A Place Called Jackson Hole (Chapter 18) (2024)

Grand TetonHistoric Resource Study

Donald Buys the Rubber SnakeRanch by Bill Schenck. Schenck, who specializes in irony, paintedDonald Duck against a stage-painted Tetons background. BillSchenck

Hollywood and the motion picture, as well as the television industry,provided still another picturing of Jackson Hole. Because of thegleaming snow-covered freshness of the Tetons, countless televisioncommercials have been filmed in the region. One of the most notable wasan Old Milwaukee beer commercial. The film makers sent out a castingcall for "authentic-looking Jackson Hole fishermen." As one newspapermanput it, "Looking for fishermen in Jackson Hole is like looking forcriminals in the state pen." [43] Hundredsof locals immediately auditioned. None of them looked just right. Thedirector, weary of screening virtually the whole male population,finally found the right outdoorsman. Dan Woodward at the JacksonNational Fish Hatchery would be, as the paper put it, "the leading man."The two other "stars" were Breck O'Neill, a stuntman and his downstairsneighbor, Todd Link. Clearly, the real thing wouldn't do.

This theme of pseudo-authenticity was carried forward on manyinteresting levels. The big scene (a 30-second clip) was shot at sunsetat Oxbow Bend of the Snake River. It purported to be dawn in thecommercial. Then, because Jackson Hole fish were not photogenic enough,the film company imported 50 huge yellowbelly cutthroat trout from theStar Valley Trout Ranch in Afton, Wyoming. They were kept in live boxesat a second site on Pacific Creek. The fish were not fed for severaldays. A large number of them died, and as the report recounted, "therest were too stressed out to move." So Dale Best, the Fish Hatcherybiologist, was ordered to stitch a thin but strong monofilament to theupper lips of several huge fish that had survived. The cameras werelowered underwater and then, just at the right moment, the fish wereyanked above the water surface as if by one of the three fishermen. Thefish were dubbed "heroes" by the company. An ordinary trout was attachedto Woodward's fly and lifted by him into his net. Woodward "caught"several this way and then the big yellowbellied micro-filamented "hero"fish attached to his line, leaped its high dance above the sparklingwaters. The artificially dirtied-up rustic-looking fisherman celebratedwith, what else, an ice tub full of Old Milwaukee beer at "dawn." As thereporter concluded, "It doesn't get any better than this." It was art.Today it would be called a "neo-constructivist temporary wildlifeexperience." This artistic experience was shown whenever possible at NFLfootball game breaks. It only cost about $250,000 to make.

The hazards of filming commercials became apparent during the filmingof a Mountain Dew commercial. One tourist complained to the localnewspaper that clearing the brush from the shore destroyed the ecosystemand that his female friend, cruising before the cameras in a canvaskayak, had hit the camera platform, turned over and ripped her boat. [44]

More recently, during the 1997 Major League All Star baseball game, aChevrolet rolled onto the TV screen, the driver's side door opened andthe whole Teton Range flowed out—"Like a Rock." Other commercialsfilmed in Jackson Hole include ones for Jeep, Toyota, Levis, MaxwellHouse Coffee, and Ski Doo.

As far as dedicated research can tell, filming in Jackson Hole beganin 1921 when the valley was only just opened to dudes. The silent filmwas entitled Nanette of the North, a different story but thetitle is a play on Robert Flaherty's popular documentary Nanook ofthe North. The original footage of Nanette perished in afire. It was reshot in Alaska.

The Cowboy and the Lady, filmedin 1922, was Jackson Hole's first feature film. The movie, which starredHollywood ingenue Mary Miles Minter, was shot on the old Pederson Ranchon the south side of the Gros Ventre River north of Jackson. JacksonHole Historical Society and Museum

Soon after, in 1922, the controversial Hollywood ingenue, Mary MilesMinter showed up as the heroine of The Cowboy and the Lady,Jackson Hole's first feature film. It was shot on the old Pederson Ranchon the south side of the Gros Ventre River north of Jackson. That sameyear, whether before or after her visit to the valley is not preciselyknown, the famous director-actor Desmond Taylor was found shot to death.Purportedly her lover, Mary had sent him missives on butterflystationery that read: "Dearest—I love you—I love you—Ilove you—xxxxxxxxxx X yours always! Mary." Mary and the actressMabel Normand (a movie cowgirl from the 101 Ranch) were the primesuspects. Mary, who looked like Mary Pickford and who was on her way tostardom, suddenly found her career ended. Latter day research indicatesthat Taylor was probably a hom*osexual and that Mary's mother, CharlotteShelby, shot him in a jealous rage. Mary married her milkman and livedalong with Charlotte in obscurity in Santa Monica. She died on August 5,1954. The Cowboy and the Lady was her last big film as the star.[45]

