Trappers Monument

The stone stands above Jackson Lake, where tradition puts Davey Jackson for a winter, and the Park Service's own history doubts it: no trapper is documented wintering in the valley, which was poor winter country for men and horses. Passing is the right word. No rendezvous met here and no post was built; trails from the Hoback, the Gros Ventre, Togwotee and Teton Pass crossed the valley, and Merrill Mattes counted at least thirty expeditions between 1830 and 1840. Even the 1829 naming is inferred from Joe Meek's recollections.

What the plaque says

In memory of the bold trappers who passed this way to win and hold the West Placed by the Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming, 1940

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cunningham Cabin — 11 mi
  An 1888 dog-trot homestead cabin where a posse shot two men in 1893, and the valley decided not to talk about it.
• Mormon Row Historic District — 19 mi
  A Latter-day Saint farm village on Antelope Flats, its ditches still running and the Moulton barns still standing against the Tetons.
• Murie Ranch — 20 mi
  The porch where the Wilderness Act was argued into being; Olaus Murie died a year before it passed, and Mardy kept going for forty more.
• Gros Ventre Slide — 22 mi
  The north face of Sheep Mountain fell into the river in 1925; the dam it made held two years, then emptied onto the town of Kelly.

More markers nearby

• John Colter — 1.9 mi
• Cattleman's Bridge — 6.6 mi
• Dick Turpin — 19 mi