Pre-Columbian era The archaeological record shows continuous use of the Yellowstone region by Native Americans from the earliest era of human presence in the Americas (the
Lithic stage, prior to 8500 BC) through to the national park's founding. During the construction of the post office in
Gardiner, Montana, in the 1950s, an
obsidian point of
Clovis origin was found that dated from approximately 11,000 years ago. The earliest consistent visits to Yellowstone are linked to the
Cody complex circa 7300 BC. The
Mummy Cave site indicates that the Cody complex followed migrating bison herds to Yellowstone and regularly mined
obsidian from
Obsidian Cliff. Excavations within the park show that Cody people camped on the eastern side of Yellowstone Lake during the summers, fishing and boating on the lake and hunting bear, deer, and bison. Use of Obsidian Cliff peaked in the Late Prehistoric period (1000 BC–1000 AD). Hopewell grave goods include not only obsidian, but also copper shaped to resemble the horns of
bighorn sheep native to the Rockies, which suggests the Hopewell may have visited Yellowstone themselves. Pre-Columbian peoples
managed Yellowstone's forest ecosystem using low-intensity fires. They were aware that fire produced green grass which would attract bison.
Late Native use and Western exploration The arrival of European horses, followed eventually by
mountain men and fur traders in the
Rocky Mountains, slowly began to impact the Yellowstone region in the mid-nineteenth century. The Shoshone were the first Rocky Mountain tribe to obtain horses in the early 1700s, but the Shoshone tribe which lived within Yellowstone, the
Tukudeka (Sheepeaters), did not make use of horses, instead tracking
bighorn sheep on foot. From the 1840s, the
Bannock people (Kutsutɨkaˀa) regularly rode from their home territory near
Henrys Lake through
Mammoth Hot Springs and along what is now the northern stretch of the
Grand Loop Road on the way to buffalo hunts in the
Bighorn Mountains, in the lands of the
Crow people (Apsáalooke). This route, called the Great Bannock Trail by park rangers, allowed the Bannock to regularly fraternize with the Crow, their allies against the
Blackfoot Confederacy (Niitsítapi). , one of the first geothermal sites to be spotted by mountain men The first written report of unusual features at Yellowstone came in the form of second-hand accounts mentioned in a letter written to
James Wilkinson in September 1805. In winter of 1807–1808,
John Colter, who had earlier been a member of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition, passed through what later became the northeast corner of the park, near
Tower Fall. He described a particularly active
geothermal site outside of the present-day park as "hell" due to its sulphuric smell, and
Washington Irving later dubbed it "
Colter's Hell," a name that has stuck. Colter is the first American citizen known to have entered the park, although his exact route is hotly contested. Over the next 40 years, numerous reports from mountain men and trappers such as
Jim Bridger told of boiling mud, steaming rivers, and
petrified trees, but these were considered little more than dubious rumors. By the end of the
American Civil War, after some limited surveys by individual gentleman explorers, there was some understanding of the region's basic geography and natural features but still no detailed, written account.
The first national park The concept of a
national park in the American West had been first proposed in 1833 by painter
George Catlin, who suggested that America could benefit from maintaining a home where Native Americans could continue their traditional patterns of land use. Catlin was joined in 1837 by Washington Irving, who suggested that national parks could provide "a last refuge to the Indian," and in 1858 by
Henry David Thoreau, who suggested a "national preserve" for animals, landscapes, and "some even of the hunter race." By the 1860s, in the wake of many
American Indian Wars and
genocides, public opinion had shifted towards confining Native Americans to
Indian reservations; the "national park" was, in turn, reimagined as a pristine wilderness free of human activity. Voices in favor of preserving the Yellowstone area in this manner, from 1865 onwards, included Montana Territorial Governor
Thomas Francis Meagher, lawyer Cornelius Hedges, and Congressman
William D. Kelley. The first detailed expedition to the Yellowstone area was the
Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition of 1869, which consisted of three privately funded explorers. The Folsom party followed the Yellowstone River to Yellowstone Lake. The members of the Folsom party recorded their findings in a journal. Based on the information it reported, a party of Montana residents organized the
Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition in 1870, headed by the surveyor-general of Montana
Henry Washburn, and including
Nathaniel P. Langford (who later became known as "National Park" Langford) and a U.S. Army detachment commanded by Lt.
