Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE US ARMY & EARLY STEWARDSHIP
A decade of rampant squatting, wildlife poaching, wanton vandalism of thermal features
and general lawlessness in Yellowstone National Park preceded an 1882 visit by Civil War
hero General Philip Sheridan. Sheridan persuaded Congress to appropriate $9000 to hire 10
protective assistants to aid the park's staff-less superintendent. But park regulations still
didn't allow for any substantial punishments beyond expelling trespassers. The jurisdiction
of Wyoming territorial law was extended into the park in 1884, but poaching remained
rampant.
After a series of political scandals in the early
1880s involving land-grab attempts by a string
of shady park superintendents (widely perceived
to be in the pocket of railroad interests, who
wanted a monopoly on lodging and transporta-
tion in the park), Congress flatly refused to fund
the park's civilian administration in 1886. With
no budget forthcoming, the secretary of the interior had little choice but to call in the US
cavalry from nearby Fort Custer to provide protection.
In the absence of park rangers, the army patrolled the park from 1886 until the hand over
to the newly created National Park Service and first park superintendent Horace Albright in
1918. At first, troops were stationed in a makeshift fort at Mammoth Hot Springs called
Camp Sheridan. Construction of nearby Fort Yellowstone (present-day park headquarters)
began in 1891. By the early 1900s, mounted troops were stationed year-round throughout
the backcountry. Fighting fires, building roads, protecting desirable wildlife (bison and elk)
from poaching and predators, entertaining visitors and preserving the park's natural fea-
tures were the soldiers' primary duties. Predator control, such as poisoning coyotes, was
common, but under the army's rule Yellowstone's environmental status quo was largely
maintained. Of the 16 original soldier stations, three remain - at Norris (now a park ranger
museum), Tower and Bechler.
Learn more about early park history by taking one
of the five daily historic tours of the Old Faithful
Inn or a ranger-led historical walk around Fort Yel-
lowstone at Mammoth.
ROCKEFELLER, ROOSEVELT & THE TETONS
Despite the precedent set by Yellowstone, transformation of the Tetons into a national park was no easy matter, as
commercial ranching and hunting interests resisted attempts to transfer private and forestry service lands to the Na-
tional Park Service (NPS). At its creation in 1929, Grand Teton National Park included only the main part of the
