Jackson was originally populated by Native American tribes including the Shoshoni, Crow, Blackfeet, Bannock, and Gros Ventre.

After being discharged from the Corps of Discovery of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1806 at Fort Mandan, in present-day North Dakota, Colter visited Jackson Hole during the winter of 1807/1808.

Among other mountain men who visited the valley include Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, and William Sublette who are responsible for many of the names in the area.

His photographs along with the sketches by Tom Moran, were important evidence to convince Congress to protect Yellowstone National Park.

Grand Teton National Park was created in 1929 and greatly expanded in 1950 after John D. Rockefeller Jr. purchased and then donated over 30,000 acres (12,000 ha).

The Gros Ventre Range, by contrast, is geologically older than the Tetons and has a much broader width which encompasses huge expanses of wilderness; it is not as easily accessible.

Soils at Jackson Hole are mostly dark, excessively drained, moderately alkaline gravelly loam of the Greyback series.

Jackson experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb), with warm summers and very cold winters.

Due to its location in a very narrow river valley, Jackson and the rest of the Snake headwaters[12] experience a unique microclimate that gets considerably more precipitation–much of it snow–than the majority of Wyoming and has higher humidity during much of the year.

[13] Its elevation is also responsible for extreme differences between day and night temperatures, which makes the climate very close to being classified as subarctic (Köppen Dfc).

A strong local economy, primarily due to tourism, has allowed Jackson to develop a large shopping and eating district characterized by a large number of art galleries, custom jewelers, and designer clothing retailers centered on the town square.

[26] The following are currently members of the Town Council: Arne Jorgensen (vice mayor), Jessica Sell Chambers, Jim Rooks, and Jonathan Schechter.

[34] It is also a major location in the action-adventure video game The Last of Us (2013) and its sequel (2020), in which it is home to a large community of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world; however, scenes set in Jackson in the game's television adaptation (2023) were instead shot in the Canadian town of Canmore, Alberta, which doubled for Jackson.

[37] It first went viral when a sheriff stopped at a red light in the early hours of the morning, got out of his patrol car, and dabbed towards the camera before leaving.