YA Grand Opening

About a month ago, I attended the grand opening of the Yellowstone Association's new building. It's actually an old building in Gardiner. Built in 1903, the building was designed by Robert Reamer, one of the mot famous names in park architecture. he was actually pulled off the job to create and build the Old Faithful Inn.
The building was originally used as the town Mercantile. It was owned by W. C. Hall and run by his family for years. For a long time it was also known as Cecil's. There were ten foot high letters spelling out the name of the restaurant in bright yellow which was originally outlined in neon.
As I understand it, YA had been looking for a new building for some time. When the Cecil's building (housing a video store, a laundromat, and gift shop when I moved here), came up for sale, the park asked YA to buy it so that the rumored hotel/casino couldn't be built on the site. The fourteenth of June was the grand opening.

Suzanne Lewis, the superintendent of Yellowstone came and gave some opening remarks.
There was quite a crowd that showed up. I believe it was for a chance at free cake. But that might be too cynical.
Each area had a poster outlining what they do for the Association.






All in all a very nice opening and great to see the community come out and hpopefully begin to understand what the Association does and what it's about.