Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America

by Megan Kate Nelson

From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the captivating story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in the years after the Civil War, offering “a fresh, provocative study…departing from well-trodden narratives about conservation and public recreation” (Booklist, starred review).

Each year nearly four million people visit Yellowstone National Park—one of the most popular of all national parks—but few know the fascinating and complex historical context in which it was established. In late July 1871, the geologist-explorer Ferdinand Hayden led a team of scientists through a narrow canyon into Yellowstone Basin, entering one of the last unmapped places in the country. The survey’s discoveries led to the passage of the Yellowstone Act in 1872, which created the first national park in the world.

Now, author Megan Kate Nelson examines the larger context of this American moment, illuminating Hayden’s survey as a national project meant to give Americans a sense of achievement and unity in the wake of a destructive civil war. Saving Yellowstone follows Hayden and two other protagonists in pursuit of their own agendas: Sitting Bull, a Lakota leader who asserted his peoples’ claim to their homelands, and financier Jay Cooke, who wanted to secure his national reputation by building the Northern Pacific Railroad through the Great Northwest. Hayden, Cooke, and Sitting Bull staked their claims to Yellowstone at a critical moment in Reconstruction, when the Ulysses S. Grant Administration and the 42nd Congress were testing the reach and the purpose of federal power across the nation.

“A readable and unfailingly interesting look at a slice of Western history from a novel point of view” (Kirkus Reviews), Saving Yellowstone reveals how Yellowstone became both a subject of fascination and a metaphor for the nation during the Reconstruction era. This “land of wonders” was both beautiful and terrible, fragile and powerful. And what lay beneath the surface there was always threatening to explode.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Nature, Audiobook, Westerns, Politics, Science

Audiobook

Published March 1, 2022

About the author

Born and raised in Colorado, Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer based in Boston, with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of five books, including The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier (Scribner 2026); Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner 2022; winner of the 2023 Spur Award for Historical Non-Fiction); and The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (Scribner 2020; 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist in History).

Megan also writes about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American culture for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, Slate, and Time.

Reviews

[Red · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't think I could hate a book on a amazing national park. But there is such a large amount of the story that goes everywhere else. Should have been titled Reconstruction mentioning Yellowstone. So much focus is on the KKK and the terrorism taking place in the South. The author seems to applaud President Grant suspending American rights to prosecute citizens. I was neutral about this president before, but this book changed my mind. The author really hates capitalism, white people, and American imperialism. So much talk about race and power structures. This has all the Marxist buzzwords in it. I honestly got overwhelmed by how much race is in this book. The little bits of interesting history were swamped out in it. Author makes grand sweeping notions about "whites" and the blatant racism of them all. Even though it was white people in congress who were trying to end the discrimination of black people in the south. Not sure what this book was going for. Or who the intended audience is. Virtue signaling was my best guess.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main title of the book is a little misleading as portions of the book deal with Jay Gould and the building of the Northern Pacific railroad and with the demise of reconstruction in the South. The main focus of the book is the surveying and preservation of Yellowstone as a national park and the efforts that it took to accomplish. Removing American Indians from their land and fighting off politicians and speculators who wanted to develop the land and turn into a commercial venture. It also incorporated Jay Gould’s hope that the park would save the building of his railroad and prevent bankruptcy on his part. Going on at the same time, but unrelated to these events was the phasing out of reconstruction in the south and setting voting and civil rights back a century. This is a very good narrative that written in a style that is easy to read and follow. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the early history of Yellowstone.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook and my nonfiction book review blog.

