Plentywood herald., 1930-06-19

times called the Yellowstone river the
Elk river.
When the white men came into the
northwest they found the Crow Indi-
ans inhabiting the valleys Of the yell
lowstone and the Big Horn to the east
and south of the Yellowstone park.
The Blackfeet ranged to the north in
and around the headquarters of the
Missouri. Southwest OF the park region
near the Teton mountains was the
country of the BannockS and to the
southeast of the park, in the Wind
river valley, were the Shoshones.
Inhabited BY "Sheepeaters'
| The only tribe known to have per-
manently inhabited the park region
was lowly offshOot of the ShoshOnes
called "Sheepeaters," described as a
miserable group of people, unmounted.
who lived upon roots and what game
they could kill with bows and arrows
and who fled in terror from other hu-
mans, whether red or white.
| The four great Indian tribes which
lived in regions bounding what is now
Yellowstone park, sometimes travelled
through it, as was indicated by the
presence of faint trails found there by
the first men who visited the area.
They hunted there but infrequently,
however, fact which Chittenden at
tributes more to scarcity of game in
comparison to the abundance in the
outside valleys, and the fact that for
three quarters of the year the region
was snowbound, rather than to
knowledge of the geysers and hot
springs and the superstitious fear
which these phenomena created in the
aboriginal mind.
Those Indians who did know of the
geysers and the hot springs considered
them the haunt of evil spirits and gave
them wide berth, but 1t seems true
that most of the Indians were un-
aware of their existence.
The principal Indian travel through
the park at the time of and before the
visit to that section by John Golfer
in 1907, was over what was later known
as the Great Bannock TRAIL an ancient
and much travelled highway. 1t ran
from Henry lake, just below the Mon
tana line in Idaho, across the Gala
tin range into what is now the north
western part of the park and to Nam
moth Hot Springs From there it
crossed the plateau to Tower falls and
followed the valley Of the Lamar river
to Soda Butte where it fOrked one
branch leading into the Clark'S Fork
valley and the other reaching the Big
Horn valley by way of the Shoshone
river.
The wonders of Yellowstone park
were better known among the trappers
of the northwest from 1880 to 1850
than they were to the residents OF the
region during the two decades from
| 1850 to 1870 When the fur trade
waned about 1850 the discovery Of gold
| in California and later in Montana
drew interest and attention elsewhere.
The geysers and hot springs were for
gotten and those few prospectors who
saw them in their search for gold gave
them but slight attention.
John Golfers Visit
The story of Golfers visit to the
park in 1907 has been told and retold.
He had been member of the Lewis
and Clark expedition and left that
party on the Missouri In the Dakotas
to return on trapping expedition
to the Yellowstone river with two men
whom Lewis and Clark met coming
up river. The following year Golfer
left the two and started for st. Louis
alone in a log canoe, down the Missouri
river.
At the mouth of the Platte river he
met an expedition headed by Manuel
Lisa bound for the Yellowstone valley
to trap and trade for furs and was
induced to return with it. Lisa estab-'
lished a trading post on the Yellow
stone at the mouth of the Big Horn
river and dispatched Golfer to the
Grow Indians to drum up trade.
Golfer ascended the Big Horn and
Wind rivers and crossed the Wind
River range and is thought by some
of the historians to have reached the
headwaters of the Colorado in south
western Wyoming. He had in the
meantime encountered the Grow In
dians and travelled with them to Jack
sons hole at the eastern base of the
Teton mountains in wyoming, then
across the Teton pass to Pierre's hole
on the west side of the range. Here
party OF Blackfeet Indians was en-
countered and in the battle which en-
sued, Golfer, OF necessity fighting with
the Crows was wounded in the leg.