history professor alexandra newby for the history and origins of slavery in america. then let coverage of commemorative ceremonies with speeches from government officials including senator mark warner, senator tim kaine, the owner ralph northam, and lieutenant governor justin fairfax. the history of africans in america, live. on american history tv on c-span3. the c-span's cities tour is exploring the american story, as we take book tv and american history tv on the road. every first and third weekend of the month we bring you the history and the re--- history and literary life of different cities. with report from our cable partners, we travel to bozeman, montana.

that's 90 miles from yellowstone national park, drawing many tourists to the city. we will learn about the history and the surrounding region. >> when i first moved, there were so many named story. a story streets, story motors, story distributing. lot written on him. there was a historian who said bozeman is misnamed. personally i think bozeman has a better ring to it than any of those other options. i was curious about nelson's story, since his name was plastered all over the place.

has not been a full-length biography ever written about him. over the years i put it together. nelson story was one of the more successful western capitalists in the history of the american west. if you take a step back and try and name others, you come up with leland stanford in california. i'm sure that name rings a bell area you would have john creighton from nebraska. john e live from northern colorado, and all of those people were very good. they started the most part and gold-mining. after making some headway in gold-mining, investments in railroads, mercantilism, et cetera, cattle ranches, so their wealth and their prominent and their respective areas just catapulted.

it is the same thing with nelson story. you could maim just about any industry that wasn't -- you could name just about any industry that was important in the american west, ranching, cattle, real estate my flour milling, banking, and he had a hand in it. he was one of those who came to this territory and made a good chunk of money, roughly $30,000 in gold. it was typical. a lot of the people who had no success in california, they branched out through the rock to try their luck. that is kind of what happened, gold was found. later, to the southeast and the golds, where virginia city is, more gold was found. that was one of more predominant gold strikes. story was one of those who heard about and viewed this valley and

came to realize this was a fertile valley driver ultra. -- valley for agriculture. a lot of people who would come up the bozeman trail and make it through on the bozeman trail over the bozeman path and into this valley, they may have originally intended to go to the gold fields an virginia city, bannock, maybe last chance golds up where helena is, but once they got a view of this valley and realize the agricultural potential, they decided to file their claim 160 acres and just stay right here. story realize that. he was not really a big farmer, per se, but he had some ideas for mercantile store, a cattle herd, and that was the main impetus. virginia city, like most mining towns, pretty rough place to live great he and his wife, ellen, were starting a family, so it really was not the ideal location to live in. so they came over here to bozeman. from there, the first he did was he went down to texas, used some

of that money and bought an herd of longhorns. texas cattle, the longhorns had just overpopulated. during the civil war because so many men from texas who were serving the stars and ours and what they called the war of northern aggression. so you had all this cattle in texas, and you could get ahead of longhorns anywhere from five dollars to $10. if you had a longhorn and you could get it up to the western forts, it would be worth $20 to $40 a head. if you got it to the chicago meat market, $40 a head, so you can understand why there was such an interest, such, you know, a bevy of activity in that part of the country after the

civil war and why you had all those cattle drives, so for and so on. nelson story was determined to bring cattle herd all he way up here to montana. he brought them from fort worth, texas, and cut up your texas oklahoma, what was then the indian territory, faced a roadblock by kansas jayhawk curzon southeast kansas, who were worried about longhorns spreading tip fever to their herds, but story was able to circumvent them and go around via wichita and then cut back up to fort lebanon. from fort leavenworth, he headed on the oregon trail to follow it all the way up to fort laramie, and then from portland me, he would bring them up bozeman trail. at that particular time, this was during red cloud's war along the bozeman trail, which goes close to the bighorn basin in

wyoming. the sioux, cheyenne, were resisting and any and all wagon trains, any and all cattle trains, coming up the bozeman trail. nelson story, for he could proceed on the bozeman trail, he had to have at least 30 armed men in his group. he had 1000 head of cattle. he had a lot of wagons loaded with groceries because he also wanted to start a mercantile store when he got there, so he had enough men armed with remington rifles. they headed up the bozeman trail.

they had several scrapes with some sioux warriors, and a couple of his men, as they made their way out through wyoming, couple of his men were killed. but he did make it all the way to the yellowstone river right on the other side of the bozeman pass. nelson story made it to the yellowstone river, established a cattle ranch over there. he arrived early december, 1866. that was his first step in building what you could certainly argue was an empire. after the cattle drive, he has a log cabin will on main street, and he begins partnering with another businessman here in town, a fellow by the name of leander black. they had a mercantile operation. typical hardware-type operation

