A Photographic Essay of the Tetons

by Andrea Downing

     Three or four months of the year, I’m lucky enough to get out to my home in Wyoming, where I am happiest.  It is just 5 miles down the road from Grand Teton National Park and about an hour from the entrance to Yellowstone, depending on the pesky tourist numbers.  I try to be out when the least people are about—April/May and late September through early November.  I haven’t yet spent a winter out here, being something of a coward, but it is on the cards.  For now, I thought I’d share a few photos to show why I love this place so much.

 

 The famous arches of Jackson town square

 

                     The Moulton Barn, apparently most photographed barn in USA

                                              Old Faithful at Yellowstone

                               

Chapel of the Transfiguration at Grand Teton

                                                                    the Aspens in leaf

                                                       Bison grazing at Yellowstone

                A bear at Lupine Meadows, Grand Teton--keeping my distance!

                                Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River

                     Mount Moran behind a still-frozen Jenny Lake

 

                                                            Lewis Falls

and finally

the entrance to the Cunningham Cabin, an early homestead in Grand Teton NP

    The Cunningham Cabin proved to be the inspiration for my novella, Dearest Darling, part of the Wild Rose Press ‘Love Letters’ series and my one crack at a mail order bride story.  It won The Golden Quill for Best Novella, as well as several categories at The Maple Leaf Awards, and placed in both the International Digital Awards and The Chanticleer Awards.  

Here’s the blurb:

 

Stuck in a life of servitude to her penny-pinching brother, Emily Darling longs for a more exciting existence. When a packet with travel tickets, meant for one Ethel Darton, accidentally lands on her doormat, Emily sees a chance for escape. Having turned down the dreary suitors that have come her way, is it possible a new existence also offers a different kind of man?

 

Daniel Saunders has carved out a life for himself in Wyoming—a life missing one thing: a wife. Having scrimped and saved to bring his mail-order bride from New York, he is outraged to find in her stead a runaway fraud. Even worse, the impostor is the sister of his old enemy.

But people are not always as they seem, and sometimes the heart knows more than the head.

 

EXCERPT:

 

Emily liked the sound of his voice, low but not husky, a slight twang he had cultivated, but not pretentiously so. When he spoke, she envisaged melting caramel, something delicious, the way it could be so appealing as she stirred, with a shine and slow drip from the spoon, before it gradually solidified. Soothing. A liquid velvet.

But he hadn’t spoken today. Not since first thing when he’d told her to get ready. Not through breakfast, or as he helped clear dishes, or gave her a hand up into the wagon.

“You haven’t seen her. You didn’t see her picture, did you?” The questions came sudden, yet without malice.

Emily straightened, alert. “No. No, I didn’t.” Would I understand better? Is that what he meant?

“I keep it with me.” Daniel began to fish in his pocket. “Would you like to see it?”

“No. No, you keep it, please. It won’t change anything.” Emily panicked. She would be beautiful, the other, that would be the answer. So stunningly beautiful that just her photograph had enthralled him, mesmerized him into loving her. Emily couldn’t bear to look, didn’t want to know the answer. Didn’t wish to torture herself further. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for reading the letters.” A rush of words, they flowed out of her. “I should never have done that. It’s not like me. But you...well, you understand it seems—”

“You’re probably wondering what I see in her. Or what she sees in me. As for that, what she sees in me, I have no idea. Maybe, like you, she wishes to get away.”

Emily studied his profile, the planes and contours of his face, the eyes set straight ahead, the slouch hat low on his brow. He gave nothing away, was a man in control of his emotions, thinking, maybe still wondering how he had won that woman. Or maybe set on keeping the answer to himself.

Overhead, clouds scudded, scoured the sky, leached the blue, threatened.

“Did you ever ask her? Why you?”

“I did. She never answered. I’m thinking what she sees in me is husband material. I guess. She tells me about her day, the people she knows, what she does. As you read.”

“She just seems so...so outgoing, so...so very social to ever want this life. I found it difficult to believe.” She jutted her chin out, then turned to him, waiting.

