The First Ranger

The First Ranger is history, told by the men who lived it. It is the simply stated, often humorous accounts of honorable men and rugged living when job training consisted of "Go to it and good luck." The First Ranger is the biographies of Frank Liebig and his comrade Fred Herrig. Frank was the first ranger in the land that became Glacier National Park. He tells of his adventures as a ranger in that magnificent country when it was being settled. Fred Herrig was among the first rangers in Montana's Flathead Forest Reserve of 1897 and in the Kootenai Forest, and as colorful a character as ever roamed the west. He was also a lifelong friend of Theodore Roosevelt. He tells about his times as a wrangler and hunting guide for Roosevelt in the Dakota Badlands and as a Roosevelt Rough Rider. The book was written from the journals of Frank Liebig and Fred Herrig and the accounts of events as passed on to their descendants. It includes a well-researched history of life in the American Northwest. It contains photographs of rangers at work at the turn of the century, seven letters signed by Theodore Roosevelt and pen and ink sketches by E.R. Jenne. A fun, informative read.

The first of them, the ones that made good, were rugged and honorable men and they had the best of life's game. They had some power, some pay and some glory. There were no volumes of written rules on how to do the job that choked out their own worthy thoughts or muddled their judgement. They were good men, deciding how a good job should be done as they went about it. They were the law, the trail blazer, the fireman. Their tasks often called for backbreaking labor in dangerous situations, and they never had a dull day. They lived and labored in an Eden and always another spirit-stirring challenge lie just ahead. How grand it must have been!