Wonderland History

Wonderland History PDF

Wonderland History Power Point

Learn more about the history of Wonderland and Yellowstone National Park. This association goes back to 1871, before Yellowstone was established as as the first national park in the world. Early explorers told enchanted tales of steam and hot water erupting from the earth. Their stories were thought to be wild exaggerations and were not to be believed. This was before the wide spread use of photographic images and the early visitor's descriptions were speculation and could not be proven. The only images they had to illustrate what they had seen were hand-drawn sketches.

The Northern Pacific Railroad published a series of travel brochures titled Wonderland from circa 1885-1916. We offer three of these early poster-style brochure covers as fine-art giclee prints. The brochures date 1885, 1897 and 1904. Consider these unique works of art for home or office decor. You are welcome to contact us if have questions. We will be glad to assist you however we can.

There are other examples of Wonderland referring to Yellowstone National Park. Rudolf Cronau (1855–1939) was a German-American printer, illustrator and journalist. He was well known for his illustrations, articles and books about the American West. Cronau came to America in 1881 and traveled to Yellowstone National Park in 1882. His drawings are carefully detailed and finely rendered in a style that clearly displays the influence of his training in the German Romantic tradition of the Royal Academy. These woodcut engravings were published as collotypes in a book entitled “Von Wunderland zu Wunderland.” Below is a ca. 1885 woodcut etching of Mammoth Hot Springs by Cronau. We have 3 Cronau woodcut etchings available to order as fine-art giclee prints, including this one of Mammoth Hot Springs. The other two images in this collection are Castle Geyser and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. These three Cronau illustrations are listed under Woodcut Engravings.