of the american west. they sold just about everything in the store. you only had a couple of hundred people in the area at the most, but the thing were they really garnered a lot of success is on the others bozeman pass, was land the united states government had designated for the crow nation. and the reservation headquarters was established over by present-day livingston. the government would have to buy the crows -- would have to buy to feed the crows, flour, beef, and other supplies. they would buy it from local merchants. story had a corner on the market given the fact he had the cattle herd over there, so he began selling goods to uncle sam, and that really helped him to pad his wealth. unfortunately, and through the years, it was typical of many of those contractors who furnished goods to the reservation, they were cheating the government. they were cheating the indian tribes, as well. short shift on some of the goods they were supposed to deliver. story, in some occasions, may

have gotten away with getting paid for a full amount. so many headed cattle when he did not deliver that many head. he also was pretty good that he would sell them flour, and with the operation of the indian agent, he would get the flower back out of the warehouse and sell it back over here. excuse me, in effect, nelson story was getting paid twice for the same goods. he did the same thing with horses. he might sell horses to the government for five dollars, $10 ahead and then a year later, the government decided they did not need that many horses. he would buy them back or two dollars or three dollars a head and sell them in town for $15 a head, so he took advantage of

the system, the reservation system, which is one of the uglier chapters in the history of the american west. he took it manage of that, just like so many others did, and that really helped him, as i say, to increase his wealth even more. so the proximity to the crow reservation at that time in the late 1860's, early 1870's, plus, the growth of the agricultural community named bozeman, those two things, he was in the driver's seat as far as accumulating wealth. >> describe what he was like. mr. russell: very interesting character. when he was a young man, nelson story was from mays, county -- makes county, ohio area as a young man and his family, he lost his mother, father, a couple of brothers, sisters who

died young. it is possible, for that reason, he was never really a serious churchgoer, but he was also very generous individual. he would help any friend who was down on their luck. he was willing to help them. he also had a streak -- he was well read, he understood economics very well. he did enjoy listening to talks from christian scholars. he like to study the pope and write down some of his versus on pieces of scrap paper, but the real big drawback to nelson story was his temper. he had an awful, awful temper. on more than one occasion, and a confrontation with somebody, he would lose his temper, and it would come down to a fistfight, or it would end up not necessarily fight, but if you got on his bad side, chances are you remained on his bad side. and his temper, unfortunately, also spilled into his immediate family. verbal and physical abuse. it is a sad sidebar, a side aspect of nelson story, but his wife, even on occasion, was we abused area nelson story one day, his two sons, two of his sons, nelson junior and thomas byron story. story told them -- he had a ranch north of town where he would later build a flour mill. story told them to go to the

ranch. there was a mule out there, he wants them to get it, bring it back in town but don't rope mule. ok, so they went out, they got mule, they are coming back into town. also junior, known as bud, thomas byron, known as bine story, as they approach the big, big story home, bud decides for the heck of it to see if you can lasso the mule. and he does. unfortunately, he was going to hang onto the rope, ride up and get the lasso off of the mule. unfortunately, he dropped it and the mule went into the family yard where nelson was.

he looked at him, and he said, i thought i told you not to that mule. and bud started to say well -- shut up! and the next one of you who says another word, i am going to knock you off your damn horse. bine had a sassy streak to him and looks at his dad and says, well, we can rope that mule just as well as you can. before he finished his sentence, his dad had double brick, threw it at him, bine duct, it went over his head.

bine jumped off of his course and ran for town with his dad in close pursuit. his dad at that time was pushing 60, so he could not chase him that far. >> what are the contributions he has made to bozeman that folks outside of bozeman might recognize? or maybe it is just specific to bozeman itself? mr. russell: in the 1880's, nelson story constructed and opened the flour mill north of town, where eventually the northern pacific railroad would come through. some of the buildings are still standing. and that was a major employer for people, especially men in this town. another thing, another aspect of nelson story is in the late 1880's, when montana became a state, the legislator decided to let people know the capital would be.

the territorial capital wasn't helena, but they'll -- was in helena, but they opened it up to any town and leave it up to the electorate. so bozeman gotten to the campaign with several other cities, helena, butte. bozeman presented itself with the prettiest valleys, the most beautiful one in the state. we have the finest picket fences of anywhere in the state. we have the prettiest girls in the help used babies of anywhere in the territory of montana. those were some of the reasons they gave her bozeman being the state capital -- they gave for bozeman being the state capital. bozeman did not get it.

helena, and it only made sense, they retained it. but the legislature was going to decide where to put the state college of agriculture. nelson story donated some land, allowed his building to be used for classes, and put up some money to help ensure that bozeman got the state agricultural college, which is montana state university today. >> what did you learn that surprised you? mr. russell: the one thing i learned in researching nelson story and that i was reminded of is the old adage, nice guys finish last. he was industrious. he was ambitious. he is worthy of acknowledgment. he is not worthy of adulation. he had a very kind side, a very community-minded side. he would donate to help churches expand, to build city parks, but

again, he had that street area and business dealings, he could be really, really tough. really, really rough. as i went through some of the things that i learned about him, like i say, it reinforced and helped me to understand that are some of the capitalist of the american west during what was known as the gilded age. the gilded age really was not just confined to your rockefellers, your vanderbilts, your carnegie's, or your jp morgan. it also came out west, although it did not get nearly the amount of publicity. i learned a lot about the reservation system and the corruption that went with reservation system.

