Fly Fishing West Yellowstone: A History and Guide

INTRODUCTION

West Yellowstone, Montana, is sited in the midst of our country’s most extensive and best remaining inland salmonid habitat. To the north is the Gallatin River drainage. To the west are the Madison River and Red Rock River drainages, and to the south is the Henry’s Fork drainage. To the east lie the nearly pristine waters of Yellowstone National Park. Charlie Brooks estimated that there are 2,000 miles of high-quality trout streams in the Greater Yellowstone region of about 8,000 square miles. Within Yellowstone Park’s 2,300 square miles are forty-five streams and at least forty lakes hosting trout populations. Nowhere else in our country is there a location surrounded by such an array of quality salmonid waters, and because of this a rich regional sportfishing culture was born and continues to thrive.

The Madison River in the fall is a stream of many faces. Within Yellowstone Park and down to Hebgen Reservoir the river flows through beautiful meadows punctuated by riffle-and-run sections. Between Hebgen and Quake Lake, as pictured above, is a fast-water section as the river drops into the upper end of a canyon now under Quake Lake. The area is easily approached, and fly fishers congregate here throughout the season. (John Juracek photo)

As introduced brook, brown, and rainbow trout grew large and abundant in the cold, clean waters of the region, visiting anglers and the local angling retailers came to revere (and become increasingly protective of) these new fisheries. Because of the legendary fishing, personalities such as Barnes, Brooks (Charlie), Chapman, Danskin, Dunbar, Eagle, Jacklin, Johnson, Juracek, Lilly, Martinez, Mathews, Ritchie, Servatius, Sivey, and Swanson established in West Yellowstone.

Complementing this array of famed angling personalities came visiting outdoor writers to the area beginning in the 1930s. Through their books and articles, middle-class and blue-collar fly fishers became fully aware of the area’s exceptional angling. The proliferation of outdoor magazine and newspaper articles around the second half of the twentieth century intensified the attention on the area waters and the great fishing. Bailey, Bergman, Brooks (Joe), Grant, Hewitt, LaFontaine, Schullery, Schwiebert, Sturgis, Swisher and Richards, Waterman, Whitlock, and Zern all wrote about how fantastic the fishing was around West Yellowstone. What other town can boast such an array of superb fly-fishing waters combined with nationally recognized and renowned homegrown fly-fishing personalities?

While West Yellowstone has a rich fly-fishing history, no one before has set down how it became perhaps the most hallowed fly-fishing destination of today. Unconnected pieces exist, and much history was in the memory of persons who lived to see the town’s stature as such develop. When we approached Bud Lilly with the idea of collecting as much of that history as possible under one cover, he prefaced his encouragement and offer to help with the comment You’d better hurry!

That was nearly ten years ago, and we immediately began research and contacting persons, nearly all in or approaching elderly years, for information on the town’s fly-fishing history and for discussion of nearby famed waters and important fly patterns created by not only West Yellowstone fly tiers but also visiting anglers eager to ply the famous waters nearby.

This book preserves the evolution of this fly-fishing heritage, the progression of its advocates, and the gifts that West Yellowstone has given to enrich fly fishing like few other communities. It also provides information that guides visiting fly fishers to favored locations on fabled streams and stillwaters and famed fly patterns originating from experiences on these waters.

Numerous magazines and books have covered these nearby waters, but we include some of the history associated with them as well. There has been even less information on local fly patterns. Blue Ribbon Flies’ excellent books describing in-house fly patterns, interesting articles detailing Don Martinez’s fly-tying accomplishments, and Charlie Brooks’s descriptions of dozens of patterns in his superb books are all available. But there is much unpublished information on many fly patterns as well as none on others, so one of our major goals was to collect patterns, past and present, from local tiers and share some of their histories.

CHAPTER 1

BEGINNINGS

In 1870 President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Henry Dana Washburn as Surveyor General for the Montana Territory. Washburn led an expedition tasked with exploring the region that would become Yellowstone National Park. The expedition started on August 22, 1870, where the Yellowstone River exits the park, circled Yellowstone Lake, and followed the Madison River to exit what would become the park. A sign commemorates the Washburn Expedition’s campsite near the confluence of the Fire-hole and Gibbon Rivers during the night of September 19, 1870. Here the idea of making the explored region a national park began.

Ferdinand Hayden’s geologic surveys, also during the early 1870s, gained broad and specific scientific information that revealed the unique character of area’s land and water. The national park idea became reality when President Grant signed into law, on March 1, 1872, the congressional act forming Yellowstone National Park.

