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Mount Humphreys

General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys

Mountain in Shoshone NF, Washakie Wilderness, Rocky Mountains near Lake, WY

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Today’s Mount Humphreys is an Absaroka Range peak on the eastern border of Yellowstone National Park between Mount Schurz and Eagle Peak.

However, Turret Mountain south of Table Mountain seems to be the original Mount Humphreys named by Captain J. W. Barlow who helped escort F. V. Hayden on his infamous 1871 Yellowstone Expedition. General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys was the Army’s Chief of Engineers who provided the federal funding outfitting Barlow’s military escort into Yellowstone aiding the effort to understand and create Yellowstone National Park in 1872.

Henry Gannett reporting to Hayden on his 1878 USGS Yellowstone Survey could not physically identify Barlow’s designated Mount Humphreys and subsequently the name somehow migrated to the current mapped location (Gannett in Hayden Report 1878, 483; Haines vol. 1 1996, 350 note 141; Whittlesey 2006, 179):

Some of the earlier maps represent a peak in this neighborhood marked as Mount Humphreys, but I have been unable to identify it. (Gannett in 1878)

— Gannett

Photographs

Mount Humphreys (left) and Mount Schurz (right) viewed from northeast above Eagle Creek drainage, Jacob W. Frank (NPS) photograph above.

Mount Humphreys and Trappers Creek headwaters, Jacob W. Frank (NPS) photograph above.

Sources

Chittenden, Hiram Martin. Yellowstone National Park. Cincinnati: The Robert Clarke Company, 1895. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42112/42112-h/42112-h.htm.

Haines, Aubrey L. The Yellowstone Story: A History of Our First National Park. Revised. Vol. 1. Boulder CO: Yellowstone Association for Natural Science, History & Education, 1996.

Hayden, Ferdinand Vandeveer. “Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories: A Report of Progress of the Exploration in Wyoming and Idaho for the Year 1878.” Annual Report Part 2. Washington D.C., 1883. Biodiversity Heritage Library. biodiversitylibrary.org/item/103208#page/9/mode/1up.

“Mount Humphreys (Wyoming).” In Wikipedia, October 19, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mount_Humphreys_(Wyoming)&oldid=1252124141.

Whittlesey, L.H. Yellowstone Place Names. Second. Wonderland Publishing Company, 2006.