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Washburn-Langford-Doane September 5, 1870 Campsite

Park Point or “Cornelian Beach” Campsite

Historic Campsite on Washburn-Langford-Doane Route, 5E8 Campsite Spur Trail, Thorofare Trail in Yellowstone NP, Rocky Mountains near Lake Village, WY

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Washburn-Langford-Doane September 6, 1870 Campsite

Washburn-Langford-Doane September 3-4, 1870 Campsite

On the eve of September 4th expedition members voted to travel clockwise around Yellowstone Lake, with only Jake Smith and Samuel Hauser voting no. Smith and Hauser would have taken the counter clockwise route along the lake that the Folsom-Cook-Peterson Expedition had taken last fall.

Washburn had earlier scouted the beginnings of a route along the east shore. After about 15 miles of weaving between the shoreline and game trails in the timber, the expedition camped near Park Point.

Hedges, again intrigued by the geology along Yellowstone Lake’s shoreline, penned.

But in many respects the most singular beach was opposite our second camp, named by us “Cornelian Beach,” from the many fine specimens of these stones found here. But what attracted my attention still more was a portion of the beach composed of stones as large and round as cannon balls, nearly all appearing of uniform size. The material seemed to be a dark red sandstone. A little further on the size diminishes to that of canister and grape shot. I have no recollection of having seen anything similar in my life. It looked like the abandoned stores of some Cyclopean arsenal.

— Hedges “Yellowstone Lake”

Further Research and Reading

Scott, K.A. Yellowstone Denied: The Life of Gustavus Cheyney Doane. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.

Sources

Cramton, Louis C. Early History of Yellowstone National Park and Its Relation to National Park Policies. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1932. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yell/cramton/index.htm.

Doane, Gustavus Cheyney. Letter from the Secretary of War, Communicating the Report of Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane upon the so-Called Yellowstone Expedition of 1870. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1873. http://archive.org/details/letterfromsecret1873unit.

Everts, Truman C. “Thirty-Seven Days of Peril.” Scribner’s Monthly, November 1871. http://archive.org/details/scribnersmonthly31newy.

Haines, Aubrey L. “Yellowstone National Park: Its Exploration and Establishment,” 1974. http://npshistory.com/handbooks/historical/yell/haines/index.htm.

Hedges, Cornelius. “Journal of Judge Cornelius Hedges.” In Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana, 1904 Edition. Vol. 5. Helena, MT: Independent Publishing Company, 1876. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Contributions_to_the_Historical_Society/yt4UAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1.

Hedges, Cornelius. “Yellowstone Lake.” Helena Daily Herald, November 9, 1870, in Cramton, Louis C. Early History of Yellowstone National Park and Its Relation to National Park Policies. Appendix K. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yell/cramton/appk.htm.

Langford, N. P. “The Wonders of the Yellowstone.” Scribner’s Monthly, May 1871. http://archive.org/details/scribnersmonthly02newy.

Langford, N. P. “The Wonders of the Yellowstone.” Scribner’s Monthly, June 1871. http://archive.org/details/scribnersmonthly02newy.

Langford, Nathaniel Pitt. Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870. St. Paul, Minn., [c1905]. http://archive.org/details/diaryofwashburne00langrich. However, Langford’s “Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870” or “The Discovery of Yellowstone National Park” material, which was published 35 years after the expedition, and used bearing that in mind.

Trumbull, Walter. “The Washburn Yellowstone Expedition.” The Overland Monthly, 1871. California State Library. http://archive.org/details/overlandmonthly06hart.