In 1864, a train of pack camels arrived in Montana along the Mullan Road and wagon trail. Local teamsters and animals disliked the strange beasts, which one hunter mistook for a deformed moose. The Camel’s Hump was not named for the animal, however, but for the notoriously steep grades on either side of the routes. The Mullan Road over the Camel’s Hump became the Yellowstone Trail in the 1910s, and cars became the primary users.

The Yellowstone Trail was a national effort to encourage motorcar tourism. It stretched west from Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, all the way to Seattle, Washington. One traveler noted that the road was “so well sign-posted all the way that it would be impossible to get lost.” The Trail featured bright yellow signs with black arrows pointing the way, and they covered everything from telegraph poles to fence posts.

Tom Trouse settled just west of the Camel’s Hump and founded the settlement of Cabin City in 1911. His garage serviced cars that broke their gears ascending the hill and burned out their brakes coming down. By 1922, the road had improved enough that a traveler—fearing the reputation of the Camel’s Hump—stopped to ask a local where the hill was located. “He looked at me rather suspiciously,” William Bettis recalled, “and answered, ‘H— you just came over it.’”

Leon and Marjorie Lyons purchased the Trout Valley Lodge at Cabin City in the 1930s. During his visit in 1937, ex-president Herbert Hoover enjoyed “cocktails and fine dining,” the local fishing, and the Lyons’ legendary hospitality. Their lodge gained a reputation in both Montana and Idaho by offering “chicken dinners every Sunday” and providing a social hub for the scattered communities.

By the 1950s, Cabin City’s heyday had faded into memory. The lodge sold several times and never regained the notoriety it enjoyed during the Lyons era. Eventually, Interstate 90 replaced the Yellowstone Trail entirely, and the Camel’s Hump road was circumvented in favor of a shallower grade nearby. “It was quiet,” local logger Don Cooper remembered, visiting Cabin City on the day the road closed for good. “There were no cars. There was nothing.”

Eventually, not even a caretaker remained. The lodge burned to the ground, and now little is left to mark this once bright spot in Montana’s tourism industry.

Credits and Sources:

Axline, Jon, and Glenda Clay Bradshaw. Montana’s Historical Highway Markers.Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2008.

Bettis, William Charles. A Trip to the Pacific Coast by Automobile. Toledo, OH: Booth Typesetting Co, 1922.

Babcock, Mrs. William. “New York to San Francisco Via the Yellowstone National Park and Trail.” Motor Travel11, Automobile Club of America, 1919.

“Cabin City Camp.” Mullan News,June 13, 1930.

“Cabin City had its ups and downs.” Mineral County Pioneer.Undated, courtesy of the Mineral County Historical Society.

Federal Writer’s Project. Montana, a State Guide Book. New York: The Viking Press, 1939.

Historic photographs of “Cabin City Store,” “Trout Creek Lodge,” and “Top of Camel’s Hump” courtesy of Mineral County Historical Museum, Superior, MT.

Contemporary photographs of Camel’s Hump Road courtesy of Historical Research Associates, Inc.