A short road on the right leads to Cunningham Cabin, one of the few homestead cabins left in the valley, on an easy self-guided loop of 0.8 mile. There is no restroom at the site. J. Pierce Cunningham chose this land because its glacial silt held moisture and grew lush grass, and the same ground draws badgers and coyotes to hunt the nearby meadows. The sagebrush around the cabin holds more plant species than any other community in the park except the wetlands. The man who settled here also played a part in the valley's later history, when local landowners offered to sell their land for a recreation area. Boone's tale just before this stop covers the cabin's darkest spring.
Right turn coming up, for Cunningham Cabin. It's under half a mile in, then an easy loop of nearly a mile, and when you come back it's right again onto the highway, heading south. No restroom here. The nearest is the vault toilet at Deadman's Bar landing, about three and a half miles on and nearly a mile down a side road. Pierce Cunningham chose this ground for its silt, which held the water and fed the grass. That same silt is why you may see badgers and coyotes hunting these meadows. Cunningham turns up again in nineteen twenty-five. He and Si Ferrin are said to have written most of a petition calling recreation this valley's highest use, and ninety-seven landowners offered to sell more than twenty-seven thousand acres. So the man in Boone's tale went on to help sell the valley. Walk that loop with both chapters in mind.
Photo: National Park Service, Grand Teton NP · Public domain (U.S. National Park Service work)