There I was in the beautiful lobby of Aspen Pointe, an independent living facility run by Deaconess Hospital in Bozeman. I looked out over a sea of women’s faces — and they were all looking back at me. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
Indeed, the audience was filled with “Smart Women.” They cringed when I told them about Emma Cowan’s chilling account of watching an Indian hold a pistol to her husband’s head and pull the trigger. And they laughed when I read Eleanor Corthell’s hilarious story about her husband getting arrested for letting their horse graze too close to Old Faithful and sweet talking his way into a $2 fine.
I knew that Eleanor’s granddaughter, Phoebe Montagne, lives at Aspen Pointe, and I hoped she would be in the audience, but I wasn’t that lucky. After signing copies of my book, I asked to be shown to Phoebe’s room.
After my escort introduced us, I gave Phoebe a copy of my book and showed her the chapter containing Eleanor Corthell’s account of her trip to Yellowstone Park in 1903. While Eleanor’s husband stayed home in Laramie, she took their seven children clear across Wyoming in a horse-drawn wagon to see the wonders of the park. Eleanor told wonderful stories about fording a flooded river, chasing a bear out of camp, and counting heads at a geyser basin to make sure none of her children had fallen in.
When I asked Phoebe what she remembered about her grandmother, her eye twinkled and a smile slid across her face.
“I remember Grandmother surrounded by us grandchildren sitting on the floor,” she said. “She would read us books like David Copperfield.”
I’m sure a smile slid across my face too while I listened to Phoebe reminisce. As much as I enjoyed talking with 75 smart women, that was the highlight of the day.
∞§∞
— You can read Eleanor Corthell’s story of her trip to Yellowstone Park in my book, Adventures in Yellowstone.
Indians stole a band of horses the day before Sarah Tracy left Bozeman for Yellowstone Park in June of 1873. But Mrs. Tracy was used to Indians. When she arrived in Bozeman in 1869 with her new husband, Bozeman Pioneer W.H. Tracy, Indians were encamped on the south side of town. She said, “They would peer in the windows if the doors were locked, or come flocking around the door begging for biscuits, soap, clothes, everything.”
Such encounters left Mrs. Tracy with little fear of Indians, but the commander at Fort Ellis still didn’t want to let her party go to Yellowstone in the midst of “Indian troubles.” Finally, after some haggling, he agreed to provide an armed escort.
“We were soon on our way with twelve mounted soldiers following us,” Mrs. Tracy said in a reminiscence she wrote about the trip. “With their guns and knapsacks on their shoulders, and their belts filled with cartridges, they looked very war like.” The soldiers escorted the stage across Trail Creek Pass to the Yellowstone River and then turned back after seeing no signs of Indians. The party then headed south to the Bottler brothers’ ranch. Diaries of early trips to Yellowstone often mention a stop at Bottlers.
In 1868 Frederick and Phillip Bottler started the first permanent ranch in the Paradise Valley. The Bottlers’ ranch was a one-day ride from Bozeman and located halfway to Mammoth Hot Springs. That made it an ideal stopping point for travelers heading for the park. The Bottlers always made visitors welcome and eventually started a guesthouse.
After a night at Bottlers, the stage headed to Mammoth Hot Springs over a new road through Yankee Jim Canyon. This road was so bad Mrs. Tracy said that it “fairly made one shudder to ride over it in a four-wheeled stage coach.” As the coach approached Mammoth passengers got a marvelous view from the top of a hill, but the descent down the mountain required chaining the stage’s rear wheels. This “rough locking” slowed the stage by making it skid and keeping it from crowding the horses.
“We drove up to the hotel with a grand flourish of the four-horse whip, bringing the landlord and the guests to the door to meet us.” This description conjures pictures of an elegant building, but the “hotel” at Mammoth then was just an 25-by-35 foot log cabin with a sod roof. Crude as it was, the hotel had hot and cold running water; a stream of 40 degrees ran on one side and of 150 degrees on the other.
Mrs. Tracy and her companion, Sarah Graham, waited for their husbands to join them for two days. They enjoyed fishing, climbing the terraces, two baths a day and three hearty meals. When the men arrived they all started on horseback for a tour of the Park.
