It was a final decision made in 1905 by E.H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad to extend the line from Ashton, Idaho to the west boundary of Yellowstone National Park that led to the eventual existence of the Town of West Yellowstone. The U.P.R.R. had been involved in the business of bring visitors to Yellowstone since 1898 when they began a working relationship with F.J. Haynes an early park photographer who created the Monida-Yellowstone Stage Line for the purpose of bringing visitors to Yellowstone via the west entrance.
The U.P.R.R.Õs involvement with park visitation would bring about an increase in the visitors and subsequently the expansion of park infrastructure to handle the crowds. Their aggressive promotion of the park would lead to the west entrance becoming the most used entrance of the five that serve Yellowstone. Picking up the style of architecture already developed by the Northern Pacific Railroad for use in the park, the U.P. would expand on it not only at itÕs new facility at the west entrance but introduce it to itÕs southern Utah Park operations in the 1920s with the hiring of Gilbert Stanley Underwood as its official architect.
In West Yellowstone between 1908, when they started operations, through 1929 when the last major construction took place, the U.P. would build for the arriving visitor a complex of buildings that stands today as one of the most complete sets of such architecture built to serve the National Park visitor.

The U.P.Õs promotion of visitation to Yellowstone National Park and the southern Utah National Parks would lead to an integrated system rail travel that reached from all points in America to Yellowstone. From the Illinois Rock Island Line to the southern states Gulf Mobile and Ohio Railroad from Los Angles, California to Miami, Florida Yellowstone Park Tours via the Union Pacific brought tens of thousands of Americans and foreign visitors to Yellowstone National Park.

The Townsite that grew up at the terminus of the U.P. rail line to the west entrance, first called Riverside in 1908 changed to Yellowstone in 1909 and finally West Yellowstone in 1920, became the starting point for many visitors trip to Yellowstone National Park. Today the town still serves as a jumping off point for not only Yellowstone but the surrounding mountainous paradise that makes up the Hebgen Lake Basin. Fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, skiing or hiking this is the place to do it from if you visit the Yellowstone area.