Various

“ On the rare occasions when gun-play broke out between men in the valley, it was of a nature that could hardly appear heroic except through the romantic eyes of a novelist. In the harsh light of reality, violence was brutal and ugly, and dispatched with a speed and finality grimly typical of the frontier.
The Cunningham Ranch affair broke with a suddenness that shocked the entire valley. It was as cold-blooded as it was simple. A posse came riding in from Montana in the spring of 1893, and at a little cabin near Spread Creek two men were cornered and shot for horse-stealing. ”

“ From the distant marshes on the newborn Yellowstone came the sound of fluttering cries of restless waterfowl. From the echoing forest beyond, the mountain lions screaming and moaning at intervals while we put the finishing touches on our little vessel. Starr and Applegate, both expert boatmen, paddled the little canoe far out on the sparkling waters and sang Crow Indian war songs, as the work went on. The horses and mules having stuffed themselves with luxuriant mountain grasses, came up and stood meditatively with their noses over the camp fires in thorough contentment. ”

“ Close against the Idaho-Wyoming border, at the headwaters of the Snake River, lies the high, mountain-girt valley of Jackson Hole. Fiercely beautiful in setting and richly historic in background, Jackson Hole and the raw, jagged peaks of the Teton mountains to the west have captured popular imagination as has no other region in the Rockies. Jackson Hole has become a fabled outpost of the vanished Western frontier, the legendary “last stand of the outlaws.” ”

“ He was older than Bridger by 5 years, head of an Ashley party at the end of one year on the frontier, in 2 years a partner with the General, and in 3 the senior partner of the fur-trading company of Smith, Sublette, and Jackson.
To say that Smith was second only to Bridger in his prominence as a mountain man, to attempt to place any of the leaders among the trappers in any order of rank or importance, would be like trying to rate the military commanders of history. Each in his own rugged individualistic way moved toward his own destiny. ”

“ There are few residents of the Jackson Hole country who have not heard of the Deadman’s Bar affair, a triple killing which took place in the summer of 1886 along the Snake River and which gave this section of the river the name of Deadman’s Bar. It is the most grim narrative and the most celebrated in the pioneer history of the valley, and its details are sufficiently bloody to satisfy the most sanguinary tourist, thirsty for western thrills. ”

“ Mysterious in life, Uncle Jack Davis has become one of the most shadowy figures in the past of Jackson Hole, little more than a name except to those few still left of an older generation who knew him. He deserves to be remembered—deserves it because of his singular story, and because he has the distinction historically of having been the only confirmed prospector in Jackson Hole. ”

“ Little news of the Spread Creek incident ever leaked out of the valley in the early days, and when the first general flow of tourist travel into Jackson Hole began nearly 40 years later, the affair at Cunningham’s Ranch was still a widely known but reticently guarded story. By then most of the old-timers who had been members of the posse were dead, and those who were left still were not interested in discussing the matter. And so the story of the killing relies almost entirely on the memory and information of the one man who cared to talk about it, Pierce Cunningham. ”

“ They were the products of their time, neither better, nor worse, than any cross-section of the men of any time.
They were, none-the-less, unique even among the pioneers of their day. Their chosen land was far beyond the outposts of the settlements, their fellows were few, they moved through the most remote sections of America, often alone, sometimes in the company of a handful of companions.
Mountain men were the first to explore the Far West; beyond the Missouri, through the Rockies, across the Great American Desert, from the Southwest to Canada, and to the Western Sea. ”

“ Doane’s record, unpublished, of his heroic attempt to lead his party through the wilderness of the Yellowstone, southward through Jackson Hole, and down the “Mad River” to the Columbia is no less graphic in its vividness, no less thrilling in its expression of the hazards and the wild beauty of the land. ”

“ Few found sufficient gold to maintain for any length of time even the most frugal living—and who can live more frugally than the itinerant prospector? So through these decades prospectors quietly came and sooner or later as quietly left, leaving no traces of their visit more substantial than the scattered prospect holes still to be seen along the bars of the Snake River. ”

“ As in the case of other frontier communities, the story of the early settlers in Jackson Hole is one of isolation and hardship. When winter closed in and cut off the valley from the nearest settlements across the mountains, life was a struggle for survival against the bitter cold and drifting snow. Occupied with the task of making a home in the face of tremendous odds, the homesteaders were solid, law-abiding citizens with little time for lawlessness, and less for violence. ”

“ Davis reappeared shortly after this in Jackson Hole, the resort of more than one man with a past, and in the most isolated corner of that isolated region he began life anew. At the south end of the Hole, a few miles down the Grand Canyon, he took out a claim on the south side of the Snake River near a little tributary known as Bailey Creek. There he built a log cabin, the humblest structure imaginable—one room, no windows, a single door hung on rawhide hinges. This primitive shack was Jack Davis’ home for nearly a quarter of a century. ”

“ In the 1880’s and 1890’s it was widely supposed that the Snake River gravels of Jackson Hole, in Wyoming, contained workable deposits of placer gold, and there were many who came to the region, lured by such reports and a prospector’s eternal optimism.
Color, indeed, could be struck almost anywhere along the river, but the gold of which it gave promise proved discouragingly scarce and elusive. None found what in fairness to the word could be called a fortune. ”

“ To John Colter, mountain man, trapper, and lone wanderer in the exploration of the Rocky Mountain wilderness, belongs the distinction of being the first white man to enter Jackson Hole and the “Country of the Yellowstone.” ”

