The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

The work of Norris' administration may be conveniently considered under three heads: his discoveries, his road building, and his reports.

He was pre-eminently an explorer. He not only traveled repeatedly over all the known trails, but he penetrated the unknown sections of the Park in every direction. Though not the discoverer, he first made generally known the geyser basin that bears his name. He explored and reported upon the Hoodoo region, and first called prominent attention to the noble cañon of the Middle Gardiner. But the most important feature of his explorations was the study he made of the history and antiquities of the Park. We owe more to him than to any one else for evidence of the former presence of white men in that region. His discoveries also in the matter of prehistoric races and of early Indian history possess scientific value.

In the rôle of road builder, Norris was a pioneer in the Park. Before his time, wagons could get up the Gardiner to Mammoth Hot Springs, and up the Madison to the Lower Geyser Basin. He opened the way direct from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Upper Geyser Basin, from the Lower Basin to the Yellowstone River, Lake, and Falls, and from Mammoth Hot Springs to Tower Creek. He thus shortened the old pack-train route by one-third, and foreshadowed the general road system which Lieutenant Kingman later formulated into a permanent project of improvement. As a road engineer, he was not a distinguished success. His work was ill-conceived and poorly executed, but at the same time it gave access to many places wholly inaccessible before. All the difference between poor roads and none at all may justly be placed to his credit.

The third and most important feature of Norris' work was his official reports and other writings. As he was always doing something, although seldom in the best way, so he was always saying something, with the same constitutional defect. Nevertheless, he has left in his five annual reports a great deal of useful information, which he supplemented by a long series of articles in the Norris Suburban, a paper at that time largely read throughout the West. It is not too much to say that he was a prime mover in the strong awakening of public sentiment in regard to the Park which began to show itself toward the close of his administration.

Norris' work in the Yellowstone Park can not be passed over without praise. It left its mark, as its author did his name, in every quarter. But one thing must be charged to his account—an almost total failure to protect the Park. He did, indeed, by his public utterances, denounce the vandalism and game destruction that were then rampant; but he did little in a practical way to prevent them—no more, in fact, than his predecessor, although he was given the means.

Norris was succeeded in February, 1882, by Patrick H. Conger, of Iowa. Of this Superintendent, it need only be said that his administration was throughout characterized by a weakness and inefficiency which brought the Park to the lowest ebb of its fortunes, and drew forth the severe condemnation of visitors and public officials alike. This administration is an important one, however, for it marks the period of change in public sentiment already referred to, and the commencement of reform in the government of the reservation.

As if the unfortunate condition of affairs due to the lack of suitable laws for the reservation were not enough, there arose in the early part of Superintendent Conger’s administration a new and even more formidable danger, under the euphemistic title of the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company. Previous to this time, there had been no regular leases in the Park. Several informal permits for occupancy had been granted, and a small number of inferior buildings had been erected. In 1880, there were nine of these buildings, nearly all of them being plain log-cabins, with earth roofs, of the common frontier pattern. Only two, the headquarters building at Mammoth Hot Springs and Marshall’s Hotel in the Lower Geyser Basin, rose in dignity above the primitive type. No one as yet thought of remaining in the Park during the winter season.

But it finally dawned upon certain sagacious individuals that here was a rare opportunity to exploit the government for their private emolument under the generous guise of improving the Park, and catering to the comfort of the tourist. A company was accordingly formed, and a valuable ally secured in the person of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, who granted a lease of 4,400 acres in tracts of about a square mile at each of the great points of interest. It was urged in defense of this sweeping grant, that it was hoped in that way to secure the protection which had yet failed to be found by any other method. It was thought that, if responsible parties could be given exclusive control of these natural curiosities, they would, at least from motives of self-interest, preserve them. But such a monopolistic privilege was clearly opposed to the spirit of the Act of Dedication. Why set apart this region for the free and unrestricted enjoyment of the people, if the Secretary of the Interior could give to private parties absolute control of all its most important localities? Was this a proper interpretation of “small parcels of ground,” as specified in the act? The danger involved in this action was indeed a grave one, and it at once aroused a storm of protest throughout the country.

It was about this time also that there began to appear those various railroad and segregation projects which from that time to the present have been a formidable menace to the continued existence of the Park. A more extensive consideration of this particular subject is reserved for a later chapter.

It thus became apparent as early as 1882, that immediate and radical measures must be adopted if the Park was to be preserved in its original condition. General Sheridan who passed through that region in 1881, 1882, and 1883, gave forcible warning of the impending danger, and urgently appealed to the public sentiment of the country in favor of some action which should avert it. The Governor of Montana made an earnest appeal to Congress. Other influential voices united in the same cause, and already it was broadly hinted that the only salvation of the Park lay in turning it over to the military. The whole matter was brought prominently before the next Congress, and in March, 1883, a clause in the Sundry Civil Bill containing the annual appropriation for the Park, forbade the granting of leases of more than ten acres to any single party, authorized the Secretary of the Interior to call upon the Secretary of War for troops to patrol the Park, and provided for the employment of ten assistant superintendents who were to constitute a police force. Thus was the bold scheme of the Improvement Company frustrated, and the foundation laid for the present administrative system. The Secretary of the Interior, however, seems not to have wished to avail himself of military assistance, and it was several years before this provision of the law was put into operation.