From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
That horrible record yesterday reminded me of the Indians and the Donner party, so I want to finish the story. I will do that now….
They traveled and traveled and traveled and pretty soon it was winter, and there was a terrible blizzard. They were in the Sierra Nevada Mountains very close to Truckee, but they didn’t know it, because in those days it wasn’t Truckee, it was just snow. Now, because it took them so much longer than they thought it would, they ran out of food and there wasn’t a single place to buy and and they couldn’t find any wild animals to hunt in the snow and they didn’t even have any bullets in their guns even if they did find any. They were shooting buffaloes before and now all they had were the hides and maybe the fur, but I am not sure about that.
I wonder if the buffalo taste like they look. I like them, but they are really ugly, even the babies. I have seen them in Golden Gate Park, they are so shaggy and huge. They are not my favorite animals, they actually could be my least favorite.
Like Hilda, I liked to visit the buffalo in Golden Gate Park. I lived near them so often walked or drove past. Although it was known as the Buffalo Paddock, the animals were bison. According to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, “‘true’ buffalo (Cape buffalo and water buffalo) are native to Africa and Asia. Bison are found in North America and Europe.”
Despite innumerable changes over the past 100+ years, if you were to visit today, you would be able to see at least this small part of the world through Hilda’s eyes.
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp27.1840
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp37.02719