Wylie, William Wallace

William Wallace Wylie (1848-1930) came to Bozeman, Montana from Iowa in 1878 as the principal of the city schools. In 1881 he became the principal of the Bozeman Academy. Several years later he was Montana Superintendent of schools. He made his first trip to Yellowstone National Park in 1880 and in 1881 he started a lecture tour on the park using H.B. Calfee's stereoptican views. In 1882, he published a guidebook to the park "Yellowstone national park; or, The great American wonderland : a complete description of all the wonders of the park". As he continued to visit the Park and took teachers on educational tours, he used tent camps to house them. In 1893 he got permission to establish fixed camps in the Park for tourist groups. This developed into the Wylie Way Stations which he ran until 1905 when he sold the business. W. W. Wylie wrote this autobiography in 1926 to write of his experiences during 25 years of service in Yellowstone National Park.

From the guide to the W.W. Wylie Autobiography, 1926, (Montana State University-Bozeman Library, Merrill G Burlingame Special Collections)