that opened my eyes to a very, very sad chapter in american history, and that was the treatment of the native american. but, you know, the quintessential cowboy i guess you could call him. the quintessential westerner. we take you to missouri headwater state park to talk about lewis and clark -- here about lewis and clark. >> southwest montana is essentially defined by all the rivers that flow through this area. it has been an important area historically even before

european encroachment. it was always an important crossroads. it was rich and resources. we think as many as 14 different tribes use this area. tribe hadque that no a monopoly in this area. i would like tim welcome you to missouri headwater state park. we are at the headwaters of missouri. west of where we are standing is where madison and jefferson come together to form missouri. some refer to this as the three folks area.

this park has a lot of historical significance, which came through here in 1805, searching for the headwaters of the missouri. were probablyhey not going to find a water route to the west. they have been traveling for a year and a half on their journey and spent the previous winter in , where they met a french trapper. and hiredfe sacagawea them on the expedition. here on july 27 in 1805. they had to make a decision, which river can you continue on up?

been here who has before, has been kidnapped from the jefferson river, taking the .orth dakota told the expedition they had to find her people. she played a very critical important role on the expedition. the travel to a lot of saw this young woman with an infant. they were able to approach many different tribes and all through the journey they received a tremendous amount of help from various tribes. it may not have been so welcomed .

sacagawea played an important role there. she was able to all along the expedition. some local municipal remedy they could use. she also found other plants and stuff they could eat at times when food was scarce. she proved to be quite a critical member of the core. the park was established in 1959. been ao that there had group of local people who formed the founders club. such anlize this was important area that it started to requires that to acquire some of the land -- to acquire some

of the land. currently we have 400 35 acres of the park. we have a lot of different habitats in this park. the autobahn has recognized this area. we have a lot of hiking trails in the park. and this experience is a beautiful place to be. all year-round even in the middle of winter. >> a look at bozeman continues with a visit to the museum of the rockies, where we will see some of the dinosaur fossils discoveries made in montana. placetana is a wonderful for the discovery of the dinosaur fossils, not only

because of the rocks we have here, but because they are exposed. all exposed rock from the cretaceous time. . the most famous formation for dinosaurs is the hell creek formation. thoseserves the last of dinosaurs before they went extinct before the end of the mesozoic era. we have a lot of formation here in the state. go to findre we triceratops and t-rex, two of the most iconic dinosaurs are known from the formation and we have that here in montana. the first discoveries of fossils probably go back to the native american days. the first document in case of fossils being discovered were

around the turn-of-the-century in the late 1800s, during some of the classic bone wars and some of those first pushes and pulses of paleontology. a lot of those fossils went back to the east coast to large institutions like the carnegie or smithsonian. it wasn't until the late 70's that we found a site thanks to when a family found these fragments of baby dinosaur bones and dinosaur egg shell as well. also nestlings that had been clearly cared for. prior to that research, the dinosaurs were like crocodiles and alligators, they would leg -- they would lay their eggs and peace out.

of these eggs, embryos and nestlings really changed what we thought about this hall isvior called the hall of horns and teeth because it is focused on fossils from the hell creek formation. the formation is famous because of two types of dinosaurs in particular. that is triceratops, which is the horned dinosaur. then the teeth come from t-rex. the formation has produced a number of phenomenal tyrannosaurus rex specimens. t-rex is full of teeth and quite the fearsome predator. the dinosaur behind me does have a name.

it is called montana's t-rex. it's official specimen number is -- montana's t-rex was discovered on the fourth of july in the and -- in the late 90's. when someone asks, why were you working on the fourth of july, i say, why would you think this is work? it was local ranchers who found montana's t-rex. the skeleton behind me here is 60% real bone. it is very rare to find a t-rex or any dinosaur that is 100% complete. i don't think any of us would be complete after 66 million years of being in the ground. that is 60% real fossil bones standing in front of you, really a rare and spectacular opportunity. you can probably see the horns of the triceratops we have mounted as well. it is known for its iconic three

horns. it had to above the eye and a smaller one on the nose. it was likely to be a favorite prey item of t-rex. it is a vegetarian dinosaur that would have been looking out and trying to avoid t-rex as much as possible. that's why this crazy formation

