Ingersol, Truman Ward.  T.W. Ingersoll was one of the most important photographers and producer of stereoviews in Yellowstone National Park. He also published over 4000 different US and world-view stereos. His views produced in the 1880’s were of the highest quality. There were four different series featuring Yellowstone views during that time. He attempted to compete with larger commercial stereoview publishers such as Underwood & Underwood and the Keystone View Company with lower quality copy views. Buyers however, were not fooled and sales suffered. Between the years 1905-10 he produced three higher quality new black & white stereoview series, under the names Ingersoll View Company and High Grade Original Views. Ingersoll also sold the right to some of his views to other publishers such as Sears Roebuck & Co. and the American Novelty Company. He later sold the commercial part of his St. Paul photography business to Buckbee Mears Company. After his death June 9, 1922 in St. Paul, his negatives passed on to the Keystone View Company. Today they are part of the Keystone Mast Collection at the University of California at Riverside. Ingersoll was born February 19, 1862 in St. Paul and had studios under the names of Zimmerman & Ingersoll, Ingersoll View Company, and Juul-Ingersoll Company. In 1883 Ingersoll accompanied a man named Brooks from Connecticut who built a boat in Livingston, Montana and attempted to make a 4,000 mile river voyage to Louisiana. It is not currently known if either man completed the voyage. [Helena Independent; 9/22/1883] [The Yellowstone Stereoview Page] [Minnesota Historical Society Website - Directory of Minnesota Photographers]

 

Jackson, David.  David Jackson was an early fur trapper and co-owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. in 1826. Jackson's Hole and the town of Jackson, Wyoming were named after him. Jackson was born in 1788 to parents Edward and Elizabeth Jackson in Randolph County in what is now West Virginia. He spent his early life in the wilds west of the Shenandoah Mountains. Jackson died in 1837 at age 49. [25L;57] [Wikipedia]

 

Jackson, George J.  George Jackson received a permit to operate a stage station in 1882 at Soda Butte and shared the homestead with Jim Cutler.  Supt. Conger gave George verbal permission to live on Rose Creek (current Buffalo Ranch) in 1882.  However, Supt. Carpenter kicked them, along with other squatters in the area, out of the park in the fall of 1884. The site became the location of the Buffalo Ranch in 1907. [113] [30]

 

Jackson, William Henry.  William Henry Jackson (W.H. Jackson) was born in Keeseville, New York in 1843, he became a self-taught artist. He later moved to Vermont and enlisted for the Civil War in 1860. While present at the Battle of Gettysburg, he saw no action. He went west in 1866 and was photographing the progress of the UPRR in 1869 when he met Ferdinand Hayden. Hayden asked Jackson to accompany him in 1871 on his expedition to Yellowstone. Jackson took most of the first photographs of the park that were used in the effort to convince Congress to set aside Yellowstone as a park. Photographer Joshua Crissman of Bozeman accompanied Jackson on this trip, and the two took many pictures side by side. Crissman actually had his negatives printed and viewed first, but he never received the acclaim that Jackson did. Jackson also accompanied the Hayden expeditions of 1872 and 1878. In 1879 he moved to Denver and opened a new photographic studio and founded the Jackson Photo Co. He joined the Detroit Publishing Co. in 1897 and assigned his stock of negatives to them in exchange for cash and company stock. Detroit began publishing Private Mailing Cards (predecessor of post cards) with Jackson’s Yellowstone images in 1898-99. He worked for them until 1924 when the company went out of business. Jackson died on June 30, 1942 at age 99 and has been credited with producing over 54,000 negatives. [25g] [79u;Jackson] [119b]

 

Jump, William ‘Billy’.  Billy Jump opened a mail station in Harry Yount’s old cabin at Soda Butte in 1883. He had received permission to do so by Supt. Conger in the spring of 1882. In 1884, Jump, George Jackson, Jim Cutler, and other squatters in the area were asked to leave the park by park authorities. The buildings were reportedly burned. Jump moved to Jackson Hole for a time, but at least by 1899 he was tending bar at the Pisor Saloon in Horr. One of his customers was Calamity Jane. By 1902 he was married with two sons, Bill and Tom. Jump also tended bar in Jardine and did carpenter work, assisting with the construction of the officer's frame houses at Mammoth. [106d] [114] [71c]

 

