Early History of Yellowstone National Park and its Relation to National Park Policies
Crampton LC. 1932. Early History of Yellowstone National Park and its Relation to National Park Policies. U. S. Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C.
As a part of the study of national park policies which I have been making in cooperation with your Service by direction of the Secretary, I have, at your suggestion, made considerable study of the early history of Yellowstone National Park. This study has to do chiefly with the early exploration, the passage of the act of March 1, 1872, authorizing the park, and the protracted and constant struggle for its proper administration, protection, and development. During that period of time, there was fought out in the Congress of the United States and gradually crystallized in the Nation that fairly definite code of policies which now obtains in the administration of the national parks and monuments under your charge. The history of the first quarter century of Yellowstone National Park is in fact the history of the development of our present national park policies. Some of these policies are so universally concurred in that it does not occur to us now that they ever could have been questioned. Others, not so universally accepted, have become thoroughly established as our national policy in connection with the areas under your administration through the trials of Yellowstone.