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Gambling, fire, and crazy characters: the Wort has survived ’em all.
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I find my travels to be enriched whenever I have the opportunity to spend time in a historic hotel. Even if I’m camping in a place like Yellowstone, I’ll frequent the grand hotels just to experience their ambience and soak up the local history. Jackson’s historic Wort Hotel doesn’t disappoint in this regard. Its appointments are gorgeous and unique—with the lobby’s grand staircase and the renowned Silver Dollar Bar—but what impresses me most about the Wort is how welcome and comfortable I’m made to feel there.
As it turns out, this was the intention of the hotel keepers from the beginning.
Writing the history of the Wort Hotel is like writing a history of Jackson Hole in microcosm. The patriarch of the hotel came to the valley from Nebraska in 1893, and was one of the first settlers in the area. Charles Wort homesteaded three miles from the center of Jackson in South Park. Though he would not see his hotel built before his death, it was his dream, and a dream he set in motion.
Homesteading for Jackson Hole’s early settlers was hard, grueling work. High-elevation isolation made every aspect of eking out a living difficult. Wanting more than a life of subsistence and heavy labor, Wort and his wife, Luella, starting thinking about business opportunities in the fledgling town of Jackson. In 1915, he began operating a livery stable where travelers and locals could either keep or find a horse or two. Two years later, he purchased the four lots that held his business, reportedly for the outrageous sum of twenty-five dollars.
Wort was a true entrepreneur. He purchased the rustic Hotel Jackson in 1917, a venture that lasted only three years. Perhaps his dream of a fine hotel in Jackson made it difficult for him to settle for the shabby offerings of a makeshift boarding house. Whatever the reason for his exodus from the business, the tiny town of Jackson, with its streets of dirt and dearth of visitors, wasn’t ready for Wort’s vision of a grand hotel with luxurious accommodations.
Soon, across from his stables he built Wort’s Livery Barn, which doubled as a gathering place and dance hall. And Wort became one of the new Grand Teton National Park’s first concessionaires in 1929, when he established a fishing-guide business at Jenny Lake with his sons John and Jess. Today, the Wort boathouse still stands on the southeast shore of Jenny Lake.
The Wort family also purchased and made improvements on a hunting and fishing camp on Jackson Lake, which evolved into the Signal Mountain Lodge. The 1940 sale of this enterprise, the Wort Camp and Lodge, made it possible for John and Jess to focus on completing the vision of their father—who, sadly, had succumbed to carcinoma of the liver in 1933.
The Worts were pioneers in many aspects of the service industry in Jackson Hole, developing skills that served them well when it came time to operate a fine hotel. Their hospitality at camp was renowned: authentic cowboys served good food, dealt a square game of poker, and delivered excellent hunting and fishing.
Now they needed to find a builder.
John Lorenzo “Ren” Grimmett, a builder from Idaho, had erected a stone-and-wood house for Jess and his wife, Lillian, on Pearl Street in the 1930s. Pleased with the results, Jess and his brother asked Ren to design a Tudor/Alpine chalet-style building that would complement the area’s natural beauty and serve the community well. (I’ve been told by people who were raised in the Swiss Alps that the Teton Range is the closest thing to their home they’ve seen on the planet, so it probably makes sense for a hotel in the heart of Jackson to have the look and charm of a Swiss chalet.)
When the design came back, it was too grand—for the brothers’ pocketbooks, that is. After Ren declined an offer to become a partner in the venture, an Idaho Falls banker approved a loan to the brothers of approximately $150,000. Charles Wort’s dream began to take shape—although townspeople, as well as Ren, thought John and Jess were crazy to build such a hotel in Jackson.
