Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition

Diamond City, Montana circa 1870[1]

The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition of 1869 was the first organized expedition to explore the region that became Yellowstone National Park. The privately financed expedition was carried out by David E. Folsom, Charles W. Cook and William Peterson of Diamond City, Montana, a gold camp in the Confederate Gulch area of the Big Belt Mountains east of Helena, Montana. The journals kept by Cook and Folsom, as well as their personal accounts to friends were of significant inspirational value to spur the organization of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition which visited Yellowstone in 1870.[2]

Expedition route

The party of three explorers departed Diamond City, Montana 46°35′50″N 111°25′26″W / 46.59722°N 111.42389°W / 46.59722; -111.42389 (Diamond City) on September 6, 1869 and traveled up the Missouri River to Three Forks, Montana45°53′29″N 111°33′6″W / 45.89139°N 111.55167°W / 45.89139; -111.55167 (Three Forks, MT). They then began the easterly march up the Gallatin Valley, stopping in Bozeman, Montana45°40′40″N 111°2′50″W / 45.67778°N 111.04722°W / 45.67778; -111.04722 (Bozeman, MT) for supplies on September 8, 1869. From Bozeman, they moved to the shadows of Bozeman Pass, camping four miles east of Fort Ellis. On September 10, 1869 they struck out over the pass and down Trail Creek 45°30′11″N 110°50′52″W / 45.50306°N 110.84778°W / 45.50306; -110.84778 (Trail Creek) to reach the Yellowstone River near Emigrant Gulch. They followed the river south until they entered the park region on September 13, 1869, at the confluence of the Gardner and Yellowstone rivers near present-day Gardiner, Montana44°57′15″N 110°52′03″W / 44.95417°N 110.86750°W / 44.95417; -110.86750 (Gardiner, MT). After crossing the mouth of the Gardner River, they traveled along the benches above the western side of the Yellowstone until they reached Tower Fall. At Tower Fall they forded the Yellowstone and explored the East Fork (Lamar River) and Lamar Valley probably as far as the confluence with Calfee Creek 44°46′53″N 110°06′54″W / 44.78139°N 110.11500°W / 44.78139; -110.11500 (Calfee Creek). From there, the party returned to the Yellowstone in a due West route which brought them to the area of Yellowstone Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The party continued south along the course of the Yellowstone River crossing the river twice until they reached the north shore of Yellowstone Lake near the mouth of Pelican Creek44°33′12″N 110°21′37″W / 44.55333°N 110.36028°W / 44.55333; -110.36028 (Pelican Creek). From Pelican Creek, Cook-Folsom-Peterson followed the western shoreline of Yellowstone lake closely until they reached the West Thumb area. From West Thumb, the party stuck out due West over the Continental Divide and emerged on the northernmost point of Shoshone Lake44°22′20″N 110°42′45″W / 44.37222°N 110.71250°W / 44.37222; -110.71250 (Shoshone Lake). Turning northwest, they again crossed the divide and began traveling down the Firehole River into the geyser basins. They followed the Firehole River then Madison River out of the region, exiting the current park boundary near what is now the town of West Yellowstone, Montana44°39′45″N 111°6′21″W / 44.66250°N 111.10583°W / 44.66250; -111.10583 (West Yellowstone, MT) on October 3, 1869. They followed the Madison down through Madison Canyon, emerging into familiar territory of the lower Madison River and mountains to the west around Virginia City, Montana45°17′39″N 111°56′28″W / 45.29417°N 111.94111°W / 45.29417; -111.94111 (Virginia City, MT). On the evening of October 11, 1869, Cook, Folsom and Peterson, after 36 days of travel returned to Diamond City, Montana.

Expedition chronology

Accounts of the expedition

Shortly after his return from Yellowstone, Folsom was employed as field surveyor by Henry Washburn, the Surveyor General of the Montana Territory. While in that office, Cook and Folsom shared their experiences and diaries with Washburn and W. W. deLacy, the territorial map maker. From these discussions, deLacy published an updated map of the Yellowstone region.

When the Washburn party traveled into Yellowstone in August 1870, Henry Washburn was carrying copies of the Cook and Folsom diaries and the deLacy map.

Once Folsom was back in Helena, Montana as a surveyor, his friends Nathaniel P. Langford and Samuel Thomas Hauser asked him to give a talk on the expedition to a group of prominent Helena citizens. Folsom refused to relate the experiences publicly because he thought nobody would believe him. However, those who knew Folsom well, believed him and credited him with the inspiration needed to organize the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition in 1870.

Both Cook and Folsom kept journals during the trip. Peterson did not. After the expedition, Cook combined the two journals into a single version. This version was submitted to both the New York Tribune and Scribners for publication. Both declined citing the unreliability and improbability of the information. It was finally published in a significantly edited version in the Western Monthly Magazine. In 1904, a version of the account was published in the Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana. Sometime around 1900, William Peterson wrote A Reminiscence of William Peterson which was later published in the Yellowstone Interpreter in 1964. Charles Cook lived to participate in the 50th Anniversary celebration of Yellowstone's creation in 1922. That year he authored the Reconstructed Diary of the Cook-Folsom Diary, published in the Haynes Bulletin in 1922-23. The most accurate and comprehensive account of the expedition was produced by Aubrey L. Haines, the Yellowstone National Park historian in 1965 when he produced The Valley of the Upper Yellowstone which was masterfully reconstructed from all the previous fragmented accounts.[3]

Names given to park features

The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition did not name any park features discovered during the expedition that have persisted to the present day. In their journals they did refer to many features incorrectly (based on incomplete or inaccurate maps made from previous accounts), thus causing some confusion that had to be sorted out by later explorations and surveys. One name that took a few years to sort out was Madison Lake, the small pond that is the headwater of the Firehole River. In some accounts, Shoshone Lake was actually referred to as Madison Lake because many believed Shoshone Lake was at the headwater of the Madison River drainage[4]

Park features named in honor of expedition members

Members of the expedition

Images of expedition members
David E. Folsom[5] 
C.W. Cook[5] 
C.W. Cook and William Peterson, dt unk 
William Peterson and his wife, circa 1890 
C.W. Cook and Horace Albright, 1922 

Additional reading

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Clark, W. A. (1903). "Montana, Her Past, Present and Future". Contributions to the Montana Historical Society. IV: 80.
  2. ↑ Cook, Charles W.; Folsom, Dave E.; Peterson, William (1965). Haines, Aubrey L., ed. The Valley of the Upper Yellowstone-An Exploration of the Headwaters of the Yellowstone River in the Year 1869. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
  3. ↑ Scott, Kim Allen (Winter 1999). "A Missing Piece of a Yellowstone Puzzle: The Tangled Provenance of the Cook-Folsom-Peterson Yellowstone Expedition Diary" (PDF). Yellowstone Science. 7 (1): 12–17. Retrieved 2014-10-11.
  4. ↑ Haines, Aubrey L. Yellowstone Place Names-Mirrors of History. Niwot, Colorado: University of Colorado Press. pp. 70–72. ISBN 0-87081-383-8.
  5. 1 2 Langford, Nathaniel Piit (1905). The Discovery of Yellowstone Park--Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870. St Paul, MN: Frank Jay Haynes.
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