Powered vehicles had bumpy start in Yellowstone, Glacier parks

By Mary Pickett - 10/04/2008

Photo courtesy of Yellowstone National Park Archives The huge fleet of Yellowstone National Park touring buses and cars is shown before the 1925 fire that raged through a garage where the vehicles were kept.

BILLINGS — Cars, thought to be the harbinger of the lowest form of culture, weren't allowed in Yellowstone National Park for many years.

Of course, cars weren't around in 1872 when the world's first national park was created. But, even after the vehicles became popular across the country, they were banned from Yellowstone.

"The military wasn't about to let in cars," said Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone's historian.

Not only was the Army, which managed the park after its founding, dedicated to the horse, the military considered the internal-combustion engine to be loud and smelly.

It also scared horses.

Then, too, the first roads in the park were narrow and engineered for lighter vehicles, like stagecoaches, and not suited to motorized cars.

Yellowstone may be best loved for wildlife, geysers and spectacular scenery, but the park's rich history includes a lively chapter on transportation.

Horses were the first mode of travel in the park. Without roads, no other conveyance could maneuver over Yellowstone's rugged landscape.

Not that many people showed up at first. Only about 500 people made the long journey to the park each year early in the park's history, Whittlesey said. At that time, the only way into Yellowstone was through the west and north entrances, well before the towns of West Yellowstone and Gardiner were established.

Then, in 1883, the railroad chugged to within 3 miles of Gardiner.

That kicked Yellowstone into high gear as a tourism destination, Whittlesey said.

Tourists, who had long been reading about Yellowstone, were primed to come.

In the 1870s, journalists and authors in the United States and Europe were writing about the wonders of the park.

After roads were built, stagecoaches became a popular way to see the park.

"The stagecoach drivers became celebrated Yellowstone attractions, wrestling the reins of their big teams while spinning tales of the park's old days; before the arrival of the rangers, the drivers may have been the most romantic characters in the public image of Yellowstone," according to "A Yellowstone Album: A Photographic Celebration of the First National Park," for which Whittlesey provided some of the written commentary.

After lobbying by automobile clubs, cars finally rolled into the park in 1915.

At first they created a big mess, Whittlesey said.

Cars, which could go much faster than horses, caught up to stagecoaches on park roads. When they couldn't get around the coaches, big traffic jams resulted.

In an attempt to straighten things out, cars were restricted to certain hours. Then, stagecoaches and cars were instructed to go different directions. Auto drivers also were required to sound their horn on curves and hills to alert any oncoming stagecoaches.

In 1917, stagecoaches were abandoned in favor of motor vehicles.

There was no turning back after that.

By the mid-1920s, Yellowstone had the second-largest bus fleet in the world next to Greyhound, said Leslie Quinn, who works for Xanaterra, Yellowstone's main concessionaire that now runs motorized tours in the park.

From 1917 into the 1940s, most people came to the park by railroad and then took a multi-passenger vehicle through the park, unlike now when most people drive their own cars, Whittlesey said.

To accommodate the throngs of tourists, hundreds of vehicles were needed.

In 1917, the Yellowstone Park Transportation Co., a private firm, bought 125 11-passenger buses and seven-passenger touring cars from the White Motor Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, for use in the park.

The buses used a three-quarter-ton truck chassis fitted with a bus body. Although primitive, they were rugged and lasted for many years, said Bruce Austin, a resident of Nye who collects old national park buses.

White would make many of the buses used in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

The public was enthusiastic about touring buses because they reduced the time it took to tour the park from eight days by horse-drawn stage to three to five days, Austin said.

On March 30, 1925, a fire broke out in a garage where the vehicles were stored and burned 92 buses and touring cars, a significant number of the fleet, of which someone bragged that YPT Co. had 365 vehicles, one for every day of the year.

The number of buses and touring cars at may have hit 400 at one time, Austin said.

YPT Co. ordered replacements, and the White Motor Co. produced them in record time and had them shipped out to the park by late May or early June.

Touring buses were part of an era when traveling through Yellowstone was anything but roughing it.

In those days, visitors usually had to have at least some money to travel because it cost $100 — a large sum at the time — to come west by train, Whittlesey said.

Through the 1920s, people dressed up in formal attire for touring. Ladies wore dresses and hats, and men donned sport coats, vests, ties and pants.

A West Yellowstone business rented dusters to people so they wouldn't get their nice clothes dirty in the open cars, Austin said.

Another business in the popular west-entrance town stored excess baggage to accommodate visitors who brought as many as 10 steamer trunks.

Concerned about not being able to attract a wealthy clientele, concessionaires built park hotels with luxuries such as steam heat, electricity and evening dances.

"It was civilization in midst of wilderness," Austin said.

Eventually, tent camps were set up for less-well-heeled travelers.

The YPT Co. continued to upgrade its fleet during the 1920s and '30s. Buses ordered for Yellowstone set the design standard that many other national parks copied.

In 1936-39, the company bought 98 706-model touring buses that had a top speed of 35 miles an hour, Quinn said.

The 1930s-era buses, which required drivers to double-clutch, gave their drivers the nickname, "gear jammers" and then just "jammers." Over the years, jammer has come to mean different things in different parks.

While in Yellowstone, jammer still means a driver of an old tour bus, in Glacier National Park, jammer can mean either a driver or a vintage tour bus.

By 1950, the park speed limit was raised to 45 miles an hour. and many of the older buses were replaced by faster vehicles.

But some of the original 706s stayed on to carry employees.

A bus might drive members of an orchestra from a concert at Lake Hotel late in the afternoon to Canyon Hotel for an evening performance or a vaudeville group to an engagement.

"Buses became a backstage service vehicle," Austin said.

Eventually, all but two of the 706s were auctioned off. Those two now are in Yellowstone's Heritage and Research Center's collection.

Some of the 706s eventually made their way to Skagway, Alaska, where they were used to drive cruise-ship tourists around town.

In 2000, eight Skagway buses were sold to Xanterra Parks & Resorts, YPT Co.'s successor, and returned to Yellowstone.

Because Xanterra wanted to make certain that 21st-century mechanics could work on the vehicles and to ensure that the buses would be dependable, the buses' 1930s bodies were put onto new Ford chassis, Quinn said.

Xanterra now runs those eight 706 buses in the park. The 13-passenger buses have canvas tops that can be rolled back if passengers ask.

One 406-model bus that never left the park tours during the summer, too.

Xanterra also has a fleet of larger 41-passenger buses — 1975-76 MCI-5B buses — that show tourists the park.

Why do visitors sign up for tours in the old buses?

"They are the coolest-looking ride on the planet," Quinn said.

The old buses with a wonderful '30s look are the type of vehicle people rarely see anymore.

People also like the buses because they are yellow, "like Yellowstone," Whittlesey said.

That yellow color originated in the amber hue with which the YPT Co. stagecoaches were painted. When motorized touring vehicles came along, they, too, were yellow.

That color later changed slightly.

At the factory, buses were painted an English coach yellow. But, after they were used for several years in the park and needed a paint job, a greenish yellow paint was applied, Austin said.

People enjoy the buses because traveling in a small group is a more intimate way to see the park, Austin said.

Not only can passengers hear the driver and see the sights better, it's easy to get to know fellow travelers.

Austin knows of couples who met while on a bus tour and got married.

The buses aren't the only attraction on the tours. Drivers, like the old stagecoach drivers, were true guides and know a lot about the park.

"It's still the way to tour the park," Austin said.