Marshall Hotel History (continued)

Marshall accommodated as many guests as possible in a limited space, but visitors who did not wish to sleep in tents or under the stars had no choice but to accept what was offered. Cruikshank reluctantly slept in the loft, which was divided into compartments by burlap partitions. “Judging by their size," she wrote, "I [thought] that there must have been more than a half dozen of these little cubby holes, dark [and] stifling! Into these. . . most of us were stowed. Beyond beds, the [less] said about our accommodations the better.”

The summer of 1883 brought many important and affluent guests to the park but, finding no alternative to the Marshall Hotel, most were forced to endure its primitive accommodations. Rufus Hatch, financier for the newly-established Yellowstone Park Improvement Company, was furious at the competition Marshall posed. Hatch was outraged by a $97 bill presented to his party’s one night stay at the Marshall Hotel. Hatch angrily stated that Marshall signed his own death warrant with that bill and pledged to erect a tent camp nearby to take away his business.

Tourists staying at Marshall's hotel came to Yellowstone for the same reason tourists do today -- to experience a natural environment unlike any other. Above, photographs of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone in (left) 1871 and 130 years later. Historic photo by William H. Jackson, courtesy National Archives Still Picture Records LICON, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S), National Archives at College Park, Maryland. RG 57, Records of the U.S. Geological Survey, 1839 - 1990, local identifier NWDNS-57-HS-89.

Many of the visitors who were disappointed with the hotel's crude accommodations, however, failed to recognize that Marshall provided more than just food and lodging. Marshall’s extensive knowledge of the geyser basins made him a capable and popular tour guide. G. L. Henderson, a former assistant superintendent and a fellow concessioner in the Park, accompanied Marshall on a tour and wrote in the Livingstone Enterprise newspaper that

I ought to state that Mr. Marshall is an enthusiast on all matters relating to the park and its innumerable objects of interest. . . . I now understand one of the secrets of his popularity with the tourists. He knows where everything of interest is to be found without loss of time. He adds to the enchantment of these wonders by the earnestness of his admiration and the eagerness with which he seeks to enthuse others.

Marshall was also an early protector of sensitive park features and wildlife. He was careful to keep certain areas secret from tourists to protect them from damage. Generally, Yellowstone’s geothermal features were not protected until 1886 when army management ensured that rules and regulations were respected within park boundaries. Marshall protected Yellowstone’s features as best he could without the Army's help in the early 1880s. G. L. Henderson (not to be confused with G. G. Henderson, Marshall’s second business partner) wrote that Marshall

has also the good sense to keep the most beautiful nooks and basins hidden from vandal and specimen fiend who is continually seeking that he might destroy. . . . The Microcosm Basin has been so seldom visited that it has escaped mutilation. Mr. Marshall has carefully concealed its existence from the ordinary pleasure seekers who are so apt to poke sticks into everything from mere wantonness or curiosity.

G. L. Henderson was clearly influenced by Marshall during their time together, and emphasized the great need for conserving and protecting Yellowstone’s fragile natural features. Taking Marshall's lead, Henderson argued publicly that the Microcosm Basin should be enclosed, and visitors should be admitted only when unarmed and accompanied by a careful guide. Henderson further recommended that walkways be laid down so that tourists could not walk on the natural features.

Somewhat belatedly, by the end of the 1883 season Marshall recognized the need to improve and expand his hotel . He traveled east in early 1884 to make necessary arrangements. He sought to build a larger hotel and replace his permit with a long-term lease. Marshall received a new government lease on January 29, 1884, obtaining permission to build another hotel at the same location. Marshall took George G. Henderson (not to be confused with G. L. Henderson, mentioned above) as a new partner and chose a new site across the Firehole River, close to the modern-day Nez Perce picnic area. However, W. Hallett Phillips, a special agent appointed by Secretary of the Interior, reported that Marshall never received permission to build on the adjacent site, and instead built new structures on the original site. Philips described the new facilities as “a very unsatisfactory hotel and some cabins.” Lack of government approval did not deter Marshall and Henderson, however, from building the new hotel that accommodated 75 guests.