“We rode side saddles,” Mrs. Tracy said, “and it was quite difficult for an amateur rider to keep seated.” Their train of a saddle horse for each traveler and eight packhorses made an impressive appearance strung out on the trail. Their route frequently crossed the rushing, boulder-strewn Gardiner River, and Sarah said,
I was in great fear of crossing, but as there was no alternative, I had to hold on as best I could. At first, I dismounted to walk over the bad places, but they were so frequent, I concluded to remain in my saddle. One old mountaineer remarked, “Wait until the mountains are so steep you must hold onto the horse’s ears going up, and tail going down.” And we certainly found some mountains where the saddle would slip over the back going up, and nearly over the head coming down. We made only one ride each day, as it was too much work to repack the horses.
At Yellowstone Lake they found the man who had guided Emma Stone’s party, E.S. Topping, and his partner, Frank Williams. The men had recently built a sailboat. They said they would let the first woman to visit name the boat. Since Mrs. Tracy and Mrs. Graham were both named Sarah, they decided to christen the boat “The Sallie.” Mrs. Tracy said after the name was painted on the boat, “We had a fine sail across the lake and our pictures taken on board,”
At their camp, Topping and Williams rewarded the women by letting them make doughnuts fried in bear grease. In her reminiscence, Mrs. Tracy said of her twelve-day trip:
“The balmy breezes and mountain sunshine had done our complexions to a turn. While our clothing was little worse for wear, yet we had seen the Yellowstone National Park in its primitive beauty. And bear’s grease doughnuts had certainly agreed with us.”
∞§∞
— Sarah Tracy’s reminiscence is at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.
I’ve been working on my presentation on Yellowstone history that’s scheduled for Wednesday at 3 p.m. at Aspen Pointe, an independent living facility run by Deaconess Hospital in Bozeman. I’ll be speaking to a group called “Smart Women” so I’ve decided to talk about women’s adventures in the park.
As I plan my presentation, I find I have my usual frustration—deciding what to read to my audience. My collection of first-person accounts of early travel to Yellowstone Park includes dozens of stories about women. Can you help me choose? Take a look around this blog and decide which stories would be most interesting. Then tell me your thoughts by posting them under “Comments” below.
To get you started, here are links to some of my favorites:
Most of the women who visited Yellowstone Park in the 1870s were Montana Pioneers. For them, camping out in the wilderness was no big deal. After all, they had already crossed the plains in a covered wagon, or come up the Missouri River on a crowded steamboat.
Emma Cowan was such a pioneer. She was 10 years old when came to Montana in a covered wagon with her parents during the gold rush of 1864. Shortly after she arrived in Virginia City, Emma began hearing about the wonders of the upper Yellowstone. One day her father brought home a man who told marvelous stories.
Emma said of the stories, “My fairy books could not equal such wonderful tales. Fountains of boiling water, crystal clear, thrown hundreds of feet into the air, only to fall back into pools of their own forming; pools of water in whose limpid depths tints of various rainbows were reflected; mounds and terraces of gaily colored sand.”
Emma and her family thought the stories were just fantasies, but she said, “As I grew older and found truth in the statements, the desire to some day visit this land was ever present.”
Emma’s first trip to Yellowstone Park was a visit to Mammoth Hot Springs in 1873 with her parents. She didn’t say a lot about it, but the normal starting point for such a trip would have been Bozeman, a thriving trade center and agriculture town about 75 miles from the park.
After they left Bozeman, travelers usually would spend their first night at the Bottler brothers’ ranch—a one-day ride from Bozeman. Bottlers’ ranch was located halfway to Mammoth Hot Springs, which made it an ideal stopping point for early travelers heading to the park.
After a night at Bottlers, Emma’s family would have gone to Mammoth Hot Springs over a new road through Yankee Jim Canyon. Emma said this road was scarcely more than a trail, but “by careful driving, unhitching the horses, and drawing the wagon by hand over the most dangerous places, we made it safely.”
The road was so bad, Emma said, that just a few weeks before a man, who was taking his crippled wife to Mammoth to soak in mineral waters that he hoped would cure her, didn’t even try to travel by wagon. Instead, he carried her on an Indian-style travois.
