A SECRET WORTH KEEPING
Oil baron John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s surreptitious acquisition of 33,000 acres around Wyoming’s Snake River, and its donation to the federal government, led to the creation of a singular national park
The audacious plan was hatched in secret. In the 1920s, John D. Rockefeller Jr.— son of the Standard Oil founder, ardent conservationist and one of America’s richest men — agreed to surreptitiously acquire thousands of acres of breathtaking scenery around Jackson Hole, Wyo., and donate the land to the federal government for a national park.
At the behest of Horace Albright, the future director of the National Park Service, Rockefeller formed a company called the Snake River Land Co. to buy up property around the Snake River. Rockefeller knew that if word got out that he was interested in acreage there, the price would skyrocket.
“He was willing to pay fair market prices for the land, but not Rockefeller prices,” park service spokesman Andrew White said. The federal government had created several national parks in the early 20th century, White said, and the philanthropist “didn’t want the optics that this was the federal government coming in and taking more land.”
The agents Rockefeller hired to do the buying told landowners only that they were representing someone who wanted the land for conservation purposes. It left locals thinking that perhaps the buyer was interested in expanding an elk preserve that had been created in 1913, said Robert Righter, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas at El Paso and the author of “Crucible for Conservation: The Struggle for Grand Teton National Park.”
But by 1930, a year after Congress had established Grand Teton National Park, word had gotten out about the purchases, and Wyoming residents were furious.
Rockefeller came up with the idea of the purchases after visiting Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons in 1926. Albright, then the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, personally escorted Rockefeller on that trip. He had an agenda: In 1923, Albright and a group of preservation-minded dude ranch operators in Jackson Hole, concerned by the creeping commercialism of the area, had met to discuss how to protect the Tetons and Jackson Hole. They cooked up the idea of persuading a rich investor to buy up land around the Snake River and donate it to the government for a national park. Albright outlined the idea to Rockefeller as they toured Jackson Hole.
Rockefeller, stunned by the splendor of the area, was captivated by Albright’s pitch. When he returned home to New York, he asked Albright to send him maps of the area that showed all the privately held land, and the men created the Snake River land-buying plan.
After residents in 1930 discovered what Rockefeller was up to, a few founded a weekly newspaper called The Grand Teton to oppose the expansion. Landowners said they had been manipulated into selling.
Sen. Robert Carey, R-Wyo., told Rockefeller’s lawyer, “We are not willing to see this section of Wyoming exploited or its citizens driven out to gratify Mr. Albright’s ambition or to establish a monopoly for the benefit if Mr. Rockefeller’s agents.”
The purchases eventually totaled 33,000 acres and cost $1.5 million — a huge sum of money at the time. After they were completed, nothing happened. Wyoming’s congressional delegation blocked attempts to expand Grand Teton National Park to include the Jackson Hole area, and the philanthropist grew increasingly irritated. After all, he had acquired the land to donate to a good cause, and the government wouldn’t take it.
Finally, in 1942, he wrote Interior Secretary Harold Ickes with a veiled threat to sell his holdings to the highest bidder if the federal government didn’t act. That got the attention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in 1943 used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create the Jackson Hole National Monument.
A massive protest followed. It wasn't until 1950 that officials in Wyoming and Washington reached a compromise: Grand Teton National Park would be expanded to include the Jackson Hole National Monument. President Harry Truman made it official that September. But in exchange, Wyoming would no longer be subject to the Antiquities Act — meaning no future U.S. president could create a national monument in Wyoming without the approval of Congress.