Thomas Moran Painted Yellowstone. Congress Created a National Park.
How a painter who had never seen the West joined a geological survey into Yellowstone in 1871 and produced the painting that convinced Congress to create the first national park.
Thomas Moran accompanied the Hayden Geological Survey into the Yellowstone region in 1871 and produced Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone Park, completed in 1873. Moran's expedition work, alongside William Henry Jackson's photographs from the same survey, helped Congress understand what was at stake when the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act was signed March 1, 1872. The painting is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Mrs. Armistead Peter III, and reproduced under the Smithsonian Open Access program (CC0). It appears on the Yellowstone coffee bag in the Official Fellow Citizen National Parks collection, where every bag carries a verified Smithsonian artwork paired with a single-origin coffee from a region that parallels the park's geography. This article documents Moran's expedition, the painting's role in conservation history, and the coffee origin it connects to.
In 1871, Thomas Moran had never seen the American West.
He had read about it. He had studied the accounts of explorers and geologists who had gone ahead of him. He had looked at photographs taken by William Henry Jackson on earlier expeditions into the territories: grainy, imprecise images that suggested something extraordinary without being able to hold it.
None of that prepared him for what he found.
The Expedition
Moran joined the Hayden Geological Survey into Yellowstone Territory in the summer of 1871. It was one of the first organized scientific expeditions into a landscape that Eastern Americans knew almost nothing about. Geysers. Thermal pools. Mountains that looked painted already. A place that seemed to belong to a different geology than the one that produced the settled East.
He traveled with a sketchbook and an eye trained by years of studying Turner and the European masters. He took notes on color in a way that photographs of the era could not: the particular sulfurous yellow of a thermal field, the blue-green of a hot spring at depth, the way steam caught afternoon light over the Excelsior Geyser.
He spent weeks in the territory. He filled journals. He made studies of things no canvas had yet recorded.
Then he went back East and painted what he remembered.
The Canvas That Changed the Law
In 1872, Congress voted to establish Yellowstone as a national park, the first in the world. No nation had ever done this before. No government had ever looked at a piece of land and decided that its value lay precisely in leaving it alone.
Historians credit two things with making that vote possible: William Henry Jackson's photographs from the same expedition, and Thomas Moran's paintings.
A canvas entered the Capitol and came out as protected land.
Art changed law. American art, specifically the particular romantic tradition of painters who believed that the wilderness of this continent was not just scenery but something sacred. Something worth an argument. Something worth a vote.
Moran understood what he had done. He added "Y.M." to his signature on Yellowstone paintings for the rest of his life. Yellowstone Moran. He claimed it. The territory had claimed him first.
What Ended Up at the Smithsonian
The Excelsior Geyser painting, the one that now lives on the Yellowstone bag in the George National Parks collection, was eventually given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum as a gift from Mrs. Armistead Peter III.
That act of giving is worth noting. Someone owned a Moran. Decided it belonged somewhere public. Handed it back.
The Smithsonian spent decades maintaining it in climate-controlled galleries, behind glass, under the kind of institutional care that treats objects as a public trust rather than a private asset. Then in 2020 they released it, along with millions of other digital assets, into the public domain as Creative Commons Zero. Free for any use. By anyone. In perpetuity.
We grew up in those Smithsonian halls. When we began building the National Parks collection, the answer to what belongs on these bags was not a design decision. It was a recognition.
The Coffee Underneath the Painting
Ethiopia's Sidama region produces some of the most complex naturally processed coffees in the world, grown at elevations between 1,800 and 2,200 meters in the highlands of southern Ethiopia, where the altitude and the particular mineral composition of the soil create conditions that concentrate flavor in ways that lower-grown coffees cannot replicate.
The result is a cup that opens with jasmine: floral, clean, unexpected for anyone whose coffee reference point is a dark roast. It moves through bergamot into stone fruit: peach, apricot, the kind of sweetness that doesn't announce itself but accumulates across the cup. It finishes dry, like black tea. Extended. Refined.
