Locals In Bondurant, Wyoming, Angered By Push To Make It ‘Little Jackson Hole’

BONDURANT — Pat Burroughs lives in the Bondurant valley along Upper Hoback River Road in a log cabin her father and brothers built from scratch in 1972, using pine trees from the surrounding forests.

She remembers her brothers peeling bark off the pines by hand so they could be milled on site by a man named Albert Miller, one of the valley’s early residents.

Burroughs also remembers her father building creative wall lamps using aspen trees, and a unique pinewood snack bar that sits snugly atop an old aspen stump in her home.

Overnight guests are often invited to carve their initials into the stump, which has become a unique record of all the people who have become friends of the family over the years.

Burroughs has always thought of the Hoback Basin, which many also refer to as Bondurant Valley, as a magical, happy place. So much so, she decided to make it her full-time home 33 years ago.

She’s one of the few remaining residents who was already living in the valley when TD Ameritrade founder and Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts bought the Jackson Fork Ranch.

In those days, the valley was tightknit, Burroughs told Cowboy State Daily, so it wasn’t long before she met her new neighbor.

She was impressed. At first.

Ricketts seemed to understand the special nature of their beautiful valley ringed by mountains, which is a winter feeding ground for elk and moose, and is also part of the largest Wyoming mule deer and pronghorn migration corridor.

That corridor has no particular protection where it crosses private land, but Burroughs said Ricketts told her he planned to protect the valley and that corridor by getting a conservation easement for the areas he didn’t particularly need for his home or ranch.

That pledge is one of many promises Burroughs feels Ricketts has broken with his recent push to build a high-end resort on 56 acres of the 1,300-acre Jackson Fork Ranch.

“The best part about this place is the wildlife,” Burroughs said. “It’s so fun to watch 20 mule deer grazing in my yard. And all this development is going to push it out, closing migration areas.” 

Little Jackson Hole

About 200 people have shown up to protest Ricketts’ plans for the Homestead Resort at various public meetings, and many of them are from the Bondurant area.

Among them is Richard Pearson, who identifies himself as the oldest lifelong resident of the Hoback Basin valley.

“I hate to see the change that this is going to bring to the private people who live in this valley,” he said. “You know, it’s going to be a completely different world in a few years once this, once everything gets going.”

Pearson is among residents who also worry that it might be a world with a completely different name, if Ricketts has his way.

Both Pearson and Burroughs recall a dinner several years ago where Ricketts floated the idea of changing Bondurant’s name to Little Jackson Hole.

It was a seven-course meal, complete with swag bags for all the guests.

Ricketts says the area has a history with that name and has since published the research he commissioned on famous mountain man Davey Jackson.

According to that research, Jackson had two favorite mountain valleys for hunting, Jackson’s (Big) Hole and Jackson’s Little Hole.

Changing the name to Little Jackson Hole would instantly make the area more marketable, Ricketts has suggested to various Sublette County residents over the years since that dinner.

People in New York and other places who love Jackson Hole could be easily attracted to Bondurant if they saw a more recognizable name.

But the people who call Bondurant home don’t care that their community isn’t recognizable to vacationers in New York or any other state. And they were instantly offended by the idea of erasing their town’s name and their Bondurant history.

“About 75% of the people all got up and left the dinner right then,” Burroughs said. “They left the gift bags on the table and just walked out.”

She paused a moment, shaking her head before continuing, still unable to believe the idea, even after all this time.

“We are Bondurant,” she said firmly. “This is the Upper Hoback.”

Diverted Deliveries

Lately, though, regardless of the area’s official name, Burroughs has been getting packages addressed to her in “Little Jackson Hole” instead of Bondurant.

She’s not the only one.

“One gentleman even had trouble getting his medication,” she said. “He kept telling them he lives in Bondurant, but they were looking for someone in Little Jackson Hole.”

Burroughs has tried calling UPS and other delivery companies to figure out why addresses on her packages are showing up as Little Jackson Hole instead of Bondurant. She’s been told it’s something that it’s coming from the merchants, not the delivery companies.

That hasn’t helped her figure out how to correct the mislabeling. Meanwhile, packages are continuing to show up at her place with “Little Jackson Hole” neatly typewritten on them.

“It’s totally infuriating,” Burroughs said.

Pearson, meanwhile, worries there will be fewer and fewer people to fight back against a defacto name change because Ricketts has been buying up properties in the valley as soon as they become available.