The Marshall/Firehole Hotel complex c. 1885, the year George Marshall and his family retired to Bozeman, Montana.

New Owner, New Expansion
Marshall retired from the hotel business in May 1885, officially dissolving his partnership with G. G. Henderson was officially dissolved. Marshall sold out to Henderson and moved his family to Bozeman, Montana, where they lived for the next 17 years.

G. G. Henderson, on the other hand, began further expansion of his enterprise in the park almost immediately. In early June, an area newspaper noted, Henderson left to obtain supplies “for his men who are work building more cottages for accommodation of an ever increasing travel to the national park.” In the same month, Henderson took on Henry Klamer as a partner and officially changed the hotel’s name to the Firehole Hotel. The new partners quickly built cottages and doubled the hotel’s capacity. They also applied to have Marshall’s old lease altered to include the new hotel building area. The haste to expand proved to be at the expense of the hotel’s appearance, however, prompting one observer to call the new buildings “a shock and disgrace to the park.”

The partnership of Henderson and Klamer was short-lived, and the Firehole Hotel changed ownership. The historical record gets rather blurry at this point on the actual ownership of the hotel and its lease. By 1886, the Firehole Hotel was owned by the Yellowstone Park Association. The park's military superintendent, Captain Moses Harris, expressed confusion as to how the association acquired the property, and suspected that several sales and lease transfers had occurred without the knowledge or consent of the Department of the Interior. In a letter written to the Secretary of the Interior dated July 27, 1891, G. L. Henderson stated that “on May 1st 1885 the Yellowstone Park Assoc. purchased the buildings and franchises of Marshall and Henderson. . . . This lease evidently includes the land formerly leased to Mr. Marshall.”  Captain Harris’ 1886 report confirms that the Firehole Hotel was by then in the hands of the association, but it is still a matter of debate as to how they obtained it. 

Confused and angered by the uncertainty surrounding the hotel’s lease, Captain Harris was further perplexed by the collection of structures that made up the hotel. His reports annually criticized the Firehole Hotel as “needlessly ugly in design. . . [with] little privacy for guests.” The hotel walls were thin, and doors sometimes refused to shut. Guests expressed similar complaints. Ms. O. S. T. Drake, a guest in 1887, observed that “every snore was audible." For some visitors, however, the rusticity of the Firehole Hotel was a perfect compliment to the rugged wilderness surrounding Yellowstone. Charles Stoddard, a guest during this period, appreciated the unpretentious buildings, wholesome food and obliging landlord. Instead of criticizing the primitive lodging found at the Firehole Hotel, Stoddard enjoyed the experience,

What fun it was, lying there under plenty of covering for the nights are stinging cold all summer long, looking up at the low canvas ceiling, the plaster-filled chinks in the walls, the one wee window with its small pane of glass, the white curtain strung across it. . . . There’s a bath-house at the Firehole and plenty of fresh air; and at this point trails branch, and tourists congregate, and charge for the whole is only $4 a day.

The contrasting opinions expressed by guests who lodged at the Firehole Hotel are reflections of Yellowstone tourism generally in the 1880s - a tourism in great transition. Construction of more comfortable hotel facilities elsewhere in the park began in 1883, to coincide with the completion of a Northern Pacific Railroad branch line into the park. The park's sights and new accommodations were well railroad. The Northern Pacific made Yellowstone accessible, but many visitors who could afford the journey did not expect the ruggedness they encountered in the geyser basins. For years after the arrival of the railroad, there were no alternatives to the Marshall/Firehole Hotel near the Lower Geyser Basin. Guests who began park tours at the well-appointed hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs were often shocked and dismayed to encounter the much more primitive living conditions at the Marshall/Firehole Hotel.