Building on a Pioneering Past
by Amanda Bjerke
the historic Miller House on the
National Elk Refuge
Bull elk in autumn
In 1920, Jackson's all-female leadership included Mayor Grace Miller (third from right) and town council members.
The famous Million Dollar Cowboy Bar
JACKSON, WYOMING — THE POSH SUMMER AND WINTER SKI RESORT, Western art capital and billionaire hideaway, boasts all the trappings of an over-the-top lifestyle. Millions of visitors pour through its streets each year, soaking in majestic scenery and a distinctive highbrow cowboy culture. Most are oblivious to Jackson’s hardscrabble history and pioneering past, however. Long before the real estate boom, symphony and spas, this was a place of dogged determination and independent attitude.
Consider the saga of Jackson “founding mother” Grace Miller. The Illinois native moved west as a newlywed in 1893. Her husband, Robert had visited Jackson 10 years before and established a homestead — the area’s third. Like most settlers of that era the Millers came to ranch. Eight years later, together with the local postmaster and a handful of other neighbors, they laid out the town of Jackson. Grace drew the plat and is often credited as founding the town on her own land as a “business enterprise.”
Most early residents raised cows or served the needs of those who did. Caring for livestock is tough work — especially when the snowdrifts are measured in yards not feet. Summer has always been Jackson’s most hospitable season, and, at the dawn of the 20th century, ranchers began to augment their livelihood by putting up “dudes” — the Eastern tourists heading to Yellowstone National Park.
In 1914 Robert Miller, by then a successful cattleman, founded Jackson State Bank to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse community. The original Miller ranch house became part of the National Elk Preserve that year. The couple’s conservationist streak did much to help protect the area’s natural attributes. Robert became the first superintendent of Teton National Monument, the forerunner of the park. Credit the Millers and other visionaries, including John D. Rockefeller, with much of Jackson’s current popularity. The pristine landscape retains the beauty it held a century ago because of the prevalence of public land. Less than 3% of the area is privately owned. Wildlife still roams free through out the valley. Subdivision homes come complete with native elk, moose and deer grazing on lawns.
Despite its chi-chi status, and easy air access, for much of the last century Jackson remained an isolated hamlet. Grace Miller couldn’t have imagined the modern Jackson’s fashionable cachet when she further dismantled convention by becoming Wyoming’s first female mayor in 1920. The accomplishment was less about defying the norm and more about living in a community that valued individual merit. According to Women of Wyoming, a volume in the Jackson Hole Historical Society archives, the banker’s wife was surprised by her popularity. The book reports, “Her first impulse was to refuse the nomination but the public sentiment was so strong that she allowed her name to be placed upon the ballot. She was elected without any effort at campaigning . . . ” She defeated Frank Lovejoy 56 to 28. When she ran for a second term, the victory was even more lopsided.
Madam Mayor Miller had the added distinction of heading what is believed to be the first city government comprised entirely of women. Perhaps in a nod to the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed the same year and granting women’s suffrage, the four-person council was entirely female — so, too the positions of city clerk and treasurer.
Jackson’s independent spirit permeated its way of life. In 1933 the nation faced a monetary crisis. All across the country, financial institutions barred their doors daily. To prevent further “runs” and the resulting forced closures, newly inaugurated president Franklin Roosevelt ordered all banks closed. However, Robert Miller refused to shut Jackson State. The closely-knit community continued to function at a time when other economies unraveled.
Miller died the following year and in 1935 German immigrant Felix Buchenroth, Sr. purchased the bank. A dedication to self-preservation continued as a community hallmark. Thirty years ago, Dave Landis moved from Pennsylvania to take a job at the Buchendorf family’s institution. He recalled stories of a far less prosperous town. “I’ve heard that in the 1960s the local hospital was facing bankruptcy. Mr. Buchendorf, Sr. — everybody called him Buck — knew that to be a viable community Jackson needed that hospital. He told the administrators just keep doing your job, keep writing checks and the bank will keep covering them until we figure out how to work this out. He organized fund-raisers to cover the overdrafts. It’s a wonderful story of a businessman who put the community first, no matter what. He took on a lot of risk to make that happen.”
Landis also recalled Mrs. Buchenroth “telling me that Jackson had really become an ‘uptown place’ now—that was 30 years ago, and back then there were building lots all over the valley for $6,000 a piece or so.” But compared to Mrs. Buchenroth’s youth it had really come a long way, related Landis. She explained that her childhood home was a log cabin built upon the ground. During Jackson’s brutal winters, the family would scamper quickly across frozen floors then curl up with their feet beneath them trying to keep warm — indoors.
“When the bank celebrated its 70th anniversary in 1984, we gathered up some of the oldtimers for a radio program,” Landis continued. “They told some incredible stories.” For instance, when early Jacksonians used the term “going out,” it had nothing to do with a night on the town. It indicated someone was traveling out of the “Hole” — a risky proposition in winter. “They’d typically go out in a wagon train caravan for safety,” said Landis. There was one story about a wagon going through a narrow pass and scarring a tree as it passed by. The incident happened in the dead of winter. When the route was re-traced the following summer, the wagon mark was 30 feet in the air. “They’d been traveling over 30 feet of snow,” Landis related.
For most of the last century, Jackson catered to families headed to the national parks. Grand Teton is just north of town; Yellowstone is a scenic two-and-a-half-hour drive away. As the millennium approached, it became a haven for second-home owners.
Landis understands Jackson’s appeal. “I’ve been all over the country and there’s no place like this. The views are really majestic and the lifestyle is amazing. I can go home tonight and see bull elk, moose, fox, trumpeter swans, bald eagle, and on and on. I can drive five minutes from the house and see a herd of 300 buffalo in the park. To have all this and great air service so there’s that easy access, that is a real rarity in our country today.”
As is the prevailing attitude. The commitment to environment, enterprise and community that marked Grace Miller’s life and the tenure of Buck Buchenroth never stopped. Still small by census standards, the town of fewer than 10,000 year-round residents supports more than 100 non-profit organizations. While many derive funding from the well-heeled seasonal residents, local endeavors, such as the Jackson State Bank, continue to bankroll everything from Easter egg hunts to Wild West Days. The philanthropy is all the more notable because promotional banners are prohibited in the Town Square where most of the action takes place. “We do it just to give back to the community. That’s the way Jackson has always been,” Landis said.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
COME TO JACKSON HOLE. Visit the town of Jackson. Experience Jackson Lake. Ask yourself “Who was Jackson, anyway?” In this southwestern corner of Wyoming all things Jackson trace their names to David E. Jackson, a Randolph County,
Virginia native who responded to an ad seeking:
"100 enterprising young men to ascend the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains, there to be employed as hunters. As compensation to each man fit for such business, $200 per annum to be given for his services."
That was in 1822, 16 years after the first Euro-American John Colter “discovered” the places we now know as Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and the entire Jackson basin. Honorably discharged from the Lewis and Clark expedition, Colter, credited with being the original mountain man, came to the area alone in 1806 and stayed until 1810. His reports enabled William Clark to map the region and paved the way for future trappers like Jackson and his partner William Sublette. That duo was so successful in their pursuit of beaver that within a few years they owned their own fur company. In the jargon of that era, valleys were often referred to as “holes.” Sublette is credited with naming the valley “Jackson’s Hole” because of his partner’s proclivity to trap the area. Jackson, the town, was founded in 1901.
SkyWest Delta Connection serves Jackson with daily flights to and from Salt Lake City.