Although the park was only a year old in 1873 when Emma and her family visited there, Mammoth Hot Springs had already become a tourist destination. When her family arrived, Emma said, “We found an acquaintance or two, a number of strangers, a small hotel and a bath house.”
At Mammoth, tourists could hire guides to take them into the roadless wilderness to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Falls, and, most important, the Grand Geysers. Here they could also buy supplies that included such luxuries as canned fruit, baked bread, fresh milk, and butter.
Visitors could either camp nearby, or pay $20 a week to the hotel for room and board. In addition, they could pay five dollars for twice-daily baths in tin tubs that had been coated with a porcelain like finish by the mineral waters. Visitors often made their own souvenirs by leaving items in pools where mineral waters encrusted them.
Emma and her family stayed at Mammoth for two weeks seeing nearby sights, soaking in hot baths, and making souvenirs. But they decided not to visit the geysers. That would have required an arduous seventy-five mile trip on horseback because there were no roads across the park.
Several parties returned from the geysers during Emma’s stay, and their accounts intrigued her. People often told her that words couldn’t convey the wonders they had seen. “You must see them for yourself,” they told her.
Emma’s interest was piqued. When she got home she learned everything she could about the geysers from magazines, newspapers, and friends’ accounts.
In 1877 Emma’s wish to see the geysers came true. But the adventure was even more that she expected when Indians shot her husband and took her captive.
— Coming Soon: “Doughnuts Fried in Bear Grease, Sarah Tracy — 1874”
This morning the National Weather Service issued flash flood watches for several towns in southwest Montana including Twin Bridges, where I went to elementary and high school. Twin Bridges is nestled on the banks of the Beaverhead River, a Blue Ribbon trout stream. Ice jams have caused floods there several times since the Lott brothers founded the town nearly 150 years ago.
John and Mortimer Lott came west during the gold rush era of the 1860s and were prominent figures in the Vigilantes. In 1865, they built bridges across the Big Hole and Beaverhead above the point where those rivers converge to form the Jefferson. The town of Twin Bridges sprung up there.
In 1955, when I was in grade school, an ice jam threatened Twin Bridges. High dikes line the riverbanks near the school so there wasn’t much danger there, but other parts of the town were flooded.
One day, our teachers cancelled afternoon recess and warned all us school kids to stay inside. The town fathers were going to dynamite the ice jam.
At the appointed hour, teachers checked their class roles and made sure every student was accounted for. We sat with our hands folded on our desks, waited and watched the clock on wall.
The second hand swept up to 2 o’clock—and nothing happened. We shuffled and shifted in our seats and looked to the teacher.
“Just wait,” she admonished.
Seconds seemed to drag by.
Then we heard it—a muffled boom followed by smaller secondary explosions. Then a rumbling sound—blocks of ice grinding their way down the clogged river, I suppose.
You can see photographs of several Twin Bridges floods at the Thomas Brook Photographs Collection at Montana State University. When you get to the web site, just type “flood” in the search box. You’ll find photos of the Twin Bridges floods of 1896, 1898, 1927 and 1955.
I remember Tom Brook as an old man who ran an electrical repair shop in Twin Bridges. My father said Mr. Brook could “fix anything that ran on juice” — industrial fuses boxes, electric motors, television sets, etc.
He was also a remarkable photographer and collector of historic photographs. The hundreds of photos in the Brook collection contain a lot more than pictures of floods. It provides a remarkable record of a great little Montana town. I hope you’ll explore it.
— Photo of the 1927 Twin Bridges flood from the Brook Collection.
The StatsMonkeys at WordPress.Com said this about my blogging in 2010:
“We think you did great! A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.”
When they put it that way, it sounds impressive, but in a world where some bloggers count their hits in thousands or even millions, I wonder. I’d sure like to do better. Anybody got any suggestions? The best advice I’ve had so far: Post good content and be patient. I’m sure that’s good advice, but I’d welcome other ideas.
I launched this blog in the middle of July. By January 31, I had posted 56 items. That’s about two per week. Is that a good rate? Would you like more? Should I slow down and use my time for other things?
