Originally published in Points West magazine
Summer 2008
Byways, boats, and buildings: Yellowstone Lake in history, part 3
By Lee Whittlesey
In the past two issues of Points West, Yellowstone National Park Historian Lee Whittlesey discussed the earliest accounts of Yellowstone Lake and how roads developed in the area to accommodate visitors to the nation’s first national park. Given a lake this size, boating activities were naturally “a given,” too. Boats are the subject of this third installment of Whittlesey’s story, especially the infamous story of steamboat operator E.C. Waters.
Boats on the lake
Boats on Yellowstone Lake and a few buildings on the northern lakeshore actually arrived before roads did. Surely Indians built rafts and attempted to reach islands in the lake, but nothing substantive is so far known of those endeavors. Archeologist Ann Johnson reports that archeological sites have been documented on six of the lake’s seven islands, indicating that ancient humans or more recent Indians reached the islands at various points in time. In addition, a number of parties traveled on the lake to map, explore, or eventually provide boats for hire.
Because of his personal experiences in a small boat on the often turbulent lake, and his explorations on horseback around the lake, Superintendent P.W. Norris supported the idea of using a large boat for tours on Yellowstone Lake. He noted in his 1878 report that “with another season’s improvement and construction of roads and bridle-paths, the promised routes of access… I have all the confidences of being able to effect leases to responsible parties for the construction of much needed hotels, and also for a yacht or small steamer upon the mystic Yellowstone Lake.” In 1889, the Department of Interior issued a lease to one E.C. Waters for just such a boat, the Zillah, which was brought to the park in pieces and assembled on site.
E.C. Waters: Yellowstone’s “gadfly”
Ela Collins Waters, called “E.C.” by many, was a gadfly who was present in Yellowstone for twenty years (1887 – 1907), working first as general manager of the Yellowstone Park Association (YPA) hotels and then with his own company, the Yellowstone Lake Boat Company. He caused trouble for nearly everyone around him, including fellow employees, other concessioners, tourists, and the U.S. Army. Still, it was hard for park officials to get rid of Waters because he was politically connected to Russell Harrison, the son of President Benjamin Harrison.