Your stage with rust is eaten,
Beside the old Inn’s door;
The auto-bus and steam car
Have cut your time in two;
Throw up your hands, old “stage hoss,”
They’ve got the drop on you![250]
Few people expressed any regret, because of the hardships incident to travel by stagecoach. Still, it is the opinion of many that advantages exceeded inconvenience. The West, as now seen from the window of a train or motor car, is not the country introduced by stagecoach. With all the additional comfort, there is a loss of an indefinable something, subtle, yet well understood by those who have driven at a six-mile-an-hour pace through the almost unbroken solitude of another era. In contrast, regularly scheduled airplane flights over the Park have been available from time to time since 1937. There are no airports in the Park, but they are to be found nearby at West Yellowstone and Gardiner, Montana.
It should also be remembered that during the previous forty years innumerable private parties made leisurely visits and camped where they pleased. The Park must have been an idyllic place in those “horse and buggy” days, a hunting and fishing Elysium, especially until 1894. Since then fishermen may take a generous catch of trout without any license except a bona fide presence in the Park.
Although admitted under the most onerous terms the automobile revolutionized the travel there as elsewhere. Always well-filled with regulations, official bulletins now fairly bristled with instructions to motorists. Fees were $7.50 for a single trip or $10.00 for the season; all cars were required to enter the gates between 6:45 and 7:15 A.M. A printed schedule specified the time of arrival at, and departure from, the control stations.[251] Fines were imposed for arrival at any point before the approved lapse of time at the rate of $0.50 per minute for each of the first five minutes, $1.00 per minute for each of the next twenty minutes, $25.00 fine or ejection from the Park, or both, at the discretion of the Acting Superintendent, for being more than twenty-five minutes early. The following regulations and restrictions were strictly enforced: Speed, twelve miles per hour ascending steep grades; ten miles per hour descending steep grades; eight miles per hour approaching sharp curves and passing other vehicles. The maximum speed limit in 1922 was twenty-five miles per hour. Teams had the right of way and also the inside of the roadway in passing. Motorists were required to sound horns at all curves where the road was not in view at least two hundred yards ahead. Surely the motorists were in a defensive position, but they came anyway. A total of 3,513 auto passengers toured the Park in the abbreviated season after August 1, 1915. The grand total for the year was 51,895 in all conveyances.
The advent of motor vehicles speeded up every phase of Park administration. However, World War I provided a respite for making adjustments. In fact, a thorough reorganization of the entire concession system was effected in 1917. The main feature involved was the consolidation of transportation under the management of the Yellowstone Park Transportation Company. The purpose of this franchise was to eliminate the pressure of rivals upon the passengers, facilitate supervision, and promote economy.[252] The Yellowstone Park Company proceeded to make a large capital investment by motorizing all transportation. Thereupon, the familiar yellow bus superseded the ancient stagecoach. It is an interesting thing to observe a caravan of twenty buses winding its way along a river drive or parked before a museum while a ranger-naturalist gives the passengers a quick orientation in the area.