On Yellowstone's Doorstep

On Yellowstone's Doorstep

Jeff Christensen brushes a fresh coat of varnish on the interior woodwork of the 1912 Madison Hotel, sprucing up the family-owned business in preparation for the influx of tourists who pass through West Yellowstone, Mont. (pop. 1,177), each summer en route to the world’s first national park.

"It’s amazing what a little paint and varnish will do," says Christensen, 28, admiring the handiwork of his grandparents, Alonzo and Grace Hadley, who renovated and expanded the 14-room hotel after they purchased the two-story log structure in 1959.

"When I get done with this, I’ve got to go fix the computer," adds Christensen, whose mother, Linda Christensen, 58, and aunt, Janet Ostler, 68, use the computer to record sales at the hotel’s gift shop.

West Yellowstone, which abuts Yellowstone National Park and was named for the park’s western boundary, has catered to tourists since Union Pacific Railroad brought the first park sightseers to town in 1908. At the time, West, as the town commonly is called, was part of the national forest and the summer home of a handful of business owners who obtained leases from the U.S. Forest Service to serve people entering and leaving the park.

"It’s a gateway community and always has been," says Paul Shea, 52, a local historian and curator of the Yellowstone Historic Center, which chronicles the town’s past in a building that formerly housed the Union Pacific Railroad depot.

By 1913, the settlement had 13 leaseholders and 50 buildings, and in 1920 President Woodrow Wilson declared West Yellowstone a self-governing town.

Today, West Yellowstone consists of 40 motels, 19 restaurants and numerous gift shops, which sell T-shirts, postcards and mementos touting the park’s steaming geysers, roaring waterfalls and free-roaming wildlife.

While most visitors see bison and elk during their drive through Yellowstone National Park, it’s rare to get a glimpse of a grizzly bear or wolf in the 2.2-million-acre park. That’s because bears and wolves are most active at dawn and dusk when few people are in the park, says Libby Scott, development manager of Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone.

"People want to see bears and wolves when they go to the park, and they are the least likely seen," says Scott, explaining why 10 percent of the 1.1 million people who passed through West Yellowstone last year stopped at the not-for-profit wildlife park to see—and learn about—bears and wolves.

"You would never get this close to a wolf in the park," Scott adds, motioning to a captive canine taking an afternoon nap beneath a pine tree 20 feet away.

Some West Yellowstone residents see wildlife daily on their drive to work. "It’s a great commute," says Rich Jehle, 44, an interpretative ranger at Madison Junction in Yellowstone National Park. "Where else can you end up in a traffic jam, not because there are too many cars, but because there are 200 bison standing in the road or a bear walking alongside?"

Jehle, an avid fly fisherman who has worked in and around Yellowstone since 1984, says West Yellowstone is an ideal place to live for people who enjoy the outdoors. "I’m in love with Yellowstone and I have been for a long time," he says, "and West Yellowstone is just the hub of some spectacular country."

Karen Eagle, 44, returned to West Yellowstone 15 years ago, after a stint in Denver, Colo., to help her family members run Eagle’s Store, which was founded in 1908 by Karen’s grandfather, Sam Eagle, one of the settlement’s original leaseholders.

"It’s just a more laid-back lifestyle," Karen says of her hometown. "I didn’t enjoy the fast pace of the city."

In the autumn, as tourist traffic slows, some local residents board up their businesses and move south to milder climes. But the Eagle family keeps its store open, selling souvenirs, Western wear and hospitality to the snowmobile enthusiasts and cross-country skiers who come to town to take advantage of the 13 feet of snow that piles up in West Yellowstone each winter.

Snow or sunshine, winter and summer, West Yellowstone has a near century-old tradition of welcoming guests on the western doorstep to Yellowstone National Park.

For more information, call (406) 646-7701, or log on to www.westyellowstonechamber.com.

Stuart Englert is a Senior Editor at American Profile.

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