Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden, director of the U.S. Geological & Geographical Survey of the Territories, decided to explore the Yellowstone area at the urging of Nathaniel P. Langford and his cohorts. After receiving an appropriation of $40,000, Hayden set forth from Ogden, Utah, with a party of 34 men ...

2.7 billion to 570 million years ago Precambrian History: The most ancient rocks in North America form during the Precambrian era. Huge mountain ranges form and erode away, until Yellowstone is a relatively flat plain. 600 million to 75 million years ago Floods alter the Landscape: The region is periodically flooded by ...

Throughout its dynamic history, Yellowstone has inspired awe in all its visitors—American Indians, mountain men, explorers and modern-day adventurers. The Earliest Humans in Yellowstone The human history of the vast Yellowstone region goes back more than 11,000 years. How far back has yet to be determined, but their presence probably coincided ...

In 1880, Yellowstone's superintendent set Lamar Valley aside as a game reserve to protect the remaining herds of deer, elk, antelope and bighorn sheep, whose numbers had been devastated by market hunters. (Hunting was then allowed in the park.) Harry Yount, a frontiersman known as "Rocky Mountain Harry," was hired ...

William Henry Jackson, a celebrated photographer of the West, gained fame when his 1871 Hayden Expedition photos helped persuade Congress to establish Yellowstone as a national park. Jackson's career began in Vermont, where, at age 15, he was a photo retoucher until conscripted into the Union Army. After the ...