Harry Yount, sometimes erroneously referred to as Wyoming's first game warden (he wasn't), passed away in Wheatland at age 85.
Yount was from Missouri in 1839 and joined the Union Army during the Civil War, being taken prisoner by the Confederates from whom he escaped. His escaped from captivity was barefoot and lead to a condition of rheumatism, which left him eligible for benefits for the same when they were first passed in 1890. After the war, he headed West and engaged in a classic series of Frontier occupations, including bull whacking and buffalo hunting.
In the 1870s he was engaged by the Smithsonian in order to collect taxidermy specimens, and he became a regular member of the Hayden expeditions throughout the decade. During this period, he also took up prospecting. He was well known enough to be the subject of a newspaper profile in 1877. Around this time he became a commercial hunter in Wyoming, that still being legal until Wyoming took efforts to outlaw it early in the 20th Century.
In 1880, he was hired at the impressive salary of $1,000 per year to become Yellowstone National Park's first game warden, gamekeeper, or "park ranger" at a time at which the law was enforced in Yellowstone by the U.S. Army. He occupied the high paying job for fourteen months. Upon resigning he noted:
I do not think that any one man appointed by the honorable Secretary, and specifically designated as a gamekeeper, is what is needed or can prove effective for certain necessary purposes, but a small and reliable police force of men, employed when needed, during good behavior, and dischargeable for cause by the superintendent of the park, is what is really the most practicable way of seeing that the game is protected from wanton slaughter, the forests from careless use of fire, and the enforcement of all the other laws, rules, and regulations for the protection and improvement of the park.
His resignation seems to have come over a disagreement with the park superintendent, who wanted him to spend more time building roads.
After leaving the Park, he prospected, after a short and unsuccessful stint as a homesteader, in the Laramie Range for almost forty years, a remarkable stint at that occupation. He took out a marble mining claim and spent his later years there, working also at prospecting right up to the day he died. He collapsed near the Lutheran Church in Wheatland after walking into town, something he did daily. He was 85 years old.
Younts Peak near Yellowstone is named after him. The Park Service gives out the Harry Yount Award, established in 1994, annually to an outstanding ranger employee.
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