Fifteen miles after their first glimpse of the Sweetwater country from the top of Prospect Hill, Oregon Trail emigrants began passing a series of playa, or soda lakes—shallow lakes often dried up and sometimes not. The rims of the lakes, or the lake floors themselves, if dry, were encrusted with snow-white alkali.

The travelers called the substance saleratus. It was, and is, a bicarbonate of soda, essentially baking soda. Some of it, light as ash, blew in the wind, irritating the eyes and nostrils of people and their animals. Some of it was crystallized and looked from a distance very much like ice. Many used saleratus to leaven their bread. Though it sometimes turned the dough a faint green, it worked well for baking over high heat—perfect for sagebrush-fueled campfires.

“I visited the Soda Spring while we were halted here a mile & a half below,” wrote Norton Jacob June 21, 1847, traveling with the first Mormon pioneer party. “This Spring or more properly a Pool, is a great natural curiosity. It is some 4 or 5 hundred yards in circumference, clear water without anny outlet & having the taste of Strong Lye, with a tincture of common Salt. as the water is diminished by evaporation, the sand on the shore is covered with a substance white as Snow & that answers every purpose of Saleratus. I found it lying from ½ to 3 inches thick & soon gathered up a Bucket full,” he concluded.

The odor was strong. Depending on the concentration of the sodium salts, the water could be poisonous. Animals who could not be kept from drinking the water might sicken and sometimes died.

“This place looks swampy and smells bad,” wrote William Clayton, principal diarist of the Mormon pioneer party. “The beds of saleratus smell like lime, but the saleratus itself is said to raise bread equal to the best brought in eastern markets. … Large quantities can gathered in a short time and when pulverized it looks clean and nice.”

Saleratus had been available in shops in towns and cities only since about 1840. Many immigrants filled cups, buckets and kegs with it at the playa lakes, delighted to find something of value so abundant and free for the taking. “As we passed along a little farther we saw another large lake to the left and one to the right of the same nature, their banks mostly white with saleratus.” Clayton concluded.”

Sometimes the saleratus reminded travelers of ice. “[A]bout 4 we came to several large lakes of pure salaratus,” James Pritchard wrote on June 15, 1849. “I gathered several pounds & used it in bread—one of these lakes looked at a distance of 300 yards like a river disengorging its self of Ice & with its broken flakes upheaved in all manner of shapes. The water had dried away & the pure genuine double refined Salaratus as white as chalk was left on the ground from one to ten inches thick.”

Other travelers were struck by the commercial potential of the soda. “Here are acres by the hundred of this substance,” wrote Dr. Mendall Jewett on May 30, 1850, “one of nature’s grand laboratories for its manufactory, and if ever a railroad communication was established [would] furnish an inexhaustible quantity of this alkaly.”

One traveler, at least, took a lively scientific interest. “The face of the ground is rough from numerous Small Sand hills and ponds, which are dry, and their beds covered with pure bicarbonate of Soda, or Saleratus, from 1 to 6 inches deep, some of which was in a pure crystalline state,” wrote Dr. Carmi Garlick, when he passed the lakes on June 18, 1850.

Investigating closely, he found “[i]n some of these beds were holes from 3 inc. to 3 feet in diameter, down which I thrust my cane some 3 feet without finding bottom. These holes were filled with thick muddy water of an acrid caustic smell.” Then he got more active: “By jumping on the surrounding Crust, the water could be made to Spring up 3 or 4 inches above the Surface. Where these beds or ponds were perfectly dry, I could thrust a cane into them to the whole length. It resembled a bed of dry unleached ashes of a dark colour. This place is 45 miles from the ferry of Platte, in lat 41 ½ N.”

James W. Evans, just a few days later on June 23, 1850, was likewise compelled to satisfy his curiosity. “[W]e passed by a large pond completely sheeted over with crystallized Alkali. It was somewhat transparent and looked like ice. I walked out upon it as I would upon a frozen pond, and finally succeeded in breaking off a piece where some person had cut through it. This incrustation was about six inches thick, and under it was water that felt soft and greasy like soap! Some persons use this alkali in making bread, and found that it answered the same purpose as Soda or Saleratus; in fact it is the same thing as the latter.”

Within a few years, a few enterprising people, at least, seem to have been mining the saleratus, perhaps for resale. “Wagons come here from Salt Lake to collect it for use,” William Woodhams wrote June 1, 1854.

Just a mile and a half beyond the last of the lakes, the granite heap of Independence Rock rises out of the sagebrush plain. Just by it flows the clear, cold, smooth-running Sweetwater River.

“The pools stunk like stagnant soap suds,” Pusey Graves noted July 7, 1850. “Dead cattle marked the place and a sickening stench arose from every quarter inclining the traveler to hurry on, to reach the Sweetwater. Having reached the stream fatigued with trudging through heavy sand beds and very thirsty, I knelt at the edge of this Sweetwater River and for the first time slaked my thirst with pure water since I crossed the Big Blue River.” The Big Blue joins the Platte in eastern Nebraska, around 500 miles to the east of Independence Rock.

In 1862, the U.S. Army fortified and converted a former stage and Pony Express station on the bank of the Sweetwater into a post called Sweetwater Station, a mile or so east of Independence Rock. Young Lt. Caspar Collins made the post his headquarters; from it soldiers protected emigrants and the transcontinental telegraph line that followed the road from the North Platte to South Pass. The post was abandoned in 1866.

Resources

Primary Sources

• Clayton, William. The Journal of William Clayton. 1945. Reprint, Salt Lake City, Utah: International Society of Utah Pioneers, 1994.
• Evans, James William. “Trip to California across the Plains in the Year 1850.” Transcribed by Richard Rieck. Ms. C-F 80, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkley, Calif.
• Garlick, Dr. Carmi P. “A Trip Overland to California, 1850.” In Garlick Family History and Journal of a Trip to the Goldfields of California in 1850. Ed. by Norman Lee Garlick. Charleston, S.C: WA Ms. 2343 G184, Typescript. Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
• Graves, Pusey. Diary and Letters, 1850. Typescript. Earlham College Library, Richmond, Ind.
• Jacob, Norton. The Mormon Vanguard Brigade of 1847: Norton Jacob’s Record. Ed. by Ronald O. Barney. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2005.
• Jewett, Mendall. Journal to and from California. C MSS -M400, Denver Public Library. Typescript.
• Pritchard, James A. The Overland Diary of James A. Pritchard, from Kentucky to California in 1849. Ed. by Dale L. Morgan. Denver, Colo.: Fred A. Rosenstock and The Old West Publishing Company, 1959.
• Woodhams, William H. “The Diary of William H. Woodhams, 1854: The Great Deserts or Around and Across.” Ed. by Charles W. Martin. Nebraska History 61, no.1 (Spring 1980): 1–101. Accessed March 30, 2016 at http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1980WHWoodhams.pdf.

Secondary Sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Saleratus Lake.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed March 25, 2016, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/saleratuslake.htm.
• “Saleratus to Baking Soda.” Joe Pastry, accessed March 25, 2016, at http://joepastry.com/2011/saleratus-to-soda/.
• Wyoming Places. “Playa Lake.” Accessed March 25, 2016, at http://wyomingplaces.pbworks.com/w/page/83019292/Playa%20Lake.

Illustrations

• The photo of Steamboat Lake is by Tom Rea. The photo of Saleratus Lake, or Playa Lake, from the top of Independence Rock is from the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Used with permission and thanks.

Emigrants bound for Oregon, California and Utah in the mid-1800s faced high tolls and high risks when they crossed the North Platte River near present Casper, Wyo. River crossings were extremely dangerous; operators of commercial ferries and bridges charged steep prices for safety. Many emigrants, unwilling to pay, cobbled together other, more homemade solutions—with varying success. Until bridges were built, nearly all travelers swam their livestock across, and many people and animals drowned in the swift, deep, shockingly cold water of the Platte.

From what’s now central Nebraska to South Pass in west-central Wyoming, travelers to California, Oregon and Utah all took more or less one route. Most came up the south side of the Platte from Fort Kearney, crossed the South Platte where the river forks in western Nebraska and continued west up the south side of the north fork. This meant fording the Laramie River where it joined the North Platte at Fort Laramie, and finally crossing the North Platte itself 150 miles later where the river bent to the south near present Casper. After that, the travelers could continue on to the west.

During fur-trade times in the 1820s and 1830s, many travelers crossed at Red Buttes, west of present Casper. In the early and mid-1840s, wagon-train emigrants began crossing at a variety of places along 25 miles of river from the mouth of Deer Creek, at present-day Glenrock, Wyo., to Casper.

Many made small boats by emptying their wagons, removing the wagon box from the running gear, caulking the boxes water tight with tar, dismantling the running gear into pieces, and then ferrying everything across the water in the wagon boxes, using poles or oars for guidance and often using ox or human power to tow the craft across the water with long ropes. This was a fairly reliable method, but, due to the unloading, dismantling and reloading, very slow.

Big cottonwood trees were plentiful; some of the earliest travelers made simple rafts of cottonwood logs lashed together, which they poled or rowed across. These were unwieldy and dangerous. Soon, emigrants figured out how to hollow out cottonwood logs and make dugout canoes, 20 feet long or more. By lashing three canoes together, or lashing a canoe on either side of a log in the middle, emigrants found they could make a stable boat of the right width so that a wagon’s wheels could rest inside the two outermost canoes.

The Mormon ferry

In mid June 1847, the first Mormon pioneer party, bound for the Salt Lake Valley, experimented with wagon-box boats and rafts before building a stout ferry out of cottonwood dugouts and a pine-pole deck. Even Church President Brigham Young “stript himself and went to work with all his strength,” wrote diarist Thomas Bullock.

As they were finishing up, they found 108 wagons from other parties, stretched over four miles and “all wanting to cross the river,” Mormon diarist Norton Jacob wrote.

A practical solution suggested itself. Ten Mormon men stayed behind to run the ferry for the rest of the emigration season. They were directed to charge non-Mormons $3 cash or $1.50 worth of flour or other provisions at Iowa or Missouri prices to cross a wagon and family. The men were “to keep a Just & accurate account, & make the returns of the proceeds of their labor to the Authoritys of the Church & also to cross the Brethren”—that is, the Mormon emigrants expected to arrive later in the summer—“ & charge such as are able to pay a reasonable price to be determined by the council that shall come with the Camp,” Jacob noted.

This Mormon Ferry, as it came to be known, was the first commercial ferry at the upper crossing of the Platte, operating about where the bridge on Wyoming Boulevard crosses now between Casper and its suburb of Mills, Wyo.

All wagon trains traveled with a large number of animals. Loaded wagons moved best when pulled by three yoke of oxen: Six animals per wagon meant a train of 25 wagons needed daily grass and water for 150 cattle, plus any other mules, saddle horses or milk cows making the trip. Moving the animals across the river proved to be the trickiest part of all.

The Platte at its upper crossings, then and now, was 100 to 200 yards wide and more than 10 feet deep at its deepest point. Transcontinental emigrants who were on schedule crossed in June, when the water, at its height from spring runoff, was moving smooth and fast.

Because ferries charged a fee for each animal a well as for wagons, there was a strong incentive for emigrants to swim their livestock across. Account after account tells of one or two brave men in the party on horse- or muleback leading the herd into the water. At the point where the river gets deep enough that the animal has to swim, the person does as well, often without warning. Time and again travelers in their diaries tell of animals plunging in, trying to cross, losing their footing and being driven half a mile or more downstream only to emerge on the same side. The work exhausted the crossers and drownings were common every June. And stock died by the hundreds.