The most recent took Jackson Fork all the way to Highway 191, while a prior one snapped up the Dead Shot Ranch, located at the opposite end of the county’s road into the basin, the Upper Hoback 23.

Burroughs, Pearson and others in the community speculate that Ricketts will try to make a land swap to connect Deadshot to his existing properties so that the entire ranch is contiguous from one end of the valley to the other.

“He’s bought several places around here,” Pearson said. “It’s just like a cancer. He’s just sucking everything up. Anything that becomes available, he’s buying it.”

Homestead Resort

Ricketts, in a press release to Cowboy State Daily, describes the Homestead Resort as a destination for visitors seeking a “premium resort experience with a mission-driven focus on protecting, preserving and enjoying the natural beauty of the Hoback region.”

Ricketts declined to be interviewed by Cowboy State Daily about his plans for the resort or how it might be compatible with conservation. His public relations team instead referred Cowboy State Daily to applications Homestead Resort has filed with Sublette County Planning and Zoning.

An in-person review of those documents shows that Sublette County has approved a construction permit for a 20-unit luxury resort on 56 acres of land rezoned from agriculture to Recreation Service 1.

Included in the packet are renderings of the resort, which show a multi-level structure. It has a 65,621-square-foot basement that includes a wellness center, underground parking and a 90-seat dining hall that Ricketts has subsequently said will be open to the public as well.

The first and second floors of the resort are 35,000 and 36,000 square feet respectively, while a smaller, third-story level is almost 10,000 square feet.

The application materials say that the total area for all structures associated with the resort will be 230,011 square feet.

Construction on the structure is not to begin prior to April 15, Cowboy State daily was told by both County Commissioner Dave Stephens and County Planning and Zoning personnel, due to the migration corridor.

Stephens has questions about whether Ricketts is adhering to that because of road construction and core samples being taken on the property.

Sublette County Planner Dennis Fornstrom told Cowboy State Daily that building a dirt road that is all on private property doesn’t require any permits, and that core samples are necessary pre-construction activities.

New Applications Filed

Two new applications have recently been filed related to the Homestead Resort.

One requests a temporary conditional use permit for gravel mining and cement mixing, while another requests a temporary conditional use permit for a 150-person man camp.

Fornstrom told Cowboy State Daily that Ricketts has told him the plan is to use gravel excavated from underground areas during construction to make some of the cement that will be needed for the project.

The plan is to take the gravel directly from the excavation site down the hill to the cement-mixing area, and then back up the same hill, without the need to access the county road, Fornstrom confirmed.

That means there won’t be a gravel mining pit, as some residents fear. The “pit” will be where the basement and underground structures are going.

The man camp belongs to the construction company, Fornstrom said. The 150 number is the expected, at-peak population of personnel on site at one time. Fewer people might occupy the camp at off-peak times.

Both permits are temporary, and once those structure are gone, the land must be reclaimed.

Those conditional use permits won’t be taken up until May, but there is a meeting planned for Tuesday to discuss a request from Ricketts to move some of the underground parking to a different location.

Ricketts’ preferred location is zoned agricultural, but could potentially be allowed under a conditional use permit.

Ricketts has already prepared two alternatives for the parking situation, depending on the answer he gets, Fornstrom indicated.

Ricketts has told Sublette County Commissioners he needs to pursue the resort so that there is money to take care of and protect the Jackson Fork Ranch into the future.

In a media release, Ricketts said he was excited to get started on the project now that the construction permit has been approved. He expects to start sometime late spring to summer of this year.

“I respect the careful diligence of Sublette County officials to maintain the pristine beautiful nature of Sublette County for locals and visitors who come from as close as Jackson or Rock Springs, or as far as Europe,” he said. “The design of the Homestead resort should complement the beauty of its surroundings. I believe the architect’s renderings demonstrate just that. This project will create additional jobs and opportunity in our community.”

Needed Economic Boost

Not everyone is upset with Ricketts’ plans. Some are excited about the potential economic boost from the jobs the project will bring, particularly in places like Big Piney, where the school has been losing enrollment and Main Street losing businesses.

“My wife has been a teacher here for nearly 30 years,” Sublette County Commissioner Mack Bradley told Cowboy State Daily. “And enrollment in her class this year is eight students, the smallest class she’s ever had.”

Next year, she expects even fewer students.

It’s not just the schools suffering.