[Ted Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short book (less than 200 pages), but it covers a lot of ground: the 1871 scientific expedition into the Yellowstone Basin, Reconstruction, the early 1870's conflict between the U.S. government and the tribes of the northern Plains, and the attempts to build a Northern Pacific Railroad. After finishing it, I can't really say what its point (or its thesis) actually was. The bulk of the book is spent on the expedition into Yellowstone, but it jumps around with each chapter: Jay Cooke trying the finance the railroad while vacationing on an island in Lake Erie, President Grant going after the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina, Sitting Bull fighting the army (and railroad surveyors) in the Yellowstone River valley. The reader gets a smattering of each of these stories, but not a thorough discussion or analysis of any of them. The book's title is about Yellowstone, the world's first national park, and the cover is the famous Thomas Moran painting of Yellowstone Falls. Is the reader supposed to feel like dropping everything and driving to Wyoming to see this sublime spot in the Rockies? At times it seems as if this is the author's goal. But on other occasions she focuses on the injustice of having created this park by taking it from the indigenous groups who were native to the region, so I felt as if her purpose was to convince people to reject the entire park system. Personally, having been to Yellowstone three times, I am appreciative of the people who began the park system, battling the politicians of the day, as well as avaricious mining and lumber companies (among others) to set aside places where the natives' reverence for the natural world and its creatures is truly manifested. In addition, every time she lamented the way in which the Lakota were pushed aside in the interest of the white world, I wondered if she were being a tad simplistic. There is no shortage of examples of the injustices done to the native peoples of this land, but were the Lakota simply "victims?" Perhaps the author should visit Little Bighorn Battlefield (situated inside of the Crow Reservation), where the park ranger describing the battle is likely to be a member of the Crow tribe. This was one of the tribes that aided the U.S. Army in its fights against the Lakota. At the battlefield, she might hear a 21st Crow describe the 18th and 19th century Lakota tribe as imperialists themselves. In any event, for a short, but interesting description of the 1871 scientific expedition into Yellowstone, this book would be a good place to start. But if you are interested in learning about Reconstruction or the late 19th century conflict between the U.S. government and the tribes of the west, you should probably look elsewhere.

[Brandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully engaging book! The scenes read like a novel and Nelson's characterization of the historical individuals is fascinating. The bibliography holds a lot of gems for further reading.

[Gavin Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

How does one get the job as the guy who follows the expedition party around and just gets to take photos

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt a bit like someone wanting to write about the plight of black southerners in the reconstruction era America, while remembering their book was supposed to be about Yellowstone. Obviously the former has merit, but it felt so odd going back and forth and waiting for that context to make sense given the title of the book. Still, did well at what it set out to originally delve into (when it was about that).

2.5/5

[Aedan Talkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, very interesting to get to learn about the point of view of the initial expeditions into Yellowstone.

[Scott Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is more than just how Yellowstone became a park. It explains the context of the world outside the park that created the unique set of circumstances that enabled it to be preserved in such a pristine state, the good, the bad, and the tragic. It creates a strong sense of the time and not just the place that was the birth of Yellowstone.

[Josh Liller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was curious about this book after hearing an online talk by the author, hosted by the National Archives. The author stated she was looking at Reconstruction through the lens of Yellowstone, with the three main characters being explorer Ferdinand Hayden, tycoon Jay Cooke, and Chief Sitting Bull. I was also intrigued because of the involvement of photographer William Henry Jackson, whom I am familiar with not because of his famous photography of the Old West but rather this small amount of amazing photography of Florida.

Saving Yellowstone has a modest lengthy of just under 200 pages of main text. Don't be fooled by the 50 pages of citations; this is aimed at a wide audience. The story of Hayden's 1871 expedition to Yellowstone covers most of the first half of the book, and it's where the book really shines. I haven't been to Yellowstone yet, but the narrative did a great job conveying the remarkable place. Some of the events in the aftermath of the 1871 expedition were quite remarkable (I wont spoil them here). I was a little disappointed, although not surprised, that the 1870 Langford and 1872 Hayden expeditions were not likewise covered.

However, I found the effort to connect Yellowstone and its designation as the first national park to the big picture to fall a little flat. The Northern Pacific Railroad, Jay Cooke, and Sitting Bull feel very peripheral the story of Yellowstone. It's a stool with uneven legs. Bringing in the Grant administration's efforts to investigate and prosecute the KKK seems completely tangential. I think I understand what the author was going for; I think it's simply a swing and a miss.

