Gateway to Yellowstone

Mountain lioness at Livingstone Montana. August 1889

By 1883, the Northern Pacific had extended its rail service from Livingston, Montana to the now defunct town of Cinnabar, at the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. Our travelers stopped briefly at Livingston, where they photographed the resident mountain lion, which was described by Henry Zenas Osborne in an account of his 1888 trip. 

He wrote: "A prominent object on the open ground in front of the hotel is a mountain lion, secured by a lariat about twenty feet long to a stake. He moves about restlessly, and my tourist friends are careful to give him all the room he wants, although the town dogs seem to be on a pleasant speaking acquaintance with him and treat him with canine familiarity." (reprinted in Lee H. Whittlesey and Wlizabeth A. Watry, eds. Ho! for Wonderland: Travelers' Accounts of Yellowstone, 1872-1914, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 2009, p. 125-126)

At Cinnabar. August 18th 1889 Montana

Leaving Cinnabar. August 18th '89 Montana.

A native of Cinnabar Montana. 1889

Cinnabar was never a very robust town, little more than a transfer point for rail passengers who disembarked and caught stage-coaches into the Park. The National Park's website shows the town in this 1901 picture which might explain the largely empty photos taken in this album.

The town of Gardner, Montana. August, 1889

From Cinnabar, the stage-coaches passed through Gardiner, Montana, on the Park's northern border, before entering into the Park.