A Once Vibrant Community

A Once Vibrant Community. Mormon Row Historic District. , Homesteaders, who settled here near the turn of the 19-century, clustered their farms to share labor and community., As you walk imagine 33 homesteads surrounding a church and school. Structures from six homesteads remain here., Settlement , Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, sent parties from the Salt lake Valley to find new settlements to support their expanding population. Mormon settlers from Idaho first arrived here in the 1890s. The U.S. Post Office named this community Grovont, now known as “Mormon Row.”, Community , Mormon pioneers formed close-knit communities around their church and school, starkly contrasting with the pattern of isolation typical of many western homesteads. , Families cooperated with each other on large projects, from building barns to digging ditches. Woman worked communally, assisting in neighbors’ births and chores., Agriculture , Mormon pioneers picked this place for its relatively fertile soil, protection from winds by Blacktail Butte and access to the Gros Ventre River. Despite the harsh conditions of Jackson Hole, Mormon settlers succeeded at growing crops by using irrigation techniques they developed during the 1847 settlement of the Great Basin., Irrigation , Mormon Row settlers dug ditches by hand or with teams of horses. They built levees and dikes to funnel water from central ditches to their fields. Working together, they built an irrigation network of waterways between 1936 and 1937 to provide crucial water for their crops. Notice the remaining ditches here still flowing with water.