The Missing Guests of Yellowstone’s Fountain Hotel 

The Fountain Hotel was shrouded in mystery. It was the fanciest resort in Yellowstone, but not all their guests checked out. 

 Newspapers across the nation carried the story about the millionaire’s missing heir. Park security investigated a mysterious bell that rang for service in an empty room. A party of motorists who just vanished perplexed people for decades. 

 Park rangers and guests alike were pleased when the luxury hotel was torn down in 1926, taking with it its ghosts.

 Pioneers of Outlaw Country 

 The Fountain Hotel, a luxury playground for the rich visiting the Yellowstone National Park, opened in 1891 as the largest hotel in the park. 

 It was also believed to be haunted by guests that never left.  

 Welcome to Pioneers of Outlaw Country: Wyoming’s History. Today, we are exploring one of the most luxurious hotels in Yellowstone National Park. A hotel that was the playground for the rich – and the dearly departed. 

I am your host, Jackie Dorothy, Wyoming historian and author. For seven generations, my family has called this great state home. 

This episode is brought to you by Rooted in Legacy, helping you preserve your family stories and the legends that shape who we are. Book your free discovery call at legendrockmedia.com and lets chat!

According to Annie Carlson a research coordinator at Yellowstone, the hotel was a ‘cut above the rest.’ The three-story structure cost $100,000 to build and could accommodate 350 guests. It boasted 143 rooms, steam heat and baths that used the hot springs water. It was located just north of Fountain Paint Pot in the Lower Geyser Basin.

Before modern roads and cars, visitors toured the park along dusty dirt roads in horse-drawn stagecoaches. It was a full day’s ride from the former National Hotel in Mammoth Hot Springs to the Fountain Hotel.

The hotel was fancy despite its rustic surroundings, and guests would wear their finest clothes to regular evening balls. 

Fountain Hotel elite guests could walk among bubbling mud pots and active geysers while enjoying scenic meadows and mountain views. 

Another popular attraction in the early years was a bear feeding station just behind the hotel. Kitchen staff would throw food and garbage out for the hungry bears, to the delight of guests who watched nearby. Bear attacks had been reported but were infrequent enough that the practice of feeding the bears continued. 

Hot spring water was diverted for use in hotels, greenhouses, and swimming pools. The Fountain Hotel was equipped with steam heat and hot spring bath water provided by Leather Pool, located about 500 yards south of the hotel. 

Hot water flowed through a pipe laid across an open meadow between the pool and the hotel. To this day you can still see the former location of the pipe as a dark line running through the meadow.

Once automobiles were introduced the park, the hotel was no longer needed along the route through Yellowstone since guests could travel farther into the park and would bypass the hotel. Guests would only stop for lunch and by 1917, the Fountain Hotel was abandoned. It burned to the ground a decade later. 

Author Shelli Larios of “Yellowstone Ghost Stories” said that Rangers and others believed it was just as well that the hotel was gone because it was haunted.

Join us as we explore the mysterious disappearance of a millionaire’s heir and, years later, an entire party of motorists. And, of course, what story wouldn’t be complete without an invisible guest ringing the service bell in an empty hotel.

Our first story begins with a wealthy young man who was on his way to San Francisco, California to collect his large inheritance. It was July 1900, and Leroy R. Piper was the cashier of the First National Bank at St. Marys, a prestigious position at that time. He was part of the upper crust of society and was known to always wear two diamond rings as a sign of his status. Leroy’s millionaire uncle, William Piper, had just left his nephew and siblings each a whopping $100,000. This was the equivalent to 3.8 million dollars in today’s currency.  

Leroy was traveling to California from his hometown in Ohio to settle his uncle’s estate and rather than go alone, had joined a party of other tourists. They stopped at Yellowstone Park and traveled by stage to the elegant Fountain Hotel.

Leroy had dinner with the others and was last seen purchasing a cigar from a stand in the hotel lobby. He stepped outside onto the hotel porch and was never seen again.

Newspapers across the nation reported that on the evening of July 30, 1900, Leroy Piper was suddenly missing. His disappearance was not realized until the next morning and theories were thrown about as people wondered what had happened to the millionaire’s heir in the vast wilderness of Yellowstone.  Popular beliefs were that he was done in by murder, suffered a scalding death by hot springs or was ravaged by the bears at the feeding station. 

