Fish and Wildlife Service before retiring and becoming the president of the Wilderness Society, He was a prominent advocate for the preservation of wild lands in America.

The Murie Residence, home of Olaus and Mardy, and itself listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, adjoins the former STS Dude Ranch.

[3] Olaus Murie was responsible for landmark studies on caribou and their relationship to the environment in Alaska during the 1920s while working for the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey.

He was joined by his younger brother Adolph in 1922, and met his future wife, Margaret "Mardy" Thomas in Fairbanks in 1924.

Adolph continued his studies of predators, publishing The Wolves of Mount McKinley in 1944, which resulted in a similar reversal of Park Service wolf control policies in Alaska.

Olaus was also on the board of Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., which administered the properties purchased by the Snake River Land Company for eventual incorporation into an expanded Grand Teton National Park.

In 1945, Olaus Murie left government employment and became president of the Wilderness Society, at the same time moving to the STS property.

Olaus' publications written at the ranch include The Elk of North America and A Field Guide to Animal Tracks.

Adolph wrote The Grizzlies of North America, The Wolves of Mount McKinley and A Naturalist in Alaska.

Olaus and Margaret Murie's expedition in 1956 to the Sheenjek River, on the south slope of the Brooks Range, was a key event in the eventual protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The STS was established by Buster and Frances Estes (née Mears) near Menor's Ferry in 1921 as a dude ranch.

Buster was a local, while Frances first came to Jackson Hole from Philadelphia to visit the Bar B C Dude Ranch in 1914.