The gold rush

The Mormons again ran a ferry in 1848. In 1849, the first year of the California gold rush, they set up a blacksmith operation as well. Traffic mushroomed from a few thousand in 1848 to 25,000 in 1849, according to trails historian John Unruh. Diarists reported big crowds in June 1849, with waits of two or three days before they could cross.

Emigrants had to drive their animals miles away to find good grass, and then had to guard them while they grazed. Impatience and indifference is everywhere in the accounts. “[W]e found 150 wagons in ahead of us, about 50 can be crossed in a day,” William Thomas wrote on June 10. “Just before we arrived a young man by the name of Brown from Mo. was drowned attempting to swim his cattle across - This accident appeared not in the least to produce more excitement than if he had been a dog although he was represented to be a young man of fine abilities and esteemed by all who knew him …”

By this time the Mormons had a plank deck on their three-dugout ferryboat, on which they could cross 50 to 75 wagons per day. Finding 200 wagons waiting to cross on June 10, diarist David Pease tells of his company entering their name on the Mormons’ list, but then, impatient, choosing instead to work with two other companies to build a raft.

They had a bad time with it. Finally they persuaded the ferrymen to take one end of a rope across the river in order to tow the raft from the far shore, but “we soon found that the current was so swift and the rope bagged so much in the water that it was a difficult job to do anything and after crossing 2 wagons on [the raft] we gave it up as a bad job and concluded to wait patiently till our turn came on the boat.”

Hickman’s ferry

The following year, 1850, saw another huge jump in traffic to around 50,000 emigrants, and also a big improvement in the ferry. A Missourian, David Hickman, appeared on the scene in May with a better idea. He and a few men anchored stout posts in each river bank, strung a strong rope between them and attached to it with pulleys a pair of shorter ropes, one linked to the bow and one to the stern of the ferryboat. By making the bow rope shorter, the boat crossed the stream at an angle to the current, and the current drove it across, “much better than steam on as rapid a stream as this foaming Platte,” wrote diarist Madison Moorman.

Hickman and his men built three of these boats and seem to have had them running all through June. The Mormons at this time were still running a single boat, but with a rope-and-pulley system similar to Hickman’s. At least one diarist mentions a fifth boat jointly owned by Hickman and the Mormons.

With three boats and a crossing time of only a few minutes, Hickman and his partners could now handle around 300 wagons per day. Emigrants now waited a day or less for their turn.

The price, however, had risen to $5 per wagon. The Missourians “are doing a ‘smashing’ business,” wrote diarist A.C. Morse. “The proprietor told me last night that he could make $20,000 as his own interest”—nearly $600,000 in today’s money—“and return to the States in October.” No need to prospect for gold in California, diarist after diarist noted, when it was possible to make that kind of money right here on the Platte.

Not everyone used the ferries, however. At likely spots all along the 25 miles between the mouth of Deer Creek and the upper ferries, people made boats of their own, sold them to a party following them, who in turn would sell them for the same price to the next party behind them. All seem to have felt they were getting a fair deal.

The great majority of emigrants continued swimming their livestock across the river—and the practice remained dangerous. “[T]wo men were drowned yesterday & it is said 19 have been drowned in the last 11 days,” Francis Hardy noted from the upper ferry June 10, 1850.

Wagon companies would often search a day or even two for the bodies, but felt compelled after that to resume their trek. Emigrants traveling to California with Finley McDiarmid saw the body of a drowned man caught in the branches of a dead tree in the river. “One of the men swam out and towed him in,” McDiarmid wrote. “There was nothing about his person that could give any information where he was from or who he was. They buried him the usual way of burying people upon this road by digging a shallow small hole [italics in original] and rolling him in.”

The bridges

Reports of cholera led to a drastic reduction in trail traffic in 1851, and prices fell accordingly, to $2.50 and $3.00 per wagon at the upper Platte ferries. In 1852, the number of westbound travelers who came over the trail in what’s now Wyoming boomed again, peaking at 70,000 that year. In May, some emigrants built a bridge over the North Platte at the mouth of Deer Creek. High water washed it away after a few weeks, however.

That fall, the enterprising trader John Baptiste Richard and his partners began building a bridge at a well-known crossing site at what is now Evansville, just east of Casper and eight or so miles east of the Mormon ferry. Because of how Richard pronounced his name, English-speaking travelers misunderstood it as Reshaw; the bridge came to be called Reshaw’s Bridge. It was built on log tiers 30 to 40 feet apart, in a diamond shape with the points aimed up and down river, filled with rocks and decked with planks. The bridge was finished in time for the start of emigration in spring 1853.

Richard established a trading post at the bridge. His prices were high—$8 to cross a wagon at high water, falling to $6 by early July. The U.S. Army established a post at the bridge in 1855, when tension was mounting between emigrants and Native Americans.

As the population in the 1850s grew in the far West and in the Salt Lake Valley, traffic on the Platte River route became more commercial and more two-way, with freighters heading east almost as often as west. A once-a-month stagecoach was established from Missouri to Salt Lake in the late 1850s; gradually the service became weekly and eventually daily.

Richard and his brothers had a prime business spot, and for a few years they prospered.

Beginning in the fall of 1859, a former Richard partner, Louis Guinard, built a much larger, stronger bridge—1,000 feet long, on 26 piers—just upstream from the upper ferry crossings. One account says he spent $40,000 on the bridge; another says $60,000. The bridge was finished in time for the 1860 season. One traveler in 1861 reported tolls of $3 per wagon; possibly competition between the two bridges kept prices low.

Guinard also ran a trading post at the bridge. The stages carrying the U.S. Mail used Guinard’s bridge—a blow to Richard’s business—and in 1860 and 1861 the short-lived Pony Express did as well, and established a station there.

In 1862, the Army established a post at Guinard’s Bridge named Platte Bridge Station. After young Lt. Caspar Collins was killed in an Indian fight nearby in 1865—the Battle of Platte Bridge Station—the fort was renamed for him.

Richard, meanwhile, had left the area, though his employees continued to run his bridge. In the winter of 1865-1866, soldiers from the fort upstream dismantled Richard’s bridge and his trading houses for firewood and building materials. In 1867, Fort Fetterman was built near present Douglas, Wyo., 50 miles down the Platte, and Fort Casper was partly dismantled for wood for the new fort. In 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad was completed across what’s now southern Wyoming, and most people stopped using the Platte River road as a transcontinental route.

Resources

Primary Sources

• Berrien, Joseph Waring. “Overland from St. Louis to the California Gold Fields in 1849: The diary of Joseph Waring Berrien.” Ed. by Ted and Caryl Hinckley. Indiana Magazine of History (December 1960): 273-352.
• Bullock, Thomas. The Pioneer Camp of the Saints: The 1846 and 1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas Bullock. Ed. by Will Bagley. Spokane, Wash.: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1997.
• Burton, Richard F. The City of the Saints and across the Rocky Mountains to California [1860]. London,1861. New York,1862. Reprinted as TheLook of the West, Overland to California, Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1963.
• Butterfield, Ira H. “Michigan to California in 1861.” Michigan History Magazine 11, no. 40 (July 1927): 392–423.
• Hardy, Francis A. Journal of Francis A. Hardy, 1850. WA MS 242, Beinecke Library. Yale University, New Haven, Conn. Richard L. Rieck transcription.
• Jacob, Norton. The Mormon Vanguard Brigade of 1847: Norton Jacob’s Record. Ed. by Ronald O. Barney. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2005.
• Judson, Henry M. Diary, 1862. MS 953, Typescript. Nebraska State Historical Society.
• Kelly, William. An Excursion to California over the Prairie, Rocky Mountains, and Great Sierra Nevada. 2 vols. London, UK: Chapman and Hall, 1851.
• May, Richard Martin. A Sketch of a Migrating Family to California in 1848. Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon Press, 1991.
• McDiarmid, Finley. Letters to My Wife [1850]. Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon Press, 1997.
• Pease, David E. Diary, 1849. MS 60, Typescript. Oregon Historical Society Library, Portland, Ore.
• Root, Riley. Journals of Travels from St. Joseph to Oregon. Galesburg, Ill., Gazeteer and Intelligencer, 1850. Reprint, Oakland, Calif.: Biobooks, 1955.
• Thomas, Dr. William L. Diary. MS CB 383:1, Typescript. Bancroft Library, Berkley, Calif.
• Winsor, Alonzo, Diary. Typescript of the original MS, Newberry Library, Chicago. Richard L. Rieck transcription.

Secondary Sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Glass, Jefferson. “Reshaw’s Bridge.” WyoHistory.org. Accessed April 16, 2016, at http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/reshaws-bridge.
• National Park Service. National Historic Trails: Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide Across Wyoming. Salt Lake City: National Park Service, National Trails System, Intermountain Region, 2007, 52. Accessed March 23, 2016, at http://www.nps.gov/cali/planyourvisit/upload/WY_ATRIG%20Web.pdf.
• “Upper Platte (Mormon) Ferry. Church History, website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed April 21, 2016 at https://history.lds.org/place/pioneer-story-upper-platte-mormon-ferry?lang=eng.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Platte River Fords.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed March 23, 2016, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/platteriverfords.htm.
• Unruh, John D. The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-1860. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1979, 119-120, 185. Accessed March 23, 2016, at http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminarsflvs/UnruhTables.pdf.

Illustrations

• The image of the Bruff drawing of the 1849 ferry is from Randy Brown. Used with thanks. Bugler Moellman’s drawing of Platte Bridge Station, 1863, is from the American Heritage Center. Used with permission and thanks. The rest of the photos are by WyoHistory.org Editor Tom Rea.

West of Rock Avenue on the Oregon Trail in what’s now central Wyoming, emigrants came to an odorous, swampy place where their livestock often got stuck in the mud and risked poisoning if they drank the alkaline water.

William Clayton, diarist for the first Mormon pioneer company in 1847 and author of a guidebook to the trail published a year later, called it Alkali Swamp; other travelers called it Alkali Spring. A more recent historian in Casper, Wyo., the late Lee Underbrink, amused by the disgust Clayton’s journal expressed for the site, dubbed it Clayton’s Slough.

“It is strong of salt or rather saleratus and smells extremely filthy,” Clayton wrote June 19, 1847, of one of the two small streams that join at the place. “Its banks are so perfectly soft that a horse or ox cannot go down to drink without sinking immediately nearly overhead, in thick, filthy mud, and is one of the most horrid, swampy, stinking places I ever saw.”

So miry was the place that men, mules and oxen often got badly stuck.

August 13, 1843, was very hot, diarist Theodore Talbot wrote, and one man, leading a horse and mule and spying the little stream, turned off to give them a drink.

“We had hardly reached it,” wrote Talbot, “when he suddenly found the ground giving way under him, alarmed at so unusual an occurrence which appeared nothing less than a special and pressing invite to the company of his very Satanic Majesty, he retraced his steps pretty nimbly, once more reaching Terra Firma safe and sound.”

Not so the horse, Old John, nor Jane the big-headed mule, Talbot wrote. “On looking round he could see but the nose of the one, and the head of the other floating round in a sort of white, semi-fluid lake.” The man called for help, other men brought ropes and after much pulling and hauling, with some of the men partly sinking in as well, “forth came the two animals, looking exceedingly miserable and covered with a white coat, which grew hard very rapidly in the air. This little incident, together with [Thomas] Fitzpatrick’s heartfelt regrets that the trio, mule, horse and man, alike worthless, hadn’t gone to _____ in a family party, afforded much amusement to the rest of the men, at Sam Neal’s expense.”