-- -- that's where this horn adaptation came from, the deal with fearsome predators like the tyrannosaurus rex. isht behind me here triceratops growth series. these are different schools from triceratops, which is a horned dinosaur. they have to horns above their eyes and three above -- and one above their nose. it is the commonly found dinosaur in the formation. one of the reasons is because triceratops was an herbivore. chains,look at food there are more who river wars --

more herbivores than top predators like the t-rex. we find a lot more triceratops bones than we do t-rex. can see a great sample, and the benefit of being such a commonly found dinosaurs we can say a lot about how triceratops grew and developed through its life. you can see one of the smallest triceratops goals to ever be discovered. it's horns are quite itty-bitty. and it's relatively small like we see in babies in general. as we continue down, we see things change. they start to curve upwards towards the ceiling. those triangles -- they --grow, you can see in these teenage

triceratops comedies are more fused, there horns are bigger and more curved. and we continue on getting closer and closer to adulthood. -- theseattera tops triceratops would be sexually mature, but not fully developed yet. shift that the horns had gone from pointing upwards to pointing down instead . some paleontologists believe this has to do with species and being able to tell the adults from the juveniles within a population. our largest of the triceratops we see here has the biggest curved but downward curve horn, and what we see in the oldest , the triceratops have holes in the back of the fill. they would have been covered with skin.

our paleontologist here who studies triceratops who believes that the bone may be resorb and deposited on these bigger horns on their facial -- on their facial region and exchanging that bone from they are to the front of the face. these thingsll of about that this is an older triceratops and not a different species is because of bone histology, and using histology as a research method. astology is when you slice up animal bone. we slice it so thin so you can put it on a slide. and see things like growth rings and cellular development that give us an idea of the relative these long extinct

giants like triceratops. not only do we have a triceratops growth display, we have the largest t-rex growth series in the world here as well. you can see the smallest t-rex's to ever be discovered. it is from montana. juvenile ander younger t-rex. those are your younger t-rex is in the paleontological world. or if it's just juvenile t-rex. we are very confident with our hypothesis that represents

juvenile t-rex's. it would have been a subadult t-rex. was anacular specimen incredible story largely due to the research of dr. mary schweitzer, who was a research associate. found the oldest traces of soft tissue to ever be preserved. so it is an incredibly important scientific specimen that has changed what we know about dinosaur stuff -- bass or soft tissue and dinosaur biology -- dinosaur soft tissue and dinosaur biology. here we have 980, the skull of the montana t-rex to see up close and personal.

to second larges is going be, why are-555. the actual specimen is the centerpiece of the smithsonian deep time exhibit for the next 50 years. we are excited the actual fossils from the t-rex is on the center stage in washington, d.c.. the largest of our growth series is one of the largest skulls to be discovered ever. it is more than five feet in length and would have been huge in overall body size. much larger than the skull of montana's t-rex. the rest of the skeleton would have mitten much larger than what you see here on display.

very few museums have an opportunity for you to see so many different actual t-rex specimens in one exhibit. that is one of the highlights of coming to the museum of the at thesetaking a look distinct giant beasts. here we are at the bowman dinosaur viewing laboratory here at the museum of the rockies. this gives visitors an opportunity to see paleontologist and working on fossils. volunteers can explain to visitors how we find fossils in the field, how we get them out of the field, and how we clean them up so they can go on display one day as well. you can see a variety of different dinosaur bones that are being prepared in view for visitors to see.

here is the triceratops femur. it needs to be consolidated quite a bit stale. jacket is made out of plaster and burlap. this is the upper leg bone of the triceratops. next to it we have a triceratops an individual is backbone from a triceratops. spiness like some of the need to be glued back together as well. we have additional vertebra from triceratops as well as other material. we also have one of our volunteers right now, working on some very cool had to sort materials. how long have you been a volunteer here? six years.

how many hours? over 5000 hours. prepping fossils for display and research and to interact with visitors. levi is working on a bill. teeth that grow. it is in many pieces right now, but levi is skilled at putting them all back together. to show how proud we are of our volunteer death volunteers and how proud we are to share the process of paleontology with our visitors. but, i think it's extremely important to have strong regional museums like the museum of the rockies, which is a fairly large -- fairly large for a regional museum. think those institutions are extremely important.

it is extreme a point to have these local museums such as museum of the rockies to give back to our communities. worldngs montana to the and the world to montana. the first and third weekend of each month as we take book tv and american history tv on the road. to watch videos from any of the cities we visit, go to c-span.org/cities tour, and follow us on twitter. the c-span cities tour, exploring the american story. during our time, the c-span cities tour visited historic sites and heard from an area historian. we hear from the city's namesake, john bozeman. in the museum of the rockies history one storage area. this is where we keep our large

artifacts. our collection contains everything from medical equipment to objects related to yellowstone national park. our proximity to yellowstone is an important part of what we interpret here. we have a pretty good collection of cultural artifacts related to that area. behind me is a 1937 white touring bus that drove the streets. we tried to document the cultural history, basically all of the northern rockies at the museum here. we need to look at the life of john bozeman, he is the namesake of our town here located in

montana. few artifacts directly related to him. there's really no other place in the world that contains these. john bozeman was a fascinating character. territoryt to idaho in 1862. he came out as a coalminer. he was a georgian by birth. his father had done the same thing during the california gold rush, had abandoned his family bozeman was about 14 years old when his father left when he was about 25 he made his way out here to an area where there had strikes heinor gold came into an area in the deer lodge valley.

