The First National Park Stock Certificate. Made out to and signed by the infamous Charles Gibson!!!!

EXTREMELY RARE - ONLY A FEW KNOWN - ONLY ONE MADE OUT TO AND SIGNED BY CHARLES GIBSON!

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Want to know what the \"Park\" looked like when this stock was issued?

The only major hotel in the region (if it could be called “major” or even a “hotel”) was Yancey’s Pleasant Valley Hotel (pictured above with stagecoach in front of it), a five cabin complex including a saloon. Located just west of present-day Tower-Roosevelt Junction, Yancey’s was run by its namesake, proprietor John Yancey. That was it!!!

Gibson and the

Yellowstone Park Association

1886–1891

The second day of January 1886, Charles Gibsonof the newly formed Yellowstone Park Association(which took over the now bankrupt Yellowstone ParkImprovement Company) met with Acting Secretaryof the Interior H. Muldrow in Washington. Gibson wasasked to provide descriptions of various sites in thepark where he and others desired leases and to supplyestimates for the cost of the buildings scheduled forerection. This information had previously been requestedin October 1885.

When the Department of the Interior awarded anew lease to Charles Gibson in 1885, the legal counselfor the Yellowstone Park Improvement Companytried to delay it by filing a brief that alleged the governmentwas obligated to protect the first lessee. Nevertheless,on March 20, 1886, Charles Gibson and hispartners were awarded a 10-year lease of seven acresat four different sites: Mammoth Hot Springs, NorrisGeyser Basin, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, andYellowstone Lake. The legal counsel for the ImprovementCompany filed more protests asking that transactionsbe delayed until there was a decision from theAttorney General, but to no avail. According to historianRichard Bartlett, “Now that it (the YellowstonePark Improvement Company) had fallen on hard times,it seemed rather callous of the Northern Pacific peopleto abandon him (Rufus Hatch). Yet this is exactly whatthey did….” Most of the new investors in the YellowstonePark Association were “heavy investors” in theNorthern Pacific Railroad.

In April, Western(must break this up otherwise thinks I am setting up payment from them which is not allowed) Union Telegraph Companysought permission to erect a telegraph line in the park,but the Department instructed the Superintendent toaward Charles Gibson the right to erect telegraph andtelephone lines between his hotels. This was to bedone by August. For this right, the government wouldhave free use of the lines. By the end of the year,Gibson reported that telephones had been successfullyinstalled in all of the hotels. Gibson was given permissionto erect temporary buildings on the tent siteat Canyon to accommodate visitors during the 1886season and to establish a store for “sale of suppliesupon ground embraced in his lease.” H. C. Davis, themanager of the National Hotel, was replaced byJ. N. Strong.

Included in the supplies that the YellowstonePark Association had brought in was $10,000 worthof liquor. This put Superintendent Wear in a predicamentbecause one of the new Department regulationsprohibited the sale of intoxicating liquors except tohotel guests for table use and stated that no saloons orbar-rooms were allowed. Gibson argued that the Departmentof the Interior had approved his constructionplans that had indicated bar-rooms and, thus, hehad been given approval to have them. The situationwas not to be settled in 1886.

For many years, Congress had been hearing ofthe inept management of the park. The reports finallycaused Congress to cancel all funds for administrationof the park in early August 1886. The Secretaryof the Interior had no choice but to ask the Secretaryof War to send in the Army. By the end of the 1886, the U.S. Cavalry was in charge of the park with CaptainMoses Harris replacing D. W. Wear as Superintendent.“For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People”During the spring of 1887, Captain Moses Harrisdirected the different lessees to clean up aroundtheir properties. This order resulted in the removal ofmany unsightly barns, stables, and other shacks.

During an inspection tour of the park, Harris foundthe Marshall Hotel in the Lower Geyser Basin (whichcame under control of Yellowstone Park Associationthe previous year) and the adjacent outbuildings to beof “poor and mean construction, and should be replacedby a commodious and well-constructed buildingcapable of accommodating at least one hundredguests.” He described the buildings as “needlesslyugly in architectural design, resembling nothing somuch as the section houses of a railroad.” He reportedthe Upper Geyser Basin Hotel as “more dilapidatedthan last year” and “not worth repairing.”In July, a faulty chimney flue caused a fire thatburned the newly built hotel at Norris. A hotel tent

camp and a temporary structure suitable for the accommodationof 60 guests were approved by CaptainHarris and hastily built to accommodate the touringparties.