Kammermeyer, Fred E.     F.E. Kammermeyer was Transportation Superintendent for H.W. Child and the Yellowstone Park Transportation Co. (YPTCo) from 1917 to the 1940’s.  He had been a military transport officer during WWI and was hired by Child to set up and organize the operation of the new fleet of 117 White Motor Co. buses in 1917.  These buses replaced the stagecoaches that had been used up until that year.  He retired Sept. 30, 1948 as Manager of Transportation Div., Yellowstone Park Co.  Fred E. Kammermeyer was born June 30, 1888 in Burlington, Iowa to parents Fred Christian Kammermeyer and Lidia Wilhelmina Tillman.  Sometime after 1920 Fred married Evelyn Johnson, born 1888 in Ohio. In the fall of 1924 Fred was an Engineering Extension Student with the University of Wisconsin. In a letter to the college Extension Division, Fred commented upon his employment in Yellowstone that summer: “We handled nearly 150,000 tourists this season, and I supervise six garages and 322 busses and trucks with all the grief that goes with it; so you can readily understand that I could not give study any concentrated thought – much less time – as I put in about 18 hours a day trying to keep up with the problems.”  The Polk Guides list Fred’s residence as Livingston in 1943, Billings, 1944, and Bozeman in 1950. According to the Allday family website, Fred died of a gunshot wound to the head on December 21, 1967 at Sun City, Arizona. He was buried in the Sunland Cemetery. Evelyn died March 20, 1969 in Glendale, Arizona.  [39-49] [25g]

 

Karst, Pete.     Pete Karst founded Karst Stage in 1902 to haul freight and loggers from Bozeman to a logging camp on Taylor Creek in the Gallatin Canyon area.  In 1908 he built the Karst Stage Stop Inn about 35 miles south of Bozeman, Montana.  It became the first ‘dude ranch’ in the canyon and transported mail, freight, and passengers from Bozeman and surrounding areas to his ranch.  He also operated tours in Yellowstone.  He motorized his fleet in 1917 when stagecoaches were no longer allowed on park roads.  He established the Gallatin Canyon Bus Line in 1924.  “Gail’s Golden Guide of the Beartooth Mountains” of 1935 lists Karst’s Kamp as having guest cabins, coffee shop, general store, garage, indoor plunge, and orchestras playing on Saturday nights.  Karst sold the business in the early 1950’s and although the dude ranch is no longer in business, Karst Stage, Inc. still operates and provides bus service to the western US and Canada.  [25g] [Karst Stage website]

 

Kayser, Albert.     Albert Kayser was the owner of the German language newspaper “Oakland Journal” and began issuing postcards, then known as ‘mailing cards’, with mostly California views.  One card printed in 1897 featured eight different Yellowstone images on it that appeared to be F.J. Haynes photos.  It is suspected that he did not have Haynes’ permission for the images.  This card is believed to be the 1st known postcard using Yellowstone images.  In 1898 Kayser sold his business and Edward H. Mitchell, a San Francisco publisher of western-image postcards, acquired the postcard portion.  Mitchell reissued the Yellowstone card in 1898.   [97;Vol.2;No.3,Michael Bodell]

 

Keeney, Elias Joseph.    Joe Keeney was a miner and long-time pioneer in the Yellowstone-Cooke City-Boulder country.  He was born Aug. 22, 1847 in Linn Co, Oregon Territory.  His father, Jonathan Keeney, was a trapper with William Sublette, Kit Carson and Jim Bridger in the Yellowstone, Snake and Columbia River drainages.  Joe came to Montana in 1875 with a herd of wild horses and ended up in the Gallatin Valley.  Because he did not have a bill of sale for the horses, he was suspected of being a horse thief. Attracting the attention of the Vigilantes, he soon left town.  In 1877 he became the first man to locate mining claims on the Boulder River in the Independence area.  He also owned land with George Huston that became the townsite of Cinnabar.  Joe operated a hotel, restaurant and saloon in Cinnabar for a time.  He filed numerous claims in the Cooke City and Clark's Fork area in the 1880's.  Keeney was an assistant superintendent in the park around 1882, but got into political trouble when he tried to arrest a judge for leaving a campfire burning.  His diligence ended up getting him fired.  He died Sept. 25, 1938 at the age of 91 in Livingston Mt.  [Thanks to Joe's great-grandson Greg Keeney for this information]

 

