As head of the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories (1867-1879), Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden led several expeditions of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho. Hayden's work helped lead to the establishment of
Yellowstone National Park in 1872. Hayden's surveys (and those of John C. Fremont, Clarence King, John Wesley Powell, and George Wheeler) educated the 19th century United States government to what it had in the western territories and led, for good and ill, to "the opening of the American west."
August 24, 1870, Red Buttes, Wyoming Territory - A noon meal in Ferdinand V. Hayden's camp of the U.S. Geological Survey. Hayden sits at far end of table in dark jacket.
(from Photographs of the American West, National Archives and Records Administration)
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