eight community of people who were prospectors. a couple of months of him arriving in the area, there was . major gold strike it was in a town until they found gold there. thousands of prospectors showed up for that. he went up and participated in that gold rush and a subsequent gold rush in nearby city of montana. it didn't take long to realize the real money was to be made mining the miners, the idea that providing the supplies, particularly food for these people, and a really remote area of what became montana territory was the way to make money. the virginia city strike had taken place, bozeman and a couple of partners

actually came into the area and , thep a town corporation idea of incorporating an area, setting up laws for basically ranching and agricultural place settings and claims in the area. bozeman was selected as the chairman of that committee. beginning, from the the area was known as bozeman. he and others in the mining camps were looking at ways potential miners and sellers could get into the area much more easily than taking the oregon trail. which they would have to take all the way to salt lake city and across the rockies to get to the minds and places like the

valley. had a way thought he to do that. he had done scouting around and thought bringing alternate trail upfrom the oregon trail through the powder river up into and then following the yellowstone river to what is today bozeman. this became the bozeman trail. that 250 miles of the bozeman trail, pretty much the first 250 of it went directly through territory they promised to the lakota, and their allies the cheyenne's and arapaho's.

the lakota were pretty adamant immigrants,lowing travelers of any types to go through this prime buffalo hunting country. from the very beginning, bozeman and the people he was trying to lead on this trail ran into major problems. the first year bozeman attempted to bring people through 1863, the first wagon train was repelled by the sioux. suddenly they looked up on the hills around them and realized there were about 350, 400 lakota cheyenne and arapahoe warriors. most of the people said forget it. located righth is there by fort laramie said we will not provide you perfect -- provide you protection. that is sioux land.

their allies have legal right to that, you do not have a legal right to go through that. really the major air of the bozeman trail lasted three years , from 63 through 66. time the u.s. government recognize they did in fact have to do something to protect these over lynn travelers, even though what they were doing was totally illegal. primarily in wyoming and eastern montana, where the lakota hunting grounds were. activity goingg on on the bozeman trail in the mid-1860's was nelson's story. a city founder famously brought 3000 cattle.

basis at theas a big cattle drive. even though bozeman is back in the newtown, he is promoting use of the trail, and doing his own ranching as well. his own cattle ranch in the valley gets his own cattle brand . great for going bozeman grain producers. we are producing cattle for sale, they were selling this to minors. but with the army coming into trail, theyng the would be a great source of revenue as well.

it could seldom beef cattle. bozeman, along with other , theyrs in this area recognize the fact that the lakota had been promised this large area as a hunting ground. they basically ignored that, broke the law, went into these areas that the u.s. army would be obligated to protect them. the army proved that by building a string of forts along the bozeman trail, which was technically illegal. settlerand the other were consul he pushing the boundaries here, knowing the army would be obligated to save them. partner, a guy who was with the group, one of the original discoverers, the gold

mining area. withstarted a partnership bozeman. 200 miles east of bozeman. they took off on a trip out fore to get some contracts themselves and the other merchants. they built a bridge to make this possible. you -- somewhere along the line, 80 miles east of here, when mission creek goes into the yellowstone river, john bozeman died. and when his partner showed up way back in the area that is

known as livingston montana, which is the closest american settlement there, he had a wild story. his story was these natives had camp and he was very afraid of these people. whowore they were blackfeet ofe fairly deadly enemies the area. bozeman initially said these are crow guys, i actually recognize one of these people. and allow them to stay at the nearby camp.

both realized that one of the native people was grabbing for and the american indian actually shot bozeman, fell down dead and was much closer to the native americans at the time, and took a shot at , who was 30 or 40 feet away. he had been going for his gun at the same time. he said these native people stole their horses and ran away. had to walk all the way back to livingston, which is a good 30 miles or so. one of john bozeman's good friends was in livingston, in this area when he showed up. there seemed to be something unusual about the story.

one of them was the wound had. he said it was a glancing buncher wound, but had a of powder burns all over his chest. watched csi crime scene investigators, you know that is a dead giveaway. whatever shot him couldn't be more than about 10 feet away. he had to be close. 10 feet or less. immediately his friend mckenzie started to doubt the story. the main story was that john bozeman was dead. namesake of the town. outreach a great within the whole territory. when a party want to go and collect his body, they found a large number of interesting

items there. some of those items are displayed on this table here. they found his silver pocket watch, his 1857 colton navy revolver, in the holster. was found cash money that still in his pockets. basically all of their camp equipment was there. usually if you are attacked by native people, particularly if your partner is wounded or running away, the first thing the natives are going to do is grab any type of valuables and horses and take off. clearly that did not occur here. there had been elements of the story that point to the idea that perhaps ozment had gotten too friendly with his partner's wife. other husbands had put him up to it.