On current maps the little creek of alkali water coming from the northwest is named Poison Spring Creek. Ironically, this is the creek that Clayton says was of “not very bad water,” while the much smaller stream, now unnamed, coming from the southwest, was much more alkali, so much so that according to Clayton, “the cattle wouldn’t drink it.”

Any parties unlucky enough to camp at the spot had to post guard at night to keep the animals away from the muck.

“The grass was tolerable but we had to keep a guard with the mules all the time to keep them from swamping in the spouty places,” James Pritchard wrote on June 13, 1849. “A man would sink to his neck instantly. Several of the men fell in during the night. I saw 5 head of Oxen sunk down to their hornes, and their owners had to extricate them by attaching ropes to their heads & pulling them out.

Some men and livestock did drink the water, as they had just come more than 20 miles from the last good water at the North Platte, and were very thirsty.

During the peak years of the California gold rush, 1849-1852, the water seems to have become entirely unfit for use. Emigrant accounts testify to the dozens of dead and dying animals around the slough and all along the road the next four miles to good water at Willow Spring—and beyond.

“All along the road lay ox after oxen dead,” wrote Patrick McLeod June 26, 1849. “Within a few miles of the spring lay dead 4 yoke of oxen killed by lightning. They lay as they stood in the yokes– two by two– twas a sorrowful sight.”

Eleven days later, emigrant Charles Darwin—no known relation to the famous naturalist—reported he “saw in one place where a whole team of eight had fallen in the yoke & died in their tracks,” apparently the same ones McLeod had seen earlier. But they were by no means the only ones. “Dead oxen marked all the road & no mile but offended the nostril with its effluvia. At one of those springs being very thirsty I was strongly tempted to drink but [it] seemed prudent to enquire of some wagon camped there who told me it was poison,” Darwin wrote.

The swamp itself is apparently much diminished since trail days. It is now partially filled in by road construction, and it’s likely that the two streams converging to form the swamp run far less water than they did during the trail era. An earlier road crossed directly over the slough where a few bridge pilings are still visible now.

Resources

Primary Sources

• Clayton, William. The Journal of William Clayton. 1945. Reprint, Salt Lake City, Utah: International Society of Utah Pioneers, 1994.
• Darwin, Charles Benjamin. Journal. Typescript ms. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.
• McLeod, Patrick H. Diary, 1849. Mss Collection No. WC001. Transcribed by Richard Rieck. Philip Ashton Rollins Papers, Box 11, F1, Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J.
• Pritchard, James A. The Overland Diary of James A. Pritchard, from Kentucky to California in 1849. Ed. by Dale L. Morgan. Denver, Colo.: Fred A. Rosenstock and The Old West Publishing Company, 1959.
• Talbot, Theodore. The Journals of Theodore Talbot. Ed. with notes by Charles H. Carey. Portland, Ore.: Metropolitan Press, 1931.

Secondary Sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• National Park Service. National Historic Trails: Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide Across Wyoming. Salt Lake City: National Park Service, National Trails System, Intermountain Region, 2007, 55. Accessed April 26, 2016, at http://www.nps.gov/cali/planyourvisit/upload/WY_ATRIG%20Web.pdf.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Poison Spring/Clayton’s Slough.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed April 26, 2016, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/poisonspring.htm.
• Wyoming Places. “Poison Spring.” Accessed April 26, 2016, at http://wyomingplaces.pbworks.com/w/page/83019727/Poison%20Spring%20(Natrona).

Illustrations

• The photos of Clayton’s Slough are courtesy of the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Used with permission and thanks.

Nineteen-year-old Alvah Unthank was working as a saddler in his father’s store in Newport, north of Richmond, Wayne County, Ind., in 1850 when local men assembled a company to travel to California and prospect in the gold fields there.

Two Newport schoolteachers, Henry Puckett and Steve Venard, began organizing the Newport Mining Company, and were soon joined by two others, Solomon Woody and Pusey Graves.

The first great wave of the California Gold Rush had come the year before, in 1849. This year, twice as many emigrants—50,000 or more—would travel the route by way of the Platte, North Platte, Sweetwater, Bear, Snake and Humboldt rivers that came to be called the California Trail.

Young Alvah was born near Whitewater, adjacent to the Indiana-Ohio line in Preble County, Ohio, on Jan. 3, 1831. He was the first child of Jonathan and Rachel Williams Unthank, natives of North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. The Unthanks were Quakers, descendants of George Unthanke of Danby, Yorkshire, England, an early convert to the Society of Friends.

George’s grandson, Joseph Unthank, his wife, Ann, and several children immigrated to America in 1735. Twenty years later they moved to New Garden, a new Quaker center in Guilford County, N. C., where succeeding generations were born, including Jonathan Unthank in 1807. Many Quakers owned slaves in North Carolina at the time. But while anti-slavery sentiment eventually became almost universal among slaveholding Quakers, they were divided on the process of abolition. Some were for immediate emancipation while others favored a more gradual transition for themselves and for their slaves.

It was said of John and Mary Unthank, Alvah’s grandparents, that “they resided for a time in North Carolina, but not being in sympathy with the slave business, they freed their slaves and moved to Preble County, Ohio, which at that time was a wild forest.” This was in 1810. Jonathan Unthank, later Alvah’s father, was 3 years old at the time.

Jonathan grew up in Preble County, and in 1830, he married Rachel Williams of nearby Richmond, Ind. Her parents were William, a well-known Quaker minister, and Rachel Kemp Williams. Soon after the marriage the young couple moved to Newport, now Fountain City, where Jonathan joined his father and brother, Joseph, in a tanning business.

Jonathan later opened his own store in Newport. Bitterly opposed to slavery, Jonathan and Rachel worked closely with Levi Coffin in Indiana operations of the Underground Railroad. Newport was an important stop for fugitive slaves going north, and Coffin was known as “President of the Underground Railroad.”

Leaving home

As finally constituted in 1850, the Newport Mining Company was made up of 27 men, mostly residents of Newport or Richmond. They left home on April 9. Two of Alvah’s uncles, Joseph and John Allen Unthank, were members, although John left them and returned home when they reached St. Joseph, the jumping-off place on the Missouri River.

Several of the younger members of the group brought the company’s herd of personally owned draft animals, mostly horses, overland from Newport to St. Joseph. Alvah was probably with these men while the main body of the company traveled by steamboat from Cincinnati to St. Joseph.

The Newport Company crossed the Missouri River on flatboats about five miles north of St. Joseph at Iowa Point on May 19, 1850, and the next day entered the St. Joseph Road, a major segment of the Oregon/California Trail through northeastern Kansas. Steve Venard was elected company captain.

Cholera on the trail

For the first month their trip was mostly routine, but their troubles began a few miles west of Ash Hollow on the Platte River in what’s now western Nebraska, when Joe Lauter and Addison Lamb died of cholera within a day of each other. Several others were also afflicted but eventually recovered. Then, on June 26 at LaBonte Creek near present Douglas, Alvah began complaining of ill health. He seemed well enough to travel, however, so they kept moving.

Three days later he had a serious relapse. The company stopped to “doctor and nurse Alvah.” It soon became clear there was little hope of his recovery. Two company members, Pusey Graves and Henry Puckett, narrate his decline and death in journals written as letters they sent home.

On June 30, Graves wrote,  “Alvah getting worse. Is quite hopeless; appears to care but little; complains none.”  On July 1, “Alvah is rapidly sinking. Lying by with heavy hearts.”  And on July 2, Graves noted, “This morning I was awakened to see the last of Alvah. He passed quietly away his countenance wearing a pleasing smile as his inner being entered his spiritual possessions in the second sphere of life immortalized. Bid his father be of good cheer; his child has paid the great debt of Nature … He expressed no concern whatever concerning his past, present, or future; He lay calm, bore his suffering patiently and uttered not a murmur or groan.”

Puckett wrote on July 2, “Alvah died this morning about 3 o’clock. We buried him at 1 P. M. This mournful event caused quite a sensation in our little company. On account of our more intimate acquaintance, and the associations of childhood, most of us felt his death much more severely than that of the others who had died … The bluffs near us afforded some very nice smooth stones, upon one of which we recorded in the best style our imperfect implements would allow, his name, age, state, etc., and placed it at the head of his grave.”

Sol Woody used a sharpened nail as a chisel to inscribe the headstone. Woody’s inscription reads “A.H. Unthank, Wayne Co. Ind, Died Jul. 2 1850.”A few of Alvah’s closest friends lingered at the grave after the others had left, covered it over with large stones, and transplanted over the grave a few bunches of cactuses in full bloom. Later that afternoon they moved on to Deer Creek at present Glenrock, Wyo.

The company suffered another death, that of Samuel Curtis, a cousin of Alvah’s, at Bear River in western Wyoming. One member, Dr. James Backus, disappeared without a trace somewhere along the Humboldt River in what’s now Nevada. The company, like many others, began to break up as they neared California. Six men turned off and went to Oregon, and by the time Pusey Graves crossed the Sierra Nevada, he was with just one other original member of the Newport Mining Company. Fourteen others reached California, straggling in as small groups.

Pusey Graves summed up the passing of Alvah Unthank with these words: “He was amiable and beloved by all the company and received the strictest attention and the best treatment that our circumstances would allow. His friends at home may rest assured that all was done that could be to make him comfortable.”

The Unthank inscriptions

About a week before Alvah died, on the morning of June 25, 1850, he and his company had passed Register Cliff, where Alvah stopped briefly to inscribe his name: “A.H. Unthank 1850.” No other company member’s name is found in the lists of inscriptions for the site.

Seventeen years later, Alvah’s cousin, Oliver Nixon Unthank, son of John Allen Unthank, the uncle who left Alvah and the Newport Company at St. Joseph, inscribed his name under Alvah’s: “O.N. Unthank 1867.” Oliver was a civilian telegrapher for the U.S. Army at Fort Laramie. The third Unthank in the group is “O.B. Unthank 1931.” Oliver Brandon Unthank, a salesman living in Sheridan, Wyo., was the son of Oliver Nixon Unthank.

Discovery of the Grave

Some records show the Unthank grave was discovered and subsequently lost and forgotten several times during the late 1800s. Passing cowboys noticed it in the early 1880s; in 1886, railroad construction workers found the grave overgrown and the headstone fallen; in 1899, sheepherder Irby Lamb again found the headstone face down in the grass. He tidied up the grave and planted wild flowers.

Little was done to permanently preserve the grave until its last discovery around 1920. The Casper Lions Club, under the leadership of Charles B. Stafford, initiated a research effort to identify Alvah Unthank. They wrote letters to Indiana and Oregon. Relatives were found in Richmond, and the story of the Newport Company and Alvah Unthank eventually emerged. In 1924, Converse County Deputy Sheriff Howard Jackson of Glenrock, Wyo., built the iron fence that still surrounds the Unthank grave.

Resources

• Graves, Pusey. Diary and Letters. Typescripts. Earlham College Library, Richmond, Ind.
• Puckett, Henry. Diary. Typescript. Location of original ms. is unknown.
• Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, Neb.
• WyomingHeritage.org and Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Register Cliff.” WyoHistory.org. Accessed May 2, 2016, at http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/register-cliff.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Alvah Unthank Grave.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed May 2, 2016, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/alvah_unthank.htm.

Illustrations

• The color photo of the Unthank grave is by Richard Collier of the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Used with permission and thanks. The rest of the photos are from the author’s collection. Used with permission and thanks.

Most people associate Amelia Earhart with aviation, worldwide fame and her mysterious disappearance in 1937 during an attempt to fly around the world. Fewer may realize that the record-setting pilot flew an experimental aircraft across Wyoming and made plans for a vacation home in the mountains above Meeteetse.

