Haunting In Yellowstone

The historic Roosevelt Arch, the north entrance to Yellowstone 
National Park. It was dedicated on April 24, 1903.

Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872, but in a short-sighted budget move, the government allocated no funds for the upkeep, protection and management of the park. For the first 14 years of its existence, the park was seriously threatened by poachers killing the animals, people throwing rocks and broken tree limbs into the geysers and hot springs in a misguided attempt to stop them up, souvenir hunters broke off large pieces of the geysers and unauthorized developers set up camps for tourists next to hot springs where they built bath and laundry facilities along with toilet facilities located directly over the streams. 

Finally, Congress hired civilian superintendents to protect the land, but there were only a handful to oversee more than 2 million acres of park. In 1886, the park looked to the U.S. Army for help. The cavalry soldiers who came to Yellowstone made their headquarters at the foot of the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces. Their campground was called Camp Sheridan, but after enduring 5 harsh winters in poorly constructed "temporary" buildings, a permanent post was built and named Fort Yellowstone. 

Simple headstones and wooden markers still stand over the graves
of civilian workers and family members of the soldiers.

By 1910, there were 324 soldiers stationed at Fort Yellowstone. In addition to the soldiers, there were officer's families (marriage was discouraged for enlisted men) and many civilian employees living in the fort. Most of the soldiers considered the assignment to be a good duty station as the work was varied and the scenery couldn't be beat. However, with the very hard winters, encounters with wild animals and the general hazardous duty of army life, deaths inevitably occurred.  Soldiers, wives, children and civilian employees alike were all buried in the nicely tended Fort Yellowstone Army Cemetery.

Congress eventually appropriated sufficient funds for civilian operation of the park and at sunset on July 4, 1916, an Army cannon located at the top of Capitol Hill was fired for the last time. The next day, the army left behind Yellowstone and their dearly departed friends and loved ones. The cemetery was left unattended and for the next year, the grass and weeds grew over the graves and the headstones and wooden markers faded in the winds and snows of winter. The dead didn't seem to mind. 

Even today, coffin-shaped sunken indention's in the ground can 
be found where the soldiers remains were removed.

The very next summer, however, some government official made the decision to move the army dead from Fort Yellowstone Cemetery to  the military cemetery at Custer's Battlefield in Montana. All remains of the soldiers were dug up, but the wives and children were left where they lay. 

An obviously very loved 5 year-old boy's grave. The inscription reads -
"Tis a little grave, but oh take care. Fond hopes are buried there."

That fall, reports started coming in; reports of something strange happening around the old Army Cemetery. Visitors who happened to find themselves  near the cemetery after the sun went down were hearing voices and the sounds of children crying, always coming from the direction of the fenced-in graveyard. Too many reports from too many strangers to dismiss out of hand and all of them saying basically the same thing - children crying, the sound of footsteps in the high grass when nobody could be seen and a feeling of deep sorrow and sadness overcoming those few brave enough to approach near the graves. It's been so for almost a hundred years now. 

The Park Service eventually began maintaining the cemetery; the weeds are kept cut back and an iron post fence was erected a few years ago. But sometimes, after the sun has set, people have reported the children are still crying and the voices are still calling out, calling for their fathers and husbands and friends who were taken away from them.

So many children and all destined to spend eternity without
a  daddy beside them.