Name: Gardner Canyon

 

County: Park

 

Authority Name: 

 

GNIS Entry

 

Longitude:  1104138W

Latitude: 450040N

 

Legal Description:

 

Elevation: 5433/1656

(ft/m)

 

Feature Type: Valley

 

Origin of Name:

Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., cut by Gardiner River, about 2 miles above mouth, extending to a point est of Bunsen Peak.

Source: Decisions, 1890-1932

 

Canyon along the lower course of the Gardner River in Yellowstone National Park, extending northward for about 4 miles from the junction of Lava Creek Canyon and Sheepeater Canyon.

Source: Decisions, 1960

 

Named after the Gardiner River that cuts its way through the canyon.

Source: WPA

 

This name, which, after "Yellowstone," is the most familiar and important name in the Park, is the most difficult to account for. The first authentic use of the name occurs in 1870, in the writings of the Washburn party. In Mr. Langford's journal, kept during the expedition, is the following entry for August 25, 1870: "At nineteen miles from our morning camp we came to Gardiner River, at the mouth of which we camped." As the party did not originate the name, and as they make no special reference to it in any of their writings, it seems clear that it must already have been known to them at the time of their arrival at the stream. None of the surviving members has the least recollection concerning it. The stream had been known to prospectors during the preceding few years as Warm Spring Creek, and the many "old timers" consulted on the subject erroneously think that the present name was given by the Washburn Party or by the Hayden Party of 1871. What is its real origin is therefore a good deal of a mystery.

 

The only clue, and that not a satisfactory one, which has come under our observation, is to be found in the book "River of the West," (Victor, Mrs. Frances A. Fuller. The River of the West. Hartford, Connecticut and Toledo, Ohio: R. W. Bliss and Co., 1870.) already quoted. Reference is there made to a trapper by the name of Gardiner, who lived in the Upper Yellowstone country as far back as 1830, and was at one time a companion of Joseph Meek, the hero of the book. In another place it is stated that in 1838, Meek started alone from Missouri Lake (probably Red Rock Lake) " for the Gallatin Fork of the Missouri, trapping in a mountain basin called Gardiner's Hole. . . . On his return, in another basin called Burnt Hole, he found a buffalo skull, etc." As is well known, the sources of the Gallatin and Gardiner are interlaced with each other, and this reference strongly points to the present Gardiner Valley as " Gardiner's Hole." The route across the Gallatin Range to Mammoth Hot Springs, and thence back by way of the Firehole Basin, was doubtless a natural one then as it is now. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that this name came from an old hunter in the early years of the century, and that the Washburn Party received it from some surviving descendant of those times.

Source: Chittenden 

 

Other Names: 

 

Alternative Spellings: Gardiner Canyon

 

History:

 

Stories:

 

Maps:

1:24000 Quadrangle: Gardiner

 

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