The Pollard Hotel

Red Lodge's first brick building has stood at the corner of Broadway and 11th since it opened in the summer of 1893 — originally as the Spofford Hotel, built by the Rocky Fork Coal Company to serve a booming coal town. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the Red Lodge Commercial Historic District. Early guest registers included Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane, and William Jennings Bryan, and the hotel quickly became what its own history describes as a gathering place for political, cowboy, and business figures passing through southern Montana.

The Pollard sits on Broadway Avenue, which is also U.S. Highway 212 — the road that leads south out of town and up onto the Beartooth Highway. That location is the whole point for riders: park once, walk to food, gear, and conversation, then roll straight onto one of the more demanding mountain roads in the region when you're ready. The hotel's on-site restaurant, Marli's, serves breakfast and lunch, so you can fuel up before heading out or decompress after coming back down.