RodeoProfessor

Good morning, I’m waiting for a box of gear to be delivered to me again, so here’s the story of maybe the greatest act of private philanthropy for American public lands in our history: the creation of Grand Teton National Park. John D. Rockefeller purchased this land for us under the Snake River Land Company quietly buying up about 35,000 acres because he didn’t like seeing development creeping into the valley and he know Grand Teton for what it was-an otherworldly place that needed to be protected for all Americans. Locals protested an outsider buying up all this land, Congress tried to abolish the early National Monument created by FDR, but the standoff (culminating in a protest cattle drive across the monument) ended when Rockefeller’s land was merged into the modern park. Compromises were struck with locals to enable traditional ranching livelihoods. One of the few national parks in America where you can hunt elk, one of the places where we came up with the idea for the 1964 Wilderness Act (famous meeting at Murie Ranch)

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