Unscrupulous business operators and some of their staffs preyed upon the tourists and each other. Petty theft, rigged card games, and various similar scams as well as the occasional assault or murder were prevalent. Another hard lot, hide hunters, were drawn to the park after the decimation of the northern plains buffalo herds and became skilled poachers. Then, in 1883, the Northern Pacific Railroad completed its branch line to the park, and the riffraff typically stranded at the end of a rail line gravitated to Gardiner and Mammoth Hot Springs. Many of these men had been driven out of Miles City and Livingston by vigilantes and had no where else to go.

 In 1883 Congress finally authorized $40,000 for management of the park, including funding for a staff. Authorized staff included a superintendent (at a salary of $2,000) and ten assistants (with salaries of $900 each). The remainder of the budget was for the development of roads and bridges under the direction of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officer. While Congress's intent was to create a park police force, weak and inefficient park administrations coupled with the lack of statutory authority or penalties to enforce the few park regulations resulted in no change in the lawless situation.

In 1884, the Territory of Wyoming passed the Wyoming Act, which annexed the park into Wyoming's Uinta County. Two justices of the peace and two constables were appointed by the governor to Yellowstone. Wyoming's stated altruistic intent was to help protect the park from the many violators that the park superintendent could not control. But the act also allowed one-half of the fines assessed to be paid to the officer, prosecutor, or witness in a case and the other half into the Wyoming territorial treasury! This resulted in questionable and harsh justice being meted out to both visitors and residents. The final straw occurred in 1885 when Justice of the Peace Hall, from his court in the Lower Geyser Basin, incorrectly found Judge Lewis E. Payson, an Illinois congressman, guilty of leaving a fire burning at his campsite. Judge Payson was fined $60 and $12.80 in court costs. Judge Payson said he would appeal the conviction and offered to post a $1,000 bond. At that point, Justice Hall asked Judge Payson for legal advice, and a compromise was reached whereby Justice Hall accepted a $1 fine and the court costs. A reporter with Judge Payson's party published an account of the incident in the Chicago Tribune, and the Wyoming Act was repealed soon thereafter!

 Because of the Payson incident, Congress refused to renew the park's funding in 1886, and the Secretary of the Interior was forced to ask the Secretary of War to assign a detail of troops to Yellowstone to administer and protect the area. The military arrived in the park in August 1886 and remained in charge until the National Park Service was established in 1916. Even though the military was able to patrol and effectively curb much of the illegal activity inside the park, there was still no statutory remedy for punishing violators. The country learned of that problem on March 13, 1894, when two military scouts captured Ed Howell, a well-known poacher, while he was skinning 5 bison he had killed in Pelican Valley. A field correspondent for Forest and Stream was in the park at the time and sent an account of the incident to his editor George Bird Grinnell in New York. Grinnell and his conservation-minded friends exerted enough influence in Congress that just 13 days after Howell was apprehended, the Lacey Act passed both houses of Congress on a wave of public indignation.

The Lacey Act defined Yellowstone as an area of exclusive federal jurisdiction with statutory authority, and it made the killing, capturing, or wounding of any animal inside the park a federal offense. The Secretary of the Interior was authorized to promulgate and enforce rules and regulations to protect the park and its resources. The act also defined specific misdemeanor offenses with fines up to $1,000 and two years in jail. Felonies and more serious misdemeanor offenses were to be handled in federal district court in either Sheridan or Cheyenne, Wyoming. The Lacey Act also authorized the appointment of a U.S. Commissioner, who was to live in the park in order to be immediately available to try and sentence persons violating park rules. The commissioner's salary was to be $1,000, with $5,000 authorized for a jail and office.

 John W. Meldrum was appointed the first commissioner under this act on June 20, 1894, and he held the position until July 2, 1935--more than 41 years! T. Paul Wilcox was then appointed commissioner in July 1935 and served for almost 17 years. James W. Brown took over in June 1952 and served for 28 years. Stephen E. Cole was appointed Yellowstone's fourth U.S. Magistrate on May 1, 1981. (The job title changed from U.S. Commissioner to U.S. Magistrate in 1968 and to U.S. Magistrate Judge in 1990.) Judge Cole hears up to 200 misdemeanor cases each year, mostly traffic violations, drunk driving, disorderly conduct, poaching, and similar offenses. He holds removal hearings on fugitives arrested in the park on warrants from other jurisdictions as well as initial appearance (preliminary) hearings on felony charges.

 Judge Cole and his family live in the stone house near Liberty Cap that was built in 1894 for the first U.S. Commissioner, and the judge holds court in the "Pagoda Building," constructed in 1894-95 as directed by the Lacey Act. The "Pagoda" is a stone building with an interestingly shaped green tile roof that sets it apart from the other buildings in Mammoth. The Pagoda was designed and built by Captain Hiram M. Chittenden, an engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Chittenden served in the Boxer Rebellion Wars and apparently based the oriental-style roof on his experiences in China.