Rocky Mountain Harry Yount: The Life and Legacy of the Famous American Explorer and Mountain Man
Written by Charles River Editors
Narrated by Scott Clem
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
By the golden age of the mountain man in the mid-19th-century, there were perhaps only 3,000 living in the West. Their origins were disparate, although they included many Anglo-Americans. A good number hailed from wilderness regions of Kentucky and Virginia and throughout the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, which occupied the entire central section of the continent. French Canadians traveled from the north to work in the fur trade, while Creole-Europeans represented approximately 15% of the men known to be living the isolated mountain life. Others were of Métis, Spanish, American, Black, Indian, and mixed-blood origin, most often Iroquois or Delaware. Most came to the West in their late adolescent years, the oldest learning the trade in their 30s. Many roamed the west for as long as their constitutions would hold up under constant attacks on their health and personal safety. Some stayed too long and failed to survive the experience. Among the most famous, Jim Bridger arrived at the age of 16, while Edward Robinson was eventually killed in his 60s by what were known as “bad snakes,” a reference to the Snake tribe in Idaho country. Jim Beckwourth left the mountains at 68 and Old Bill Williams died at the age of 62 when a band of Utes “made him to come."
During the mid-19th century, the mountain man persona transformed into that of a more multifaceted individual. Frontiersmen who were once alone in the West were hired on as guides and scouts for the military, or for settlement caravans crossing the new trails to the Pacific Northwest and California. The development of the New Mexico Territory became a center for the silver trade, and Californian settlements virtually exploded thanks to the Gold Rush of 1849. Mountain men dabbled in the business world as well, including those enterprises connected to supplies, shipping, and hunting for expanding communities. Several became favorite figures back on the East Coast, where people wanted to hear of tales from the exotic West.
A third generation of mountain men followed the Civil War as veterans headed west to test their survival skills learned in the military. The search for opportunities near the Pacific was not merely an option exercised by unemployed soldiers who could find no other use for themselves, as many had no home to which they could return. Meanwhile, the opportunities widened for prospectors, hunters, merchants, farmers, ranchers, and lawmen, occupations not yet in existence for the prior generation.
In the case of Civil War veteran Harry S. Yount, a new niche opened with the federal government for the early maintenance of forests in the West, and for the protection of wildlife in the northern Rocky Mountains. Through his service as the first gamekeeper of what was to become Yellowstone National Park, Yount is to this day honored as a prototypical model in the establishment of the National Park Service. Due to his two annual reports to the Department of the Interior later, he is recognized as the first individual to recommend a specialized force with which to guarantee land and wildlife management in the first years of American environmentalism, and pursuant to his knowledge of the wild country of Montana and Wyoming, he was a crucial employee of one of the first major geological expeditions to the Rocky Mountains that charted the land from Montana to Arizona and provided the first thorough scientific study of the great mountain range. Despite some leg dysfunction from a wound received in the war, and with little experience as a mountaineer, Yount joined several geologists and cartographers in the first ascents of the major peaks of the Grand Teton Range. His era was the first in which some in the West began to seriously consider the preservation of once abundant wildlife species.
More audiobooks from Charles River Editors
The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nineveh: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Assyrian Capital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The East India Company: The History of the British Empire's Most Famous Mercantile Company Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ur: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Sumerian Capital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Legends of the West: Deadwood, South Dakota Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gnosticism: The History and Legacy of the Mysterious Ancient Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Project MK-Ultra: The History of the CIA’s Controversial Human Experimentation Program Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mossad: The History and Legacy of Israel’s National Intelligence Agency Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mysteries of the South: Ghosts, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena in Dixie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Life and Legacy of the Father of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Arnold Rothstein and Meyer Lansky: The Lives and Legacies of the Gangsters Who Reformed Organized Crime in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cambrian Period: The History and Legacy of the Start of Complex Life on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Midwest: Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena in America's Heartland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denisovans: The History of the Extinct Archaic Humans Who Spread Across Asia during the Paleolithic Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life and Trial of Lizzie Borden: The History of 19th Century America's Most Famous Murder Case Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Madame de Pompadour: The Life and Legacy of French King Louis XV’s Chief Mistress Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung: The Pioneering Lives and Works of History’s Most Influential Psychologists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medieval England: The History of England from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Tudor Dynasty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Culper Ring: The History and Legacy of the Revolutionary War's Most Famous Spy Ring Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Rocky Mountain Harry Yount
Related audiobooks
A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seth Kinman: The Life and Legacy of the Famous Californian Mountain Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mountain Man: John Colter, the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and the Call of the American West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Joseph Meek: The Life and Legacy of the Oregon Territory’s Most Influential Politician during the 19th Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York's Frontier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Journals of Lewis and Clark: Excerpts from The History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chisholm Trail: The History and Legacy of 19th Century America's Most Famous Cattle Drive Route Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America’s Most Influential Mountain Men: The History and Legacy of the 19th Century Explorers Who Helped Chart Paths to the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Journal of a Trapper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jim Bridger, “The Grand Old Man of the Rockies” Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cowboys, Mountain Men, and Grizzly Bears: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of the Wild West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jim Bridger: Founder of Bridger Wyoming and Famous Indian Fighter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Sixty Years on the Plains: Trapping, Trading, and Indian Fighting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Frontiersmen: A Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Brothers: The Story of the Strange Friendship between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Legends of the West: Forgotten Sidekicks of the Wild West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cochise: The Life and Legacy of the Famous Apache Chief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Up From Slavery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter from Birmingham Jail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Rocky Mountain Harry Yount
2 ratings0 reviews