Local News
By Patricia Grabow
The Yellowstone Bus Tours of Livingston’s Four Historic Districts begins its 19th year of offering a wonderful and entertaining way to learn about this potential World Heritage Site—Livingston, the original entrance to the first National Park in the world, Yellowstone. Tours begin on Memorial Day and run through the summer.
And this year, the trips offered will be even more often and convenient than before. The tours will begin at the Livingston Depot Center on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and there will be two tours a day. The first tour will be at 1 pm and the second will be at 2:30 pm. Join them and learn about the history of this town with over 400 buildings on the National Historic Register. (Livingston has more buildings listed than New York, Philadelphia, Boston combined!)
You’ll meet our characters like Calamity Jane, Madam Bulldog, learn the history of the Chinese who at one point made up 10% of Montana’s population, our bars, brothels, our underground and our ghosts. Also, how the 20 hotels downtown and Livingston Depot Center were built between 1903-1908 as well as the Old Faithful Inn and Canyon Hotel. Learn how Livingston accommodated sometimes over 800 visitors on six passenger trains a day. Learn about Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea along with our history going back 11,000 years—all of this aboard a vintage 1938 Yellowstone Park bus. Since the LDBOBA is a non-profit, the cost is $15 per person and children under 12 are free. You pay for your ticket at the Depot Center when you board the bus. Sorry, they can’t take reservations, but there is plenty of room on the spacious bus.
This 19th year of Yellowstone Bus Tours is dedicated to one of our best, Betsy Luther, who passed on this spring. Betsy and her husband Jack have been essential in providing the tours for almost twenty years. The Livingston Downtown Building Owners and Business Association (LDBOBA) or, for short, Livingston Downtown Association, has provided the tours and Jack has been an officer in the organization for as long as he has been in Livingston. The bus has been part of Livingston’s story since its LDBOBA president, Patricia Grabow, finally talked Bruce Austin of the Jammer Trust, a non-profit saving these remarkable vehicles, to loan the bus to Livingston.
Jack and Betsy have made sure that the bus is clean, running well, stored correctly, remains economically viable as well as handles advertising the tours and faithfully drove it for its history here in Livingston.
Wherever Jack went, his kind wife was by his side doing whatever she could to make the Yellowstone Bus Tours a success. Like the song, in many ways, she was the wind beneath his wings. It will be odd not to have her smiling face with us this year, but she will be there in spirit and sorely missed.
Most of our guests having said that was one of the most interesting tours they have ever taken and they loved touring in the 1938 Yellowstone Bus. Everything on it is original, even the engine, and now you!