[2] It is considered part of the Cathedral Group next to Teewinot Mountain and Mount Owen (Wyoming) and Middle Teton.

The edition of April, 1901 of the USGS 1:125,000 quadrangle map of the area shows "Grand Teton" as the name of the peak.

Nathaniel P. Langford and James Stevenson claimed to have reached the summit on July 29, 1872 while serving as members of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871.

[11] A party organised by William O. Owen also claimed the first ascent when they reached the summit of Grand Teton on August 11, 1898.

[13] Mountaineer and author Fred Beckey believes that Langford/Stevenson climbed the Enclosure because their description better matches it and does not accurately describe the true summit, nor does it mention the formidable difficulties found just above the Upper Saddle.

[11] Mountaineer and author Leigh Ortenburger researched the controversy in depth, using original source material, for his 1965 climber's guidebook.

Ortenburger concluded: "Since historical 'proof' is extremely unlikely to be forthcoming for either side of the argument, perhaps the best way of regarding the problem, short of a detailed analysis of the probabilities, is to state that in 1872 Langford and Stevenson may have climbed the Grand Teton, in 1893 Kieffer, Newell, and Rhyan may have climbed it, and in 1898 Spalding, Owen, Peterson, and Shive definitely did succeed in reaching the summit.

The Owen-Spalding route is named for the climbers who claim to have made the first ascent: William Owen, Franklin Spalding, Frank Peterson, and John Shive.