Fish and Aquatic Conservation (FAC) in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is the direct descendant of the U.S. Fish Commission, founded in 1871. In 2021, FAC marks its 150th anniversary, the oldest conservation agency in history. To commemorate this milestone, U.S. F&W will publish a compelling history to celebrate the broad-thinking scientists, writers, and artists who led us through the gilded age of American ichthyology into the present day. To order.
THE COMPLEAT ANGLER
FIRST YELLOWSTONE FISHING TALE
One of the earliest stories about trout fishing in Yellowstone National Park was written by an adventurous East Coast woman. It was 1897 when Mary Trowbridge Townsend’s byline was attached to an "Outing" magazine story simply titled “A Woman’s Trout-Fishing in Yellowstone Park.” The story begins with a very detailed description of the area around the Firehole River, a waterway where she said there was “the finest trout-fishing in the Park.”
A RIVER WITH TWO NAMES
From a river’s beginnings in the snow-capped mountains to its meeting with a ocean, it is common for its courses to have more than one name—No Name Creek flows into a Rock Creek, joined by a Boulder Creek, and so-on down the river. At the Wyoming’s “Wedding of the Waters,” just south of Thermopolis, however, a river simply changes its name from Wind River to Bighorn River—same river, no joining of tributaries, just a different name.
