1878 Hayden Geological Map of Bear Lake, Utah and Environs

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (September 7, 1829 - December 22, 1887) was an American geologist remembered for leading late 19th century pioneering surveying expedition in the Rocky Mountains and served as a doctor in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. Born in Westfield, Massachusetts, and discovered a fascination with nature and wildlife in his youth. He studied at Oberlin College and graduated in 1850, then attended the Albany Medical College and earned his degree in 1853. While at Albany, Hayden garnered the attention of Professor James Hall, then the state geologist of New York. Professor Hall convinced Hayden to join an expedition to the Nebraska Territory, where he collected fossils and studied geology. He accompanied expeditions led by Gouverneur K. Warren in 1856 and 1857 and the Raynolds Expedition of 1860 led by Captain William F. Raynolds. He served as an army surgeon during the U.S. Civil War and rose to become the chief medical officer of the Army of the Shenandoah. After the war, Hayden resumed working on geologic and geographic surveys in the Nebraska and Western Territories and was appointed geologist-in-chief of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories in 1867. Hayden led the first federally funded geological survey into the Yellowstone Region in northwestern Wyoming in 1871 under orders from Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano. The expedition included fifty men, including painter Thomas Moran and Civil War photographer William Henry Jackson. Hayden's report on the expedition, Preliminary Report of the United State Geological Survey of Montana and Portions of Adjacent Territories; Being a Fifth Annual Report of Progress played an instrumental role in persuading Congress to establish Yellowstone as the first U.S. National Park. More by this mapmaker...

Henry Gannett (August 24, 1846 - November 5, 1914) was an American geographer who is described as the 'Father of American topographic map making'. Born in Bath, Maine, Gannett entered Harvard at the age of twenty and received a bachelor's degree in 1869. He earned the degree of mining engineer from the Hooper Mining School in 1870. He joined the Hayden Survey in 1871, at the age of twenty-one, and continued worked for its successor, the U.S. Geological Survey until his death. Gannett was among those lobbying to centralize all government mapmaking under one agency. Before the creation of the United States Geological Survey, individual mapmakers and agencies had to compete for money from Congress to fund projects. He became chief geographer of the U.S. Geological Survey, a position he held for fifteen years. Most of the Survey's map-making methods developed during his tenure as chief geographer. Gannett also earned a reputation as an indefatigable compiler of geographic materials. His first job with the USGS was geographer of the 1880 United States Census. The completion of the census in 1882 is considered the start of true topographical work in the United States and the birth of the quadrangle. Gannet served as chief geographer on two subsequent censuses, 1890 and 1900, and was one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society. Gannett was also one of the founders of the Association of American Geographers and the Geological Society of America. Gannet organized the Board of Geographic Names, which became a permanent part of the federal government and considers geographic names in official use. Gannett served as chairman of this Board from 1894. Upon his death, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers lamented, 'in the death of Henry Gannett American Science has lost one of the pioneers who had an important share in the development of geography in this country into an organized science'. Gannett married Mary E. Chase in 1874 with whom he had two daughters and a son. Learn More...

Albert Charles Peale (April 1, 1849 - December 5, 1914) was a geologist, mineralogist, and member of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (also known as the Hayden Survey). He studied at Philadelphia's Central High School and trained to become a physician, earning a medical degree though never practicing medicine. In 1871, he joined Hayden and would spend most of the next thirty years with the Survey of the Territories and its successor, the U.S. Geological Survey. He later worked as a paleobotanist at the Smithsonian. Several natural features in Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah are named for him. Learn More...