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Photos: What visiting the national parks used to look like

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17.05.2025

(NEXSTAR) — There are currently more than 400 National Park sites throughout the country, with at least one in every state, meaning there's a good chance you've been to at least one.

Even if you haven't visited some of the larger parks, like Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, you're probably familiar with some of their more iconic features — El Capitan, Old Faithful, and the literal, expansive canyon, to name a few.

While these have been in the parks since before they were parks, visiting these sites didn't always look as it does today.

Planning to visit these national parks? You may need to make a reservation to get in

Take, for example, this view of Old Faithful in 1901. Changing attire styles means you likely won't see dress-clad women observing Old Faithful, especially at this proximity.

Old Faithful geyser, Yellowstone National Park, USA, 1901. Stereoscopic card. Detail. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Here's what viewing Old Faithful is like today. Notice visitors, none of whom seem to be wearing a dress, are distanced from the geyser on a boardwalk — and using their phones to record the eruption.

The Old Faithful geyser erupts and shoots water and steam into the air as tourists watch and take photos in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., Wednesday, 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Navigating in and around the parks has also changed immensely, thanks to technology. In the early 1900s, you could arrive at Yellowstone in a four-horsepower stagecoach, like those seen in the slideshow below. Later, cars would be available, of course. They were much smaller, though, narrow enough to navigate through the base of a massive redwood tree near Yosemite.

  • Wyo. - Yellowstone National Park: two stagecoaches passing on mt. road, 1903. Artist Frances Benjamin Johnston. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
  • Two Horse-Drawn Carriages along Snowy Trail, Rocky Mountain Divide, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA, Magic Lantern Slide, circa 1910. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
  • UNITED STATES - JANUARY 01: Great Canyon And His Waterfalls In Yellowstone National Park (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
  • Cars passing through the Wawona Tunnel Tree, cut into a giant sequoia in Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, Northern California, circa 1925. By enlarging an existing fire scar, the tunnel was cut through the tree in 1881. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
  • A car driving through the Wawona Tree tunnel, cut into a giant sequoia on Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park, California, circa 1925. A sign beside the tree reads, 'Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, California, the Wawona Tree, height 227 feet, diameter 26 feet', with the tunnel cut through the tree in 1881 by enlarging an existing fire scar; image is one half of a stereoscopic image. (Photo by Graphic House/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
  • View of the Detroit........

    © The Hill