Although George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) won
distinction as an ethnologist, author, editor, and explorer,
perhaps his most enduring achievement was that cited by
President Coolidge when he presented the Theodore Roosevelt Gold
Medal of Honor to Grinnell in 1925: "Few have done as much as
you, and none has done more, to preserve vast areas of
picturesque wilderness for the eyes of posterity." It was
largely thanks to Grinnell that Glacier National Park was
created, and in Yellowstone Park, as the President said, he
"prevented the exploitation and therefore the destruction of the
natural beauty." Grinnell was a member of the Marsh, Custer, and
Ludlow expeditions in the 1870's, and during those years
prepared reports on birds and mammals of the northwestern Great
Plains region which are still authoritative. From those years,
also, dates his interest in the Indians, particularly the
Pawnee, Blackfoot, and Cheyenne. Among the score of books
resulting from his lifelong study of the Plains tribes, "The
Fighting Cheyenne" (1915) and "The Cheyenne Indians" (1923),
"Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales" (1889), and "Blackfoot
Lodge Tales" (1892) are perhaps the best known. A friend of the
famed North brothers, who commanded the Pawnee Scouts, Grinnell
encouraged Captain Luther North to set down his recollections,
and contributed a foreword to the book. Titled "Man of the
Plains", this work was published for the first time in its
entirety by the University of Nebraska Press (1961) .
