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June

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This Month in Yellowstone
Visitor Center Demolition

As Park Photographer, Jim Peaco is never certain what he will be asked to do when he arrives at work. On Monday, June 14, he was not surprised when he was told that the Canyon Visitor Center demolition was about to begin and that he should head out there to document the events of the day.

As he arrived at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, he saw that demolition had begun. A huge backhoe was aligned with the visitor center building and was taking bites out of the roof as if it were a hungry dinosaur. The materials were being sorted as they were removed from the structure. Roofing metal was separated from wood, insulation, and plaster. The backhoe repeatedly crushed the material to reduce its size allowing more to fit in the trucks available to haul it off.

This partial visitor center demolition is an early step in the construction of an enlarged visitor center at Canyon. The new facility is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2006. In the meanwhile, a temporary visitor center is available nearby.