The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1924-08-28
DISCOVERER OF
THE YELLOWSTONE
PARK TELLS OF TRIP
WAS FIRST WHITE MAN TO SEE
WONDROUS BEAUTY OF THE
YELLOWSTONE CANYON
Charles w. Cooke of White Sulphur
Springs, ModestIy Tells of Thrill
ing Experiences Which Accompan-
led The Discovery Expedition.

Over in White Sulphur Springs
lives an old man. He is tall, spare,
bearded man, whose eye, despite
So years, is bright, and whose
frame is still erect. The marks life
has left upon him are like the writ
ings of time upon the mountains
they have traced upon his coun-
tenance the record of a strong
mans life, softened and mellowed
now by age.
But there is nothing about this old
man, living simply there among his
neighbors to set him apart from them
or to distinguish him as a person of
note. Fame has not paused by his
humble home, to point him out to the
throngs of his countrymen who hurry
past. 1t is often that way with these
old timers.
To the home of this old man, the
other day, came two others, in the
manner of men making a pilgrimage
to see a parsonage. They were busy
men, whirled along On the rapid
stream of today, but they pulled away
form the swift current into the quiet
backwater where this old man lives.
They did this because they wanted to
shake his hand, to give him, while he
lives, the assurance that there are
some who accord him that honor.
These two men were Stephen T..
Mather, director of the national park
service, and H. M. Albright, superin-
tendent of Yellowstone National park
two fairly busy men these days,
when Yellowstone and other national
parks are in the midst of their biggest
season. On their way to Yellowstone
from an engagement in Great Falls,
they stopped at White Sulpher to see
the old man.
They found him milking his cow.
They shook his hand. In these hand
clasps the past and the present of
Yellowstone park met.
Steer Saves Lives.
1t was the summer of 1864. A party
of young men with a herd of cattle
from the Little Missouri had come
into the Montana country. Their trail
was barred by a scalping party of In
dians, from whose belts dangled the
still dripping scalps of white men.
The Indians councilled on the fate
of this little group of cattlemen.
Some we're in favor of adding their
to the dripping belts, their cat
tie to the Indian herds. But most of
the warriors were stated with killing.
. queer notion took them. They Of
in exchange for one steer from
the white mems herd, to let the lit
tie party go free. And so, for a steer !,
life was bought. F.,
In those days the gold fever was Z
high in Montana. The cattle bust +
ness was beginning. The Indians ;
we're many and hostile. 1t was a :
wild and stirring time. +
Stories came of a great country at ;,
he headwaters of the Snake, Wind =
Yellowstone rivers, where boil !
ng water spouted from the earth to =
he height of the f1agpole at Vir- .
,inia City-a full sixty feet-of a ?
marvellous lake lying in a high =
mountain bowl; of boiling springs ~
nd smoking mountains, or rivers :,
whose bottoms were warm, of won =
waterfalls that dropped over -
precipices into deep chasms 2
olored with the war paints of a hun :,
red Indian tribes. q;
Mostly these stories were not be- y
Ieved. Jim Bridger, the old noun =.
hunter and trapper, had told =,
f them. Now Bridger was account
a great liar in a day of wondrous
ars, and he vas not believed by "
lany people at any time. And yet I
len wondered and some determined
} go and see. g,
Braves Dangers. ~
Several efforts to send an expedi- u
into the Yellowstone failed, in DIS
lie period from 1867 to 1869, be- III
fuse of fear of the Indians. But in III
le summer of 1869, Charles w. OF
ook and David E. Folsom, with a XII
.nch hand named Peterson, declin-
g to be deferred longer by the tim "a
ity of others, plunged into the un- 10
wilderness. an
Three men and five horses, they IN
t out up the Yellowstone river from IN
ort Ellis, neal Bozeman, Montana les
Their way lay through co
timber, and was crossed by ae
reams roaring through deep can pu
ms. Many times they had to work WI
cir way to the headwaters of these Sue
cams and then down the other
lie to the river again, but they al