“It was a notable act, not only on account of the transcendent importance of the territory it was designed to protect, but because it was a marked innovation in the traditional policy of governments. From time immemorial privileged classes have been protected by law in the withdrawal, for their exclusive enjoyment, of immense tracts of forests, parks, and game preserves. But never before was a region of such vast extent as the Yellowstone Park set apart for the use of all the people without distinction of rank or wealth.” - Hiram Martin Chittenden, from the book The Yellowstone National Park (1895)

Well, what if Yellowstone wasn’t?

I’m not suggesting we pretend the Louisiana Purchase never happened or overlook the color of the stone—“Roche Jaune”—I’m talking about that “marked innovation in the traditional policy of governments” leading to its designation as a National Park. What if those post-Civil War congressmen had passed on the notion of protecting all that land way out past the shadows of their constituency? It would have been a very conscionable thing to do, considering the cupful of the troubles with Reconstruction…

Picture it today, the reservation of the Park notwithstanding. Start with a bit of West Yellowstone or Gardiner—the gateway towns wouldn’t exist, but t-shirt shops, chainsaw sculptures of bears, sales on cheap trinkets are the cockroaches of mountain culture. Consider such strip-mall merchandizing replete with wooden sidewalks along the north shore Yellowstone Lake. Such a town’s likely placement might be near modern-day Fishing Bridge, the launch of the Yellowstone River and a fine juncture along the big highway running from Cody and onto Ennis and Rexburg. Madison Junction would have served as a decent crossroads town, too, on another highway linking the upper Yellowstone valley with Jackson Hole to the south. Add a few dashes of Bozeman around these hubs with residential touches like the 70s, chalet-style condos and, lately, blocks of duplexes with front-loading garages.

For wildlife, the national bison population bottomed out at 4,000 head when the Park offered them sanctuary to replenish. In the absence of YNP, that number just kept going down. Today, most would consider the bison as kindred to the wooly mammoth, a character mocked up in dusty natural history exhibits, and Ted Turner would have no suitable horn on which to hang his hat. Nobody complains, though, it’s been a century since more than a handful of bison breezed through Yellowstone, and the few locals that remark at all, say the bison weren’t built for the winters up there. Wolves were eradicated in both the real and the imagined Yellowstone, and with so many dogs about today, no chance of a popular reintroduction. Grizzlies? Ha. Elk, meanwhile, have been hunted down so thin that it takes 20 days in camp to harvest a cow, unless you helped trim out that hedge-funder’s house, the guy who cut off all the access around Slough Creek with his big fence and ‘No Trespassing’ signs.

As for business, Yellowstone folk live through the booms and busts (mostly busts) of the West, just like everybody else. Times were good when the gold mine near Cooke City was booming, but for all the cyanide, they trashed the watershed right down past where the Lamar River ties into the Yellowstone. A few big-hat families got by ranching the valleys (when they weren’t shoveling out), but most of those have packed up, sold out to the first Easterner with a checkbook. Nowadays, the Hayden is full of wells busting up the shale deposits below (this is Wyoming we’re talking about). One old rancher who hung on there has to ship in water now, despite the unprecedented die-off of his cows. The oil and gas company argued in court, successfully, that his cattle mortality couldn’t be linked to the wells, what with all the other minerals in the local water. Coincidentally, the CEO of the company just bought one of the primo lots in a gated community overlooking the Upper Geyser Basin.

Tourists? Yellowstone locals report fair passers-by in the summer, but motorcycle groups, the occasion charter bus tour of the West, and fly-fisherman provide hardly enough to open a savings account. Hunters and snowmobilers keep the cash registers rolling just enough to get from September to May. Locals fortify with alcohol (or locally cooked meth), work 3 jobs in the good months, and hope the kids are sporty enough to avoid college tuition. Speaking of sports, ski area developers and destination resort types couldn’t pencil some of the Lower 48’s coldest temps, though climate change has them nosing around again. Mount Washburn in 2020, hurrah.

Why this lengthy tour through a privatized Yellowstone that never happened?

Because along with all the wonderful natural cultivations, the real Yellowstone National Park contributes $12.7 billion to the economy of the Greater Yellowstone area. That’s $12.7 with a capital B, annually.

Against that statistic, however, Bozeman’s local government just topped of the tank for those who argue against government intervention in business.  A headline this week informed Bozeman locals that city administrators were seeking permission to sell the Mandeville Farm property, now rechristened “North Park” and encompassing 85 acres on the town’s north side. Mandeville wasn’t a bad idea, anyone with a sense for business can see the potential for undeveloped land pinched between Bozeman’s primary I-90 interchange and the BNSF railway. In fact, it’s a nearly utopian spot for small manufacturing and commercial development.

Ideologies of government aside, Yellowstone National Park was at first only an Act of Congress, one that would have failed were it not for good leadership year after year after year and people like Chittenden, himself, a native New Yorker with a “so-so public education” who internalized the cause while posting there with the military.

By contrast, the initial leadership of the Mandeville acquisition was ridiculously managed, a point made obvious by the Delaney lawsuit and eventual award of millions. Ever since, Mandeville/North Park has been treated by those inside and outside City Hall as the child we never wanted. This week, city leaders are using the improving real estate market as a chance to wash their hands of it, wholesale, thus realizing as quickly and as thoroughly as possible that loss of millions.

“The economy seems to be picking back up, and really frankly, we feel that the private sector is in a better position to develop it to its highest best use,” City Manager Chris Kukulski said.

In other news, Kukulski has just proposed the 2014 budget where the typical Bozeman homeowner will pay $89 more in property taxes and fees…

-TBM

Editor of the Magpie Blake Maxwell recommends Chittenden's The Yellowstone National Park for a beguiling history of Yellowstone and a resounding example of what government is capable of "For the Benefit and the Enjoyment of the People."