Marshall Hotel Project, 2000

Principal Investigators: Dr. Annalies Corbin, Executive Director/Archeologist, PAST Foundation; Dr. Wlliam J. Hunt, Jr., Archeologist, NPS-MWAC; and M. J. Harris, Graduate Field Assistant, East Carolina University.

Yellowstone and other National Parks contain an immense number of historical archeological sites which are complex in their form, content, and functional associations. Faced with this complexity, archeologists have often found themselves somewhat less than successful with regard to devloping historic contexts useful for investigating, understanding, and assessing the significance of these resources.

Yellowstone National Park’s Lower Geyser Basin was a significant 19th century tourist center. Among the basin’s tourist sites was the 1882-1892 Marshall-Firehole Hotel, the first interior hotel concession in the National Park system. A 1993-1994 archeological survey identified a unique underwater component of unknown content and extent associated with the hotel/tourist site.

In addition, it should be noted that Yellowstone National Park is one of the most heavily visited sites in the NPS system. Historical archeological sites are clustered along the primary routes of tourist travel through the park and many have been damaged. Similarly, the underwater component of the Marshall/Firehole Hotel site has been disturbed intermittently over the past years by tourists visiting the nearby picnic grounds and restrooms and by fishermen collecting artifacts in the river, or stepping on them, as they fish. The proposed underwater survey will complete the documentation of the site. This, with previously gathered land-based data, will clarify nascent concession site use and define a singular early park historical landscape. Park managers can use the information to plan and implement future site interpretation and protection.

1885 view to southwest across Nez Perce Creek ford to the Marshall/Firehole Hotel and subsidiary structures.

Geyserite bathtub at Hygeia Hotspring, Marshall/Firehole Hotel site.

Eating utensils and dinnerware collected at the Marshall/Firehole Hotel during 1994-1995 Midwest Archeological Center NPS investigations.