The Story of the YelloAvstone By John H. Raftery 1912 All Rights Reserved PRESS OF McKeE PRfNTING COMPAT BUTTE, MONTANA 13 - 2^^"^^-'^ THE STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE By JOHN H. RAFTERY Seeing America First. r W ^ HE past few years have «f|.| witnessed a propaganda SM having for its motto and ' jB' motive the hne which jT^. heads this introductory \ chapter to this briefly ^ :-^ descriptive "Story of the Yellowstone/' and the effects of the suggestion so given have been ap- parent for two years in those regions of scenic America to which the tour- ist seeking health, pleasure or excite- ment may go, without hazard, either to safety or comfort. It may be either erroneous or unfair to attribute the annual exodus of American tour- ists to Europe, to lack of loyalty or 3 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE to ignorance of the unexplored wonders and beauties of their own land; for it is a fact that, until with- in comparatively recent years the cost and difficulty, the time and in- convenience involved in any consid- erable tour of the scenic wonders of the United States, made the annual trip to Switzerland, Paris, Venice or the Riviera, expeditious and econom- ical by contrast. To be sure the tuft-hunters and the social bounders of America may ahvays be expected to prefer the swarming resorts of the older con- tinent, and during every season abroad they will be found parading the peacock lanes and lobbies of the fashionable watering places of Europe. But in the yearly growing throngs of earnest, wholesome, self- reliant and studious Americans who visit the incomparable natural mar- 4 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE vel? of American scenery, the exotic exquisities who have become habi- tues of Monte Carlo and the resorts of Europe where they are welcomed because they are rich and fleeced for the same reason, will not be missed. Nor is it any longer true that a tour or a vacation in any of the once remote wonderlands of North America need be either more in- convenient or more expensive than a similar trip abroad. Within the five years past nearly all of the most extensive and striking scenic re- gions of the Rocky Mountains have been made accessible and habitable to the tourist of moderate means. I have met experienced and blase trav- elers, tourists who had girdled the globe in search of new sensations in splendid natural spectacles, speech- less in amazement and chagrined with surprise over the unspeakable 5 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE glories of the Yellowstone National Park, which they had overlooked or neglected for half a lifetime because it is ''so near home." The Pullman palace car, the modern hotel, the ubiquitous auto- mobile, the ramifying railroads, the inevitable telephone or telegraph and every device and luxury to minister to the needs and whims of the most exacting traveler and the most fragile tenderfoot have been supplied and emplaced for those who might not face the physical inconveniences of western American travel, even though they should live and die with- out confronting or encountering the portentious natural phenomena and the indescribable landscape beauties which nature has outspread in the Rocky Mountain region of the Unit- ed States as nowhere else in the ex- plored Avorld. STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Our National Playgrounds. At this writing the United States holds ownership of thirteen national parks, four and one half million acres, devoted to the preservation of the historic battlefields and the most estimable of the scenic splendors of this continent. There is now (1912) a bill before the Congress for the creation of a federal civil department to be known as the Bureau of Na- tional Parks, and it is the hope of the best informed frequenters and friends of our great natural pleasure grounds that such a department will be quick- ly erected into a service as distinct, as unified and as potential as that of the national Forest Service. It is my thought that the best ultimate ser- vice in the preservation and mainte- nance of the noblest national park or natural wonderland in the world, the Yellowstone, will be best achieved STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE when organized civilian authorities, adequately empowered and financed by the federal government as in a National Park Service, shall sup- plant the army both in the manage- ment and in the policing of the unique reservation. The changes, removals, limitations and details inevitable in the profes- sional activities of the regular mili- tary establishment do not in my opin- ion, make for the fullest, most per- manent or most effective manage- ment of the Yellowstone National Park. It is true that, in its early days, this priceless combination of paradise and inferno was endangered and disadvantaged by the maladmin- istration and connivance of incom- petent or corrupt civilians. But it is also true that by reason of the impermanency of their appointments, the briefness of their stay and the STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE unfamiliarity of the enlisted soldiery with the topography or geography of the region, the military superin- tendents of the Yellowstone National Park always will be at a disadvan- tage in the effective administration of the affairs of so unusual and so unmilitary a charge. There was, at the time of my first visit in the Yellowstone, the rem- nant of a troop of civilian scouts, some of whom had made their homes there for years, who knew every cav- ern and acclivity, every elk trail, bear den, buffalo w^allow^ and uncharted landmark in the yet primeval do- main ; they knew the habits and hab- itat of the wild creatures and they were wise, also, to the predatory or mischievous proclivities of the tame ones. On horseback in the open months and oil snowshoes in winter, year after year they had penetrated STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE and traversed the remotest as well as the most frequented portions of the wild region. Driving out poach- ers, coasting the glaciers, camping in the outlying "snowshoe cabins" when the thermometer was 30 or more degrees below zero, these weather-beaten scouts became ideal guides and guardians of the park be- cause over and above their meagre pay they knew it as their home and that the world does not contain a more precious or a more kingly es- tate. To the enlisted soldier, on the other hand, assignment to Fort Yel- lowstone means only change of post ; lie soon learns the grand tour and how to cut a dash on the parkways and finished drives ; he is a fine figure in a fine settins:, but he neither kiiows nor cares where the changing chances of his soldiery may take him 10 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE any dav. He is unfamiliar witli the phenomena, the beauties, the locale or nomenclature of the wonderful re- gion and even as a protector of the curiosities, the now historic forma- tions and the rules and regulations of the park, his unmistakable uni- form and his routine methods of ap- pearance and disappearance, mini- mize what individual efficiency he may have acquired as a patrol, scout or policeman. . . Much of the data and description contained in this little book were ob- tained and written under the direc- tion of Lieut. Gen. S. B. M. Young, and were presented to President Roosevelt in the United States sen- ate by the late Senator Thos H. C?rter of Montana with a letter from General Young on the occasion of his retirement from the superintendency of the Yellowstone National park. 11 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE That portion, which appeared as a senate document of the Sixtieth con- gress, is contained in the following pages as well as a short account of a week w^hich I spent at the Grand canyon during the blizzard of Febru- ary last year (1911). To Maj. Chit- tenden's book ''The Yellowstone," to the late David E. Folsom, to ex-Governor Samuel D. Hauser and Mr. C. W. Cook, who were members of the first discovery exploration party and who aided me with a few personal sidelights on that part of this brief but authentic ''story," I wish to include credit if there be such in projecting this small work. Not for the average tourist will the winter glories of the Yellow- stone be unfolded, for during a ma- jor portion of the year the whole region is the theater of overwhelm- ing storms and extremes of rigorous 12 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE temperature unequaled or unknown in any other part of the Rocky moun- tains. The depth and continuity of the snowfalls, the enforced closing of the splendid summer hotels, the impassability of the main tours as well as the unfrequented byways ex- cept on snow shoes, make a winter visit to the Yellowstone an adventure forbidden except to the hardiest and most courageous sightseer. And for the hibernating peace, the yet wild domesticity, the sanctuary from pur- suing hunters and the instinctive sense of security which winter hi the Yellowstone assures to the milhons of wild creatures which inhabit it, it is perhaps best that winter drops his gates of ice and rears his ramparts of snow across and around its mys- terious recesses for more than half the time. And in order that my reader, you who will visit this most 13 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE incredibly wonderful region, in the pleasant, verdant days of summer, may have the contrast even at sec- ond hand, in order that you may ap- prehend some of the climatic as well 3s permanent prodigies which Na- ture achieves in The Yellowstone, I have included a chapter about ''The Park In Winter.'' Fable Becomes History. For a complete understanding and appreciation of the Yellowstone Na- tional park, wdiether as a pleasure ground, a health resort or a place for scientific investigation, personal and repeated visits to it are necessary. The accounts of its discovery, ex- ploration, and establishment as a na- tional park have been written with varying degrees of accuracy, and writers of vivid fancy and contrasted 14 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE literary qualifications have vied with one another in enthusiastic word pic- tures of the phenomena, beautiful, sinister, or scientific, of the premier wonderland of all the world. From every corner of the civilized world students and savants, poets, painters, and practicians have come to witness, study, and describe the alternating manifestations of nature in spectacles magnificent or mon- strous; and while each has contrib- uted somewhat to the public's knowl- edge of this incomparable region the aggregate mass of their descriptive work falls far short of a complete and convincing exploitation of its wonders. Indeed, the scope of spoken or written language, the range of the human imagination, and the power of pigments spread upon the artist's canvas become feeble, narrow and al- most impotent in the presence of the 15 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE majestic and outlandish marvels of Yellowstone park. Out of the vague, unwritten lore of Indian tradition come the remote rumors of an enchanted land among the mountains w^iere the rivers boiled, the earth burned and haunted lakes tossed spectral plumes of scald- ing steam into the zenith. Here in cauldrons of gypsum or jasper or jade the evil spirits mixed their war paint, and from peak and promon- tory, in the valleys, and on the hills could be seen the spiral smoke of their bale fires. The nomads of the Northwest shunned it as a land of evil haunt* or prowled about its mar- gins in awesome fear and reverence. Sioux, Blackfoot, Crow, and Ban- nock ventured to the verge of these demon-haunted fastnesses, and in timorous truces made stores of ar- rowheads from the mountain of 16 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE black obsidian which looms above the river near its golden gate. Beyond that portal was a realm of mysterious and infernal portent. Looking back a full century we find that the story of the Yellowstone park is a secjuen- tial link in the chain of epochal events which commenced with the purchase by the United States of the then unchartered wilderness called the "Louisiana Territory," the sub- sequent expedition of Lewis and Clark, the discovery of gold, the con- quest of the savages, and all the epic deeds which achieved at last the win- ning of the West. Over a century ago (1810) there returned from the wilds of the north-, w^est one John Colter, a scout, trap- per and hunter, who had been with Lewis and Clark in their historic ex- pedition. It was upon the return trip of the party that Colter, at his own 17 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE request, was discharged near the confluence of the Yellowstone river with the Missouri. He had won the confidence and respect of his com- manderSj who supplied him food and ammunition for his new venture. With two companions Colter then set out for the headwaters of the Mis- souri, trapping, hunting and trading in friendly commerce with the In- dians. Colter seems to have been a man of almost infinite endurance, courage and perseverance. The record of his doings from August, 1806, when he parted with Lewis and Clark, until the spring of 1807 is not extant, but early in the latter 3^ear he arrived at the mouth of the Platte in a canoe. There he met Manuel Lisa, the fam- ous fur trader, who was organizing a trapping and hunting expedition into the very regions from which 18 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Colter had come. So timely a prize as the services of Colter was not to be overlooked, and he was induced to retm-n into the wilderness with the Lisa party. Maj. Hiram M. Chitten- den's book, 'The Yellowstone," in many respects the best that has been written about the national park, de- votes considerable space to the ac- tivities of Colter, who was unques- tionably the first white discover of the region. For it was in 1807 that he passed through the Yellowstone wonderland, viewing for the first time the boiling springs about the lake, the tar springs at the fork of the Shoshone, and skirting the Yel- lowstone river from its source past the upper and lower falls to the ford above Tower falls and thence to Lisa's fort." Wounded in battle between the Crows and Blackfeet, alone, ill-pro- 19 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE vided with ammunition or food, the intrepid Colter traversed on this jour- ney afoot hundreds of miles of the wildest and most rugged country on earth. He had hardly recovered from the effects of his hardships when Lisa sent him back to the hos- tile Blackfeet for the purpose of opening up trading negotiations with them. Nothing daunted by the fact that he .had appeared with the Crows in battle against them, knowing that Lewis had slain one of their number, Colter, in company w^th a single comrade named Potts, adventured back into the hunting ground of the Indians on the upper Missouri. Pad- dling up that river one morning the two trappers were suddenly sur- rounded by a swarm of more than 500 Blackfeet warriors, who lined either shore and bade the white men land. 20 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Colter's First Visit. As they did so an Indian seized Pott's rille, but Colter, who was a mighty man, wrenched the weapon from the red man and handed it to Potts. The latter in panic leaped into the canoe and pushed it out into the stream. An arrow struck him, and crying out: "Colter, Pm wounded," Potts seized his rifle and shot his as- sailant dead. A showxr of arrows from the enraged savages ended the life of Potts right there. Whether he used his rifle to invite a sudden death in preference to the prolonged torture which he anticipated at the hands of his captors will never be known, but his comrade was cjuickly disarmed and stripped naked as for the torture. After the Indians had conferred they asked Colter if he was a good runner. 