(soft music) -[Narrator] William Henry Jackson was one of the most prolific American artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

(soft music) He personally witnessed and recorded the expansion of the American West in thousands of photographs and in hundreds of drawings and paintings.

(soft music) At the age of 23, the young Civil War veteran headed West.

He landed in Nebraska City, where he was hired by a freighting outfit, bound for the mines of Montana.

Traveling the historic Oregon Trail, Jackson sketched landmarks and moments of everyday life along the trail that became iconic scenes of the West.

(soft music) In 1868, he opened Jackson Brothers Photography studio in Omaha and was commissioned by the Union Pacific to photograph the Transcontinental Railroad.

(soft music) He visited the Omaha, Pawnee, and Otoe reservations, recording rare images of tribal members.

(soft music) In 1870 Jackson's landscape photography caught the attention of Ferdinand Hayden, a geologist leading an expedition into Wyoming territory.

Jackson became the first photographer to successfully document the awe-inspiring wonders of Yellowstone.

His images conveyed the breathtaking beauty and unique natural features of the wilderness, convincing Congress to preserve Yellowstone.

It became the nation's first national park in 1872.

(soft music) During his extensive travels throughout the West, Jackson marked the profound changes that shaped our nation.

(soft music) He documented various groups of indigenous people in both artistic renderings and photographs, (soft music) capturing not only their unique tribal cultures, but creating an important record of their existence during a pivotal chapter in American history.

(soft music) Today, the Oregon Trail Museum at Scotts Bluff National Monument holds the largest collection of William Henry Jackson paintings in the world.

(soft music) Park visitors can immerse themselves in Jackson's vibrant tapestry of American Western history, as seen through the eyes of an intrepid explorer and pioneer in American art and photography.

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