Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Early morning shadows catch Old Faithful Inn at a quiet time.
A few years after the inn opened, guidebook writer Reau Campbell put it this way:
Who shall describe this most charming, most unique, queer, quaint, fascinating place? … The
stairways have the steps of logs split in half with the flat side up; the banisters and newel posts
are of knotted, gnarled and twisted branches of the native trees. The galleries are supported by
columns and braces cut from trees bent under the weight of snows and grown to fantastic shapes
… the foundation stones, innocent of the stone-cutters' chisels, were rolled in from the woods
with the lichen still on their rugged sides…. Here is where you will wish to stay all summer….
Lights were electric from the outset, powered by a steam generator, and there was hot wa-
ter and central heating, true luxuries for a wilderness hotel at the time. Several rooms shared
baths; even today, there are only a dozen private baths in the Old House, as the central portion
of the inn is called.
The original log building had 140 rooms. Wings, also designed by Reamer, were completed
in 1914 (the east wing) and 1927 (the west wing), bringing the present-day total to about 325
rooms open to guests.