21 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE The chance of running the gaunt- let or being chased by 500 fleet- footed savages bent upon his murder gave him a pale gleam of hope, and although he was reputed one of the speediest and most enduring run- ners of the West, he told the chief that he was both weary and slow. They led him three or four hundred yards out upon the prairie and bade him run for his life. Barefoot, nude, with half a thousand screaming de- mons at his back, but with the in- domitable courage of a man who loves life, he ran as no white man ever ran before. His feet and legs were pierced with hundreds of the thorns of the prickly pear, blood spurted from his nose and mouth, and his breath came only in stertorous gasps before he ventured to look back. He had gained on all of his pur- suers except one, an agile young 22 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE warrior, who, with brandished spear, was swiftly closing down upon him. With sudden desperation Colter stood stock still. The Indian, in try- ing to do likewise, stumbled and fell. The badly-launched spear stuck in the ground and was broken off. The hunted white man seized the barbed half, impaled his fallen foe to the earth and set off with renewed vigor for the Jefferson fork of the Mis- souri, which he saw gleaming through the trees. He had run more than six miles. He was covered with blood, his feet were torturing him, but he gained the fringe of willows by the river, and saw his enemies yel- ling and screaming about their dead brother. A raft of driftwood, snags and branches accumulated at the head of a sandbar downstream caught Colter's eye. He dived into the river, and swimming under 23 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE water, came up within the shelter of the drift. Search as they would, the Indians could not find him, and concluded he was drow^ned. He kept his hiding place till night had fallen, and then, chilled by the icy water, footsore, hungry, weakened from loss of blood, and stark naked, he struck bravely into the forest for a seven days' struggle back to Lisa's camp. He reached it after a week of the most exquisite agony, toil and exposure. Such was the man and such the trials which give John Colter an enviable and enduring place amongst the real- ly great explorers of this country. John Bradbury, in his "Travels in North America," is authority for most of the details here mentioned, and so ably and accurately written was the book of the English natural- ist that A\^ashington Irving in his 24 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE ''Astoria'' uses the Bradbury text with but few alterations. Coming back to St. Louis in 1810, John Colter's tales of almost incredi- ble ventures, discoveries, and hard- ships were scouted by most of his hearers, but he won the respectful attention of Gen. William Clark, who knew him, and of Henry M. Breck- enridge, the author, and John Brad- bury, whose writings have been sub- sequently authenticated by the ex- plorations and researches of scores of dependable authorities. Colter's iourney through what is now the Yellowstone wonderland took him in a generally northwest direction from the southeasterly corner of the park, and^ although he saw the hot springs about the Yellowstone lake and river, and must have passed close to both the upper and lower falls, he makes no mention of the latter, nor did he 25 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE catch a glimpse of the great geysers of the upper and lower basin, nor the mammoth hot springs, nor any of the other marvels except the tar springs. Oldest Records of White Men. In 1880 Col. P. W. Norris, then superintendent of the park, discov- ered what is believed to be, after Colter's, the oldest record of the presence of the white man in that region. In a ravine about half a mile above the upper falls Colonel Norris found an ancient tree upon the bark of which, partly over grown but yet decipherable,, was the in- scription "J. O. R. Aug. 19, 1819." Careful investigation of the names and exploits of all the early trappers, hunters and scouts has failed to even remotely indicate the identity of J. O. R. Although the date of the inscrip- 26 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE tion was verified by counting the an- nual rings upon an adjacent tree, and though nearly obliterated, it remains a ])roof that white men visited the park after Colter and full fi/ty years before its final discovery. In 187S, in caches by Beaver lake and the Ob- sidian cliff, Colonel Norris found marten traps of a pattern used by the Hudson Bay company a half century previous; and at the foot of Mount Washburn, near the rim of the Grand Canyon, Frederick Bottler found the ruins of a block house of incalculable antiquity. The Wash- burn-Langford expedition of 1870 found near Mud Geyser, on the east bank of the Yellowstone river, an old dismantled pit or trench w^hich might have been used as a place of con- cealment for hunters of waterfowl. In 1871 Mrs. Frances Fuller Vic- tor published a book, "The River of 27 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE the West," which is a sort of biogra- phy of a pioneer trapper named Joseph Meek. In 1829, when the Rocky Mountain Fur company with- drew from the field then dominated by the Hudson Bay company, Meek, who had been in the employ of the former under Capt. William Sublette, ^vas lost from his comrades and wandered for several days until he was found starving and half crazed by two of his party. There is no doubt that he was at one time in the hot springs district of the park, for he describes in his diary a ''whole country smoking with vapor from boiling springs, and burning with gases issuing from small craters each of which was emitting a sharp, whistling sound, -i^ >i^ * Inter- spersed among these on the level plam w^ere larger craters, some of them from four to six miles across. 28 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Out of these craters issued blue flames and molten brimstone/' Allowing for possible exaggera- tion, Meek's assertion that fire and brimstone issued from these craters is not wholly unsubstantiated. Writ- ing in 1811, Henry M. Breckenridge says : ''Mr. Lisa informs me that about 60 miles from his fort (at the mouth of the Bighorn) there is a volcano that actually emits flames." Major Chittenden and others of like sincerity and diligence have con- cluded from this and other early writings and traditions that there was volcanic activit}^ in the Rocky mountains as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century. To War- ren Angus Ferris, a clerk for the American Fur company from 1830 to 1840, Chittenden gives the honor of having written the first actual de- scription of the Firehole Geyser 29 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Basin. Returning from his station in the Flathead country in the spring of 1834, Ferris, yet incredu- lous of the marvelous tales he had heard of the boiling fountains of the Yellowstone region, took two Pend d'Oreille Indians with him and fol- lowed up the Firehole river. On May 20, 1834, he woke in full view of the outlandish phenomena of the Upper Geyser Basin, convinced at last and exclaiming, 'The half has not been told me." Ferris's journal of this adventure was published in 1842 and proves conclusively that the great geysers had been seen and appreciated long- before 1870, when the Washburn- Langford expedition made the first and ultimately adequate exploration of the park, an achievement which culminated in the erection and pres- ervation of the most magnificent, the 30 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE largest, and the most eventful na- tional pleasure park the world has yet known. Father De Smet, the famous Jesuit missionary, writing in 1852, was the first to give an accu- rate geographical definition of the geyser district, locating them with precision both as to latitude and lon- gitude. Gunnison, in his "History of the Mormons," published in 1852, like Father De Smet, drew much of his information about the Yellow- stone country from Capt. James Bridger, the famous frontiersman whose strange yarns of the mar- vels he had there beheld remained discredited or tabooed by such wri- ters as Hayden, Warren, Reynolds, and others as late as 1860. The first governmental expedition sent expressly to explore and chart what is now the Yellowstone Na- tional park set out in the early spring 31 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE of 1859 under command of Capt. W. F. Raynolds, of the corps of topo- .^raphical engineers of the United States army. He did not reach the locality of the park until the summer of 1860, nor did he ever penetrate the valley of the upper Yellowstone, so that except for a map in which, as he himself admits, the most interest- ing portion of the regions remains a ''terra incognita," Captain Raynold's expedition yielded little of accurate information about the central glories of the Yellowstone park. Immedi- ately upon his return the national election brought the country face to face with armed rebellion; disruption threatened the Union, peaceful pur- suits were abandoned, the military establishment was mustering for war and the western wonderland was left to slumber in the memories of the few^ who had seen it or heard about it. 32 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Scientific Exploration. From 1863 to 1869 the northwest- ern hegira was made up of gold seek- ers, hardy adventurers and pros- pectors, drawn thither by the discov- ery of the great placer mines of Mon- tana. Sometimes in pairs, but often- er in groups, they wandered into the confines of what is now the national park; but with their hearts set only upon mining and their minds feverish with the thirst for gold, they gave but a cursory glance at the stupend- ous wonders which then first came within their ken. In August and September of 1863 we find Walter W. De Lacy leading a band of prospectors into some theretofore unknown sections of the region. They traversed the hot springs locality east of Yellowstone lake, camped at the junction of the Snake and Lewis rivers, explored the 33 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Pitchstone Plateau, descended Moose creek valley, discovered the true drainage of Shoshone lake, passed through the Lower Geyser Basin, casually witnessed the play of the Great Fountain Geyser, and went out via the junction of the Gibbon and Firehole rivers. Finding but scant indications of gold, these, like other prospectors who passed through the park be- tween 1863 and 1869, gave slight heed to the scenic splendors through which they passed; and yet their un- avoidable reference to the geysers, springs, canyons and rivers served in a cumulative way to whet the inter- est and focus the attention of men in whom science, sentiment and the pas- sion for adventure were already mak- ing for the ultimate exploitation of the world's wonderland. De Lacy in 1863, James Stuart in 1864, George 34 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Huston in 1866, and two prospecting parties in 1867 contributed much to the waxing fame of the paradise that had until then been regarded as re- mote, if not as imaginary as the mountains of the moon and the val- leys of the shadows. As early as in 1867 prominent and practical men of Montana had been earnestly considering an extensive, thorough and scientific exploration of the region from which so many strange tales had come. Party after party was organized for the venture, but the uprising of the hostile Black- feet and the sporadic forays of other savage tribes discouraged and dis- mayed them all until 1869'. In that year David E. Folsom, a qualified surveyor of Montana, and C. W. Cook, both men of excellent education and alert intelligence, de- termined to wait no longer