as well, other ideas that people like nelson story, or other town fathers started to big forman becoming too his britches. he was the namesake for the town, namesake for the trail. in terms ofhim economic competition, that he the rich guy of bozeman, and they wanted to save the potential wealth in getting bozeman out of the way was a good way to do that. when the group bought -- brought his body for burial, they buried him initially nearby this spot. they brought these materials back to bozeman.

a savage indian attack had occurred. aey killed the namesake of well-liked and well-respected person. throughout the territory the call went up, why is the army not protecting us? the army did build a major much larger military post. for people in bozeman looking to the army as a great place to sell their flour and their cattle and their vegetables, now we had a larger military fort right next to their town. death was aan's boon for the town he founded. bozeman's time was relatively short.

during that time he did a tremendous amount of pioneering this new trail. possibly the most important contribution was as a promotable -- a promoter where you can easily start a new life in the west. >> we hear from a former yellowstone national park historian about his career and the park's connection to bozeman. collect one of our most beautiful vacation lands is yellowstone national park. that white area in northwestern wyoming. doesn't it touch your ?magination a little

all the flowers and forest and mountains are reserved for you. >> established in 1872 by the united states congress. yellowstone national park was the world's first national park, company -- encompassing land from three states. the park is an economic driver for towns that surround it. 75 milesmontana sits to the north, we spoke with former park historian about his career and the impact on the region. >> tell us about your first yell at -- your first yellowstone experience. , my first experience reaches way back. americans itany was a vacation. my parents brought us, my

yellowstoneme to from norman, oklahoma, and continued bringing us for many years. in not always interested just yellowstone but the whole american west. we fell into that trap of never going east, except always going west. mostly dad wanted to fish in yellowstone. love with the region early. very early experience. was 16 and my brother 14, we vacationed here, and we saw the employees. one of them invited us to the dance.

dancee too young for the and saw all the fun they were having. as soon as we both hit 18 we applied and got jobs with a concessioner. i should correct that, the job didn't come until a little bit later. our father, being an employee, knew the route to get into the park service. we went right to the national park service. both of us were on the road crew >> we did that for a couple of years. decided, well, the work is .ot what i want to be doing and i went to the concessioner toward the

parties. here i am 20 years old interested in the social life. i got hired as a bus to our guide. i thought it was the greatest job i'd ever had. if only there had been a winter season, which there was not. so i left the park for five years and did other things. i had a commercial broadcasting career for good number of years. was a teacher for a while. was a travel agent for a while. and got called back to yellowstone one day with an old friend, who picked up the phone and offered me a job training his tour guides. with the bus operation. it was a great lucky break. and that sort of put me on the track to knowing that i wanted to learn things about it.

and fortunately i had paid a lot of attention in history classes, because a lot of it centered around history. thing you knowt i was the trainer for tour bus drivers. and by that time they had added a winter operation which was snow coaching. and i was in heaven. it was, wow, i get to train these guys to do the tours. so after that i learned that there was a position known as park historian. and i aimed at that. and it took 20 years to get there. eventually i did it. when did you begin writing about yellowstone? have any books have you written? >> 15 published and three coming bucks. -- books. when did i begin writing?

pretty early, in the 1970's. and i just stumbled into this wonderful project which involved the history of the yellowstone place names. and i was amazed to see that no one had taken that project on. it, it became apparent why no one had taken because theren, ,ere four thousands place names 2000 active and 2000 obsolete. and it was just overwhelming. i'm glad i did not know how many there were to begin with. so i worked on that, that book for 15 years. it was published in 1988. by the montana historical society. it was my first book. some of the topics you cover in your different writings? >> oh my gosh.

topics i cover? one that people know about, is all ofhe only one, the people who got killed generally carelessly or negligently in yellowstone. called, "death in and it deals with a great number of cases of very sad deaths. including reaching way back into a few indian battles that occurred in the park. divided intod it death by human causes and death by nature, natural causes. and the natural causes really, i think are more interesting. a lot of natural parks -- national parks have hidden

dangers. you know like the grand canyon you can fall into the big call. yellowstone has that tool in its -- two in its canyon. - too, in its canyon. a lot of parks you can drown. or take a fall over a precipice. it also has the strange deaths like being boiled in a hot spring, or being eaten by a grizzly bear or gord in bison. by a bison. all of those have happened to people. >> yellowstone predates the park itself. can you talk about the relationship between bozeman and the park. bozeman was an agricultural community. rather than so many of montana's communities which were mining.

