Publisher's Synopsis
Jackson Hole is a valley between the Gros Ventre and Teton mountain ranges in the U.S. state of Wyoming, near the border with Idaho. The term "hole" was used by early trappers, or mountain men, as a term for a large mountain valley. These low-lying valleys, surrounded by mountains and containing rivers and streams, are good habitat for beavers and other fur-bearing animals. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s. Approximately 3,000 mountain men ranged the mountains between 1820 and 1840, the peak beaver-harvesting period.