upon the 35 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE doubts and fears of their neighbors of Montana, and on September 9, with provisions for six weeks, and only one man, WilHam Peterson, ac- companying them, they set forth from Diamond City, 40 miles from Helena, Mont., for an expedition that first won and commanded popular in- terest in the new Eldorado of mysti- cal beauty. Reaching the Yellowstone River near the confines of the park they followed its eastern shore line and reached the falls on September 21. They crossed the river above the now famous cataracts, examined Sulphur Mountain and the adjacent hot springs, followed the western margin of the river past Mud Geyser and the Emerald Grotto, re-crossed the river at the outlet of the lake and skirted the eastern and southern shores of the extreme western arm. 36 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Thence they headed for Shoshone Lake, viewing in tnrn the beauties of the Firehole River and the awe- some spectacle of the Fountain and Excelsior geysers in full eruption. For the first time also they saw and recited the weird and wraithlike manifestations of Prismatic Lake and the scarcely less wonderful cones, craters, pools and springs which are scattered about that formation in be- wildering variety and profusion. A\ved by the majestic sights which they had witnessed and dazed by the portentous demonstrations of the subterranean inferno over which they had passed in trembling safety, they went out of the country through the valley of the Madison River, bringing to the outside world the first secjuential and convincing ac- count of the facts which up to that 37 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE time had been considered as prepos- terous and visionary. The Incredulous Public. Returning- to Helena, where their reputation for veracity was as high as their known courage amongst the leading men of the Territory, both Foisom and Cook refused to risk their reputations by telling their ex- periences to a promiscuous crowd. Gen. Henry D. Washburn, the sur- veyor-general of Montana; Gov. Samuel T. Hauser; Truman C. Everts, ex-United States assessor for Montana; Nathaniel P. Langford, who afterwards became first super- intendent of the national park, all gave wondering heed and credence to the statements of the home-com- ers. New plans for a larger and more exhaustive exploration of the 38 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE wonderful region were now made. General Sheridan, who visited Hel- ena at that time, became vastly in- terested and gave ass-urances of mili- tary aid to the proposed expedition. Mr. Folsom, who was rarely gifted as a writer as well as an observant explorer, then wrote a concise, logi- cal, and sequential account of the marvels which he and Mr. Cook had witnessed in the Yellowstone coun- try, and sent it to Harper's Alaga- zine. The editor of that publication, astounded by the audacious "imag- inings" of the author and wholly in- credulous as to the statements made in it, declined the article and returned it to its chagrined author. It finally gained publication in the Western Monthly, of Chicago, but not until the copy reader had eliminated many of the most interesting passages be- cause they were considered ''ultra- 39 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE montane" in both a literal and a fig- urative sense. With the exception of the publish- ers' proof, which passed into the hands of Mr. Langford, the whole issue of the magazine containing Mr. Folsom's story of the park was de- stroyed by fire. In later years Mr. Langford, at his own expense, print- ed and distributed 500 copies of the narrative and donated the original to the Montana Historical Society, which yet retains it among the treas- ured archives of the State. The plans of the Washburn-Lang- ford party took tangible form in the spring of 1870, when Mr. Langford visited Major-General Hancock at St Paul, outlined the proposed ex- pedition, and secured from him a promise of a military escort. ' Sam- uel T. Hauser also visited General Hancock about that time, so that on 40 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE August 17, 1870, when the party, equipped for a journey of four weeks, set out from Bozeman, Mont., it was known that orders had already been forwarded to Fort Elhs providing a niihtary escort of one heutenant, one sergeant, and four enhsted men. Fourteen civihans, with a train of pack and saddle horses, adequately armed and equipped with the essen- tial scientific instruments and com- manded by General Washburn, were reinforced at Fort Ellis by Lieut. Gustavus C. Doane, a sergeant and four troopers of the Second United States Cavalry, and constituted the none too formidable cavalcade which then rode into a wild region infested with hostile Indians for the first and most consequential exploration of the Yellowstone wonderland. llie party, though shadowed by roving bands of prowling savages, 41 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE arrived without mishap at the month of the Gardiner River on August 26, entering the present domain of the park not far from the northern gate- way, the present site of the stately and magnificent lava arch. Holding to the trail, which led along the left bank of the Yellowstone, the party missed the Mammoth Hot Springs altogether, encountering first the fascinatingly beautiful wonders of the cascades and spires of Tower Falls, and coming upon the initial apparition of the Grand Canyon it- self on the eastern flank of what was a mountain, soon named Mount W'^ashburn. A Land Enchanted. The eager spirit of their leader prompted General Washburn then to adventure from the camp alone in search of signs that he was leading 42 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE his party aright. He scaled the rug- ged sides of the precipitous moun- tain, and, from its bald and rusted summit far above timber and snow, his eye for the first time swept over that panorama which in its magnifi- cent extent, variety, and Titanic maj- esty has not been ec[ualed in the known world. Perched upon the pin- nacle rock, a central atom within an incredible amphitheater, he looked in all directions across the overmas- tering silence to where the ragged peaks of the Grand Tetons, the Ab- sarokas, and countless unnamed mountains rose up against the cloud- less blue like the encincturing and crenelated battlements of an un- known kingdom. He saw, too, far to the southeast, the far-spread, shining waters of Yel- lowstone Lake, the focal point of the expedition and, nearer yet, but only 43 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE as a dark gash across the green tunic of the valley below, the winding out- line of the Grand Canyon. Across through the pale haze that hung above the valleys more remote he could descry the flaunting jets of steam uprising from the geysers, and all about, on grassy upland, by the lush brink of brook or pool, and upon the rock-strewn inaccessible promon- tories, he could see elk, deer, and mountain sheep like tiny specks of brown and white upon the green. The account of that day's adven- ture heartened his tired company to new and zealous effort. They pushed on next day, following the brink of the deepening canyon of the river to camp within sound of the mighty falls of the Yellowstone. Only the hundreds of thousands of tourists who have witnessed the as- tounding combination of majesty and 44 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE beauty accomplished here by nature can reahze the rapt astonishment with which these men of the Wash- burn-Langford expedition first gazed upon the falls and canyon of the Yel- lowstone. Some of them, men who, for all their early nurture, had been hardened by years of adventure, war- fare, hardship, and disappointment, sat for hours upon the dizzy rim of the canyon gazing into its unearthly abysses, bound by the spell of its indescribable beauty, and choking the sobs forced from their startled hearts by the unspeakable and portentous wonders which their eyes saw but their minds could not encompass. Nor can the extraordinary emo- tions of these adventuring men be ascribed in any degree to their lack of previous descriptions ; Folsom's word picture of the wonders he had witnessed in 1869 remains even now 45 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE one of the most graphic, convincing, and detailed accounts of his experi- ence, and the men of the Washburn expedition had read it or heard it from his own eloquent lips. Since then the world has been widely and well advised of what the traveler may expect when he shall gaze upon the strange sights of the Yellowstone National Park; the fan- cies of descriptive writers have been wrought into fine frenzies in attempts to realize its phenomena for readers of all tongues and tribes ; year after year the painters come to limn its baffling outlines and to catch and fasten down forever the radiant glor- ies of its coloring; travelers from every corner of the w^orld have come to contrast it with the wonder places of their wanderings. And all of them have come to know and admit that the language 46 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE which can tell its story is unwritten and unspoken of man; that there is no palette wide enough to carry the colors, shades and tones wdiich nature brought to its creation; that compar- ison becomes futile and is forgotten in the presence of marvels without their counterparts on the globe. The Grand Canyon Disclosed. The party had now followed the rim of the canyon for almost thirty miles. Commencing its swift descent just above the upper falls, the de- scending chasm gains 200 feet in depth where the first waterfall plunges to the new^ level of the river ; thence for a half a mile, foaming over gigantic boulders and lashing the precipitous w^alls of the deepening gorge, it adds over 600 feet to its swift descent, seeming to pause for a 47 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE breathless instant upon the out-thrust Hp of a level floor of rock, the river plunges its mighty current sheer into the silent depths 320 feet below. Out of the rainbow-streaked mist of the lower falls the Yellowstone River begins its tortuous journey be- tween the walls of that incredible canyon which towers more than half a vertical mile above the river, un- folding in sequence sudden, gradual, and indescribable, a panorama that stands alone in its mingled marvels of color and magnitude, of beauty and wildness, of tenderness and power. From the falls of the Yellowstone the Washburn expedition pushed on past Sulphur Mountain with its sur- rounding wonders of boiling pools and springs, the stifling fumes, the crusts of lava, and the volcanic de- posits all giving token of the furious 48 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE upheavals of some ancient time when the splendors of the grand canyon and the sinister monstrosities of the geyser regions of the park sprang simultaneous from the tortured womb of the world. Here for the first time the explor- ers realized the almost unthinkable disparity of contrast in the phenom- ena which the Yellowstone wonder- land presents, and with the inspira- tion awakened by the incomparable beauty of the falls and canyon yet upon them, they came presently into the presence of the mud volcano, from whose hideous crater 30 feet in depth and almost as wide, uprose an unclean fountain of boiling, liv- ing, paste-like mud. The earth about It trembled and from its vile caverns uttered muffled groans like the stifled cadences of some infernal engine. \\' ithin the wide circle of its sick- 49 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE ening influence the side of the moun- tain was all defiled, the trees coated with livid mud, and the air noxious with the pungent fumes of sulphur. And yet the fascinated and horrified visitor will find but a few rods away from this monstrous manifestation, an orifice in the same acclivity which is groined and arched like the en- trance to some miniature temple, its outer surface stained with a beauti- ful green, its rocky walls changing to olive, brown and yellow as they recede and converge within. And always from out of this little cavern com.es a pulsating gush of water, hot, but limpid as any mountain brook, projected out of the darkness within as by the stroke of an unseen steamer and accentuated by the measured, rythmic escapement from its hidden vent. Nearby there is a spring of tartaric acid, a half mile away one 50 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE of alum, about which the crystals are piled in lavish beauty. The Lake Above the Clouds. Having crossed the river below the outlet, the Washburn party camped September 3 on the shore of Yellows- stone Lake, 7,788 feet above sea level, the largest body of water in North America at so great an alti- tude. Across the smooth surface of its shining waters, 150 square miles in area, they could see the towering Teton range standing upon the boundary line between Idaho and Wyoming, and lifting their snow- covered peaks 14,000 feet above the level of tide water. Around the forest girdled margin of this great mountain lake they pushed their way on the opposite shore from wdiere the Lake Hotel is 51 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE now. On September 9 Mr. Everts was lost from his comrades and com- menced those thirty-seven days of peril which is part of the history of the park, and which so nearly brought an awful death to one of its earliest and most ardent champions. After days of hopeless toil and inces- sant search, the party gave him up and, running short of provisions, struck out across the mountains to- ward the valley of the Madison. The following succinct account of Everts's experience is from the pen of Lieutenant Doane, and is in the main correct; for Everts's own ac- count see