Book description
In the late 1850s many of the most striking places in Wyoming, Idaho,
and Montana had not yet been surveyed by any government expedition.
This book brings to life the expedition that first explored these
regions. As the last major government survey of the American West
before the Civil War, the Raynolds Expedition began in 1859. This
highly readable daily journal of Captain William F. Raynolds,
previously unpublished, covers the most challenging period of that
expedition, from May 7 to July 4, 1860. It describes what the Raynolds
party did and saw while traveling from its winter quarters near
today's Glenrock, Wyoming, up to the head of the Wind River, through
Jackson Hole, and on to the Three Forks of the Missouri in
southwestern Montana. The party included legendary mountain man Jim
Bridger, geologist Ferdinand Hayden, and artists Anton Schönborn and
James Hutton, among the first to depict the Teton Range.
Historians, travelers, and outdoor enthusiasts will welcome this
important addition to the literature of western exploration.
Marlene Deahl Merrill is an affiliate scholar at Oberlin College and
the editor of two books on the 1871 Yellowstone Expedition. Daniel D.
Merrill is professor emeritus of philosophy at Oberlin College.
