Unsung History7 Mar 2022

Yellowstone National Park

One hundred fifty years ago, President Ulysses S. Grant signed an act establishing Yellowstone National Park into law, making it the first national park in the United States, and a cause for celebration in a country still recovering from the devastating Civil War. Not everyone celebrated, though, including Native Americans who had called the land home for thousands of years before white trappers and explorers first experienced the wild majesty of the landscape.

To learn more about the men who championed the creation of the park and the Indigenous resistance to it, I’m joined by historian Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, author of the new book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The between-segment song is “The Fellow in Yellowstone Park,” written by Gilbert Fogarty and performed by Kitty Kallen, assisted by Four Chicks and Chuck, in 1949. The song is available in the public domain through the Internet Archive.

The episode image is: “Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone Park,” Painted by Thomas Moran in 1873. The painting is in the collect of Smithsonian American Art Museum, a gift of Mrs. Armistead Peter III, and is in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

“How Sitting Bull’s Fight for Indigenous Land Rights Shaped the Creation of Yellowstone National Park,” by Megan Kate Nelson, Smithsonian Magazine, March 1, 2022.
“The Big Business Politics Behind the Formation of Yellowstone National Park,” by Megan Kate Nelson, Time Magazine, March 1, 2022.
“History and Culture,” Yellowstone National Park, National Park Service.
“Yellowstone turns 150. Here's a peek into the national park's history,” by Jaclyn Diaz, NPR, March 1, 2022.
“Yellowstone National Park celebrates 150 wild years -- and what a history it's been,” by Forrest Brown, CNN, February 28, 2022.

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