DEFACEMENT OF THERMAL AREAS BY VANDALS
by Frank R. Oberhansley, Junior Naturalist
Although there is no sales tax in Yellowstone Park, many of the
Rangers have developed a definite dislike for those shiny tin tokens
used in many of the states. During the season of 1937 some of the most
appealing of the beautiful hot pools and springs were repeatedly marred
by showers of the world's least important coin from perhaps equally
important persons.
It is unfortunate that a few individuals choose to deface the
remarkably sublime for countless thousands of appreciative visitors. The
removal of foreign objects from the hot pools often leaves an ugly wound
in the delicate formation that requires years to heal. Another seemingly
harmless pastime is enjoyed by many of the same type of visitor, the
practice of leaving pencilled names, dates, and addresses on the glazed
margins of pools and geysers. These graphite marks have been known to
last in some instances for fifteen years before being obliterated by the
slow deposition of geyserite.
The present generation of visitors to Yellowstone does not suffer by
comparison in this regard. The published accounts of vandalism by early
visitors are borne out by a comparison of early photographs with those
of the present day. Such noteworthy features as the cone of Old Faithful
Geyser are difficult to recognize from the earliest pictures and graphic
descriptions. It is indeed fortunate that the plumbing system of this
geyser has not been injured. Old Faithful has been subjected to the same
indignities that have resulted in the destruction of some of the other
geysers. The early visitors did not hesitate to throw logs and stones
into the orifice in order that they might witness them being hurled high
into the air at the next eruption. At various times this world famous
geyser has been made to serve as a laundry, not only for the casual
visitor but at least upon one occasion for a visiting contingent U. S.
Army whose commanding officer stated that all types of clothing were
excellently washed excepting woolen garments which were torn into shreds
when shot high into the air from the rough throat of the geyser.
During the first five years of its existence as a National Park no
money was appropriated by Congress for Yellowstone's protection.
Fortunately, access to the Park was difficult. In the beginning, pack
outfits alone were able to make the trip. When the time came for good
roads, appropriations for protection also became available.
The early visitors did not lack energy in their attacks upon the hot
spring and geyser formations. One marvels that they overlooked the
effectiveness of dynamite as compared with the possibilities of ax and
pick. In some instances complete cones in thermal areas, several feet in
height as shown by sketches of the Hayden Survey, have vanished, and
there is nothing to mark their former site.
In 1872 N. P. Langford was appointed first superintendent of
Yellowstone Park, which position he held for five years without
appropriation of money for salary or protection. As early as 1873 in a
letter to the Secretary of the Interior he observed, "The parapets of
sinter surrounding the 'Castle' and 'Old Faithful' and the symmetrical
cone of the 'Bee-Hive' have been much defaced by visitors to the Park"
(1) and stated that in a field of natural wonders so vast in extent that
it would be impossible to prevent spoilation without moneyed aid. He
even suggested that it would be far better for the government to grant
leases on the natural wonders and that the lessees to protect their own
interests would be forced to afford protection to the features within
their lease.
Observations of some of the early visitors are interesting. Captain
William Ludlow of the U. S. Army engineers in a visit to the park
observed......"The crater of Faithful is one of the most beautiful of
all. The lips are molded and rounded into many artistic forms, beaded
and pearled with opal, while closely adjoining are little terraced pools
of the clearest azure hued water, with scalloped and highly ornamented
borders. The wetted margins and floors of the pools were tinted with
most delicate shades of cream, brown and gray, so soft and velvety it
seemed as though a touch would spoil them.
"The only blemishes on this artistic handiwork had been occasioned by
the rude hand of man. The ornamental work about the crater and pools had
been broken and defaces in the most prominent places by visitors and
pebbles were inscribed in pencil with the names of great numbers of the
most undistinguished persons. Such practices should be stopped at
once......
"The geysers in the slow process of centuries probably, have built up
miracles of art, of an enduring though brittle materiel that can be
ruined in five minutes by a vandal armed with an ax and nearly all the
craters show signs of the hopeless and unrestrained barbarity of many of
their visitors. It cannot fail to fill the mind with indignation to see
the utter ruthlessness of these sacrilegious invaders of nature's
sanctuary....... To secure a specimen of perhaps a pound weight, a
hundred pounds have been shattered and destroyed, and always in those
places where the most cunning art has been displayed, and the ruin
produced is correspondingly great.
"Upon our arrival in the basin we found several persons already
encamped, and a whisky trader snugly ensconced in his 'paulin, spread in
the shelter of a thick pine. The visitors prowled around with shovel and
ax, chopping and backing and prying up great pieces of the most
ornamental work they could find; women and men alike joining in the
barbarous pastime." (2)
In describing the Turban Geyser, Ludlow states, "It is of singular
form, highly ornamented, and I experienced a pang in becoming conscious
of an apprehension that I should meet it again somewhere on exhibition.
