The First Official Expedition to the National Park of Yellowstone, or to any National Park, Which Helped Jay Gould and the Northern Pacific Railroad Plan a Line There

He comments to his fellow Union general that although he supports U.S. Grant in the upcoming election and does not like “Horace”, Grant “is a man of intense prejudice”

Reference for research, publication, and institutions: Raab F13.099

Stories of Yellowstone had reached the East coast as early as 1810, when John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition who remained in the West, wrote of an odd territory the Native American Minnetaree tribe called “mi tsi a da zi,” or “Rock Yellow River.” Reports of vapors and volcanic craters that bubbled with clay circulated sporadically among other trappers and explorers who claimed to have seen the place they called “Colter’s Hell,” but credible accounts of the region were not published until the completion of the Washburn-Doane Survey and the Hayden Expedition in 1870 and 1871. The sensational accounts of Yellowstone’s geology fascinated Eastern audiences, and publicity for the finds in the area was plentiful. Newspapers, magazines, and lectures both instructed and intrigued Eastern residents with the tales of shooting geysers, boiling streams, and sulfuric pits which resided with majestic waterfalls, stunning canyons, and rugged mountain peaks in excess of 10,000 feet. With topography like this, interest in Yellowstone was easy to encourage, and executives at the Northern Pacific Railroad realized that they had planned their track just north of something unique.

The United States Congress established Yellowstone National Park in 1872 and on March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law. The world’s first national park was born.

Jay Gould was intent on playing a role in the development of the Yellowstone area and convinced the government to participate in an expedition to plan the best route for his rail line.

In 1872, Colonel David Stanley continued the government‘s role in aiding future settlement and commercial development. This would be the first expedition since the declaration of Yellowstone as a national park. Stanley was a Union Army general during the Civil War and he took part in the Second Battle of Corinth and the Battle of Stones River as a division commander. He was later made a corps commander under Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and sent to Tennessee to oppose Confederate John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee. At a critical moment in the Battle of Franklin in November 1864, he saved part of a division from destruction, earning America’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor. Later he explored the Yellowstone River, and his favorable reports encouraged settlement of this region.

Autograph letter signed, Fort Sully, Dakota Territory, July 16, 1872, to General Nathan Kimball, a fellow Civil War veteran. “My dear friend, Your letter by the hands of Lt. O.M. Smith came to hand in due time. I have been constantly traveling since the 1st of May and have neglected to answer your letter. I agree with you as to the unsatisfactory condition of our political world, I believe as you probably do, in General Grant’s general honesty, and yet I know and have long known that his sense of justice is very low. He is a man of intense prejudice and cannot resist the importunities of designing knaves like Butterlfield or do justice to anyone who seemed to divide popular circuit with him, as Rosecrans or Buell. Still if I were a civilian I would vote for Grant and work for him. Horace [Greeley] has done so many a fool thing in his lifetime that I should think people would feel alarmed at the prospect of his being elected president.

“I leave this place tomorrow to command an expedition which will escort the surveyors and engineers of the North Pacific RR from the crossing on the Missouri to the mantle of the Powder River on the Yellowstone. It will be about 800 strong including soldiers…and as the Indians are furiously mad about our going into their country we may have some pocket firing. We will be out the 1st of November and in the meantime I do not expect to receive the mail, so you see the political campaign will not distract me very much.

“The maid is well. Has a baby 16 months old and fair chance for another soon. I have saved up a little money but am as poor as a church mouse yet next time I will enlist for a quartermaster. I wish you could come and see us in November….”

Colonel Stanley proceeded west from Fort Rice on August 1, 1872 and Major Eugene Baker led a party east after leaving Fort Ellis. In addition to the 47 of Gould’s surveyors, the column consisted of about 600 infantry. The Stanley expedition passed through the Badlands to the Yellowstone River en route to the mouth of Powder River.

On several occasions, Indians skirmished with Stanley‘s command. Most likely, a portion of his west bound route through the Badlands passed south of what is now the Custer Trail. Stanley traversed the Custer Trail on his return (eastbound) from the Yellowstone. He entered the Badlands at its western rim and followed Whistler‘s Cutoff to the Little Missouri River. From there he traversed Davis Creek to the eastern escarpment of the Badlands before returning to Fort Rice on 15 October

Northern Pacific officials were dissatisfied with the results of the 1872 expedition. Primarily because Major Baker‘s command from Fort Ellis never linked up with Stanley‘s column near the mouth of Powder River. Baker made it only as far down the Yellowstone as Pompey‘s Pillar before Indian intimidation caused a halt. Civilian surveyors concluded Baker‘s escort insufficient to go further so they returned to Fort Ellis.