[Illustration: _Author Mardy Murie and her late husband, Olaus, came to Jackson Hole for his now world famous elk studies. Her home base is still in Jackson Hole, although she travels across North America in the cause of conservation._] Teton country was a part of the West where, thankfully, gold was not an issue. An oldtimer once left this notice on a Snake River gravel bar: _Payin gold will never be found here No matter how many men tries There’s some enough to begile one Like tanglefoot paper does flies._ That left cattle as the only “gold,” with their owners ready to fight for what they considered their rights. The puzzling yet invigorating diversity among people is part of the long evolution of the human spirit. Jackson Hole was and still is a fascinating microcosm reflecting these diversities, and they all played roles in the long controversy that colors the history of this great national park. [Illustration: _Aspens gone golden for autumn stand reflected in the Snake River._] [Illustration: _The few remaining Jackson Hole ranches reflect the Old West._] One of the valley’s most famous residents, author Struthers Burt, once wrote: “I am afraid for my own country unless some help is given it—some wise direction. It is too beautiful and now too famous. Sometimes I dream of it unhappily.” When Burt wrote this there had irrupted at Jenny Lake and nearby, in front of the most impressive view of the main Teton peaks, a gasoline station, tourist cabins, a hot dog stand, a dance hall, and some rusting bodies of automobiles. No wonder he dreamed unhappily. But “some wise direction” did come. All the old blight along the highway has been removed and today there is a small ranger station, a tents-only campground, camper store, a small visitor center, and a small boat dock. “The American public will not leave Jackson Hole alone; nor can we ask them to,” my husband, Olaus, wrote in 1943. “They will be coming in increasing numbers. In any situation involving large numbers of us, some regulation becomes a necessity, whether we like it or not.... It should be our ambition to assist all agencies to keep intact this one segment of America that we boast of as ‘the last of the Old West.’” The Indians hunted and fished in this valley for all those hundreds of years and left no mark. The white man has been here less than one hundred and has left many marks. Today we have enlarged Grand Teton National Park, and the staff of the park now copes with a flow of nearly three million visitors each year.