This impressive 22,000 square foot center is designed to welcome and orient park visitors and to foster personal connections to Grand Teton National Park. The building is a partnership project between the National Park Service, the Grand Teton National Park Foundation, and the Grand Teton Association.
Nearly 4,800 square feet of interactive exhibits focus on four main themes that are important to the park: Place, People, Preservation and Mountaineering. Highlights include: life-size wildlife sculptures, mountaineering and western memorabilia, a three-dimensional park map, floor-to-ceiling windows, and an impressive rock fireplace flanked by overstuffed chairs. A unique feature of the center includes three “video rivers.” As you stroll through the building, continuous footage of Teton images will be projected on 4’ x 15’ glass screens which form the walkways beneath your feet.
In addition to the exhibit area, visitors can wander through a 900 square foot gallery room with displays of fine art from the park’s permanent collection and other traveling exhibits. You’ll also find a wide variety of books, maps, souvenirs and educational materials to purchase in the center’s 1, 500 square foot Grand Teton Association bookstore. All profits from the sales of items in the bookstore support educational, interpretive and scientific programs in the park.
Numerous sustainable building practices were incorporated into the building, including: recycled glass tiles, carpet with post-consumer and post-industrial content, high efficiency cooling and electrical systems, natural lighting, and paints with no harmful chemicals.
One of "nine young men from Kentucky" who accompanied Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their explorations of Louisiana Territory, John Colter became one of the expedition's most adept hunters. He was about thirty years old when the expedition set off in 1804, stood five feet ten inches tall, and looked out at the world through piercing blue eyes. read more
North and west from Tower Junction inside Yellowstone National Park is a side road leading south approximately one mile west of Roosevelt Lodge. This half-mile spur road leads to Petrified Tree, a stump read more
