JACKSON, Wyo. — Teton Pass can be considered a current preoccupation for Jackson Hole residents due to the slick winter conditions and increasing traffic, but navigating that route has been on the minds of locals as far back as the 1800s.
According to a historic resource study of Grand Teton National Park (GTNP), access routes into the valley have been one of the primary considerations in the history of Jackson Hole. The ability to get resources over the divides, particularly during severe winters, has consistently been documented as a problem.
GTNP confirms the earliest routes into Jackson Hole were old trapper and Native American trails. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) writes that mountain men began traveling over Teton Pass around 1811. That trail quickly became the primary route into Jackson Hole, GTNP writes, because it provided the fastest access to both supplies and mail.
GTNP says that one source suggests R. E. Miller, John Cherry and Jack Hicks brought the first wagons over Teton Pass in 1888. Allegedly, pack animals hauled all of the baggage on their own backs and the wagons were moved empty. However, the USFS’ records suggest these first wagons came over Teton Pass two years earlier, in 1886.
Both the USFS and GTNP agree that the Wilson-Cheney party, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who originally settled what became Wilsonville, Utah, brought six covered wagons and five families over Teton Pass in the fall of 1889.
“Getting to the summit was one thing, but easing the wagons down either side of the summit proved even more difficult,” GTNP’s historic resource study states. “Travelers employed several techniques … such as placing the larger rear wheels on the front of the wagon, which helped stabilize it.”
GTNP says other travelers would drag a log behind the wagons to serve as an additional brake, known as “putting on a dowser.” According to two publications, “The Teton Mountains” by historian Nolie Mumey and “From Trapper to Tourist in Jackson Hole” by Elizabeth Weid Hayden, by the 1890s wagon traffic and the documented concerns that came along with it were commonplace over Teton Pass.
The year 1901 saw the construction of the first formal road over the Pass, which the March 1939 Jackson’s Hole Courier alleges might have been funded by property taxes in Uinta County. While improving the valley’s link to supplies and resources was a positive step, GTNP archives suggest it only snowballed the fixation with the route and its associated dangers.
“The condition of the ‘Pass’ preoccupied citizens most of the year, especially during winter,” GTNP’s historic resource study says. “‘How’s the Pass?’ was the question asked most often.”
Struthers Burt, who opened the first dude ranch in Jackson Hole with his partner in the early 1900s according to the Jackson Hole Historical Museum, wrote about the obsession with Teton Pass in “The Diary of a Dude Wrangler,” published in 1924.
“Strange how a dominating physical feature [molds] the character of a country,” Burt wrote. “The Pass — it is always spoken of as The Pass — is never very far away from the thoughts of the inhabitants of the valley.”
Residents of Jackson Hole appeared so invested in the conditions of Teton Pass that 1940 was known locally as “the year they stole the snowplows,” according to the USFS. Jackson Mayor Harry Clissold allegedly shared that citizens of the town commandeered the state’s snowplows in 1940 after state highway officials ordered the plows to halt work on the Pass due to cost. USFS writes that citizens plowed up and over the Old Pass Road themselves, after which the highway department acquiesced to keeping the Pass plowed and open.
According to the GTNP history, though, no other route developed surpassed Teton Pass as the main link to the rest of the world despite the anxiety over travel conditions. Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Teton Pass Corridor Study still recognizes the Pass as “a critical connection for commuters and recreationists.”
This story runs annually.
