The Helena Nine

August 1870, nine men met in Helena, Montana Territory.  Their purpose?  To prove or disprove reports of fantastic geysers, a mountain of glass and pools of boiling paint lying in an area the Indians believed was spirit-haunted and the French called "Yellow Rock."  The region had been described by the Indians in the early 1800s, by trappers in the 1830s, and by gold seekers in the 1860s.  Americans still did not believe the stories.

The "Helena Nine" were mostly middle-aged unlikely explorers - merchants, a bank president, a lawyer, an assessor, a collector of internal revenue and a Montana surveyor general, Henry Washburn as the captain.  It was their reports that persuaded Congress to fund an official U.S expedition under Dr. Ferdinand Hayden.

Washburn and his men crossed 7,000 foot high ridges deep in snow, with forests so thick that their packs were knocked off their horses as they traveled through.  Jim Bridger had told of a "petrified rainbow" and 40 years later the Washburn party found that the rainbow was an encrustation of multi-minerals at Mammouth Springs. 

Old Faithful was first photographed in 1871. Trying to reach the geyser, Washburn's men were frequently mired in mud and stalked by mountain lions.  One man was temporarily lost all together, one suffered infected fingers and several got food poisoning from contaminated tins of food.  While exploring Yellowstone grand canyon, several of the men began quarreling about dividing it for personal exploitation until one proposed making it a national park.  Two years later, President Grant made Yellowstone the nation's first national park

Photographs and paintings presented to Congress showing the splendor of Yellowstone including one by Thomas Moran was purchased and hung in the Capitol Building. 

Next time...Photography in the West
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Today in Pioneer History: "On December 6, 1884, in Washington, D.C., workers place a nine-inch aluminum pyramid atop a tower of white marble, completing the construction of an impressive monument to the city’s namesake and the nation’s first president, George Washington.