Gateway, Yellowstone National Park, U.S.A.

Publication

Gateway, Yellowstone National Park, U.S.A.

Description

GATEWAY TO THE PARK. Visitors to the Yellowstone National Park, on leaving the railway station at Gardiner, immediately pass through the monumental stone archway, shown in this view, and thereby enter upon a governmental reservation that was set aside by Congressional enactment in 1872, "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people." It is equally free to Americans and to foreigners, to rich and to poor. This National Park is so large, so beautiful, so surprising in its exhibitions and so carefully guarded as to cause many who have visited it to think often of the divine injunction, "Take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The monumental entrance archway was designed, and its construction was directed, by Captain Hiram Martin Chittenden, of the U. S. Engineer Corps, a most competent and trustworthy officer, who has had charge of a large part of the engineering work in the park. Whoever passes through this archway for a tour of the park has before him surprises and pleasures that he had never adequately imagined, however much he may have previously read or heard of the region. He is in the very heart of the majestic Rocky Mountains, a region that might very appropriately be called the Crown of the Continent.