 The alluvial soil to the east of Blacktail Butte was more suitable than most locations in Jackson Hole for farming, somewhat hampered by a lack of readily available water.The Mormon homesteaders began to arrive in the 1890s from Idaho, creating a community called "Gros Ventre", with a total of 27 homesteads.The Mormon settlers tended to create clustered communities, in contrast to the isolated homesteads more typical of Jackson Hole.