In 1930 John Wayne made his movie debut in Raoul Walsh's The BigTrail filmed in Grand Teton National Park. Wayne played a mountainman and Marguerite Churchill was his citified co-star who initiallyfears him, then rushes to his arms.

The Big Trail (1930) starringJohn Wayne, which told the story of a settler's wagon train to Oregon,featuring the settlers lowering wagons down this steep cliff intoJackson Hole. Jackson Hole Historical Society

To keep their wagons from rolling out of control downhill, thesettlers reversed the wheels, putting the large wheels on the downslopeside and the smaller wheels on the up slope. Ropes tied to the wagonslet them down the steep slope slowly, and logs placed at intervals belowthe front wheels enabled them to negotiate the descent, though somewagons crashed. Hollywood duplicated this descent mode exactly, thoughseveral spectacular crash scenes were filmed along Spread Creek to thewest of the valley.

Then, after a lapse of ten years, Wallace Beery appeared as the leadin Wyoming. Six years later he appeared as the gruff but lovableco-star of little Margaret O'Brien in Bad Bascomb in 1946, muchof it filmed at Teton Pass and near Signal Mountain. Beery, who, likeMary Miles Minter, was born on April Fool's Day, began his work in themovies as Sweedie, a Swedish maid. As a female impersonator he made atleast eight Sweedie films including Sweedie's Hopeless Love. Theywere not westerns. In 1916 he married Gloria Swanson. They were divorcedin 1918, long before Beery made his gruff hero films in Jackson Hole.[46]

The 1940 movie Wyoming. some ofwhich was filmed on the shores of Jackson Lake. Jackson HoleHistorical Society and Museum

Wallace Beery, star of Wyomingand Bad Bascomb, liked Jackson Hole so much that he built a cabinon the shores of Jackson Lake below Signal Mountain. Jackson HoleHistorical Society andMuseum

Bad Bascomb told the story of the Mormon trek into JacksonHole where they came over Teton Pass in a rough crossing. During theshooting of the picture many of the cast bunked in the scattered duderanches. Beery, of course, played a bad man with a heart of goldcontinually fighting off romantic advances by Marjorie Main. Afterhelping the Mormons fight off an Indian attack, in the end, rather thanmarry Marjorie Main, Beery goes back to town believing he will be hangedfor his "evil" deeds. Beery liked Jackson Hole so much he built a cabinon Jackson Lake below Signal Mountain.

Even though it was the era of the television western, it was 1951before another major film was made in Jackson Hole. This was The BigSky, an adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning A. B. Guthrie'ssplendid novel based on the first script that the noted Montana novelistever wrote. Howard Hawks had purchased the rights to Guthrie's novel,perhaps the best ever written about the mountain men. RKO produced it.The somewhat oddly chosen stars for the movie were an unknown, DeweyMartin, as the hero Boone Caudill, Kirk Douglas as his red-headed friendJim Deakins, and Elizabeth Threatt as Teal Eye, Boone's Blackfoot Indianwife.

In what promised to be a major film with a triangular love affair,Dudley Nichol's script focused only on the first half of the novel inwhich Boone kills his redheaded friend Deakins because Teal Eye, hisIndian wife, has a redheaded baby. Nichols and Howard Hawks chose toexcise the dark parts of Paul Guthrie's tale and concentrate on thepositive. They emphasized the "brotherhood" of the mountain men, theFrench boatmen, the woman Teal Eye and Poordevil, a crazed but comicIndian. The whole thing became a parable of "togetherness." [47]

The real stars of the film are the two exact replicas of the oldMissouri River keelboat of the 1820s that the mountain men poled andtugged by ropes up 2,000 miles of the Big Muddy, contending with logs,brush, poison ivy, snakes, wolves and hostile Indians. The best featureof The Big Sky keelboats is their silent motors that make suchlabor in the movie make believe. One of these boats, that originallycost $28,000 in 1952, has been recently restored by the MontanaHistorical Society. Much of the film features the keelboat on the SnakeRiver as it came out of Jackson Lake. Menor's historic ferry crossingwas another place the boat was filmed. The crew camped in a large tentvillage near Moran, Wyoming.

