The plaque commemorates both the beginning and the end of a stormy period—from 1918 on into the 1950s—in Jackson Hole’s history. Those meeting at Miss Noble’s simple log cabin wanted to devise a way to save the valley’s natural beauty from commercial exploitation. They wanted it protected by a public agency. These few people recognized the need for safeguarding a meaningful segment of our country from the uses of commerce. Their idea did not catch on immediately. In 1926 Horace Albright escorted John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and family into Jackson Hole, and a bright hope for this valley was born. Albright imparted to Rockefeller his vision of the whole valley as a national park. Rockefeller said nothing then but later admitted that Albright’s vision had set his own dreams in motion. A land company was formed to shield Rockefeller’s involvement, and it began to purchase valley parcels. Unaware of this, Congress voted to create a Grand Teton National Park in 1929. The park was only about one-third the size of today’s park, protecting only the immediate mountain range, and very little of the valley floor. [Illustration: _Broad, cupped antlers—in velvet here—and an oversized muzzle positively identify the moose._] [Illustration: _The world of winter comes to the range and valley with indescribable grace and stillness._] The 150 square miles of mostly mountain land then comprising Grand Teton National Park were not enough to safeguard the complete ecosystem of the valley. Through his agents, Rockefeller quietly purchased ranches and other private lands in upper Jackson Hole, where the soil was not good for ranching and some ranchers were having a hard time. In the avowed purpose of later turning them over to the Federal Government, Rockefeller was carrying out the aims of those who had met at Maude Noble’s cabin. And through all the following stormy years; through the establishment by proclamation of Franklin D. Roosevelt of the Jackson Hole National Monument to contain the Rockefeller-purchased lands; through all the opposition to it; through the eventual negotiated “peace” and the addition of all the monument lands to Grand Teton National Park by Congress in 1950, the Rockefeller family held to its goal of “a complete project.” So now, after all the years and all the tumult, the cattlemen have their grazing rights on the national forest lands and the right to drift their cattle across national park lands to reach those permits: people still have their homes, dudes still come to the dude ranches. No one, Oldtimer or Newcomer, would now deny that the national park has vitalized the economy of the valley a thousandfold. These material results are quite obvious. Our problem now is not the amount of lands that are under State, private, or Federal jurisdiction, but whether or not we can keep our souls receptive to the message of peace these unspoiled lands offer us.