“You can look up and down Main Street at the businesses and they’re closed too,” Bradley said. “I mean, we have almost nothing left. One restaurant, one hotel — well, there’s two hotels, pretty mediocre. They’ve sold and gone downhill.”

If Ricketts’ plans are realized, he’ll become the second or third largest employer in the county, Bradley said. And those jobs won’t be tied to the boom-and-bust cycle oil and gas continually goes through that leaves smaller Sublette County communities like Big Piney gasping for air.

“I mean, I think this county better start finding some of those,” he said. “Especially if we’re faced with another four years of the administration we have. Our federal lands aren’t going to be as lucrative as they have been. In my mind, recreation is probably the next easiest thing for Sublette County to delve into.”

Change is not something Bradley loves, he added. But he contends that change is already happening in the Basin, and not all of it is coming from Ricketts.

Bradley estimated that 90% of the people living in the Hoback Basin aren’t lifelong residents who grew up there. They’re people who made money elsewhere, then moved to the Basin, just like Ricketts did.

“You can go back in that Bondurant Basin 40 years pretty easily in my knowledge, and it’s changed a lot right now,” he said. “And the Basin is absolutely beautiful, but with what I see Mr. Ricketts doing, that isn’t going to take away from the beauty, in my mind.”

Ripple Effects

One of the things Stephens told Cowboy State Daily he worries about is the ripple effect of developments like the one Ricketts has proposed.

“It’s not just this resort,” he said. “There’s going to be other places come up there to feed off of it.”

Now that Ricketts has also bought White Pine Ski Resort, Stephens is expecting that ripple effect to get bigger.

“I’m sure they’re going to be tied together and draw people up here in the winter,” Stephens said. “I understand private property rights, and I don’t have a problem with that. But with the impact it’s going to have on people (in Hoback Basin valley), I feel like that is affecting their property rights, too.”

He’s also concerned that down the line, it will be difficult to have any say over what’s happening to the valley, and maybe even by extension Sublette County.

“You’ve seen it too,” Stephens said. “Once somebody gets their foot in the door, we’re not going to have any control.”

That's something he feels is already being seen, because he’s had several Bondurant valley residents call to tell him work has already been taking place at the location, despite the fact the site is in a migration route, and nothing is supposed to start before April 15.

“They’ve been up there with bulldozers, and Game and Fish seems oblivious,” Stephens said, shaking his head.

Change Inevitable For Sublette County

It’s not just Hoback Basin, though, that’s facing uncomfortable changes.

In the Cowboy Bar on the main route through Pinedale, there’s a little bumper sticker next to the cash register that’s pretty telling.

It says, “Don’t Jackson Hole Our Town!”

Patrons of the bar told Cowboy State Daily they feel troubled by what’s happening with housing prices in their community, and they blame the pressure that Jackson Hole is putting on all the communities around it.

To them, the idea that someone would create a Little Jackson Hole in Sublette County is disconcerting.

“I think cancer might be hyperbolic, but the thing about Jackson is that it spreads out and creates, you know, things where people can’t afford to live there,” Justin Brummet told Cowboy State Daily. “The value of, you know, rentals has skyrocketed to the point where it’s hard for anyone to even afford to live here.

“I’ve got a buddy who drives a truck with County 23 license plate No. 2. That’s how long his family has been here, and he can’t afford to live here anymore.”

Brummet used to rent a place behind the bar for “almost nothing.” Now it costs five times what he used to pay.

“This is happening in Dubois, it’s happening here,” he said. “I mean, look at Alpine. When I was a kid, it was nothing. Now it’s just a gosh-darn, orbiting satellite of Jackson. Everyone who lives there works in Jackson, because Jackson needs so many people to keep it running, but no one can afford to actually live there.”

Not Going To Become Jackson Hole

Bradley disagrees that Sublette County’s problems will ever get quite as acute as they are in Jackson Hole, but he also has seen the troublesome effects on county housing.

“Our county’s going to be a little different than Jackson Hole, just because of the makeup of it, and the amount of private ground and things here,” he said. “But let me tell you, it is changing, and it is not going to be just Mr. Ricketts that changes that aspect of it. I mean, he might commercialize it a little, but (it’s) these folks moving in here and selling out and jacking the price up and selling out.”

That’s already affected the tax structure, Bradley said.

“But Mr. Ricketts isn’t affecting that as much as several others are in this county,” he added. “I don’t want to be considered a bedroom community of Jackson, but we kind of are. And there’s more people who make that commute daily than most people probably realize.”

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.