Confusion about a change from logs to lumberfor Walter and Helen Henderson’s new addition to theCottage Hotel delayed construction. However, thehotel was sufficiently complete at the end of 1885 forthe Hendersons to welcome the first five registeredguests on Christmas Day 1885 (the guests braved thewinter conditions and swam in Bath Lake), and inFebruary 1886, the Hendersons hosted a “masqueradeball.” By 1887, the hotel accommodated 100guests at $2.50 per night or $10.00 per week. JohnYancey, who operated a small hotel in Pleasant Valleyon the route to the Lamar Valley, could accommodate20 guests at $2 per day or $10 a week. Yancey’s hotelcontinued to attract trout fishing enthusiasts. InDecember, Secretary Lamar approved the transfer ofJames Clark’s livery stable lease at Mammoth HotSprings to T. Stewart White, Thomas Friant, andFrancis Leterllier, a Michigan group who had loanedClark considerable funds to keep his operation in business.The following year, the Michigan firm transferredits rights to George Wakefield, who was also an agentfor the Yellowstone Park Association.

The well-equipped Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel,formerly called the National Hotel, was wired foradditional electric lights during 1887, which helpedreduce the risk of fire. At Canyon, temporary facilitiesaccommodating about 70 tourists, underG. F. Haraden as manager, were still allowed, and permissionwas given to the company to erect tents atLake with the understanding that all debris would beremoved by the end of the 1887 season.Harris felt that all of the Yellowstone Park Associationhotels, which were under General ManagerE. C. Waters, were well conducted, the food adequate,and the rooms clean. He did not think their dailycharge of $4 per day or $3 per day for an extendedstay unreasonable, considering the fact that the businesswas providing a service and supplies in such anisolated part of the country.

Despite 1887 visitation being somewhat lowerthan the year before, numerous visitors arrived in thepark until the end of September. Later arrivals wereaccommodated by some of the hotel winter keepers inthe interior of the park and by the Hendersons at theCottage Hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs.Hotel and camping registers indicated the 1888season set a record for numbers of visitors—6,000.But, Captain Harris’s 1888 report to the Secretary ofthe Interior reveals that he had begun to lose patiencewith the Yellowstone Park Association and withCharles Gibson, in particular. He was disturbed bythe lack of information regarding the ownership ofthe company, and he believed that most of the stockholderswere associated with the Northern PacificRailroad. He complained that the company beganthe 1888 operations “with great vigor,” but had beenremiss in fulfilling the obligations of constructing thehotels identified in their lease and were now providingthe visitors with inadequate service. Harris recommendedto the Secretary that Gibson be given noticeof possible forfeiture. He described the conditionof the park facilities and strongly emphasized to theSecretary that “Eminent men from all parts of the civilizedworld, scholars, law makers, divines, and soldierscome here, attracted by the fame of this land ofwonders, and by the invitation implied in its dedicationas a National Park, to have their senses offendedand their enjoyment of nature’s most wonderful andbeautiful gifts destroyed by the presence of unsightlyfilth and rubbish.”

The nebulous arrangements between CharlesGibson, of the Yellowstone Park Association, and thepark were clarified in March 1889. All leases held byCharles Gibson were surrendered to the Departmentof the Interior, and the Department issued six newleases to the Yellowstone Park Association for:

Mammoth Hot Springs 3 acres

Norris Geyser Basin 1 acre

Lower Geyser Basin 2 acres

Grand Canon 2 acres

Yellowstone Lake 1 acre

Thumb or Shoshone Lake 1 acre

These new leases specified time limits forcompletion of construction of hotels and allowedmanufacturing of bricks, quarrying for stone, and theuse of dead or fallen timber in the construction of buildingsin the park. The Yellowstone Park Associationwas also given permission to maintain a naphthalaunch on Yellowstone Lake.

With the increase in visitation and the accumulationof downed timber near the roads, Captain Harris’sreplacement in the summer of 1889, Captain F. A.Boutelle, suggested that designated campsites shouldbe spaced a few miles apart and inspected daily by thepatrols to help prevent forest fires.

