Murie Ranch: Cradle of American Wilderness

The Murie Ranch in Grand Teton National Park was for decades the informal headquarters of the American wilderness conservation movement. Olaus Murie, a biologist for the U.S.

Biological Survey, and his wife Mardy settled here in the nineteen forties and turned the log cabin compound into a meeting place for scientists, writers, and activists committed to protecting wild land. It was here, over years of meetings, that the Muries and Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness Society crafted the language that became the basis for the Wilderness Act of nineteen sixty-four, the landmark law that permanently protected over nine million acres of federal land. Mardy Murie, who outlived her husband by decades and died in two thousand three at the age of one hundred and one, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in nineteen ninety-eight for her lifetime of advocacy.

The ranch is a National Historic Landmark.