Mary Murphy was a young woman who left her home in Bunker Hill, Indiana in 1930 with three companions to travel to Yellowstone National Park and back to Bunker Hill, Indiana. Her diary entries date from July 1 to July 30, 1930. Her companions for the trip included Zelma Smith, Edna Zell, and a Mrs. Crocket.
The Yellowstone Park diary provides a personal tour of Yellowstone National Park as seen by a tourist. The diary tracks Mary's trip from the time she left home to the time she returned home. The diary provides various facts, figures, and sketches that range from how to differentiate various types of trees to statistics on geyser formations. The diary also provides insights into her personal experiences, such as, eating lunch along the Yellowstone River with prairie dogs as guests, viewing a presentation by a Navaho Indian woman, and observing the feeding habits of bears at the Bear Feeding Grounds near Old Faithful. Mary's journey took her through portions of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Within the diary, she mentions entering the park at Sylvan Pass Lodge and traveling to Fishing Bridge Lodge on Yellowstone Lake. Her journey through Yellowstone touches on the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Mammoth Hot Springs, Morris Geyser Basin, Gibbon Falls, Mud Pots, Paint Pots and Lower Geyser Basin, Grand Prismatic Lake, the Continental Divide, West Thumb, Artist Point, Lookout Point, Grand View, Inspiration Point, Tower Falls, and the Terraces.
This collection is open for research.
The Mary Murphy Diary was purchased by Montana State University from Buckingham Books, Greencastle, PA, on April 14, 2004.
This collection was processed 2010 December 9