When the first ranchers arrived in Jackson Hole in the late 19th century, they moved onto land that had long been an elk migration route and wintering ground. The ranchers soon found elk raiding their haystacks and competing with the cattle for forage, particularly during severe winters. The conflicts reached a peak early in the century when three consecutive severe winters killed thousands of elk, leading one settler to claim that he had "walked for a mile on dead elk lying from one to four deep."

Fortunately, a local rancher and hunting guide, Stephen N. Leek, had been given a camera by one of the sportsmen he had guided, George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera. Leek's disturbing photos of starving and dead elk found a national audience and helped pressure the state of Wyoming to appropriate $5,000 to buy hay in 1909. Two years later the federal government began purchasing land for a permanent winter elk refuge, a refuge that today cover nearly 25,000 acres.

More than 7,500 elk - half the local population - spend November to May on the refuge. During the most difficult foraging period, the elk are fed pelleted alfalfa, paid for in part by the sale of antlers collected at the refuge. During this time, each elk eats more than seven pounds of supplemental alfalfa a day, or 30 tons per day for the entire herd.