George Bird Grinnell

Date Range

1885-01-01/1910-01-01

Title

George Bird Grinnell

What occurred

Notably the most important person in the development of Glacier National Park is George Bird Grinnell. Grinnell was from New York, and traveled to the park on a hunting trip in 1885. He saw the sublimity and beauty of the landscape, similar to Pinchot and Roosevelt. From his many visits, he experienced, learned from, and became familiar with the lifestyle of the Blackfeet tribe. He informed the magazines that were publishing his writing in his journals that the mountains were completely uninhabited, and there were animals to hunt roaming freely everywhere. In reality, however, the Blackfeet and other surrounding tribes were struggling because the game they relied on was rapidly being hunted for recreation. While he advocated tremendously to conserve the mountains and lakes of the park, he wanted government control. He was a conservationist, like Roosevelt, Pinchot, Muir, and Cole, but he valued the perception and recreation of the land more than the home it was for the Natives.

Location

Glacier National Park, Montana

Image Citation

https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/historyculture/people.htm

Student name(s)

Sofia Barth