Grand Teton National Park guide · 2 min read
11,000 Years of People Beneath the Tetons
Hunters of the Paleo-Indian era were moving through Jackson Hole more than 11,000 years ago.
The valley they knew was far chillier and more alpine than the dry country of today. They lived by the seasons, staying in the valley through summer and crossing to valleys on the western side of the Teton Range when winter came.
Along the shores of Jackson Lake, people have found fire pits, stone tools, and pieces that may have served as fishing weights. One tool belongs to a style linked with the Clovis culture, which reaches back at least 11,500 years. Testing traces some obsidian tools to stone near today's Teton Pass, south of the park. Obsidian existed north of the valley too, yet almost every obsidian spear point found here came from that southern source, a clue that people usually arrived from the south.
Communities have made their lives in Jackson Hole for more than 11,000 years, shaping how people see these mountains. An 1870 photograph by William Henry Jackson captured a Shoshone camp in Wyoming.
In 1859 and 1860, the Raynolds Expedition became the first government-sponsored party to reach Jackson Hole. Army Captain William F. Raynolds was in command, Jim Bridger served as guide, and naturalist F. V. Hayden was among the members. Snowbound passes kept them from Yellowstone, so Bridger led them south across Union Pass, down the Gros Ventre River to the Snake River, and out over Teton Pass. Exploration stopped for the Civil War, then Hayden came back with a survey in 1871, and in 1872 Jackson made some of the first photographs of the Tetons.
The park, established in 1929, takes in the main peaks of the 40-mile Teton Range along with most of northern Jackson Hole. Beneath those summits, the John Moulton Barn stands as a much newer piece of a very old human story.