The Kansas native with a penchant for “first-time things” and a love of “shining adventure,” as she called it, flew an autogiro across the country in June 1931, stopping at Cheyenne, Laramie, Parco (present Sinclair), Rock Springs and Le Roy, Wyo., west of Fort Bridger.

Earhart wanted to set a transcontinental record in the awkward-looking craft, which resembled a fixed-wing propeller plane with an engine on the front, but was equipped also with four long rotors that spun at 100 revolutions per minute –much slower than the 400 revolutions per minute of modern light helicopters—above the open cockpit. The 52-gallon fuel capacity of the rotorcraft, dubbed the “flying windmill” by the press, made frequent stops necessary. Amelia made time to visit with local dignitaries and give flight demonstrations. She charmed the crowds who greeted her on the ground.

The Laramie Republican-Boomerang’s front-page report described her as “a petite tousle-haired sky goddess in a weird windmill ship” who “greeted a crowd of pop eyed spectators” numbering several hundred. While she had flown over previously, this 20-minute stop was the first time Earhart had actually visited Laramie.

Earhart, who was born in Atchison, Kan., on July 24, 1897, first gained fame when she rode as a passenger in 1928 across the Atlantic Ocean in the Friendship, a Fokker trimotor piloted by Wilmer Stultz. Mechanic Lou “Slim” Gordon also participated in the 20-hour, 49-minute flight, the brainchild of Amy Guest of Philadelphia, who hoped to promote good relations between the United States and Britain. Her family dissuaded her from going on the flight. Guest had asked New York publisher and promoter George Palmer Putnam to find someone else to replace her.

Earhart was a social worker in Boston at the time, but she loved flying and had been taking flight lessons for several years. She was vice president of the Boston chapter of the National Aeronautic Association. On May 15, 1923, she received her pilot’s license from the international aviation organization to which the American National Aeronautic Association belonged. Earhart was the 16^th woman in the world to receive the license.

She had owned a Kinner Airster, but sold the plane in 1924 because of recurring sinusitis problems that made it difficult for her to fly. She bought a canary-colored Kissel Kar automobile, which she named Yellow Peril, and made a 7,000-mile cross-country trek with her mother, Amy Otis Earhart, visiting several national parks en route.

Lady Lindy

In 1928, despite her lack of experience in a trimotor, and with only 500 hours of flight time logged, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the ocean in an airplane. Her good manners and her striking resemblance to pilot Charles A. Lindbergh, who had made a successful solo flight across the sea May 20, 1927, likely led to her being chosen to ride on the Friendship. She was called “Lady Lindy,” and recognition was her only remuneration for the flight; payments she received for writing newspaper articles and for other advertising activities were donated to help finance the flight.

At the time Putnam met Earhart, he was married to Dorothy Binney. Putnam and Earhart became friends, and their relationship grew even closer after the Friendship flight. Putnam and his first wife divorced after 20 years of marriage. He married Amelia Earhart in a simple ceremony at his mother’s home in Noank, Conn., on Feb. 7, 1931. On that day, Amelia presented him with a frank, rather businesslike letter outlining her wishes that the marriage not be confining for either of them. If they found they weren’t happy after a year, then she wanted the marriage to end.

But in June 1931, as Earhart flew the autogiro from coast to coast, the couple appeared to be pleased with each other. In Laramie, she told reporters that she telephoned her husband every night.

The autogiro

Earhart referred to the autogiro as “the answer to an aviator’s prayer,” although other pilots disagreed with that assessment and accidents were common. Spanish mathematician Juan de la Cierva invented the rotorcraft in the early 1920s and his American partner, Harold Pitcairn, who had begun Eastern Air Transport in 1926 and was the developer of Mailwing biplanes, marketed the autogiro. The aircraft was equipped with an engine to get it started, but once aloft, air pressure kept the rotor blades spinning. The rotors allowed the craft to make short takeoffs and landings, somewhat similar to those of a helicopter.

Putnam had ordered an autogiro for Amelia, who had set a woman’s autogiro altitude record of 18,415 feet in a company model on April 8, 1931, but he canceled the order when he learned that Beech-Nut Packing Company’s rotorcraft was available for promotional purposes. Earhart flew the PCA-2 sponsored by Beech-Nut to promote its chewing gum. Another autogiro, manufactured a few months later that same year and sponsored by Champion Spark Plug Company, carried a factory price of $15,000—around $235,000 today.

Putnam arranged for Earhart’s transcontinental tour in the Beech-Nut craft. She took a single lesson in December 1930 from the manufacturer’s test pilot, James G. Ray, in Willow Grove, Pa. When she and her mechanic, Eddie de Vaught, departed from Newark, N.J., in late May, for her transcontinental jaunt, Putnam and his son David handed out chewing gum to onlookers.

76 towns in three weeks

According to a schedule of the trip posted on the website of the Lincoln Highway National Museum and Archives, Earhart arrived in Cheyenne on June 2, 1931, late in the afternoon. She apparently stayed overnight and departed a few minutes after 6 a.m. the next day for Denver, which took about an hour and a half of flight time. The Denver Post reported thousands watched her. The newspaper’s owner and publisher, Frederick G. Bonfils, greeted her at the airport. This was her first visit to Denver, and she stopped for breakfast at the Brown Palace hotel and then returned to the airfield to give demonstrations.

She returned to Cheyenne about 4:30 p.m. that day, according to a report in the Wyoming State Tribune and Cheyenne State Leader, which estimated “fully half of the population” of the city had gone to the airport during Earhart’s time there. She departed Cheyenne at about 9 a.m. on June 4, made the half hour flight to Laramie, and after her brief stop there, went on to Parco, arriving about 11:30 a.m., and flying on to Rock Springs, where the gathered throng numbered about 2,000 people. The Rock Springs Rocket reported she had lunch with the local Lions Club, then flew to Le Roy, near Fort Bridger, to refuel before her flight across the Wasatch Mountains to Salt Lake City.

Earhart arrived in Oakland, Calif., on June 6, and the crowd there was so large that it broke the barricades. However, she had not set the record she hoped for; she had wanted to be the first to cross the country in the autogiro. Instead, pilot Johnny Miller had won that honor. Amelia continued her tour, returning east. On June 12, 1931, she crashed the autogiro in Abilene, Texas, but she had managed to aim the aircraft away from the onlookers and no one was hurt. A replacement craft was sent.

Although the Aeronautics Board of the Department of Commerce issued a formal reprimand citing Earhart for pilot carelessness, an official of the National Aeronautics Administration, an organization for which Earhart served as vice president, interceded and she was not grounded. Earhart said that the crash was caused because the wind stilled beneath her.

On the tour, she stopped in 76 towns during about three weeks of traveling. She flew an average speed of 80 mph, about five hours daily, often landing 10 times in a day. She became the first pilot to fly an autogiro round-trip across the United States. She later made two additional cross-country tours in the autogiro.

Wyoming hideaway

In 1926, George Putnam invited Carl M. Dunrud to travel with his expedition to Greenland. Dunrud had guided Putnam on a pack trip in Yellowstone National Park a few years earlier, and Dunrud later acquired the Double Dee Ranch in the rugged Absaroka Range of northwestern Wyoming, southwest of Meeteetse in Park County. Dunrud recalled in a memoir that Putnam wanted “to make Amelia Earhart the world’s leading woman pilot.”

On May 20, 1932, the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh’s historic flight and a year after her transcontinental autogiro tour, Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a single-engine Lockheed Vega, becoming the first woman to do so, and finally earning her “Lady Lindy” title. In July, she became the first woman pilot to fly solo across the transcontinental United States from Los Angeles to Newark. She earned numerous accolades for these flights and many other record-setting aviation adventures during her lifetime. She was also eventually awarded the American Distinguished Flying Cross.

In 1934, Earhart and Putnam stayed at the Double Dee, a dude ranch owned by Carl and Vera Dunrud. The Dunruds’ two sons, Richard and Jim, were toddlers, but they have fond recollections of Earhart. Richard called her “a very generous person,” and he treasures a bamboo fishing pole and a .22-caliber rifle that she sent to them. Tires for Carl Dunrud’s truck were also prized gifts during those Depression-era years.

Carl Dunrud wrote that during their 1934 visit, Earhart and Putnam filed a mining claim and commissioned him to build a small log cabin for them near the Wood River and at the base of Mount Sniffer about a mile from the old mining town of Kirwin. Jim Dunrud remembers that his mother told him that Earhart “didn’t like the limelight much.” Richard keeps correspondence between his father and George Putnam with instructions on how their vacation cabin should be built.

Earhart wanted to fly the “world at its waistline,” something no other pilot had done. In 1935, she had served as a counselor to female students at Purdue University, in Indiana. Her world flight was to be funded by donations to Purdue passed on to Earhart to establish the “Purdue Flying Laboratory” and to help further the progress of women in aviation.

Before embarking on the 1937 flight along the Equator, Earhart sent two coats to Carl Dunrud, a long leather flight jacket and a buffalo coat that had been given to her by cowboy actor William S. Hart. Dunrud later gave the coats to the Buffalo Bill Center for the West in Cody, Wyo., where they are now kept.

During her first world flight attempt in March 1937, Earhart flew west from California and then crashed on takeoff from Hawaii, escaping injury but damaging her plane. Repairs to the Lockheed Electra caused lengthy delays, which made an alternate route and a reversal of the direction of the flight necessary because of changing seasonal weather patterns. She raised additional funds through promotional activities.

On her second attempt, Earhart departed from Miami on June 1, 1937, and successfully logged 22,000 miles with stops in Brazil, West Africa, India and Australia. On July 2, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, departed from Lae, New Guinea, to make the 2,556-mile flight east across open water to Howland Island, a U.S. possession near the Equator in the central Pacific. They never made it to the atoll. She had reported their position via radio at 8:44 a.m. that day. The U.S. Coast Guard’s Itasca, stationed near Howland Island, picked up her signals but was unable to contact her.

The search continues

President Franklin Roosevelt authorized a search of a quarter of a million square miles of the Pacific Ocean, the largest land/sea search ever undertaken and thought to have cost about $4 million. That effort was abandoned on July 18, 1937, but George Putnam kept trying to find out what had happened to his wife. He completed Earhart’s book Last Flight to help pay for his efforts. Work on the Wyoming cabin stopped after Earhart’s disappearance. On Jan. 5, 1939, Amelia Earhart was officially declared deceased. Putnam remarried twice after Earhart’s death. He died in 1950.

Amelia Earhart’s fame continues in contemporary times. Two women re-created her world flights, one in 1967 and one in 1997. Another female pilot in 2001 re-created one of Earhart’s earlier cross-country flights in an Avro Avian biplane.

Independent searchers still spend millions of dollars combing the Pacific trying to discover what happened to Earhart, Noonan and the Lockheed Electra. One organization, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has focused its efforts on the island of Nikumaroro, formerly Gardner Island, about 400 miles south of Howland Island.

A substantial donor to TIGHAR, Riverside, Wyo., resident Timothy Mellon, the chairman and majority stockholder of Pan Am Systems and the son of philanthropist Paul Mellon, sued the group in June 2013, asserting that TIGHAR’s team had actually found Earhart’s Electra in 2010, but did not release that information to the public because they wanted fundraising efforts for future expeditions to continue. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2013.

In Earhart’s hometown of Atchison, Kan., an annual festival is held in late July in honor of her birthday and to celebrate the accomplishments of the aviatrix. In Wyoming, the Meeteetse Museum sponsors a trek to the old mining town of Kirwin each August, which includes a hike to the cabin site that Putnam and Earhart chose before she disappeared.