The first written accounts of fly fishing in Yellowstone National Park came as early as 1875, many from US Army officers assigned with exploring and protecting the park. John Varley and Paul Schullery, in Freshwater Wilderness, document General William Strong’s journal describing an 1875 encounter with Yellowstone Lake cutthroat.

The Lamar Valley hosts bison in large numbers. Fly fishers here must proceed with caution. (Courtesy of Acroterion)

This Red Rock Pass sign identifies the Continental Divide. Red Rock Creek in the Missouri River drainage is to the west, and the Henry’s Fork in the Columbia River drainage is to the east. Stage lines traveled east from the Monida, Montana, railhead, through the Centennial Valley, and over the pass on a two-day journey to reach Yellowstone National Park and what would become the town of West Yellowstone. (Bruce Staples collection)

From about 1875 to the end of the century, reports of the park’s extraordinary sportfishing grew and stimulated angling traffic. One of the visitors, Edward Ring-wood Hewitt, considered by many to be the father of American nymph fishing, was the first of the major eastern fly-fishing writers to fish the Yellowstone River and nearby waters such as the Henry’s Fork in Idaho’s Island Park. He first visited during the early 1880s, at about age fifteen, and had angling we cannot imagine today.

A significant amount of support for park tourism came from the Northern Pacific Railway, which in the early 1880s built a branch line from Livingston to Gardiner, Montana. The State of Montana and the railroad realized that commercial benefits could result from tourism into the park.

In the late nineteenth century, non-mechanized travel limited impacts on the Greater Yellowstone area and its wildlife. Many primitive roads followed Native American trails built as trade routes and to access hunting grounds. In the southwest corner of the Greater Yellowstone area the Bannock and Shoshone peoples established the Bannock Trail. It began near Camas Meadows west of Idaho’s Island Park region, skirted the south and east sides of Henry’s Lake, crossed Targhee Pass, and proceeded into the Madison Valley, crossing the river at a site now under Hebgen Lake, then over Horse Butte. From here the trail went east, not far from the future settlement of Grayling, into the Cougar Creek vicinity, over the Gallatin Range south of the present Mammoth area, then east up Lava Creek to cross the Yellowstone River near Tower Falls. It then continued on through the Lamar Valley and over the Absaroka Range to the Clark’s Fork Valley and access the plains.

This detail is significant because portions of the highway system around West Yellowstone follow parts of this trail. In West Yellowstone’s origin, the most important road, now US Highway 20 and portions of the park’s West Entrance Road, was built in 1873 by Gilman Sawtell from his ranch on Henry’s Lake over Targhee Pass and into Yellowstone Park along the Madison River.

The Oregon Short Line branch of the Union Pacific Railroad was first into the region. By 1878 it pushed over Monida Pass, nearly sixty miles west of the future West Yellowstone site. Most visitors detrained at Monida, Montana, then used stage lines going through the Centennial Valley, over Red Rock Pass, around Henry’s Lake, and over Targhee Pass to access the Greater Yellowstone area.

Harry Dwelle’s Grayling Inn, sited where that stage line crossed the South Fork of the Madison River (a few miles south of present US Highway 20), was the first permanent structure in the area. Sawtell’s road from Dwelle’s to the park along the Madison River served for access.

Before the end of the century, reports of the park’s extraordinary sportfishing grew. In general, visitors to the area would, unthinkable by today’s sporting standards, kill and discard catches without regard for consequences. Thus waste was the first major negative impact of European-American sportfishing. Preservation of the unique area and concern over the absence of law and order prompted citizen organizations to lobby that the army be sent to the park. Much of the mistreatment of wildlife and fisheries diminished when US Army cavalry units arrived in 1886, tasked with stopping illegal activities such as poaching, unauthorized livestock grazing, and natural resources waste. Some soldiers were garrisoned at the Riverside mail station a few miles east of the future town.

This 1913 photograph is probably one of the earliest of a day’s catch on the Widow’s Pool. Fishing here was allowed for a fee. Nowadays fish like these would be photographed then released to be enjoyed another day. (Bob Jacklin collection)

Lillian Hackett Hanson arrived in Dillon, Montana, and began a seamstress business before marrying Bill Culver and homesteading on property holding what would become the Widow’s Pool. (Bob Jacklin collection)

In 1916 park superintendant Horace Albright began actions to replace the cavalry units with a civilian ranger force to continue fighting abuse and destructive acts to the park and its wildlife. A misuse that continued in the park until 1917 was commercial fishing to supply table fare to area eateries. Outside the park in the Greater Yellowstone region no such protection was applied, so abuses, mainly poaching, continued.

