Yellowstone Insider Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park
Under the Gardiner Gateway Project, Yellowstone’s North Entrance and Gardiner, MT will be undergoing some major changes in the next few years.
Building off a National Park Service proposal to revamp the Entrance, the Project has ballooned into a 16-agency affair. Agencies at the local, state, and federal level (including the Yellowstone Association, the community of Gardiner, and the state of Montana) have come together to resuscitate Gardiner.
The former terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway’s line to Yellowstone, from 1903 to 1948, Gardiner has always been wedded to Yellowstone culture and history. The community of almost 900 year-round residents hosts nearly 700,000 visitors annually, which (understandably) wears on Gardiner’s infrastructure. With the Gardiner Gateway Project, participating agencies wish to not only revitalize historic Gardiner but also enhance it for posterity.
The Project (in three phases) will improve the Gardiner Transportation Center and North Entrance roads, as well as U.S. Highway 89; revamp parking, traffic flow, signage, and lighting; provide accessible walkways; and build a welcome center with public restrooms, along with a new North Entrance station and an Arch Park amphitheater.
Most excitingly, the Project will reconstruct the old Gardiner train depot (designed by Robert C. Reamer) as it was before it was torn down in 1954. It will be a multi-use facility and will house the Gardiner Depot Library.
Phase One, which began April 17, 2015, encompasses Park Street, Arch Park, and the Roosevelt Arch. Much of the work is happening directly in front of the Yellowstone Association building and other Park Street businesses. There will be no closures. Pedestrians will be able to access the Roosevelt Arch.
Phase One is scheduled to terminate by late summer next year, in time for the NPS Centennial celebration August 25, 2016.
Phase Two, scheduled to begin Fall 2016, will focus on central Gardiner and encompasses parts of Park Street, Main Street, First Street, Third Street, Arch Park, and Yellowstone River. The start of Phase Three has not been announced yet. For more information on the Gardiner Gateway Project, read here.