Resources

Primary sources

• “Amelia Earhart Visits City in Autogiro,” Laramie Republican-Boomerang, June 4, 1931, 1.
• Cassidy, Megan. “Wyoming Man Denies Plot Against Amelia Earhart Plane Recovery Group.”Casper Star-Tribune, Aug. 11, 2013. Accessed Feb. 26, 2016, at
• http://trib.com/news/local/casper/wyoming-man-denies-plot-against-amelia-earhart-plane-recovery-group/article_c31f3ffe-5a21-516c-b9ea-8a38a8318f6e.html.
• Denver Post, June 3, 1931, 1.
• Dunrud, Carl M. Let’s Go! 85 Years of Adventure. Cody, Wyo.: WordsWorth, 1998, 25, 91, 95-98.
• Dunrud, Joan. Meeteetse Museums. Telephone interview with author, March 23, 2016.
• Lorenzi, Rosella. “Hunt for Amelia Earhart Resumes in Pacific.” June 1, 2015. Discovery News. http://news.discovery.com/adventure/hunt-for-amelia-earhart-resumes-in-pacific-150601.htm.
• Rock Springs Rocket, June 4, 1931.
• TIGHAR. “TIGHAR Sued in Federal Court.” The Institute for Aviation History Forum. Comments listed with date of June 8, 2013. Accessed Feb. 26, 2016, at https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?topic=1206.0.
• Wyoming State Tribune and Cheyenne State Leader, June 4, 1931, 1.

Secondary sources

• Experimental Aircraft Association. “1931 Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro 'Miss Champion' - NC11609” https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa-museum/museum-collection/aircraft-collection-folder/1931-pitcairn-pca-2-autogiro-miss-champion---nc11609.
• House, Marguerite. “Amelia Earhart’s Wyoming Connection.” Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Nov. 10, 2014. Accessed May 3, 2016, at
• http://centerofthewest.org/2014/11/10/amelia_earhart/.
• Lincoln Highway National Museum and Archives, “1931 Amelia Earhart Travels the Lincoln Highway, Beech-Nut Transcontinental Autogiro Tour.” Accessed March 18, 2016, at http://www.lincoln-highway-museum.org/earhart/earhart-index.html.
• Lovell, Mary S. The Sound of Wings. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
• Rich, Doris. Amelia Earhart: A Biography. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
• Rumm, John. “Her Plane Vanished, Her Flight Jacket Didn’t.” Buffalo Bill Center of the West. March 17, 2014. Accessed Feb. 26, 2016, at
• http://centerofthewest.org/2014/03/17/plane-vanished-flight-jacket-didnt/.
• Van Pelt, Lori. Amelia Earhart: The Sky’s No Limit, American Heroes series. New York: Forge, 2005.
• ­­­­___________­­­­.“Airborne Amelia: Famed Aviatrix Left Her Mark in State.” Casper Star-Tribune, April 10, 2005, C1.
• ___________­­­­.“ “Splendid Dreams, Fond Memories: Former Kirwin Residents Recall Mining Town’s Heyday,” Casper Star-Tribune, Aug. 23, 2005, B1.
• ___________­­­­.“ “Amelia Earhart Once Winged Her Way Across Wyoming.” Wyoming Rural Electric News, October 2006, 18-20.
• ___________­­­­.“ “Amelia’s Autogiro Adventures,” Aviation History, March 2008.

For further reading and research

Amelia Earhart wrote several books about her experiences. Her husband, George Palmer Putnam and her sister, Muriel Morissey, also wrote books that contain more information about Earhart:

• Earhart, Amelia. 20 Hrs., 40 Mins.: Our Flight in the Friendship. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.
• ___________­­­­.“ The Fun of It. Press of Braunworth & Co., Inc., 1932.
• ___________­­­­.“ Last Flight. Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1988.
• ___________­­­­.“Wide Margins. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942.
• Morissey, Muriel with Carol L. Osborne. Amelia, My Courageous Sister. Osborne Publisher, 1987.
• Morissey, Muriel. Courage Is the Price. McCormick-Armstrong Publishing, 1963.
• Putnam, George Palmer. Soaring Wings. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939.
• Information about the women who re-created Amelia’s flights:
• Television documentaries:
• National Geographic’s “On Assignment,” The Travel Channel’s In Search of Amelia Earhart (Pioneer Productions, 2002), PBS The Final Hours: Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight (Romeo Delta Productions, 2001).

Books by the women who re-created Amelia’s world flight:

• Finch, Linda. No Limits. World Flight, 1996.
• Pellegreno, Ann. World Flight. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1971.
• Dr. Carlene Mendieta, a periodontist, re-created Amelia’s 1928 cross-country flight in an Avro Avian biplane. See more: Pro, Johnna A. “Happy Landings: Crowd Welcomes Pilot Recreating Earhart Flight,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sep. 6, 2001. Accessed March 18, 2016, at http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010906earhartreg3p3.asp.

More information about ongoing search activities:

• The official Earhart website, http://www.ameliaearhart.com.
• Nauticos, http://www.nauticos.com.
• The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), http://www.tighar.org.

Museums, archives and other resources:

• Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum, Atchison, Kan. http://www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org
• Amelia Earhart papers, George Palmer Putnam Collection, Purdue University Library archives. Accessed May 12, 2016 at http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm/search/collection/earhart.
• Forney Museum of Transportation, Denver, Colo. http://www.forneymuseum.org.
• Earhart, Amelia. “A Woman’s Place in Science,” radio broadcast, 1935; speech is about four minutes long. Accessed May 12, 2016 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDreaW2cEUI.
• Experimental Aircraft Association, Oshkosh, Wis., photos and technical specifications of the 1931 Pitcairn autogiro, http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa-museum/museum-collection/aircraft-collection-folder/1931-pitcairn-pca-2-autogiro-miss-champion---nc11609.
• Ninety-Nines, the international organization of women pilots, established in 1929 by 99 women pilots, Oklahoma City, Okla. Amelia Earhart served as the first president of the group. See more at http://www.ninety-nines.org
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Amelia Earhart-related items, http://airandspace.si.edu/search/?criteria=Amelia+Earhart.

Illustrations

• The photo of Earhart and her autogiro is from the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart papers, Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections. Used with permission and thanks.
• The photo of the Fokker trimotor is from the Aviation History Online Museum. Used with thanks.
• The photo of the Lockheed Vega is from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Used with thanks.
• The photo of the Pitcairn autogiro is from the website of the Experimental Aviation Museum. Used with thanks.
• The photo of the Lockheed Electra is from a website on the history of the Lockheed Martin aerospace company. Used with thanks.
• The photo of Earhart getting her hair cut is courtesy of the Dunrud family. Used with permission and thanks, and thanks also to Joan Dunrud and David Cunningham of the Meeteetse Museums.
• The Charles Belden photo of Earhart and Carl Dunrud on the corral gate is from the collections of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody, Wyo., gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Belden. Used with permission and thanks.
• The photo of the remains of the cabin on the DD was taken by the author in 2005.

Historian Mark Junge interviewed pilot Frank Shepperson, whose family has been ranching northwest of Casper, Wyo., for many years. Shepperson, a National High School Rodeo champion in bronc-riding and a National College Rodeo champion in bull-riding, discusses ranching, rodeo, and the use of airplanes in ranching. Shepperson is a former president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and also served on the Natrona County School Board.

This oral history, conducted on April 16, 2014, was provided by the Wyoming State Archives, which has begun an extensive aviation oral history project. Funding for the project came from the Curt Kaiser estate and the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund. New oral histories have been added to the WSA’s existing collection and include information about military, commercial and private pilots as well as airport employees and others.

Editor’s transcription notes: In most cases I have deleted redundant ands, ers, uhs, buts, false starts, etc. If I deleted an entire phrase, I have inserted ellipses … Where you find brackets [ ] I have added words for explanation or to complete an awkward sentence. Parentheses ( ) are used for incidental non-verbal sounds, like laughter. Words emphasized by the speaker are italicized.

Lori Van Pelt, assistant editor, WyoHistory.org, Sept. 12, 2015

JUNGE: OK. I’m going to put that on. As long as the cat doesn’t walk on it, I guess that tape recorder will work. OK. My name is Mark Junge. Today is the 16th of April, 2014 and I’m in the home of Frank Shepperson here, north of Casper. Where are we, exactly, Frank?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, southwest of Midwest, about 16 miles and northwest of Casper, about 40 miles.

JUNGE: We’re west of the interstate, I-25.

SHEPPERSON: Around 326 radial of the Casper BUR 17 DME.

JUNGE: What does that mean?

SHEPPERSON: That’s the aeronautical— (laughter)

JUNGE: OK. All right. I think you’re trying to show me up.

SHEPPERSON: No.

JUNGE: What is this valley we’re in here?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, this is the—actually the Shannon Formation—outcropping of the Shannon Formation. This particular valley used to be [00:01:00] what they called the Wolves’ Den. The old trappers used to have a fence across there and put wolves and coyotes in there in the summer and feed them wild horses and then, when their furs became prime in the winter, they’d trap them back out of there. It’s kind of one of the world’s first fur farms. (laughter)

JUNGE: So, they actually—they actually caught them and kept them in?

SHEPPERSON: Right, because there is a big spring up here which is our house water, and so they had water and stuff and they built that big fence and kept them in there. Of course, a lot of them had babies and stuff. But, when their furs got prime, they got them back out of there.

JUNGE: Got them back out to their own country.

SHEPPERSON: No, they got them back out and turned in their hides for money.

JUNGE: Oh, OK. Well, now, I want to know what we’re looking at. To my left, out the sliding glass door—your front sliding glass door onto the porch—I’m looking at a rimrock over there with some hoodoos on it. What am I looking at over there?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, that is the Shannon Formation that I was speaking of. [00:02:00] In places in Wyoming, that produces water down the creek that produces oil. There’s Shannon Oil Field. It’s one of the sand formations.

JUNGE: Then, opposite that, I’m looking here, opposite to the—I guess this would be the southeast.

SHEPPERSON: That’s correct.

JUNGE: What am I looking at over there?

SHEPPERSON: OK. That’s—those formations make up what we call the Teapot Divide. It divides Teapot Creek from Castle Creek. But—excuse me. Go ahead. But, at any rate, there are different formations over there, like the Sussex and the Parkman, and it’s where those formations—

JUNGE: What creek is this out here?

SHEPPERSON: Castle Creek.

JUNGE: Castle Creek. Which way does it run?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, right through Midwest. It goes down into the Salt Creek and into the Powder River, right straight north into Montana.

JUNGE: OK. Is there water flowing in that? It that an intermittent stream or does it flow constantly?

SHEPPERSON: It—there are springs in it constantly but it doesn’t flow constantly. It will dry up.

JUNGE: [00:03:00] OK. Is there enough there to take care of your cattle?

SHEPPERSON: In places—in places. In places, we use artesian wells and reservoirs. Then, there are springs along it. In places, it keeps water and in some places, it doesn’t.

JUNGE: Now, I would assume that this country is just like Louisiana, coming—driving up here today. I almost got—didn’t get stuck. I got stuck just a little ways down the road here in this thick gumbo. But, that’s not normal, is it?

SHEPPERSON: For us to be wet? Yeah, this time of year it is. It is. This is our wettest time of year. This is when we get our moisture—April and May—and this makes our yearly grass.

JUNGE: Have you had much moisture this year?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, it’s been a pretty tough winter. We’ve had quite a bit of snow. In fact, it’s the first time in several years our reservoirs are full and things are looking good.

JUNGE: The cattle are in good shape?

