Ninety years after the creation of Yellowstone National Park, a distant relative of the park’s first superintendent purchased 2,000 acres of ranchland just below the park’s north rim. While Nathaniel P. Langford played a key role in Yellowstone’s establishment, his descendant, Leonard R. Sargent, was destined to leave a legacy of conservation activism that included protecting the park as well as free-flowing rivers, wild lands, wildlife, and a livable human environment.

    In 1969, following a 35-year teaching career at Taft School in Connecticut and military service during World War II, Len retired and married for the first time. He brought Sandy home to Cinnabar Basin just as the environmental movement began to take shape in Montana. Len and Sandy shared a powerful conservation ethic and a strong sense of social responsibility, and they soon discovered that Montana faced many challenges, including rampant subdivision development and a national energy crisis. A public/private proposal spawned by the energy crisis would turn a substantial portion of the state into a coal-fired, water-cooled boiler room.

    From the beginning, Montana’s fledgling environmental movement found the Sargents eager participants and generous supporters. Traffic flowed steadily up the rutted road leading to the ranch where Len and Sandy supplied both advice and support. As the “Earth Decade” of the 1970s passed, it became obvious that sustaining the progress of those “green” years required a longer view and staying power. On February 23, 1983, Leonard Sargent affixed his signature to the Articles of Incorporation that gave birth to the Cinnabar Foundation.