| Park to the north required only two years from idea to realization, Grand Teton took fifty-two years! Obviously here was a story worth telling. Perhaps an article for a historical journal was in order. However, soon it was apparent that the subject would require much more. I felt much like Verne Chatelain, the first chief historian of the National Park Service, who, in 1932, was assigned to write a memorandum summarizing the history of the struggle to create Grand Teton National Park. After concluding his 101-page "memo," Chatelain confessed that "since its organization in 1916 the National Park Service has had to deal with no special problem which occupies so large a place in the public record and files of the Washington Office as does that concerning Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The tremendous quantity of material," continued Chatelain, "now relating to the subject is one of the difficulties in the way of concise analysis." How true! Yet, when historian Chatelain made his observation, the Jackson Hole issue was eighteen years and many reams of paper away from solution. |
| The subject warranted more than an article. Unmistakably, the creation of Grand Teton National Park was a classic case in the difficulties of park making, and although the focus might be local, the subject was national in scope. While the establishment of Yellowstone Park was a case of simplicity, Grand Teton was one of complexity. Also, it became apparent that the park was a triumph of man's patience and determination, for the park was no product of chance, but rather of men acting deliberately in a noble cause. Broadly speaking, the establishment of Grand Teton National Park and the preservation of northern Jackson Hole was one of the most notable conservation victories of the twentieth century. Surely, a modest book was in order. |
| In preparing this study I owe thanks to the librarians and archivists who assisted me in locating material. Robert Swenningsen of the Federal Archives and Record Center in Denver was particularly helpful, as were Gene Gressley, David Crosson, Emmett Chisum and the late E. B. "Pete" Long, all of the Western History Research Center, University of Wyoming. They, as well as Curtis Clow of the Rockefeller Archives, provided materials and the physical space to use them. Fred Smith and George Lamb of the Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc. aided in obtain- |
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