by Ron Diener - April, 1996

Often Teton County and Teton County's concerns do not resonate in the halls of the Wyoming state government. Jackson Hole town and county officials, lobbyists and interest groups complain that they are treated like outsiders. They find repeatedly that the problems of this mountain basin community are not central or critical or important or even real in Cheyenne.

No small wonder! Teton County and the strip of land southward were joined to Wyoming just a few weeks before Wyoming became a territory on July 25, 1868. The change to include Teton County came, not in the normal Senate hearings, but in a last-minute amendment to the bill on the Senate floor.

The well-known and old reliable histories of Wyoming say that the Equality State was carved out of the southwest corner of Dakotah Territory. True, as far as it goes. The western strip of Wyoming was never part of Dakotah, however.

True, sixty-five years earlier, in 1803, the United States had purchased ``Louisiana'' from the French Republic. But no borders were specified in the final arrangements.

What Tom and Bob and Jim (Jefferson, Livingston, Monroe) agreed to buy from the First Counsel, Citizen Bonaparte, was whatever it was that France had gotten from Spain in the Treaty of Ildefonso in 1800. True also, it was generally agreed that the Upper Missouri's western border was the Continental Divide, also known as ``the crest of the Stone (or, Rocky) Mountains.''

Well, that meant that Louisiana included Dubois, but not Jackson. The Continental Divide is east of Teton County, except for a small triangle in the northeast corner of the county. Jackson Hole was not part of the Louisiana Purchase.

Claims to this region came, not from the east, but from the west. Jackson Hole was part of the easternmost region of claims and counterclaims to the Pacific Northwest coast. The claimants were Spain, Britain and Russia, as well as the good old U. S. of A.

First of all, England had to settle Spain's hash in the south. And they did just that in 1790 afterward Spain rarely exercised its rule north of San Francisco. They scratched the east-west border on latitude 42 . North of that the contest involved Britain and Russia, as well as the good old U.S. of A. Then, in 1824, both the U.S. and Britain, in separate but complementary conventions, agreed with Tsar Alexander I that the north demarcation would be 54 40'.

So it was that Jackson Hole became part of British Columbia or Oregon Country, depending on whose side you were on. American and British diplomats tried repeatedly to settle the conflicted claims, each time agreeing instead to a ``shared occupancy.'' Imagine the likes of Albert Galatin and Daniel Webster, George Canning and Lord Ashburton, arguing over Jackson Hole!

(Remember that Rock Springs and Green River had no easy time of it either. From 1819 to 1848 they were part of, first, Spain, and then, Mexico. Worst of all, pity poor Rawlins: from 1836 to 1845 Rawlins was part of Texas!)

Finally, in 1846 the two sides agreed to the present border, latitude 49 , the final border of the United States and British America, soon to become Canada. The cries of ``Fifty-four Forty or fight!'' died down, President Polk survived signing the agreement and the border has never been defended militarily since then.

But Jackson Hole's wanderings did not cease with agreement between America and England. Now an uncontested part of the United States, Jackson Hole was first made part of Oregon Territory for eleven years, then part of Washington Territory for four years and finally part of Idaho Territory for five more years.

It was not clear then, or now, why the legislation to form Wyoming Territory involved changed borders at the last minute. Senator Richard Yates of Illinois, who headed the Senate Committee on Territories, said that the ``gentiles'' in the southwest corner, specifically at Fort Bridger, petitioned that they not be part of Mormon Utah. The Senate committee records of the time, admittedly incomplete, do not include such a petition.

So far as the rest of the western strip of Wyoming that Yates attached to the territory, he said, ``there is not a single inhabitant in the portion of Idaho transferred by this bill, therefore no opposition can come from this quarter.'' Imprecise, perhaps, but close to the truth. The northwest tip of Dakotah Territory had extended into Idaho Territory, in the Yellowstone region. This Yates cut off and gave to Idaho.

Ultimately, his reasons were aesthetic: Yates sought to make Wyoming symmetical and squared. He also sought to name it ``Lincoln,'' not Wyoming but that is another story.

The rest of Wyoming to the east was part of the Louisiana Purchase, then part of Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska and Dakota. BOR-ing! Meanwhile, Jackson Hole was argued over in the salons of London and Washington. How exciting! No wonder the rest of Wyoming does not understand Teton County: we've been around.

Ronald E. Diener