A panorama of the northeast area of the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. In the foreground is Picnic Creek and on the left is Culver Pond, fed by Picnic Springs. On the right is Widgeon Pond. The Centennial Mountains (Mount Taylor and Sheep Mountain) border the image on the far south. (Courtesy: James Newt Perdue / USFWS)

Not all activities were of the illegal kind. Homesteading went on in many locations. Some homesteads would eventually offer famed fishing, and several would become destinations for anglers upon recommendation of West Yellowstone fly-fishing retailers.

Around 1900 homesteader Lillian Hackett Hansen, a Dillon, Montana, seamstress; her husband Bill Culver, whom Lillian later divorced; and her son Fred established a pond on Picnic Creek originating from springs on their property in the northeast end of the Centennial Valley. The pond was to provide water for cattle, and the Hansons stocked it with native cutthroat trout and grayling from nearby streams to be a food source. Next rainbow and brook trout were introduced and grew to large sizes. Lillian, now divorced from Bill, and Fred harvested and prepared the fish and sent them as table fare to Montana mines and Salt Lake City. Lillian and Fred also allowed sportfishing for rainbow and brook trout for a fee. In the fly-fishing community that pond is now known as the Widow’s Pool; its official name is Culver Pond.

Nineteenth-century actions by European-American anglers, including the introduction of preferred exotic salmonids and the practice of catch and kill, produced destructive impacts on native salmonids. Commercial fishing also reduced native salmonid populations. Many of the visiting anglers were influential persons from eastern states or England, who generally held salmonids and other sport fish residing in their home regions in higher esteem than native Greater Yellowstone salmonids. Brook trout, brown trout, Atlantic salmon, and even the rainbow trout of waters farther west had better sporting qualities, they proclaimed. Thus from these anglers came pressure to establish exotic salmonids in the region. The US Commission of Fish and Fisheries came to the park to define its fisheries and, of course, supported the plantings, as such actions helped justify its existence. In Montana directly east, west, and north of the future town of West Yellowstone, westslope cutthroat, Montana grayling, and Rocky Mountain whitefish were the dominant salmonids. But the days of this domination were numbered.

The first significant stocking of park waters devoid of salmonids took place in 1889, opening the door to the introduction of exotic species. Brook trout were stocked in the upper Firehole River that year. About the same time, rainbow trout were released in the Gibbon River above the falls. Brown trout were released in Nez Perce Creek in 1890. Downstream drift from the more successful of these plantings would have a huge eventual impact on native salmonid populations. Not only the displacement of native species but also the hybridization between native cutthroat and introduced rainbow trout began.

Plans called for the introduction of brook trout into Glen Creek and the Gardner River above its falls, rainbows into the Gibbon above Virginia Cascades, brown (Loch Leven) trout into the Firehole River above Kepler Cascades, and Rocky Mountain whitefish into Twin Lakes and the Yellowstone River between the lake and falls (the Rocky Mountain whitefish failed to establish). Due to an administrative error, some eggs were not properly identified and therefore switched in destination. Thus brook trout were introduced into the salmonid-free Firehole River in 1889 and brown trout into the Gardner River. Gardner River tributaries received brook trout above the barrier falls, as planned. Brown trout were introduced into the Firehole River through their release in the salmonid-free Nez Perce Creek the following year.

Hiram Chittenden, in The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive, offers numbers of fish released in the various US Fish Commission plantings in the park, including this number and location that catch the eye: 10,000 yearling lake trout in the Yellowstone River above the falls in 1890. Chittenden gives no specific location for this act. If his words are correct, location and the passage of time could be important in the following speculation. If placed nearer the falls, these fish most likely drifted downstream and out of the system. If placed near the lake, who can say where they ended up? But could this be the origin of the late-twentieth-century discovery of the lake trout in Yellowstone Lake? If the latter is true, it was for decades almost unnoticed and began a major abuse of native salmonids.

The reason why events taking place in Yellowstone National Park are important to understand is simple. Without the park’s formation to preserve resident ecosystems and subsequent events in the surrounding area, the town of West Yellowstone as we know it would probably not exist and its fly-fishing heritage would be poorer. For area pioneering families, life was difficult. In particular, winter meant isolation, potential starvation, unattended medical emergencies, and little gainful employment. Forming a town could provide the means to reduce these conditions. The annual return of the tourist season, which increasingly included guiding and accommodating anglers, could provide the means for incomes and better physical living conditions. So the stage is set at the end of the nineteenth century for West Yellowstone to be formed.