Scribner's Monthly, Vol- ume III, page 1 : ''On the first day of his absence he had left his horse standing unfas- teilcd, with all his arms and equip- ments strapped upon his saddle; the animal became frightened, ran away 52 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE into the woods, and he was left with- out even a pocketknife as a means of defense. Being" very nearsighted, and totally unused to traveling in a wild country without guides, he be- came completely bewildered. He wandered down to the Snake River Lake (Heart Lake), where he re- mained twelve days, sleeping near the hot spring's to keep from freez- ing at night, and climbing to the summits each day in the endeavor to trace out his proper course. Here he subsisted on thistle roots boiled in the springs, and was kept up a tree the greater part of one night by a California lion. After gathering and cooking a supply of thistle roots, he managed to strike the southwest point of the (Yellowstone) Lake, and followed around the north side to the (Yellowstone) River, finally reaching our (old) camp opposite the ' 53 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Grand Canyon. He \vas twelve days out before he thought to kindle a fire by using the lenses of his field glass, but afterwards carried a burn- ing brand with him in all his wander- ings. Herds of game passed by him during the night, on many occasions when he was on the verge of starva- tion. In addition to a tolerable sup- ply of thistle roots, he had nothing for over thirty days but a handful of minnows and a couple of snow- birds. Twice he went five days with- out food, and three days without water, in that country which is a net- work of streams and springs. He was found on the verge of the great plateau, above the mouth of Gardi- ner River. A heavy snowstorm had extinguished his fire; his supply of thistle roots w^as exhausted; he was partially deranged, and perishing with cold. A lion was killed near 54' - STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE him, on the trail, which he said had followed him at a short distance for several days previously. It was a miraculous escape, considering the utter helplessness of the man, lost in a forest wilderness, and with the storms of winter at hand." On the thirty-seventh day of his wanderings (September 9 to October 16) he was discovered by J^ck Bar- onett and George A. Pritchett near the great trail on a high mountain a few miles west of Yancey's. Baron- ett threw up a mound of stones to mark the spot. He carried Everts in his arms the rest of that day, and passed the nig-ht on a small tributary of Blacktail Deer Creek. The next day he was taken on a saddle to near the mouth of the Gardiner. Passing into the now famous Fire- hole Valley, the explorers emerged suddenly upon that strange plateau 55 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE of which Charles T. Whitmell, ad- dressing the Cardiff (Wales) Nat- uralists' Society, said: ''Nowhere else, I believe, can be seen on so grand a scale such clear evidence of dying volcanic action. We seem to witness the death throes of some great American Enceladus. Could Dante have seen this region he might have added another terror to his Inferno." A Wilderness of Geysers, Here, within that narrow radius of a mile w^iich is now known as the ''Upper Geyser Basin," 26 geysers and more than 400 hot springs were discovered within a few hours' search. It was a bright September day when the Washburn party first emerged upon this treeless tract and saw, scarcely 200 yards away, that 56 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE great jet of steam and water tossing its roaring head 150 feet into the air which has since become known throughout the civihzed world as "Old Faithful Geyser.'^ The sunlight transfigured its clear water to crystal showers and the breeze flaunting its spray and vapor to diaphanous banners colored with all the rainbow tints and floating away against the far background of green, combined with the quivering of the encrusted earth and the rum- bling tumult of subterranean forces to produce upon the speechless ad- venturers a sense of glorified and yet timorous astonishment. For cen- turies incalculable, every hour, with hardly the variation of five minutes, in snow and rain, by day and night, in winter and in summer, with none but the wild men of the primeval days or the wilder beasts of the wil- 57 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE derness, or with the modern multi- tudes of tourists to witness its erup- tions, as though regulated by some superhunian horologe and energized by infinite power, Old Faithful has gone on with its strange work. Scattered about upon the surface of this miraculous formation are geysers of every size and craters of a myriad forms ; fountains of varying degrees of heat, tossing upward at unmeasurable intervals and varying in height from 20 to 250 feet. Some of these pools and craters from which the geysers rise have periods of strange and ominous quiescence, some are turbulent and vocal with the angry fires below, the craters of some are cup-shaped, some oval, some fantastically irregular; some are fringed, fretted, and beaded about with petrified incrustations of the most exquisite and fragile 58 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE beauty; the bottoms of the pools and subsided geysers disclose in turn the most delicate tints of the rose and of the sky, varying the scale of the spectrum in red, blue, green, brown, gray, ocher, and gold. Silent now, all scepticism van- ished, yet scarcely grasping the scope and significance of the bewil- dering wonders which they had wit- nessed, they sat about their camp- fires pondering the seemingly om- nipotent versatility of nature in pro- ducing such inconceivable manifes- tations of awful power as the Giant Geyser, with its towering fountain hurtled 250 feet into the air, and yet placing but a few rods away the Morning Glory spring with its cone- like calix of opalescent crystal, its unrufipled surface, and its waters limpid and blue as the eye of a girl. They passed through the middle 59 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE and lower geyser basins and saw the ever-varying wonders there un- folded: Turquoise Spring, Prismatic Lake, the Paint Pots, the contrasted beauties of the sylvan valley of the Firehole and the murmuring cata- racts of the Gibbon River. On Sep- tember 19, after leaving the geyser region, camped near the junction of the Gibbon and the Firehole rivers, the talk of the explorers turned upon the material opportunities offered by the incomparable and outlandish wonders of the country they had vis- ited. There were thoughts and sug- gestions of acquiring sections about the chiefest places so that they might be held in profitable control as show spots for travelers, and it was in the silence which followed these selfish suggestions that Cornelius Hedges gave utterance to the lofty thought that under no circumstances should 60 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE private ownership of the region be countenanced, much less encouraged. It should, he said, be set apart by the National Government as a place of perpetual instruction and pleas- ure for all the people; it should be made at once a park and a wonder- land for the unrestricted delectation of the people and never a field for private speculation or mercenary greed. This lofty view of Mr. Hedges found instant response and approval with all the party ; and when the explorers broke their final camp in the park and headed for home it was wath the unanimous determina- tion to further and accomplish the plan for the erection of the Yellow- stone wonderland into a national park, preserving by one federal act the beauties, the marvels, the native wildness, the unharassed freedom of nature, living or inanimate, and all 61 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE the pristine glories and portents lav- ished upon this region by the unac- countable hand of the Divinity. c^ « Dedication of Wonderland. Filled with this high idea, the men of the Washburn-Langford expedi- tion, many of whom were endowed with gifted minds, lofty ideals, and much learning, soon gave to their countrymen the first adequate and comprehensive idea of the priceless possession which lay so long hidden in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Lieutenant Doane's splendid report made in December, 1870, was the first official statement made to the United States Government compris- ing accurate descriptions, maps, and data of the phenomena of the Yel- lowstone country, and, supplemented as it was by the writings, lectures, 62 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE and incessant activity of General Washburn, Langford, H a u s e r , Hedges, and other enthusiastic and patriotic members of that 'expedition, the project took definite form, and in 1871 was scientifically advanced by the explorations and reports of Doctor Hayden, of the United States Geological Survey. In the autumn of 1871 William H. Claggett, who had just been elected Delegate from Alontana to Congress, undertook the task of in- troducing and advocating a meas- ure in accordance with the desires and plans of its originators. He was already independently interested in it and worked hard for its success at home and by correspondence. Air. Langford went to Washington with him, and together they drew the park bill, the description of bounda- ries being supplied by Doctor Hay- 63 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE den. The bill was introduced in both Houses during that session, Senator Pomerov, of Kansas, brino^- ing it before the Senate and Dele- gate Claggett before the House. The camera had been brought to aid in the work, and perhaps no measure ever offered to the attention of Congress was better illustrated by photographs, maps, and argu- ment than the park bill which cre- ated the national park out of that prodigious w^onderland about the lak^ and headwaters of the Yellow- stone. THE ACT OF DEDICATION. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River and described as fol- lows, to-wit, commencing at the junction of Gardiner River, with the Yellowstone River, and running east to the meridian passing 10 64 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE miles to the eastward of the most eastern point of Yellowstone Lake; thence south along said meridian to the parallel of latitude passing 10 miles south of the most southern point of Yellowstone Lake; thence west along said parallel to the meridian passmg 15 miles west of the most western pomt of Madison Lake- thence north along said meridian to the latitude of the junction of the Yellow- stone and Gardiner Rivers; thence east to the place of beginning, is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a pubhc park for pleasuring ground for the beneht and en- joyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate, or settle upon, or occupy any part of the land thus set apart as a public park, except as provided in the following section, shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom. Sec. 2. The said public park shall be un- der the exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as practicable, to make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary and proper for the care and management of the same. Such regulations shall provide for the preservation from injury or spoliation of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curios- ities, or wonders within said park and their retention in their natural condition. The Secretary may, in his discretion, grant leases for building purposes, for terms not 65 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE exceeding ten years, or small parcels of ground, at such places in said park as shall require the erection of buildings for the ac- commodation of visitors; all the proceeds of said leases, and all other revenues that may be derived from any source connected with said park, to be expended under his direction, in the management of the same, and the con- struction of roads and bridle paths therein. He shall provide against the wanton destruc- tion of the fish and game found within said park, and against their capture or destruc- tion for the purpose of merchandise or profit. He shall also cause all persons trespassing upon the same after the passage of this act to be removed therefrom, and generally shall be authorized to take all such measures as shall be necessary or proper to fully carry out the objects and purposes of this act. Approved March 1, 1872. Military Expeditions. For more than twenty years after the act of dedication became a law, the Yellowstone National Park be- came a mecca for explorers, and not a year has passed without witness- ing- the presence of scientific parties, large and small, seeking newer and 66 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE more minute data of the strange things to be found there. In 1872 Gen. John Gibbon, U. S. Army, with a considerable body of men made a tour of inspection. He tried to ascend the North Fork of the jMadison, but abandoned the ef- fort after a few days. His name was given to that stream. The fol- lowing year Capt. William A. Jones, of the Corps of Engineers, made a more extended and effective recon- noissance. He succeeded in cross- ing the thitherto impassable Absa- roka Range, verified the tradition of Two Ocean Lake, and discovered Two-Gwo-Tee Pass over the Con- tinental Divide. Prof. Theodore B. Comstock, the geologist who accompanied this ex- pedition, added much to the value of the report, which appeared in 1875. In 1875 Capt. William Lud- STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE low, of the Corps of Engineers, ac- companied by Mr. George Bird Grinnell, a civilian who was then and afterwards one of the ablest champions of the park, made an in- vestigation and report of the coun- try which yielded one of the best brief descriptions of the park ex- tant. In that year Secretary of War Belknap, guided by Lieut. G. C. Doane and a large party, made an enlarged tour of the national pleas- ure grounds, and the story of the trip was ably written by Gen. W. E. Strong, who participated.. In 1877 Gen. W. T. Sherman and his staff visited the principal scenes, and the report of Gen. O. M. Poe added materially to the interest in and public appreciation of the place. That same year, at war with the Nez Perce, Gen. O. O. Howard tra- versed the reservation in pursuit of 68 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE It the hostile Indians. