THE NATURALIST AND COLLECTOR 
65 
Jackson’s Hole. 
S THE recent massacre (?) of the 
whites near Jackson’s Hole is 
still fresh in the minds of the 
readers of The Naturalist and Col¬ 
lector, we give a description of this 
sportsman’s paradise. It is, indeed, 
too beautiful a place to bear 
such a name. The name is sup¬ 
posed to be derived from a man 
named Jackson, a member of a band of 
cattle theives, who after stealing the 
cattle would drive them to this grazing 
ground, where they thought they were 
safe, as rarely a sheriff had nerve 
enough to enter the strip to arf-est 
them. But it seems Jackson was 
arrested and sent to the penitentiary, 
thus bringing disgrace upon his craft 
in not dying at the hands of the vigil¬ 
antes instead of inglorionsly surren. 
dering. 
In the late Indian troubles the 
whites were really to blame. Tourists 
from the East were only too willing to 
pay as high as five dollars a day for a 
guide and one dollar a day for ponies 
that were needed, and should a fine 
pair of antlers present themselves a 
gold coin would suffice to attach the 
guilt to the Indians. Incidentally, the 
Indians were careless with their fires, 
destroying timber and game alike. It 
is to be regretted that the valley, so 
admirably adapted to the protection 
of game should have been allowed to 
lie open to the grasp of cattle men who 
now control it. One way to settle the 
dispute between the whites and 
Indians is to extend the Yellowstone 
Park to the South fifty miles, making 
the crest of the Leon range the West¬ 
ern border line. 
Jackson’s Hole is one of the best 
hunting grounds in the United States. 
The hole is a narrow valley, lying just 
South of and bordering on the Yellow¬ 
stone National Park. It is walled on 
the w’est by the Teton range, of which 
the Grand Teton is a magnificent peak, 
about 14,400 feet above the sea level. 
On the east are found the Gros Ventre 
mountains, and other spurs of the 
Wind River range, and two chains of 
mountains are nowhere more than two 
rriiles apart. At its lowest point the 
valley is said to be 6,000 feet above the 
sea. At the head of the valley are 
found four of the most beautiful lakes 
imagineable. The largest of these is 
Jackson’s Lake, and it is from the West 
side of the lake that Mount Moran 
rises, clear cut as a monument, 6,000 
feet above the water. These lakes are 
practically the head of the Great Snake 
river, which after running to the South 
for some fifty miles, breaks through 
the Teton chain by a gorge that may 
almost be compared with that of the 
Colorado, and to the Pacific. There is, 
however, a source of the Snake river 
still higher—a spring that lies on a 
mountain side, up in the Yellowstone 
Park, from which the water runs down 
to the hog’s back and divides, a part of 
this water becoming the Snake river 
and a part the Yellowstone itself. 
Born of the glaciers of the Teton 
range and of the melting snows that 
last in the Wind River mountains al¬ 
most all summer, the waters of Jack¬ 
son’s Hole, whether in lake or stream, 
are so cold that they make the hands 
of the tourist ache when he bathes 
himself, even in warm weather. That 
they are perfectly pure and clear 
hardly need to be said. But to the 
Sportsman the coldness and beauty of 
the waters are of only secondary inter¬ 
est, for the rainbow trout of the Pacific 
slope may be found in such numbers as 