The Big Sky, released in 1952,was adapted from A.B. Guthrie's novel. Portions of The Big Skywere filmed at Menor's Ferry. One of the make-believe keelboats used inthe movie has been restored by the Montana Historical Society.Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum

An anthropologist from the American Museum of Natural History,reviewing The Big Sky found it grossly inaccurate. The keelboatwas satisfactory, but birchbark canoes on the Upper Missouri? No. Thetipis were furnished with southern Arizona bric-a brac such as Apachebaskets, the Blackfeet (actual tribe members) "are portrayed with thesame magnificent disregard for fact that we have learned to expect inthe average grade-B horse opera," he ejacul*ted. Teal Eye, the femalelead "slinks about in a costume that recalls Minnehaha in a schoolpageant." The New York anthropologist and some later Indian commentatorsmade the point that to Hollywood all Indians were alike. He concluded"perhaps it is too much to expect that the purveyors of what passes forhistory in most movies should be aware of them" [the special culture anddress of the Blackfeet] [48] The critic hadnothing to say of the casting and acting. He should have. Can the filmbe remade today?

At the same time, another of Guthrie's scripts was coming tolife—Shane. This interpretation of a New Haven, Connecticut,reporter's novel is perhaps the best loved of all the films made inJackson Hole. Directed by George Stevens, this film, like theunfortunate The Big Sky, aimed to get away from the gunfighter-saloon-girl town western or even the cowboy extravaganza.Realism was said to be the keynote. It was indeed the first film withloud realistic gun shots that startled audiences. Shane is thestory of settlers just like those who came into Jackson Hole in the latenineteenth century and the mysterious "Knight Errant" gunman who defendsthem. Van Heflin starred as hard-working honest Joe Starratt, thesettler; Jean Arthur, no glamour girl, played his wife; Ben Johnson,always authentic, played the town bully; Jack Palance played thegunfighter; and Alan Ladd played the mythical samurai who defends thehomesteaders, Shane. Brandon de Wilde as the child, Joey Starratt,almost stole the show. One can still hear him calling "Shane, Shane,Shane," as the wounded Alan Ladd rides out of their lives and into theTetons. While realistic, Shane had much of the mythical about itto which the slow-moving reptilian gunfighter Jack Palance contributed agreat deal, as did the paradise scenery of the Tetons and Jackson Holeitself.

Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur inShane, which was made in 1953 and is one of the most popularmovies filmed in Jackson Hole. Jackson Hole Historical Society andMuseum

Most visitors to the park want to see the Shane sets andlocations. Alas, the rude town with its saloon and general store is nowlong gone from Antelope Flats. A slowly crumbling homestead cabin, theLuther Taylor Homestead with a Teton Mountain background, still remains.So does Mormon Row and Schwabacher's Landing where the homesteaderscrossed the river to reach the town. The Ernie Wright Cabin near KellyWarm Springs was also used as the Starratt Homestead, though a completeinterior of the cabin was built inside the unfinished Jackson Hole HighSchool. Teton Valley Ranch, on the Gros Ventre, also figured in thefilm. It is to some a significant question as to whether some of theShane cabins should be restored, though the local authority onthe subject of their location has not committed himself. [49] Restoration of early settlers' cabins anddude ranches sometimes runs counter to the philosophy of Grand TetonNational Park, though one notes on the U.S.G.S. and the NationalGeographical Society official topographical maps that not far fromJackson, near Miller Springs, is the historic Miller Cabin, where TetonJackson, the notorious outlaw, holed up. [50]

The town set for Shane once stoodon Antelope Flats. Jackson Hole Historical Society andMuseum

Spencer's Mountain, made in 1963, also caused a stir. Itstarred Henry Fonda who was variously termed "a great guy, very down toearth" and a bad interview. Maureen O'Hara, James McArthur and MimsyFarmer were also in the film about a boy, oddly named Clayboy, growinginto manhood in a poor homesteader family, grateful for the chance to gooff to college where he will be with blonde beauty Mimsy Farmer, hisfirst love. It is a story of family sacrifice that became a TV series,The Waltons.

