18 Unbelievable Facts About Jackson Hole & Wyoming

1. The town of Jackson elected the first all female town council in 1920. Wyoming was also the first state in the country to allow women the right to vote, serve on juries, and hold public office. This is why Wyoming is known as the “Equality State”!
2. Jackson is home to the world’s-longest running shootout. Beginning in 1957, the shootout can be seen Monday-Saturday on Town Square to this day!
3. There have been many feature films shot on location in Jackson Hole including: "Shane," "Rocky IV," "Django Unchained," and "Any Which Way You Can."
4. The four iconic antler arches on Jackson Hole town square each contain about 2,000 antlers and weigh almost 12,000 pounds!
5. Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) is the only airport in the United States that is located fully within a national park.
6. Public, federally-owned land such as national parks and national forests makes up 97 percent of Teton County.
7. One of our local ski resorts, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, has the longest continuous vertical rise of any ski resort in the United States. It gains 4,139 feet of elevation from the valley floor to the top of the tram!
8. The National Elk Refuge is the final destination of the second largest elk migration in the continental United States (almost 9,000 elk). In the winter months, it is also home to the largest single herd of bison that is under federal management (over 1,000 bison!)
9. Whitewater rafting is thought to have been invented on the Snake River, right here in Jackson in 1811, although the first commercial trip didn’t happen until 1941.
   
10. Bridger-Teton National Forest is the largest National Forest in the continental United States. It comes in as a whopping 1.7 million acres. That’s bigger than Delaware!
11. The state of Wyoming has the lowest population of any US state! The grand total as of 2019 was 578,880.
12. Wyoming’s highest point is not the Grand Teton as is popularly believed, but the 13,809-foot tall Gannett Peak, which is located in the Wind River Range.
13. The identity of Wyoming’s signature symbol, the bucking horse and rider, is a source of debate among locals. Some believe that the rider is Guy Holt on his horse Steamboat; while others are adamant the mysterious rider is Albert Jerome “Stub” Farlow.
14. Wyoming is one of six states to have a state dinosaur… ours is the triceratops.
15. The official flower for WY is Indian Paintbrush. You will find this pretty red flower all over Grand Teton National Park!
16. A 2019 survey showed that there are almost 728 grizzly bears living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
    
17. Yellowstone National Park experiences between 1,000 and 3,000 earthquakes each year.
18. Yellowstone’s super volcano holds enough lava to fill the Grand Canyon ELEVEN times!

Start planning your trip to Jackson Hole. Our friendly travel experts live and play here and we can help you scratch a couple of items of your bucket list.