Gustavus Doane. The expedition spent about a month exploring the region, collecting specimens, and naming sites of interest. Among other findings, the Washburn Expedition discovered that one of the large geysers erupted regularly every 90 minutes and therefore named it
Old Faithful. The successful expedition was a media sensation, and many writers predicted that Yellowstone's wonders would attract sightseers. In 1871,
Ferdinand V. Hayden was able to explore the region, eleven years after a failed first attempt. Hayden's government-sponsored expedition resulted in a comprehensive report, the
Hayden Geological Survey of 1871, including large-format photographs by
William Henry Jackson and paintings by
Thomas Moran. The report helped to convince the U.S. Congress to withdraw this region from
public auction. Hayden informed the
Committee on Public Lands that if Yellowstone were not preserved immediately, "vandals who are now waiting to enter into this wonder-land, will in a single season despoil, beyond recovery, these remarkable curiosities, which have required all the cunning skill of nature thousands of years to prepare". On March 1, 1872, President
Ulysses S. Grant signed an Act of Dedication, which demarcated Yellowstone as "dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." Langford was unable to make any improvements to the park, but he understood the importance of defending Yellowstone from pollution and poaching and saw its value as a natural attraction, correctly predicting in his first annual report that it would eventually become internationally famous. In the early years after its designation, Yellowstone served as a military outpost from which the United States Army planned raids into the
Sioux territory of the
Black Hills to the east. In 1875, Colonel
William Ludlow, a veteran of the Indian Wars who had previously explored areas of Montana under the command of
George Armstrong Custer, was ordered to survey the new park to determine appropriate sites for building forts. In April 1877, Langford was replaced by
Philetus Norris, who soon faced a number of crises from neighboring tribes. During the 1877
Nez Perce War, nine park visitors were taken captive by Nez Perce fleeing the U.S. Army, and two were killed in skirmishes. In the 1878
Bannock War, the Bannock asserted rights over the Great Bannock Trail and raided a
United States Geological Survey party there and captured their livestock (without any injuries or deaths), causing Norris to cut a trail for military use from Mammoth through Obsidian Cliffs down to the Upper Geyser Basin. In the aftermath of the
Sheepeater Indian War of 1879, Norris built a fort to prevent Native Americans from entering the national park. Norris expressed gratitude for the comparatively friendly relations the Crow people had established with park officials and urged Congress to grant them land north of the park boundary. Yount is the first national park ranger, and Yount's Peak, at the head of the Yellowstone River, was named in his honor. These measures proved insufficient, as neither Norris nor the three superintendents who followed were given sufficient manpower or resources. During the 1870s and 1880s, Native American tribes were effectively excluded from the national park. Under a half-dozen tribes had made seasonal use of the Yellowstone area — the only year-round residents were small bands of
Eastern Shoshone known as "
Sheepeaters". They left the area under the assurances of a treaty negotiated in 1868, under which the Sheepeaters ceded their lands but retained the right to hunt in Yellowstone. The United States never ratified the treaty and refused to recognize the claims of the Sheepeaters or any other tribe that had used Yellowstone. (circa 1910), formerly a U.S. Army post, now serves as park headquarters The
Northern Pacific Railroad built
a train station in
Livingston, Montana, as a gateway terminus to connect to the northern entrance area in 1883, which helped to increase visitation from 300 in 1872 to 5,000 in 1883. The spur line was completed in fall of that year from Livingston to
Cinnabar for stage connection to
Mammoth, then in 1902 extended to
Gardiner station, where passengers also switched to
stagecoach. Visitors in these early years faced poor and dusty roads as well as limited services; automobiles were first admitted in phases in 1915. By 1901 a
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy connection opened via
Cody and in 1908 a
Union Pacific Railroad connection to West Yellowstone, followed by a 1927
Milwaukee Road connection to
Gallatin Gateway near
Bozeman, also motorcoaching visitors via West Yellowstone. Rail visitation fell off considerably by
World War II and ceased regular service in favor of the automobile around the 1960s, though special excursions occasionally continued into the early 1980s. Ongoing poaching and destruction of natural resources continued unabated until the U.S. Army arrived at
Mammoth Hot Springs in 1886 and built
Camp Sheridan. Over the next 22 years, as the army constructed permanent structures, Camp Sheridan was renamed
Fort Yellowstone. On May 7, 1894, the
Boone and Crockett Club, acting through the personality of
George G. Vest, Arnold Hague, William Hallett Phillips, W. A. Wadsworth, Archibald Rogers,
Theodore Roosevelt, and George Bird Grinnell were successful in carrying through the Park Protection Act, which saved the park. The
Lacey Act of 1900 provided legal support for the officials prosecuting poachers. With the funding and manpower necessary to keep a diligent watch, the army developed its own policies and regulations that permitted public access while protecting park wildlife and natural resources. When the
National Park Service was created in 1916, many of the management principles developed by the army were adopted by the new agency. In 1898, the naturalist
John Muir described the park as follows:
Automobiles and further development and
black bears (1922). Tourists often fed black bears in the park's early years, with 527 injuries reported from 1931 to 1939. By 1915, 1,000 automobiles per year were entering the park, resulting in conflicts with horses and horse-drawn transportation. Horse travel on roads was eventually prohibited. Yellowstone had originally been serviced primarily from the north entrance, but the advent of automobiles arriving from all directions caused park officials to build new facilities in the west, south, and northeast entrances from 1924 through 1935. The
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a
New Deal relief agency for young men, played a major role between 1933 and 1942 in developing Yellowstone facilities. CCC projects included reforestation, campground development of many of the park's trails and campgrounds, trail construction, fire hazard reduction, and fire-fighting work. The CCC built the majority of the early visitor centers, campgrounds, and the current system of park roads. During World War II, tourist travel fell sharply, staffing was cut, and many facilities fell into disrepair. By the 1950s, visitation increased tremendously in Yellowstone and other national parks. To accommodate the increased visitation, park officials implemented
Mission 66, an effort to modernize and expand park service facilities. Planned to be completed by 1966, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service, Mission 66 construction diverged from the traditional
log cabin style with design features of a modern style. During the late 1980s, most construction styles in Yellowstone reverted to the more traditional designs. After the enormous forest fires of 1988 damaged much of
Grant Village, structures there were rebuilt in the traditional style. The visitor center at
Canyon Village, which opened in 2006, incorporates a more traditional design as well. in
Gardiner, Montana, at the north entrance The
1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake just west of Yellowstone at
Hebgen Lake damaged roads and some structures in the park. In the northwest section of the park, new geysers were found, and many existing hot springs became turbid. It was the most powerful earthquake to hit the region in recorded history. staff sitting on the set for the 1972 Centennial for the creation of the first National Park, in a
NBC Today Show. Left to right:
George Hartzog, William Everhart,
Frank McGee and Jack K. Anderson. In 1963, after several years of public controversy regarding the forced reduction of the elk population in Yellowstone, the United States Secretary of the Interior
Stewart Udall appointed an advisory board to collect scientific data to inform future wildlife management of the national parks. In a paper known as the
Leopold Report, the committee observed that culling programs at other national parks had been ineffective, and recommended the management of Yellowstone's elk population. == Geography ==