As I also feared coming into it, the author is also viewing things from a very modern perspective. On the one hand, offering both the White American and Native American names for places and people is good. On the other hand, almost exclusively referring to the Missouri River by its Sioux name is distracting. The reader is constantly reminded of settler colonialism. The contrast between the federal government treatment of African-Americans in the 1870s vs. the treatment of Native Americans is emphasized, as if it was somehow remarkable or unusual (I don't think it was either).

A few specific points. Truman Everts' survival narrative is described as part of a genre that "erased Native peoples form the wilderness" (xxi). Native Americans are absent from Everts' narrative and Hayden's subsequent expedition narrative because they weren't present in Yellowstone during the events recounted. The author makes a point about Grant supplying many expeditions in the West when he served in the Army (8). Unmentioned is that he did so because it was his job; he was a Quartermaster. Lincoln's ownership of land is implied to have influenced the route of the Transcontinental Railroad (15). Sioux mythology is recounted as fact (103-104). Grant is criticized for signing the Amnesty Act that restored certain rights to former Confederates (178). Allowance for the act was built into the original law it was overturning, and it required a 2/3 majority to pass - which is also the majority required to overturn a presidential veto. On the same page, the Grant administration is criticized for ceasing to prosecute the KKK, but the very next sentence notes the last federal docket resulted in only 4 of 544 cases against the Klan resulting in a conviction. Less than 1% conviction rate would suggest prosecution was a waste of time and resources.

This is an okay book that doesn't quite realize its ambitions. I didn't regret reading it and I've already recommended it to someone I know who I think would enjoy it. There's definitely an audience that will adore the author's perspective, but I'm not in so this only gets a mild recommendation from me.

[Nicole Simovski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish all History books were written like this! Amazing book with a clear focus on the years surrounding the first white Yellowstone surveys in the context of the reconstruction era in the US (post civil war). Loved this book. With one of the best closes too a book I’ve read:

“In this context, Yellowstone promised to be a place that proved Americas greatness by virtue of its natural wonders. But its geysers and mud pots revealed the reality of this strange country: the United States is both beautiful and terrible. It is both fragile and powerful. And that what lies beneath the surface in this nation is always threatening to explode.”

