About this time Norris left the Park service, but before doing so he had completed and occupied a unique structure on Capitol Hill, called Fort Yellowstone. It was a blockhouse of hewn timber with a balcony and three wings, surmounted by a gun turret. He wanted to be prepared for the next Indian attack, while the problems actually confronting the Park officials were of quite a different character. Yellowstone was still a wilderness, and many visitors would not endure restraints. In 1883 Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith caught two hundred trout in one day, and the next year Secretary of War Dan Lamont only caught fifty-three![297]
Old Fort Yellowstone.
In 1882 Patrick A. Conger, of Iowa, succeeded Norris as superintendent. His administration was weak and vacillating in practically every respect. Scarcely anything was improved, but all difficulties were aggravated. Vandalism, forest fires, and general mismanagement were added to the problem of vanishing wild life. John S. Crosby, Governor of Montana, wrote a scathing denunciation of the Park officials to the Secretary of the Interior, Henry M. Teller.[298] This official contemplated the leasing of considerable portions of the Park to responsible persons in the hope that they would, through self-interest, give the protection which the government had failed to provide.[299] While Montana’s governor complained and the Secretary hesitated Wyoming territorial officials took action. The Wyoming legislature intervened by providing stringent measures for the protection of timber, game, fish, and natural curiosities of the Park. A jail was erected, and the territorial officials got ready for business. Cowboy type-cast officers had a lively time enforcing regulations and levying fines for personal emolument upon strangers toward whom they felt a natural suspicion.[300] Vexatious arrests, made under the sweeping provisions of the act, defeated the purpose of the Park “as a pleasuring ground for the people.” Citizens questioned the right of a territory to exercise criminal jurisdiction and judicial powers in a federal reservation. The act was repealed in 1886, but the effect was to leave the Park in a worse plight than ever before. As it became generally known that the superintendent had no support beyond the rules of the department and their own personal force,
the rules and regulations were ignored, while outlaws and vagabonds from the surrounding region made the nation’s pleasure ground a place of refuge. The hotels were frequented by gamblers and adventurers, who preyed upon the unwary tourist, while forest fires, originating mysteriously in remote and inaccessible places, raged unchecked.[301]
Robert E. Carpenter took office as Park Superintendent in August, 1884. In his view the Park presented an opportunity for personal and corporate exploitation. He was in full accord with a conspiracy to obtain private ownership of strategic locations. This scheme was advanced by an organization known as The Improvement Company which went directly before Congress with its proposition. In this effort, the nadir of private greed and administrative indifference was reached. However, the bad cause was lost, the superintendent removed, and a new and better administration came into being.[302] The influence of General Phil Sheridan was a constant factor in promoting the welfare of the Park. Beginning in 1881, he made a series of annual tours of the region. After each inspection he earnestly appealed to public sentiment, in behalf of proper government, for the area. Whereupon, Congress passed the Sundry Civil Bill of March, 1883 which forbade the granting of leases in excess of ten acres to a single party and provided for the employment of ten assistant superintendents. This measure also authorized the Secretary of the Interior to call upon the Secretary of War for troops to patrol the Park.
In May, 1885 David W. Wear of Missouri brought intelligent and vigorous effort to the problem. At the close of the season he wrote a comprehensive report that carried a tone of real interest and purpose: “The discipline of the force was bad; no head to anything.... The game had been shot with impunity and marketed at the hotels.”[303] He secured the services of a trusty mountaineer, and together they rounded up the worst of the “skin hunters” and punished them to the full extent of the law. Of course, that was simply arrest and expulsion from the Park, together with the forfeiture of equipment used in the violation.
During the season of 1885 a committee of congressmen visited the Park for the purpose of ascertaining how wisely the recent appropriation of $40,000 was being used and inquiring into the administration of laws.[304] The report of this and other investigating groups seemed to be that, although Superintendent Wear was performing his duty efficiently and fearlessly, the whole situation was honeycombed with error, corruption, confusion, and suspicion. The Park was in need of redemption; something had to be done. The high purposes of the Dedicatory Act were being frustrated. An avalanche of petitions, representing opinion from thirty-one states, reached the Department of the Interior and could not be ignored.
Therefore, the Department of the Interior called upon the United States Army to effect a new birth. This action was taken under the authority of the act of March 3, 1883, wherein the Secretary of War, upon the request of the Secretary of the Interior, was directed to provide:
Details of troops to prevent trespassers or intruders from entering the Park for the purpose of destroying the game or objects of curiosity therein, or for any other purpose prohibited by law, and to remove such persons from the Park if found therein.[305]