The Yellowstone Park 
region, which, owing to the rough and 
rugged nature of its barriers, had defied all 
earlier attempts at exploration. It stood out 
alone as a broad unknown mountain mass 
when the surrounding country had been 
fairly well explored. It had been visited 
only by a few venturesome pioneers, mining 
prospectors, and fur-hunters, who found little 
or no encouragement to seekers after wealth. 
Only one trans-continental railway spanned 
the Rocky Mountains, crossing Wyoming far 
to the south of the Park, the Union and 
Central Pacific having been opened to traffic 
in 1869. At that time, wild animals roamed 
freely over prairie, plain, and mountain slope, 
from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande. 
In Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, elk, 
deer, and antelope abounded in favorable lo- 
calities. In the North Park in northern Col- 
orado, I saw almost daily numerous bands of 
antelope, hundreds in each, grazing along 
the shallow bottom-lands. Over the Laramie 
plains, antelope and deer might be seen 
almost any day from the railway. Buffalo 
roamed the great plains in vast numbers. In 
1872 I saw buffalo in the North Park, but 
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