Millionaires and Poets

Struthers Burt, at left, was the original founder and owner of the Bar BC with Horace Carncross. The man at right is unidentified. (Photo courtesy of the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum, 1958.0283.001)

The BarBC regularly hosted celebrity visitors, including the Rockefeller family, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway, who supposedly stayed in this cabin. Struthers Burt's friendship with Horace Albright, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, gradually brought Burt around to the idea of creating a national park in Jackson Hole. Burt became a strong conservationist in his own right and a key advocate for the future Grand Teton National Park, using his position of prominence to generate support for it. In 1930, he sold his share in the Bar BC to demonstrate the importance of preserving the valley as a park, and he and his family relocated to a ranch farther north. Burt also encouraged his friend, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to contribute funds to buy up property in the valley to donate to the park, which was a critical step in the formation of Grand Teton National Park as we know today.