Norris wrote voluminously and accomplished much, leaving his mark and name upon various sections of the Park. He caused trails, roads, bridges, and crude campgrounds to be made, in so far as the limited funds would allow. A policy of wild life protection was also adopted. In 1880 Harry Yount was given the assignment as gamekeeper. Yount was a typical leatherstocking frontiersman. He was rough, tough, and intelligent. In the role of game protector he spent the winter of 1880 in the Park. He thereby became one of the first white men of record to spend the entire year in Yellowstone.[295] Harry initiated many of the practices of resourcefulness and traditions of good will that characterize the ranger service, and he may be considered as its father.
The need of a game protection program was apparent from the outset. Indian, trapper, and miner visitations had taken a heavy toll of elk, deer, antelope, and buffalo. After 1872 tourist parties were largely made up of, or guided by, mountain men who undertook to provide game for the campers. Thus, a trip through Yellowstone was, in effect, a hunting and fishing expedition, actuated by the slogan "slay and eat."
In 1876 William Ludlow, a government surveyor, was moved to write an effective appeal for game protection to George Bird Grinnell, editor of _Forest and Stream_. His argument was buttressed by many observations of the slaughter "of the largest and finest game animals in the country."[296] In 1879 Superintendent Norris made a similar observation in his annual report. He stated that, with the rapid influx of tourists and the demand for such food, the policy could not long continue without serious results. He, thereupon, issued an order for the protection of the bison as the herd was not in excess of six hundred. However, this commendable move proved ineffective, and the hunters went merrily about their avocation.
About this time Norris left the Park service, but before doing so he had completed and occupied a unique structure on Capitol Hill, called Fort Yellowstone. It was a blockhouse of hewn timber with a balcony and three wings, surmounted by a gun turret. He wanted to be prepared for the next Indian attack, while the problems actually confronting the Park officials were of quite a different character. Yellowstone was still a wilderness, and many visitors would not endure restraints. In 1883 Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith caught two hundred trout in one day, and the next year Secretary of War Dan Lamont only caught fifty-three![297]