Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ing and weekend live music jams on an outdoor stage. Food ranges from trout tacos to elk
burritos and even lobster tail.
Gardiner
406 / POP 800 / ELEV 5134FT
A quintessential gateway town founded and fed on tourism, Gardiner, Montana, is the
only entrance to Yellowstone National Park open to automobile traffic year-round. The
park starts just where the souvenir stores peter out at the south end of town. Mammoth
Hot Springs is only 5 miles away.
The town is named after Johnson Gardner, an 'illiterate and brutal trapper' who worked
the area in the 1830s. Gardiner only made it onto the map, misspelled, in the 1880s when
the Northern Pacific Railroad unveiled its Park Branch Line from Livingston to nearby
Cinnabar. Stagecoaches ferried passengers on the last leg of the journey to the park, and
Gardiner grew as a transit stop. By 1883 the town's 200 thirsty residents could stagger
between 21 saloons.
These days the friendly and unpretentious town sticks to its ranching, mining and out-
fitting roots. The rodeo still pulls into town five times during the summer, and the plaid
shirts and pickups haven't yet given way to microbrews and art galleries.
