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.

John Colter - "Mad Man" and "Colter's Hell"

For some reason Colter was sent out to find new trapping routes, and reach agreements with Blackfoot Indians.  Colter started out on foot alone

His route took him through much of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho country.  He crossed the Continental Divide at Union Divide and visited the Yellowstone Park area.  He came across steaming geysers and bubbling mud.  The tales he told of these gave him the name "madman" and were dismissed as deranged hallucinations.  His discovery was know as "Colter's Hell."

Without knowing it, Colter had become the stereotype of a mountain man.  He survived alone in the wilderness, killed his own game, trapped to make his own clothes, endured extreme cold and heat to become a legend. 

Colter escaped death at least twice.  In 1808 he was captured by the Blackfoot, his clothes taken, and told to run for his life while warriors pursued him.  He made the river six miles away, hid underwater until night fall when he made his way away in the darkness.

In 1810, Colter was the only one of six who survived a Blackfoot ambush, to which he said, "If only God will let me off, I will leave this country and never come back again."  He immediately went back to St. Louis where he died in poverty in 1813.

Next time...John Jacob Astor
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On this Day in Pioneer History:  On March 17, 1804,  Jim Bridger is born in Richmond, Virginia. Twenty years later, Bridger, heading West along the routes Lewis and Clark pioneered, became one of the greatest mountain men of the 19th century.  For more on Jim Bridger search this blog...

America's First National Park

In 1872 President Grant signs the bill creating the first national park at Yellowstone. Earlier in the year, Congress had set aside 1,221,773 acres of public land in the future states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho as America's first national park. The Yellowstone Act designated the region as a public "pleasuring-ground" which would be preserved "from injury or spoilation of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within".

Native Americans had lived and hunted in the Yellowstone region for hundreds of years before the white settler came.  Abundant game and mountain streams teaming with fish attracted the Indians to the region, along with the geysers, canyons, and gurgling mud pots that fascinated them.

The first white people to travel through this area in the early 1800s returned with fantastic stories of steaming geysers and bubbling cauldrons.  Some doubters accused these men of telling tall tales.  The first formal expedition into the area in 1869, but it in 1871 the exploration that would be the key to the founding of Yellowstone as a national park was sponsored by the US Government.

The US geologist, Ferdinand Hayden, explored the Yellowstone area in 1871 along with William Jackson, a pioneer photographer, and Thomas Moran, a landscape artist.  Making a visual record of the expedition, they provided the first visual proof of Yellowstone's wonders and caught the attention of the US Congress.

Although America was hell bent on settling and exploiting the West it seems, Yellowstone was a surprising change.  Many members of Congress supported the national park idea simply because they believed the rugged and isolated region was of little economic value.

The Yellowstone Act of 1872 set a precedent and popularized the idea of preserving sections of public domain for use as public parks.  The idea not only spread around the country, but to other nations as well.
As an American, I am so grateful that President Grant saw the magnificent  beauty of Yellowstone and preserved it for future generations.

Next time...Off to Oregon

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