In the shadow of Yellowstone’s steaming geysers rises a national treasure — the Old Faithful Inn.
Standing for more than a century, it’s the grandfather of national park lodges.
“It has the distinction of being considered a benchmark of national park architecture,” said Ruth Quinn, who has been giving guided tours of the inn for more than 30 years, pointing out secrets hiding in plain sight.
“The architect, Robert Reamer, sent a small group of men out looking for the ‘freaks of the forest,’ is what we call all the funny twisted pieces,” she said.
Those freaks, cut from some 10,000 trees, became the bones of the lodge in 1904.
“When it opened, they advertised it as the largest log cabin in the world,” Quinn said.
It’s a log cabin that has welcomed presidents, royalty and millions of travelers. It has survived earthquakes, wildfires and careless tourists.
“The lighting was designed to look like candles. So they actually bored out the logs to run the wiring through them and that was very modern at the time,” Quinn said of the lodge’s Old House, the original section that first opened back in 1904.
To stay in the Old House, it’s best to plan months in advance. Rooms average about $250 a night, and you’ll still have to share a bathroom with other guests.
Carpenter Rich Henderson and his team work to keep the lodge in good shape while still looking old.
“I don’t want people to even know I was there,” Henderson said of his work on the lodge. “If I can make it blend in that well, that’s the best reward I get.”
Arguably, the lodge’s great contribution to America can’t even be found in Yellowstone.
“If people had not liked the Old Faithful Inn, we might not have The Ahwahnee in Yosemite. We might not have Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood in Oregon. We might not have the grand lodges of Glacier. This is the building that popularized the style,” said Quinn.
An iconic lodge that never goes out of style.
Ian Lee is a CBS News correspondent based in London, where he reports for CBS News, CBS Newspath and CBS News 24/7. Lee is a multi-award-winning journalist whose work covering major international stories has earned him some of journalism’s top honors, including an Emmy, Peabody and the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Tom Renner award.
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