At least fifteen persons have committed suicide in Yellowstone, and another four more occurred just outside the park. Listed below are a few of the stories.

Emily Moore

The first suicide apparently was Mrs. Emily Moore, age 27. She killed herself January 27, 1884.

The woman lived with her husband and son, and appears to have been prosperous. She was suffering from painful neuralgia and so she sent her son to the store to get morphine (it was legal, and you didn't need a prescription). He returned and gave the drug to his mother.

Her lifeless body was found later. The cause of death, a morphine overdose.

Ed M. Wilson

Noted army scout, Ed M. Wilson arrived in the park, probably in 1885, when he was hired by the superintendent as a mountaineer assistant. By 1891 Ed Wilson was in love with the youngest daughter of a hotel keeper. Her name was Mary Rosetta Henderson, and she was a beautiful young woman. Ed was five feet, ten inches tall and weighed 200 pounds. One would have thought that his dark blue eyes, dark hair streaked with gray, and dark brown mustache would have been appealing to any lady.

Mary was not interested. So, Ed Wilson, age about 37 at the time, walked up a hill above the village of Mammoth Hot Springs, on the evening of July 27, 1891, carrying a bottle of morphine. Pondered his life, he apparently drank the entire bottle.

He was missing for nearly a year. Great searches were made for him, but he was not found. Reward posters were circulated and the newspapers ran notices of his disappearance, but no one heard about why he was missing for eleven months.

About June 15, 1892, someone found Ed Wilson's clothed skeleton on a hill above Mammoth with the empty morphine bottle nearby A woman had rendered him powerless.

At nearly this same time Mary Henderson married Henry Klamer, an employee of her fathers store.

Frank Pepper

Another clothed skeleton was found August 21, 1900, near the Gardiner cemetery on Tinker's Hill, a location inside the park. It had been without burials for long periods, so it was (and still is) usual for time to go by with no one visiting the site.

On May 3, 1900, Frank Pepper, age about 30, a stage coach driver gave his watch to his employer, purchased a gun from Hall's store, went to the cemetery, and shot himself in the head. Reasons for his suicide remain unknown.

Dan Bowman

Dan Bowman, about 45, was a teamster. He was described as one of the best known residents of Gardiner. At 5:00 p.m. on July 13, 1905, Bowman, who had been drink heavily, drove his team to the barn, fed and watered them, took a bunch of letters to Mrs. Jobb nearby, went back to the barn, lay down on a cot, and shot himself in the head with a .38 Colt revolver. The reason remains unknown.

Eugene Clark

Eugene dark's story is sad, but also very romantic. He died of carbolic acid poisoning. The acid was commonly used in his day as a means of suicide. It could be easily purchased at any drugstore for fifteen cents an ounce. One ounce was all that was needed to do the job.

Eugene, an assistant electrical engineer in the park, apparently killed himself on November 9, 1906. Perhaps he was despondent over the death of his infant daughter Sarah, who had died at Ft. Yellowstone on October 26, 1905. At any rate, both were buried in the Mammoth army cemetery. We know nothing more about their deaths.

The affair, however, was not to come co a complete close till 51 years later. On May 8, 1957, Mrs. Jeannett Clark, age 73, died in San Francisco, California. Her will directed that she be buried beside her husband and daughter in the army cemetery at Mammoth. Jeannett was buried on May 15, 1957, her interment becoming the first burial in thirty-three years and Fort Yellowstone cemetery's last burial.

James P. Jackson

James P. Jackson, 39, of Lewistown, Montana, slashed his own throat with a razor from ear and bled to death at the long-razed Mammoth Lodge sometime in 1927.

Frederick A. Olson

Frederick A. Olson, 60, a carpenter, hung himself in the Gardiner bunkhouse on March 2, 1951.

Judson M. Rhoads

Park ranger Judson M. Rhoads of Covello, California, a graduate of the University of California. Rhoads, 31, had been a Yellowstone ranger for four years when he shot himself on January 9, 1938.

His wife heard the shot that ended his life. A ranger who knew Rhoads recalled later, that Rhoads had gotten himself into serious debt and had been depressed since a trip to California.

text is from the book death in yellowstone by lee h. whittlesey.