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).