246 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



its model or in fact any System. The oft-repeated 

 tale of the birth of the "national park idea" during 

 a semi-official expedition to prove adventurous ex- 

 plorers' tales about sprouting columns of boiling 

 water and mountains roaring with internal fires is 

 not tradition, but recorded history. It is true that, 

 the day before starting home, the explorers seriously 

 discussed apportioning these marvels among them- 

 selves, filing upon the land under the homestead 

 laws, and growing rich out of the rush of sight- 

 seers ; that a Montana lawyer dissuaded them, urging 

 that this wonderland should be the possession of all 

 the people forever; and that, upon emerging from 

 the wilderness, some of them hastened to Helena 

 and drew up the bill which created Yellowstone Na- 

 tional Park and began the National Parks System. 



The mountain in whose shadow this fateful de- 

 termination was reached has been named National 

 Park Mountain. The father of the National Park 

 System was Christopher Hedges. 



Eighteen years passed before the next National 

 Park creation. The fact that three parks, Yosemite, 

 Sequoia and General Grant, were then created practi- 

 cally together is significant. Those eighteen years 

 had been the gestation period, and the creation of the 

 three parks in 1890 constituted the Birth of the 

 System. Within those intervening years the ideas 

 and ideals planted by Yellowstone developed within 

 the womb of national conception a creation which 

 affects our intellectual and spiritual life to-day and 



