|
|
|
Reviews
Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park
|
By Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey
|
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2003. Photographs, notes, index. 125 pages. $22.00 cloth.
|
Reviewed by Richard A. Bartlett
Florida State University, Tallahassee
|
|
|
| For readers who might be unaware of the story behind this book, brief details should be mentioned. On September 19, 1870, the Washburn party of Montanans, who had explored many of the wonders of the Yellowstone, were camped at Madison Junction, where the Firehole and Gibbon rivers meet to form the Madison. There, so it was said, one of the members, Cornelius Hedges, suggested that rather than their staking out claims in the region in order to make money, the area should be declared a national park. Another member, Nathaniel P. Langford, popularized the story and included it in his diary, which was not published until 1905. The National Park Service accepted the narrative as valid, building a visitor center and erecting a sign at the junction, naming a nearby landmark National Park Mountain, and including the story in its brochures. For years, guidebooks and superficial histories accepted the incident as true. After all, it was an uplifting story, emphasizing the actions of men at their best and, by implication, stressing the high ideals of the National Park Service. |
1
|
|
Enter Yellowstone Park historian Aubrey L. Haines. Here was a man who had worked in the park for many years, was a thorough researcher, and, above all, wanted to tell the truth. In studying every available facet of the Campfire Story (as it was called) and especially researching its principal disseminator, Nathaniel P. Langford, Haines concluded without a shadow of a doubt that the Campfire Story was made out of whole cloth. When he informed National Park officials of this, he was told, in essence, to back off. Horace Albright, one-time park superintendent and head of the Park Service, once told me that, whether true of false, the story should be accepted as truth because Yellowstone and the Park Service need such an uplifting story. Haines's reaction to such attitudes was to insist that the truth of the Campfire Story be told. It became his obsession. He would not be silenced. |
2
|
|
Times change. The present generation of Park Service officials apparently could not care less about the validity of the Campfire Story. They allowed Schullery and Whittlesey, National Park Service employees, to research the controversy and come to their own conclusions. Their research is above reproach, and their conclusions coincide with Haines's: the Campfire Story is not true; it is a myth — a "creation myth," they say (p. 87). As such it will remain. "Historians can champion truth," they write, "but we cannot abolish myth, nor should we want to" (p. 89). |
3
|
|
This well-written, well-thought-out book has a second purpose. It is to defend Haines, now deceased, who was harshly treated by the Park Service powers-that-be. They transferred Haines to the Big Hole National Monument for two years, then brought him back to Yellowstone and assigned him the full-time job of writing the park's history. Yet, someone held up publication, and his book was not published until years after it was completed. |
4
|
|
Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park is a fascinating read. The discussion concerning the place of myths, legends, and solid history is thought provoking. For history graduate students it is a case study in how bureaucracy can change over a generation or two, how myths can begin, and how difficult it can be to destroy them. |
5
|
|
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|