Whosgonnagimme

Iconic antler arch auctioned away in Jackson, Wyo.

By Eugene Buchanan

First they upgraded the tram. Then they redeveloped the resort’s base. Now comes a facelift to one of Jackson, Wyoming’s traditional icons: the 50-year-old elk antler arches guarding downtown’s Town Square. What’s next, resurfacing the Tetons?

The town’s latest upgrade replaces the four antler arches that have long stood guard over the corners of George Washington Memorial Park downtown. Built in 1960, the arches have been a mainstay attraction for jackalope- and waffle cone-carrying tourists, especially the arches’ crown jewel on the corner of Broadway and Cache.

But as elk know even antlers need upgrading. Last May during Jackson Hole’s Boy Scouts’ annual antler auction—in which headpieces from the nearby 25,000-acre National Elk Refuge are sold to help fund the sanctuary—one of the square’s arches was sold as well. “They’re deteriorating after 50-plus years in the weather,” says the Rotary Club’s Pete Karns, who helped organize the auction. “So we’re selling them one-by-one to fund replacements.”

The first to go was the largest arch on the park’s southwest corner. A dealer valued the antlers at about $2 a pound, setting the minimum bid for the 10,000-pound structure at between $15,000 and $20,000, including the cost to move it anywhere in Jackson. The club also held a “guess the number of antlers” contest as part of the festivities.

In a heated rub-the-ear bidding war, the arch commanded a final asking price of $51,000 from local Jerry Johnson, who outbid Salt Lake City interior designer Amy Pearce. Johnson relocated it to his Wagon Wheel Motel on the north end of town. “It was certainly above what we expected to get from it,” says Karns, whose club finished a 1,948-antler replacement arch this fall, which is 50 percent larger than the original. “But we’ll use it all to fund the next one.” Of course, that may take a couple seasons. Antlers, after all, don’t grow on trees.