The Grant Visitor Center is located on the shore of the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake one mile off of the main park road at Grant Village Junction. The visitor center and development are named for President Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth president of the United States, who signed the bill creating Yellowstone National Park in 1872. The facility was constructed during the 1970s and, along with the entire Grant development, was and is a controversial Yellowstone development due to its location in prime grizzly bear habitat (the area is the location of several major cutthroat trout spawning streams).

The visitor center hosts an exhibit that interprets fire's role in the environment, using the fires of 1988 as the example. The movie Ten Years after Fire is shown on a regular schedule throughout the summer months. The Yellowstone Association has a sales area in the lobby of the visitor center.

The historic West Thumb Information Station also serves as a Yellowstone Association sales outlet as well as a meeting place for interpretive walks and talks during the summer season. During the winter, this facility serves as the West Thumb Warming Hut. Visitors can warm up, read interpretive exhibits on history and a variety of winter topics, and get their questions answered by an Interpretive staff person.

The Division of Resource Management and Visitor Protection operates a backcountry office that is intermittently staffed during the spring and fall (before and after the visitor center is open). The office is near the gas station and Hamilton Store, 0.75 miles from the Grant Village Junction on the road to Grant Village.

Yellowstone Net is Produced by Bruce Gourley, Russ Finley,  & Tim Gourley.
Copyright 1997-2005 by Bruce Gourley.