Grand Teton National Park

In 1849, following the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California, prospectors spread across the West hoping to strike it rich. By 1858, gold had been discovered in Nevada and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. After gold was discovered in Bannock City and Virginia City, Montana, in 1862 and 1863, respectively, prospectors turned to the Grand Teton Range and Jackson Hole.

Walter W. DeLacey led the first group of prospectors to the Grand Tetons in search of gold, setting out with 25 fellow prospectors on August 7, 1863, from the Beaverhead River in Montana after they elected DeLacey their captain. The group was joined by another 16 men, and on August 22, they became the first prospectors to place pans in Jackson Hole waters on the Hoback River. The men found plenty of color but nothing substantial and continued on through the valley to Pacific Creek, where they established a base camp and split into four parties to prospect the surrounding area. DeLacey led his group north to the Jackson Lake inlet of the Snake River. Again, they found some color but no mother lode.

DeLacey produced a map of the area in 1865, and the journey has become more well known for its exploration of the area than for locating gold. In 1876, DeLacey published an account of the expedition in which he stated that the prospectors met no other people in the valley nor did they find any trapper cabins, homesteads, camps, or Indian villages. This suggests that the Teton valley was basically abandoned after the close of the fur-trapping era in the early 1840s. Most prospectors left the Tetons when they did not strike it rich. A few, like John Carnes, stayed to become some of the first settlers in the valley.

This man is panning for gold on the edge of a Teton stream. Panning is the oldest method of gold mining. After locating a placer deposit, such as this streambed, gravel and sand are scooped into the pan and gently swirled around, which allows the heavier gold to sink to the bottom. This method was often used by prospectors to locate the source of the placer deposit.

These prospectors are shoveling gravel and sand from a placer deposit into a sluice box. As water flowed through the sluice box, particles would be moved along the length of the box and the heavier gold particles would be trapped in the bottom by riffles, strips of wood or metal. Water was often directed into the box with a long wooden flume.

This waterwheel is being fed by a downward-sloping wooden flume. As mining equipment progressed, the waterwheel was used to provide power to mining operations. In underground mining, there may have been many waterwheels used to lift seeping water from one level to another up the mineshaft to keep the work area dry.

Miners Frank Coffin, Don Graham, and Jim Webb are searching through silt at their mine on Pacific Creek. They later abandoned this claim because the gold could not be retrieved. In 1909, Coffin took up a homestead on the Buffalo Fork River; he worked for the Triangle X dude ranch for most of his life. (Photograph by William Balderston.)

The miner at right is wearing a hat fitted with a carbide lamp used for illuminating underground tunnels, and another lamp dangles in his hand. Not all mining in the Teton Range was done above ground. Some prospectors dug tunnels in the mountains on quests for gold. When it became apparent that gold was not going to be found in large quantities, other mining operations, such as talc and asbestos, took over.

The opening of the mineshaft remained visible after a cave-in around 1932 at this asbestos mine on Berry Creek on the western side of Jackson Lake.

John Graul built a mining shack (left) and a cabin (below) in Webb Canyon on the west side of Jackson Lake. Every spring, after snowmelt, Graul returned to work on his tunnel. He managed to cut a tunnel 193 feet long before his death in a Colorado mining accident; no one knows for sure what he was seeking. W.C. Lawrence believed that Graul was tunneling for platinum. Lawrence owned an asbestos claim in the nearby canyon of Berry Creek. In 1914, the Reclamation Service developed the first coal mines from a coal field 60 miles long on the eastern side of Jackson Hole. The coal was used to power the Jackson Lake Dam. Other coal mines were developed and served the local market until the 1940s. There is no longer any coal mining in Jackson Hole.

Karl “Uncle Jack” Davis (center, with his hand on his chest) stands next to his pack horse with a group of prospectors. Davis came to the valley in the 1880s to seek his fortune after working in the goldfields of Montana. He staked a claim in the Snake River Canyon and built a cabin near Bailey Creek. (Photograph by Al Austin.)

In Jackson Hole, Davis devoted his life to finding gold and listed his occupation as gold miner on the 1900 census. Like many other prospectors of the time, his dream never materialized. When he died in 1911, he only had about $12 in gold amalgam to his name. (Photograph by Al Austin.)

The mining cutback pictured above is on the bank of the Snake River and is still visible today. If gold had been discovered in the Jackson Hole area, the destructive scarring that would have occurred would have demolished the landscape. The foundation of a prospector’s cabin still exists in upper Death Canyon along with small tunnels that were dug into the mountainside by someone in search of gold. Similar tunnels exist in Avalanche Canyon. Although no one ever found a mother lode of gold near the Grand Tetons, companies mined other minerals, like talc and asbestos. If the area had not been designated a national park, the mining of these resources may have gone unchecked and forever altered this pristine wilderness. The photograph below shows Bill Hutton and his dog at the entrance to a talc mine on Owl Creek. (Below, photograph by W.C. Lawrence.)