39 miles north of the South Entrance
"It looks like it grew here," and early Old Faithful Inn visitor remarked. Built in 1904, designed by 29-year-old architect Robert Charles Reamer, this National Historic Landmark is the place today's rustic building designers still turn to for inspiration. Reamer he created a first class hotel for its day, with electricity, heating and indoor plumbing.
While the Old Faithful Inn's original amenities hardly qualify for first class these days, it still draws its visitors in. It feels like the old place rubs off on people, and you'll find even computer-game-addict kids playing cards or dominos, or reading. Families gather, and take pictures, as anxious to record their visit as the first guests were.
Old Faithful Inn Self-Guided Tour
The Old Faithful Inn offers 45-minute guided tours several times daily (times are posted on a placard near the fireplace), but if you want to explore on your own, use these notes to explore the Old Faithful Inn on your own:- Lobby: The Old Faithful Inn lobby sets the building's tone. Layered around a massive gray stone fireplace, overhanging balconies draw the eye upward, past windows letting the sun in like spotlights, to roof's 76-foot-high peak and a fanciful creation that is a cross between tree house and gazebo. The balconies' lodgepole pine was gathered by workmen locally, and each set of twisted limbs was hand-matched.
- Fireplace: The Old Faithful Inn builders quarried 500 tons of stone from a nearby hillside to build the fireplace, which is actually eight fireplaces in one. Earthquake damage in 1959 blocked some of the chimneys, and only one is used today. Reamer designed the fireplace clock.
- Original Rooms: Walk down the hall beside the gift shop to the original Old Faithful Inn rooms. Inside the rooms, log walls and ceilings still greet their occupants. Only ten have private baths, while others share baths on the second floor. As you walk along the hall, notice the handmade iron numbers on each door. Like all the Old Faithful Inn ironwork, they were made on site by a Montana blacksmith.
- New Wings: Continuing down the hall, you enter one of the hotel's "new" wings. This east wing, also designed by Reamer, was built in 1913, and the west wing was constructed in 1928, giving the Old Faithful Inn a total of 327 rooms.
- Entrance: Return to the lobby and examine the entrance doors, with their rustic ironwork. Step outside and look around. The hotel doesn't face Old Faithful. Instead, it is situated so guests could see the famous geyser as they arrived.
- Second Floor Balcony: Walk upstairs, turn left and walk around the balcony. Stop to view the dining room, whose etched glass windows with scenes of animals doing human things were designed after cartoons that once decorated the bar. Continuing toward the front of the building, examine the writing desks, built in 1911. Step out outside and join the crowd waiting to watch the geyser erupt.
- Old Balcony: Back downstairs, exit by going past the bar. Outside, look up at the roof and the balcony where visitors once watched the geyser eruptions, accessed through the treehouse inside. This balcony was closed in the 1950s because of increased visitation and safety concerns.
