Miller, Grace and Robert, Ranch (Boundary Increase) National Register of Historic Places Listing

Robert Miller ran lots of cows. He controlled Jackson Hole's water. When the brutal winter of 1909 hit, over twenty thousand elk poured down from the mountains only to find their migration routes blocked by barbed wire. Hundreds starved right on his pastures. The rotting carcasses created a massive public outcry. So, Uncle Sam stepped in. They bought the ranch in 1914 to start the National Elk Refuge. The 2002 boundary increase finally recognized the true footprint of this struggle by adding 130 acres of original hayfields, ditches, and willow flats to the historic register.

You cannot talk about this place without talking about Grace Miller. In 1920, she led an all-female town council ticket that swept the local elections. They called them the "petticoat rulers." They actually ran the town better than the men, cleaning up the treasury and enforcing health ordinances right from the ranch. Her two-story log cabin still stands on the property. Built in 1898 with tight, square-hewn logs, it served as the local post office and the first headquarters for the Teton Forest Reserve. It was a rugged outpost. The boundary expansion secures the physical space that witnessed this shift from wild frontier to managed federal territory. It is where homesteading and federal conservation clashed.