Liberty Cap and hot spring hotel before 1887

Frank Jay Haynes took this photograph of the Liberty Cap and Hot Spring Hotel in Yellowstone National Park. We see a tall cone of petrified mineral deposits dominating the foreground. The image encapsulates the paradox of the American West at the turn of the century. On the one hand, there's the sublime, untouched landscape, a monument to natural processes. On the other, we have a nascent tourist industry, turning the wilderness into a spectacle for consumption, hinted at by the hotel in the background. The name 'Liberty Cap' itself is telling; a natural formation re-branded with a potent symbol of American ideals, subtly asserting a sense of ownership and national identity over the land. To truly understand this photograph, we need to delve into the history of Yellowstone as a national park, the growth of tourism, and the impact of these developments on the indigenous populations who originally inhabited this land. It reminds us that even seemingly straightforward landscape photography is embedded within complex social and political contexts.