The photographic work of F. Jay Haynes as wellas his association with the Northern Pacific Railroadgave the park international publicity. His photographsand albums were not only sold to visitors, but couldalso be seen on different Atlantic steamers, at resortsin Europe, and in advertisements in Thomas Cook’sinternationally distributed publication Excursionist.

Haynes maintained a very open relationship with theNorthern Pacific Railroad, and after the lease agreementwas signed between the Secretary of the Interiorand the Yellowstone Park Association in 1889, Haynessigned an agreement with the Yellowstone Park Associationin which he agreed to: the exclusive sale of such goods as are sold inthe hotels…furnish suitable space or rooms inany or all hotels desired by [Haynes]…goodsembraced in this agreement are plain andcoloured photographs, photo-gravures, lithographicSouvenir albums, guide books, transparencies,and all similar landscape views ofthe Yellowstone National Park, made and publishedby [Haynes]…[Haynes] topay…eighteen per cent of the gross sales ofsuch goods in the hotels, and in the studio exceptupon proceeds of portraits of private individuals.

In 1889, D. B. May of Billings, Montana, receivedpermission to install an elevator or incline atthe Lower Falls. After making a carefully examiningof the plans with Arnold Hague, Captain Boutelle recommendedthat May’s lease be cancelled, that a moresensitive location be selected for the incline, and thatno structures or buildings be allowed at the bottom ofthe canyon. Also in 1889, Ole Anderson received apersonal and non-transferable privilege to “engage in the business within the Park of placing small articlesin the waters of the hot springs, to be encrusted withthe deposit left by the water, and of selling such coatedarticles to tourists.” (Anderson had been unofficiallyselling coated specimens in the park since 1883.) TheMammoth Hot Springs postmistress, Mrs. Jennie Henderson Dewing, received permission to sell stationery,photographic views, and other such items inthe post office during her term as postmistress. And,because the doctor practicing in the park, Dr. Pettigrew,did not come back after his first year, the Departmentauthorized the Army medical officer to practice medicinewithin the park.

The transportation situation in the park in 1889was not as good as it had been in previous years, butthe following year, George Wakefield was praised bythe new acting superintendent, Captain F. A. Boutelle,as running it [transportation concession] almost to“perfection.” Wakefield willingly paid nearly twiceas much for good horses that were brought in fromIowa rather than purchase local ones, and he providedexcellent carriages. Because his record was exemplarywith no passenger injuries in the seven years hehad operated in the park, Wakefield had a good reputationas a lessee. In 1889, for the first time, Wakefieldoffered a daily stage service that allowed stop-oversin addition to a regular route.

Just prior to the beginning of the 1890 season,George Wakefield sold his company to the NationalPark Transportation Company, a subsidiary of theYellowstone Park Association. This marked the beginningof the Yellowstone Park Association acquiringcontrol over a diversity of private activities in thepark. The company had bought the Cottage Hotel in1889.

Boutelle was optimistic about Yellowstone ParkAssociation improving the hotel situation. Instead ofplacing blame on the indifference of the company officialstoward park problems, Boutelle believed thatthe company officers probably had more pressingmatters than giving the park their personal attention.While on an inspection of the park, thecompany’s acting president, T. B. Casey, recognizedthe “bad condition of affairs” and indicated that improvementswould be made. Casey saw firsthand theinsufficient equipment, inadequate numbers of accommodations,and management problems. Boutelle informedthe company that construction of a road toThumb from Old Faithful would probably not receiveappropriations soon. Consequently, despite the fact thatthe company had received approval for a hotel at Lakeand at Thumb, it was decided only to cut the timberduring 1890 and build only a portion of the Lake Hotelthat year.

