100 Years Of Driving Through Spectacular Wind River Canyon

WIND RIVER CANYON — Royalty once rode the train through Wind River Canyon to stand before Chimney Rock, gazing with awe at what is one of the most spectacular scenic byways in America.

But today’s motorists traveling what was then known as the Yellowstone Highway are not quite as lucky as Queen Marie of Romania was in 1926.

Drivers must pay close attention to the road to drive this twisting, turning, winding route and, unless they have the time to stop, they can’t be gazing overly long at any one particular rocky spire.

That’s what makes Fremont County Museum’s newest summer tour such a pleasure. It’s called the Yellowstone Highway Adventure Trek, and it celebrates 100 years of history for the Wind River Canyon’s scenic route to Yellowstone National Park.

Passengers on this tour are treated like kings and queens, encouraged to sit back and enjoy gazing at the rocky layers that reveal 2 billions years of geology — even as a pretty little river lassoes the base of the mountains, keeping them grounded.

Next to such giant mountains, the river looks like an impossibly thin necklace of precious jade and pearl, the rapids and the deeps forever entwined.

The bus tour begins in Riverton and takes passengers through Wind River Canyon before landing in Thermopolis for a few hours.

There, adventure-seekers may take a dip at the State Bath House — if they remembered swimsuits — or can walk around the terraces and stop to feed the goldfish. That is followed by dinner at the One Eyed Buffalo Restaurant before returning to the museum in Riverton.

Historian and Thermopolis Tourism Director Jackie Dorothy acts as guide, telling engaging stories all along the way, among them the tale of Queen Marie of Romania.

The Friendship Tour Begins

Queen Marie created quite a stir across America when she came over in 1926 for what was billed as a friendship tour of the United States, Dorothy told Cowboy State Daily.

Queen Marie’s arrival was heralded in New York with a tickertape parade, after which she embarked on an 8,750-mile, 30-day journey across America.

She wanted to meet real Americans, she told the press everywhere she went. And she also wanted to thank America and the Red Cross for aid it had given her country during World War I.

Throngs of visitors greeted the charming queen at seemingly every port and city she went to. She was an instant celebrity sensation.

Queen Marie made at least two stops of note in Wyoming. One was to view the Standard Oil facilities in Casper, which were a major economic player in Romania at the time.

The other was Wind River Canyon.

It’s not known if Queen Marie had heard anything about the then only 2-year-old highway to Yellowstone National Park that had been literally carved through the mountainside using dynamite and steam shovels.

But surely it was mentioned at some point during her stop that the Wind River Canyon stretch of road had cost $1 million to build, making it America’s most expensive highway at the time — with a spectacular view to match its spectacular price tag.

Automobiles Vs. Railroads

Once automobiles could finally access the canyon, the railroad company realized it needed to go an extra mile to compete, Dorothy said. So in 1925, the railroad built a platform at the Dornick train station for its passengers, which looked onto Chimney Rock.

The stop was widely publicized to tourists as an inducement to get people to take passenger trains instead of cars, Dorothy said.

Queen Marie’s stopover at the Dornick platform made her the first European royal to ever set foot in the canyon. And the occasion brought Thermopolis dignitaries to the platform, as well as a photographer named Barney Smith, whose pictures preserved the moment for posterity.

“She met with representatives of Thermopolis,” Dorothy said. “And she and her children waved to people and … the chamber of commerce was there to shake hands.”

Smith wrote in one of the notes on the back of one photo that Queen Marie’s train was pulling 12 coaches at the time.

Dam Fine Bar

Some other sights Dorothy likes to point out along the Yellowstone Adventure Trek are the foundations of the Dam Bar, still visible near present-day Boysen Dam by the Highway 20 tunnels.

“What happened is that a very enterprising young man, Barney Smith, came to town,” Dorothy said. “He opened up a saloon in Thermopolis, and a saloon in Wind River Canyon, and that one was called the Dam Bar.”

At the time the bar was built in 1947, gambling was not legal in Wyoming. But the Dam Bar was a bit off the beaten path, so to speak.

“The games would go late into the night, sometimes for days,” Dorothy said. “And he never got busted.”

Somehow, he would always get a tip that the Fremont County Sheriff was planning to raid him, just in the nick of time to move everything into Hot Springs County at his Adel Homestead.

Then, when the Hot Springs County Sheriff would raid the homestead, he’d move everything just as suddenly back to Fremont County and the Dam Bar.

“People say that once they started hearing who was at the games, they knew why he always seemed to know when he needed to move,” Dorothy said. “There might have been a judge there, there might have been a sheriff there, there might have been some lawmen who were playing the games in the canyon at the Dam Bar.”

The bar was a two-story log-cabin-like structure with a dance hall, as well as a place to eat, and a rough-hewn bar where people could sit. Travelers could also stop to buy gasoline and groceries there.

Early-Model Pay Day Loans

The bar’s slogan was the “Best Dam Bar,” Dorothy said.

“I’ve actually interviewed people who were in the bar when they were younger,” she said. “It was kind of a rougher crowd. A lot of farmers, workers and travelers.”

When work started on Boysen Dam in 1948, Smith wisely decided that he would cash checks for the workers, sort of like an interest-free payday loan.

“You can guess where a lot of that paycheck went,” Dorothy said.

Today, not much is left of the Dam Bar. The foundations are still visible near the tunnels at the southern end of the Wind River Canyon. The jukebox and the slot machine from the Dam Bar are both at the Hot Springs County Museum in Thermopolis.

“The slot machine still works,” Dorothy said. “You can put in quarters and try your luck. Because gambling is not allowed, we keep the winnings, but you can get your picture on Facebook.”

White Water Rapids

Another tale of Wind River Canyon that Dorothy likes to tell is about the races that were held from 1948 to 1952.

Before the new Boysen Dam was completed, the Wind River’s might made a thrilling — or perhaps some would say terrifying — ride. The Jaycees held a Memorial Day boat race that brought out some of the hardiest boating competitors.

“The whole town would show up and they would line the whole road,” Dorothy said. “And it was scary to watch because the rapids were so bad. These people were in homemade craft, and you would watch them, I mean, people saw them like going against a rock and all of a sudden shattering.”

That would inevitably send the person in the boat flying up into the sky, and then back down for a gravity-propelled dive into the powerful rapids.

That quickly earned the Jaycee Memorial Day Boat Race a reputation as the world’s roughest navigable racing course. The winner thus earned the title of Champion White Water Boatman of the World, Dorothy said.

According to historical records, six men were hospitalized from shock and exposure after getting dunked in the river during the 1951 race. All the men were released the same day, in good condition.

A good sportsmanship award was handed out to two racers from Cowley, who rescued a Billings man after he was thrown from his boat.

“They followed him for about 7 miles before successfully fishing him out of the river,” Dorothy said.

A man named Lloyd Barnes was also rescued by fellow racers when his boat broke up in Pink Canyon, located in the area near Wind River Canyon’s tunnels.

The winner of the race in 1949, meanwhile, was recorded as one Johnny Wells, who tamed the bucking river in a converted belly gas tank from a P-38 airplane.

“The canyon has been used for so many different things over time,” Dorothy told Cowboy State Daily. “And it’s been active for so long. But they had to build it up in order for it to be used, because it was so hard to get through.”

The Yellowstone Highway through the canyon has made its beauty accessible to people from around the world, Dorothy said.

But one of the cool things about it is that the view is much the same as it was when the Queen of Romania cast her eyes upon the canyon 100 years ago.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.