When President Roosevelt and John Burroughs arrived at Gardiner, Montana, on April 8, 1903, Yellowstone had already been a national park for over 30 years. On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses Grant signed the law that made Yellowstone a national park. It was the first national park in the United States and even in the […]

Theodore Roosevelt – “TR” to his friends, never “Teddy” – was born a city boy, but he quickly developed a fascination for nature. In part, it was because of his uncle, Robert Roosevelt, a nature writer who helped start several groups to oppose irresponsible hunting. And, in part, it was because he saw a dead […]

He was born on his family’s farm near the small town of Roxbury in New York’s Catskills, those low, green mountains where, in Washington Irving’s story, “Rip Van Winkle,” the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s men bowled to make the thunder. But Burroughs was more interested in the non-fiction writing of Henry David Thoreau, who had […]

The older man with the great white beard was just turning 66 that week in 1903; his friend was not yet 45. They had both been born in New York, but the older man was born in the Catskill Mountains, a farm boy with few comforts, while the younger man was from a wealthy family […]