Livingston, MT: The Yellowstone Gateway Museum continues its Spring Speaker Series on Thursday, April 14, 7 PM, at the Livingston-Park County Public Library, 228 W. Calendar. “Yellowstone: Yesterday & Today,” an illustrated program given by co-authors Bob Berry and Paul Horsted, is based on their book of the same title. They bring the grandeur of Yellowstone to life by matching historic photos with modern images of the exact same places. The two images provide the audience a fresh appreciation for the rich and fascinating history of America’s first national park. The authors will be signing books after the program.

Horsted, a specialist in “then-and-now” photography, and Berry, a Yellowstone photograph collector and guide, spent two years tracing the locations where early photographers placed their cameras at well-known locations like Old Faithful as well as in more remote areas. The matching images reveal the extent of the park’s development, as well as the effects of tree growth, forest fires and continuous mineral deposits on ever-changing formations. But many areas remain remarkably unchanged after a century or more.

The historic images in the program (and the book) date from 1871, a year before the park was established by Congress, into the 1930s. They provide intriguing glimpses of early visitors and their travels. Stagecoaches and covered wagons on narrow dirt trails are predecessors to RVs and buses on paved highways at the exact same places along the Grand Loop Road. In some early images, people are seen climbing onto active geysers such as Grotto and Castle, an activity which is prohibited today.

Horsted started doing re-photography (re-creating historic photos in today’s world) 15 years ago while studying glass-plate images from the 1874 Black Hills “Custer” Expedition. Since that time, he has worked extensively at historic photo sites across the Dakotas, in Yellowstone, and more recently in 20 other National Parks. His latest project will appear in a forthcoming book “Our National Parks Yesterday & Today” set for publication in 2017. Horsted resides with his wife, Camille Riner, and his daughter, Anne Marie, in Custer, South Dakota.

Berry owns the largest privately held collection of antique Yellowstone National Park photography—especially notable is his collection of 4,200 stereoviews. Since 2002, he has served as a backcountry and front-country guide in the park. Berry makes his home in Cody with his wife, Robin, and together they operate Robin’s Nest Bed & Breakfast.

The final Speakers Series program, “Resilience: Stories of Montana Indian Women,” by Laura Ferguson will be held on Thursday, May 12. Ferguson will share highlights from twenty essays she wrote profiling Montana Indian women which will soon be published in the Montana Historical Society Press’s anthology, Beyond Schoolmarms and Madams: Montana Women’s Lives. All programs are held at 7:00 PM at the Livingston-Park County Public Library and are free and open to the public.