Things to do / Travel Guide
Native American Inhabitants of Yellowstone and the Upper Missouri
The first white men to venture into the Yellowstone region were French fur trappers from eastern Canada who, in the late 1700's, encountered the Crow and Sioux tribes while exploring the upper Missouri river tributaries. Other Native American tribes, such as the Blackfeet, Sheepeaters, and Shoshone-Bannock, hunted, traded, and settled seasonally in the region as well. The last of the Sheepeater tribe, who were the region's first permanent inhabitants before white settlement, left Yellowstone for the Wind River and Bannock reservations in the 1870's, after devastating diseases brought by white settlers wiped out much of the population.
Lewis and Clark in Montana
While they didn't quite make it to Yellowstone, Lewis and Clark brought the first significant expedition to the region in 1805. These early explorers met the Nez Parce, Crow and Shoshone tribes as they trekked north of Yellowstone through Montana. However, Native American stories of the "Yellow Rock River" and underground "thunder" about to erupt weren't enough to lure the explorers further south into present-day Yellowstone National Park. One of the expedition's members, however, made it to the region a year later after separating from the group. Believed to be the first white man to make it to Yellowstone, John Colter's description of a land of “fire and brimstone” was dismissed as delirium.
Yellowstone's First Explorers
Fur trappers continued to explore the region in the 1820s and 30's, spreading word of Yellowstone's incredible natural wonders to settlers and explorers. They became experts on the rugged backcountry, and held an annual summer rendezvous for suppliers, native Americans, and sometimes even tourists. Still, very few believed their seemingly wild tales of the landscape. Explorer and geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden started a two-year survey of the region in the 1850s, but turned back because of heavy snow. The American Civil War further hampered efforts to explore the region, postponing serious expeditions until the late 1860s.
National attention finally focused on Yellowstone with the Folsom (1869) and Washburn-Langford-Doane (1870) expeditions. National newspapers finally began to pay attention to the region, prompting Haydens, now the U.S Geological Survey director, to return to Yellowstone after his first failed attempt, this time on a government-sponsored expedition. The 1871 expedition was the most famous and influential of all the trips. It generated a report that helped convince congress to withdraw the region from public auction, thereby paving the way to Yellowstone's designation as the country's first national park. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill to create the park on March 1, 1872.
Unfortunately, the report also gave Congress the impression the park was flourishing just fine on its own, so no budget was allotted to its maintenance nor was any funding provided to pay staff. As a result, the park was relatively inaccessible and had few services available. In its first years as a national park, Yellowstone saw very few visitors.
Early History of Yellowstone National Park
The construction of a train station at the park's northern entrance by the Northern Pacific Railroad in the early 1880's boosted visitation to the park significantly. Although the railroad ushered in an era of mass tourism for the park, its plans to monopolize public access and tap into the park's resort and concession potential were frowned upon by those looking to protect the park's natural charms. Furthermore, until the U.S Army arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs and erected a temporary base in 1886, the park was rife with continuous poaching and vandalism. Over the next 30 years, the army took control over the park, establishing Fort Yellowstone and creating order out of what was, at one point, bordering on chaos.
Gold and Copper Mining in Montana
In the late 1800's, miners and prospectors flocked to Greater Yellowstone in search of gold and glory in the mineral-rich region. Silver, gold, and copper were found throughout the region, particularly in the areas of Butte, Helena, and Bozeman, Montana, in Virginia City, and around current-day Bannack State Park. Butte became one the most prosperous cities in the country during that time, often called the "Richest Hill on Earth," as it provided an estimated one third of all copper produces in the U.S in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The city became a hub of immigrant culture as workers from all over the world and across the United States came to work the mines and strike it rich. People of origins as diverse as Ireland, England, Canada, Mexico, Serbia, China, and Syria flooded into the area. Miners struck gold in Helena as well in the 1880's, ushering in one of the biggest gold rushes in the region's history.
The 1900s, Grand Teton and Yellowstone Park Today
The army was so effective in protecting wildlife and resources at Yellowstone that, when the National Park Service was created in 1916, the new agency adopted many of the army's management techniques in running the park. The National Park Service's focus, however, leaned more towards tourism than towards preservation. Many of their policies hurt the fragile ecology of the region. The arrival of the automobile was also rapidly changing the landscape of the park, making preserving the scenery and accommodating visitors an often contradictory challenge. Over the next few decades, roads, facilities, and other services were developed to make Yellowstone a "motorist's heaven."
The opening of Grand Teton National Park in the early 1930s brought visitors to the southern portion of the Yellowstone area. Many initiatives to modernize and expand Yellowstone park service facilities were implemented during this time. With automobiles increasingly becoming the transportation of choice by which to explore Yellowstone, the passenger train to local gateway towns made its final run in 1960.
Plans to further develop Yellowstone as a resort destination, a prospect that weighed heavily on the natural eco-system, fizzled out in the mid-70s as attention increasingly became focused on the value of natural heritage and preservation.
In 1988, forest fires ravaged more than 35 percent of Yellowstone's land, making it the largest forest fire in the park's history. Headlines across the country referred to the fire as one of the most devastating events to ever rock the region. It led to a systematic reevaluation of fire management policies across the states.
Only about one percent of the park is currently being developed for tourism, but the clash between accommodating visitors and preserving the natural environment continues to be a point of contention and controversy. Emphasis on managing both the cultural and natural resources of the region have been highlighted through various "living history" programs and via environmental policies implemented in recent years, but development projects have gained momentum as well.
Historical Attractions in Greater Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Jackson Hole in Wyoming and Bozeman, Montana
History
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