A series where we take a #lookback at the stories and history of our community, brought to you by Mick Pryor, Financial Advisor with Edward Jones.
By Seth McFarland
Each autumn and early winter, the hills surrounding Dubois and much of Wyoming come alive with movement and color. Camouflage blends into sage and timber, while flashes of hunter orange punctuate the landscape. This seasonal ritual connects the present to a much deeper past, one in which elk have long shaped the culture, economy, and identity of the American West.
For centuries, elk have been among the most important animals in North America. Their size, strength, and abundance made them vital to Indigenous peoples, who relied on them for food, clothing, tools, and trade. Long before modern hunters traveled thousands of miles to pursue or photograph elk, Native nations across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains understood their habits, migrations, and significance. Elk were not merely game animals; they were providers and symbols of endurance.
Among the most prized features of the elk are its small but remarkable eye teeth, also known as ivories or vestigial tusks. These teeth are found in the upper jaw, or maxilla, and are evolutionary remnants from the Miocene epoch, when the ancestors of modern elk bore prominent tusks similar to those of wild boar or the water deer of Asia. Today, elk and walrus are the only North American animals that possess ivory teeth. The ivories are at their prime when an elk is between four and seven years old, and their rarity has long made them objects of fascination and value.
Before European contact, Indigenous groups of the Great Plains collected and traded elk ivories, sewing them onto women’s dresses as adornment. The number of ivories on a dress reflected family status and the skill of the hunter who acquired them. Ivories were also believed to carry protective qualities and were used to decorate shields, harnesses, and pouches. With the arrival of horses on the Northern Plains, elk ivories became even more valuable. According to the 1897 edition of the Indian Guide produced for the Shoshone Agency in the late nineteenth century, elk teeth functioned as a form of currency, with dozens traded for a single good horse. They were, quite literally, wealth worn in plain sight. In 1908, the Riverton Republican reported of an Arapaho wedding in Riverton in which the bride received a jacked adorned with 1,050 elk teeth.
By the late nineteenth century, the story of elk ivories took a darker turn. As eastern hunters traveled west to Wyoming, demand for elk meat, hides, and especially teeth exploded. Settlement, harsh winters, and unregulated hunting devastated elk herds. Collecting ivories peaked in the eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundreds, when some hunters killed elk solely for their teeth, leaving carcasses to rot. These poachers, known as “tuskers,” gained a grim reputation across western Wyoming. State Game Warden Grant Nipper was assigned to the Dubois district to search for tusk hunters in Dubois and Jackson. The economic value of teeth led to other criminal activity as well. In 1915, the Riverton Review reported that the H.C. Lawer Co. store had been robbed of clothes, two dollars in cash and elk ivories.
At the same time, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, founded in New York City in the late eighteen sixties, adopted the elk as its emblem, symbolizing protection and peaceful strength. Lodge members began collecting and wearing genuine elk ivories as charms or watch fobs, a fashion that inadvertently fueled demand. Newspaper accounts reported that the price of elk teeth more than tripled, and elk in areas such as Yellowstone and Jackson Hole were slaughtered at alarming rates.
By the early twentieth century, the crisis was impossible to ignore. Conservationists, including Theodore Roosevelt, sounded the alarm. Hunters, naturalists, and even leaders within the Elks organization acknowledged that unchecked demand for ivories was driving elk toward extinction. Vigilante groups formed to stop tuskers, and high profile poaching trials made headlines. In response, Wyoming established game wardens, required hunting licenses, and limited harvests. Federal and state governments created preserves and, eventually, the National Elk Refuge, while winter feeding programs were introduced to save starving herds.
These efforts worked. Through decades of cooperation among tribal nations, private citizens, and state and federal agencies, elk populations slowly rebounded. Today, the Wind River Reservation provides critical winter range for thousands of elk, and herds such as those along Owl Creek once again number in the thousands.
In the modern era, elk ivories are legal to own when collected ethically and in compliance with wildlife laws. They no longer command the fevered demand of a century ago, but they remain meaningful. Set into jewelry, knife handles, or ceremonial clothing, elk ivories continue to symbolize resilience, heritage, and the enduring bond between people and the land.
Each fall, as hunters return to the hills around Dubois, they step into a story far older than themselves. It is a story of abundance and loss, exploitation and recovery, and of an animal whose legacy is etched not only across Wyoming’s landscapes, but deep into its history.
Next up for the Fremont County Museum
January 24, 3-5pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Sweetwater Ranch Life, The Paintings of Jack Corbett” Exhibition Opening
March 6, 6:30pm at the Dubois Museum, “Life in Crowheart w/ The Haslam Family” Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
March 12, 9am at the Dubois Museum, “Crowheart Store & Haslam Family Ranch Trek” Wind River Visitors Council Adventure Trek Series
March 14, 10am at the Dubois Museum, “Kids Corner: Saddle Making & leather carving w/ Steve Mecum” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
March 21, 6pm at the Dubois Museum, “Homesteading Series: High Altitude Bread Baking w/ Barb Lorentzen” Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speaker Series
March 23, 1-3pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Women’s Tea” Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
We will be announcing a full 2026 schedule of programs very soon, Stay Tuned!
Call the Dubois Museum 1-307-455-2284, the Pioneer Museum 1-307-332-3339 or the Riverton Museum 1-307-856-2665 for detail regarding their programs.
The Dubois Museum, the Pioneer Museum in Lander and the Riverton Museum need your financial support. In the current economic environment, the museums are more reliant than ever on donations from the private sector to continue to provide the quality programs, collections management, exhibits and services that have become their hallmark over the last four years. Please make your tax deductible contribution through the Wind River Cultural Centers Foundation https://windriverccf.funraise.org/ or by sending a check to Fremont County Museums 450 N 2nd Rm 320 or taking it directly to the museum you choose to support.
Photograph courtesy of the Fremont County Pioneer Museum