Some visitor a little more enterprising than his predecessors, will be
sure to detach it and carry it off. Shovel and ax had been busy with the
geyser and large quantities had been removed.....While waiting (for an
eruption of the Grand Geyser) we had additional evidence of the
brutality of the average visitors, several of whom, of both sexes, were
busily chopping and prying out the most characteristic and conspicuous
ornamental work. An earnest remonstrance was followed by a sulky
suspension of hostilities, which were, however, no doubt renewed as soon
as we were out of sight.
"From every part of the Castle pieces had been chopped, loosening
great quantities of the rock and threatening to ruin the construction.
Two women with tucked up skirts and rubber shoes, armed, one with an ax,
the other with a spade were climbing about. Should this continue for
another year or two, the beauty of form and outline of the geyser would
be destroyed. It should be remembered that these craters were
constructed with the greatest slowness by almost imperceptible
additions, which can only be made by a discharge from the geyser, while
the material though hard, is very brittle and easily knocked to
pieces.
"We got back to camp just in time to prevent the fall of an up lifted
ax which a woman was evidently about to bring straight down on the
summit of the Bee-Hive, whose modest crater forms so strong a contrast
to the grandeur of its play." (2)
As Captain Ludlow was leaving the Upper Geyser Basin he describes
meeting a new group of visitors entering the basin each of whom he
estimated would carry off twenty pounds of geyser formation and destroy
five hundred.
It required fourteen years to convince Congress that military
protection was the answer to Yellowstone's needs. In his first year as
Acting Superintendent (1886) Captain Mose Harris reported, "It may be
said without exaggeration that not one of the notable geyser formations
in the park has escaped mutilation or defacement in some form. A lead
pencil mark seems to be a very harmless defacement, but names bearing
the date 1880 are still discernible through the thin deposit of silica,
and if this should go on unchecked, in a very few years these once
beautiful formations will have become unsightly and unattractive
objects.
"In the Upper Geyser Basin, names with the date of June, 1886 have
been chiseled into the solid geyserite so deep that, in the slow process
of nature, many years must elapse before this mutilation will be
obliterated. Not content with the defacement of the formations, efforts
are constantly being made to destroy the geysers themselves by throwing
into them, sticks, stones, logs of wood and all sorts of other
obstructions. The eruptive force of several of the geysers has been
totally destroyed by vandalism of this character." (3)
Old Faithful Vent and Cone from a photograph by W.H. Jackson taken in 1872.
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Captain Harris promptly placed guards in important locations and
completely revolutionized the set up in the Park. Since that day, the
damage suffered by the formations has been negligible by comparison.
It is of interest to note that 52 years after, the chiseled names
referred to by Captain Harris can still be read along with the date 1886
in the crater of the Turban Geyser.
Arnold Hague of the U. S. Geological Survey, who was a leader of
sixteen scientific expeditions into Yellowstone from 1883 to 1915,
deplored the great number of pencilled inscriptions on the geyserite. He
remarked, "The vandals who delight to inscribe their names in public
places have invaded the geyser basins in large numbers and left their
addresses upon the geyserite in various places. It is interesting to
note how quickly these inscriptions become indelible by the deposition
of the merest film of silica upon the lead pencil marks and at the same
time how slowly they build up. Names and dates known to be six and eight
years old remain perfectly legible and still retain the color and lustre
of the graphite." (4)
This practice of writing names seems to be a disease that is
difficult to cure. It in no way represents the attitude of the average
visitor. The experience of the National Park Service has proved that
education is superior to force. The average visitor quite frequently
takes things into his own hands in reporting cases of vandalism, and
occasionally forcibly intervenes on the spot when he encounters
violations.
While one regrets the early wanton destruction of natural features in
the Park, there is consolation in the fact that more natural wonders
still exist here than in any similar area on the face of the earth, and
that the people of America insist that they shall be protected
forever.
Old Faithful Geyser Cone
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from a photograph taken in 1904 |
and now - 1938! |
REFERENCES:
1. Langford, Nathaniel P. - "First Annual Report of Superintendent
for 1872."
2. Ludlow, Captain William - "Reconnaissance from Carroll, Montana to
Yellowstone Park and Return Made in the Summer of 1875." pp. 26-28.
3. Harris, Captain Mose - "Annual Report to the Secretary of the
Interior, 1886." p. 8.
4. Hague, Arnold - "Scientific Papers on Yellowstone National Park."
p. 15.