Linda and Jerry Baird welcome people to the Franklin Relic Hall on June 29,2022. The couple is serving as volunteers in the Franklin Relic Hall as part of their missionary service
FRANKLIN – This year marks the 150-year anniversary of Yellowstone National Park and the Franklin Relic Hall Museum and Historical Site is honoring the first National Park with a display of relevant photos and artifacts, including an original horse drawn Yellowstone coach built by Abbott Downing used to carry people through the park. The coaches were used form 1892 until 1916.
Susan Hawkes, curator and site manger, set up the “Memories of Yellowstone” exhibit and is inviting the public to see the connection Cache Valley has with the national park.
The Yellowstone touring coaches would take people on week-long excursions through the park.
“Each coach was numbered and ours is number 29. Every part of the coach is original and numbered,” she said. “As far as I know, there are only about six original Yellowstone horse drawn wagons left.”
There was a family of Bassett brothers from Salt Lake City who ran the coaches and used to transport people through Yellowstone in these coaches.
Hawkes said Cache Valley has a significant part in the First U.S. geological Expedition through the 2.2 million acres.
“The geological expedition led by Ferdinand Vadiveer Hayden got off the train in Ogden and traveled by horseback up through Sardine Canyon,” she said. “I have photographs of them camping in Wellsville and another by Little Mountain near Franklin.”
Hayden assembled a group of 34 men and seven wagons, including a photographer, a mineralogist, a couple of artists and topographer to document the area.
“After that expedition, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill making Yellowstone a National Park on March 1, 1872,” Hawkes said. “The road to the park came right here through Franklin County.”
Not far from the Relic Hall on Parkinson Road, just past the Cub River, is the only Yellowstone marker left that points travelers to the park, as far as Hawkes knows. The site coordinator wants to have the Yellowstone arrow put on a national relic list to preserve it.
“There was one in Ashton, but it is no longer there,” Hawkes said. “The rock under the arrows used to be painted yellow and pointed the way to the park.”
For a time, people would take horses and wagons to the park or go by train and then take several days exploring the geological features of Yellowstone.
“With the invention of the personal automobile, transportation to and from the park in cars became a more feasible option,” she said. “We have on display some of the things people would see when automobiles were first allowed into the Yellowstone National Park.”
Hawkes has enlisted the help of two senior missionaries, Jerry and Linda Baird, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to help visitors as they go through the Relic Hall.
The relic hall also has a collection of Native American artifacts, including grinding stones and an arrowhead collection from a local collector.
With high gas prices, a trip to Idaho’s oldest community is a relatively inexpensive trip for an afternoon journey to find some historical facts about Cache Valley, and even historical information about Yellowstone without having to travel to Wyoming.
The Relic Hall is located at 113 E. Main St, Franklin, ID.