White Grass Dude Ranch - History

History

Harold Hammond was born in 1891 in Blackfoot, Idaho, arriving in Jackson Hole at the age of ten to live with his sister. In 1910 he worked for the Bureau of Reclamation at Jackson Lake Dam, then worked as a wrangler for the Bar B C. Hammond was intermittently available at the ranch, probably working at the Bar B C in 1914 and enlisting in the U.S. Army for two years from 1917. After 1919 Hammond and Bispham operated the dude ranch in earnest, doing away with most traditional ranching operations. By 1924 Bispham and Hammond sold out to the Bar B C, but continued to manage the White Grass. Hammond set up a fox farm on the ranch which sold pelts to dudes in 1925, a revenue-increasing strategy employed by several other ranches, incorporating the operation in 1927. In 1928 Hammond and Bispham bought back the operation from the Bar B C Corporation, then Bispham sold out to Hammond in December. Hammond expanded to 18 cabins by 1930, adding private baths by 1936, apparently against opposition by some long-term customers who were accustomed to privies and bath water delivered by roustabouts. The main house expanded as well.

Hammond had married Marie Ireland in 1922, but Marie died a few years later. In 1936 Hammond married dude Marion Galey, a widow who had been coming to Jackson Hole since 1919, spending her summer that in 1919 at the Bar B C, then staying at the White Grass until Christmas. Her son, Frank Galey, began working at the White Grass the year of the marriage. Harold Hammond began to suffer from ill health and died in 1939. Marion and Frank then took over the operation. With the coming of World War II the ranch suffered from a shortage of supplies and labor. Frank Galey enlisted in the military and left the ranch with caretakers. Returning in 1946 he found that the ranch had deteriorated. In partnership with Norman Mellor Galey expanded the ranch to handle 55 dudes. Galey bought out his mother and Mellors in the 1950s and in 1956 he sold the bulk of the ranch to the National Park Service for $165,000 and a life estate. In 1966 he closed the fox farm. Galey died in 1985 and the ranch became Park Service property.

The White Grass is significant along with the JY and Bar B C as one of the first dude ranching operations in Jackson Hole. After Hammond and Bispham converted it from a working ranch to a dude ranch, control passed to Hammond's son Frank Gailey who operated it until his death in 1985, the longest-active dude ranch in Jackson Hole.