Getting to Yellowstone National Park in the early days of the automobile was no simple task. Adventurous drivers believed it was possible, but first, two big hurdles stood in their way: building safe roads through the rugged Cowboy State and convincing the Park Service to even allow cars past the gates.

Yellowstone’s Battle Against the Automobile

The Pioneers of Outlaw Country. 

Cowboys, Lawmen and Outlaws… to the businessmen and women who all helped shape Wyoming. 

Here are their stories

Welcome to the final episode of Season Three of Pioneers of Outlaw Country. I am your host and Wyoming historian, Jackie Dorothy. In partnership with the Wyoming Department of Transportation Buckle of Campaign, we have been commemorating the Wind River Canyon Scenic Byway in Wyoming which just celebrated its 100th birthday.

When the section of highway through the Wind River Canyon was completed by the Wyoming Highway Department in 1924, this dirt road officially became part of the Yellowstone Trail, the first transcontinental automobile highway. 

It was an Auto Trail that ran from the Atlantic Ocean in Plymouth, Massachusetts, through Montana to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, to the Pacific Ocean in Seattle, Washington.

Their slogan was "A Good Road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound” and work had begun on May 23, 1912, three years before the auto was even officially allowed in Yellowstone National Park!

Before road signs, this auto route was marked with rocks painted bright yellow. It caused quite the excitement when a safer road that the treacherous Birds Eye Pass was completed through the Wind River Canyon rather than over it. 

It is only appropriate that we conclude our trip down memory lane on this scenic highway in Yellowstone National Park, the main reason this highway was built. 

 The only way to see the Park prior to the introduction of the “horseless carriage” was via horsepower—on horseback, with a wagon, or by riding a stagecoach.

 Yellowstone National Park, according to American West scholar, historian and author Elizabeth “Betsy” Watry. was the site of the last commercial stagecoach operation in the nation and the scene of the nation’s last stagecoach holdup. Although, the passengers being held up thought it was a joke. The park was the last region in America to allow cars to enter. 

 Park managers held out because they feared the park’s dirt roads would be too narrow, steep and muddy for autos. There were no gas stations or repair shops to accommodate these motorists.

 They also thought their tourists, known as “dudes,” preferred the stagecoaches for their old-time, “wild West” ambience. But, Watry said, the old West was already passing into legend and becoming mythologized as early as the 1900s.

 Early automobile clubs, like the Good Roads Club of Wyoming, had been clamoring for park entrance as early as 1909. These clubs were key in getting some early highways established on which to drive their new conveyances. There was no interstate highway system and now-popular historic routes such as the Lincoln Highway and the Yellowstone Trail were built essentially by volunteers.

The first automobile to enter into the park did so illegally.

In 1902, Henry G. Merry raced his 1897 Winton through the North Entrance to Yellowstone Park.. 

The Winton car was the conversation piece of the time and was known for the noise it made which was terrifying to horses. 

The commandant at the fort had heard of these noisy contraptions and issued an order prohibiting this machine and others like if from the confines of the Yellowstone Park.

Merry knew of this order, but thought he would pilot the car to the fort and talk things over with commandant. Two troopers had been stationed at the entrance to prevent anyone from violating the commandant’s order.

Merry later wrote in his diary that on June 2nd, 1902, he and his wife, Lottie, took off for their adventure in Yellowstone. When the north entrance was reached, he opened up the speed to about 25 mph, and the troopers’ mounts acted up so that they could not block the passage. The machine was well on its way before they got their horses quieted down and started after the car—which was rapidly widening the distance between them.

All went well as long as the road was level. As the grade became steeper, the speed was reduced and soon the Winton came to a stop. The troopers arrived at a hard gallop.

Each one had a lariat and between the two horses, the soldiers managed to drag the stalled car to the commandant’s office at Mammoth. Once there, they gave him a report of how things happened. 

He was quite pleasant and took time to explain to Merry, who already knew, that the noise of his conveyance posed a threat to the lives of all tourists who were visiting the park in horse-drawn vehicles. 

Then he became quite stern and reminded him that he was still under arrest and would have to pay a penalty to be released. When Merry asked what the penalty would be, the officer very seriously replied, “You will have to take me for a ride in this contraption.” 

He got his ride and then assigned a detail to escort Merry and his wife to the gate.

