Covering the time period from 1807, when John Colter first discovered the wonders of the Yellowstone Plateau to the 1920s when tourists sped between luxury hotels in their automobiles, these tales of Wonderland come from the letters, journals, and diaries kept by early visitors and later tourists. The earliest stories recount mountain men's awe at geysers hurling boiling water hundreds of feet into the air and their encounters with the native inhabitants of the region. The latest stories reflect the "civilizing" of the park and reveal the golden age of tourist travel in the area.

This anthology of first person-accounts by women who toured Yellowstone Park more than a century ago includes tales of high adventure, raucous humor, and glorious sights of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Including a wide range of stories by women who visited from all over the world and at all ages, these accounts reveal their wonder at the interior of the park, the weeks they traveled on horseback through the roadless wilderness, and the later luxuries of well-maintained roads, comfortable carriages, and fancy hotels.

In the Nineteenth Century people could gain fame and fortune by "discovering" and documenting things that were already known to exist like the source of the Nile and the North Pole. For decades trappers and prospectors had told about the wonders of the area that became Yellowstone Park, but no credible person had written about the falls canyons and geysers there. An ambitious politician, Nathaniel P. Langford, decided to make his name by promoting an expedition and publicizing its activities in 1870. An army lieutenant named Gustavus Doane maneuvered to lead the expedition's army escort for the same reason. Their written accounts of the big "discovery" of Wonderland were the basis for the park's founding in 1872.This book brings together the words of these men and provides historical context for the exploration and for the founding of America's first national park.