AMERICA'S GREATEST PLAYGROUND 



45 



Elk. Gardiner, Montana 



Early Explorers of the Yellowstone 



By Emerson Hough in the Saturday Evening Post 



The party was under the charge of General Henry D. Washburn, 

 then surveyor-general of Montana. The historian of the party and its 

 real originator was Nathaniel P. Langford, one of the best known of 

 the old Montana men, at that 'time United States collector of internal 

 revenue. He was the first superintendent of the park, and served five 

 years without pay. His friend, Samuel T. Hauser, later governor of 

 Montana, civil engineer and bank president, was another prominent 

 member. Thus might be rated also Judge Cornelius Hedges, a promi- 

 nent citizen of Helena. Lieutenant G. C. Doane was scientist and gov- 

 ernmental historian of the party. William C. Gillette and Benjamin 

 Stickney were pioneer merchants. Mr. Walter Trumbull was assistant 

 assessor of internal revenue. Mr. Truman E. Everts, the man who 

 was lost for forty-seven days in that wild country, held the office of 

 assessor of internal revenue for his state. There was also one Jacob 

 Smith, who joined the party at a late hour. A military escort of five 

 soldiers was sent along — Sergeant William Baker and the enlisted men, 

 George W. McConnell, William Leipler, Charles Moore and John Wil- 

 liamson There were two packers, Reynolds and Henry Bean, and two 

 negro cooks. 



This party, generally known as the Washburn expedition of 1870, 

 entered what is now Yellowstone Park by way of Trail creek, which 

 took them to the Yellowstone river at the northern end of the present 

 park limitations. There was known to be danger of the Indians, and 

 indeed this threatened danger had prevented earlier exploration of the 

 country of the Upper Yellowstone. 



The party stood their first night guard on August twenty-third. 

 They came up the Yellowstone river, passing the point where the town 

 of Gardiner now is located; passed beyond the Tower Falls and the 

 second Canyon of the Yellowstone, until they came to the Grand Canyon 