[Stan Prager · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child, one cartoon that habitually had me glued to our black and white TV set was the Yogi Bear Show, which spun a recurring comedic yarn starring that eponymous suave if mischievous anthropomorphic bear and his best bud Boo-Boo who routinely sparred with a ranger as they poached picnic baskets. It was set in Jellystone Park, a thinly veiled animated rendering of Yellowstone National Park. As I grew older, I wondered what it would be like to check out the natural wonders of the real Yellowstone, but many decades later it yet remains an unfulfilled checkbox on a long bucket list. Other than passing views of documentaries that splashed spectacular images of waterfalls, geysers, and herds of bison across my 4K screen, I rarely gave the park a second thought.
So it was while attending the Civil War Institute (CWI) 2023 Summer Conference at Gettysburg College that I learned with no little surprise that there was to be a scheduled segment on Yellowstone. I was puzzled; beyond the scenic imagery recalled from episodes of Nat Geo, what little I knew about Yellowstone was that it was established as our first national park in 1872—seven years after Lee’s surrender! What could this possibly have to do with the Civil War?
Fortunately, I got a clue at the conference’s opening night ice cream social when I was by chance introduced to Megan Kate Nelson, author of Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America, who was slated to give that very presentation. As we chatted, Megan Kate—almost nonchalantly—made the bold statement that without the Civil War there never could have been a Yellowstone Park. Agnostic but intrigued, I sat in the audience a couple of days later for her talk, which turned out to be both engaging and persuasive. I purchased her book along with a stack of others at the conference, and it turned out to be my first read when I got home.
History is too frequently rendered in a vacuum, often isolated from the competing forces that shape it, which not only ignores key context but in the process distorts interpretation. In contrast, and hardly always immediately apparent, every historical experience is to some degree or another the consequence of its relationship to a variety of other less-than-obvious factors, such as climate, the environment, the prevalence of various flora and fauna (as well as pathogens), resources, trade networks, and sometimes the movements of peoples hundreds or even thousands of miles away. It is so rewarding to stumble upon a historian who not only identifies these kinds of wider forces in play but capitalizes upon their existence to turn out a stunning work of scholarship. In Saving Yellowstone, Megan Kate Nelson brilliantly locates a confluence of events, ideas, and individuals that characterize a unique moment in American history.
The Civil War was over. The fate of the disputed territories—the ill-begotten gains of the Mexican War that sparked secession when the south’s slave power was, by Lincoln’s election, stymied in their resolve to spread their so-called “peculiar institution” westward—had been settled: the Union had been preserved, slavery had been outlawed, and these would remain federal lands preserved for white free-soil settlement. This translated into immense opportunities for postwar Americans who pushed west towards what seemed like a limitless horizon of vast if barely explored open spaces, chasing opportunities in land or commerce or perhaps even a fortune in precious metals buried in the ground. Those in the way would be displaced: if not invisible, the Native Americans who had occupied these places for centuries were irrelevant, stubborn obstacles that could be either bought off or relocated or exterminated. Lakota Sioux chief Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, also known as Sitting Bull, would have something to say about that.
Ulysses S. Grant, the general who had humbled Lee at Appomattox, was now the President of the United States, and remained committed to a Reconstruction that was on shaky ground largely due to the disastrous administration of his predecessor, Andrew Johnson, who had allowed elites of the former Confederacy to regain political power and trample upon the newly won rights of the formerly enslaved. The emerging reality was looking much like the south had lost the war but somehow won the peace, as rebels were returned to elective office while African Americans were routinely terrorized and murdered. Postwar demilitarization left a shrunken force of uniforms stretched very thin, who could either protect blacks from racist violence or white settlers encroaching on Native lands—but could not do both.
Meanwhile, the landscape was being transformed by towns that seemed to spring up everywhere, many connected by the telegraph and within the orbit of transcontinental railroads that would perhaps one day include the Northern Pacific Railway, a kind of vanity project of millionaire financier Jay Cooke that nearly destroyed him. All of this sparked frenetic activities that centered upon exploration, bringing trailblazers and surveyors and scientists and artists and photographers west to determine exactly what was there and what use could be made of it. One of these men was geologist Ferdinand Hayden, who led a handpicked team on a federally funded geological survey to the wilderness of the Yellowstone Basin in 1871 and charted a course that led, only one short year later, to its designation as America’s first national park.
More than six hundred thousand years ago, a massive super volcano erupted and begat the Yellowstone Caldera and its underlying magma body that produces the extreme high temperatures that power the hydrothermal features it is well known for, including hot springs, mudpots, fumaroles, and more than three hundred geysers! Reports of phenomena like these preceded Hayden’s expedition, but most were chalked up to tall tales. Hayden sought to map the expanse and to separate truth from fantasy. Unlike white men on a quest of discovery, of course, there was nothing new about Yellowstone to neighboring Native Americans, who had inhabited the region into the deep mists of time.
The best crafted biographies employ a central protagonist to not only tell their story but also to immerse the reader in a grand narrative that reveals not only the subject but the age in which they walked the earth. Nelson’s technique here, deftly executed, is to likewise write a kind of biography of Yellowstone that lets it serve as the central protagonist amid a much larger cast in a rich chronicle of this unique historical moment. A moment for the United States, no longer debased by the burden of human chattel slavery, that on the one hand had it celebrating ambitious achievements on an expanding frontier that boasted not only thriving towns and cities and industry and invention but even the remarkable triumph of posterity over profit by creating a national park and setting it aside for the benefit of all Americans. But not, on the other hand, actually for all Americans. Not for Native Americans, certainly, who at the point of the bayonet were driven away, into decades of decline. And not for African Americans, who in the national reconciliation of whites found themselves essentially erased from history and forced to live under the shadow of Jim Crow for a full century hence. Later, when the “West was Won” so to speak, both blacks and Native Americans could very well visit Yellowstone Park as tourists, but never on the same terms as their white counterparts.
Saving Yellowstone is solid history as well as a terrific adventure tale, attractive to both popular and scholarly audiences. There are times, especially early on in the narrative, that it can be slow-going, and the quantity of characters that people the storyline can be dizzying, but as the author lays the groundwork the momentum picks up. You can perhaps sense that Nelson, as a careful historian, is perhaps sometimes holding back so that the drama does not outpace her citations. But it is, after all, a grand theme, and such details only enrich it. This is the rare book that will keeping you thinking long after you have turned the last page. Oh, and for Civil War enthusiasts, I should add: it turns out that Megan Kate was absolutely correct—for both better and for worse, without the Civil War there indeed never could have been a Yellowstone Park!