Spencer's Mountain was filmed primarily near Triangle X Ranch,not far from the Cunningham Cabin. As one writer put it for the JacksonHole Gazette, "The hill behind Triangle X Ranch may have hadanother name once, but the Turners of the Triangle X Ranch call it"Spencer's Mountain." [51] From it one couldlook far across the flats and Jenny Lake to the Tetons in the distance.Actually the Triangle X was the same location where Jubal,starring Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine, was made in 1956. Fonda,between takes for Spencer's Mountain, went fishing only to get ahook in his eyelid. So great was the Jackson Hole hysteria aboutSpencer's Mountain that someone wrote that "Henry Fonda milked acow in the Moulton Barn!"

In 1969, the Hunter Hereford Ranch, the Twin Creek Ranch, TetonValley Ranch, and Brooks Lake were the settings for The WildCountry, released in 1971. The movie starred Steve Forrest, VeraMiles, and Ron Howard. It is the story of a pioneer family that moveswest from Pittsburgh, homesteads and, as in Shane, is forced tofight the cattlemen. On the Hunter Hereford Ranch the town of Kelly,washed away in a flood in 1927, was reconstructed and the old MoultonCabin was moved to the Twin Creek Ranch to serve as the familyhomestead. Today the Hunter Hereford Ranch still stands in goodcondition, one side of the barn altered by the filmmakers to lookantique. The hay shed and stud barn were also remodeled to serve asmovie props. Hollywood added Greek Revival windows to the north side ofthe hay shed so that it could serve as a movie-set church. The cabin andstable still stand, used to store equipment, and a lone buffalo callsthe ranch home.

As of 1993 there had been a number of more or less significant filmsmade or partially made in Jackson Hole, including Sylvester Stallone'sRocky IV, the video releases for Dances With Wolves, LakotaMoon (an all-Indian film pilot made in 1991 but never released),Clint Eastwood's Any Which Way You Can, The Wrong Guys and smallparts of James Michener's Centennial. Much of Dream West,a TV series starring Richard Chamberlain as Lt. John C. Fremont, whonever saw Jackson Hole but did climb a high peak in the Wind RiverMountains that he named for himself was made in the valley. Another TVseries of the 1960s, The Monroes, was the story of five orphanedchildren, the oldest of whom is played by the fresh and beautifulBarbara Hershey. She was the star, along with her Great Pyrenees dog,Snow. However, in the atmosphere of the sixties, the series was toowholesome. It had a short run. Another wholesome production of thenineties, however, A River Runs Through It, was partially filmedin Jackson Hole. The famous falls sequence was filmed on Fall Creek, notthe Yellowstone.

Some of the other significant motion pictures were early silent filmssuch as Charge of the Light Brigade (1912), The Man FromPanted Post (1917) starring Douglas Fairbanks and Hoot Gibson,Indian Life (1917) with an all Indian cast, and The ThunderingHerd (1924) by Famous Players Laskey, starring Tim McCoy(Yellowstones first park ranger), Noah Beery and Gary Cooper.

Later, more famous films included The Plainsman (1937)starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur, Close Encounters of the ThirdKind (1977), Pow Wow Highway (1989) which was also shot on ornear the Lame Deer Reservation in northeastern Wyoming, TheVanishing (1993), a Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock extravaganza, andChristmas in Connecticut (1992). [52]

One film made in and around Jackson Hole in 1979 that curiously hasnot received enough praise is Charleton Heston's The MountainMen, which also starred the late Brian Keith. This picture, perhapsthe best one ever filmed in Jackson Hole, made by far the best use ofits scenic possibilities, from the opening credits which feature theTetons and Jackson Lake, to many locations along the Snake River, aswell as the higher fields near Triangle X Ranch east of the river. Somespectacular sequences were filmed in Yellowstone's geyser basins, othersat the foot of the Togwotee Pass in five feet of snow. It is also anauthentic film that recreates an uproarious mountain man rendezvous onthe Triangle X Ranch. This scene, filmed over a two-week period,required the construction of 80 tipis, rows of tents for fur traders,wagons, a corral, fire sites and extraordinary costuming for a largenumber of people. Many of the 500 "mountain men" who participated in therendezvous scene were recruited from mountain man re-enactment clubs allover the country. The Indians were recruited from the Wind RiverReservation, Fort Hall, Idaho, and Ogalalla, Nebraska. The script waswritten by Charleton Heston's son, Frazer, himself an expert on mountainman history. Many of the scenes bring the history paintings of JohnClymer, Tom Lovell, Kenneth Riley and Frank McCarthy to life. [53]