Work on the Lake Hotel began duringthe winter of 1889–1890 and in May 1890, YellowstonePark Association Assistant Treasurer W.G.Johnson wanted some minor changes made in the plansfor the location of water closets. He recommendedseeking approval from the builder, R. Cummins andalso the Department of Interior. After receiving numerouscomplaints about the Lower Geyser BasinHotel, the company decided to construct a new hotelthere. They decided that the visitors to the UpperGeyser Basin could backtrack to the Lower GeyserBasin and spend the night at the new hotel.In July, the Yellowstone Park Association expectedthe “entire frame of Lake Hotel [to be raisedinside of two days.” The company hoped to installelectric lights during the summer, but had to delay installationuntil the following spring. The furnitureordered at the request of E. C. Waters did not meet theexpectations of the Assistant General Manager,W. G. Johnson. Johnson suggested that it could beused in the third story of Lake Hotel, but according toJohnson, the furniture was not good enough for theLake Hotel.

Despite “bad conditions” at the hotels, the wines,teas, and foods served there were often first-class.Anxious for publicity, the shipper who supplied thepark hotels with wine wanted to advertise his firm ona wine list card. This did not happen because YellowstonePark Association general manager, E. C. Waters,objected to making “our dining room an advertisingmedium.” Among the wines served in the park in 1890were St. Julien, Pontet Canet, Chateau la Rose, HautSauternes, Chateaau Yquem and Latour Blanc. Watershad formerly been in the tea business for 12 years

and was very particular about the quality and types oftea used in the park; he was willing to pay more for asuperior tea. He preferred to use a New York importerinstead of the having the “very poor stuff” shippedfrom St. Paul. Guests were offered Oolong, YoungHyson, and a good Japan tea. Other delicacies ordered

in 1890 were sweet breads, oysters, andtruffles.

By the end of the summer and after Casey’s visitto the park, W. G. Pearce, Yellowstone Park Associationofficial, was placed in charge of all of the company’s interest in the park, including the responsibilityheld by former general manager E. C. Waters,who had been removed from his position by the company.Waters had secured for himself a lease authorizinga general boat business on Yellowstone Lake.The Yellowstone Park Association wasted no time in planning its strategy for getting a similar lease.Waters hoped to take advantage of the increased visitationand have his steamboat on Yellowstone Lake inJuly of the next year. The 10-year lease allowed himto carry passengers and transport. In addition to Waters,the other directors of the new boat company wereM. B. A. Waters, George Gordon of Livingston,A. L. Smith of Helena, and J. A. Hays of Beloit, Wisconsin.

The 1891 season saw major changes in the transportationbusiness. In March, Charles Gibson of theYellowstone Park Association appointed GeorgeWakefield as the Master of Transportation in the parkat a salary of $250 a month, including use of the JamesClark cottage for his family and free board for himselfat the hotels. A few weeks later, the Departmentof the Interior annulled the lease held by the YellowstonePark Association for transportation and awardedit to Silas Huntley of Helena, Montana, effective November1, 1891.

Visitation in 1891 seemed off to a better startthan the previous year.The Yellowstone Park Associationnoticed that the profile of the visitors seemedto be changing, with entire families including smallchildren coming to the park. The company partiallyattributed the change to the positive publicity aboutthe ease of traveling to and within the park and themodern conveniences now available in the park. Onecould now buy a Boston Herald, Cincinnati Enquirer,St. Louis Globe-Democrat, or Chicago Tribune at theMammoth News Stand!

During the summer of 1891, different kinds offire extinguishers were tested and the question of fireescapes was discussed. Yellowstone Park Associationofficial W. G. Johnson prepared sketches for potentiallocations of fire escapes for the Mammoth,Grand Canyon, and Lake Hotels. Johnson felt that awooden escape was just as effective on a frame buildingas an iron one, but the company officials in Minnesotafavored iron ladders without a platform on eachfloor. Johnson responded, “I believe it would be politic,however, to go into this matter with more detail.”

By mid-summer 1891, the construction work onLake Hotel was finished; Fountain Hotel and diningroom wing were completed and furnished, with theexception of the hall carpet en route from New York.The siding for the other wing of Fountain Hotel andfor the Help’s Hall was in progress. R. Cummins supervisedthe construction of Lake, Fountain, and Canyonhotels. Despite strained relations with Secretary of theInterior John Noble, the Yellowstone Park Associationwas pleased overall with the 1891 season. CompanyPresident Casey reported that “hotels are welland economically conducted. The transportation is excellent. Both give as much and general satisfactionas could be expected.…There is decidedly less fussand friction, and as far as I can learn the amount madeon the same business is equal to and perhaps a littlemore than it was formerly.”

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