Why National Monuments are BANNED in Wyoming

when you visit Grand Teton National Park today you see an interconnected ecosystem a landscape of towering Peaks and lowland valleys glacial lakes and braided Rivers a landscape of Serenity and beauty and Grace all encompassed in one of America's Premier national parks but it hasn't always been this way Grand Teton National Park hasn't always been a park beloved by millions it has a turbulent past and in the beginning just as many people wished it never existed as those who championed its creation for all that we've gained with the creation of Grand Teton National Park the scenery the wildlife habitat the economic benefits there's one important thing we've lost the Antiquities act will never again be used in the state of Wyoming I want to tell you that story today and shed light on a park that in many ways still embodies the complicated public lands dynamics that gave rise to it in the first place hello and welcome to national park diaries my name is Cameron and this is a channel dedicated entirely to telling educational engaging stories about National Parks public lands and protected areas from around the world if you are interested in these sorts of stories don't forget to like subscribe and hit the little bell thing so you don't miss an episode if you're interested in supporting my work more directly I also have a patreon you can check that out at patreon.com national park diaries now today's video is brought to you by at history of nowhere whose excellent suggestion finally prompted me to tell this story on the channel I've been wanting to talk about it for a while if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like covered here on national park diaries do leave those down in the comments below alright Grand Teton really has three major periods of park building activity there's the initial conservation the creation of the original Grand Teton National Park there's the Jackson whole National Monument period And there's the period of reconciliation where these two parks become the Grand Teton National Park we know today controversy swirled over all three of these periods and you can't really understand one without understanding the others so let's go back to that initial conservation phase the period where Grand Teton was first being discussed for National Park status this was actually around the time when Yellowstone was first created Grand Teton is after all only a few miles from the southern border of Yellowstone National Park as early as 1897 the military superintendent of Yellowstone Colonel sbm young was advocating for the inclusion of Jackson Hole in Yellowstone National Park to protect the migrating elk herds that same year we see the first conservation action taken in the Tetons area president Grover Cleveland under the authority granted to him by the Forest Reserve Act creates the Teton Forest Reserve a sort of precursor destination to national forests 830 000 acres in the Teton area then the next year of 1898 the head of the U.S Geological Survey Charles Walcott also goes on the record for protection he wants Jackson Hole as well as the Teton range to be incorporated into Yellowstone in 1908 Teddy Roosevelt who wielded the full might of the Forest Reserve Act during his presidency enlarges the Teton National Forest to nearly 2 billion Acres finally in 1917 the fledgling National Park Service produces a report naming the Grand Tetons and their surrounding area as one of the seven most important areas in America for inclusion in the National Park system so in the span of just 20 years we have all manner of conservation and public lands officials not to mention two presidents acknowledging the importance of protection for the Tetons great in 1919 a bill is introduced in Congress to establish it as a national park passes the House of Representatives it's going well but it fails in the Senate Idaho senator John Nugent feared the loss of sheep grazing habitat with an expanded Park Service presence in the area and he tanks the bill here we see the face of the opposition for the first time ranchers sheep and cattle grazers who fear that the prime grazing land of Jackson Hole will be lost if incorporated into a national park a fear that was not unfounded but it wasn't just grazers either dude ranchers were in opposition because their livelihoods depended on the bucolic Scenic nature of the valley they feared that all of the infrastructure associated with Parks roads hotels concessionaires would have been that way of life and threatened their economic Futures then it might surprise you but another key member of the opposition was the u.s4 Forest Service they had this kind of weird blood Feud with the new National Park Service since in a lot of cases National Parks have been carved out of forest service lands like at Grand Teton and they didn't want their jurisdiction and power Stripped Away that's a whole can of worms to be honest we'll talk about it in a future video at some point but for now let's just move on if we take the forest service out of this the opposition to Grand Teton National Park really stemmed then from this perceived entitlement of these lands from those who had been using them for the past half century or so the ranchers the farmers the homesteaders by this point they really felt a sense of ownership over these lands in