History of Deer Parks WMU

History

The Deer Parks Wildlife Mitigation Unit area has a rich history of human occupation. There is evidence of human occupation as early as the Paleo-Indian era (ca. 12,000-10,500 BP). The Menan Buttes were important landmarks for many early travelers in the area. Based on trapper diaries from the early 1800s, the area abounded with bison, elk, antelope, beaver, and other wildlife. The site of the Beaver Dick mitigation unit is simply shown as the ‘Beaver Swamp’ on early maps. The area northwest of Menan was called Deer Parks because the thick willows and cottonwoods supported large numbers of deer. 

The first settlers arrived in the Menan area in the 1870s. A portion of the Deer Parks mitigation unit was originally homesteaded in 1910 and used mainly for livestock pasture. Portions of the property around Butte Slough were used as a muskrat farm in the 1920s. It was acquired by the Boyle family in the 1930s and managed for crops and livestock. The Menan mitigation unit was homesteaded in 1917 and managed for pasture and crops. The Beaver Dick mitigation unit on the Henrys Fork has a slightly different history, tied closely to a trapper and hunting guide named ‘Beaver’ Dick Leigh. He lived on or very near this property in the 1870s. His Shoshone wife, Jenny Leigh (for whom Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park is named), and their six children all died in late 1876 of smallpox and are buried just north of this property. The land was used as livestock pasture for many years. 

The Teton Dam failure and flood in 1976 had a significant effect on all the Deer Parks Complex mitigation units. The floodwaters, which split and flowed both north and south of the Menan Buttes, completely inundated all the lands below the lava rims. Many shallow sloughs were filled with sediment, buildings destroyed, and the old railroad line was permanently damaged. The river also reached a very high flood stage in 1997, damaging portions of the Butte-Market Lake Canal, but otherwise causing little damage to the Deer Parks Complex properties.