Bottler's Ranch
Tuesday, August 29, 1871, from Albert Peale's journal: "This morning we packed the wagons and started for Fort Ellis. Just before we left we went up to the Ranche and took a farewell drink of milk. The Doctor, Mr. Schonborn, Jim, Charlie, Elliott, Negley, Dawes, Jackson, and Dixon went around to the [Crow] Mission with the two ambulances. The remainder of us came by the way we came up." [1]
"The second day brought them into the broad, radiant expanse of Paradise Valley, and they rode as far as the Bottlers' ranch, across the river from the Emigrant mines. All of the diarists struggled to convey the majesty of the country, the meandering river backed by the unbroken, snowcapped wall of the Absarokas, with lightning and hailstorms dancing over Emigrant Peak, broken by sudden flashes of sunlight that illuminated every crevice, gully, and sparkling stream. Hedges likened the silhouette of one mountain to a crouching bear, another to a sphinx. Hauser was lost for words; the best he could manage was 'cenery superb.'" [3]
"After the exploring team left base camp at Bottler's ranch, Hayden split it into even smaller groups that worked independently and often widely separated from each other." [4]
- Marlene Merrill, Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters, and Images from the 1871 Hayden Expedition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), pg. #178.
- Yellowstone's Photo Collection, Yellowstone National Park Archives, Yellowstone National Park, photo by W. H. Jackson, accessed February 7, 2013, http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/index.htm.
- George Black, Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2012), pg. #288.
- Merrill, Marlene. With Hayden in the Field : a Case Study Based on Unpublished Letters and Diaries from the 1871 Yellowstone Survey. 1993. Yellowstone Research Center Archives.