Latest book review and podcast are live: Review of: Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America, by Megan Kate Nelson – Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2023/07/29/review-...

[James Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and an entertaining read. I am a little puzzled by her conclusions, but her Native American research is very solid, in my opinion. I won't go into detail because I don't want to provide any spoilers.

[DH · Rating 3 out of 5]

white men sucking their own dicks over their “discoveries” gets boring so quickly. The most interesting parts of this were the ones that focused on Indigenous and Black struggles/oppression during this time.

[Darren Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book with a well-told history. I learned a lot about the drive to explore, document and preserve the park. And the people who did it. I agree it's a bit incoherent at times, but overall it's an interesting history about a fascinating place.

[Jonathan Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant and well-researched reminder that "America's Best Idea" is irrevocably intertwined with seizure of indigenous lands and the policies of post-Civil War Reconstruction.

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of the audio book, read by Cynthia Farrell.

Parts of this book were interesting but there was a lot of it that wasn't really about Yellowstone and I felt that took away from the book.

[Kevin]

Begining Saving Yellowstone, I was skeptical of just how interested I would be in Nelson's most recent historical endeavor. I have no personal connection with Yellowstone beyond the "that would be neat to visit one day" that most Americans probably have. That said, this book and the well-researched narrative slowly drew me in.
After finishing this book, I appreciated a few key ideas:

Preservation: The American default for discussions of national parks and preservation always seems to start with Teddy Roosevelt. It is a straightforward narrative to fit into the more prominent Progressive Movement that TR is credited for championing. Nelson illustrates not only an earlier origin story here but a more complicated one. I understand the Hayden expedition as a moment when industrial era scientific inquiry paired with exploration and documentation. These early forays into the West now stand as a critical moment in my mind for institutions like the Smithsonian Museum and ideas of the American sublime.

The Ghost Dance: Nelson's East looking West perspective of Native American history is necessary here. Often we segment Native American history into a monolithic category. The scope here incorporates the Lakota into a complicated history of American expansion. I knew the history of the Ghost Dance and some of the massacres noted here, but Saving Yellowstone places them into a context I never understood before reading this book.

Reconstruction: So much of the history of the late 19th century in the United States is dominated, rightfully so, by the phases and terrors of Reconstruction. It is a pinnacle moment in American history and defining of the world that comes from Reconstruction's failures. However, that weight overshadows the other events and experiences, including the continued development of the West.

Finally, one last positive note, the final sentences of this book are perhaps some of the most thoughtful and inspired I've ever read about the American national project. Like a good novel, those last sentences brought everything together and sent my brain scrambling backward into my reading as I tied together all the ideas and concepts I'd recently read.

[Hope — bookclubberhope · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite kind of nonfiction: narrative nf that explains history in a readable way. The fact that Yellowstone was created as a national park in the almost immediate post Civil war years meant a lot was happening, and Nelson covers it all: reconstruction, the birth (and initial demise) of the Klan, the construction of the National Pacific railroad and of course, the exploration of the park itself. If you love history, this is for you!

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written more from a historical fiction point of view. Writing was very well done research very lacking.

[James (JD) Dittes · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the heart of Nelson's narrative is a geological expedition to Yellowstone in 1871 led by Francis Hayden, which took the area's natural wonders from the tall tales of trappers into the realm of science and art.

But as she did in her award-winning book, The Three-Cornered War Nelson offers a breadth of perspective that places this modest expidition in the context of a nation recovering from the Civil War while bracing for two more: the subjugation of western Native Americans and the violence in the South that brought on the end of Reconstruction and a new era of oppression of African-Americans.

