{"id":6578,"date":"2015-05-16T12:29:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T18:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=6578"},"modified":"2015-05-16T12:29:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T18:29:07","slug":"author-tells-of-womens-visits-to-early-yellowstone-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/05\/author-tells-of-womens-visits-to-early-yellowstone-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Author tells of women’s visits to early Yellowstone Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bear\"<\/a>

Pioneer Museum of Bozeman<\/p>

A woman feeds a bear during an early visit to Yellowstone National Park. This practice is rather frowned upon these days.<\/p><\/div>\n

CODY, WYO. \u2014 Any visit to Yellowstone National Park comes with at least some sense of adventure. And packing the car for even a short family trip through the park can be a logistical challenge. But the next time you\u2019re flummoxed by packing for a Yellowstone weekend in the RV with the kids, consider Eleanor Corthell.<\/p>\n

Corthell spent two months in Yellowstone in the summer of 1903. With her seven children. Traveling by horse-drawn wagon. Camping out the entire time.<\/p>\n

Writing about her trip, Corthell recalled\u00a0that her husband, a prominent attorney in Laramie, Wyoming, \u201coffered strenuous objection, of course, to the crazy project, but could only fizz and fume and furnish the wherewithal.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Corthell\u2019s trip through Yellowstone may sound adventurous by today\u2019s standards, it\u2019s hardly unique, according to M. Mark Miller, who has researched and republished a range of compelling firsthand accounts from early park travelers.<\/p>\n

In fact, women were among the first visitors to Yellowstone when it was established as a park in 1872. And a mother and father took their 6-year-old daughter through the park on horseback in 1874, said Miller, who will discuss women\u2019s early travels in the park on Wednesday in Cody.<\/p>\n

Miller is the author of “Adventures in Yellowstone” and “The Stories of Yellowstone,” <\/a>two books that collect stories of early park visitors. Based in Bozeman, Miller speaks frequently on early travel in Yellowstone, and has written for Big Sky Journal and Montana Quarterly, as well as being a regular contributor to Yellowstone Gate.<\/p>\n

His May 20 presentation at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West<\/a> will focus on women\u2019s adventures in early Yellowstone, including details of Corthell\u2019s trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen were in the park very early,\u201d Miller said. \u201cInitially in my research, I was a little surprised by that. Because the park in its first years was truly a roadless wilderness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Most of Yellowstone\u2019s first visitors were groups of adventurous men. But as roads, hotels and other improvements were made, women and families visited the park in increasing numbers, Miller said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of these women who were early visitors would have come across the prairie in covered wagons or on a steamboat up the Missouri (River),\u201d he said. \u201cSo spending a few nights camping outdoors was not a big deal for them. And the park was something they really wanted to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes women like 21-year-old Alice Richards, the daughter of Wyoming Gov. William Richards. She toured the park in 1898 as a guest of The Yellowstone National Park Transportation Company, which was seeking publicity by hosting prominent visitors.<\/p>\n

Richards brought three girlfriends on the trip, but didn\u2019t have an older chaperone, Miller said\u2014a mildly scandalous issue at the time that now seems quaint.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlice\u2019s story also offers a contrast between Western girls and the snobbish visitors from the East,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Writing of her trip, Richards said that \u201ceverything went smoothly, we all behaved as well as if we had been chaperoned\u2014perhaps better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first few days, the other tourists were inclined to be critical,\u201d Richards wrote. \u201cBut when (the Easterners) could find nothing to really criticize, they one and all decided that Western girls were pretty nice people after all.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you go\u2026<\/h5>\n

M. Mark Miller will present Sidesaddles and Geysers: Women\u2019s Adventures in Early Yellowstone during the Buffalo Gals Luncheon at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody on Wednesday, May 20, 11:45 a.m. \u2013 1 p.m. For tickets and details, call 307-578-4008.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Ruffin Prevost at 307-213-9818 or ruffin@yellowstonegate.com. Reprinted with permission from YellowstoneGate.com<\/a>,\u00a0an\u00a0independent, online news service about Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and their gateway communities.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CODY, WYO. \u2014 Any visit to Yellowstone National Park comes with at least some sense of adventure. And packing the car for even a short family trip through the park can be a logistical challenge. But the next time you\u2019re flummoxed by packing for a Yellowstone weekend in the RV with the kids, consider Eleanor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":6579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2494,119,2072],"class_list":["post-6578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversions","tag-m-mark-miller","tag-yellowstone-national-park","tag-yellowstonegate-com","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}