He gave the reins a sharp shake. “I don’t know. I never asked if she knew what she was getting into. I described it. I assumed if she wanted to stop the correspondence there, she would have. I was pretty damn amazed and happy she’d wanted to come, written back even though I described the cabin to her, the isolation.” His gaze slid toward her.

“And you think she’ll make you a perfect wife, do you? Be happy living here? Cook your meals, mend your clothes, keep your cabin, have your babies?” Exasperated, she tried to make him think, think of what he was letting himself in for, how long a marriage like that could go on, how it could end up being even lonelier than he was now. Emily would seem to him to be trying to win him over rather than making him see the truth, but push him she must, save him, stop him. She knew those sorts of women, the debutantes, the socialites. Not a one would last out here, not for a single day.

His head snapped around to stare at her. “She’s been writing. She hasn’t stopped.”

 

Buy Links:  Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Dearest-Darling-Letters-Andrea-Downing-ebook/dp/B00NGWT816/   Also on Audible

 

Ibooks:  https://books.apple.com/us/author/andrea-downing/id547850055

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23348501-dearest-darling

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dearest-darling-andrea-downing/1120514529

Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dearest-darling-1

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/dearest-darling-love-letters-by-andrea-downing

 

 

Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park

by Andrea Downing 

the Moulton Barn

Anyone who’s ever seen advertising, a calendar, or just about any collection of photos of Wyoming, has seen the Moulton Barn—it is, apparently, the most photographed barn in the country. It stands in Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park. Mormon Row is a four mile stretch of homesteads and ranch houses just southeast of Black Tail Butte in Jackson Hole valley.  Here are solid, but decaying, remnants of a community that once thrived, was vibrant with life, if not exactly prosperous by today’s way of understanding. The National Park leaves its historic buildings to decay naturally, which means, with time, they’ll be gone.  But for now, the buildings stand as a monument to what people do to secure a better life, to survive, perhaps also a monument to what really matters in life.

Map of Mormon Row drawn by Craig Moulton, courtesy of Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum

The first homesteaders came from Rockland, Idaho, and stopped in Victor before they crossed the Teton Pass. Nowadays, we have a road, steep and full of hair-pin bends, yet they crossed the pass in wagons.  They camped on Fish Creek in Wilson, where I now reside part-year, before they moved on to make their claim for 160 acres under the Homestead Act, paying their $21 claim fee.  Some would secure further acres under the Desert Land Act, which required them to irrigate the land. 

Thomas Alma & Lucille Moulton Homestead, ca.1910

They arrived in July, too late to plow or plant. Water and shelter were their first concerns. They dug irrigation ditches, and dug down 120ft. or so for wells. This was the time to dig to be sure water would be available in summer—when water would be at its lowest. Then they built log cabins with a dirt roof, the lodge pole pines coming from nearby forests. And they went to Flat Creek, where hay was available for anyone who wanted it, cut it by hand, and also planted an early maturing oat, ready in 90 days. They plowed through the sagebrush with either a hand plow or a sulky plow. The soil underneath was fertile, and the resultant burning sage made an evening’s entertainment.

John & Bartha Moulton Homestead, ca. 1910

They called the community Grovont.  Most of them were ranchers, but the cattle they raised were not for their own consumption. Their subsistence depended on elk meat, hung in winter and left to freeze until they wanted it, and hogs killed and cured in summer, then wrapped in newspapers to keep the flies away. Huckleberries were another staple along with garden vegetables they could grow in the short season:  rutabagas and carrots predominated. The cattle were sold to raise money for other necessities; the steers were driven to Victor, Idaho, put on the train for Omaha and sales.  Since the price of a steer could vary as much as between $29 and $600, income was not guaranteed.  Some families traded hay, eggs or chickens, oats or cream for butter down in the town of Jackson. The Moultons had a dairy and sold milk to the local dude ranches. In addition, there was trapping, and one could earn about $50 a month from coyotes.

Andrew & Ida Chambers Homestead, ca. 1920

So, was there any recreation in this subsistence-level existence? Of course!  The Church was a major center of activity, not only for services but especially for dances.  Everyone danced, and dances were twice a month at the church (but no drinking or smoking allowed).  Still, they lasted until 3 a.m., and there’s a story about the piano player having to tape his bleeding fingers.  Christmas and Halloween parties were well attended, political rallies, weddings and harvest celebrations, and concerts and school plays, too.  Irrigation ditches became ice skating rinks in winter, and the butte afforded skiing and sledding, while in summer there was swimming in nearby water holes. 