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, accompa- nied by General Crook, made an ex- tensive exploration, visiting many unknown portions. Capt. W. S. Stanton, of the Corps of Engineers, surveyed the park in 1881, and Governor John W. Hoyt, of Wyoming, with a large military escort commanded by Maj. J. W. Mason, U. S. Army, established a practical wagon road entering from the southwest. General Sheridan, in 1881 and 1882, made visits to the reservation and was the first to give to the public an idea of the then de- moralized state of its civil admin- istration. P. W. Norris and many less known explorers made frequent, desultory, and unimportant tours of the now famous park, each adding something to the literature and celebrity of the 69 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE place, so that the region which is between the forty-fourth and forty- fifth parallels of latitude and the one hundred and tenth and one hun- dred and eleventh meridians of longitude became the most thorough- ly and scientifically explored section of the United States. The great travelers and famous men of many countries of Europe as well as of the United States be- gan to visit it, so that in 1883 a splendid expedition, including the President of the United States, the Secretary of War, .a lieutenant-gen- eral of the United States Army, a United States Senator, and an im- posing cavalcade of soldiers and civilians made an extensive tour; the same year there came a justice and associate justice of the Supreme Court, the general and many other distinguished officers of the army, 70 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE six United States Senators, one ter- ritorial governor, the ministers from Great Britain and Germany, the president of admirahy division of the high court of justice of England, three members of Parliament, and scores of other men of eminence from Europe and America. A New National Precedent. These facts are recounted to show how suddenly and how effectively came the public attention which fol- lowed the dedication of the national park. The act itself contributed to the quick fame of the park, for it was at that time an unheard-of step among national governments, set- ting, as it did, a precedent which has since been, and will hereafter be, followed by other states and nations. Already this country has added the 71 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Glacier, Yosemite, Sequoia, Chicka- maiiga, and many national battle- fields and cemeteries to the growing list of governmental reservations. New York and Canada have each preserved a park about Niagara Falls. Minnesota has segregated the headwaters of the Mississippi in Itasca Park. New Zealand has made a national park of its geyser and hot springs regions. There is a plan afoot to create a great game preserve in Af- rica, and in 1911 there was passed unopposed a bill in the Congress of the United States for the creation of a vast and beautiful scenic park in northern Montana, to be called Gla- cier Park. And yet it is a fact that no region of like size in the known world can compare with the Yel- lowstone National Park in point of natural beauty, or magnificence of 72 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE scenery, or the marvels of its natural and yet outlandish phenomena. The act of dedication was so framed as to prevent the destruction of the curiosities, forests, and game of the park; it was calculated to pre- vent private occupancy and to grant only siich privileges as were neces- sary to comfort and pleasure of the public. But it provided no specific laws for the government of the re- gion, it neither specified offenses nor provided punishment or legal equip- ment for the enforcement of such rules and regulations as the Secre- tary of the Interior might see fit to establish. For more than twenty years after the enactment of the dedication the park was frequently the scenes of wanton vandalism, the wild crea- tures were hunted by hundreds of poachers and trapped indiscriminate - 73 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE ly by fur-hunting bands from the adjacent territories. The confines of the park consisted then, as now, only of imaginary hues. Its waters teemed with fish; its caves and can- yons were the homes of myriads of bear. Buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope thronged its remote meadows and fattened upon the rich pastures of its forests and valleys. Moose, big- horn or mountain sheep, panthers, and other species of fur and meat- bearing animals, though not as nu- merous, were to be found in plenty. Mink, beaver, otter, ermine, marten, sable, fox (red, gray, and black) abounded and were made the easy and profitable prey of hunters and trappers. The awe and terror with which the Indians regarded the place, its natural remoteness from the haunts of the first white plains- 74 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE men and argonauts, the impenetrable wildness of its hills and valleys, its forests and tablelands, its wealth of water, of foliage, of nutritious grasses and natural shelters, made of it from the beginning a natural sanctuary and home for the millions of wild animals which frequented it. When these facts became bruited among the market hunters and fur seekers, they swarmed into the park at all seasons. What havoc they have wrought will never be fully known. Guarding the People's Playground. Thus for twenty-two years the original hope and purpose of the promoters of the national park were defeated and the only everlasting and signal victory they had gained was the disbarment of private en- croachment by land speculators and 75 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE selfish squatters. It should be un- derstood also that the first and most unselfish advocates of the park dedi- cation act had conceived extrava- gant ideas as to the income that it would derive from the leases and privileges that were to be let to ho- tels, coach lines, and other conven- iences and comforts for the travelers and tourists. They thought that this revenue would fully cover the expense of policing the park, opening the drive- ways, and guarding the natural treasures of the place. They over- looked the fact that the average tourist would not or could not tour the park as its discoverers and ex- ])lorers had done; that there must be highways, good hotels,- safety, and even luxuries provided before the anticipated stream of travel would set toward the park. They forgot 16 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE that the nearest railroad station was 500 miles away and that to the out- side world of pleasure seekers ' and sight-seers the Yellowstone National Park yet remained a primeval and almost impenetrable wilderness. There can be no doubt that the long delay between its first discovery as a place of unthinkable beauty and wonder and the final exploitation and fame of the park was a fortui- tous circumstance. For if it had been disclosed to the world earlier than the civil war, or at any time during the progress of that conflict, the Federal Government would not have set it aside from settlement, and greedy speculators w^ould cer- tainly have entrenched themselves within its boundaries. So, too, the mistaken hopes of its enthusiastic promoters in anticipat- ing adequate resources from the STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE leases operated had a fortunate con- sequence; for it is probable that Congress would not have passed the act of dedication if it had not be- lieved that the park would be self- sustaining, or that it w^ould not be- come a financial burden to the public. ,. Even when the devastation and wan- || ton license of its desecrators became known, Congress for several years failed to make any appropriation either for the improvement or pro- tection of the national park. The first act of the Secretary of the Interior after the enactment of the dedication act was to appoint a park superintendent. Nathaniel P. Langford, from the day of his return from the famous Washburn-Lang- ford expedition the chiefest advocate of the measure, was appointed first superintendent of the park. The work was to be a labor of love with 78 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE him. Eager, courageous, brilliant of mind, and prompt of action, pas- sionately proud and fond of the wonderland which he had been so largely instrumental in winning for his countrymen, Mr. Langford was the making of an ideal manager and guardian of the park. But from the beginning he was left without aid, encouragement, or financial support. He never asked nor expected a salary. The region over which he held single sway is larger than the States of Delaware and Rhode Island with a part of Massachusetts added. . Alone, with- out men or money, it is not strange that his task became not only im- possible of accomplishment, but that its unreasonable rec[uirements be- came a source of endless vexation and grief to Mr. Langford. Mean- while the press and the public abused 79 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE him roundly for conditions of which he could know but little and which he was powerless to circumvent. First Efficient Management. Mr. Langford was succeeded by Philetus W. Norris, of Michigan, himself an enthusiast and an ex- plorer who had already accomplished much in the exploitation of the park. He was fortunate to have been in charge when Congress appropriated its first item in support of the na- tional park and with his administra- tion began the first efifective im- provement in its affairs. Norris was an indefatigable ex- plorer, an enthusiastic lover of the wondrous region in his charge, an untiring worker, and a man of abso- lute integrity and patriotism. His ceaseless wanderings into every nook and corner of the park disclosed a 80 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE thousand marvels and beauties that had escaped precedmg" explorers, and his indomitable hardihood and ever- lasting vigilance put the first check upon the outlawry of the place. After five years of effective serv- ice, Norris was succeeded by Patrick A.' Conger, of Iowa, a man without interest in the work, with no con- ception of the great responsibility placed upon him. The weakness of his administration brought the park to the lowest depths of misfortune, but the very extent of its retrogres- sion excited public indignation and made for permanent reform in the management of the famous pleasure ground. It was also during the Conger re- gime of neglect and mismanagement that even a greater menace arose. Thus far no special leases had been granted. Permits of occupancy had 81 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE been granted to a few, and small and scattered houses of public com- fort had been erected. The dedica- tion act specified that "only small parcels" of land be let to private parties. But now a company bear- ing the name ''Yellowstone Park Improvement Company" was formed for the ostensible purpose of improv- ing and safeguarding the park in a manner which had not been accom- plished by the Government. The Assistant Secretary of the Interior gave countenance to this scheme and a lease of 400 acres, including the principal points of 'interest in the park, was actually granted to the schemers. The uproar which fol- lowed this announcement came from every section of the United States. General Sheridan, who had vis- ited the park in 1881, 1882, and 1883, made the country aware of the ^2 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE deplorable conditions existing and called upon the sentiment of the people of every State to insist upon some definite action. The governor of Montana appealed to Congress and the powerful voice of the press was raised against the meditated stultification of the dedication act as a swindle and an outrage. The ef- fect was prompt and salutary. In 1883 the sundry civil bill containing the annual appropriation for the park prohibited the leasing of more than 10 acres to any single party, authorized the use of troops in the reservation, and provided 10 assist- ant superintendents to police the park. That made an end to the "im- provement" company and gave to the Government and to the whole \vorld a new and lasting idea of liow highly the American people prized this unique and precious park. 83 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Protecting the Wild Creatures. Up to this time hunting and fishing had been allowed without stint for the ''needs'' of camping parties. The privilege had been shamefully abused, and the wild creatures had been for years slaughtered and cap- tured without let or hindrance. Now the catching of fish except with hook and line, was absolutely prohib- ited and the killing of birds or ani- mals even for food was rigorously forbidden. But these stringent reg- ulations were either ignored or de- spised by the irrepressible poachers. The funds appropriated by Con- gress were still inadequate, and at last it was suggested that the Terri- tory of Wyoming, in which the larg- est part of the park is contained, should take over the responsibility and expense of protecting the tim- ber, game, fish, and natural curiosi- 84 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE lies of the national reservation. The folly of this plan was quickly fol- lowed by its failure, but in 1884 the Wyoming legislature passed an act which ran its desultory course, in- creased the prevalent evils, created new difficulties and was repealed after two years of utter failure. The withdrawal of the Wyoming authorities proclaimed the unguard- ed state of the region. The as- sistant superintendents were worse than useless. They were all inexpe- rienced at the work required and considered their appontments as sinecures, the rewards of some po- litical activities. They peddled privileges, and as Chittenden wrote, ''made merchandise of the treasures they were appointed to preserve.'' He says that ''Under their surveil- lance, vandalism was practically un- checked, and the slaughter of game 85 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE was carried on for private profit almost in sight of the superintend- ent's office.'' Conger resigned and was succeed- ed by Robert E. Carpenter, of Iowa. This superintendent from the first looked upon his office as an oppor- tunity for profit to himself and friends. He gave no thought to the protection or improvement of the park, spent most of his time in Washington and there, in concert with a member of the notorious im- provement company, almost suc- ceeded in getting Congress to pass a measure granting vast tracts with- in the park to private parties for commercial purposes. Carpenter and his confederates were so certain of success that the}^ had themselves posted their names on claim no- tices and located for themselves the most desirable tracts. The scan- 86 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE dal which followed the expose of this plot caused the dismissal of Su- perintendent Carpenter. Col. David W. Wear, of Missouri, then assumed control. He was a man of rare ability and immediately set out to remedy the wrong- wrought by some of his predecess- ors. Energy and intelligence marked his first acts of administration, but his sincerity- and zeal could not off- set the bad impressions left by the maladministration of others. Con- gress declined to appropriate further funds for the maintenance of the civil management of the park, and the Secretary of the Interior was compelled to call upon the War De- partment for military assistance. In August, 1886, Capt. Moses Har- ris, of the First United States Cav- alry, took charge of affairs in the national park. He had the ability 87 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE and the disposition as well as the men and the means to estop many abuses at once. Trespassers soon learned that he meant what he said and that he was ready and able to enforce it. The dilapidated physical equip- ment of the park, the demoraliza- tion of its management, and the consequent contempt with which poachers, campers, and travelers alike regarded its lax restrictions combined at this time to force an immediate though tardy action from Congress. That body was at last aware of the deplorable state of af- fairs in the park, not realizing that its own failure to appropriate ade- quate funds was really as much the cause of the bad conditions as the incapacity, greed, indifference, or occasional obliquity of some of the early superintendents. 88 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE There can be no doubt that Lang- ford would have made an ideal of- ficial if he had had the material and moral support of the Government. Norris did excellent work under sim- ilar difficulties, and Wear demon- strated his desire and ability to re- form abuses and administer his of- fice well. It was the refusal of Congress to appropriate sufficient money for the work that forced the induction of the military and the appointment of an officer of the army as ''acting superintendent.'' At the time and under the peculiar con- ditions it was the only alternative that could be thought of. Stringent Army Surveillance. Captain Harris took immediate steps to curtail or estop all encroach- ments. He posted the rules and 89 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE regulations, dealt summarily with offenders, and gave the visitors to understand that he meant what he said. Meanwhile the question of road construction had begun to be solved. Capt. D. C. Kingman, of the Corps of Engineers, had already laid the foundation of the present system, and the excellent results ob- tained prompted Congress in 1900 to place the work definitely in the hands of the Engineer Department. The code of laws for the regulation of the park enacted in 1894 put a check on abuses of leases and privi- leges. Tourist traffic increased with the erection and maintenance of better transportation facilities, more and larger accommodations, greater safety, and convenience in and about all the important places of interest. 90 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE The annual summer incursion of visitors grew from hundreds to thousands, and every witness of the marvels and the beauties of the place became thenceforth an enthu- siastic herald of its strange glories. The theory of the founders of the park commenced to be better under- stood and appreciated. ' The world came to realize the fact that the Government was in earnest in its desire to maintain, so far as pos- sible, the wild and natural character of the great reservation. The place and its possibilities came to be held sacred in the eyes of lawmakers and administrators of its laws and regulations. Such attempts as have been made to circumvent them, although con- tinued even to this day, became more secret and less bold — adroit schemes cunningly planned for the 91 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE aggrandizement of private interests. At various times movements have been quietly but cuninngly begun for the inbuilding of trolley lines and even steam railroads, for the harnessing of water power and its conversion into the business of trans- portation, lighting, and even manu- facturing. In unfailing opposition to these selfish enterprises, the Government continues to adhere to its original policy of maintaining forever, so far as possible, the virgin splendor of the people's great playground. In tliis it must now and always will have the support and approval of enlightened and patriotic people of every nation. To this end it is not now and will never be necessary to gridiron the park w4th carriage roads and highways, but only to improve and sustain safe and smooth 92 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE thoroughfares to the principal points of attraction. The vast wildernesses which sur- round these can never be improved beyond the handiwork which nature has already lavished upon them. Indeed they constitute and so should be held the natural sanctuary, home, and refuge of the myriads of wild creatures that contribute almost as much as the inanimate prodigies to the primeval and noble attributes of this matchless park. To-day the tourist in the Yellow- stone National Park, viewing the fringes of these almost impenetrable fastnesses, will not fail to see almost by the roadside of the traveled route bands of antelope and deer, an oc- casional elk or bear or Rockv Moun- tain sheep. They gaze with placid interest at the passing coach and go on feeding with the calm secur- 93 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE ity of confidence. But they are only the outposts, the skirmishers of vast armies of their kind that swarm in the silent fastnesses of the for- ests that must be trailed in the re- mote places to be seen in all the glory of their safeguarded freedom. The Park in Winter. Early in January, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, eight thou- sand feet above the sea and nearly forty miles from the nearest rail- road, I saw the first ''order" pre- pared on the range of one of the largest and most perfect hotel kitch- ens in the world. The "order" was for nails, hot nails, nails by the quart and by the gallon, piping hot, big and little, brads and spikes, ten- pennies and shingle nails, while from the walls inside and out, from the 94 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE sub-cellar below and from the acres of gaping roof came the tattoo of the hammers of a hundred carpen- ters clamoring for nails, hot nails and plenty of 'em. Through a blinding blizzard with the wind blowing a horizontal gale of thirty miles an hour, over thirty- seven miles of almost trackless snow four feet on the level, through moun- tain gorges where the drift lay packed from ten to twenty feet, across frozen creeks and rivers, I had come in a horse-drawn sleigh to the brink of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River in the Na- tional Park to witness the Titanic winter work of building a new half- million dollar hotel that was to be ready for the summer tourist by June. From Mammoth Hot Springs, thirty-seven miles away, where 95 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE countless herds of elk, deer, moun- tain sheep and antelope, driven from the high places by the fury c^f the winter storms, gazed at us in meek and unterrified surprise, we set forth in a two-horse sleigh to face the pelting, driven steel-dust of a moun- tain blizzard. Passing beside the slopes of the steaming waters of the hot springs, and in the pass above the Golden Gate we met a slinking coyote, bold in starvation and gaunt as a skeleton, heading for the set- tlement to steal a meal or find a grave. In exposed reaches of the road the runners ground and squeaked over the bare sand and rocks; in the protected defiles the surface of the thoroughfare was obliterated, lost in piles of flour-dry snow heaped high against the side wall of the canyons and sloping away in perilous descent 96 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE to the bottom of the gorges. Here the big scoop shovels came in play to open a passage for the team and sleigh, until at length the road de- scended into the desolate Swan River flat, where the gale swept in unbridled fury across an arctic waste of undulous snow from four to ten feet deep. For over three miles across the Swan River flats the road had long since been buried and now the course of it, winding and uncertain, is marked at either side by little pine trees stuck into the snow by the freighters to mark the edges of the obliterated road. A misstep to either side plunges the horses floun- dering into from four to a dozen feet of snow, for the only footing- is the six-inch snow-pack made by the runners of the freight-laden sleds creeping slowly over it in their 97 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE long and perilous journey from the railroad station at Gardiner to the site of the new Canyon Hotel by the brink of the famous cataract of the Yellowstone. Low-pitched, six-horse, cumbrous sled w^agons manned by stalwart, brave and skillful freighters, grind and crawl over the almost incredible difficulties of this arctic trail. All that winter they had been hauling lumber, hardware, cement, tiling, doors, windows, bathtubs, tools, ma- chinery, supplies for men and horses. Ten million pounds in all they hauled through boreal storms, over snow- jammed passes, across ice-bound riv- ers, along the dizzy brinks of nar- row cliff trails and with the ther- mometer seldom above zero and ranging down to forty degrees be- low. 98 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE A Task for Titans. Some task this, to build in a win- ter wilderness the grand chateau that now delights the summer holi- days of the tourist who visits the Yellowstone National Park during the brief season of its verdant glory. Two hundred and fifty men, hardy, alert, emulous and undaunted, had been fighting with the frost and blizzard, bucking the snow drifts and freezing their fingers and toes in this far place all winter long to the end that one of the most remark- able, extensive, beautiful and com- plete summer hotels in the world would be ready and running for the approaching season. There was something in this very task, as I witnessed it, that was in rugged harmony with the Titanic proportions, the heroic dimensions, the indescribable majesty of the 99 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE scenes by which it is surrounded. Down from the divide between the valley of the Yellowstone and the Gardiner River, out of the endless aisles of snow-draped towering pines, we crept through the blinding- white snow on a Sunday afternoon. The storm had ceased, the last cloud had disappeared to the north be- hind the crenelate peaks of the Gal- latin range and the evening sun in cold but dazzling radiance was al- most touching the high horizon when our sleigh lurched into view of the new Canyon Hotel. A January evening, nearly eight thousand feet above sea level, the mercury at forty degrees below zero, civilization thirty-seven miles away across a wilderness of shining, snow- clad mountains, I saw my first glimpse of that new "summer ho- tel." Even before we had emerged 100 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE into full view of it, we heard the volleys of clattering hammers, their cadences rising- and falling like the scattering reports of muffled mus- ketry. For they worked on Sunday all through the winter, and they reared the walls and roofed them over when their fingers were numb and their breaths froze in their beards ; they fumbled through banks of floury snow for the lumber and shingles and sacked cement; and they spent time in the hospital where the trained nurses thawed out and treated their frost-bitten faces and members. And that is the reason why the first dish served from the newly-installed kitchen range was hot nails. For the hauling of a carload of freight each day in the rapid building of the Canyon Hotel in the National Park, about fifty drivers and two 101 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE hundred horses were required. When the snowstorms set in with their full winter fury, sleds with a capacity of three and four tons apiece could carry only 2,500 pounds or less. Horses downed in the drifts, loads overturned, sleds brok- en, harness torn apart, snow slides and sudden blizzards increased the hardships, the hindrances and the perils of the gigantic task. In our comparatively easy journey through this strange and rigorous scene, we passed snow-covered piles of freight that had been set beside the trail from overloaded sleighs, waiting to be hauled almost piecemeal over miles of nearly insurmountable diffi- cultv. o: ^ To Make a Summer Holiday. The two regiments of men who spent the winter of 1910-11 building 102 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE this marvelous mountain hotel had been practically isolated from the world for months. They worked al- ways seven days of the week, they had no saloon or club or theater to beguile their time or bemuse their faculties and even for the younger, pleasure-loving workers there was no diversion except the fierce thrill of gliding and coasting on skis over the glacier-like slopes of the deso- late amphitheater which surrounded them. There is probably no other like example of hotel building in his- tory, and the structure which is the result, the scene which it civilizes without desecrating, the strange re- gion which it adorns without vulgar- izing, are all in keeping and in sin- gular symmetry. Unity without harshness, great size without ostentation, strike the beholder with his first view of the 103 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Canyon Hotel. Without yielding anything of its own well-contained individuality, its surrender to the vast nobility of the scene in which it is placed, is complete, natural and captivating. Not of great height, of uniformly warm bright color, never in ornate competition with the land- scape about it, expressive of repose and strenoth, innocent of fantastic pretense or ornate frivolity, the new hotel by the Yellowstone in the Na- tional Park is an architectural tri- umph of singular and striking sym- metry with its natural environs. The even apex of its rambling roof-line is always uniformly hori- zontal, and yet the base lines of the foundation cling faithfully to the eventful contour of the mountain slope in lines of uneven and yet beautiful accord which suggest that the architect esteemed obedi- 104 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE ence to and sympathy with the master landscape gardening of Na- ture herself.' AMien the summer days have come and you wish to survey this oddly splendid structure, take a walk around it close to the foundation walls. The distance is exactly a mile. And yet the highest lift of the building is not greater tha:n the roof-tree of the fourth floor. In every aspect of the great structure you will find a thoughtful, even re- spectful conformity with the voice- less demands of the scene about it. It is something to build within the nation's famous wonderland any kind of a house that detracts noth- ing from the noble majesty of the surroundings, but to have reared so vast and beautiful a hotel and in so doing to have enhanced instead of min.imizing the splendor of the view 105 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE and the winsomeness of the place, is to have performed a work of gen- ius. Rustic it is not, in the same sense that Old Faithful Inn is rustic, and yet the Canyon Hotel of the Yel- lowstone contains in its structural lines, in the interior details, an in- sistent and yet unobtrusive sugges- tion of primeval arborial strength and beauty that is gently expressive of the forest fastnesses of pine trees that crowd the valleys and crown the summits of the neighboring re- gion. Architect Robert C. Reamer, who also contrived and constructed the historic Old Faithful Inn, smiled gravely when I commented upon this impressive feature of his latest and greatest work, saying: ''I built it in keeping with the place where it stands. Nobody could improve upon that. To be at discord with 106 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE th-i landscape would be almost a crime. To try to improve upon it would be an impertinence.'' Bringing Europe to the Park. Months of travel in the pleasure places of Europe and the great tour- ist resorts of America, gave to Architect Reamer and to the pro- jectors of the Canyon Hotel many new and practical suggestions which have made surely for the composite simplicity and utilitarian scope of the edifice. In the course of these far- spread visits of inspection,- it was found, for instance, " that hotel guests, as a rule, are not apt for those small apartments which com- prise seclusion as well as elegant convenience. The writing rooms, the reading rooms, the Turkish smoking rooms, were found to be 107 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE less attractive to the average tourist than the great lobbies where to see and be seen, to witness the proud pageantry of the guests in promen- ade, to study character and apparel, to gossip and to listen to the music seemed the sum and crown of the desires of the pleasure-loving guests. To eliminate the superfluous, be- cause unused, public apartments of the conventional tourist hotel prompted the builders of the New Canyon to combine the beauty, the convenience, the utility, the attrac- tiveness of them all into one great common-room. The combined al- lurement and practicality of the win- ter gardens of the famous spas of Europe were kept in mind; the ''pea- cock walks'' of New York's most fashionable hostelries, the need of a great dancing floor, a convention hall, a spacious concert room, re- 108 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE cesses for writing, reading, smoking, reviewing the pageant — all of these usually scattered essentials of a mod- ern tourist hotel — were combined in The Lounge, the salient feature of the new Canyon Hotel and one of the most remarkable apartments in the world. This great room is two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, its great floor of polished oak and its walls and ceiling of finely finished red birch. Except for the massive alternating pillars that sustain the broad high roof, the walls of this huge room are almost wholly of French plate-glass. It extends length-wise from the south front of tlie hotel building, and from its mid- dle at either side, facing east and west, are two spacious, pillared porches, opening through wide doors and French windows onto the main 109 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE level of the floor of The Lounge in- terior. The north end of this Lounge contains the stage or platform for the orchestra, flanked by wide, grand stair-cases which lead back of the stage through a broad, open space, into the spacious lobby of the hotel proper. The Lounge of the new Canyon Hotel in the Yellowstone National Park promises to become a famous favorite with the pleasure-seeking travelers of the world. I think there is nothing like it in Europe, certainly it has no counterpart in America for size, magnificence, spectacular im- pressiveness and practical comfort combined. You must understand that it projects two hundred feet from the southern front of the great hotel of which it is an essential part and feature. Its one high story, whose vast even floor is a few feet 110 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE below the level of the hotel's main floor, comprises all of the utilities that are offered, all of the private elegances that are provided in the scattered, small, iso- lated and, usually, stuffy small apart- ments provided by other great ho- tels. From the open brink of the hotel lobby floor, the eye ranges above the stage upon which the or- chestra will sit, across the fine per- spective to the southern windows of The Lounge and thence across the descending landscape to where the Yellowstone Falls, itself masked by an intervening pine wood, roars and thunders in its final descent into the most astoundingly picturesque gorge in the world. The whole central floor space of The Lounge is at once a vast ball- room, promenade, auditorium or theatorium. In the pillar-spaced in 111 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE tervals around the open margins of the enormous room, Hghted by the continuous walls of plate glass by day, and by two thousand electric lights by night, writing desks and tea tables, easy chairs, divans, foot- stools and rugs will offer to the guests the perfection of privacy with accessibilit}^ comfort and elegance, aloofness with sociability, in exactly that degree which each guest of the hotel may choose for himself. The music, the spectacle of the dancers and promenaders, the stir and in- terest of the summer-night throng, must become unobstrusive, imper- sonal, an impression rather than an interruption, in the bigness, the room- iness, the cosy out-of-doorness which are peculiarly characteristic in this most extraordinary apartment. The dining-room of the new Can- yon Hotel is designed and built upon 112 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE a scale quite in keeping with the conception of The Lounge and the wonderful hotel lobby which con- nects them completing the trinity of common-rooms for guests. The splendid refectory is one hundred and seventy-five feet long, extending east and west, sixty feet in uniform width and with a great bay upon its southern front that is nearly fifty feet in diameter and twenty deep to the plate-glass bow-windows of its front elevation. The interior of this enormous dining-room has been treated in much the same manner as to walls and wood-work, with The Lounge and Lobby. Floors of oak and walls, pillars, doors and case- ments of red birch. The^i^illar, tran- som, chair and linen motive of deco- ration is the branch of the pine tree conventionalized. This motive, severe but characteristic, is carried 113 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE out simply and with quiet consis- tency wherever the need of conserva- tive and yet decorative rehef is ap- j)arent. It is apparent in the chair- backs, in the shadowy transom-lat- tice, in the pillar capitals and even in the margins of the thousands of rugs which were made exclusively .for the new Canyon Hotel. More than one hundred thousand dollars was expended for the port- able furnishment of the hotel, and before the first season opened in mid- June, through snow-buried passes, over ice-bound rivers, across wastes of frozen drifts and by the tortuous trails of nearly forty miles of moun- tain and forest, every item for the use and en*joyment of the traveling public was in place and ready. Then the arctic desolation of the days of its swift construction gave way to the incomparable glory of the opu- 114 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE lent summer in the Yellowstone Park, then the fur-wrapped sled- driving freighters yielded place to the happy, gallant reinsmen of the tourists' coach. , Of all the contrasted and mcred- ibly wonderful regions of the Yel- lowstone National Park, none clam- ors so insistently for long days of de- liberate inspection as does that in- comparable stretch of Titanic pano- rama which reaches from the Yel- lowstone Lake to the lower abysses of the Grand Canyon. The new Canyon Hotel, the construction ot wh^"ch amidst the rigors of an arctic winter I have attempted to describe, is situate in the heart of the most opulently varied landscape m the nation's greatest domain of colossal and portentous wonders. Other por- tions of the Park may be visited and appreciated in a few days. The 115 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE scenes about the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the wildest, oddest, most awesome and most grippingly beautiful combinations of majesty with tenderness, of savage splendor witli sylvan loveliness, are scattered here with the most whimsical lavish- nes? that Nature ever displayed. Refuge for Big Game. The creation of national forest re- serves in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, around the outside boundaries of the park, has operated favorably for the peace and protection of its fauna, and the game laws of those States, improved as they are though still open to betterment, have gone far to enhance the wise provisions for the permanent safety and multi- plication of the myriads of beasts, birds, and fishes which now make 116 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE their home withm the mvisible boun- daries of this great domain. With that inexpHcable instinct with which nature has endowed them, the wild animals of the region seem to know exactly the imagined line wdiich bounds the four parallel margins of the reservation. Their hegira from the outsde sets toward it with the advent of the hunting season and they seem to know that it is their home. The profusion and richness of its pastures, the accessibility of its natural shelters and the isola- tion of its trackless hills and forests must have always appealed to them, but since the enforcement of laws for their protection, since the elimi- nation of the hunter and the trapper, these beautiful creatures appear to have realized a new assurance of contentment so that thousands of 117 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE them never cross the boundaries of their paradise. The prodigahty of the natural re- sources of the park has been wisely reinforced by the planting and cur- ing of considerable quantities of tame forage plants for winter feeding. Deer, antelope and mountain sheep come down in herds to the feeding grounds during winter, there to feed and thrive upon the alfalfa hay which has been provided for them. Thus more than 1,000 antelope and half as many deer now winter an- nually in the valley of the Gardiner and about the slopes of Mount Ev- erts