The mystery of John Colter: the man who discovered Yellowstone

"Off he started with the speed of the wind" : Colter's Run -- "One of the survivors, of the name of Coulter" : searching for Colter's roots -- "In quest of the country of Kentucke" : John Colter and the legacy of Daniel Boone -- "Colter came running along the shore" : the encounter with the Lakota Sioux -- "Colter had just arrived with a letter from Capt. Clark" : perilous rivers and mountains -- "Colter expressed a desire to join some trappers" : the partnership with Dickson and Hancock -- "Unruly hands to manage" : up the Missouri with Lisa -- "Lonely wanderings" : the riddle of Colter's route -- "In the midst of an unbounded wilderness" : Washington Irving and the Legend of Colter's Run -- "We all now became blind" : west with Menard and Henry -- "He reluctantly took leave of us" : surviving in civilization -- "As fine a body of hardy woodsmen as ever took the field" : Colter's final days.;From 1810, when a newspaper published the first account of "Colter's Run," to 2012, when one hundred and fourscore participants in Montana's annual John Colter Run charged up and down rugged trails - even across the waist-deep Gallatin River - interest in Colter, the alleged discoverer of Yellowstone Park, has never waned. Drawing on this endless fascination with an individual often called the first American mountain man, this book offers an innovative, comprehensive study of a unique figure in American history. Despite his prominent role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the early exploration of the West, Colter is distinctly different from Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and the other legends of the era because they all left documents behind that allow access to the men themselves. Colter, by contrast, left nothing, not a single letter, diary, or reminiscence, so that second-, third-, or fourth-hand accounts of his adventures are all we have. Guiding readers through this labyrinth of hearsay, rumor, and myth, this is the first book to tell the whole story of Colter and his legend, examining everything that is known - or supposedly known - about Colter and showing how historians and history buffs alike have tried in vain to get back to Colter the man, know what he said and feel what he felt, but have ended up never seeing him clearly, finding instead an enigma they cannot unravel.