Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Old Faithful Inn's magnificent lobby by morning light.
If you have time to take one of the twice-daily tours of the inn, led by a knowledgeable inn
employee, you'll learn much more about it. At least step inside to see Reamer's majestic lobby,
with its 80-foot (24 m) roof ridge exposed above two floors of balconies and its tremendous
stone fireplace and wrought iron clock (now electrified). Most of the original inn furniture has
had to be replaced, and the fireplace and clock were being repaired in 2012.
The dining room requires reservations but is otherwise informal. Guests of the early days
were required to dress for dinner and to be precisely on time. They were entertained by cham-
ber music easily audible from the first balcony's open window. In fact, the author's mother
played piano in the Ladies' Ensemble for tea in the afternoons and dancing in the evenings in
1939. A pianist and sometimes other musicians play from about 6:00 to 10:00 in the evening;
for twenty years beginning in 1992 it was usually classical pianist George Sanborn. Where else
in the world can you enjoy a pleasant dinner or a refreshing drink and look out the window
to see a free-roaming bison calmly rubbing his head on a nearby tree? It has happened at Old
Faithful Inn!
Partner writing desks from 1911 and detail of glass lamp shade.
Twice in its history the inn has been damaged or threatened by the forces of nature. In
August of 1959, as a result of the Hebgen Lake earthquake, rocks from the top of the dining