Killion, R.T.   R.T. Killion owned the Yellowstone Park Ice Co., which was incorporated January 26, 1959 to operate ice plants and ice vending machines in the park. He subcontracted to Yellowstone Park Co. to operate the ice plant and ice vending machines at Fishing Bridge, Lake, West Thumb, Old Faithful, Mammoth, and Canyon.   [25L;60]

 

Kingman, Lt. Daniel.    Lt. Dan Kingman was with the Army Corps of Engineers when they arrived in Yellowstone in August of 1883.  Kingman was placed in charge and was responsible for the design, planning, and construction of the basic park road system until 1887.  He was responsible for the basic figure-8 design that is still used today.  He designed and built the wooden trestle and road through the Golden Gate Canyon in 1883 that bypassed the steep and harrowing Snow Pass road.  The next two years he rerouted the Gardiner to Mammoth ‘high road’ to the route currently used along the Gardiner River.  He left the park as a Captain.  He had a boat called the U.S. Pinafore, which was test run on Swan Lake in 1885.  Kingman retired from army service in 1916 as a brigadier general, and died in November of that year.  [25L;60]

For a detailed history of the Yellowstone Park road system, visit this NPS Road History website.

 

Klamer, Henry Ernst.     Henry Klamer was born in 1858 in Kahoka, Clark Co. Missouri, he moved west at least by the early 1880’s.  He was a member of the road crew in the park under Supt. Norris in 1881.  He applied to be an Asst. Park Superintendent in 1882, but was passed over for the position.  When George G. Henderson assumed control of the Marshall Hotel in 1885, he brought Klamer into the deal with him.  They built cottages, a new store, and renamed it the Firehole Hotel.  The Cottage Hotel Association, run by the Henderson family in Mammoth, may have taken over the operation in 1886.  The Yellowstone Park Association (YPA) came into possession of the property sometime in 1886, by unknown means.  Klamer managed the park beef herd for John Harvat in 1890 and the next year received the beef contract to supply the hotels and camps in the park himself.  He brought the herd into the park in the spring, pasturing them on Swan Lake Flats, with the slaughterhouse near Indian Creek.  This business continued through the 1890’s until Van Dyke & Deever of Gardiner took over the contract in 1901.  Klamer married Mary Henderson, daughter of G.L. Henderson in 1892, and in 1897 they established the H.E. Klamer general store at Old Faithful.  They were granted a 10-year lease and 2 acres of land to operate the business.  The original building was a rather plain, frame-style 2-story building.  General merchandise, tourist supplies, Indian goods, and curios were sold and a post office was also located in the store for a short period of time.  In 1899 they received permission to establish bathing facilities for the tourists.  The distinctive rustic portion of the store facing Old Faithful was added in 1903-04 and featured 20-inch diameter upright logs for porch supports.  It was around that time that the log braces were installed around the eaves of the roof, adding to the rustic character.  They expanded the store with a 16’ addition in 1913-14, but Henry died that last year on August 12.  Mary and her brother Walter Henderson operated the business until 1915 when she sold it to Charles Hamilton, who received financing from Harry Child.  Huntley Child, Harry’s son, had an opportunity to buy the business, but turned it down.  Hamilton built a large addition in 1923-24 and the store continues to do a booming business.  As of 2003, the Hamilton stores came under the ownership of the Delaware North Parks Co.  [25k]

For additional information, please visit my Klamer General Store page.

 

Klamer, Mary.   Mary Klamer, nee Mary Rosetta Henderson, wife of Henry Klamer.   (See ‘Henderson, Mary’)

 

Knowles, John S.   John Knowles came to Montana in 1876 and worked a claim at Emigrant Gulch. By 1882 he began mining on Crevice Creek, which feeds into the Yellowstone River near the North Entrance to the park, and built his cabin there around 1898.  He was told to move out when it was discovered his cabin was within the park boundaries. In a letter to the park superintendent in 1899, Knowles claimed he built his cabins before the park was established and had occupied them since 1880. However, since the park was formed before he even came to Montana, he obviously exaggerated those time periods in order to claim legitimacy for his holdings, as he was trying to sell them to the government. He listed 18’ x 20’ and 12’ x 16’ houses, a 16’ x 18’ cabin, a stable and shed. He was asking $200 for the lot of them, which were located near the mouth of Crevice Creek. [113] [YNP Army Files Doc.2631]