Among the first individuals with a desire to establish in the area was S. P. Sam Eagle, who came first to Mammoth in 1903 from Pennsylvania. He found employment as a bartender, a table fare fisherman, and on occasion a fishing guide at the Fountain Hotel, successor to the Marshall House, in the Madison River drainage.

In 1903 architect Robert Reamer began construction of the Old Faithful Inn with the closure of the Fountain Hotel. It would become the only inn operating in the Madison River drainage within the park.

Tales of the superb salmonid population inhabiting the region spread among affluent visitors and regional business interests. For example, Frank J. Haynes owned the Monida-Yellowstone Stage Company. His company would soon be greatly impacted by the coming rail line. Nevertheless he offered in the 1902 edition of the Haynes Guide to Yellowstone Park: [Dwelle’s] Grayling Inn, near the western boundary of the Park, is situated on the South Fork of the Madison River, one of the most famous grayling streams in the West. The town of Grayling, holding the first post office in the region, was sited about fifteen miles northwest of the park’s West Entrance in 1898 near its namesake Grayling Creek. This post office would operate for more than fifty years.

Somewhere in the East around 1904 or 1905, probably Connecticut, Donald Skill-man Martinez was born. He would not live a long life, but his tremendous influence on the West Yellowstone area’s fly-fishing heritage would begin in two and a half decades. William S. Scotty Chapman was born on July 20, 1907, in Westfield, Iowa, and would have few peers in knowledge of fly-fishing Yellowstone Park waters. In 1909 Lucinda Marshall Barnes gave birth to Antrim Earl Barnes Jr.; in the fly-fishing world he would be known as Pat Barnes.

Descriptions of the region’s fabulous fly fishing began appearing in nationally distributed magazines. As angling pressure in the park increased, so did the waste of fish, as no creel limit was in place. Some of the most popular streams were in the Madison River drainage. Here was the Firehole, devoid of salmonids a dozen years before, now touted as a beautiful limestone stream (which technically it is not) hosting large brook and brown trout. In the smaller but equally picturesque Gibbon River, introduced rainbow trout prospered. In 1905 brook trout were introduced into the river above Gibbon Falls.

Below in the Madison River, exotic species continued displacing the native west-slope cutthroat, and grayling grew to huge sizes and drifted downstream and into tributaries within and outside the park. In a few decades the westslope cutthroat, now the Montana state fish, would exist only in headwater streams of the drainage,

A trail ending at Lookout Butte provides a panoramic view of the Old Faithful area from the east. The Old Faithful Inn has hosted many fly fishers from the early twentieth century to the present day and is a national treasure. (Bruce Staples collection)

The Fountain Hotel succeeded the Marshall House. Here Sam Eagle found his first employment in the area. On its closure and demolition, construction of the Old Faithful Inn began. (Bob Jacklin collection)

The Marshall House was the first hotel built in the Madison River drainage. Its site was near the Firehole River–Nez Perce Creek confluence. (Bob Jacklin collection)

and grayling would endure in the park only after their introduction into three lakes: Cascade, Grebe, and Wolf.

Brook trout prospered in the Gardner River drainage. Farther east, Yellowstone cutthroat reigned supreme in the Yellowstone River drainage but suffered from being discarded after being caught, having strains mixed during hatchery operations, and continuing commercial fishing. Hatcheries on Yellowstone Lake, beginning operations in 1902, were extracting eggs to a final figure of 800 million from resident cutthroat. Fortunately for Yellowstone Lake and Duck Lake above it, landlocked Atlantic salmon planted in 1908 failed to establish. Some of the plantings attempted and proposed for park waters seem hilarious, but indicate a misunderstanding of established ecosystems and a lack of appreciation of native salmonids.

Army administrators for the park set a legal catch limit of twenty fish per day from park waters, and in 1911 set eight inches as the minimum length for creeled fish. Thus began park sportfishing restrictions that would increase through the century as pressure on and understanding of the fishery progressed. Just outside the park, actions were taking place that would bring more anglers there to enjoy the excellent fishing its waters offered.

E. H. Harriman owned the Union Pacific Railroad at the turn of the century. Harriman had heard of the wonders of Yellowstone National Park and observed the Northern Pacific’s branch line to Gardiner, Montana, meant to capture tourist trade through the park entrances. Noting the Northern Pacific’s success, Harriman became involved in discussions on establishing a railway branch line from the south into the vicinity of the park. Tourist visits were climbing, and the shipping of cattle from Island Park ranches to market was increasing.

