How a pile of unwanted elk antlers became Wyoming’s most photographed square

Where Broadway meets Cache streets

Downtown Jackson has a square that looks like nowhere else in the country.

Four arches rise at its corners, and every one of them is built from the antlers elk shed each spring in the valley nearby.

Locals ride a stagecoach around it, actors stage a gunfight on it most summer nights, and skaters glide across it once the snow flies.

The square has worn different names and served different purposes over the decades, but one detail has stayed constant since the 1950s, and it starts with a Rotary Club and a pile of antlers nobody wanted.

A Town Square Made of Antlers

Walk to the corner of Broadway and Cache streets in downtown Jackson and you land right in the middle of the action. Four arches rise at the four corners of the square, and builders wove real elk antlers into each one.

Cameras point at these arches from every angle, and they frame nearly every photo taken here. Wyoming does not have many spots that draw more photographs than this one.

How the Park Got Its Name

Ask a local what this place is called and you will hear Town Square every time.

Officials named it George Washington Memorial Park in 1934, the same year the space became an official park and the 200th anniversary of George Washington’s birth.

Before it held a single bench, the ground here was a dirt commons where cattle grazed and migrating elk sometimes passed through on their way to higher country.

That backstory is why the square still feels like the town’s old backyard rather than a monument.

The Story of the Elk Antler Arches

The local Rotary Club put up the first arch in 1953, and it caught on fast. Three more followed, and the set stood complete by 1969.

Each arch holds around 2,000 antlers and tips the scale at well over 10,000 pounds. Elk drop these antlers on their own every spring, so nobody harms an animal to build one.

The antlers fade over the decades, so crews rebuild each arch every so often. The newest set went up in 2015 and still stands today.

Where the Antlers Come From

Just outside town sits the National Elk Refuge, where thousands of elk spend the winter. Male elk drop their antlers on their own each spring before heading up to higher ground.

Local Scouts hike the refuge every year and gather what the elk left behind. A good share of the antlers in the arches started out in that yearly collection.

Dealers from around the Mountain West supply the rest, filling in whatever the refuge alone cannot provide.

The Longest-Running Shootout in the West

Since 1957, a staged Wild West gunfight has played out on this square, and people call it the longest continuously running shootout in the country.

Actors dress in period costume and play cowboys, outlaws, and other Old West characters, drawing crowds every night the show runs. You can catch it free Monday through Saturday at 6 p.m. all summer long.

There is no show on Sundays, and locals have turned that gap into a running joke of their own.

Ride a Horse-Drawn Stagecoach

A red horse-drawn stagecoach circles the square through the summer months, and you can hop on for a short loop through historic downtown Jackson.

Builders modeled the coach on the classic Overland stagecoaches that once hauled passengers across the frontier. Few stagecoaches left in the country let you climb up top for the ride, and this is one of them.

You can catch it running from Memorial Day through Labor Day, weather and schedule allowing.

Walk the Old West Boardwalks

Raised wooden boardwalks line the streets that wrap around the square, and they give the whole downtown a frontier feel you will not find in most Western towns anymore.

Walk them and you will pass art galleries, western shops, and outdoor gear stores tucked into the storefronts.

Loop through all four corners of the square and the boardwalks carry you straight through each antler arch along the way. These plank paths do as much as anything here to make the place feel like a step back in time.

A Park with History at Its Center

Step into the middle of the square and you find a shaded green space with benches and tall trees, a quiet break from the boardwalks around it.

A stone war memorial stands at the heart of it, honoring local veterans with a carving of a cowboy on a bucking horse. Nearby sits a monument to John Colter, one of the region’s earliest mountain explorers.

Locals still treat this patch of grass as the civic and social gathering place for the whole town.

ElkFest and the Antler Auction

Every May, the square fills up for ElkFest, a community celebration built around one big event: a public auction of the antlers local Scouts gathered from the refuge that year.

Buyers fly in from around the world to bid on the racks, some paying serious money for the best sets. A large share of what they spend goes right back to help fund the National Elk Refuge.

The weekend also brings a chili cook-off and a run of other festivities across town.

A Winter Wonderland

Once Thanksgiving passes, crews wrap the arches and the trees around the square in thousands of lights, and a special lighting celebration kicks off the holiday season in Jackson.

The square itself turns into a small outdoor ice rink for the winter.

You can rent skates right there if you want to glide under the lights without hauling your own pair. Plenty of locals will tell you this snowy, lit-up version of the square beats every other season for a visit.

A Great Spot for People-Watching

The benches scattered through the park give you an easy place to sit and reset between stops on your walk downtown.

On summer Saturdays, a farmers market sets up right around the square, drawing families in to picnic, wander the stalls, and pose for photos under the arches.

A public webcam even lets friends back home spot you live if you time it right. However you use it, the square makes an easy rest stop in the middle of a bigger Wyoming trip.

The Gateway to Two National Parks

Jackson sits at the doorstep of both Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, and plenty of travelers use the town as their launch point for both.

That makes the square a natural first or last stop on a national parks road trip through this part of Wyoming.

The four antler arches have become something like a symbol for the whole region, standing in for Jackson Hole the way a landmark stands in for any famous place.

A photo under one of them is about as classic a way to mark the visit as you can get.

Visiting Jackson Town Square in Wyoming

You will find the square right at the corner of Broadway and Cache in downtown Jackson, and it costs you nothing to walk through it any day of the year.

Listed park hours run from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Street parking sits right next to the square, but it fills up fast during the summer season.

You are usually better off parking a few blocks away and walking in, especially if you are visiting during a weekend market or festival.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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