I’ve usually been able to find an image to accompany each post. But often, the photos available to illustrate events that happened more than a hundred years ago are of poor quality. Does that bother you? Would it be better just to leave poor pictures out?
My busiest day of the year was November 16th with 50 views when I posted News and Views: Off to Helena for “Great Conversations” That one—and a follow up—told about my participation in a fundraiser for the Helena Education Foundation. Also popular was my description of my book signing at the Manhattan Christmas Stroll, News: Holiday Spirit Lives in Small Town America. Apparently, these things got a boost because sponsoring organizations used them for promotion. Can you think of other ways to get a boost?
The most popular story about early travel to Yellowstone Park was A Tale: An October Snow Storm at Yellowstone Canyon—1880. Why did that one get the largest audience? What makes for a good story? Do you have any favorites? If so, tell me about them, and why you liked them.
The story that drew the most comments was A Tale: Maud Gets Her Revenge. No questions about that one. I laugh myself every time I think about Maud’s antics.
So, use the comment button below to send me your suggestions for ways to make this blog better. I’d really appreciate that.
While doing research for my post last week, “An October Snow Storm at Yellowstone Canyon,” I noticed that Carrie Strahorn claimed, “I was the first woman who made a complete detour of the park.” I knew that Carrie was wrong about that, but the statement wasn’t in the excerpt I used so I ignored it.
Then I started thinking about the first women to visit Yellowstone Park. I checked my files and concluded that I had enough information to provide several posts on the topic. Here’s “First Women Yellowstone, Part 1: Emma Stone Tours Yellowstone — 1872.”
∞§∞
Doubtless, the first women in what is now Yellowstone Park were Indians who had lived there for centuries before Euro-Americans explored it. As for white women, there are no official records of their early park visits. Fortunately, Yellowstone travelers have always thought their adventures were worth saving and sharing so they left a rich record of journals, diaries, reminiscences, and articles in newspapers and magazines. Examination of these documents reveals that white women penetrated the edges of the park by the early 1870s.
One of the earliest recorded “sightings” of women in Yellowstone Park was by Sidford Hamp, a young Englishman whose rich uncle, Lord Blackmore, got him a job as a surveyor’s assistant on the second Hayden Expedition. Here’s what Hamp said about his arrival at Mammoth Hot Springs on August 27, 1872.
“When we got about two miles from there we saw a haystack. You can’t imagine what a curiosity it was. We went on and saw a mule tied to a bush, and soon after that, came two men, more curiosities. Then we came upon a man holding in his arms the greatest curiosity of all, a baby! We went on a bit farther and saw a woman! And a house! which almost knocked us down with curiosity.”
One of the women who visited Mammoth in 1872 was Emma Stone of Bozeman, Montana. She is credited with being the first woman to take a complete tour of the park.
In 1872, Hiram and Emma Stone and their two sons were visiting Mammoth Hot Springs when two specimen collectors, Dwight Woodruff and E.S. Topping, returned from exploring the park and announced that they had discovered a new geyser basin (now called Norris Geyser Basin.) Such men often hung around the hotel at Mammoth looking for people to guide and the Stones hired them.
Because there were no roads, people had to travel on horseback along Indian trails and through timber so tall, they could barely see the sky. Horses had to jump fallen logs that covered the ground. Sometimes trees were so close together that pack mules had to get on their knees to squeeze their wide loads under the lower branches.
Travelers camped at major sights for days or even weeks. This not only provided an opportunity for such things as seeing many geysers play, but also gave spent horses time to graze and regain strength. Often the animals wandered off and many diaries record accounts of searching for them.
The Stones visited all the geyser basins, Yellowstone Lake and Falls. Topping, in his 1888 book Chronicles of the Yellowstone, said, “It was a hard trip for the lady of the party, Mrs. Stone, but she now has the satisfaction of remembering that to her belongs the honor of being the first white woman to see the beauties of the National Park.”
∞§∞
— Photo adapted from Carrie Adell Strahorn, Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, 1911.
Carrie Strahorn was an adventurous woman who insisted on traveling with her husband Robert (she called him “Pard”) as he traveled the country searching for destinations for the Union Pacific Railroad. Carrie wrote newspaper columns about her adventures and eventually collected them in a book, Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage.