SHEPPERSON: Yes. We’ve had to feed a lot more than usual but they’re in good shape.

JUNGE: Do you raise your own hay?

SHEPPERSON: No, we don’t raise any hay. [00:04:00] We just strictly range and, as a general rule, we just feed some protein. As the grasses become more mature in the summer, we take a little—what we call “cake”—and it’s a protein pellet and feed them two or three pounds to keep their protein up. They just graze year-round.

JUNGE: Oh, OK. Otherwise, they’re pretty much grass-fed?

SHEPPERSON: That’s correct. They are completely.

JUNGE: What kind of—I know people talk about a cow-calf operation and a bull operation. What is this?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, this is a cow-calf operation and we save some of them over, you know, stockers or—we keep a lot of heifers and breed some and then sell some as yearlings.

JUNGE: Well, I had to—I had to push some of your calves off the road (laughter) coming in. I tried not to scare them, but they’re ornery little things until you just practically get your bumper up on them and then they skidder over to the side. Have you always had Angus?

SHEPPERSON: [00:05:00] No, we had Herefords years ago. You know, there’s been kind of a switch over the last 50 years. The Angus seem to do a little better. Also, the certified Angus beef—they bring a little more per pound than a Hereford does. Our main thing is our grass and taking care of the range. Our main thing is to change—you know—the sunlight and the photosynthesis producing grass and change it in a renewable resource so people can eat good protein. So, whatever does it most efficiently because of our labor and brings the best, whether it’s wildlife, sheep, cattle. Whatever does it best for us, that’s what we run.

JUNGE: Lisa said you were into sheep for a while, right?

SHEPPERSON: Well, as this ranch has expanded, you know, we’ve leased other places and sometimes, [00:06:00] when you lease, some people kind of going out of business—we buy their sheep, and lease their land, and run them for a while. Our main business has generally been cattle, but we have run some sheep, yes.

JUNGE: Do the sheep do better here?

SHEPPERSON: No, the predators are so bad and the labor and the predators make sheep very tough in this country.

JUNGE: What sort of predators do you have?

SHEPPERSON: Mountain lions, coyotes. Coyotes are the main ones; eagles, mountain lion.

JUNGE: So, in a normal year, what percent of your flock would you lose to predators?

SHEPPERSON: Well, like, if you’re lambing, anytime you lamb before the first part of May when a big part of the eagles fly back to Alaska, you lose almost every lamb. They’ll just decimate them. But, I would say, you know, depending on how good a job you do in your predator control, if you do not do predator control, you lose [00:07:00] close to 50 percent of lambs.

JUNGE: From eagles only or–

SHEPPERSON: No, coyotes, mainly.

JUNGE: Mountain lion?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: I didn’t know you—I knew they had a problem with mountain lion in the southern Bighorns because there is one lady that was fighting that like crazy. What was her name?

SHEPPERSON: Bonnie Smith.

JUNGE: Bonnie Smith. Right. Do you know her?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, she just lives up here a little ways.

JUNGE: Oh, really?

SHEPPERSON: We’re at the south end of the Bighorns, and we summer on the Bighorns.

JUNGE: Yeah, Lisa was saying there’s a—what do they call it—a 33-mile driveway?

SHEPPERSON: That’s correct. That goes right to the—it’s right on our west edge. So, we can take out the gate right on the driveway to the Bighorns.

JUNGE: Never have to worry about the Interstate or any roads?

SHEPPERSON: No, there’s a county road through there, but there are no paved roads.

JUNGE: Are you going to drive again this spring?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, very definitely.

JUNGE: You’re going to be a part of that?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, yes, very definitely.

JUNGE: So, when you said earlier that they’re keeping you busy, is that what they—is that what you meant?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Yeah. Oh, yeah, we trail cattle. This is what I love to do, so I’ll [00:08:00] keep doing it until I can’t.

JUNGE: Yeah. Well, I didn’t come to talk about the ranching operation, but, you know, for somebody—one of your grandkids, maybe, that wants to know—it’s kind of nice to familiarize yourself or familiarize the listener to where we’re sitting here and a little bit about the significance of this country. Now, the significance of this country, as far as I ever knew, was oil.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, well, you know, the oil field is in the middle of our ranch, but we don’t have much to do with the oil field. You know, we don’t have—where our mineral rights are is up here where my grandparents homesteaded, and there’s no oil up here. So, we make our complete living with livestock. But, we deal with oil companies a lot. In fact, we run our cattle in the wintertime right down there in the oil field, and there’s a symbiotic relationship. You know, they [poop?] out warm water all winter and things like that, and the people are good. They let us know if we have any problems with our cattle down there.

JUNGE: Well, why is it that the Sheppersons never became [00:09:00] oil barons?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) I don’t know. We prefer cow manure to grease on our hands. (laughter)

JUNGE: But, was it by choice or just accident?

SHEPPERSON: Well, probably, both. My granddad originally homesteaded down there in about 1900. Then, when the oil boom came and the people came and, of course, there was a lot of trouble down there, fighting over the oil, well, this was better land up here and there was an old guy up here that left. So, he moved up here. That moved us out of the oil.

JUNGE: Well, what kind of troubles did he have?

SHEPPERSON: Well, they were claim jumping and arguing about who had what leases and stuff. You know, the oil company down here is one of the—it used to be the lightest—largest, light oil-producing field in the world—the Salt Creek Oil Field. So, when it boomed, it really, really boomed.

JUNGE: Well, then, did your grandfather homestead, [00:10:00] thinking about oil, or did he homestead–

SHEPPERSON: No. No, he was a livestock person and homesteaded right here on this creek.

JUNGE: Right where we’re at?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. The end of his homestead is actually at those rocks. He homesteaded down the creek a little ways.

JUNGE: OK, and then he passed the ranch onto his son, your dad?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. My son bought it from–

JUNGE: Dad was Frank, senior?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, that’s correct.

JUNGE: One of the things I ask people is when and where [were you] born? When and where were you born?

SHEPPERSON: I was born in ’42, right here in Casper. The fact is my dad and my mother, me and my siblings—we all went to the University of Wyoming to college and were raised right here.

JUNGE: What was your birthdate?

SHEPPERSON: My birthdate? The fourth month, seventh day of ’42.

JUNGE: So, you have just turned 71?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, actually, I just turned 72 last—a couple weeks ago.

JUNGE: I’m going to turn 71 in June. So, I’ve got to [00:11:00] respect my elders.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, that—don’t forget that. (laughter)

JUNGE: Well, tell me—Frank, tell me a little bit about growing up in this country.

SHEPPERSON: Well, we grew up. You know, my parents went through the Depression here and my granddad, everybody went broke. Then—so, things were very, very tough and we had to work off of the ranch quite a bit, you know, to make ends meet. Then, in ’49, my dad leased some country and the ’49 blizzard wiped out our cattle. We went broke again and so my biggest goal in life was being able to ranch without having to work off the ranch to make a living. So, when dad died in ’69, we weren’t solvent. In other words, we owed more than it was worth. But, I taught school, worked in an oil field, and then went rodeoing. When I came back from rodeoing, I put the livestock money and my money back into getting everything paid off. When I came back [00:12:00] in the late ’70s and built this place, I was debt-free. Then, the early ’80s hit and all the ranchers had a really, really tough time and we were sitting here debt-free at that time because I had been off rodeoing instead of spending money. So, that’s when we started accumulating a lot more land. Of course, my kids were born about then and they were my labor force. So, they became part of the outfit right to begin with. They were owners right to begin with.

JUNGE: So, yeah, that noise we’re hearing—that’s your hearing aid, right?

SHEPPERSON: That’s correct.

JUNGE: OK. Can you hear without that or not?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. Does it bother you?

JUNGE: Well, I’m just thinking it will come over the–you know, come over the tape. Can you hear me now?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Oh, good, good. That’s great. OK. So, you were raised during—your dad was raised during the Depression?

SHEPPERSON: And my mother, yeah.

JUNGE: And your mother. Those habits that they had –[00:13:00] saving every–

SHEPPERSON: Very frugal.

JUNGE: Yeah. They passed those onto you?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, we’re pretty frugal. But, you know, you’ve got to be to make a living ranching this country. You know, I’ll tell you, there have been tough times since. There have been ups and downs in agriculture all the way through. But, since then, I’ve never had to go off the ranch to get a job or anything. We’ve just—you know, one of the secrets is tighten your belt. Spend less than you make. (laughter)

JUNGE: Yeah, I was reading in a book called A Vaquero of the Brush Country, By J. Frank Dobie. Do you know who he is?

SHEPPERSON: Know of him, yeah.

JUNGE: Yeah, he was a Texas historian, and he said that—he did this book about this cowboy named John Young, and John Young said he had a Spanish breakfast, which means you just pull your belt up a little bit and put it in a different notch.

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Yeah, that’s right.

JUNGE: Is that how it was?

SHEPPERSON: That’s how it was, yeah, tighten your belt, yeah. Yeah, it was—you know, we had some really tough times.

JUNGE: [00:14:00] Tell me what life was like as a kid. What did you do as a kid?

SHEPPERSON: This range was not fenced, and so there were no fences anywhere. So, when we’d run livestock, wherever the livestock were, we’d take the sheep wagon or if there was a line camp up there, we just moved up there where we summered our cattle and every day horseback and keep them back from the neighbors. You know, they’d have—over this big ridge—one neighbor over it, so we’d try to keep our cattle on that side of the ridge. So, every day, we’d just horse back and we weren’t at the house very much. (laughter)

JUNGE: So, you didn’t have time for play?

SHEPPERSON: No, our main play was all of our lives, we trained and broke horses and stuff like that and, you know, the rodeo part and stuff. So, the horses were most of our entertainment. No, we never even went to town in the summertime.

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: So, you were breaking horses? [00:15:00]

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. The whole family has their whole life. That’s one of the things we do is train a lot of horses. You know, with my son rodeoing—his horses we trained, and Amy was the national champion roper in college on a horse we trained. So, we raise and train horses, too.

JUNGE: What sort of champion was she?

SHEPPERSON: Pardon?

JUNGE: What did she—what event did she participate in?

SHEPPERSON: Roping—breakaway roping.

JUNGE: Breakaway. What about Lynn?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, she went to the college finals. Lisa—all of them have gone to the finals. Of course, Les won the National Finals Rodeo in the steer wrestling down in—a couple of years—in 2012, down to Las Vegas. But, yeah, they’ve all competed.

JUNGE: Why did—your family is famous for rodeo. Why did you guys—more so than other people—rise up in rodeo?

SHEPPERSON: Probably, because of our [00:16:00] lifestyle, because we’re horseback—that’s how we make our living is with our horses. So, if you’re going to have—it’s kind of like cows. If you’re going to have horses, you’d better have the best one. My theory was always—is to keep—if a kid’s—if you put a kid on a plug, he’s uncomfortable. He’s not going to like it. So, I’ve tried to keep the very best horses possible to where they enjoyed it. That’s—when you live this far out, you don’t play tennis. (laughter) We’ve got—you saw the arena as you came by. In the evenings, we get something in and rope or train horses, yeah.

JUNGE: Are you still doing that?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Did you do any trapping or hunting or fishing as a kid?

SHEPPERSON: Trapped. The hunting—(laughter) when I was young, we went broke. When we went broke in ’49, ’50, and then, we did our hunting to survive. (laughter) Yeah, so, yeah, we—[00:17:00] I had to do a lot of wild game in those days. But, now that I don’t have to, I don’t (laughter) eat much wild game. But, there’s a pretty good fishing stream on our mountain camp, and I’ll take the grandkids over to the fishing stream once in a while.

