|
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
By Joseph Piccoli
There are more than a few folks who say the Last of the Old West disappeared along with the sign.*After all, Jackson Hole has become a place where an "old-timer" is anyone who has lived in the valley longer than you.
Times sure have changed.
Scarcely 150 years ago, Jackson Hole was home in summer and fall only to small bands of Native Americans and a handful of fur trappers.
Later, the trappers and Indians were replaced by homesteaders who managed to endure here while raising beef cattle and cultivating what few crops could mature during a growing season that in a really good year might be as long as three months.
It was a tough life and it truly was a slice of the Old West. But Jackson Hole's future ("hole" was trapper slang for a mountain valley) was determined when those homesteaders realized that dudes (rancher slang for summer tourists) were easier to keep than cattle.
There are still many dude ranches in the valley, and although you can still saddle up a horse and ride off into the sunset while staying at one, you will have choices that would befuddle a trapper: will it be a horseback ride today, or tennis? Or perhaps a round of golf?
Jackson Hole is now a year-round vacation destination. The town of Jackson is a gateway to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, to national forests, and to wilderness areas. Visitors hike, bike, ride horseback, fish, climb mountains, marvel at the geysers of Yellowstone, and gape at the stunning Teton mountains.
They attend symphony orchestra concerts and browse through art galleries and museums by the dozen.
So if the wide-open spaces of the Old West really were populated by cowboys and bad guys, by schoolmarms and shady ladies, clearly much of the Old West really has packed up and pulled out of town.
Not all of it is gone, however, and not all of what's left is simply a show put on for the 30,000 or so visitors who crowd the streets of downtown Jackson on an average summer day.
Take the Shootout for example. A bunch of locals don classic Western wear every night (except Sunday) from Memorial Day to Labor Day, head down to the Town Square, and pretend to shoot each other. In the best spaghetti-Western tradition there's a bit of corny melodrama performed to set the scene, then guns blaze and the street is suddenly strewn with bodies.
After a moment, the bodies stir, then stand and dust themselves off. The tourists think it's great and you might think the event is pure Chamber of Commerce boosterism. But for the locals who produce the show it is a labor of love. Many have performed every summer for years and turn out in historically accurate costumes that really are too valuable to be worn while rolling around on the street.
Another example is the wooden sidewalks in the downtown area. One woman I know (she's a "local") says she likes them because they give her a great reason not to wear high heels. Jackson, after all, retains enough of its Western heritage that you'll see folks wearing blue jeans at even the most formal events.
Some of what keeps Jackson a real Western town is simply the stuff of small towns everywhere. Several years ago the U.S. Postal Service tried to introduce home delivery of mail to Jackson. Residents objected because they did not want to lose the contact with friends and neighbors afforded by regular excursions to pick up their mail.
The Postal Service dropped it plans for home delivery of the mail and even after opening a large post office in west Jackson a year ago, it bowed to public pressure and kept the "old" downtown post office open.
Probably the most important thing about Jackson's Western heritage, and the thing that has remained unchanged, is its location. Sure, this is Wyoming, the state with license plates that feature a picture of a cowboy on a bucking bronco. But Jackson is also surrounded by some of the most spectacular and unspoiled lands in the West.
There are millions of acres surrounding Jackson (in wilderness areas and the backcountry of Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks) where travel on foot or by horseback is the only travel possible.
For many people, the real West is found in those places where the impact of humans is least in evidence. In Jackson Hole, those places can be found in literally every direction. From the Jackson Town Square, the hub of urban life in the valley, you can reach a roadless wilderness in less time than it takes a person to reach a shopping mall in most American cities.
So as glitzy as Jackson may seem to some, you'll never be far from its roots nor from the real real West.
* A historic sign reading "Howdy Partner, Yonder Lies Jackson Hole, the Last of the Old West" disappeared from the top of Teton Pass many years ago. Recently, local historian Bob Rudd built a new one, and once again the popular message greets visitors.
|