While Hayden is the man credited with 'saving' Yellowstone and promoting it as America's first national park, Nelson brings two other historic figures into her narrative: the Lakota leader, Sitting Bull, whose homeland north and east of Yellowstone came under attack in these years from gold miners, the US cavalry, and Jay Cooke's Great Northern Railroad, a project that would connect Minneapolis with Seattle near the US-Canada border, and whose bankruptcy would trigger a panic that would lead to the end of Reconstruction.

There are so many threads woven into this narrative. We see President Grant trying to balance a very humane policy toward African-Americans in the South with an aggressive stance towards Native Americans. Hyper-capitalist Jay Cooke frantically tries to find buyers for his railroad bonds.

And tucked away in serene Yellowstone, Thomas Moran sketches the breathtaking painting, Canon of the Yellowstone that taught the country to embrace the park. The next year his painting and Hayden's writing would convinced Congress to set aside the park before the miners and travel-entrepreneurs could get their hands on it.

This history was wider-ranging than I expected, and those looking for a more specific history of the park may be disappointed. But I think that Nelson really puts Yellowstone's founding into a specific place & time--and connects it to our present day:

"[Yellowstone's] geysers and mudpots revealed the reality of this strange country: the United STates is both beautiful and terrible. It is both fragile and powerful. And...what lies beneath the surface in this nation is always threatening to explode."

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for this honest review.

[Miriam Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

For history and National Park lovers.

Did you know that March 1 is the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Yellowstone National Park? This slim, fast-moving history book provides a concise history of the founding of the park, the exploration of the area, politics around its founding, and the impact on the Native Americans who hunted there.

The main players are well-known politicians, artists, and surveyor/explorers from the last half of the nineteenth century. Readers will know these men (all men) and their role shaping the idea of the American West, the lands and parks, and images of the majestic landscapes. Here you’ll meet Frederick Vandeveer Hayden, US Geologist from the Smithsonian Institution and Department of the Interior (1871-) who surveys the lands from the 1850s through 1872 and beyond); Jay Cooke, investment banker selling bonds for the Northern Pacific Railroad and opening western lands to settlement and tourism; and Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapha, Lakota / Sioux who sought to expel the settlers and the US Army from the traditional hunting grounds surrounding Yellowstone. You’ll also meet William Henry Jackson - Photographer best known for his glass-plate negatives and his beautiful photographs of the west, and artist Thomas Moran who drew natural scenes and landscapes of the west.

Written in a flowing, readable style, “Saving Yellowstone” brings the country and the players to life. Best of all, the author sets events into historical and political context. Sadly, the American Indians role, particularly that Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse of the Lakota and Sioux tribes, while present in this history, are overshadowed by the role of explorers, politicians, and railroad men.

The author provides a bibliography, endnotes, and index for readers who want to dig more deeply into this complex history.

Thanks to The BookLoft of German Village (Columbus, OH) http://www.bookloft.com for an ARC to read and review

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yellowstone is my favorite National Park. That being written, I have not been to every Park in the country. I have been to several in Hawaii but have not been to Alaska. Glacier is stunning but doesn’t have the variety that Yellowstone offers. Plus Yellowstone is overwhelmingly big. If you ever get the chance to go – GO. If you have been you know what I mean.

I have also been fortunate enough to see it in three seasons; Spring, Summer and Winter. It’s a different Park dependent upon the season and each provides a different beauty. I do believe my favorite was winter and that surprises because I am not a fan of the cold. But the beauty of the snow on the landscape combined with the volcanic features is just magical.
But this is not a review of Yellowstone National Park, it’s a review of Saving Yellowstone. The book is very well researched and tells of the conflicting interests not just in saving this precious area but in the country at the time. Much like today the 1870s weren’t exactly a time of peace and unity in the nation despite the end of the Civil War.

The history of the healing nation, the Indigenous Peoples who called the land home and the soldiers who fought in the war but now were moving westward all fold into the Westward expansion and discovery – right, discovery, insert eyeroll – of this glorious natural wonder.
Thank heavens it was preserved rather than developed for we all would have lost out had it not been. Reading the story of the hows and the whys only makes me long to go back again to see this ever changing yet somehow constant place once more.

