Storytelling in Yellowstone

by Whittlesey, Lee H.

• ISBN13: 9780826341174
• ISBN10: 0826341179
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-06-30
• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr

Summary

Park concessionaires in the 1870s and 1880s helped make Yellowstone National Park the premier tourist destination in the American West. They developed a network of storytelling tour guides and talking stagecoach drivers who conveyed information to travelers. This embryonic promotional system, consisting of hotels, transportation companies, photographers, and tour guides, gave rise to commercial lecturers and guidebook writers who traveled widely to promote the park's wonders. Combined, these various promoters created the base for formal park interpretation, officially instituted in 1920.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: National Park Interpretation and Its Roots in Early Yellowstone National Park	p. 1
Native Americans: The Earliest Yellowstone Storytellers	p. 11
Munchausen Storytellers: Trappers Around the Campfire	p. 25
"Everyone Can Understand a Picture!": Early Yellowstone Photographers Tell the Stories with Images	p. 33
Lectures and Lecturers: Langford and Later Men Marry Sound and Pictures	p. 55
Wonders Enumerated and Peculiarities Noted: Early Yellowstone Guidebooks and Writers	p. 73
"Well Dressed, Lettered, and Affixed": Signs and Guideboards in Early Yellowstone	p. 81
"A Pronounced Weakness for Geysers": Early Geyser "Gazers" in Yellowstone	p. 95
Philetus "Windy" Norris: The "First" National Park Interpreter	p. 107
G. L. Henderson: The Other "First" National Park Interpreter	p. 119
"All Them Fool Tenderfoot Questions": Stories on the Yellowstone Grand Tour	p. 167
"To Point Out the Way": Early Tour Guides in Yellowstone	p. 197
Conclusion	p. 265
"Do You Recall Your Walk in Geyser Basin?"	p. 271
Livingston Enterprise Biography of "Geyser" Bill	p. 279
Petition to the Secretary of the Interior to retain P. W. Norris as park superintendent	p. 281
Notes	p. 283
Bibliographical Essay	p. 353
Index	p. 359
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