Popular legend has William F. “Buffalo Bill” creating the town of Cody, Wyo. as a tourist oasis to help share the wonder of Yellowstone with the world. But the truth is that Cody was founded at the site of a canyon that proved ideal for building a dam that was key to Buffalo Bill’s ambitious plan to irrigate 400,000 acres between the Shoshone River and the Bighorn Mountains.
Historian and writer M. Mark Miller recounts how a suspicion about a tribute to a girlfriend lies at the heart of the story behind how Tower Falls in Yellowstone National Park was named.
Most of the earliest Yellowstone National Park tourists came from Montana because that’s where the access rivers ran. The north entrance via the Yellowstone River was 60 miles from the farm town of Bozeman, and the west entrance via the Madison was 90 miles from the gold rush town of Virginia City. Both rivers flow through rugged canyons that made travel difficult. In fact, the Madison Canyon was so bad that early travelers chose to cross the continental divide twice to avoid it. But that was a small sacrifice. Passage over the Raynolds and Targhee Passes was relatively easy. Besides, traveling this route provided the reward of a stop at Henry’s Lake.
Like so many elements of Yellowstone history, the origins of Savage Christmas are shrouded in apocryphal legends and weird juxtapositions of unlikely circumstnces.
Still observed today with a Christmas tree, for instance, in the Old Faithful Inn in late August, Savage Christmas has its origins in summer celebrations and parades in the park dating to around World War II, said park historian Lee Whittlesey.
But according to (false) popular folklore, Savage Christmas is an annual Yellowstone celebration of Christmas in August that started in the park’s unspecificed “early days” when a group of visitors were trapped at the Old Faitful Inn after several inches of snow fell on Aug. 24, making stagecoach travel impossible. (Stagecoach drivers were commonly referred to at the time as “savages.”)
A group of professionals and businessmen visited the geysers in 1872—long before the era of hot water heaters. The trip was chronicled by Harry Norton, who published the first Yellowstone travel guide in Virginia City in 1873. Norton called one of his companions, who owned telegraph lines between Deer Lodge and Bozeman, “Prince Telegraph.” Here’s Norton’s description of the Prince’s experiments in geyserland.
Today most Yellowstone tourists believe that nature is fragile. They wouldn’t collect a leaf or pick a flower for fear of causing irreparable damage. But early tourists shattered geological features to gather specimens, slaughtered animals for fun, and experimented with geysers.
They reported these things without the slightest embarrassment.
Yellowstone National Park looms large in the public imagination as an inspirational idea, unique landscape and critically important haven for wildlife. But according to one author and historian, its creation resulted as much from violence, ambition and greed as from high-minded ideals.
The patterns outlined in George Black’s, Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone, are hardly unique in American history, or any other history, for that matter. But they may come as a jolt to those who mistakenly believe that Yellowstone was devoid of people until the arrival of white Americans in the second half of the 19th century.
It’s no secret to even casual naturalists that the age of a tree can be determined by counting the rings in its cross-section. But researchers in the greater Yellowstone area are building on that technique and expanding the field of dendrochronology to learn new secrets about how landscapes were affected decades or centuries ago by people, climate and fire.
“We’re interested in learning as much as we can from the wood, in finding out what stories trees tell,” said Marcy Reiser, a dendrochronologist with the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland in Colorado.
After word spread about the magnificent big game in Yellowstone Park, hunters from the eastern United States and Europe began coming to bag a trophy. Even if they were skilled hunters where they came from, they needed someone to guide them in the rugged West. Jack Bean had the perfect credentials for the job. Before hiring out as a guide, Bean had been a trapper, hunter and Indian fighter.
In the summer of 1877, the U.S. Army hired Bean to look for Chief Joseph and his band of Nez Perce Indians along the Madison River and in Yellowstone Park. He returned to Bozeman after locating the Indians and telling the Army they were headed into Yellowstone Park. Bean discovered that a Colonel Pickett wanted to hire him as a hunting guide. In his memoir, Bean tells this tale about the intrepid colonel.
Early tourists had to brave a roadless wilderness to see the sights of the new Yellowstone National Park. That meant supplies had to be carried by pack animals—often cantankerous mules. One such tourist was the Earl of Dunraven, an Irish noble who first visited the park in 1874. (Dunraven Pass was named after him.) Dunraven was an astute observer and a droll wit. Here’s his description of how to pack a mule.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
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