When Congress created it in 1872, Yellowstone was the first national park in the world. The idea was so new, in fact, that the question of what purposes a "national park" should serve was a matter of confusion and public debate.

Artist Thomas Moran accompanied the 1871 Hayden Expedition, sent west as part of the newly created U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). His painting "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone," reproduced above, helped inspire Congress to create the park. The expedition's scientific reports and photographs also helped persuade Congress to send the Army west to guard Yellowstone ("protecting" its landscape and wildlife, in part, from the native peoples who had traditionally lived there). Even more overtly promotional were the tourist brochures published by the Northern Pacific, which counted the park as part of its Western "Wonderland." The Northern Pacific owned the rail lines that served Yellowstone and also a lavish resort hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs.

This site (click "Enter," below, to reach the index page) contains a variety of documents about the creation of Yellowstone. They include the memoir of a Crow man who grew up in the valley before it became a park; an account by Young Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, whose warriors clashed with the US Army in the Yellowstone valley as the Nez Perce sought to escape to Canada; excerpts from the published diary of Nathaniel Langford, who accompanied the 1871 Hayden Expedition; observations by naturalist John Muir; and editorials about the park from the popular magazines Frank Leslie's Illustrated and Forest and Stream.

Note the role that hunting played in justifying the park's preservation, as well as the clash between ideals of "wilderness" and the right of Native Americans to retain access to their lands. For a superb analysis of this conflict see Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Oxford, 1999).

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Image above: Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872)

The Making of Yellowstone was researched and designed by Diana Hebron, Vassar College

For more on the making of Yellowstone, see:
the National Park Service's online exhibits on Thomas Moran;
Joshua Johns' analysis of Moran at Nature and American Identity;
the browseable collection of William Henry Jackson's photographs at Brigham Young University;
All Aboard: The Role of the Railroads in Protecting, Promoting, and Selling Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks; 
Aubrey Haines’ history of Yellowstone National Park