William Henry Jackson's West

The great photographer influenced the Western preservation movement and the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872.

- CANDY MOULTON

One of William Henry Jackson’s first jobs was as a photographer for the Union Pacific Railroad, which took him to many of the historic sites along the overland trails in Nebraska, including Scotts Bluff. Today, visitors can follow a hiking trail past Eagle Rock through Mitchell Pass, parallel to the original Oregon Trail. – COURTESY NPS.GOV –

William Henry Jackson learned how to retouch photographs when he was only 15 and found a job in a photographer’s studio in New York. He furthered his understanding of the art of photography while working in a studio in Rutland, Vermont, before serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. He returned to photography after that war and found work in Style’s Photographic Gallery in Burlington, Vermont.

Jackson went West in the spring of 1866, arriving in Nebraska City, Nebraska, where he found a job working for a freighting company hauling goods to Montana’s mining country. His route took him along the Oregon Trail, where his artistic endeavors included sketching points along the trail. He spent two years traveling the trails and sketching before he opened a photographic studio of his own in Omaha.

Jackson’s selection of a new base for his photography put him in the perfect location to find work taking photographs of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, and that opened the door for him to travel in 1871 with Ferdinand Hayden’s Geologic Survey.