quite in vew of Fort Yellow- stone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. Occasionally some of them wander into the streets of Gardiner, which is adjacent to the -confines of the park, but they are so tame and inoffensive that 118 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE the sportsman is ashamed to shoot and even the dogs respect them. The number of elk in the park has been variously estimated. These splendid animals have proved them- selves the most prolific and hardy of their contemporaries, and the most conservative estimates give their numbers as more than 25,000. Easy victims to the gun and guile of the hunter, for vears the native herds of buffalo were decimated and disturbed. Only since they have been segregated within inclos- ures and fed during rigorous sea- sons, have these noblest of typically American creatures gained in physi- cal and numerical conditions. A few of the original wild herd are yet at large in the Madison and Mirror plateaux and the Pelican and Hayden valleys, but the largest number is now confined to the 900 119 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE acres of splendid pasture lands fenced for them in the Lamar Val- ley. The moose, too, are increasing in numbers, frequenting the marshes and thickets of the upper Yellow- stone, the Bechler, and the Gallatin Basin in the northwest corner of the park. The bear, if not the most numer- ous, is the most familiar habitant of this wonderland. Grizzly, silvertip, black, and brown, he may be seen at almost any time, sinHy or in g r o u p s , prowling contentedly through the brush or about the gar- bage refuse of the hotels. Tourists liave counted scores of them feeding at one time in familiar proximity at the park hostelries, and thousands of snapshots are circulating around the world an ocular proof of the tameness and amiability of bruin. At long intervals some old or invalid 120 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE bear will betray signs of returnino- ferocity. Death is the penaUy of these seldom returns to savagery. Although the official killing of moun- tain lions has been discontinued, there are a few yet in the park, but their ravages are inconsequential and they are never a menace to man- kind. Geese, ducks, cranes, pelicans, and more than 70 varieties of small birds come yearly to rear their young about the lakes and rivers of the reservation. Most of the song birds choose their habitats near the places of human habitation, and they were from the first so molested and diminished by the forays of dogs and house cats that both of these domestic animals have been banished from the park. It has been by the preservation of the living- as w^ell as the inanimate 121 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE wonders of the park that naturahsts as well as geologsts, scientists as well as sightseers, have come to know it as the world's largest, most varied, and most perfect w^onder- land. It is the onl}^ place in the world where civilization has seized upon only to safeguard the prodig- ious manifestations of nature's sec- rets. It is an illustration of the only incident in history in which the advent of man has not operated at variance with the native magnifi- cence of primeval beauty. Its phe- nomena antedate history. Its monu- ments were old wdien the traditions of the troglodyte were new in the caves of prehistoric man. New Volcanic Vagaries. Centuries count" as but moments in the variant conditions and activi- ties of nature in this region. 122 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE The energy which made its marvels may have caprices, whims, vagaries, but it is yet dynamic and resistless as with an infinity of power. Great geysers have subsided for a time only to burst forth unexpectedly with new vigor and indescribable beauty; pellucid pools, for centuries unruffled in their adamantine beds have leaped without warning into boiling fountains. Yawning craters, vacant for years, have come to ut- ter groans as of the labor of some unseen and unclean monster, giving birth at last to hideous, living jets of mud that dance and wheeze as in some filthy frenzy. For every subsidence of fountain or geyser there is some new recruit to the bewildering display. Only lately a hitherto inactive hot pool broke into sudden activity. Above it had been reared a tent. Its surface 123 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE was covered with a floor through a trapdoor in which its hot water was raised into washtubs. It was sur- mounted by the laundry of Old Faithful Inn. During the winter when none was there to witness the eruption except the winter keeper, the explosion came.- He was enter- ing his winter greenhouse nearby when, with a sudden roar, the hiss of steam, and the trembling of the earth the laundry and all its con- tents, floor, tubs, boxes, and benches, were tossed skyward at the sport of a mighty fountain which had spurted into life. The pool had become a geyser, and with a thought of popu- lar celebrity the single witness promptly named it the Merry Widow. During the season of 1908 a small but curious eruption became evident a few yards away from the Merry 124 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Widow. It is neither a pool, a geyser, nor a spring. Yet from a small central orifice in the crust of the formation there exudes a con- stant upheaval of tiny hot crystals. Glittering like diamonds, insoluble in water, soon cooled and dried in a circular pile, they can be lifted in the hand, a beautiful evidence of one of the latest and least-known of the unclassed wonders of the park. Only the most inveterate and observant habitues of the reservation come in sight and touch with the changes and new developments constantly taking place. The names bestowed at random soon become part of the unwritten nomenclature of the place. Boiling- springs cool or become quiescent only to give place to new and turbu- lent springs. Small geysers break 125 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE forth in remote places, there to spout or subside unknown to the thousands of visitors who cHng to the main Hues of travel and are more than gratified with the multitude of won- ders which they encounter in their brief sojourn. Nor are the hidden and undescribed attractions of this vast preserve confined to the weird and portentous wonders and the wild iDcasts there to be encountered. Hundreds of matchless sylvan scenes, valleys voiceless but for the murmur of their brooks, cascades that stripe with silver streaks the green-walled fortresses of the moun- tains, caverns that are lair to the fox, the bear, and the wolf, things tender and terrible, unseen by the eye and untouched by the hand of man, can be found on every side in the still wilderness of the Yellow- stone National Park. 126 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Who, then, but must hope for the preservation of every foot of the 3,500 square miles of this incom- parable possession, that its beauties may be unmarred, that its wonders may be undefiled, that its myriads of living", happy, wild creatures may be kept unmolested in its hospitable solitudes? The whole world has come to know and value the price- less worth of this pleasure ground and to look to the people of the United States for its fullest protec- tion, peace, and prosperity. Its wel- fare has become something more than the hope and dreams of its fore- sighted and unselfish explorers and projectors. It has become a matter of national pride and prudence, a subject of admiring interest to all the students and travelers of the world. 127 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE Havoc of Winter Storms. The pleasure-seeking traveler and the official inspector who pass thrcugh or loiter in the Yellowstone National Park in the summer time cannot realize the transformation which occurs at the end of Septem- ber, intensifies as winter advances, and is maintained in almost arctic rigor for nearly nine months of the year. The physical inequalities and imperfections which are evident in varying degrees during the tourist season, both as to the acconmioda- tions and as to the transportation facilities, are directly traceable to the difficulties and disasters that occur during the stressful months of winter. Then the roads are piled high and wide with incessant snow- drifts. The grand tour becomes ut- terly impassable except by snow- shces. The lowlands are piled with 128 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE undulous drifts, and the very trails are obliterated. The havoc wrought by these incredible masses of snow begins late in the spring, w4ien with a suddenness almost as unheralded as the descent of winter the sun blazes with summer energy, the warm w4nds blow, and the melting snow comes down in resistless cataracts, sweeping away roadways, undermining viaducts and bridges, and undoing much of the work of previous months. During subsequent weeks what with mud, pools, washouts, and de- bris from the melted snowslides miles of the main roads are impass- able for wagons and repair ma- chines. The work of reconstruction with the existing forces of men and teams, tools and wagons, is neces- sarily slow, imperfect, and tempo- rary in many cases. Hardly one hun- 129 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE dred full days of work time are at the command of those in charge of meiiding the damaged thorough- fares, extending the road-building plans, and improving the general conditions of the park. The fidelity and zeal of those in charge of these great works cannot successfully off- set the lack of adequate means in money and men or cope with the destructive elements that have warred against them. The ultimate solution of this, one of the gravest and most apparent obstacles to the perfect conduct of the park's aft'airs, will come with speed and certainty when Congress shall supply appro- priations commensurate with the great and growing needs of the ad- mirable road system planned by the Engineer Department. Nor is the isolation of the scat- tered hotel plants or the annual dev- 130 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE astation of roads the only problem raised by the long reign of ice and snow and frigid weather. With the cessation of travel and the advent of the hunting season the hardships of the wild animals necessarily com- mence, and the irrepressible poacher and hunter gets busy around the un- sentineled edges of the greatest game preserve in the world. The small existing force of civil- ian scouts is an admirable nucleus about which to upbuild an organized and trained body of men that could and would solve and administer the few remaining problems which hin- der the ultimate advancement of the best interests of the wonderland which they knovv^ like a book and love like a home. At many scattered points of vantage throughout the park log huts, called snowshoe cab- ins, have been erected for the shel- 131 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE ter of the scouts. In these secret quarters fuel, food, and bedding are cached at the close of each summer. Quickly they become inaccessible except by snowshoes. All winter long the scouts in groups of two or three, guided by the most experi- enced of the number, track across the unmarked snow from cabin to cabin watching for skulking poach- ers, spying for the smoke of intrud- ing trappers, and investigating the characters and designs of the many furtive hunters who camp conven- iently outside the confines of the park ready to cross the lines and slaughter the unsuspecting game. These running scouts travel lightly and rapidly, skimming the snow on skis, carrying only enough food for a midday lunch, depending for warmth only upon the violent exer- tions which must be sustained be- 132 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE tween shelters to prevent them from freezing. There is no camping for them until they have reached the faraway cabin which marks the end of their day's running. Indistinguishable from private horsemen, familiar with the country, devoted to the work, passionately fond of the great domain which is their home, properly paid and pro- vided with quarters and subsistence for themselves and their horses, it is apparent that the work of these men in the summer as well as in the winter w^ill be found unequaled in efficiency and constancy by any other method of policing the park. AMiat with patrolling the park, apprehend- ing thoughtless or criminal malefac- tors, fighting forest fires and regu- lating scattered camps, feeding the game in winter and preventing the ravages of carniverous beasts, their 133 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE duties and dangers are constant and important. The police work of the park has been focused and made effective by the estabhshment of a trial court presided over by a United States Commissioner with headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs. The enormous area of the national park, its unspeakable and awesome phenomena, its indescribable beauties, its perennial disclosures of new and astonishing things, the amazing va- riety of its countless attractions, the alternating contrasts of marvels win- some and prodigious, can be indi- cated but not appraised in these brief notes. For the great public of this and other countries repeated personal visits and sustained and intimate study of its lavish splendors and in- conceivable curiosities are necessary 134 STORY OF THE YELLOWSTONE to even an approximate appreciation, either of the Yellowstone Park itself or of the broad and pa- triotic spirit which has made it one of the proudest possessions of the whole people of the United States, as it is also the open and hospitable pleasuring ground of the travelers of every country on the globe. 135 kiiitewi \}i^' 7) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 016 088 675 4 A'. Kfik''' •'I