The traditional Memorial Day weekend season opener in Yellowstone is underway and tomorrow is Memorial Day. I eschew the parades and have fished the Firehole every Memorial Day for the last 17 years and vividly remember the first time I fished the Firehole on Memorial Day back in 1972. Over the years I’ve learned to avoid the Firehole on Saturday and Sunday of the opening weekend as it’s a zoo of over eager and many incompetent anglers. By Memorial Day Monday the crowds dissipate a bit and an early start can bring some real solitude on this fabled river.
When I first started fishing the park in 1972 I was essentially oblivious to its history, particularly the period of time when it was administered by the US Army—1884-1917. Poaching, vandalism and careless campfires threatened this beautiful park in its early decades. The Department of the Interior proved incapable of protecting the park and the US Army was tasked to administer the park which started a three decade period where the park developed into pretty much what we experience today. They established the backbone of rules and discipline that govern the park experience to this day. They built Fort Yellowstone which became the park headquarters and still stands functional today at Mammoth.
As anglers, we owe a great debt of gratitude to one of those early soldiers— Captain Frazier Augustus Boutelle.
Captain Boutelle was the park superintendent in 1889-1891 was also an avid angler. In 1889 he initiated the effort to populate fishless Yellowstone waters with this request to the U.S. Fisheries Commission:
Besides the beautiful Shoshone and other smaller lakes, there are hundreds of miles of as fine streams as any in existence without a fish of any kind. I have written Col. Marshall McDonald, U.S. Fish Commission, upon the subject, and have received letters from him manifesting a great interest. I hope through him to see all of these waters so stocked that the pleasure-seeker in the Park can enjoy fine fishing within a few rods of any hotel or camp.
— Acting Superintendent's Report, 1889, Captain Frazier Augustus Boutelle
Although Boutelle served in the US Army from the Civil War through WWI and retired as Brigadier General, his two years as the superintendent of Yellowstone helped provide lifetimes of precious memories for Yellowstone anglers.
Protecting the park from poachers, vandals and careless campers wasn’t always easy and at least 14 soldiers died in the park during the Army’s administration. It was particularly dangerous and lonely duty in the frigid winter months at remote patrol cabins and swollen rivers during spring floods. When you fish the Firehole or other park waters on Memorial Day or any other day for that matter, you should remember the fallen who gave their lives in the service of Yellowstone National Park.
- Sgt James P. Pruitt, 1892 died from a horse kick.
- Pvt Andrew Preiber, 1893 froze to death
- Pvt Ellis Lingard, 1893, horse wreck
- Pvt David Matthews, 1894 froze to death
- Lt Lundsford Daniel, 1894 runaway horse
- Pvt John Davis, 1897 froze to death
- Pvt Richard Hurley 1904 froze to death
- Pvt Harry Allen, 1906 drowning
- Pvt Presley Vance, 1908, froze to death
- Pvt Frank Monaghan, 1910, froze to death
- Pvt Frank Cunningham, 1912 self-defense shooting
- Lt Joseph McDonald, 1916 avalanche
- Sgt Arthur Brewer, 1918 drowning
- Pvt Victor Manterfield, 1918 drowning
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