It is a light roast, which means it was roasted to preserve what the origin put in rather than to add what the roaster wants to give. The terroir of Sidama is worth preserving. We roasted accordingly.
It ships within two business days of roasting. Not from a warehouse shelf. From the roaster. The Moran painting on the front takes years to understand fully. The coffee inside is at its best within weeks of roast. Both reward attention paid at the right moment.
On Paintings That Travel
Moran painted this canvas in his studio. Jackson's photographs informed it. His field sketches anchored it. But the finished work was built from memory and intention: from what he decided mattered most about what he had seen.
That is what a painting is. Not a record of what was there. A record of what someone thought was worth holding.
The George National Parks collection is built on the same premise. These coffees exist because specific places (Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon) are worth the effort of paying attention to. The Smithsonian paintings are the visual argument for that belief. The coffees are the daily practice of it.
Every morning someone brews a cup of Yellowstone Ethiopia and looks at a Thomas Moran on their kitchen counter. They may not know yet that his paintings helped create the park. They will, eventually, if they are the kind of person who looks closely at things.
Most GEORGE buyers are.
The Yellowstone Collection
Ethiopia Sidama, Yellowstone. $28 Thomas Moran · Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone Park · 1873 Smithsonian American Art Museum · Gift of Mrs. Armistead Peter III
Elevation: 1,800–2,200m · Process: Washed · Roast: Light Flavor: Jasmine · Bergamot · Stone Fruit · Black Tea Specialty Grade SCA 80+ · Lab Tested · Roasted in USA · Ships within 2 business days
The Origin Collection: all five National Parks singles. $125
The Gallery Collection: GEORGE plus all five origins. $158
Enter the full Gallery: all six paintings and their stories.
A Note on the Smithsonian Open Access Program
All artwork in the George National Parks collection is drawn from the Smithsonian Open Access collection, designated Creative Commons Zero (CC0), free for any use, by anyone, in perpetuity. No license. No fee. No permission required.
The Smithsonian Institution is not affiliated with and does not endorse Official Fellow Citizen or its products.
Smithsonian Open Access → si.edu/openaccess
Skip Joe. Enjoy a cup of George.
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National Parks Coffee Gift Guide: all five coffees.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: Who was Thomas Moran and why is he on a coffee bag?
A: Thomas Moran was an American landscape painter who traveled with the Hayden Geological Survey into Yellowstone Territory in 1871. His paintings, along with William Henry Jackson's photographs, helped convince Congress to establish Yellowstone as the world's first national park in 1872. His 1873 painting Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone Park is now held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and appears on the George National Parks Yellowstone Ethiopia Sidama coffee bag, sourced from the Smithsonian Open Access collection designated CC0.
Q: What does the Yellowstone coffee taste like?
A: The Yellowstone Ethiopia Sidama is a light roast single-origin coffee with tasting notes of jasmine, bergamot, stone fruit, and black tea. It is grown at 1,800–2,200 meters elevation in Ethiopia's Sidama region, washed processed, and specialty grade SCA 80+.
Q: Where is the George National Parks coffee roasted?
A: All George National Parks coffees are roasted in the United States in small batches and ship within 2 business days of roasting. Every batch is independently lab-tested for mycotoxins and heavy metals.
Q: What is the Smithsonian Open Access program?
A: The Smithsonian Open Access program released millions of digital assets into the public domain as Creative Commons Zero (CC0) in 2020: free for any use, by anyone, in perpetuity. All paintings in the George National Parks collection are sourced from this program. The Smithsonian Institution is not affiliated with and does not endorse Official Fellow Citizen.
Q: Can I buy just the Yellowstone coffee or do I need the full collection?
A: The Yellowstone Ethiopia Sidama is available individually for $28. It is also included in The Origin Collection (all five National Parks singles for $125) and The Gallery Collection (GEORGE Limited Edition plus all five origins for $158 with free shipping).