Frank J. Haynes, president of the Monida-Yellowstone stage line, accompanied Harriman into the park in 1905. This visit not only solidified the effort to construct a branch line to the west side of the park, but also resulted in Harriman’s conviction to obtain an operating cattle ranch in the region that would also serve as a sporting retreat for family and guests. His death, however, left its purchase up to his widow.

In 1908 the Harriman family bought into the Thurburn ranch owned by the Guggenheims and other wealthy families since 1906. After ensuring that lodging space within the park could adsorb the anticipated increase in visitation from a railroad, the Harrimans ordered construction to begin, and the ranch, through which the Henry’s Fork runs, became known as the Railroad Ranch. By November 12, 1907, the railroad was completed to the west boundary of the park. In June 1908 the first trainload of tourists arrived on the Yellowstone Special. In 1909 Averill Harriman was the first in the family to visit the ranch.

Regional national forests were established by congressional action in the summer of 1908. The Madison National Forest contained land that was being inhabited at the West Entrance of Yellowstone Park. Forest surveyors defined a six-block town site north and adjacent to the rail line and along the park’s west boundary. Lots within were leased to private citizens, and the leases remained until private ownership was allowed at the end of the next decade. A few businesses, including a first hotel of sorts, were established within the town site by 1908.

Culinary water was hauled to the town site from the Madison River until 1909, the same year commercial fishing ended in Montana. Demand for water for the railroad steam engines led to the need to obtain a more convenient water source, so the first wells came into operation in 1909. Public schools would not come until 1915. The town site’s post office was designated Yellowstone, but that name was changed to Riverside by October 1908 to avoid confusion in sending mail to Mammoth. It was changed back to Yellowstone in 1910. Seeking employment, folks from other parts of the country came to work in town or for the railroad, or to become cowboys.

The Union Pacific Railroad’s depot in town served travelers, including visiting fly fishers, until passenger service ceased in 1959. With respect to the outside world, the depot put West Yellowstone on the map. (Bob Jacklin collection)

Sam and Ida Eagle with their partners, the Stuarts, opened Eagle’s Store in 1908 before there was a town of West Yellowstone. Eventually the couples formed separate businesses. Eagle’s Store endures to this day, offering, among other merchandise, fly-fishing retail items. (Courtesy Dr. Kim Eagle)

In 1908 a young adventurer from New Jersey arrived in Butte, Montana, worked in a local mine for a day, then sought work as a wrangler. This was Jim Jacklin. In six decades his grandson Robert would begin his ascent into a West Yellowstone fly-fishing legend.

After Sam Eagle arrived from Pennsylvania in 1903, he married Ida Carlson and they continued working at the Fountain Hotel for the Yellowstone Park Hotel Company. That same year, Alex Stuart arrived from Canada to work for the same company. He married company employee Laura Larson in 1905. In 1908 the Eagles and Stuarts moved to the new town at the West Entrance. With Alex and Laura Stuart, Sam and Ida began the Eagle-Stuart Store, but wintered outside the area. Among the items offered in this variety store was fishing gear, including flies and tackle, mainly those preferred in the eastern states. In addition to his business and being postmaster, Sam Eagle was a conservation officer and in 1909 the first Montana state-licensed fishing and hunting guide in town. Eagle’s Store exists into the twenty-first century and continues to offer fly-fishing items. The Eagles’ progeny would play a significant role not only in developing the regional sportfishing heritage, but also in preserving those fisheries.

Looking east near Hebgen Dam shows how Hebgen Lake inundates much of the Madison Valley above. The river in the valley was of low gradient and an excellent host for native salmonids. Because of downstream drift and stocking, brown and rainbow trout gradually replaced the native cutthroat trout and Montana grayling. (Courtesy Bruce Staples)

The stone railroad station, dubbed the Terminal Depot, was completed early in 1909. Meals were offered in the nearby Eating House. The presence of brook trout from local waters on the menu added familiarity for the easterner. Now the combination of railroad and town site offered comforts, conveniences, and quick access for park visitors.

Permission had been obtained from the Forest Service in 1910 to build a road from Bozeman upstream along the West Gallatin River to the new town. Through this action the park’s West Entrance would eventually surpass the North Entrance in terms of number of visitors. Wagon roads to town came from the southwest over Targhee Pass and also across Raynolds Pass and up the Madison River canyon. Thus the network of roads that would precede the modern highway network around West Yellowstone was established. With the coming of the railroad, stage line traffic west of the park decreased.

