YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.
It would be hardly proper for me to lay down my pen and make no mention of the Yellowstone National Park, which is in the heart of the “Rockies.” Besides, in [my letter] headed “Stampede to the Yellowstone,” I stated that “Wonderland was not known then.” That indicated that there was such a region in existence somewhere. Therefore it is necessary, at this time, to give a brief sketch of this wonderful place. The time of its first exploration was in 1869–70. It lays mostly in the northwest corner of Wyoming, extending a few miles into Montana on its north and Idaho on its west. It extends from a few miles east of 110 degrees to a few miles west of 111 degrees west longitude from Greenwich. Here the United States government, by an act which passed both houses of congress unanimously, and was approved March 1, 1872, has withdrawn from sale and occupation and set apart as a National Park or perpetual pleasure ground, for the use and enjoyment of the people, a region fifty-four by sixty-two miles and covering an area of 3,312 square miles or 2,119,680 acres. Its average elevation above the sea is from 7,000 to 7,500 feet, while its highest peak rises to the height of 11,155 feet.
A tourist wrote that in this remarkable region nature has assembled such a surprising number of the most sublime and picturesque objects, and amidst the grandest scenery of mountains, lakes, rivers, cataracts, canyons, and cascades exhibits such a variety of unique and marvelous phenomena of spouting geysers, of boiling and pulsating hot springs and pools of steam jets, solfataras, femerells and salses, rumbling and thundering and pouring out sulphurous hot water, or puffing out clouds of steam and throwing out great masses of mud that its early explorers gave it the name of “Wonderland.”
The first public conveyance to enter the Yellowstone National Park was a stage coach, owned by J. W. Marshall, which made its first trip, leaving Virginia City, Montana, at daylight, Oct. 1, 1880, following the beautiful Madison valley for over thirty miles, crossing the Rockies and thence going by Henry Lake, which is a sheet of water two miles wide and five miles long. One of the passengers described the lake as being then “full of salmon trout.” Ten miles farther, and in a northwesterly direction, was Cliff Lake, another remarkable sheet of water having a total length of three miles and a breadth of half a mile, in whose azure depths 1,400 feet of line failed to reach bottom. It took sixteen hours to make the trip, a distance of ninety-five miles, from Virginia City to the National Park House, Lower Geyser basin, then the only hotel in the park. This pioneer hotel was a two-story, hewed log structure, the property of Mr. Marshall.
And now the Monida & Yellowstone Stage Company, in connection with the Oregon Short Line railroad and the transcontinental lines, conducts a line of Concord coaches from Monida to all points in the Yellowstone National Park.
Monida is a station on the Oregon Short Line railroad, and the starting point for the stage ride, and is less than one day coaching distance from the Yellowstone Park. It is on the crest of the Rocky mountains, 7,000 feet above the tide. The lower Geyser basin in the park is about the same elevation.
The name “Monida” is a composite of the first syllables of “Montana” and “Idaho.”
The Rev. T. De Witt Talmage writes: “A stage ride from this place to the park ‘is a day of scenery as captivating and sublime as the Yellowstone Park itself.’
“The road threads the foothills of the Rocky mountains, skirting beautiful Centennial valley, the Red Rock Lakes, and after passing through Alaska basin, crosses the divide to Henry Lake in Idaho, whence it recrosses the range into Montana via Targhe Pass near the western entrance to the park. Red Rock Lakes are one of the sources of the Missouri river, and in Henry Lake originates one of the branches of the Snake. From Henry Lake are distinctly visible the famous Teton peaks. Near the western entrance to the park, prettily situated on the south fork of the Madison river, is Grayling Inn (Dwelles), the night station for tourists going in and out of the park. After passing Grayling Inn the road enters the reservation, winding through Christmas Tree Park to Riverside Military Station, following the beautiful Madison river and canyon to the Fountain Hotel in Lower Geyser basin.”
I will not attempt to write a description of this wonderful region myself, but will give the picturesque sketch of it written by my friend, Olin D. Wheeler, for the Northern Pacific railway’s Wonderland series of books. After reading the account of this trip given by Mr. Wheeler, the reader will find that there is a great contrast in the way of getting into the National Park now in comparison to what it was in 1880, and that vast change has taken place since General Sherman made his trip through the “Sioux Country” in 1877.