Walter Trumbull was the son of Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois. In 1870, Trumbull was part of an expedition that ventured into the Yellowstone region to determine whether prior questionable reports of a very strange world were true.  Montana Surveyor General Henry Dana Washburn led what became known as the 1870 Washburn Expedition.  Although this group of men did not discover Yellowstone, they did bring it to the nation's attention.  One and one-half years later, Congress created Yellowstone as the world's first national park.  Trumbull's account of the adventure, one of the lesser known accounts, appeared in The Overland Monthly in the late spring of 1871.  Following is Trumbull's account.

Trumball's Journal of the 1870 Washburn Expedition
 

Yellowstone Net is Produced by Bruce Gourley, Russ Finley,  & Tim Gourley.
Copyright 1997-2005 by Bruce Gourley.