AA-2026-8EFB8C
On the image
The canyon walls of the Yellowstone River cut through rhyolite in shades of white, yellow, and rust, a landscape so visually extreme that nineteenth-century visitors assumed the colours were painted on—the land was too theatrical to be real. The river itself runs blue-green at the bottom, a cold shock of colour in the mineral-stained rock, and the evergreens clinging to the slopes seem almost incidental, details the canyon tolerates rather than features it displays. By the time colour film made it possible to show the gorge as it actually appeared, Americans had already decided what they believed about this place: that it was proof of nature's ability to exceed imagination, and therefore a site where the nation's power—the power to preserve it, to own it, to photograph it—could be confirmed. The canyon exists now partly as geology and partly as the idea that significant landscapes exist to be recorded and circulated.
The historian's note
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is the lower canyon of the Yellowstone River, located within Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The distinctive geothermal coloration of the canyon walls—whites, yellows, oranges, and deep reds—results from oxidised iron minerals and silica deposits in the rhyolite bedrock, a visual signature that made the canyon one of the most photographed and reproduced landscape features in American tourism by the early twentieth century. The river drops 109 feet at the Lower Falls and another 308 feet at the Upper Falls; the canyon walls rise between 800 and 1,200 feet. Colour photography of the canyon intensified in the mid-twentieth century as transparency film and colour printing improved, allowing the striking mineral hues to be rendered with increasing accuracy. The site's status as a landscape within the nation's first national park (established 1872) ensured its role as both geological landmark and symbol of American conservation.
Subjects & keywords — each links to a search
Visually related — by likeness
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park. 1940–1965. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-8EFB8C. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/grand-canyon-of-the-yellowstone-yellowstone-national-park.
@misc{aaAA20268EFB8C,
title = {Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park},
year = {1940–1965},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-8EFB8C},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/grand-canyon-of-the-yellowstone-yellowstone-national-park}
}TY - ART TI - Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park PY - 1940–1965 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-8EFB8C UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/grand-canyon-of-the-yellowstone-yellowstone-national-park ER -
From the community
Identifications, corrections, and discussion from readers — reviewed by a librarian before appearing here.
Sign in to add an identification, correction, or comment.
No notes yet — be the first to add what you know about this image.