Book Description

Although GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL (1849-1938) won distinction as an ethnologist, author, editor, and explorer, perhaps his most enduring achievement was that cited by President Coolidge when he presented the Theodore Roosevelt Gold Medal of Honor to Grinnell in 1925: "Few have done as much as you, and none has done more, to preserve vast areas of picturesque wilderness for the eyes of posterity...." It was largely thanks to Grinnell that Glacier National Park was created, and in Yellowstone Park, as the President said, he "prevented the exploitation and therefore the destruction of the natural beauty." Grinnell was a member of the Marsh, Custer, and Ludlow expeditions in the 1870's, and during those years prepared reports on birds and mammals of the northwestern Great Plains region which are still authoritative. From those years, also, dates his interest in the Indians, particularly the Pawnee, Blackfoot, and Cheyenne. Among the score of books resulting from his lifelong study of the Plains tribes, The Fighting Cheyenne (1915) and The Cheyenne Indians (1923), Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales (1889), and BLACKFOOT LODGE TALES (1892) are perhaps the best known. A friend of the famed North brothers, who commanded the Pawnee Scouts, Grinnell encouraged Captain Luther North to set down his recollections, and contributed a foreword to the book.