The history of this park is involved in a good deal of mystery.  About ninety years ago it was first discovered, but the information brought back to civilization by the explorers was apparently so exaggerated that it excited general ridicule.  No one believed that the wonders described really existed.  Even later, when corroborative evidence was forthcoming, skepticism continued.  It was almost as difficult then to make people believe the truth about the hot springs and geysers, as it is now to make people believe that it is possible for a man to stand on the edge of a hot spring, catch the choicest kind of fish in the cool waters of the lake surrounding him, and then cook his fish in the boiling water of the spring without taking it off the hook, or walking a single step.

This latter fish story has the peculiar feature of being true.  Several reliable men, including some who have not allowed the ardent pursuit of Isaac Walton’s pet pastime to blunt their susceptibility of veracity, have performed this apparently impossible feat, or have seen it done right before their very eyes.  A year or so ago, when an appropriation was asked for in Congress for the further preservation of Yellowstone Park, a member made this extraordinary possibility an argument in support of his plea.  A roar of laughter succeeded his recital, and when the orator stopped to explain that he was merely recording an actual fact and not telling a fish story, there seemed to be danger of wholesale convulsion within the legislative walls.  Several of the amused Congressmen subsequently made inquiries and ascertained to their astonishment that, instead of exaggeration, the half had not been told, and that if a full summary of the attractions of Yellowstone Park were to be written, the immense shelves of the Congressional Library itself would scarcely hold the books that would have to be written to contain it.

This little divergence is to afford an excuse for the incredulity of our forefathers, who made sarcastic remarks as to the powers of wild Western whisky, when pioneers returned from the Rocky Mountains and told them that there existed away up in the clouds an immense natural park, where beauty and weirdness could be found side by side.

John Colter, or Coulter, is said to have been the first white man who ever entered the natural portals of this glorious park.  It was in the early days of the century that this remarkable man had his adventure.  He was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which was sent out to explore the sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers.  He was naturally an adventurer, and a man who had no idea of the meaning of the word “danger.”  The party had a glimpse of Yellowstone Park, and Coulter was so enamored with the hunting prospects that he either deserted from the expedition party or obtained permission to remain behind.