Perhaps it was too authentic, too historical for audiences of the1970s. Now, however, many prefer their history as pseudo-authenticdocumentaries like Ken Burns's recent TV series, The West, partlyfilmed in Jackson Hole and loaded with politically correct messages andtalking heads as well as many gaffes such as photographs ofCoronado and the leaders of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

One wonders, has the documentary with expert authenticators astalking heads taken the place of historically-oriented feature films?What of the Old West and its history where, in 1928, Owen Wister, theprolific author Struthers Burt, and Ernest Hemingway, completing a draftof his very modernist book, A Farewell to Arms, could still fishthe Snake and appreciate rustic living on Burt's Three Rivers Ranch,with its jerry-built dude cabins with sod roofs and homemade furniture?Then it was a dude-ranch paradise in which even the fastidious publisherAlfred A. Knopf reveled. It was where Wallace Stegner and Bernard DeVototried to blend the Old West with the new. Have Jackson Hole's humaninhabitants either turned banal, contemporary or disappeared? Is JacksonHole too scenic, too identifiable for modern film makerswho prefer road films, urban dramas where the Mafia reigns, stories ofserial killers, or Stephen Spielberg's special effects movies? Are wetuned toward the vast universe of Contact, in which case JacksonHole is too small, its historic past too brief. [54] In addition, the park's relentless returnto a pristine, non-human ecosystem seems the wave of the future as fewof the picture makers now look back. The tourists and environmentalistsare mostly into nature and its destruction by "rapacious" alien humans,not the settlers' era portrayed in Shane and Spencer'sMountain. For Jackson Hole and its temporary historical denizenssubstitute Zabriski Point in Death Valley and the Nevada Atomic TestSites as we follow the avant garde picture makers of a West that is nolonger ours.

The Moulton Barn, with the majesticTeton Range in the background, is popular with photographers. The barnis located on Mormon Row. Roger Whitacre

Postscript

The National Park Service's "nature only" policy has largely effacedJackson Hole's historic dimension. Famous dude ranches, as well as thebarns and cabins used in film making, are being left to molder away.This has caused some controversy. Struthers Burt sold his ranch, the BarBC, and Nathaniel Burt sold the Three Rivers Ranch at cost to theRockefeller Snake River Land Company, and they thus became part of theGrand Teton National Park. Both Burts, strong advocates of theRockefeller expansion of the park, felt it was their patriotic duty. Asthey and others lived on at the Three Rivers Ranch as lessees under theterms of sale, neither father nor son envisioned the destruction of theranches. They believed them to be historic sites, not only becausefamous people like the publisher Alfred Knopf who served on the NationalPark Service Advisory Board, had stayed there, but also because of thedistinctive vernacular architecture of the ranch buildings. [55] Nathaniel Burt felt, and Roy GrahamAssociates, a restoration architectural firm who made an assessment in1994, felt that the Bar BC Ranch buildings of Burt's first dude ranchwere part of the landscape. Listed on the National Register of HistoricPlaces, they should be properly cared for and, if necessary, restoredthough at some, possibly donor, expense. [56] An offer of funding for restorationpurposes with respect to the Three Rivers Ranch was offered by Burt'sson, Nathaniel. [57] His offer was rejected.Some buildings were moved, and the rest, owned by the National ParkService, were demolished. In an era where American history is beingseverely distorted for political purposes, it does seem important thatsome vestiges of the past remain—some evidence of the staying powerof the pioneer past and the romantic cowboy past—even into themid-twentieth century. The buildings and the furniture of the Bar BC,which is still standing, were made on the ranch; the stone chimneys wereconstructed with stones from the Snake River by an amateur localbuilder. It represents a time before the pre-fabricated age and, to anhistorian and even a tourist, the Bar BC Ranch, while not a work of art,is a work of interest—a sight to be seen and interpreted, as aresome of the remaining structures from the era of motion picture making.To many people the Old West is the West and Jackson Hole, withits colorful setting and history, should probably be more interestingthan one's hometown hike-and-bike trail or a ski resort. Keeping intouch with the past is keeping in touch with nature in all itsvaried forms.