May you live to visit, enjoy, and remember the Yellowstone National Park. I dip my pen in ink to-night with a keen sense of the audacity of an effort to continue my feeble description of its beauties.
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Mary Bradshaw Richards CAMPING OUT IN THE YELLOWSTONE, 1882
At 11:37PM on the night of Monday, August 17, 1959, an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale occurred near West Yellowstone, Montana. In less than a minute, the entire side of a mountain collapsed, sending a deadly landslide into the narrow canyon below, blocking the Madison River and causing it to form what is now Earthquake Lake. The slide buried several campers at a popular campground. Fierce winds rushed through the canyon, capable of shredding clothes from those in its path and sweeping away an adult male. The earthquake crumbled roads up to and in Yellowstone National Park. At the Old Faithful Inn, a massive stone chimney fell through the roof into the fortunately unoccupied dining hall, and guests were forced to spend the rest of the night in their cars or busses. In the end 28 people were killed. Those who survived in that dark narrow canyon were left stranded, emergency personnel unable to reach them, and forced to endure a cold, nightmarish night of repeated earth tremors and fears for the well being of missing friends and relatives.
The details of this disaster are carefully told in The Night the Mountain Fell. The author came to the West Yellowstone area the day after the earthquake, interviewed survivors and others familiar with details of the event, and visited the scene of the Madison landslide in the following days. In the book he follows the effects of this chain of events on the lives of survivors as well as victims, recounts the life-saving efforts of emergency personnel, and describes in detail the sequence of events. The result is an engrossing account that is enhanced with many black-and-white photographs of the people and places involved as well as maps pinpointing exact locations. The author's in-depth treatment of the human side of these events lifts the book beyond a simple reporting of the facts.
Today, such a natural disaster in a high profile area such as Yellowstone in the middle of the tourist season would undoubtedly be covered live via satellite on Fox News and CNN, analyzed by countless experts on talk shows, discussed extensively on the Internet, and fill the covers and pages of news weeklies with accounts of the tragedy. We would be immersed with photos and profiles of its victims and survivors, and look back at each major anniversary to see the progress of recovery. Yet today, the average Yellowstone tourist is likely to be unaware of this tragic event. It was a different era in 1959. Perhaps because the means of instant coverage and the mass audience for in-depth analysis were not fully developed, literature on this natural disaster is lacking. The Night the Mountain Fell is one of the few thoroughly researched books available today on the Yellowstone earthquake of 1959.
The Night the Mountain Fell (subtitled The Story of the Montana-Yellowstone Earthquake) is 88 pages long, and is available in paperback in Yellowstone and West Yellowstone gift shops and bookstores, or through the publisher at Yellowstone Publications / Box 411 / West Yellowstone, Montana 59758.
Paul Schullery is a well-respected Yellowstone author and editor who has worked in the park as a ranger-naturalist, park historian, and chief of cultural resources. In 1997 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Montana State University in recognition of his contributions. His book Searching for Yellowstone presents a refreshing "environmental history" of Yellowstone. Schullery takes the reader back to the earliest prehistoric inhabitants of the area, through its "discovery" by the white man, and on to the ensuing flow of tourists to the park from the earliest days to the present. This book carefully explains the complexities of many of the issues that have surrounded Yellowstone since its beginning. Among the many topics presented, the book discusses the controversies surrounding Yellowstone's elk and buffalo herds, its bear population, the fires of 1988, reintroduction of the wolf, the introduction of nonnative species, and the problems of being a park whose popularity threatens its well being. All are difficult topics to tackle, but the author is up to the task, calling upon his background and the available Yellowstone literature, fully documented in the notes section at the back of the book. Through it all there is little lecturing or attempt to present an agenda, but instead an explanation of how these problems have developed over the years, and how they have been handled or mishandled. There is something new to learn for any reader regardless of degree of familiarity with Yellowstone. Searching for Yellowstone is 338 pages long and includes several black and white historical photographs.
You might have seen this title during searches of old Yellowstone books on the Web or at your library. Although I would not put this book at the top of the reading list or necessarily recommend it to most readers, I have included it here because it might interest some (as it did me) with its description of a 5-day package coach tour of Yellowstone in 1919, and because of the author's unique take on Yellowstone.
Alma White, the author of the book, was an evangelist who founded several Bible schools and academies in the eastern and western United States. Her purpose in writing this book was to recount a tour of Yellowstone she took with her brother and his wife, and in so doing add occasional Biblical thoughts inspired by the wonders she found. In truth, the book contains more descriptions of the individual features of Yellowstone than preaching. Of interest to some might be the author's reactions to the touring experience. Starting in Cody, she encountered a speeding tour bus driver who flirtatiously allowed two young women to have her comfortable "shotgun" seat in the front. Not a good move. Once in the park, the author found Inspiration Point so inspiring she grew faint and had to hold onto the rail on the way back to the car (but was unimpressed with Artist Point). And of Mt. Washburn, she wrote "While other members of our party wanted to go to the summit . . . I did not care to tax my nerves on such a trip." (Nor did she care to join them on some of the other adventures of the tour, including, not surprisingly, a search for the "Devil's Kitchen.") One wonders how her brother and sister-in-law felt about the tour. Included in the first 7 chapters are descriptions of Canyon, Mammoth, Norris, Upper Geyser Basin, and Thumb Basin, among other points of interest. The 8th and 9th chapters are devoted to scriptural pages supporting the author's belief that Hell itself is found in the fiery core of the earth that lies below the geysers and hot springs, and that at Yellowstone "ten thousand omens are heralding the winding-up of this age."
In addition to the scriptural associations, the author finds in Yellowstone great beauty and wonder, adding "It should be a matter of much interest and satisfaction to Americans that our government has the custody of the Yellowstone--then man with all his selfish interest is prohibited from laying claim to anything within its boundaries." With God in the Yellowstone is a fairly quick-reading small volume, 137 pages long and supplemented with dozens of black and white photos, mostly by Haynes.
In honor of Yellowstone's 125th anniversary in 1997, this compilation of photographs was assembled from the park's museum collections. A Yellowstone Album is, as described in the introduction by (then) Superintendent Michael V. Finley, "the foremost photographic celebration of Yellowstone's rich and eventful history ever published." The book is divided into six chapters: First Glimpses (photos that brought Yellowstone to the attention of the world), Wonderland Hospitality (area-by-area historic views of tourist accommodations), America at Play (includes park transportation over the years, popular visitor activities, presidential visits), The Spirit of the Ranger (ranger stations, notable rangers, evolution of ranger duties and activities), The World's Yellowstone (challenges confronting the park today and into the future), and A Thousand Wonders (photographs of the parks natural attractions and wildlife). Each page is filled with black and white photographs of various sizes, many not commonly seen in previous publications. Accompanying each photograph is a descriptive paragraph. The book would stand on its own as a collection of photographs, but the historical commentary adds a wealth of factual information that should be of interest to almost any reader regardless of familiarity with Yellowstone's history.
A Yellowstone Album is 208 pages long and measures 10" X 9-7/8". All photographs are in black and white.