I built it in keeping with the place where it stands. Nobody could improve upon that. To be at discord with the landscape would be almost a crime. To try to improve upon it would be an impertinence.
Spoken by Robert Reamer, architect of the Old Faithful Inn, during construction of another notable building he designed for Yellowstone, the Canyon Hotel. His style of architecture, which designed the building to fit into the landscape, is called "rustic architecture" or "parkitecture."
In Yellowstone's early years, great railroads such as the Northern Pacific saw profits in promoting package "coupon" tours of the park. For about $40, an early twentieth-century tourist could purchase a five-day tour. Arriving by rail at the northern Gardiner entrance, "couponers" were taken by horse-drawn stagecoaches to Mammoth Hot Springs to spend the night at the National Hotel, and from there on to other park hotels, finally to return to Mammoth. Originally the first stop after Mammoth was the Fountain Hotel, which stood near the present Fountain Paint Pots area of Yellowstone. After their first night at Fountain, guests were taken to the Upper Geyser Basin, location of Old Faithful, Beehive, Castle, Grand, and many more of the park's outstanding geysers and thermal features. The party returned to Fountain Hotel for a second night, and made one more stop at the Upper Geyser Basin the next day on their way to Lake Hotel.
Many of these generally upscale couponers expressed a desire to spend more time in the Upper Geyser Basin, and requested overnight accommodations there. In 1885 a large, rambling, plain-frame hotel dubbed the "Shack" was built, remaining until 1894. It was said that guests got splinters from the unfinished walls and that the building shook with each step. Preferring couponers to return to Fountain Hotel for a second night, the touring company discouraged patrons from all-night stopovers at the Upper Geyser Basin, allowing it only if everyone in the coaching party agreed to the stay at extra expense.
CONSTRUCTION BEGINS
Construction of the Old Faithful Inn was begun in 1903 (probably spring or early summer) and scheduled to be completed by opening of the tourist season in June 1904, requiring work to continue through Yellowstone's severe winter. The former site of the Shack was chosen for the new hotel--a site just a little west of the large pine tree under which President Arthur had camped in 1883. Young architect Robert Reamer, called "the kid" by Childs, supervised nearly everything done and designed nearly everything used. In the end, construction costs have been estimated at between $120,000 and $200,000, with one recent source placing actual costs at $140,000, with about $25,000 additional for furnishings. The Inn would be built on time for its June opening, and it would become a model of "park architecture"--an influence reflected in many of our national parks' grand hotels.
Reamer began construction with a crew of over 40 laborers, many thought to have been experienced raiload trestle builders. They most likely started by building the 500-ton chimney/fireplace as a central support for the rest of the lobby. This structure had four large hearths, one on each of its four largest sides, and four small hearths on the four smaller corners. It was built from rhyolite, as was the Inn's stone foundation, quarried about five miles from the building site. Rhyolite is an igneous rock, born of the same volcanic upheavals that formed Yellowstone's caldera--a fitting building material for a hotel that rests on thermal ground warm enough for guests to still sometimes find the "cold" water to be a comfortable bath temperature.
With the chimney/fireplace as its central support, the lobby rose to a height of nearly 76-1/2 feet, mostly constructed of lodgepole pine harvested nearby. Lodgepole pine grows exceptionally straight and at a fairly even width, and was a preferred choice for log cabins in the American West. Workers may have found Yellowstone's heavy snows an advantage in pulling timber and stone to the building site.
Details of the progress of construction are still not completely known, and a photo showing construction workers at the site with framing well on its way and no snow on the ground leads historians to believe much of the exterior may have been in place before the onset of winter.
The lobby would have undoubtedly provided welcome shelter for laborers as well as fireplaces that could be used for cooking, warmth, and a blacksmith's forge. Ironically, when Yellowstone's cold winter came, the enclosure may have trapped in the night's often subzero temperatures, remaining a dark icebox as daytime outdoor temperatures rose.
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