BRETT FRENCH | bfrench@billingsgazette.com
The “last refuge of the desperado’ and the “the last resort of the horse thieves and bad men who lingered in the West” is a very beautiful place to visit.
These descriptions, found in 1917 and 1918 news articles, describe Wyoming’s Teton Valley, the picturesque region dominated by stalagmite-like peaks that puncture passing clouds while cold lakes and the sinuous Snake River shimmer below.
Although in the past decade the area has become what The New York Times called a “refuge for the rich,” large swaths of the picturesque region are still accessible to the public via Grand Teton National Park’s 310,000-acres, 485-square miles.
Oddly enough, a large swath of that acreage is due to the generosity and persistence of one wealthy benefactor, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
How Grand Teton grew
Last year, more than 3.8 million people visited Grand Teton, ranking it among the top 10 for National Park visitation.
Yet the original park, set aside in 1929, was composed mostly of the steep mountains and some of the lakes at their feet. The 96,000 acres, 150 square miles, was transferred from Forest Service management to the National Park Service to create the first version of Grand Teton.
That’s only about one-third of the park’s current dimensions.
It took a lot of wheeling and dealing to preserve the additional land under public ownership that visitors now recreate on.
Albright’s vision
The push to expand the park’s boundaries began in the 1920s, a vision touted by Yellowstone Superintendent Horace Albright.
Albright tried for years to conserve the valley but faced opposition from ranchers.
“By the early 1920s, however, the ranchers had become increasingly alarmed by Jackson Hole’s growing commercialization,” wrote Barry Goldberg in an article for the Rockefeller Archive Center. “Gas stations, dance halls, billboards, telephone lines, small hotels and even a bootleg whiskey bar were a blight on the region’s natural beauty.”
In 1926, Albright found a collaborator after guiding John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on a tour of the landscape. The wealthy philanthropist was smitten.
“Rockefeller sought to buy enough of Jackson Hole so that visitors could look across at the mountains as the first travelers did, without hot dog stands and service stations in between,” wrote Copley News Service reporter Neil Morgan in 1972. “That meant taking ranchland away from cattle and sheep, and off the tax rolls.
“He incorporated the Snake River Land Co. in 1926 and put a Yale-trained Salt Lake City attorney in charge of buying ranches.”
“Initially, some Jackson Hole ranchers jumped at the opportunity to sell,” Goldberg wrote. “Times were tough — demand for beef after World War I had fallen and hence prices declined, and several droughts had recently hit the area. To many ranchers, selling to a preservation-minded company was preferable to watching Jackson Hole fall victim to more commercial development.”
Political fights
The land company spent $1.4 million to acquire its first 33,364 acres, Morgan wrote.
In 1933, Rockefeller’s purchases caught the attention of the U.S. Senate, which launched an investigation. The increased scrutiny, and continued public opposition, stalled Albright’s vision for a larger park until 1942 when Rockefeller threatened to sell the land if the government was not interested.
In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used his powers to create the 221,610-acre, 346-square mile Jackson Hole National Monument, incorporating Rockefeller’s donation.
“Roosevelt’s action inflamed local sentiment,” Goldberg wrote. “Wyoming senator Edward Robertson compared the president’s action to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Representative Frank Barrett introduced a bill to abolish the monument (which Roosevelt then vetoed). The State of Wyoming sued the NPS for violating its states’ rights and seizing Jackson Hole without demonstrating its historic or scientific value.”
In 1950, however, Congress combined the three entities into one national park.
Connecting two parks
The final act of generosity from the Rockefeller family came with a 23,700-acre, 37-square mile, donation of land connecting Grand Teton to its northern neighbor, Yellowstone National Park.
In 1972, the same year as Yellowstone’s 100th birthday, the addition was dedicated as the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway in honor of his work to preserve land in the valley.
Laurance Rockefeller, John’s fourth child, said during the dedication that the park was “a living example of the consent of the citizen working with his government to build parks,” according to a Jackson Hole Guide story.
“In lending his father’s name to this parkway, Laurance Rockefeller is making a rare public admission of the role his family’s wealth and sensitivity have played in the national park system, one of America’s uncontroversial gifts to the world,” Morgan wrote in his 1972 story.
In addition to the land donation, Laurance Rockefeller authorized spending almost $10 million at Grand Teton to go along with the original $6 million grant made by his father.
Priceless legacy
Rockefeller, Jr., died in 1960 at the age of 86. The son of the founder of Standard Oil Co. gave more than $537 million to educational, religious, cultural, medical, and civic projects,” according to the Rockefeller Archive Center.
“Imbued with a deep sense of stewardship, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. believed that his inherited fortune should be used for the public good.”
It’s easy to overlook such history on a tour through Grand Teton. Staring visitors in the face are peaks that represent deep time, a world void of humans. Despite the crush of human visitors, national parks are a place we go to reconnect with nature, to marvel at the scenic beauty and the wildlife it is home to.
As national parks struggle through difficult political times with deep cuts to staffing and budgets, it’s nice to be reminded that some people once placed great value in these public lands and worked through a myriad of difficulties to see them protected for all people. Their legacy is to our benefit. Let’s not forget.
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