Jones, Charles Jesse, 1844-1919

First warden of Yellowstone Park and western pioneer.

"Buffalo" Jones, Kansas pioneer, adventurer, and buffalo hunter, writing to Wall Street banker of Edmund Seymour & Company.

Charles Jesse Jones, "Buffalo" Jones, born January 31, 1844 in Tazewell County, Illinois, lead the life of the quintessential pioneer cowboy. From his early childhood in Illinois to his experience as a buffalo hunter on the Great Plains in the 1870s, Jones' life story serves as an allegory for the experience of American expansionism on the western frontier. Jones' unique role in this westward movement was his effort to save the American Bison from extinction, and subsequently to hybridize them with domestic cattle. In the process of trying to save the bison from extinction Jones became famous for the live capture of wild animals. His reputation lead him on a series of adventures including the live capture African big game. The writer Zane Grey, who became friends with Jones acknowledged that Jones was the inspiration for many of his fictional characters, as well as the subject of two non fiction books, The Last of the Plainsmen, 1911 and Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon, 1924.

Jones married Martha J. Walton on January 20, 1869. They had four children, two boys died in childhood. Throughout his life Jones maintained close correspondence with his daughters, Jessie and Olive. Suffering from a chronic illness contracted in Africa, Jones died at his daughter Olive's house in Topeka, Kansas on March 18, 1919. He is buried along side his wife Martha and their two sons in the Valley View Cemetery, Garden City, Kansas.