[Mark Luongo · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second experience with the author was as good , if not better, than the first.
She writes in a very readable style and her research is impeccable (You have to learn to read the Bibliography kiddies!).
Her description of the Hayden Survey of 1871 is very good and you almost feel as if you are along for the ride into the relatively unknown (at the time) Yellowstone Basin. She also weaves into the story such notables as Jay Cooke, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Moran, William Henry Jackson and Sitting Bull. In their own way all had their impact on making Yellowstone the first National Park in 1872 and on a changing America in the years of Reconstruction after the Civil War.
But she points out the incongruity of America, how on one hand we can create such a thing of beauty as a national park but on the other ignore the rights of newly free Black Americans and dispossess Native Americans of lands that rightly belonged to them.
In her last paragraph she writes:
"...Yellowstone promised to be a place that proved America's greatness by virtue of its natural wonders. But its geysers and mud pots revealed the reality of this strange country: the United States is both beautiful and terrible. It is both fragile and powerful. And that what lies beneath the surface
in this nation is always threatening to explode". (350) A prescient thought for our times.
I also appreciated the acknowledgement and thanks to all the K-12 teachers who "inspire and support students, and bring knowledge int the world". (354)

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book attempts a big picture view of several topics which have all been the subject of more narrowly focused books—the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the building of the Northern Pacific railway and westward expansion, the devastation of the people in the way of that invasion, and Reconstruction and racism in the South. It does this in part by following the lives of three men: Ferdinand Hayden, Sitting Bull, and Jay Cooke.

As someone who worked and lived in Yellowstone for a few years, I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the Hayden expedition reaching for the first time locations which I know well. Sitting Bull’s fruitless attempts to keep the invaders out of his homeland are heartbreaking. Although there is both a statue of Jay Cooke and a state park named after him within a few miles of me, I found the material about him and his financial support of the railroad less interesting.

All of those people and events did have major effects on the creation and early days of the national park. I’m less convinced that Reconstruction was relevant other than happening at the same time, showing the hypocrisy of helping one group of people while destroying another, and being another reminder of how Democrats and Republicans have largely switched their positions since the parties first formed.

The book does have a great punchline (final sentence) which returns us to the present day.

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the advance copy.

[Lorraine Herbon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a quick read—mostly because I couldn’t put it down. The story of how Yellowstone became a national park and its connection with the devastation of the plains Indians offers a fascinating glimpse into a piece of 19th history with which I was not much familiar.

My only criticism was Nelson’s inclusion of southern Reconstruction in the interwoven stories. Drawing a contrast between the initial efforts of the Grant administration to ensure the rights of the new freedpeople with the larger lack of recognition of Native peoples as citizens felt a bit shoved together. That piece could be totally lifted out, and the book might have been even better.

That said, the book still deserves all the stars. This is a book that reminds me that there are many ways to teach history. Nelson tells a really engaging story here, and she is able to draw her readers in with her beautifully crafted use of language. The use of Native names, along with their English counterparts, made it all seem so vivid. And respectful. I especially liked that.

I go back and forth with my feelings about history written for a popular audience. On one hand, I feel a little lazy if I don’t read something that is weighty with “professional” jargon. At the same time, works like this can educate more people than weighty historical tomes can ever do. You see my dilemma.

Anyway, this was a top-notch read. Highly recommend.

[Tanner Smithwick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was a miss. I was initially excited to read this book, but that excitement was shortly quelled. I’m not really sure what the author was trying to do here, but it didn’t work. The book was written as though the intended audience was a middle school history class. The prose was choppy, simplistic, and way over-detailed where it really didn’t matter. Content aside, this was a tough one to read.

Content wise, it really falls apart. It’s trying to weave together the stories of three largely unrelated men who happened to be active within their circles of influence around the same time, but in reality had little/no interaction with one another? A strange reach at best. I’m honestly not really sure what the thesis of the book was really supposed to be. Not to mention, the author was far from shy with her political bend throughout the entire book. Very on the nose about her condescending attitude towards American history and frontier expansion. While there is certainly a place for well thought criticism and honesty around a complicated and problematic time in American history, I didn’t really pick up a book that’s supposed to be about Yellowstone to be guilted on the sins of generations past.