People continued to fear that automobiles would frighten horses and wildlife, so the park superintendent issue a general order forbidding cars. Aubrey Haines’ definitive history, The Yellowstone Story shares that, in fact, several vehicles entered the park by accident or contrivance before the order was lifted in 1915.

Watry said a large factor in allowing cars in 1915 were two expositions going on in California that year: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, both of which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. 

Media mogul William Randolph Hearst was offering a prize to motorists who drove cross-country to the exposition, Watry said. And Yellowstone was along the way.

With the political pressure from motorists increasing, the Secretary of Interior decided in April 1915 to admit cars on August 1 of that year. They had estimated it would take that long into the season for the roads to be dried out and drivable.

The park superintendent was not convinced that cars could make the trip so he allowed two cars, a Buick and a Franklin, to drive a two-day circuit in June.

After this, a group of congressmen and government officials motored from the East Entrance to the Lake Hotel on July 4. 

Haines says that officials of the White Motor Company thought one of their cars was the first officially allowed in the park and issued a news release to that effect. 

A magazine editor asked for clarification from the park superintendent who told him that a Ford had been issued permit number one the day before the White led the official entourage.

The first car in this government parade entered the park at 6 o’clock on the afternoon of July 31, when a party of government officials, riding in a White car, passed through the lava arch at Gardiner, Montana, followed by a large cavalcade of motorists who were waiting for the honor of entering the park on the first day.

The lead car, followed by the procession of motorists, led the way to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, where the night was spent. The following day it led to a tour of the entire park.

A reporter who was along for the ride said that being in the seat of a comfortable motorcar made it possible to see Yellowstone in a way that no other mode of transportation afforded. Entering the park at Gardiner, the official car covered a five-mile stretch of road, winding around beautiful hills and high cliffs and skirted by the rugged, foaming Gardiner River. 

Promptly at seven the next morning, the official White left Mammoth Hotel for a complete circuit of the park. The road requires a sharp ascent and soon overlooks the gleaming white formation of the Mammoth Hot Springs, 6,264 feet, which had appeared as a small mountain when viewed from the porch of the hotel. 

Three miles farther, Silver Gate and the Hoodoos, massive blocks of travertine, are passed at an altitude of 7,000 feet. One-half mile farther, one of the prettiest spots on the trip is reached. This is Golden Gate, 7,245 feet,  a curving road on the side of a deep canyon. 

Golden Gate canyon then emerges into picturesque Swan Lake basin. From this mountain valley can be seen Electric peak, Quadrant mountain, Bannock peak, Antler peak, The Dome, Trilobite point and Mount Holmes. Ten miles from Mammoth Hot Springs, Appollinaris Spring is reached. Two miles farther Obsidian cliff is reached.

Roaring mountain, fifteen and one-half miles from Mammoth Hot Springs, is the next interesting place. Passing from here Twin Lakes is almost immediately reached. Here are two small lakes of entirely different color, but joined together by a small strip of water. 

Then comes the Frying Pan, eighteen miles from Mammoth Hot Springs, with an altitude of 7,500 feet. This is a hot spring, which stews and sizzles year in and year out, reminding one of a hot griddle all ready for business.

At the crossing of the Gibbon River, the tourist comes to the first soldier station, and from there it is only a half mile to Norris Geyser basin, where Norris hotel is located. As the official car pulled up to the steps of the hotel a great crowd collected to see the first motorcar that had ever visited the hotel.

A great deal of time can be well spent at this point viewing the many geysers— Constant geyser, Whirligig geyser, Valentine geyser, Black Growler, Bathtub, Emerald pool and some small paint pots.as the vari-colored thermal pools are called.

The official car left Norris at 9:15 a. m., after a brief stop. The next hotel stop is Fountain Hotel, twenty miles farther into the park. Approaching Fountain Hotel another geyser basin is seen. This is the largest in area of the park geyser basins, but the geysers here are scattered and are not of as much importance as others along the route. Fountain Hotel was passed at 11:00 a. m., and after a short ride Mammoth Paint Pots were reached.

The official party reached Upper geyser basin at 12:00 o’clock, and stopped two and one-half hours for lunch at the beautiful Old Faithful Inn. The stop gave time for a leisurely visit to the area of geysers here, which contains the largest and finest geysers in the world. Of course the center of attraction is Old Faithful geyser, which nearly every one has heard of, and the Giant geyser, the greatest of them all.

