Jackson Hole is known for a great many terrific things. One of them resides in downtown Jackson proper, our beloved antler arches! There are four of them standing at the Town Square’s corners. Our Town Square’s official name is George Washington Memorial Park, by the way, so designated in 1932 to commemorate our great first president’s birth. With the first one built in 1953 in the southwest corner, and the other three erected between ‘66 and ‘69, the original arches had plenty of pictures snapped with and without admirers for 60 years. Then between 2007 and 2013, there was an undertaking to replace them with successors.
Each antler weighs somewhere between 5 and 10 pounds, with each arch eventually reaching upwards of 10,000 pounds. Gathered from the National Elk Refuge with help from the Boy Scouts, antlers for the arches are never in short supply.
Oh, and don’t forget about John Colter! His memorial has been standing magnificently since 1939, before the arches. Part of the revered Lewis & Clark Expedition, he’s the first known person of European descent to lay eyes on Yellowstone and the Tetons! Colter’s considered the first “mountain man”, having spent months alone in the wilderness.
Have you seen our arches and been to the Square?!
