Western Center for Historic Preservation at the White Grass Dude Ranch
Wyoming | Posted: February 14, 2008The National Trust for Historic Preservation is working in partnership with the National Park Service to rehabilitate the historic White Grass Dude Ranch in Grand Teton National Park to create the Western Center for Historic Preservation (WCHP). The Center's primary purpose will be to preserve rustic park architecture through work on the deferred maintenance backlog of historic structures in Grand Teton National Park and other parks in the Intermountain Region. The Center will also be used to support cultural resource research for Grand Teton and the Greater Yellowstone Area including the completion of National Register nominations, historic structures reports, cultural landscape surveys and historical research for context studies.
Addressing Park Needs
The project will help the Park Service address its growing backlog of deferred maintenance needs, which includes many historic structures listed on or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. For example, many of the 300 historic structures in Grand Teton and 1,000 historic structures in Yellowstone are in fair to poor condition and in need of preservation.
The National Park Service (NPS) is mandated to preserve historic structures within its management leaving them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. The skills necessary to preserve, rehabilitate, and maintain rustic structures are not always available in today's Western parks and surrounding communities. The Center will help address this need by providing hands on capacity building for NPS maintenance staff, volunteers and outside contractors who will work side by side with the WCHP crew on the rehabilitation of 13 historic buildings at White Grass and other historic buildings in Grand Teton National Park and other parks in the Intermountain Region.
History
Historic photo of White Grass Dude Ranch.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Frank Galey’s Family
It has been said that dude ranching is "the single most unique contribution of the Rocky Mountain West to the tourism industry." White Grass Dude Ranch is one of the last great pioneer dude ranches in the Jackson Hole valley. Homesteaded in 1913 by Harold Hammond and George Bispham, White Grass operated as a dude ranch from 1919 until 1985, when it was acquired by the National Park Service. The White Grass Dude Ranch historic district encompasses approximately thirty acres and thirteen buildings, including the main cabin, the Hammond cabin, 10 guest cabins and the shower/laundry building.
Use of Structures
The rehabilitation of the main cabin, Hammond cabin, and the shower/ laundry building will provide for a fully functional Western Center for Historic Preservation. The main cabin will be used as a classroom facility and office space for the center's employees. The Hammond cabin will become a research library/meeting space, community kitchen and housing for the seasonal, on-site volunteer caretaker. The cabins will provide lodging for volunteers and seasonal historic preservation crews and cultural resource researchers working in the park. The old shower/laundry building will be used to house utility services for the ranch. The main cabin, a secondary cabin and the Hammond cabin will be accessible.
Project Sequence and Costs. Rather than completely restore and rehabilitate all 13 White Grass buildings at once, the preferred alternative chosen by the National Park Service is to rehabilitate the main cabin, the Hammond cabin and the shower/laundry building. The cost of rehabilitating these three buildings and bringing utilities to the site is $1.7 million. Of this amount, the National Trust will raise $950,000. The remaining buildings will be rehabilitated by the WCHP preservation crew working with volunteers. Once completed, the total value of the project will be $3.8 million.
Operations
The preservation center will operate seasonally at the White Grass Ranch for a maximum 7-month period, with most activities taking place between late April and September. The center will accommodate 15 to 30 daytime users. Ultimately about 12 to 15 overnight users, including the volunteer site manager, could be accommodated as additional cabins are rehabilitated by the preservation crew and volunteers. The main carpentry and masonry shop for the preservation center will be located in the Moose maintenance area (park headquarters) housed in the 5,000 square foot shop recently moved from the JY Ranch to the park.
Access
The Death Canyon Road will be used to access the White Grass Ranch area. As part of previously scheduled routine maintenance, the road will be graded and stabilized with gravel. There will be a small gravel parking area that will accommodate six vehicles. Preservation center staff and trainees will car- or van-pool to the site to minimize traffic impacts to the area.
National Park Service staff replaced the roof on this historic cabin in August 2006.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a private, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to protecting the irreplaceable. Recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Trust was chartered by Congress in 1949 and provides leadership, education, advocacy, and resources to save America's diverse historic places and revitalize communities.
For more information, contact:
Barbara Pahl, Regional Director
Mountains/Plains Office, National Trust for Historic Preservation
535 16th Street, Suite 750
Denver, CO 80202
303-623-1504 / Barbara_Pahl@nthp.org
Mary Gibson Scott, Superintendent
Grand Teton National Park
P.O. Drawer 170
Moose, Wyoming 83012
307-739-3410
More on White Grass
White Grass Dude Ranch Fact Sheet
The National Park Service manages 388 national parks throughout the country, many of which were designated by Congress to protect significant prehistoric and historic resources. However, the Park Service is often unable to provide these resources with adequate protection due to the chronic underfunding of the National Park System.
White Grass Dude Ranch
Learn about recent activities to promote the rehabilitation of the historic White Grass Dude Ranch and about preservation projects completed by the Historic Preservation Center.
