History of Livingston MT

became the original gateway to Yellowstone National Park, which the NPR began promoting heavily to visitors from the East, by way of a branch running some sixty miles south to first the Cinnabar station and later Gardiner. Livingston was also headquarters for the NPR's Central Division and a good location for railroad shops to service NPR steam trains before their ascent over the Bozeman Pass, the highest point on the line 5,702 feet (1,738 m).

Livingston is situated on the Yellowstone River where it bends from north to east towards Billings and in proximity to Interstate 90. In July 1806 Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped on the city's present outskirts on the return trip east, following the descending Yellowstone River. Clark's party rejoined the Lewis party at the confluence with the Missouri River, near Williston, North Dakota.

Though a small city, Livingston is home to a number of popular tourist points. The Livingston Depot, built in 1902 after two predecessors, is a restored rail station that today houses a railroad museum from approximately May through September. The Yellowstone Gateway Museum documents regional history from one of the oldest North American archaeological sites to Wild Western and Yellowstone history. The International Fly Fishing Federation's museum is an extensive introduction to a popular game sport and hosts annual enthusiasts meetings. The city was inhabited for two decades by Calamity Jane and visited by adventurous travelling members of European royalty. Today it is a small art haven, filming location (A River Runs Through It, The Horse Whisperer, Rancho Deluxe, and others), fishing destination, railroad town, and writers' and actors' colony. In 1938, Dan Bailey, an eastern fly-fisherman, established his Dan Bailey's