JUNGE: What did—where did you go to school? Where did you first go to school?

SHEPPERSON: Midwest.

JUNGE: At the grade school?

SHEPPERSON: Midwest; grade school through high school at Midwest, then the University of Wyoming.

JUNGE: So, there was no little country school out here anywhere?

SHEPPERSON: No, no. No, we had to drive back from here in every day to go to school. Then, in the wintertime, sometimes we’d get lessons and not go for a week or so, you know, if the weather gets bad.

JUNGE: If it blocked the road? Did your dad drive you into town?

SHEPPERSON: Dad or Mom, yeah.

JUNGE: No school bus came out?

SHEPPERSON: No, no.

JUNGE: Well, how many miles is it to the school from here?

SHEPPERSON: Sixteen.

JUNGE: Sixteen?

SHEPPERSON: The Interstate wasn’t here then. (laughter)

JUNGE: No? [00:18:00] (laughter) This was still the same road, unpaved?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Maybe, with a little less gravel on it.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, there was no gravel. (laughter)

JUNGE: Did you—Did you guys ride wagons, too? Did you have—you had horses but did you have wagons?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, the little wagon, sitting over there. We drive a few teams and stuff like that. My granddad, of course—that’s all he used was wagons. But, we still hook up some horses to the wagon.

JUNGE: Frank, do you have any stories about your grandfather? Did you know him at all?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, very well, yeah. Yeah, he was a—he was a good man. You know, things were different then, and the reason this place ended up so small is he believed—in those days, it was cheaper to run on government land than it was on private land because of the taxes and stuff. So, a lot of these homesteaders that left offered them to my granddad for less than a dollar an acre, and he said, “No, it’s cheaper for the government to own [00:19:00] them.” That’s one reason why there’s quite a bit of government land around here. You know, he didn’t foresee that someday that that would really make a difference.

JUNGE: Yeah, I think it’s kind of interesting that when people—remember the Sagebrush Rebellion?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: James Watt was secretary of the Interior [U.S. Department of the Interior] at the time and people were saying, “Well, we ought to get this land into private hands.” Well, the government offered them the private land for a long time, and they didn’t want it for the very reason that you listed or gave, which was why should you pay for anything when you can get it for free? Did your grandfather have to pay grazing fees?

SHEPPERSON: No. No, there were no grazing fees then.

JUNGE: There was no–

SHEPPERSON: Well, there wouldn’t even be the land then.

JUNGE: Right, and your dad—

SHEPPERSON: I think the grazing fees came in when Dad was around, yeah.

JUNGE: But, it wasn’t—you didn’t have to pay a huge fee?

SHEPPERSON: The grazing fee, truthfully, isn’t very high. Our problem is they hire somebody out [00:20:00] of Iowa that goes into range management and he comes out here at 23 years old and tries to tell us we’re doing everything wrong. We’ve been here 100 and some years. (laughter) About the time we get him educated and they realize that we’re doing things right, they move on up the ladder and they bring in another one. (laughter)

JUNGE: What do you remember about your granddad?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, he lived right on the other side of that rock there. You know, he was—he was a very good horseman and stuff and just … didn’t have any big incentive

to—you know, he’d been through—he went broke during the Depression like everybody else. All the kids had to leave and go get jobs and … so things were tough for him.

JUNGE: What about your dad? What do you remember about your dad?

SHEPPERSON: My dad was one of those guys that was probably one of the biggest, [00:21:00] toughest, hard-working guys you ever met in your life, you know. He really, really worked hard, and that’s what killed him at a young age. He died at 53. But, you know, he went through that ’49 blizzard and got paralyzed from over-exhaustion. But, he had rodeoed and stuff, too; a good horseman, a good cowboy.

JUNGE: He got overworked during that winter of ’49?

SHEPPERSON: He went two weeks without sleeping and trying to get his cattle fed, yeah, and then had to go back to [Mills?]. He thought it was from taking those pills, but in Mills they said it was just over-exhaustion. So, he was pretty much paralyzed for about a year.

JUNGE: Did he pull out of it?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, but probably not 100 percent, but, yeah, he pulled out of it.

JUNGE: So, let’s see. How long ago did he die?

SHEPPERSON: Sixty-nine—1969, yeah.

JUNGE: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

SHEPPERSON: [00:22:00] One brother and one sister.

JUNGE: So, your family really is bigger than the one you grew up in–

SHEPPERSON: Yes, that’s correct.

JUNGE:—your immediate family.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Where are your brother and sister?

SHEPPERSON: My sister and her husband ranch up by Buffalo [Wyo.]. They own that horn on the Big Horn. Their land goes across the Interstate. They live right up under the mountain there. They have a nice ranch. My brother ranches down on Twenty Mile Creek by West Lance Creek—yeah, West Lance Creek.

JUNGE: In the eastern part of the state?

SHEPPERSON: Right, yeah.

JUNGE: OK. So, your—the other one—your sister, you say? She lives at the southern end of the Bighorns.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: In what—Crazy Woman Creek—the Powder River?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, Crazy Woman Creek. Their house is right on—south of Crazy Woman Creek.

JUNGE: That’s close to the Bozeman Trail, isn’t it—the Bozeman Trail?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, the Bozeman Trail goes—part of it goes through our place.

JUNGE: Oh, really?

SHEPPERSON: The Bozeman Trail split, you know. It’s up where we call the [Oglala?] Divide [00:23:00] on the way to Gillette. It’s about 25 miles out there. But, then, one fork of it—I can show you on maps—went down Salt Creek here. So, there’s a historic trail that went right down Salt Creek through our place and–

JUNGE: Are there any historic sites along the–

SHEPPERSON: Well, you know, I went to the Trail Center [National Historic Trails Interpretive Center, Casper, Wyo.] in there and they showed me the map that it went through there, but no—there are not historic sites up there.

JUNGE: Can you still see the ruts?

SHEPPERSON: Well, yeah, the old road and stuff is still there, yeah.

JUNGE: Have you ever found any old horseshoes or mule shoes?

SHEPPERSON: Well, you know, we—(laughter) one of the things in this country is, you know, if a kid’s on horseback and comes home with an arrowhead or a horseshoe or a mule shoe or anything and misses some cattle, he catches quite a bit of ribbing. So, (laughter) if they find one, they kind of keep it hidden for a month or two. (laughter) Our main thing is our livestock [00:24:00] business.

JUNGE: Keeping your mind on the job.

SHEPPERSON: Right.

JUNGE: Yeah, my dad used to tell me that all the time. “Pay attention to what you’re doing. Keep your mind focused on one thing.” Well, it was hard because I was ADD Attention Deficit Disorder]. (laughter) You know, it was hard to concentrate, and I don’t think I realized that until much later. But, yeah, he was always big for—you know, don’t send out two men when one man will do the job, keep your nose to the grindstone. Your dad was like that?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. My dad was one of those kinds of guys—you know, my stepdad was completely different. My father-in-law was completely different. But, my dad—when we’d start on a job, I mean, it was daylight to dark or before daylight to after dark every day until we got that job done, you know, if it took a week or a month or two or three days. But, then, when you got your job done, he’d take a week off. You could read western books and go loop around for a while and then start another project. But, yeah, if he got after something, you know—[00:25:00] and, of course, a lot of this country, we didn’t have horse trailers and stuff like that. So, even riding to our work, you’d have to leave at three in the morning to get where you’re going to be by daylight. Then, you’d have to walk your horse all day, do your work, and then you’d have to ride home that night after dark, you know. So–

JUNGE: How did you do it?

SHEPPERSON: We didn’t know there was any other way. (laughter)

JUNGE: Man! Do you have any stories about your dad and some of his hardships?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I guess I told you one of his main hardships, you know, when he went through that—being paralyzed and stuff. I think we had 60 head of cows left after that blizzard. Mom took care of them. My sister kind of did the cooking, and I produced the rabbits and whatever else to eat. I’d get two or three [shells?]. But, he was one of those guys that—you know, like I said, he [00:26:00] worked hard. When I was a senior in high school, we built this fence over here and a coach came and wanted to recruit me … into athletics. Mom told him where we were camped over here, and it was about 110 in the shade. Of course, we were doing everything by hand. He couldn’t drive all the way. He had to walk partway because the car wouldn’t cross the creek. He walked over there, and Dad wouldn’t let us stop working. He had to visit and go along with us. (laughter) Pretty soon, he says, “Well, you’re too tough to be at my college,” and turned around and left. (laughter)

JUNGE: Where was he from?

SHEPPERSON:Powell.

JUNGE: Northwest–

SHEPPERSON: Harold Farmer was his name. Yeah, you might have known him. (laughter)

JUNGE: No.

SHEPPERSON: Wanted me to play basketball up there, yeah.

JUNGE: You were—were you always a big kid?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, pretty good-sized. I was recruited at the university [University of Wyoming] to play football when Devaney [Robert S. “Bob” Devaney, head football coach at the University of Wyoming from 1957-1961 and at the University of Nebraska from 1962-1972] was there, but he wouldn’t let me ride horses or do anything, so I declined [00:27:00] and rodeoed instead.

JUNGE: Bob Devaney—the guy who went to Nebraska?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: He recruited you?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: How tall are you?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, about six-three and a half.

JUNGE: How much do you weigh?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, about 235.

JUNGE: When you were being recruited, how big were you?

SHEPPERSON: I was about six-two and a half [6’2 and 1⁄2”] and 210.

JUNGE: A little leaner and meaner? (laughter) Well, I won’t say not—maybe, I should be careful when I say that.

SHEPPERSON: That’s true. I’ve gotten meaner but not leaner. (laughter)

JUNGE: Funny—that’s what your daughter said. But, she says you’d better listen to him when he wants you to do something. Did you get that from your dad?

SHEPPERSON: Yes. Well, you know, when my dad was around here—all the ranchers still help each other. You know, we don’t have a big, hired crew. So, branding, we go to ranch and ranch and ranch and take our crew and our family. But, everywhere my dad went, everybody called him Dad. [00:28:00] Even at the other ranches, they’d say, “Frank, take the crew and go do this or do that.” He was kind of—always the boss, you know. Everybody—you know, he knew how to divide people up horseback, you know, which is an art. You put somebody that knows the country with somebody that doesn’t know the country and somebody that’s on a green horse that’s not very good with somebody that’s on a really good horse. So, you’d pair people up so somebody isn’t in a jam and not knowing what they’re doing.

JUNGE: He was a good organizer.

SHEPPERSON: Yes, yes, very good.

JUNGE: Were you the same way?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, pretty much. I—yeah, we—you know, my father-in-law was a very good organizer. But, know, when we gather, brand, or anything, [everybody] just knows their job, you know. We’ve done it so our—my yeah, you everybody many years and stuff, and it’s pretty organized. I’m not the organizer today. Lisa and Lynn are the organizers today, but –

JUNGE: Well, do you think that that [00:29:00] character trait you’re talking about—the organization person—is that inherited or do you, because of the environment that you’re in—it just leads to that or what?

SHEPPERSON: You know, probably, a little bit of both, but in the environment we’re in, it’s very necessary. We’re always short-handed, a big job, and, you know, like, gathering the Teapot; you know, thirty thousand acres. You have four or five riders. You’ve got to be organized and know where you’re going to go, and you only gather a portion of it per ride. So, you’d better be organized, yeah.

JUNGE: You only can gather a portion of it?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, if it’s thirty thousand acres and you only have four or five riders and the cattle are all over it and it’s that rough country you’re looking at right over there with the trees and stuff and, you know, like in the summertime, we gather off the Bighorns. There are ten thousand acres in there, but it’s where the middle fork of the canyon is, and if you take four or five riders, it takes about four [00:30:00] trips through there. Then, you still don’t quite have them all.