near it, to the west, was virginia city. so montana's history is bound up in mining. those miners who jumped across earlier,o and california, in 1850's, jumped across into montana and those miners spread out looking for the gulch is as they called them. so they looked in yellowstone, but they did not really make a gold strike. that was fortunate for yellowstone. it probably saved the national park, the fact that there was not a gold strike. or we would have had a gold strike there instead of a national park. so bozeman pretty early became an outfitting point for yellowstone, as did virginia city. and i think that is the key connection. asthat those two towns,

ofly as 1880, were in a kind competition. and virginia city quickly lost that battle of being an outfitting point. they were too far away. bozeman, only 75 miles away for the north entrance, one that that battle. yellowstone was already effectively the first attraction for tourists in the interior of the american west. that is pretty significant. that is a big deal. part of that impetus occurred because they were teaching the existence of yellowstone in schools in europe. they weremost before doing it on the east coast in this country. arrivedime the railroad at the north entrance in 1883,

yellowstone was world-famous already. and everybody wanted to come and see it. everybody wanted to be on that train coming here. so all of a sudden, in 1883, there were 5000 visitors. where as before there had been 1000. in 1881 and 1882, about a thousand. and in the 1870's, about 500 per year. and those people had to come by horseback, mule, because there were no roads yet. 1870's, youin the came on the transcontinental ogden, utah,tah or somewhere down there where the mormons were just putting a few railroad things together to hook the transcontinental up with salt lake city. and then it was a 400 mile journey over lands by wagon and

or horse and mule back. when you got to bozeman, you re-outfitted all on horse and meals back. mule back. so it took areas to get to yellowstone before your park to or even began. and it was more than a week in the 1870's because we're camping. a quarter five and days around yellowstone. hot, dusty, and tiring at mile per hour. so you had time to smell the flowers. you had time to really see things. you had time to ask lots of questions. your-hear all the stories, not only from stagecoach drivers, but from other park police. and then as now, everyone is into her guide. tell youwas ready to all about the marvelous things

were going to see. 1880's,g in the yellowstone got a stagecoach company in the interior in the interior and the park company. there were already outfits to the west. got one in, they 1883. they put up this big hotel we see behind us, that was built in 1883. people were in this country, tired of camping out. way throughed that the 18th and 19th centuries. and they wanted a little more comfort. now camping out would come back, in the 1920's, it would become bogus again. become voguish again. but yellowstone was a system of

five big hotels serving visitors until the 1880's up until 1916. and we had autos in many of the cities and towns of the nation pretty early. the earliest autos were chain driven in 1886, the first when i can remember. and by 1900, so many towns had on mobiles, primitive ones -- automobiles, primitive ones, alongside horses and wagons. and not in yellowstone. placeemained a primitive that the army took care of. another another 25 years aftert towns had autos. so from the 1890's when autos were in most places until 1916, yellowstone was a horse and buggy place.

often get which i cannot answer is what does the future hold for yellowstone? bozeman is all bound up in that great and so is livingston. so are all the surrounding, what we call the gateway towns. and the regional states. montana, wyoming, and idaho, all three. and they are all part of that of-in 2019, everyone wants to live here. everybody'snly on worst top 10,r at , top five places to live. it is understandable because yellowstone national park is the centerpiece. airport,ational

bestrsity, plus the hiking, hunting, fishing, world-class skiing, all of those things. started to say, money can buy, or that freak can give you. free can give you. it has really ramped up the cost of housing. so there's kind of a sadness i future. yellowstone's is it going to be a place just for rich people? democracy that the national park service has pushed so long since it was established, and argued lisa well? through make -- argue play so arguably so well.

for the american public. can they still afford to come here. how about visitation. it was a lot easier when i started in yellowstone and there were 2.2 visitors. point 2 million people just in yellowstone. million people just in yellowstone. what is the solution? nobody knows the answer. >> our look at bozeman continues as we visit with the extreme history project. she shares some of the overlooked history of the city. are here in the extreme history project offices which used to be a historic brothel. history is a nonprofit located right here in bozeman we bring history to the public in fun, engaging and relevant ways.

we do historic walking tours during the summer. we do a lecture series in the winter. we do workshops and other events around history. we try to get people to engage in history. what better way than in a .istoric brothel to do that in the 1980's there was a push to uncover more the social history. in doing that, we learned that there is more to history than generals, and all those things that we have been studying as historians for many, many years. we started looking at women's history. we started looking at minority community history. and we discovered that there is so much more to tell, within these narratives, these narratives that we have constructed over the years. and so that is really how the extreme history project was formed, because a colleague of mine, marsha fulton and myself,

started thinking about, all the stories that you are not hearing here at bozeman about the people who founded this town, like mary and richard mcdonald like samuel lewis. like libby williams, an african-american women who came here and started a business on main street. so we started looking at these histories in trying to plug those in because they were not here they were left out. in 1891 bywas built one of our founding fathers, joseph linley. he built this house as a brothel. right in the middle of the red light district. so there was much uproar about that from some of the bozeman citizens. they were not happy with that, especially the ladies of the town of bozeman. but he did it anyway, he built this building, he built this house. and he actually rented it to a woman whose name was libby hayes