Hebgen Dam, begun in 1909, changed the Madison Valley physical makeup forever and resulted in the same for its salmonid population. The dam endured, with repairable damage, the 1959 earthquake. The reservoir it forms is a world-class fishery. (Bruce Staples Collection)

For several years Harry Dwelle’s Gray-ling Inn had served as the only stage stop with accommodations for tourists mostly coming from the Oregon Short Line Railroad station at Monida, Montana, to visit Yellowstone Park. Dwelle saw that the end of this stagecoach service was coming due to the Yellowstone Branch railroad, and that it would significantly reduce his business. In 1909 he sold the Grayling Inn to Frank Haynes and a group of wealthy eastern anglers (the property remains in private ownership). Fishing in the region remained the domain of the well-to-do, with many buying property from which to enjoy it. But the basis for the masses to later enjoy the region’s angling loomed: An improved highway net and reliable automobiles were yet to come. Eventually even the rail lines would fall victim to these changes. The same was about to happen for the native salmonid population with the formation of Hebgen Reservoir.

Creation of a world-renowned fishery was probably the furthest purpose for an impoundment in Max Hebgen’s mind. This dedicated and superb hydraulic engineer had the harnessing of Montana’s bountiful running water foremost in mind. Hebgen, operating for the Montana Power Company, of which he was a vice president, evaluated sites in Montana and Idaho in which to establish power generation, flow regulation, and water storage facilities. Montana needed electrical power primarily to run an energy-intensive mining industry, to serve what was perceived to be a growing population, and for agriculture. Montana Power, a major political force in the state, held carte blanche in developing water resources.

About ten miles west of Yellowstone National Park, the Madison River ceased its slow meandering. As if deciding to plunge ahead to its fate, it picked up speed and flowed rapidly through a narrow, steep-walled canyon, the highest on the river. Behind it lay the broad, nearly flat valley. Company surveys revealed that the upper end of the canyon below the Madison Valley was ideal for a dam to form an upstream storage reservoir to regulate flows for hydroelectric facilities below. The company bought the site and began construction in 1909 of a dam to serve these purposes.

The dam was named for Hebgen, who did not live to see its completion. The resulting reservoir flooded most of Grayling, the original settlement in the upper valley. It also changed the character of the upper Madison River drainage fishery forever, and would become a world-renowned fishery. Within a few years of the filling it was planted with brown trout, supplementing those entering through downstream drift from the river above. Later rainbow trout established in the reservoir. All this was a death knell for the native westslope cutthroat and Montana grayling.

CHAPTER 2

1910–1930: A FLY-FISHING HERITAGE BEGINS

The automobile changed human impact in the Greater Yellowstone area. In answer to public and commercial interest pressure, congressional appropriations were in place by 1912 to improve Yellowstone National Park roads, and the first automobile entered the park from the new town on May 31, 1913. By 1913 the road up the West Gallatin River (now US Highway 191) was being used, and a road led to the Hebgen dam site and on down the Madison River (now US Highway 287). Horse-drawn stage line owners felt impending doom, so foresighted members began conversion to mechanization. Area roads were gravel at the time, but efforts were under way to pave.

Charlie Brooks named this section of the Madison River the Beaver Meadows. The major fly-fishing attraction here is the run of brown and rainbow trout out of Hebgen Reservoir upstream to spawning areas. Beginning in late August and lasting past the closing of fishing season, this event offers a chance for catching a fish of the year. (John Juracek photo)

Paving materials brought in by railroad were accumulating in town. An oil storage tank was built, and by 1914 paving into the park had begun from the West Entrance. In 1915 seven miles into the park had been paved, and the federal government authorized private automobile use there. Vehicle entry fees began at five dollars per day. For anglers detraining at the rail terminal, it was now possible to use the West Entrance Road and fish the fabled Madison River on arrival. The opening of Jesse Pierman’s Madison Hotel within the new town around 1910 ensured lodging space. Other hotels were present, but none could be described as comfortable and convenient.

Frank J. Haynes, ever the promoter, told the world of the Madison River’s salmonid treasure. In his Haynes Official Guide: Yellowstone National Park, twenty-ninth edition, 1915, there is a picture of Loch Leven (brown) and rainbow trout taken (and killed) with a fly rod. Below the picture his text reads: The Rainbow and Loch Leven Trout of the Madison River have made this section of the park famous. It is not uncommon for an expert angler to land a six pound rainbow trout in this vicinity. Such flowery descriptions attracted