Leaving Old Faithful Inn at 2:30, the official car sped on and began the long climb to the Continental Divide, first along the Fire Hole river and then up Spring Creek canyon. Two miles from the hotel a stop was made to view the beautiful Keppler cascades. The first crossing of the Continental divide is made at an altitude of 8.240 feet, eight and one-half miles from Old Faithful Inn. The road leads down Corkscrew hill, where good brakes and a substantial steering gear come in handy.

Lake hotel was reached at 6:15 p. m., and it seemed a pity that the schedule required the party to push on to Canyon Hotel without much time to spend enjoying the wonderful view across the Yellowstone lake from the veranda of the Lake Hotel. However, there was a slight delay here, while the White ran back seven miles to rescue the press car, which had stalled and refused to start on one of the long, tortuous hills.

Starting after dinner from the Lake Hotel at 7:30 p. m., the seventeen miles of road to Canyon Hotel were covered in one and one-half hours, over soft, slippery roads which, added to the frequent turnings, scarcely warranted the speed that “was made. It had rained all of Saturday night and the car was covered with mud. The night was spent at Grand Canyon Hotel.

Beautiful sights were seen on the morning run from the Canyon Hotel to Tower falls by way of Dunraven pass, 8,800 feet. There is a road that leads to the top of Mt. Washburn, but since the roads in this vicinity were found particularly wet, narrow and slippery, this route was avoided.

About half way around Mt. Washburn, a brand new auto station built of logs has just been erected, on the outside of the road. Soldiers are stationed here, as elsewhere through the park, to check passing autos and make sure that motor tourists are observing the regulations.

Leaving Mt. Washburn, the road steadily descends to Tower creek, whose altitude is 6,400 feet. The road along here provides wonderful scenery, as is runs along high above the rock-strewn Yellowstone river.  After the long, descending road from Mt. Washburn another soldier station is passed and, by turning off the main road a half mile, the Petrified Trees may be reached. The sight is well worth the slight detour.

Approaching the end of the trip a fine view is obtained of the valley in which Fort Yellowstone and Mammoth Hotel are located. The sight of this great group of buildings, flanked by hills and mountains and the white terraces of the Mammoth Hot Springs, is a fitting end to a most remarkable journey. The official car unloaded its passengers in front of the residence of Colonel Brett at 11:15 on August 2, and the first tour of Yellowstone Park ever made by Automobile had been completed in less than one and one-half days.

However, no one wishing to really enjoy the scenery of Yellowstone Park should make the trip in less than four days. Overnight stops should be made at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, Old Faithful Inn, the Lake Hotel and at the Grand Canyon Hotel. While all motor tourists would be required to make the regular schedule between the checking stations, the regulations permit them to lay over at hotels and other points of interest until they are ready to proceed, which may be done when the next schedule of motor cars passes their location.

At present the privileges of the park are only extended to privately owned motor cars. The present tourist service through the park will be maintained by horse-drawn vehicles operated by the regular transportation companies as heretofore. All regular traffic will move in one general direction in going through the park. Motor cars will leave one-half hour before the stages, from the entrances or from the controls where they are checked in during the journey through the park. The speed at which cars may travel is stated in the regulations and varies according to the requirements of safety in various localities. Fines will be imposed on motorists who arrive or leave the controls not according to schedule.

A special telephone service has been installed to enable motor tourists to keep in touch with headquarters if breakdowns occur. In such emergencies, if motor cars are unable to reach the next control on time, they must be parked off the road or on the outer edge of it, and wait for the next schedule of motor cars passing that point or, until special permission to proceed is obtained from the park guards.

Motorists who intend to tour Yellowstone Park should thoroughly familiarize themselves with the rules and know the penalties imposed for any infractions. It is also important to plan the trip before entering the park, so as not to miss any points of interest which one might wish to return to. This cannot be done except by encircling the park and entering again, since travel moves only in one direction.

In 1915 when cars were officially allowed in the park, the action transformed the Yellowstone experience.  Although the new regulation allowing cars was to go into effect on August 1, the superintendent feared congestion so he issued seven permits on July 31.

According to an article in “Automobile Journal,” in the first ten days that autos were allowed to enter Yellowstone in 1915, 321 cars carrying 1,190 passengers entered the park, with most entering through the West Entrance and the North. One car came in through the South Entrance and 83 through the East.

In an attempt to keep the roads safe for horses and autos, Park managers came up with a schedule for the 1915 end of season and the upcoming 1916 season to which autos would have to keep. 

