Qualla: Cook-Folsom-Peterson Expedition

Cook-Folsom-Peterson Expedition: Introduction

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. When David Folsom returned to Helena in the fall of 1869 and was asked to give a public talk about what he had seen in the upper Yellowstone country, he refused. Nobody would believe him, he said. The geysers, the canyon, the boiling springs, the waterfalls taller than Niagara - it all sounded like the ravings of a fever dream. So Folsom, along with his companions Charles Cook and William Peterson, kept largely quiet about their 36-day journey through one of the most extraordinary landscapes on Earth. The journals they submitted to the New York Tribune and Scribner's were rejected as unreliable. Yet within three years, their privately financed expedition from a dusty gold camp in Montana's Big Belt Mountains would inspire the creation of the world's first national park.

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Cook-Folsom-Peterson Expedition: Three Men and the Uncharted Country

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Diamond City was dying. The gold that had drawn thousands to Confederate Gulch was running thin by 1869, and the men who remained were looking for new prospects. Cook and Folsom had planned to join a larger expedition into the mysterious Yellowstone region, but when that fell thr...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Cook-Folsom-Peterson Expedition: Wonders Beyond Words

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. What the three explorers encountered over the next three weeks defied their ability to describe it. At Tower Fall, they forded the Yellowstone and explored the Lamar Valley. A September snowstorm pinned them down for two days. They emerged on the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Ye...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Cook-Folsom-Peterson Expedition: The Story Nobody Would Print

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Folsom soon took a job as field surveyor under Henry Washburn, Montana's Surveyor General. He and Cook shared their diaries and experiences with Washburn and W. W. deLacy, the territorial mapmaker, who published an updated map of the Yellowstone region based on their accounts. Bu...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Cook-Folsom-Peterson Expedition: Seeds of Preservation

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Cline, Public domain. Though Folsom refused to speak publicly, he did share his experiences privately with prominent Helena citizens including Nathaniel Langford and Samuel Hauser. Those who knew Folsom believed him - and his accounts planted the seeds for what came next. In August 1870, Henry Washbur...

Image: Mike Cline | Public domain