Wapiti Ranger Station: America's First

The small log buildings tucked along the North Fork of the Shoshone River look modest, but they hold a distinction no other ranger station in the country can claim. The Wapiti Ranger Station, built in nineteen oh three, is the oldest United States Forest Service ranger station still in continuous use anywhere in the nation.

The station sits inside Shoshone National Forest, itself a record-holder: when President Benjamin Harrison created it in eighteen ninety-one, it became the first federally protected national forest in the United States. The name Wapiti comes from a Shawnee word for elk, which still roam this valley between Cody and the eastern gate of Yellowstone. The station was declared a National Historic Landmark in nineteen sixty-three.