The Yellowstone Highway, an “auto trail” mapped, maintained, and promoted by local businesses and “good roads” clubs, was established in 1915, the year Rocky Mountain National Park was created and the year automobiles were first allowed in Yellowstone National Park.

“Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive the Interstate”

The Yellowstone Highway: Denver to the Park, Past and Present, uses vintage postcards, photographs, maps, and guide book entries to recapture some of the hardships and joys of early automobile travel when “getting there was half the fun.”

The road through Wind River Canyon was opened in 1924. Before that year, motorists had to negotiate the difficult Birdseye Pass to the east.

The Yellowstone Highway followed present-day US Highways 14-16-20 to Yellowstone, the Cody entrance.

The old road through Shoshone Canyon, below Buffalo Bill Dam, is now a fishing access pedestrian-only road.