Secret Yellowstone

Random images and blurbs about what's going on in Yellowstone National Park.

[secretyellowstone]

First structures to be located in the Old Faithful area. This was the Assistant Superintendent's Cabin, built in 1878 by Supt P.W. Norris for his asst assigned to patrol the Upper Geyser Basin. Photo ca. 1886 (before the arrival of the U.S. Army and they built a Soldier Station next to this shortly thereafter).

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Firehole Hotel, located on the flat meadow behind what is today the Nez Perce Picnic Area at Fountain Flat. ca. 1886

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Wylie Tent Camp, located on what is today known as Wylie Hill near Grotto Geyser, ca. 1914.

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BOTD: Building 70 Apartments, located on the east side of the Fort Yellowstone portion of the administrative area in Mammoth. This two-story English-Tudor style apartment building was erected in 1936 to provide housing for NPS employees, a function it retains to this day (w/ 20 apartments). It was the first government building built at Mammoth following the departure of the Army in 1918.

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BOTD: YGS Employee Dormitory at Tower Fall. Built in 1941, this building houses employees who work at the Tower General Store.

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BOTD: P-Cabin Lift Station. Built in 1960, this lift station takes sewage from the P-series of guest cabins in Canyon Village and pumps it to the Wastewater Treatment Plant.

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BOTD: The Madison Museum, located at the Madison Service Area, just south of Madison Junction, and south of the Madison Campground, at the foot of National Park Mountain. It was constructed in 1929 along with three other museums at Fishing Bridge, Norris, and Old Faithful (which was razed in 1971 to make room for the original OF Visitor Center). These museums were built using funds provided through a grant from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation. The museum at Madison is now home to the park's Junior Ranger Program and a Yellowstone Association bookstore. It faces National Park Mountain because the road through this area originally ran in front of the building. There's also a plague in front of the Museum honoring Stephen T. Mather, the founding Director of the NPS.

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BOTD: Vault Toilet at the Hard Road to Travel Picnic Area/Turnout (north of West Thumb on the road to Lake). Built in 2008, it survived the burnover of the Arnica Fire in 2009. There are almost 150 vault toilets located throughout the park.

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BOTD: Soapsud Residence 33 (rear view). These (four) small residences (30-33) were originally constructed to house Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and their families.  They came to be known as “Soapsud” houses because the spouses of the NCOs would often do laundry for the officers. This structure was built in 1897, and today houses park staff.  First floor has a parlor, dining room, kitchen, pantry and a hallway, and the second floor has two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a landing at the top of the stairs.  The other buildings are structurally identical to this one, generally speaking.

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BOTD: Lamar Ranger Residence 106, built in 1922. This building is located at the Buffalo Ranch in Lamar Valley, and is a residence for one of the law enforcement rangers who lives there.

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BOTD: The Mammoth Jail, built in 1911 as a part of Fort Yellowstone. It replaced an older structure. This building was to have been converted into a residence, and a new jail built into the new Justice Center that opened in 2006. But funding limitations prevented that from happening, so this building was remodeled. Today it has 4 cells.

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BOTD: Grayling Dormitory, used by the park's hotel/restaurant concessioner (currently Xanterra) to house 160 employees at Grant Village. The East & West Wings were built in 1982, while the North and South Wings were added in 2004. There are also 13 cabins that house another 100 or so employees here.

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BOTD: Fishing Bridge Water Reservoir. This reservoir was built in 1935, replacing an old redwood tank that had been used to provide potable water to the Fishing Bridge area. Today, the 250K gallon tank is interconnected with the water tanks at Lake and Bridge Bay to ensure adequate water supply at all four areas. The water at Fishing Bridge comes from cold springs in the hills west of the development (across the Grand Loop Road). The reservoir is located up a gravel service road just north of Fishing Bridge Junction.

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BOTD: 10-Plex Residence 802 in the Canyon Government Area. This 10-unit apartment building was built in 1957 along with several other residential structures at the same time as Canyon Village, all as a part of the NPS Mission 66 Program. The building houses seasonal rangers and maintenance personnel.

[shellybreyer]

I love that the National Parks Service does this. Even though I have no immediate plans to return to Yellowstone, I keep Old Faithful predictions in my Twitter timeline so that I can remember one night.

Every time I see a @GeyserNPS tweet, I think of the evening my fifteen year old son and I watched the legendary geyser erupt by the light of a full moon. I sipped an ale from the bar at the Old Faithful Inn – the barmaid kindly let me leave with a real pint glass in my hand. I think she said it was a Bozeman but in that setting it wouldn’t have mattered if it was a warm can of Bud.  My son drank hot chocolate.

The full moon lit the walk from the inn to the circle of benches surrounding the geyser. We heard murmurs but couldn’t see anyone. We waited in the dark, wondering if we’d missed it.  Old Faithful erupted. No spotlights. No laser shows. No musical accompaniment.The moon lit the geyser and nothing else. It was a perfect half hour.

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BOTD: The Northeast Entrance Station, constructed in 1935, is on the National Register of Historic Places. It is the least used of the five park entrance stations, but is open year round to allow the residents of Silver Gate and Cooke City access to the road between there and Gardiner, as it is the only way out of their cities during the winter.