Item #4151 [A letter describing Yellowstone National Park]. George Ely.
[A letter describing Yellowstone National Park].

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[A letter describing Yellowstone National Park].

Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, 22 May 1883. 4to, 2 pp.

An evocative letter describing some of the wonders of Yellowstone, written just a little over a decade after the region was first extensively explored and designated a National Park.

Writing from Mammoth Hot Springs, Ely notes that he has arrived, having traveled 800 miles from Fargo to Livingston [Montana Territory] by rail, then some 65 miles to the National Park by wagon. An early tourist, he marvels at the road development in the region as well as Yellowstone’s famed hot springs:

Much to my surprise the Common Country Roads are excellent, and the Park’s are also good, but not least—The great spring here is of wonderful dimensions, and of great variety of waters, and the stories heard about here of the many restorations to health by their application are numerous and almost marvelous, but I am satisfied are not in the least exaggerated.

Ely observes that the “Great Lake” is 65 miles away, “the Wonderful Geysers” a few miles less, and hotels either planned or under construction:

At each of these great points of attraction hotel[s] will in time be erected. The one being put up here is 4 stories 412 long 60 wide with two wings each 252 x 54 same height. So you can see it is a pretty big building. It cannot all be finished for use this summer.

He reports visiting the “East Falls of the Gardiner” [today’s Undine Falls], a “very pretty fall, 8500 elevation above the sea,” where he and a companion are caught in snow and rain showers. Referring to the many mountains that populate the Park, Ely writes:

I have no part of the world to compare with this for mountains. One never seems to get to the highest one. Go to it and at your very side, as it were, there is still another above you.

Ely describes the weather patterns, it being the rainy season at present, but still with many fine days and “the air so clear one can see 150 miles,” to be followed by three dry months. The highest mountain roads, he notes, are not yet free of snow, making travel to the Lake and Geysers “a rough trip on horseback,” which he may take in spite of his reservations.

A note in the Congressional Record for 1882 names one George Ely of Lyme, Connecticut as a director of the Yellowstone National Park Improvement Company. We have been unable to determine if this is the same George Ely.

CONDITION: Very good, old folds.

Item #4151

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