This is One of the First Known Maps of Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park is America's oldest national park, but long before thousands of tourists flocked there every year, it looked quite a bit different. If you want to see how much YNP has changed over the past 100 years, check this out.

Visitors from all over the world travel to Yellowstone National Park to witness nature in its purest form. If you've ever been to the park, you understand the appeal. It's truly one of the most beautiful places in the world. Over the years, countless maps of YNP have been created as the park became more developed and able to accommodate more visitors.

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Historic hotels are one of the many landmarks you'll find in Yellowstone. Most of us aren't old enough to know what the park looked like before all of the historic buildings, but the map below gives us a glimpse into the park over 100 years ago.

Yellowstone National Park shared the following image and description on Facebook.

This is one of the few maps in Yellowstone’s collection that was created prior to the U.S. Army administration era (1886-1918) when civilian superintendents oversaw the park. Created by Philetus W. Norris, the second superintendent of Yellowstone, this map illustrates the locations of the game preserve (in blue); geysers and other hot spring basins (in red); sulphur basins (in yellow); and roads, proposed roads, and hotel sites (in green). Additionally, the names of bison, elk, and other animals are handwritten (in red) to show their native haunts and where their populations were abundant.

 

Map of Yellowstone National Park from 1879

Archives staff at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center have worked on digitizing over 2,200 of the park’s historic maps and drawings. Click here to check out the collection online.