In 1990, over forty years after the final expansion of Grand Teton National Park, it was estimated that over 70% of the buildings acquired by the Park had been removed. In 1996, the historic buildings in the park were nominated for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Most Endangered Historic Places” list. Despite decades of […]
Jimmy Manges originally homesteaded the land that became the Elbo Ranch, just south of Jenny Lake. He applied for a patent in 1911, and it took him seven long years of hard work to clear just 42 of his 160 acres. The homestead cabin he built in 1911 became one of the first homesteads on […]
In 1910, Elsie M. James (née Olsen) received Homestead Patent #145265 for 151.33 acres along what is now known as the Moose-Wilson Road. The homestead was located just north of the White Grass Ranch Road. At the time the patent was given, the White Grass wouldn’t be created for another three years. This would have […]
Joseph S. Clark, Jr., a future senator of Pennsylvania and mayor of Philadelphia, and Frank R. Williams, a wilderness guide, first met in 1923 on a pack trip. Clark was part of the group that Williams was leading. Like many before him, he quickly fell in love with the Jackson Hole landscape. A fast friendship […]
Built between 1934 and 1939, the Moose entrance kiosk was the first entrance station in Grand Teton National Park. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a government organization created by President Roosevelt’s New Deal plan. CCC workers arrived in Jackson Hole in 1933 and built a camp just south of Jenny Lake […]
In 1906 Louis Joy filed for 160 acres under the Desert Land Act of 1877 on the south side of Phelps Lake. After making the necessary improvements and receiving a patent for the land, he filed a cash entry on an adjacent 119 acre homestead. Only a year later, in 1908, the ranch hosted the […]
For the last century, the Beaver Creek Administration area has been housing the administrative officials tasked with managing the federally protected lands in Jackson Hole. When the Teton National Forest was created in 1908, two small log buildings were constructed to house the forest rangers and their office space. The Stewart Ranger Station remained unchanged […]
The Circle H Ranch was once part of the land that was originally split between homesteaders Louis Joy and William Grant. Joy owned a prosperous dude ranch at the base of Phelps Lake, and held a lot of the land in that area. The JY Dude Ranch (named for Joy) was the first to bring […]
Sky Ranch was the life-long dream of William Balderston II, who first arrived in Jackson Hole at 15 years old in 1912. The summer between his junior and senior high school years, Bill was working on a survey for the Oregon Short Line Railroad that held a right-of-way between Green River, Wyoming and Yellowstone’s south entrance. […]
To learn more about the White Grass Ranch, visit www.whitegrass.org – a website completely dedicated to this spectacular ranch in partnership with the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum and the White Grass Heritage Project. — Harold Hammond was born in Idaho and came to Jackson Hole as a child in the early 1900s. From […]
