HISTORIC RELICS 40 YEARS OLD
FOUND IN STRUCTURE OF PARK
The Helena Independent, July 28, 1928
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SLY MOUSE GHOST OF PARK HOTEL
The Davenport Iowa Democrat and Leader, June 13, 1928
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Although the corner stone of the Fountain hotel in Yellowstone National park, which was recently opened when the building was dismantled, could offer to humanity no horned toads that had lived to a great age without food, water or air, still there were found many interesting relics of almost 40 years of ago, which are to ge given to the Yellowstone park museum for exhibit and preservation.
In the stone were placed the usual few coins, which are placed in a receptacle of this nature . . . Three newspapers, a Chicago Tribune, a Minneapolis Tribune and a St. Paul Pioneer-Press, all bearing the date of September 18, 1890, seem to have weathered 40 years in a cigar box rather well . . . In addition to the above mentioned discoveries two rolls or scrolls of paper, one bearing the names of all the workmen who took part in the building of the Fountain hotel and another dedicating the structure for housing and entertainment of tourist guests, were also found.
These rolls have not stood the weathering process of time very well and are very brittle, some portions of the writing have been obliterated by the weather. They are to be mounted on card board for preservation.
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Yellowstone Park, Wyo - (AP) At six o'clock of every cold, raw, winter evening a bell in room 203 of the Fountain Hotel would ring. Every night at six o'clock a frightened, but conscientious caretaker made his cautious way to room 203, only to find it empty. Finally even the caretaker's earnestness could not stand the spectral twilight calls, and he fled the hotel in the company of a park photographer.
The old hotel was remodeled the next spring, and the workers found that a mouse had made its nest in the wall of room 203 over the wire leading to the bell. It had nibbled off the insulationa s that every time it toucched it the bell rang. The regularity of the ghostly rings testify to the excellent character of the rodent.
Even this explanation has not entirely put down the evil reputation of the hotel, and native, park rangers and general park employees have held for 20 years to their belief in the "haunt." Demolition of the building this spring, however, is expected to lay the ghost forever.
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