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COVER

INTRODUCTION
By Marian Albright Schenk

FOREWORD
By Dean Knudsen

SECTION 1
Primary Themes of Jackson's Art

SECTION 2
Paintings of the Oregon Trail

SECTION 3
Historic Scenes From the West

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The circumstances behind this occasion, in which William Henry Jackson is being honored are not known. However, the men are identified as Jackson, E. Deming and James Hare, and the photograph is dated April 17, 1940. (SCBL 2703)

Section 3: Historic Scenes from the West

THE GRAND TETONS

William Henry Jackson first explored the Grand Teton mountain range during the Hayden Survey of 1872. This was Jackson's third expedition with the U.S. Geological Survey, and it followed in the wake of the survey's spectacular success the previous year when they had explored the wonders of Yellowstone. The next year the survey returned to Yellowstone, but with the intention of widening the scope of their explorations by making a brief side trip into the Tetons, as they made their way north into Yellowstone.

The Teton Range is easily the most recognizable mountain range in Wyoming and has a long and storied past. During the days of the fur trade, the Tetons served as the locale for many of the fur traders' annual rendezvous. By 1872, the fur trade was a distant memory, but the Hayden Survey found the Tetons to still be a hunter's paradise. As Jackson later recounted:

Our various parties were kept supplied with fresh meat without having to hunt for it, deer, moose, or mountain sheep being nearly always in sight when needed it was equally easy to get a mess of trout from the streams nearby.¹

Jackson first visited the Teton Range in western Wyoming in 1871. The view seen in this photograph reappears in Jackson's painting, "Under the Tetons." (SCBL 898)

Jackson found the area to be rich in subject matter for his camera. Although occasionally inconvenienced by the difficulty in hauling his bulky equipment, Jackson was able to capture some of the most rewarding images of his career. As Jackson described it:

At one place we had to pass around a narrow, high ledge, an extremely dangerous undertaking through the deep, sloping snow. But we made it, and almost immediately we were rewarded with one of the most stupendous panoramas in all America. Thousands of feet below us lay the icy gorge of Glacier Creek, while on the Eastern horizon the main range shimmered in the mid-morning sun. Above all this towered the sharp cone of the Grand Teton, nearly 14,000 feet above sea level.²

While Jackson hurried to produce his images, two members of the survey could not resist the temptation to scale one of the imposing peaks.

At the foot of the Grand Teton, [NP] Langford and [James] Stevenson^* decided without further preparation to attempt its ascent. Since they had no way of knowing that it would later be regarded as one of the truly difficult peaks of North America, they simply went ahead and climbed it. That, in my mind, is the way to climb a mountain. Sometimes there is an awful lot of nonsense about it.³

^*Langford had explored the Teton area in 1870 and later became the first superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, while Stevenson was serving as a quartermaster for the 1872 USGS expedition.

1. Jackson & Driggs, Pioneer Photographer, 132.

2. Jackson, Time Exposure, 206-207.

3. Ibid., 208.

Under the Tetons. Signed and datged 1940. 28.0 x 38.1 cm. (SCBL 150)

	scbl/knudsen/sec3j.htm Last Updated: 14-Apr-2006