Livingston, MT & The Gardiner Entryway to Yellowstone 1915

June 14, 1915, Monday

Arrvied at Livingston, Montana at 5 o'clock.  Saw elk horn fence and snow capped mountains.  Arrived in Gardiner Montana at 10 o'clock.  Took dinner at Gardiner Hotel.

Left for Mammoth Hot Springs 12 o'clock (5 miles).  Arrived there and stayed two hours.  Saw Soldier's Fort and hospital and chapel, homes of soldier's officers, Terraces, Hot Springs, Devil's Thumb, Liberty Cap, started for Swan Lake.  On way saw Devil's Slide, Eagle (Nest) Rock,  Hoodoos (Basin), "Golden Gate", and Swan Lake.  Stayed there all night.

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My Note:  HERE are 100 amazing photos of Yellowstone taken in 2003 by Charles M. Kozierok.  Granted, my b&w photos are almost 100 years old, but she saw the same magnificent colors - that hasn't changed. 

The entryway into Yellowstone is well captured in the above unique angle - I believe that is an ox or a cow in the foreground.  It is funny to see it just wandering around.  I like the stone foundation of the building on the left; I wonder if it is still there?  

I am not sure of the age of the postcard. I have vintage postcards that her sister, Bertha, sent to her when she visited the park in the 1920's.  (I will share these here someday, too.)  The back of the "Gardiner Gateway" postcard reads...  Gardiner Gateway to Yellowstone Park.  At Gardiner Gateway, the original entrance to Yellowstone, begins the incomparable "In Gardiner - Out Cody" tour of the Park.  The Northern Pacific Railway serves all principal gateways to Yellowstone, permitting the traveler to go in one entrance and leave by another - at no extra cost. (the bottom left corner has a circle with Northern Pacific written inside)

I will be adding photos the next couple of weeks that depict the sites she mentioned above.  The b&w photos I have are small and in pretty good shape.  But I have highlighted each with a link that shows what each looks like today.

The Badlands, South Dakota, 1915

(Mary) Marguerite Hutchins is seen above in her highschool graduation photo.  She attended State Normal School in Dekalb, Illinois.  The summer of 1915, when she was 23, she and a group of friends traveled to Yellowstone National Park to work for the summer.  I have her journal and her photos.  This is my attempt to document this period in her life.

June 12, 1915 - Saturday

Took North Pacific line at St. Paul at 10 o'clock at night.  Came through S. Dakota.  Saw Bad Lands in afternoon on Sunday.  Came through Montana.

The above is a photo I particularly like that she took in 1915.  My guess is there are places that still look a lot like this.  But I do wonder what the big building on the right with the bell tower is.  I would hazard a guess to say it is a school as it seems in the middle of nowhere for a courthouse or post office.  Below I have linked the National Park Service's web site and a link to Google images of the Badlands.

Click HERE to be transported to the National Park Service Web Site

Click HERE for images of the Badlands National Park.

Admirable Women of 1915

Margaret Bednar's archival family photograph - 1915

Admirable Women

Post victorian women, 

sidesaddle adventurers,

educated and free.

Dared to partake, a bit,

in a man's world.

Exceptional individuals

who forged paths

 mostly forgotten now

except in sepia images,

looking old fashioned and quaint.

But look closely and you will see

energy, determination and spirit.

Three qualities still valued today.

by Margaret Bednar,

03/01/2011, Art Happens

Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872.  I have in my collection a number of photographs and a journal dating 1915.  My grandmother traveled from Northern Illinois with a group of friends when she was a young lady to Yellowstone National Park to work for the summer.  My grandmother is front and center on the mule.

The photo is a picture taken in the "Garden of the Gods" in Colorado Springs, Co.  Click HERE to see google images of this amazing place.  I'm thinking this might be a formation known as "balanced rock".  The proportions are a bit off from what I can find on the website, but it has been over 100 years and maybe the elements have been at work.

In my very brief research, I found out that the song "America the Beautiful" was inspired by the beauty Katherine Lee Bates saw in 1893 while she journeyed in private wagon to the summit of Pikes Peak.   Katherine Lee Bates was a long-time professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and lectured at the summer session at Colorado College.

This is the beginning post of my documenting her experience.  I hope to post every Thursday and hook up with "Sepia Satudays" regularly.