Wilderness Fever: A Family's Adventures Homesteading in Early Jackson Hole, 1914-1924

Wilderness Fever: A Family's Adventures Homesteading in Early Jackson Hole, 1914-1924

Linda Preston McKinstry with Harold Cole McKinstry

In 1914, Linda and Mac McKinstry left their secure jobs in Washington, D.C., married, and moved west to establish a homestead in country both untouched and beautiful, but also inhospitable, dangerous, and forty miles from anywhere.

Their hair-raising, yet charming, account of their struggles to build a homestead and raise a family at the foot of the Tetons provides a glimpse into life in an region so wild and scenic that powerful outside interests covet its cascading water for irrigation and its land for preservation as a national park.

• • 978-1937147-11-2 • trade paper • 224 pp • $19.95 ORDER NOW

Linda Preston McKinstry with Harold Cole McKinstry

Linda Preston McKinstry and Harold (Mac) Cole McKinstry were married on March 3rd, 1914. Soon after the wedding, the couple left their secure jobs in Washington D.C. to move to Wyoming and homestead in Jackson Hole. The couple spent ten years homesteading near Moran, Wyoming. During this time their 3 children were born. In 1924 the family moved to Casper, Wyoming, but after a year in Casper they moved to Denver where Mac partnered to start the Colorado Fur Farm to raise silver foxes and other fur-bearing animals in the foothills outside of Denver near Rollinsville.

Linda taught night school in Denver and tested high altitude recipes for a baking company, possibly Betty Crocker. Around 1939, they sold the fur farm, retaining the cottage and surrounding land which is still in the family. They then bought a ranch on Buckhorn Creek outside of Fort Collins, Colorado, and moved the family there where they were still able to enjoy riding horses and the outdoors while Mac worked in financial businesses. They lived on the ranch for five years and later moved into Fort Collins.

Mac died in 1978 and Linda in 1980.