In 1925, the Gros Ventre mud slide on Sheep Mountain damned the Gros Ventre River east of nearby Kelly, Wyoming, and caused a lake to be formed.  Two years later, the damn failed, flooding Kelly and killing six people, yet uncovering a warm spring that never freezes.  The Mormons called it ‘The Miracle Spring’, and they dug ditches to bring the water that would never freeze to their homesteads year-round. So life went on, improved somewhat.  Better houses were ordered from the Sears Roebuck Catalogue and shipped by rail to Victor, then brought by stage over the Teton Pass and erected by community effort.  Other new houses were stucco with cement.  Out-buildings were built:  log barns, granaries, and pump houses.  School, originally in someone’s living room before moving to the Church basement, finally had its own building when someone donated land. Mail came in by team or sleigh from Jackson or Moran.  Kerosene and gas light gave way to electricity in the 1950s. 

Thomas Perry Homestead, ca. 1910

So, what happened to this vibrant community? Admittedly, it was at subsistence level, but the homesteaders had made a conscious choice of the life they wanted, and this was it.  But in the 1950s, the government started a buy-out of the land that was unproductive.  The Snake River Company, with Rockefeller money behind it, bought up marginal lands, and then moved in on the homesteaders whose older generation took the money, with life leases permitting them to stay their lifetimes. John Moulton was the last to close at his death in 1990.  And so, this community became part of Grand Teton National Park.

Today, the Church, which served as such a center of community life, serves as the Calico Pizza, my local restaurant in Wilson, Wyoming.

An earlier version of this post appeared at andreadowning.com in 2014. My sincere thanks to Emily Winters, Director of Archives at the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum, for her assistance in my research for this article.  All photos are author's own.

A Visit to the National Museum of Wildlife Art

'Chief' by Robert Bateman

By Andrea Downing

'Buffalo Trail' by Richard Loffler

Set up on a ridge overlooking a wide expanse of the high plains, including the National Elk Refuge, and backing into the Teton front range, The National Museum of Wildlife Art blends into its setting so well, one might think the bronzes of various animals outside the main building are actually the animals themselves.  The  museum houses a collection of over five thousand artworks from more than five-hundred-fifty artists, spanning three centuries, and depicting worldwide wildlife.  The main attraction of the museum seems to be artist, hunter, and conservationist Carl Rungius, for whom the main road leading to the museum is named, and who is blessed with a separate gallery. 

A Rungius I liked!

I cannot say I’m a big Rungius fan; I find some of his works very much better than others, which to me appear flat and lifeless.  But that’s my personal opinion. There are certainly enough works by other artists to hold anyone’s interest, including such varied names as Audubon, Bierstadt, George Catlin, Edward Hicks, Georgia O’Keeffe, C.M. Russell, Thomas Moran, N.C. Wyeth, and (believe it or not!) Andy Warhol, along with pottery by native artists. There are also classrooms, a children’s gallery, conference rooms, a shop, and a restaurant.

Catlin

O'Keeffe

Native Pottery depicting animals

To me the highlight of the visit was the outdoor sculpture trail, currently featuring twenty-one works of art with more expected to be added. One rather upsetting piece on the trail was ‘Lost Birds’ by Todd McGrain. This features

'Lost Birds'

an arrangement of several species now extinct, one from as early as 1878—the Labrador Duck.

'How Many Millions, One Can Only Guess' by N.C. Wyeth, a statement on the near-extinction of American Bison

One of 61 Peaceable Kingdoms by Hicks

While I enjoyed my visit and walk along the sculpture trail on a bright beautiful day, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of incongruity—looking at artwork of various animals when an ark-load of them are just down the road in the Grand Teton National Park.  Perhaps the answer for tourists is to combine the two visits, and get the most out of a stay in or near Jackson WY.

Thomas Moran

"Presidential Eagle' by Sandy Scott

'Black Timber Bugler' by Tim Shinabarger

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All photos author's own