Despite warnings about winter storms, the Strahorns decided to visit Yellowstone Park in October 1880. Their guide was George Marshall, who operated a stage line between Virginia City, Montana, and a hotel he built at the Lower Geyser Basin. Also, Park Superintendent Philetus Norris accompanied the Strahorns during part of their trip.
The weather was fine when the Strahorns began, but as they returned to Marshall’s hotel after visited the Mammoth Hot Springs, a snow storm caught them. Here’s Carrie’s story about that.
∞§∞
The rain changed to snow, and through the storm we saw the disconsolate face of Mr. Marshall, as he stood near the smoldering campfire muttering to himself as if he had become demented. Upon inquiring the cause of his trouble, he said as soon as he saw the snow he went to look for the horses—and they were gone.
“Gone!” we all exclaimed in unison and despair. The horses were gone and we were at the end of our rations with a big storm upon us. The many warnings not to go into the park so late went buzzing through our minds like bumblebees. The snow was several inches deep and falling faster every minute.
As soon as daylight came the men started in search of the horses. I was left all alone in the camp for several hours waiting with my rifle in hand, until after a hard and hurried chase the horses were overtaken and brought back. We knew that we should hurry home as quickly as possible—but to be within five miles and not to see the falls was asking too much. With the return of the horses we resolved at once to go on.
Superintendent Norris thought it was not best for me to go to the falls. The trip must be a hasty one, and the start home not to be delayed longer than possible for fear of continued storm. The snow ceased falling soon after daylight, but the sun did not appear and there was every indication of more snow. Pard was reluctant to leave me, and knew what disappointment lurked in my detention, but he was overruled. With Mr. Norris he started off leaving me with Mr. Marshall—who was to have everything ready for the return to Fire Hole Basin on their return.
The more I meditated the more I felt that I could not give up seeing the canyon and falls. To be balked by a paltry five or ten miles was more than I could stand. I called to Mr. Marshall to saddle my horse at once for I was going to the falls.
He laughingly said “all right,” but he went right on with his work and made no move toward the horse. I had to repeat the request the third time most emphatically and added that I would start out on foot if he did not get my horse without more delay.
He said I could not follow them for I would not know the way, but I reminded him of the freshly fallen snow, and that I could easily follow the trail. He was vexed with my persistence as I was with his resistance, and he finally not only saddled my horse but his own, and rather sulkily remarked that if the bears carried off the whole outfit I would be to blame. When well on our way I persistently urged him to return to the camp and he finally did turn back, but waited watched me until I turned out of sight.
Alone in the wild woods full of dangerous animals my blood began to cool, and I wondered what I should do if I met a big grizzly who would not give up the trail. The silence of that great forest was appalling and the newly fallen snow made cushions for the horse’s feet as I sped noiselessly on. It was a gruesome hour, and to cheer myself I began to sing, and the echoing voice coming back from the treetops was mighty good company.
The five miles seemed to stretch out interminably. When about a mile from the falls other voices fell on my ear, and I drew rein to locate the sound, then gave a glad bound forward for it was Pard on his way back. Mr. Norris said anyone might think that Pard and I had been separated for a month, so glad were we to see each other.
Pard could not restrain his joy that I had followed, and sending the superintendent on to the camp he at once wheeled about and went with me to the falls and canyon that I came so near missing. Up and down o’er hills and vales we dashed as fast as our horses would carry us until the upper falls were reached where we dismounted and went up to the edge of the canyon to get a better view.
These falls are visible from many points along the canyon, and. the trail runs close to them and also by the river for several miles, the tourist many glimpses of grandeur. Above the upper falls the river is a series of sparkling cascades, when suddenly the stream narrows to thirty yards, and the booming cataract rushes over the steep ledge a hundred and twenty feet and rebounds in fleecy foam of great iridescence. The storm increased and the heavens grew darker every hour, but we pushed on.
Moran has been chided for his high coloring of this canyon, but one glimpse of its rare, rich hues would convince the most skeptical that exaggeration is impossible. We longed to stay for days and weeks and hear this great anthem of nature and study its classical and noble accompaniment, but there was a stern decree that we must return, and that without delay.
