Chapter III: Introduction

It is interesting and significant that this book, telling the story of man in the area of our oldest National Park, should be available soon after a season of record-breaking public use of the area. During the travel year 1948, one million thirty-one thousand five hundred and thirty-one people visited Yellowstone National Park.

The discoverer of The Yellowstone Country early in the nineteenth century, and re-discoverers through the years prior to 1872, as well as all visitors to the Park before the advent of modern highways and automobiles probably gave no thought to the reality and problems of a million visitors a year.

Dr. Beal's well documented and carefully prepared book brings us through the history of man in a wilderness, through that period of history before annual visitation of a million visitors in that wilderness. Readers will find the story of the before-one-million-visitors-years most interesting. It is a period, especially since the establishment of the National Park in 1872, in which we as a nation were experimenting for the most part in wilderness preservation and, at the same time, encouraging its use. Dr. Beal's book covers a period in U.S. history when shameful exploitation of natural resources was common practice. The preservation of The Yellowstone Country as a National Park is an action during the period of exploitation, an action of which we can all be proud. The story of man in Yellowstone is a fascinating one. It can also be a challenge to everyone to assume responsibility in continued preservation of Yellowstone National Park so that future generations may benefit from all of the things that unimpaired natural areas can offer by way of recreation, education, and inspiration.

JOHN E. DOERR
_Former Chief Naturalist, National Park Service_

OUTDOORS

O, give me a bit of the great outdoors
Is all that I ask of you,
Where I may do whatever I like
And like whatever I do.

Where the sky is the boundary up above
And the earth is the measure below,
And the trail starts on where the sun comes up
And ends where the sun sinks low.

Where the wind blows sweet as a baby's breath,
And the sun shines bright as its eyes,
And the showers come and the showers go
As the tears when the little one cries.

And the brook runs merrily through the glade,
Singing its gladdening song,
And the pine trees murmur their soothing sighs,
Still bearing that song along.

Yes, carry me back to the lake's white shores
With its deer and its lily pad.
Where the loon calls out into the moonbeams bright
Through the mist on the waters sad.

Let me hear the elk's far cry
As it sweeps through the forest deep,
Where the silence hangs as over the dead
At rest in eternal sleep.

I'll pitch my tent by some lonesome pine,
By the rippling water's edge,
With the great outdoors as my garden,
And the willows round as my hedge.

And surrounded by pretty flowers,
That perfume the gentle breeze,
I'll idle away the whole long day,
In the shade of my old pine trees.

And I'll watch on yonder mountain
The colors change with the day,
And I'll follow each shadow creeping
So silently on its way.

And then I'll give thanks to God above
And in gratitude I'll pause,
And I'll love, not hate, each care that comes
In that great big home--Outdoors.

--FRANK L. OASTLER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE
Preface 7
Acknowledgments 11
Introduction 13
Poem "OUTDOORS" 15
Chapter I YELLOWSTONE--GEM OF THE MOUNTAINS 23
Chapter II JOHN COLTER'S FIRST DISCOVERY OF YELLOWSTONE 30
Chapter III INDIANS IN AND AROUND YELLOWSTONE 59
Chapter IV PORTRAIT OF A TRAPPER BRIGADE 71
Chapter V WERE INDIANS AFRAID OF YELLOWSTONE? 84
Chapter VI SECONDARY VISITATIONS BEFORE 1869 92
Chapter VII JIM BRIDGER: MAN AND LEGEND 106
Chapter VIII FINAL DISCOVERY IN 1869 AND 1870 116
Chapter IX CREATION OF YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 136
Chapter X THE LAST ROUNDUP 147
Chapter XI CHIEF JOSEPH'S TRAIL OF BLOOD 165
Chapter XII TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATIONS--NEW BUSINESSES 192
Chapter XIII "THE YELLOWSTONE IDEA" 219
Chapter XIV GENERAL ADMINISTRATION 238