Foundation for a Park: Explorer and Geologist Bailey Willis in the Area of Glacier National Park

Abstract

From 1855 to 18QS the Blackfoot Indian Reservation extended to the Continental Divide, which the Blackfeet called the Backbone of the World. At the urging of American naturalist George Bird Grinnell, the Blackfeet sold the land between the present eastern boundary of Glacier National Park and the divide to the United States for $1.5 million. Despite his misgivings about it, Grinnell believed the sale would provide the best owner for the land. I The Blackfeet had even more misgivings, but acquiesced since illegal prospectors had brought them stories of alleged mineral wealth, so they believed they would ultimately lose the land anyway. The purchased land , known as the Ceded Strip, became part of the Lewis and Clark Forest Reserve. Preserving the land was not the government's motivation for acquiring the eight hundred thousand acres from the Blackfeet tribe; the purpose was to open the land to prospecting , and the government opened it to legal pro specting in 1898. Nevertheless, for the preceding ten years there had been sentiment favoring placing Bailey Willis, ca. 1902, photographer unknown. Photo courtesy of the photo library, United States GeologicalSurvey Earth Science Information Center, Denver, Colorado. the mountainous area east of the divide under some kind of reserved status. Lieutenant John T. Van Orsdale in 1883 recommended that the area be made a national park. He expressed concern for the forests and the water of the three river systems that the area encompassed. Grinnell, whose attraction to the Glacier area began in 1885, at the early stages was more interested in preserving the water resources than in establishing a national park. But by 1901 he began to lean toward a more protective status for the lands. The pressure James J. Hill and his son Louis Hill of the Great Northern Railroad brought to bear was perhaps of greater