The History of Yellowstone National Park

Celebrated in anecdote, cartoon, and caricature, Yellowstone is the place most people probably think of when asked to name a national park. It is also a study of the way in which a park should be run, but this was not always the case. During Yellowstone's first decade as a national park in the 1870s, Wyoming was not yet a state, and the United States was still a pioneer nation. Its western frontiers overflowed with splendid scenery and a profusion of wild animals.

©2006 National Park Service Splashing down from a height of more than 300 feet, the Lower Falls propels the raging river through Yellowstone's Grand Canyon.

Small wonder, then, that the first visitors to the park did not come to see wilderness. Yellowstone was attractive to them because of its extraordinary wealth of geysers and fumaroles. These hearty adventurers made the arduous trek to the remote park by rail and by wagon. Geysers were vandalized; game, particularly bison, was slaughtered by park officials and hunters; and politicians gave away its land as concessions to supporters.

In 1886, the First U.S. Cavalry took over administration of the park and built roads and the park headquarters near the north boundary. The park became a model of efficiency, which operators of other parks in the fledgling park system attempted to imitate.

Beginning in 1916, when it was established, the National Park Service has administered the park with dedication and skill. The thermal extravaganza is still as spectacular as ever. But today's visitors to Yellowstone also appreciate the park as a sanctuary for wildlife and a preserve of pristine wilderness.

Yellowstone's Geological Wonders

Despite the peaceful appearance of the landscape today, the high country in Yellowstone National Park has undergone extremely violent periods over the past million years. This active past has resulted in thousands of steaming springs, geothermal pools, boiling mud pots, and explosive spurting geysers that can be found scattered throughout the Yellowstone Plateau today.

An enduring myth about Yellowstone holds that Native Americans stayed away from the area because of its strange and frightening thermal features. In fact, people have lived here since the retreat of the most recent ice age nearly 11,000 years ago. In 1807, a Native American probably told trapper John Colter about a place where hot water and steam issue from the earth. This member of the Lewis and Clark expedition is credited with the "discovery" of Yellowstone.

Then as now, it was obvious that this is an extraordinary place where something highly unusual is going on beneath the surface of the earth to create this garden of thermal wonders. Geologists discovered that the earth's crust is extraordinarily thin in the Yellowstone region.

In most places on the planet, the crust is about 20 miles thick and floats on a mantle that consists of molten rock, or magma. In Yellowstone, the earth's crust is only about two miles thick. The seething hot mantle heats the ground above it, which in turn heats the water in the springs and geysers.

How the Geysers and Fumaroles at Yellowstone Were Formed

Geysers, springs of hot bubbling water, or fumaroles issuing sulfurous steam seem to occur almost everywhere you turn in Yellowstone. Elsewhere there are mud pots and underground explosions, or the earth is hot to the touch. Obviously, something spectacular is going on just below the surface.

To understand the thermal wonders in Yellowstone today, we need to go back 55 to 75 million years to a time when sections of the earth's crust collided and raised the Rocky Mountains to far greater heights than we now see. About 25 million years later, volcanic activity created still more mountain ranges in the Yellowstone region.

©2006 National Park Service Part of Lake Yellowstone, which covers more than 100 square miles, laps at the base of the rugged Absaroka Range.

The grand finale of this geological activity occurred about 600,000 years ago, when an area within the boundaries of the park suddenly exploded as two giant magma chambers moved to within a few thousand feet of the earth's surface. The landscape was devastated, and volcanic ash and dust spread over thousands of square miles. At the center, only a smoldering caldera remained; this enormous, collapsed crater covered an area that was 47 by 28 miles. Geologists believe that Yellowstone's boiling hot springs, mud holes, and geysers are reminders that more violent geological activity is destined to happen again.

It's little wonder that Yellowstone is the most famous of the national parks. With so much natural beauty to behold and so many "outdoorsy" things to do, Yellowstone is a sure bet for anyone looking for an adventurous vacation.

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