We drove on to the smaller Bridge Bay General Store where Scott and Valerie spend their work days. An old-fashioned soda fountain in one wing of the store the guests who sit on round red-covered stool with silver pedestals-straight out of earlier days. Historic chandeliers hang from its peaked roof, casting an amber light across its beams. The old building holds stories-and pictures-of steamships that once ferried visitors from stagecoaches across the lake to the hotel and lodge. They have worked at Lake Village for two seasons and graciously toured us to the historic Lake General Store, a quaint hexagon-shaped log building on the shoreline of Yellowstone Lake. Scott and Valerie are employees of concessionaire Delaware North at the Bridge Bay General Store on an inlet of Yellowstone Lake. The howl of coyotes on a moonlit night and the chirp of small birds in the mornings put one in tune with Yellowstone’s natural world. Never mind dodging buffalo chips on the outside lawn. The cabins lack the luxury of Lake Hotel, but are clean, comfortable and offer the experience of wildlife at their doorsteps. July is typically the park’s peak visitation month, followed in order by August, June, September, and May.Īt Lake Lodge, accommodations are available in rustic cabins behind the main lodge building. However, according to Al Nash, a Yellowstone National Park spokesman, the park has already recorded in 2014’s first six months a total of 1,084,827 visitors wit 669,642 coming into the park solely in the month of June. However, the park was designated as “… a pleasure ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” With the introduction of automobiles the number of visitors grew from 13,727 in 1904-the first year recreational visit statistics were kept-to the park’s highest visitation ever, 3.6 million guests in 2010. Vehicle doors open and passengers with camera in hand spill out to try and capture their own image of Yellowstone’s wildlife. With paved roads now forming a loop around the main attractions, cars, trucks, tour buses, and RVs often clog the traffic flow, especially if someone sights an animal. And automobile traffic did change the park’s ambiance, doing away with stagecoaches and steamships. Many individuals declared that Yellowstone would never be the same. One exhibit outlines the advent of the automobile. Inside the lobby, displays feature posters and information about early explorers and surveyors in Yellowstone National Park. A wide front porch offered a row of old-fashioned rockers, comfortable for days when sunshine warmed the outdoors. People lounged in comfortable chairs in front of the fires, reading or napping. Despite the summer day, rainfall brought cooler air and fires roared in two fireplaces in the lobby. While enjoying lunch, we viewed lodge pole pines and a meadow skirting the lake through the dining room windows, some of the panes with original glass.
On the day of our visit, we had met fellow Workampers, Scott and Valerie Anderson, for lunch at Lake Lodge, a rustic log lodge with a cafeteria. At 5:30 each afternoon, the concierge hosts a historic tour of the grand old hotel.
A schedule of musical events, including a string quartet, is posted for certain evenings.
In contrast to Yellowstone’s wild outdoors framed in a bank of windows across the hotel’s lobby and dining room, a grand piano centers the room. Families and friends gather for drinks before dinner in the lavishly furnished dining room. Pieces of a Thomas Moran puzzle spill over a coffee table. Today’s jeans and sandals do not alter the elegance of a pastel lobby furnished with comfortable settees and over-stuffed chairs in groupings for conversation. In the early days, only the wealthy could travel to Yellowstone National Park and stay in such an elaborate accommodation.
The sunshine-colored exterior with white porticos evokes visions of the rich-men in brass-button blazers and straw boaters women with coiffured hair, wearing filmy dresses and wide brimmed hats. Scott Fitzgerald spending a vacation there. By the 1970s, the historic lodging had fallen into disrepair, and in 1981, the National Park Service and park concessionaire, (then TW Services) Xanterra, partnered in a ten-year renovation to restore the hotel to its 1920’s image. Situated on Yellowstone Lake, one of the largest bodies of water in the Rocky Mountains, the gracious, rambling yellow clapboard building first opened to guests in 1891. Lake Village in Yellowstone National Park is home to Lake Lodge and Lake Hotel, Yellowstone’s oldest operating hotel.