The Yellowstone, Forever

The Yellowstone, Forever! (Revised), 112,700 words

This historically-accurate story is about the exploration and creation of our first national park, the Yellowstone. It rests primarily on the lives of the five men involved in both processes. They were five aggressive and highly visible figures during the second half of the 1800s: Ferdinand Hayden, our only government geologist; Thomas Moran who drew the first colorful images of the Yellowstone; William Henry Jackson who took the first pictures of the Yellowstone; Jay Cooke, a highly successful private banker who saved the north during the civil war by creating popular war bonds; and, Nathaniel Langford, frontiersman, explorer, and banker who pulled everyone together and made everything happen.

The story unfolds chronologically, beginning with Hayden who, in 1860, sees a vague image of the Yellowstone in winter from a high pass in the Wind River Valley. He is the third party to explore the Yellowstone; the first two were private groups which came from Helena, Montana.

The accompanying theme is the financing and building of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Jay Cooke attempted to be that financier and failed, even though he had planned a spur of the railroad into the newly discovered region called the Yellowstone.

The chapters bounce back and forth between explorers until the last chapters of the book which deal with the process of publicizing and encouraging congressmen to understand the unique value of that area which was then still part of public lands.