ABSTRACT
Imagine that you are sitting around a campfire in the Montana territory in 1870 after having spent nearly a month exploring the almost unbelievable country of geysers, mud pots, great canyons, and waterfalls. You are part of the Washburn-Doane expedition led by General Washburn, the surveyor general of the Territory of Montana, with a military escort headed by Lieutenant Doane. You listen to Nathaniel Langford, later to be the first superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, recall his experience of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which can only be described as sublime: “The danger with which it impresses you is harrowing in the extreme. You feel the absence of sound, the oppression of absolute silence. If you could only hear that gurgling river … you would rise from your prostrate condition and thank God that he had permitted you to gaze, unharmed upon this majestic display of natural architecture.” 1 As you sit around the campfire, considering all you have seen, not surprisingly for a group of western men in 1870, your thoughts turn to enterprise.