There was no hope for sightseeing as we kept on our way back to the Lower Geyser Basin. Without giving our horses or ourselves over half an hour to rest at noon, we rode on and on, up hill and down, through woods and plains, fording the Fire Hole River again and again, until at last the lights of Marshall camp were in sight. The storm had continued all day, turning again from snow to rain in the valley. How tired I was when we rode up to the door. Our forty-mile ride was ended at seven o’clock, but it took three men to get me off my horse.
∞§∞
— Adapted from Carrie Adell Strahorn, Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, 1911.
In September, I posted a rumination on this question: Should I approach my next book, Encounters in Yellowstone 1877, as narrative history or as historical fiction? Then I was researching the morning of August 25, 1877, when George Cowan regained consciousness in Yellowstone Park after Indians had shot him in the head and left him for dead. I thought I could write a more vivid account of George’s ordeal if I knew what the weather was like on that day. It occurred to me that if I were writing fiction, I could just invent the weather.
Recently, the issue arose again when I was writing about the time George and his companions spent at Henry’s Lake on their way to the park. After several days of hard travel, they stopped to rest at the sportsmen’s paradise.
One day, while everybody else went out on the lake in boats, George and his wife, Emma, decided to ride horses into the nearby mountains. They said they were going to hunt. Elk and deer were supposed to be abundant the area, but after a long day, George and Emma returned empty handed.
I’d like to write that they went for some “just the two of us” time. After all, they were newlyweds who had been traveling for a week and sharing a tent with Emma’s 13-year-old sister, Ida. It’s not far-fetched to think the Cowans wanted to be alone.
I’m not just wanting to write a raunchy sex scene to liven things up. (Not that I don’t like a raunchy sex scene as much as anybody.) If I could show George and Emma as lovers, that would strengthen an important narrative theme that pervades their story and gives it coherence.
In a later scene, when George regains consciousness after the Indians shot him, his first concern is not that he is alone in the wilderness with bleeding gunshot wounds. Instead, he anguishes over Emma’s fate at the hands of the Indians.
The theme of the Cowan’s devotion returns still later after Emma gives George up for dead and returns home to mourn. When she finally learns that George has survived, she makes a heroic horse-and-wagon trip to be by his side—175 miles in 31 hours.
If I were writing fiction, it would be easy to foreshadow the drama of such experiences. To make a love story for George and Emma. I could write something like this:
George winked at Emma when he heard Ida say that she wanted to join the boating expedition on the lake. “Emma and I are going to see if we can bag us an elk,” he announced.
The newly weds rode their horses away from the lake. After an hour, they crested a hill and headed down toward a stream that flowed out of the mountains.
“There’s a nice spot,” Emma said, pointing to a grove of aspens that was bordered by a meadow.
George dismounted and helped Emma off her horse. “I’ll picket the horses,” he said.
George tied the horses in a grassy spot on long ropes and loosened the cinches on their saddles so they could graze. When he looked back, he saw that Emma had spread a blanket in deep shade under the aspen canopy.
“There is no chance that the bright sun would burn our bare skin there,” George thought.
There isn’t a shred of evidence that anything like that happened, and I don’t expect to find any. In the Victorian Era, genteel people like the Cowans didn’t talk about their feelings, and certainly not about their sex lives. If I stay with narrative history, I can’t make things up. It doesn’t matter that fictional scenes are completely plausible and re-enforce the narrative. I can only write things I can document.
But there might be a way to stay with narrative history and still hint at a love life for George and Emma. Would it be okay to speculate about their activities and motives—as long as I’m careful to let readers know that I’m moving beyond the facts? Could I write something like this:
George and Emma mounted their horses and rode off to the mountains, ‘To hunt elk and deer,’ they said. But maybe the newly-weds just wanted to be alone after sharing their tent with Ida for a week.
What do you think? Should I switch to fiction, or stick to verifiable facts, or add overt speculation?
∞§∞
— To see related posts, click on “Narrative History” under the Categories Button on the right side of this page.
M. Mark Miller, Author 