The first artist to sketch and paint the wild, roadless Yellowstone Country accompanied a government expedition protected by a the U.S. Cavalry 126 years ago.
Thomas Moran had never ridden a horse before his Yellowstone trek in the summer of 1871. The Eastern artist eschewed fatty foods, making him unaccustomed to the frying-pan suppers that were a staple of camp life on the Hayden Expedition.Though neither a rugged outdoorsman nor a skilled horseman, Moran was a talented landscape artist whose work illuminated the little-known Yellowstone at a critical point in history.
Moran began painting from his sketches as soon as he returned home. Later that year, the field sketches were circulated to members of Congress as part of a lobbying effort for creation of the first national park, 125 years ago this year.
Moran's paintings made Yellowstone real to people who had never seen that far-off place.
"Moran is a central figure in the discussion to create the first national park," said Nancy Anderson, associate curator of American and British painting at the National Gallery of Art.
Moran's association with Yellowstone hinged on his timing and his skill, Anderson said. "His work is the standard by which all others are judged. He had the proper tools at hand to do Yellowstone justice."
Moran's first connection with Yellowstone was an illustration job for "Scribner's," a monthly magazine that planned to publish a two-part report of Nathaniel Langford's 1870 expedition through Yellowstone Country. No artist had been on the expedition, but a cavalry officer had made some sketches that weren't up to Scribner's standards.
Moran was hired to produce more professional renderings of the Yellowstone scenery, which he based on the sketches and Langford's colorful descriptions.
He became interested in visiting Yellowstone himself and soon had the opportunity to join the first official government expedition, being led by Ferdinand V. Hayden in the summer of 1871.
Moran was as spare in writing during his Yellowstone trek as he was prolific in his sketching. His diary of the historic trip of 1871 is contained on a dozen pages of a pocket-size, leather-bound receipt book.
On blue-lined pages, Moran jotted a line or two most days, although he was filling sketchbooks with images in pencil and watercolor.
Throughout the trip, Moran worked together with expedition photographer William Henry Jackson, the artist helping the photographer with his heavy equipment.
Moran was awed by the beauty of the territory.
"The view from our camp the mountains southeast of our camp and on the road to the lake looking toward the Yellowstone Country glorious and I do not expect to see any finer general view of the Rocky Mountains," he wrote before setting foot in Yellowstone itself.
Moran reached what would become Yellowstone National Park on July 24, 1871, "camping at the Hot Springs, Gardner's River." Two days later, Moran and Jackson moved on to Tower Falls.
On July 27, the artist first gazed upon the landscape that would assure him a place in history, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. For the next four days, Moran and Jackson remained near the canyon, sketching and photographing around the falls.
From there, the artist and photographer headed south after the main expedition party, making camp at Mud Volcano on July 31. By noon the next day, they rejoined the rest of the expedition near Yellowstone Lake. On Aug. 4, Moran wrote in his neat, pencil script:
"Remained all this day at camp. Did some sketching about the spring. Took the boat to the springs farther round the lake and had a hard pull to get back as the lake was rough and the wind against us."
On Aug. 6, Moran and Jackson got lost in the forest for at least the second time on the trip. Moran wrote:
"Jackson, Dixon and myself started out to find Madison Lake to get a photograph of it, but after traveling through heavy forest until 2 o'clock, gave up the search to get back to camp at evening."
Moran spent the next day in camp. Lt. Doane, an officer who had accompanied the Langford Expedition of 1870 arrived from Fort Ellis with orders to recall the military escort. It was Doane whose sketches Moran had been hired to improve for the Yellowstone articles in Scribner's magazine.
Moran was invited to return with the soldiers. He didn't think long about his answer: "As the wonders of the Yellowstone had been seen, I conclude to return" Moran wrote, although he had yet to see a geyser.
The last lines of his diary entry gives an inkling about why he was ready to head home: "4 biscuits a day for the last 5 days." That's all he had been eating.
On their way back to the fort, Doane took the artist and photographer on a tour of the "geysers on the Firehole River." The next day, Moran wrote, he helped Jackson photograph the geysers.
Before 1871 ended, legislation had been introduced in Congress to set aside the Yellowstone Country as a national park forever. Shortly thereafter, according to Yellowstone historian Aubrey Haines, Hayden was able to set up an exhibit in the Capitol Rotunda that included Jackson photographs and Moran sketches.
Copies of the Langford article Moran had illustrated also were made available to members of Congress.
Congress passed the park bill, which President Ulysses S. Grant signed on March 1, 1872.