the West Entrance came north from Ogden, Utah, on the Utah Northern (later the Union Pacific) to Spencer, Idaho, or Monida on the Montana-Idaho border. There they were met by F. J. Haynes’ Monida and Yellowstone Stage Line or the Bassett Brothers Company. During the season of 1915 the Haynes firm transported 20,151 tourists through the Park.
In 1903, when the East Gate road was opened, the Holm Transportation Company secured a permit to operate a stage line. The arrival of the Burlington Route to Cody, Wyoming, in 1912, gave great impetus to that business. The West Entrance had benefited by a railroad to its gate since 1907, when the Union Pacific extended the line to West Yellowstone. A branch line was also built to Victor, Idaho, which made Jackson Hole and the South Entrance much more accessible. A table of operators and charges, as of 1914, would represent the stage business in the heyday of its power.[235]