“ Late that summer when haying time was at hand in Teton Basin, Wolff was surprised to see a man approaching his cabin on foot. “Seeing any man, and especially one afoot, was a rare sight in those days,” commented Wolff. It proved to be the miner, Tonnar, and he asked to be given work. Curious as to what was up between Tonnar and his partners, Wolff quizzed him but received only the rather unsatisfactory statement that Tonnar had left the 3 miners while they were making plans to raft the Snake in order to fetch a supply of meat for the camp. ”

“ This hardly seems likely, since Colter, bold as he was, evidenced no characteristics of the foolhardy, and to his eyes the Cascade Canyon route could scarcely have appeared to offer a feasible crossing.
One cannot but puzzle a bit, however, as to his reason for crossing the Range at all. From the broad valley of the Hole the route northward up the Snake River into the Yellowstone was to any eye an easy one. The terrain sloped gently, there were no mountain walls to scale or circle, nothing to indicate any obstacle of consequence. ”

“ The Cunningham Cabin, where on an April morning in 1893 two men were cornered and shot for horse-stealing.
Inside the cabin the unsuspecting men were sleeping quietly: Spenser, the older man, sandy-haired and heavily built; Burnett, the cowpuncher, slender and dark; and of course Swede Jackson, Cunningham’s partner. The two rustlers intended to leave when it got light.
Early in the morning the dog which was in the cabin with the men began to bark shrilly, perhaps taking alarm at the scent of the posse. Spenser got up, dressed, buckled on his revolver, and went out to the corral. ”

“ Between this extreme, and the fearless, hardy, resourceful wanderer of the lonely plains and mountain highlands, lies the true measure of these men of the mountains. Some were as bad as they were painted, many were as fine as history describes them. ”

“ By the time he was 14 young Jim was supporting himself and his sister by operating a flatboat ferry, then he became an apprentice in the blacksmith’s trade. This mundane life was not for him. There were too many exotic influences in the St. Louis of that time which had a tremendous attraction for a teen-aged youngster. Indians on their ponies jogged along the streets; Mexican muleteers and colorful Spaniards off the Santa Fe Trail strolled through the town; there were boatmen, fur traders, and plainsmen with their tales of buffalo, Indian fights, Lisa, Colter, Lewis and Clark ”

“ Man’s search for wealth has taken him to many out of the way places. Wealth can assume many forms, depending on the person striving for it.
What is now Jackson Hole was a way of life to the Indians who summered here and wintered in the lower and warmer regions to the east of Togwotee Pass. A summer in this secluded valley meant plentiful fish and other wildlife for food, skins for clothing and teepees as well as a cool, well-watered environment. ”

“ It is here that anglers catch the trout and cook them on the hook.
The boat failing to appear, Doane and his men started up the slope to the Divide in a “heavy and blinding snow storm” through a “tangled forest.” The weather turned very cold, travel was difficult up the slopes in snow some 2 feet in depth. On the top of the ridge it was necessary to stop and build a 26 fire, the animals and men were “loaded with snow and ice.” The party reached a “hot spring basin” a mile from Heart Lake long after dark, built a great fire of seasoned pines, and spent most of the night drying out. ”

“ Snowmelt fed streams, bordered by vegetation, supported many beaver and other fur bearers that attracted men of European descent in their never-ending quest of commercial wealth. Colter was followed by other mountain men and trappers who considered the natural resources of the area as there to be taken for their own personal gain. By 1840 beaver became scarce and fell from fashion. The land that supported bison was thought good for domestic cattle, so ranchers settled in Jackson Hole from one end to the other. Dry years and the Great Depression forced many of them to sell out. ”

“ When still a very young man, only 16, he emigrated to America, where he served for some years in the United States Army in the Far West, part of the time as a volunteer doctor. His first visit to the Jackson Hole region was in 1872 when he came to Teton Basin (Pierre’s Hole) for a brief period. In 1878 while serving under Lieutenant Hall, he came into Jackson Hole, his detachment being sent to carry food to Lieutenant Doane’s outfit, which had lost its supplies in the Snake River while engaged in a geological survey of the Jackson Hole area [6] . ”

“ The game is scarce and shy. I cannot hunt and keep the observations at the same time. The boat can now go faster than the stock, but we cannot separate, with “Mad River Canyon” in front of us.
A glorious night, moon in the full, but empty stomachs. We are now far enough away from the lakes to be clear of the clouds of vapor and local snow storms. Our camp is about at a central point with reference to obtaining a view of the Tetons, and at a distance of fifteen miles from the nearest part of the range. (Distance actually about 7 miles, Doane’s estimate inaccurate.) ”

“ He advanced from a trapper in the employ of others to a partnership in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company with Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette, Fraeb and Gervais, when in 1830 they brought out the company of Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, and Bill Sublette. He is best known for his services as a guide. As his knowledge of the Rockies increased with his years of wandering over the west, he repeatedly served as a scout for the Army, in which capacity he was invaluable, his knowledge of Indians and their ways was second to none. ”

“ That Colter made the journey, that he did traverse, in one way or another, Jackson Hole and the Yellowstone Park area, has been challenged by few historians, though all concede that his exact route will forever be a matter for speculation. The unprovable can hardly be proven.
Though Colter has not been celebrated in history as have other famous “Mountain Men” of a few years later, notably Jim Bridger, Bill Sublette, Joe Meek, and Jedediah Smith, to name a few, he remained a notable figure among his fellows until 1810. ”

“ Risks must be taken, and there is such an element in human affairs as fortune, good or bad. I decided at once to make all possible speed to Fort Hall, there refit and returning bring lumber to rebuild the boat on the ground where it had been lost, and continue to Eagle Rock 36 Bridge on the Snake River, previously going back far enough beyond Jackson’s Lake to take a renewal of the system of triangulation and notes, lost in the river when the boat capsized. ”