some cases they literally did own it but really the vast majority of this land in Jackson Hole at this time still belonged in the public domain they had just become accustomed to using it like they owned it and this is a through line that touches each period of Grand Teton its history this sentiment this sense of ownership will not go away and it's best to learn about it now because it sets the stage for the next part of the story this is the part where Grand Teton National Park actually does get created we are in the late 1920s now and a series of development threats in the valley not related to the National Park have Arisen development threats which the locals are also opposed to remember they see these sorts of things as threatening their livelihoods and their way of life they like the undeveloped unspoiled nature of the valley the biggest threat to that was a Dam built on the Snake River as it flows out of Jackson Lake which threatened to bring commercialization and resource degradation along with it again the locals do not want this and this time they become more amenable to some sort of Park Service protection they still oppose the park but recognize that some sort of protection might be in their best interest in the end in 1929 the first Grand Teton National Park is created it's not exactly what park Advocates had hoped for though this first version of the park really only included the Teton range itself as well as the series of glacial lakes at their base the lowland areas the prime grazing areas the ones most heavily used by the locals were still not under Park Service protection this land was still a mixture of private Holdings and Forest Service land enter Horus Albright I talked about him last week on Park profiles I compared him to Samwise gamgee definitely check that out if you haven't already anyway he was the superintendent of Yellowstone from 1919 to 1929 and in that time he fell head over heels for the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole he was part of the MPS team which identified those seven most important places for MPS protection back in in 1919 he realizes what several others had before as well that Grand Teton National Park was incomplete without the lowland areas of Jackson Hall to accompany the jagged spiers of the Teton range itself from a wildlife perspective these areas were Prime elk habitat but from a scenery perspective as well these areas were where you viewed the Tetons from I mean think about every picture of the Tetons you've ever seen it's probably from one of those lowland areas and originally they weren't under MPS protection Albright and others were worried that if that land remained unprotected it would become cluttered with Billboards and unsightly tourist attractions in all manner of commercialization again they just viewed the park as being incomplete without those lowlands but the Park Service didn't have the money to acquire this land and even if they did local opposition was still very much a thing at this point anyway so Albright gets the ear of when John D Rockefeller Jr son of the famous oil back Nate and one of the richest people in America Rockefeller had visited the area in 1924 and 1926 and also came to love it and desired it to remain unspoiled as well together Albright and Rockefeller devise a strategy by which Rockefeller would buy a bunch of land and donate it to the National Park Service for inclusion and Grand Teton National Park so Rockefeller starts this company the Snake River Land Company he begins acquiring a bunch of parcels in the valley anonymously so as to keep the prices down and so people don't find out who he is when all is said and done he will have acquired more than 35 000 acres in Jackson Hole all with the intention of donating it to Grand Teton National Park but the locals get wind of this and they are not happy to them this is backhanded and devious they cry foul of the whole operation claims are made of coercion and lowballing and eventually enough noise is made that there was actually a senate inquiry into the land Acquisitions both Rockefeller and the park service are cleared of any wrongdoing but the damage is done the Optics are bad and any chance however slim of political support for an expanded Grand Teton National Park have gone out the window now for the next decade or so throughout the Depression and World War II things go A bit quiet on the Park expansion front the country simply has other things to worry about but once that's all over Rockefeller begins to get a little Restless he's spent the last 15 years acquiring all this land spending all this money all with the intention of seeing it included in Grand Teton National Park then he's frustrated that's not happening so he basically forces the government's hand he threatens to sell all the land on the commercial real estate market if a resolution is not found this is anathema to the park service and Grand Teton Advocates but congressional action on this issue would have been Dead on Arrival there was only one real solution the Antiquities act I have an episode on this but if you'll recall the Antiquities act gives the president unilateral authority to set aside areas of the public domain that have quote unquote historic or scientific interests by this point in history in 1943 the Antiquities Act is a well-worn conservation tool presidents