If you’re actually interested in the history and formation of Yellowstone, pass on this one. There’s plenty out there that’s much better suited for an educational read.

[Bob Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for history buffs. This book brings together many different aspects of American life in the 1860’s and early 1870’s. Focusing on the creation of our first National Park, Yellowstone. But history is never in a vacuum. The author has researched all that is going on. She speaks about the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War, the development of the railroads across the western part of our country and how the native Americans were fighting this. She also talks of the economic climate of the late 1870’s and the effect it had on this development. But in the end, a small group of men had been given the task of surveying the Yellowstone area, looking to see if the stories of such wonders were true. They came, they saw and one had the idea to create a park and not a big hotel type tourist area, such had become of Niagara Falls and The White Mountains of NH.
Hayden, Cooke and Sitting Bull all had a tremendous role in this story. They created a model of preservation that has been copied all over the world.
It was a Republican President and Congress that did this. The Democrat politicians fought this for years more, preventing other parks from being formed, for many, many more years.
Great story, makes you want to go and travel these routes and into Yellowstone National Park.

[Vaughn · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a an active tour guide in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, I picked up this book to gain more information on the area I frequently educate people about. I was enticed by the book’s summary on the inner flap. It reads, “A narrative of adventure and exploration, Saving Yellowstone is also a story of Indigenous resistance set against the expansion of nineteenth-century technologies and the struggles of Black southerners to bring racial terrorists to justice. It reveals how the early 1870s were a turning point in the nation’s history, when white Americans abandoned ideals of equality for all people and set the stage for a more fragile and divided United States.”

While I believe this is a great idea for a book, the authors actual text fell flat. There were several times throughout the book where I was completely lost. The story jumps from the view of the indigenous people, the Hayden Expedition, Jay Cooke, and for a brief moment, the KKK in the south. There should have been more analysis from the author explaining these relationships in more detail. I was often asking myself “so what” throughout this book.

The most interesting and important chapters were the prologue and the epilogue.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I'd read this before a trek up to Yellowstone. It was short and clean and well written, but also focused more on the historical record than a thesis -- and I guess I prefer a clear, well argued thesis. Nelson HAS a thesis (see below) but spent her time telling the story of the lives of Ferdinand Hayden, Jay Cooke, and Sitting Bull. These three different men -- Hayden a surveyor and scientist, Cooke a financier, and Sitting Bull the revered Lakota leader and warrior -- all converged in the lands surrounding the Yellowstone Basin, all while the USA was determining both how to support (or abandon) Reconstruction in the South as well as how to adhere to (or abandon) treaties with the Lakota and other tribes in the plains and Rocky Mountain West. It is a fascinating convergence of three very different men, but Nelson's argument, as she makes it, is also a little tenuous. The time period is truly significant and truly tragic in many ways. Yellowstone was, in some ways, tangential to the history -- but also significant to each of the men in their own, very different, ways. I very much enjoyed learning about the surveyors whose names I know so well from my treasured maps of the West, though. An interesting read.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fewer than 200 pages, and yet it felt a bit long -- personally I didn't need all the details of the trip to survey Yellowstone. I actually enjoyed most the accounts of Grant's presidency, including his AG's prosecution of KKK members, following the declaration of emergency and suspension of habeas corpus, in South Carolina, in 1871, which as she points out was the high watermark of Federal protection of Black voting and civil rights until almost a century later.

And her central points are vital and well taken: that the establishment of this and other National Parks meant also the taking of land from indigenous people (not without resistance of course -- the accounts of Sitting Bull here are remarkable). And in fact soldiers (like Custer) were soon diverted from South Carolina, and the protection of Black rights, to the West, in service of the march of White supremacy. And also that the idea of the National Park, and the extraordinary features of Yellowstone, served to reinvigorate (in the wake of the Civil War) a sense/myth of American exceptionalism, and more specifically of white explorer heroism, scientific advancement, and progress.