Right now there’s a tree frozen up in the wilderness outside of Yellowstone National Park with names scrawled into the trunk. The vandals? A survey crew stranded in a snowstorm 132 years ago.
“Probably out of boredom, more than anything else, they carved their names,” said historian Lawrence Todd, a Colorado State University emeritus professor who lives in Meeteetsee.
Some 340 miles away, a tentative new home awaits the cultural artifact. Wyoming State Museum Director Kevin Ramler has already selected the place to display the hulking piece of history, which has become a source of debate in the State Capitol.
If extricated from the wilderness, the tree would go to a wing of the museum that pays tribute to Wyoming’s spectacular federal lands — all 30-plus million acres, owned by all Americans, even amid renewed hostility toward the very concept.
Surveyors marked up the historically significant tree while mapping out the Yellowstone Forest Reserve, which preceded the Shoshone National Forest.
“Telling the story of Wyoming, that’s the first national forest,” Ramler said during a January tour of the tree’s likely new home. “We have some stuff tied to the first national park [Yellowstone] … but we don’t have a lot of artifacts to tell the story of the first national forest.”
The tree engraved in all caps by P.M. GALLAHER, J.L. DORSH, C.L. SAWYER AND J.E. SHAW and others on Oct. 3, 1893 “is an opportunity,” the museum director said.
Inscribed just 21 years after Yellowstone’s establishment and three years after Wyoming gained statehood, the tree is a reminder of some of the earliest efforts to “reserve” forestland rather than harvest it all.
There’s also a detailed historical record, thanks in part to the efforts of Todd, who’s published his research about the tree. He even dug up field notes that Phillip M. Gallaher jotted during an extended stretch of inclement weather when carving up a tree must have seemed compelling.
“A heavy snow storm prevailed during the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th of October without interruption day or night, rendering it impossible to take a sight or do any work,” Gallaher journaled. “During this time I camped on the head of a small stream about ½ mile south of the flag at Sta. K, at an altitude of 10,500 feet. The snowfall at this time was in the neighborhood of 5 ft.”
But displaying even a section of the tree in the Cheyenne museum will require a heavy lift and not everyone is a fan of the plan.
For one, recovering it won’t come easy. It’s about 28 miles from the nearest trailhead just outside of Yellowstone National Park’s boundary. The conifer grove where Gallaher, Dorsh, Sawyer and Shaw became stranded sits near the banks of Younts Creek within what’s known as the Thorofare, famous for its extraordinary remoteness and wildness.
It’s a familiar and beloved place for many backcountry travelers, including John Winter, a former Thorofare outfitter and current Republican state representative from Thermopolis.
There’s also the expense to consider. On Wednesday, Winter stood on the House floor and encouraged his budget-slashing Wyoming Freedom Caucus counterparts to make a relatively small investment — $35,000 — to recover a section of the survey tree. Sen. Larry Hicks, a Baggs Republican, made the same pitch the same day across the Capitol in the Wyoming Senate.
“It’s part of the cultural history of the United States of America and part of the history of this state,” Hicks said. “You will not find another tree in this state with an inscription from 1893 that’s still standing today. Folks, it’s 132 years old.”
Hicks also imparted a history lesson, recounting how Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act, extending the forest boundaries around Yellowstone National Park in 1891. Two years later, the federal government contracted with Gallaher to measure and map the new boundary.
Todd, the Meeteetse historian, has visited the tree and recognized that it’s threatened by wildfire, or of toppling over from decay.
“It’s an amazing record that’s in danger,” he said.
Although supportive of the effort to preserve it, he wants to see the job done correctly, which would require a “lot of planning.”
“Being an archeologist that’s interested in data, rather than just objects, I would say removing it without doing more detailed documentation on the site would also put it in danger,” Todd said. “It’d be almost like stealing an arrowhead from a site on public land.”
I would say removing it without doing more detailed documentation on the site would also put it in danger. It’d be almost like stealing an arrowhead from a site on public land.”
larry todd
There are also bureaucratic hurdles. Extracting objects using mechanical equipment like a chopper is not ordinarily permitted in federally managed wilderness and requires a “minimum requirements analysis.” Non-emergency helicopter flights into the wilderness can spark controversy: That was the case when the Bridger-Teton National Forest replaced the Hawks Rest Bridge, also in the Thorofare.
Cody outfitter and former Park County Commissioner Lee Livingston is heading up the outreach to the Shoshone National Forest to get authorization. Federal officials, he said, would prefer that the helicopter that long-lines the tree section do so “without a skid touching the ground.”
Livingston also plans to pack in a string of laborers and specialists on horseback to use chainsaws and prep the tree for extraction.
“I just think it’s very important,” he told WyoFile. “We need to get it out of there before it rots away.”
Whether that happens anytime soon will depend in part on the Wyoming Legislature.
Influential players within the majority-holding Wyoming Freedom Caucus urged a no vote in response to Winter’s $35,000 budget request on the House floor.
“I’m not opposed to the concept, I just don’t know if it’s something we need to bring at this point in time,” Wheatland Republican Rep. Jeremy Haroldson said. “Hopefully next year, we will bring this as something in our budget. I think it’d be sweet if I could even be part of the team going up in there to get it down.”
But Winter, who is also aligned with the Freedom Caucus, prevailed during the second reading of his budget amendment. The House voted 40-21 to put some money toward recovering the tree. Down the hall, the Wyoming Senate did the same, voting in favor of the investment 22-6.
“This is critical,” Devils Tower Republican Sen. Ogden Driskill said in support of Hicks’ amendment. “It’s a bug tree, and I think it’s time. We need to get it out. This is our history. This is a good spend of state money.”
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