The First Explorer of Yellowstone
Batman or Superman? Drake or Kendrick Lamar? MJ or LeBron?
There are many ‘who is better?’ controversies in our day. Among the great controversies of our time is one that should not be overlooked—who was the first great explorer of Yellowstone?
There are two main candidates: John Colter and Daniel Trotter Potts. Let’s dig into the evidence for each.
John Colter
John Colter got his mountain man start as part of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1804. As the corps returned in 1806, Colter apparently felt more at home in the Wild West, as he returned to the wilderness of the western United States even before returning home.
He helped build Fort Raymond in Montana, and here’s where things get a bit foggy. In order to establish trade with the Crow tribe, he traveled hundreds of miles in the dead of winter, apparently exploring Yellowstone in 1808 in the process. How he scouted an unfamiliar frozen landscape and survived is still a bit of a mystery and anyone’s guess, since it can be one of the coldest places in the United States (if you’ve ever stayed at Flat Creek Inn during the winter months, you know this).
It’s controversial that Colter passed through Yellowstone because there was no contemporaneous record kept, but it’s generally believed due to his descriptions of the area (disbelief of his descriptions of steaming hot water shooting out of the ground earned the area the nickname of “Colter’s Hell”), maps with Colter’s route later created by William Clark (yes, the Clark from the expedition), and a stone carved in the shape of a head with Colter’s name on it found in an Idaho farmer’s field in 1931 (also controversial due to its lack of authentication).
Daniel Trotter Potts
For Daniel Pott’s case, he described the Yellowstone area in a letter to his brother in 1826, without controversy. A detailed account can be found in the book The First Known Man in Yellowstone, written by the late husband of the current owner of Flat Creek, Jerry Bagley. Copies can often be found at the inn (as well as on Amazon).
Of course, whether it matters whether Colter or Potts was the first explorer of Yellowstone isn’t entirely consequential since peoples had been inhabiting the area for millennia, though the two did add much to the rest of the world’s knowledge of the area. Yellowstone would become the first national park in the United States and the world only 46 years after Potts’ visit in 1872.
Photo by Judy Beth Morris on Unsplash
Dillon grew up near Jackson Hole, being taken by his family to nearby national parks so often he took it for granted. It took the rigors of life to teach him how good he had it, and he now spends as much time in the mountains as possible.