For example, motorists entering through the North Entrance at Gardiner were required to enter the gate between 6 a.m. and 6:30. They were due at Norris, 27 or so miles to the south, between 8:30 a.m. and 9. There were fines for being late. But the system didn’t work in practice. Tourists lingered at sights. Cars broke down or got stuck.

It was an absolute disaster.

Motorists were required to have spare tires and tools to enter the Park, and the entrance fees were, by the money of the day, steep. In 1916, a car entrance fee was $7.50. For comparison, a night’s accommodation and meals in a Wylie Way canvas wall tent was $3.

Charles J. Beldon, a famous photographer from Meeteetse, wrote an article called “The Motor in Yellowstone,” that was published in the 1918 Scribners Magazine.

At the Park boundary is the soldier station, Beldon said. Fortunately the regulations are easily complied with, and in a few minutes the speedometer is again registering the speed limit. One season’s operation of the automobile regulations demonstrated to the powers that be that the average motorist is a saner and more reasonable being than was at first supposed; as a consequence, there has been a considerable downward revision of the rules governing his actions.

Shortly after the entrance is passed the grade becomes noticeably steeper, and leaving the stream that has been so closely followed, a sharp rise carries the road over the divide through Sylvan Pass at an altitude of eight thousand four hundred feet. Gliding down the western slope through the cool, silent forests affords an indescribably keen enjoyment, and the motorist must have travelled far who has experienced roads as well built and maintained as this, more than a mile and a half above sea-level in the midst of rugged mountain summits.

Eleanor and Sylvan Lakes are skirted in turn; the latter a dainty body of water set in the depth of an alpine forest and guarded by a grim peak at its head. The waving pines on the islets that dot its surface and the dense growth along its shores dispel any thought of the short distance to timber-line and eternal snow. As the road continues down a gently winding course all expectations are centred on Yellowstone Lake, till at last it flashes afar off through the pines—a great body of water scintillating under the turquoise brilliance of a Wyoming sky. In another instant it is gone and the road turns to hurry down to it in a flowing ribbon that stretches ahead as far as the eye can reach through the forest and across many a meadow of luxuriant grass.

Half hidden in the long grass of these mountain parks scattered herds of elk and deer may be seen grazing within a few hundred feet of the road, and not even the rasping shriek of the electric horn seems to disturb the peaceful and contented existence of nature’s animals. Prior to the admittance of horseless vehicles to the Park, it was argued that the smell and the unnatural noise of the motors would drive the animal life away from the roads and would bring to an end one of the most fascinating features of this wonderland.

When, however, the whir of the motor as it toils up the rugged heights of Mt. Washburn, and passes almost unnoticed within two hundred yards of a band of the most wary of wild animals, the Rocky Mountain sheep, and when at night the bears, having feasted on ”beefsteaks that have proved too tough for the tourists,” make bold actually to clamber into the motor-cars and despoil seat cushions in search of sweets unwittingly left in side pockets, it will be appreciated that the contention that the motor-car would frighten these animals was quite without foundation. 

The whole atmosphere of Yellowstone seems to exert a soothing effect on both man and beast, and it is said that “Even broncs won’t buck in the Park.”

In 1916 the Park offered a season pass for $10. The first one—numbered one—was sold to Sam Eagle, the owner of the Eagle’s Store, in West Yellowstone.

Cars were allowed in for the entirety of the 1916 season, but only private cars. Mass transportation was still under the control of the stagecoach companies according to historian Watry. 

The combination of cars and stagecoaches on the same narrow roads proved dangerous. The noise and backfiring of the internal combustion engine—a new sound on the landscape—spooked the horses. There were several bad stagecoach wrecks attributable to autos along with some serious injuries.

The park managers decided to do away with the stagecoaches and switch to small buses known at the time as touring cars for the 1917 season. The stagecoach was now a part of Yellowstone’s history, and Yellowstone would soon reach another milestone—that of having the world’s largest privately owned bus transportation system.

As the park refined its roads and rules for autos, Good Roads Clubs and others lobbied and paide for a highway system that began in Boston and would eventually stretch across America.

In 1924, the dangerous Birds Eye Pass had been replaced by a safer road through the Wind River Canyon. Autoist could now make the trip to Yellowstone without having to navigate Devil’s Slide or ride the ferry. 

A new era had begun in America as tourists flocked to the attractions along the way to Yellowstone National Park which had until recently been remote and outlaw country. By 1915, the Wild West had  become a legend and a tourist attraction.