Yellowstone courses through the veins of the American Dream. I’m not talking about the TV series. I’m referring to the national park. America’s first national park.

Embarrassed by its failure to preserve the sanctity of Western New York’s natural wonder, our nation sought to avoid repeating the debacle of Niagara Falls’ commercial free-for-all. After exploring Yellowstone’s natural beauty, Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden wrote this warning to Congress in his Geological Survey of 1871 (reprinted in Hayden’s 1880 book The Great West and in the September 1880 issue of The Naturalists’ Leisure Hour and Monthly Bulletin):

Continue Reading “Nature’s Spectacle of Fire, Water, and Yellow Stone”