Gustavus Cheyney Doane - Yellowstone Superintendency Campaign and Death

Yellowstone Superintendency Campaign and Death

Throughout 1890 and 1891, Doane, while assigned to the Presidio in San Francisco and at Fort Bowie, Arizona Territory, made extensive personal and literary appeals to U.S. Army and Montana authorities for him to be given the Superintendency of Yellowstone National Park. The U.S. Army never supported him in this endeavor to his deep disappointment.

In February 1892, Doane returned to Bozeman, Montana on six months medical leave awaiting his official retirement from the U.S. Army. He fell sick during an influenza epidemic in April and eventually died in his sleep from heart failure on May 5, 1892 in his Bozeman home. He was buried in Sunset Hills Cemetery in downtown Bozeman. He was mourned by hundreds of Gallatin Valley citizens who knew him as the explorer who discovered Yellowstone. He was survived by his second wife Mary who lived as a widow in Bozeman until her death in June 1952.