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Thomas Moran's watercolor of Old Faithful (1871).
His paintings were the first images of Yellowstone presented to the public.
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[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]
National
Parks are the most visible manifestation of why America is exceptional.
America’s
Parks are the physical touchstones that affirm our national identity. Our historical Parks preserve our collective
memory of events that shaped our nation.
Our natural Parks preserve the environment that shaped us.
National
Parks are open to all to enjoy, learn, and contemplate. This concept of preserving a physical space
for the sole purpose of public access is a uniquely American invention. It further affirms why America remains an
inspiration to the world.
On
March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the law creating Yellowstone
as the world’s first National Park.
AN ACT to set apart a certain tract
of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public park. 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 ... is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement,
occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set
apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of
the people; and all persons who shall locate, or settle upon, or occupy the
same or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered
trespassers and removed there from ...
The
Yellowstone legislation launched a system that now encompasses 419 National
Parks with over 84 million acres.
Inspired by Grant’s act, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand established
their own National Parks during the following years.
Yellowstone
was not predestined to be the first National Park.
In
1806, John Colter, a member of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, joined fur
trappers to explore several Missouri River tributaries. Colter entered the Yellowstone area in 1807
and later reported on a dramatic landscape of “fire and brimstone”. His description was rejected as too fanciful
and labeled “Colter’s Hell”.
Over
the years, other trappers and “mountain men” shared stories of fantastic
landscapes of water gushing out of the ground and rainbow-colored hot
springs. They were all dismissed as
fantasy.
After
America’s Civil War formal expeditions were launched to explore the upper
Yellowstone River system. Settlers and
miners were interested in the economic potential of the region.
In
1869, Charles Cook, David Folsom, and William Peterson led a privately financed
survey the region. Their journals and
personal accounts provided the first believable descriptions of Yellowstone’s
natural wonders.
Reports
from the Cook-Folsom Expedition encouraged the first official government survey
in 1870. Henry Washburn, the Surveyor General of the Montana Territory, led a
large team known as the Washburn-Langford-Doan Expedition to the Yellowstone
area. Nathaniel P. Langford, who co-led
the team, was a friend of Jay Cook, a major investor in the Northern Pacific
Railway. Washburn was escorted by a U.S.
Cavalry Unit commanded by Lt. Gustavus Doane. Their team, including Folsom, followed
a similar course as Cook-Folsom 1869 excursion, extensively documenting their
observations of the Yellowstone area.
They explored numerous lakes, mountains, and observed wildlife. The Expedition
chronicled the Upper and Lower Geyser Basins.
They named one geyser Old Faithful, as it erupted once every 74 minutes.
Upon their
return, Cook combined Washburn’s and Folsom’s journals into a single version. He
submitted it to the New York Tribune and Scribner's for publication. Both rejected the manuscript as “unreliable
and improbable” even with the military’s corroboration. Fortunately, another member of
Washburn’s Expedition, Cornelius
Hedges, submitted several articles about
Yellowstone to the Helena Herald newspaper
from 1870 to 1871. Hedges would become
one of the original advocates for setting aside the Yellowstone area as a
National Park.
Langford, who
would become Yellowstone’s first park superintendent, reported to Cooke about his
observations. While Cooke was primarily
interested in how Yellowstone’s wonders and resources could attract railroad
business, he supported Langford’s vision of establishing a National Park. Cooke
financed Langford's Yellowstone lectures in Virginia City, Helena, New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
On January 19,
1871, geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden attended Langford’s speech in Washington, D.C. He was motivated to conduct his next
geological survey in the Yellowstone region.
In 1871, Hayden organized the first federally funded survey of
the Yellowstone region. His team
included photographer William Henry Jackson, and landscape artist Thomas Moran. Hayden’s reports on the geysers,
sulfur springs, waterfalls, canyons, lakes and streams of Yellowstone verified
earlier reports. Jackson’s and Moran’s images
provided the first visual proof of Yellowstone’s unique natural features.
The various
expeditions and reports built the case for preservation instead of
exploitation.
In October 1865,
acting Montana Territorial Governor Thomas Francis Meagher, was the first public official recommending that the Yellowstone
region should be protected. In an 1871 letter from Jay Cooke to Hayden, Cooke wrote that his
friend, Congressman William D. Kelley was suggesting "Congress pass
a bill reserving the Great Geyser Basin as a public park forever".
Hayden
became another leader for establishing Yellowstone as a National Park. He was
concerned the area could face the same fate as the overly developed and
commercialized Niagara Falls area.
Yellowstone should, "be as free as the air or water." In his
report to the Committee on Public Lands, Hayden declared that if Yellowstone was not
preserved, "the vandals who are now waiting to enter into this
wonder-land, will in a single season despoil, beyond recovery, these remarkable
curiosities, which have required all the cunning skill of nature thousands of
years to prepare".
Langford,
and a growing number of park advocates, promoted the Yellowstone bill in late
1871 and early 1872. They raised the
alarm that “there were those who would come and make merchandise of these
beautiful specimen”.
Their proposed legislation drew upon the precedent of the
Yosemite Act of 1864, which barred settlement and entrusted preservation of the
Yosemite Valley to the state of California.
Park advocates faced spirited opposition from mining and
development interests who asserted that permanently banning settlement of a
public domain the size of Yellowstone would depart from the established policy
of transferring public lands to private ownership (in the 1980s, $1 billion of
exploitable deposits of gold and silver were discovered within miles of the
Park). Developers feared that the
regional economy would be unable to thrive if there remained strict federal
prohibitions against resource development or settlement within park boundaries. Some tried to reduce the proposed size of the
park so that mining,
hunting, and logging activities could be developed.
Fortunately, Jackson’s photographs and Moran’s paintings
captured the imagination of Congress. These compelling images, and the credibility
of the Hayden report, persuaded the United States Congress to withdraw the
Yellowstone region from public auction. The
Establishment legislation quickly passed both chambers and was sent to
President Grant for his signature.
Grant, an early advocate of preserving America’s unique
natural features, enthusiastically signed the bill into law.
On September 8,1978,
Yellowstone and Mesa Verde were the first U.S. National Parks designated as
UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Yellowstone was deemed a “resource of universal
value to the world community”.