. she was one of our more long-term madams that worked out of this house. she was here from 1900 to 1912. we call this the libby hayes house because of her, because she was here the longest. in thisthe madame house. she had a lot of girls that worked with her in the south. they came and went but she stayed. she moved out in 1912 and then died shortly thereafter. she was young when she died, only 34 years old. uterusd of cancer of the , possibly from her line of work. andy grew up in kentucky came out west at an early age with her sisters, maddie, maddie, so it was

hattie and libby. they left here in the red light district and worked just down the street. at 34. she died her sister died at the age -- she died at 34. 20's --er died in the of her20's, as result work here in this district. their older sister, maddie, lived to be 90 something. she died in 19 624. -- she died in 19 624 - moved to casper, wyoming. we know about other prominent women, emma wilson. but we do not was have the

stories behind the women who lived more transient lifestyles. so we are excited to be able to tell more of those stories. it gives us an excuse to dig in to stories and flush them out and figure them out, where we might not have had the opportunity to do that. so we are excited to learn more haas,lizzie woods, martha libby hayes, women who lived and worked in this district. we find their lives are fascinating and then had rich, full lives just like ellen story did and emma wilson dead. they contributed to this community just like -- emma wilson did. they supported -- riveted to this community. they supported the church, they supported the library. it was this district was really integral to this town and this community, and these women were as well.

we tried to separate them, we tried to segregate them from this town. but they were part of this town and they really helped build this town, just like any other women living here. in this house on the census record there were usually about five girls who worked here altogether. it was not a house with a lot of working girls, but there were always a few. in bozeman's red light district at its height, we had eight houses. in reality that is not as many as a lot of other towns. but in those houses there was usually five or six girls. so, 40 some girls working in this red light district at one time. so this was probably a very there place in its day was probably a lot of fun being had. a lot of drinking, for cars. there was music. i was dancing. probably they would dance. it was a fun location.

that,just to juxtapose there was a lot of violence that happened in this were red light district as well. themselves,women and also between men and women. so i do not want to portray this as a fun time had by all. because it really was not. these women worked very hard they did not ways make a lot of money. not a lots did, but of the other stead. and there was a lot of violence that happen here. people were drinking, probably a lot of drug use happened here. in these houses. a lot of women died of drug overdose, opium, morphine, and in them overdoses. laudanum overdoses. there was fun but there was also tragedy. i hope this house becomes a center for history, center for a

place where people can come and do research, learn about some of the history of bozeman that is not as well-known. some of the history of montana does not well-known. this community has its own history. but so much ties into the national history that is happening as well. >> our cities to her recently traveled to bozeman, montana. to learn more about its recent -- rich history. bozeman ande about other stops on our tour visit c-span.org/cities to her. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. theuncer: monday night on communicators, daniel castro, vice president at the information technology and innovation foundation, on data privacy. and if enough is being done to protect americans from harm. >> one thing we could do is make it so that it is illegal to use

social security numbers for identification or verification purposes outside of such security. this is something that the social security numbers were never intended to do. for a long time it even says on the card this is not for identikit and purposes. they stopped printing that. can be something that done, dr. b requirement, that no bank could ever open an account using a so security -- that no bank could open an account using a social security number, you have to prove your identity through other means. in 1979 a small network the nine usual name rolled out a big idea. let yours make up their own minds. c-span opened the doors for policymaking for all to see. bringing unfiltered content from congress and beyond. a lot has changed in 40 years. but today that big ideas more relevant than ever. on television and online, c-span is your unfiltered view of government. so you can make up your own mind. brought to you by your cable or

satellite provider. announcer: the first afghans to land in english north american -- the first africans to land in english north america would arrive here in 1670. that would begin an air and that about many of united states. announcer: saturday we look back to the first arrival of africans to america 400 years ago at point comfort historic fort monroe, virginia. at 8:30 a.m. eastern we are live with professor cassondra alexander newby. for the history and origins of slavery in america. then at 930, life coverage of the commemoration ceremonies with speeches by officials including senator mark warner, senator tim kaine, governor ralph northam, and lieutenant governor justin fairfax. the history of africans in america, from fort monroe, live,

saturday, beginning at 8:30 a.m., on c-span's washington journal. and on american history tv on c-span3. next, on american history tv, virginia high school teachers becky morrison and irene winchester even illustrated talk about world war ii and close rationing. they explore government restrictions on styles and colors, and their impact on innovations and fashion such as cork which heals, shorter hemlines, and glow-in-the-dark buttons. friends of the national world war ii memorial hosted this talk as part of their annual teachers conference. invite beckyd to morrison and irene winchester to come up and talk about fashion in world war ii. becky is one of