had been using it to set aside all manner of public lands as conservation areas many of which would later become national parks using the Antiquities act here in Grand Teton would of course bypass the Congressional opposition they were facing that would come with severe political ramifications Franklin Roosevelt pulls the trigger though he establishes Jackson Hole National Monument 220 000 Acres of those ever important lowlands carved mostly out of the existing Teton national forests but the Rockefeller donations could finally be accepted at this time as well the lowlands the elk habitat The View sheds they were all now under Park Service protection effectively expanding Grand Teton National Park in all but name but the backlash was Swift and vehement local ranchers immediately led the opposition they staged an armed cattle drive across the new Monument's borders the famed Hollywood actor Wallace Beatty was even there at Wyoming Governor Lester hunt threatened to remove quote any federal official who attempts to assume Authority in the monument area end quote Senator Edward Robinson compared The Monument's establishment to the attack on Pearl Harbor a local radio commentator compared it to Hitler's annexation of Austria a bill was immediately introduced to abolish the monument but FDR used a pocket veto to kill it the state of Wyoming then sued the National Park Service to overturn the proclamation but was unsuccessful Wyoming Senator Joseph o Mahoney ensured that the new monument received no funding through a lack of Appropriations the forest service didn't even cooperate with the land transfers they they left a ranger station completely ransacked for the park service to take it over locals who supported the park had their businesses boycotted this was about as Swift and strong a condemnation as could be made regarding both Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole National Monument this was the culmination of the worst fears of many but not all locals fears they had had since the 19th century a restriction on the use of land that they saw as their own and yet and yet in the years to come things would change there were three more bills introduced to abolish the monument none of which passed but slowly very slowly something strange began to happen locals began to come around to the idea of a national park they began to warm to the idea of Tourism as a long-term and sustainable source of income for their beloved Jackson Hole which which is how we got the Grand Teton National Park of today on September 14 1950 the original Grand Teton National Park was merged with Jackson Hole National Monument to create the boundaries of the park we see today this effort did not come without its compromises however the biggest one being that the Antiquities act can never again be used in the state of Wyoming without Congressional approval that long-simmering distrust and antipathy that had been present since the early days of the park hadn't fully gone away and that exception that little clause in the new park legislation ensured that there were never again be a Jackson Hole National Monument we got Grand Teton National Park but at what cost okay breathe that was a big one there were so many threads to pull out for this story from the politics of part creation to the debate about the Antiquities act which still rages to this day to the land use tension that's still simmering on our public lands as well so the role of philanthropy in national parks there was a lot to unpack there so thank you for watching to the end this is a famous episode in National Park history and a really important one one I've been wanting to tell for a long time on the channel and I'm really glad I got to finally do it I want to know what you think about the creation of Grand Teton National Park were you aware of this part of its history and how do you feel about it if you found it interesting I covered lots of these types of stories here on the channel so be sure to stick around if you want to see more of those and also this channel is entirely fan funded so if you're interested in supporting more of what I'm doing here to bring these types of National Park stories to YouTube you can check me out at patreon.com national park diaries I've got some really cool benefits over there for as little as like two dollars a month including a Discord trip reports amas behind the scenes I run a book club and you can get your name in the credits your support is truly appreciated so thank you I'm also on Instagram so you can go follow me there for like Channel updates and pictures of my Park visits and if you just want to get in touch with me that's probably like the easiest place to do it uh thank you so much for watching I'll see you next time goodbye [Music]

Channel: National Park Diaries

Views: 326,279

Keywords: national parks, grand teton national park, national park, usa national parks, yellowstone national park, national park service, yosemite national park, grand canyon national park, national park disappearances, zion national park, national parks missing persons, wyoming, arches national park, disappearances in national parks documentary, national parks usa, glacier national park, missing people in national parks, unsolved national park disappearances

Id: K529FQ6CfJg

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023