Menor's Ferry: Crossing the Snake

Bill Menor settled on the west bank of the Snake River in Jackson Hole in eighteen ninety-two and recognized that anyone wanting to cross the swift, braided river had a problem. He built a simple cable-guided ferry that used the river's own current to swing back and forth, and he charged a small fare per crossing. For years Menor's Ferry was the main way to cross the Snake in the upper valley.

He also ran a general store out of his cabin that became a gathering point for the scattered ranching community. Menor sold the operation to Maud Noble in nineteen eighteen, and it was in Noble's cabin in nineteen twenty-three that a small group of Jackson Hole residents met to draw up a proposal that would eventually become Grand Teton National Park. The National Park Service restored the hand-operated ferry in two thousand nine.