Leroy’s home paper, the Shelby County Democrat of Ohio, reported that the banker had been in ill health for a few years. Their fear was that in a moment of temporary madness, Leroy wandered into the park and was either lost or met with an accident. 

The cavalry were dispatched to search for the young tourist. For a month, they systematically canvased the area that Leroy could have wandered into. 

False sightings were constantly reported, causing more heartache to Leroy’s wife and family. A soldier stationed in Yellowstone National Park reported that Leroy had paid a camper to take him out of the park by way of Monida and that the young banker was not lost at all.

Another story said that Leroy had been seen in Washington, D.C. but no proof was ever offered up to substantiate the rumor. 

Leroy’s wife offered a $1,000 award and hired private detectives who also turned up nothing but dead ends. 

When that failed, Piper’s brother-in-law traveled to Yellowstone and followed every possible lead hoping to at least find Leroy’s body and bring closure to the family. 

For nearly a month, he even slept outdoors, hoping he could somehow follow the howls of coyotes and found the remains of his brother-in-law. He found nothing.

No sign was ever found of Leroy or his two diamond rings. By December, Leroy was finally given up for dead, swallowed up in the wilds of Yellowstone. 

Leroy was not the only guest of the Fountain Hotel to disappear. The Casper-Star Tribune in 1928 said that a popular story told every year until the hotel was torn down in 1927 was about a party of tourists who had disappeared at the hotel. 

In 1916, the Fountain Hotel was still a popular place of interest for the motorists. The private automobile had just been allowed into Yellowstone the year before and park travelers mainly visited the hotel for lunch. 

The chief attractions that year, according to the 1916 Salt Lake Telegram, was not the hotel itself but the Fountain and Great Fountain geysers, the Mammoth Plant pots and Firehole Lake. 

This particular group of tourists had driven up to the Fountain Hotel to enjoy the day - and were never seen again. The guests had mysteriously disappeared and later, two men were seen driving off with their car. 

According to the Casper Star-Tribune, this mystery was also never solved. 

Newell F. Joyner, who worked as a Ranger Naturalist in Yellowstone National Park from 1928-1930, recorded a mysterious occurrence at the Fountain Hotel that sent one employee fleeing the park. 

While Leroy and the party of motorists were never found, another strange guest appeared at the Fountain Hotel. The hotel season was coming to an end in late fall when the hotel’s winter keeper was summoned by the ringing of a service bell that was connected to one of the hotel rooms. 

The winter-keeper was puzzled by the ringing of the call bell because the room was empty. Yet, duty called and the keeper checked the room. As expected, there was no one there.

The following day, at precisely the same time, the same service bell rang from the empty hotel room. This time, the entire hotel was empty for the tourist season was over and the staff were closing the hotel for the long winter months.

The bell continued to ring at exactly the same time each day. The keeper continued to check the room, hoping to catch the intruder in the act. Each time, there was no one in the empty room.

Finally, the winter-keeper could stand it no more. He refused to remain in the haunted hotel and fled, vowing never to return.

A park investigation was made into the winter-keeper’s claim and Newell’s notes reveal that the park rangers came upon a different conclusion than a ghostly guest.

The Yellowstone Park investigators claimed that it was a mouse.

According to their report, they were convinced that a mouse was very punctual. Every evening at the same time, this tiny creature would go out to gather food. It would crawl through the bell wire and it would cause the bell to ring.

On reflection, a mouse that rings a bell at the same time each evening, may be even more eerie than a ghost! 

Whatever haunted the Fountain Hotel has since moved on when the grand building burned to the ground in 1927. All that is left of this playground for the rich are the legends of missing and ghostly guests and the natural wonders of Yellowstone National Park that enthralled them.  

Thank you for joining me on this eerie journey into the heart of Yellowstone’s haunted past. The Fountain Hotel may be gone, but its echoes linger in the stories passed down through time — whispers of mystery that refuse to fade completely. 

If you enjoyed this episode of Pioneers of Outlaw Country: Wyoming’s History, please subscribe, share it with your friends, and send me your story requests. I’m your host, Jackie Dorothy, reminding you that every legend has roots — and every ghost story begins with history.

This episode was brought to you by Rooted in Legacy — preserving your stories and family lore for generations to come.

This was a production of Legend Rock Media.