JUNGE: Did you go right up through Outlaw Cave, through that area?

SHEPPERSON: We’re way above Outlaw Cave. You know where the Bighorn Mountain Road crosses the middle fork there? They call it the culverts—at that little cave.

JUNGE: I’ve been up there past the [Bar BC?]. Is that what you mean?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, actually, we’re plumb on top. We go past this, over the top.

JUNGE: Towards Hazelton?

SHEPPERSON: No. No—right up that same creek—the middle fork of Powder River but where it’s on top of the mountain. The camp we use is on both sides of the mountain, right there on top, kind of the head of the middle fork of the Powder River.

JUNGE: Of course, you guys just … you put your horses to pasture, and then you’ve got your fishing rods out and you fish the middle fork, right?

SHEPPERSON: Right. (laughter) I wish it was that easy, but that sounds good. (laughter)

JUNGE: Did you know Norris Graves?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, very well, yeah. He’s kind of one of my heroes, yeah. [00:31:00]

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. His boy and I rodeoed together. I was with his boy when he broke his back over at—it wasn’t [Belle Fourche?]. I think it was Belle Fourche, [S.D.] yeah.

JUNGE: Kenny?

SHEPPERSON: Kenny, yeah.

JUNGE: He broke his back?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, a horse tipped over in the chute and broke his back. He was riding with me in my airplane and we were going to Dickinson [N.D.]. As soon as I got done competing and was waiting for him when he got hurt–

JUNGE: Now, what did your dad have to say about you being in rodeo?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, he didn’t care one way or another. The first rodeo I entered was Gillette [Wyo.] in high school. I entered everything but the bull ride, and then my mother said, “If we’re going plumb to Gillette, you’d better get into bull-riding, too.” (laughter)

JUNGE: So, she was for it?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. They–

JUNGE: What year was that? Do you remember?

SHEPPERSON: It would have been in the ’50s.

JUNGE: When you were still—let’s see. You were just a [00:32:00] young teenager then.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. I rode bulls through college and with the [nights?] through college I was riding bulls.

JUNGE: So, you’ve done them all—all these events. What events have you done?

SHEPPERSON: All of them, yeah.

JUNGE: Go ahead. Tick them off. What are they?

SHEPPERSON: Well, saddle bronc, bareback, bull riding, calf roping, team roping and steer wrestling.

JUNGE: Which is the one you enjoyed the most?

SHEPPERSON: You know, I really loved the bronc-riding. I was the national champion in high school and I won the region in college, but because of my size and stuff, you know, the horses—a big guy like me covers them up. You can’t win as much, so I switched to the bull riding.

JUNGE: A big guy covers them up?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. You know, big guys can ride them and stuff, but a horse can’t jump as high, and, you know, they just don’t look as good. You get a little jockey—just like a racehorse. I couldn’t ride a racehorse and outrun a little guy. It’s kind of the same way in the bronc-riding. You know, they jump higher and they kick higher and—

JUNGE: So, when you were out here in this [00:33:00] country gathering up cattle, did you have to do a lot of roping?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. We still do.

JUNGE: So, give me an example of this because I’m trying to picture what you did. Say, you found a cow in this rough country up here and you wanted to bring him in. Would you just push him with the horse or what—rope him?

SHEPPERSON: Well, if she’s just got a problem you can fix while you’re out there, you’d just rope her and fix it while you’re out there, yeah. You know, like if we miss branding some calves or anything, we’ll rope them on the trail. That’s my wife coming.

JUNGE: Oh, OK. I hope she doesn’t mind us just chatting.

SHEPPERSON: No.

JUNGE: OK. So, you started out when you were what–about 15 in high school?

SHEPPERSON: Rodeoing?

JUNGE: Yeah.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, actually, yeah, we practiced around here before then.

JUNGE: Were you a high school champion?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, national champion.

JUNGE: A national high school champion. Where did you have your championship?

SHEPPERSON: In bronc-riding. [00:34:00]

JUNGE: But, I mean, what–

SHEPPERSON: Oh, it was in—the championship rodeo was in South Dakota—Hot Springs, South Dakota.

JUNGE: Do you remember that?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: What do you remember about that?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Oh, I just—I drew the really good horses until we got down to the end and I think they issued the horses. They gave me the toughest national finals horse. (laughter)

JUNGE: You still won it.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, I still won it, yeah.

JUNGE: Did you steer wrestle, too?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: How did you do in that?

SHEPPERSON: My horse went lame just before that. I placed but I didn’t win it.

JUNGE: So, you have to train that horse to do steer wrestling?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, very definitely.

JUNGE: [Were] you riding a quarter horse?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, running quarter horses.

JUNGE: I’m a little interested in your steer-wrestling can almost picture your face and your hat flying off as you’re grabbing the steer’s horns. What was the fastest time you ever put in on a steer?

SHEPPERSON: [00:35:00] Oh, you know, the times on steer-wrestling really vary with the score, you know; like a seven is really good in Cheyenne because it’s a [30-foot?] score. But, when you start at the same time the steer does, a three isn’t too great. … I was two point eight over there and two point seven or two point eight over there in Fargo.

JUNGE: Two point eight seconds?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: In other words, you break the trip wire, whatever you call that.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, the barrier.

JUNGE: You break the barrier, and in two point eight seconds later, you’ve got the steer turned over.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: You’ve got to be awfully strong to do that, don’t you? (laughter) Have you ever had a problem steer wrestling and been injured?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, not bad. One year, I was leading through the world championship, and I banged my knee up in Cheyenne. That put me out for most of the rest of the year. I ended up third in the nation that year, and that was ’74. The next year, I won it. But, [00:36:00] not real bad; the fact is I’m in good health.

JUNGE: It looks like you have all your fingers.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. I cut one of them open but –

JUNGE: Oh, the middle finger on the right hand?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: How did you do that?

SHEPPERSON: I was roping and tied on hard and fast and when I grabbed—I got a coil on it and nipped it off.

JUNGE: It nipped it right off. Did you know what you did? (laughter) Man! So, how come—how come you can avoid the horns on a steer? How do you do that?

SHEPPERSON: Well, there’s a method. You get down on their back and you get down with this hand to protect your face if they sit up and throw a horn at you and end up behind the horns. It takes a little training but—

JUNGE: Where did you train?

SHEPPERSON: Where did I train? Well, I started out right out here in the sagebrush. (laughter)

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Is that [00:37:00] how—I mean, because you had to do it or because you just wanted to try it?

SHEPPERSON: Wanted to, yeah.

JUNGE: You didn’t have to do it?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, no, no, no. Nobody ever pushed me to–

JUNGE: Well, where did that—where did that come in? I mean, did people have to? You didn’t have to wrestle.

SHEPPERSON: You know, to a degree it does. Anybody that has ever lost a rope on a cow out here and that’s the only rope you’ve got—if you’ve got to jump off to catch it (laughter) to get your rope back, there is a case to having to. (laughter)

JUNGE: That’s where the tradition comes from.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: I’ve … always thought that was the toughest thing to do, [more] so than bulls because you have to be—well, … to be a good steer wrestler?

SHEPPERSON: The good news is it still takes a good cowboy, good horsemanship, a good horse but you’ve got to ride him correctly and stuff like that. Then, you’ve got to be—you don’t have to be huge but you need to be strong for your size, you know; [00:38:00] athletic and strong for your size.

JUNGE: You’ve got a pretty good grip. Are you still pretty strong? You don’t lose that, do you? (laughter) Well, is that because you’re working out or because that’s just the way—

SHEPPERSON: You know, I don’t know.

JUNGE: Maybe, your wife knows that. What’s your wife’s name?

SHEPPERSON: Susan.

JUNGE: Susan, I’m Mark.

SUSAN: Hi. How are you?

JUNGE: Good. Do you know what we’re doing?

SUSAN: No.

JUNGE: We’re just doing an interview with your husband about his career in rodeo and also we will be getting into aviation.

SUSAN: Oh, OK.

JUNGE: OK. So, you were—tell me about your championships now. How many years, where, when—

SHEPPERSON: About my championships? Well, I had a championship in high school, and in college, I was the national champion bull-rider.

JUNGE: From UW?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, and when I was a freshman, we had the national championship rodeo team. I worked five events at the college finals. [00:39:00] Then, in professional, I came back to the ranch and I taught school, worked in the oil fields, saved my money up, and when I went professional rodeo, I went to the finals—oh, what—six, seven times, Sue? I ended up second a time or two and third. But, one of the times I was third, like I said, when I hurt my knee. I won the championship. Then, things were paid for here at the ranch, and that was my number one goal forever–ranch.

JUNGE:… to build a ranch and not have to work off of the ranch? What year was it you won the championship? ’75. Was steer wrestling?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, sir.

JUNGE: Wow—a guy from Midwest, Wyoming, wins the world championship! I’ll bet you were pretty proud.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, except it’s very, very important for—when you reach a goal, to set a new one immediately, you know, because you don’t want to try to live on your past laurels. I see that happen too many times and people, you know, [00:40:00] try to live in the past and turn to alcohol and stuff like that. It’s better to just keep moving.

JUNGE: Did you pick that up from your dad?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, quite a bit, I guess. I don’t know. I guess it was mainly from my goals, what I wanted to do, and I guess my main goal was to build a ranch out here and not have to work off this place to–

JUNGE: Did you really think that you could pay off a ranch by rodeoing?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, actually, you pay off a ranch by rodeoing in the fact that you cut all the expenses off of the ranch. I’d come home in the spring and fall, and that’s probably why I didn’t win more championships, is every summer I was here to do the branding and get the cattle to the summer pasture, and that fall I’d come in and work the cattle and ship them. But, there was no expense for the ranch. All the cattle money went back into the ranch. But, also, at that time, we made pretty good money rodeoing.

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, you know, like Winston cigarettes gave me—the year I won it—I think they gave me $10,000 for each half [00:41:00] and–

JUNGE: For each half?

SHEPPERSON: Pardon?

JUNGE: For each half?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, for each, so I got about $20,000 from Winston cigarettes. You know, in 1975, that was quite a bit of money.

JUNGE: When you say each half, what do you mean?

SHEPPERSON: Well, half a season.

JUNGE: Oh, OK. So, $20,000 was pretty good money?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: How did you get to rodeos?

SHEPPERSON: How did I what?

JUNGE: How did you get to them?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, I had a pickup and trailer, and we’d haul four or five guys that were bronc, bareback riders; Joe Alexander. A lot of these guys travelled with me; like I said, Kenny. I had my horses. In later years, the fact is I even had two rigs because I had good horses and people—other people riding your horses—they pay you a fourth of what they win. So, that was paying for my horses going. So, I got my airplane out and went to quite a few of them on airplanes.

JUNGE: Now, tell me about that. How did you get started in flying? [00:42:00]

SHEPPERSON: Oh, I had a neighbor that was a World War II pilot over here, and he taught me how to fly when I was in college. He said, “Come on over. I’ll teach you to fly. I have a little Super Cub,” and so I said, “OK. When do you want me to come over?” He said, “Well, early in the morning or late in the evenings is the best time.” So, one evening, I went over there and he was drunk and the chewing tobacco is running out of his mouth. He says—so I just sat down on the couch and he said, “You came over to fly.” I said, “No, I just came over to visit with you about it and kind of set up a schedule.” “Oh, no,” he said, “You’re here.” He said, “We’ll head over there.” So, we got in his [power?] wagon and headed over there. He rode it off a cliff and wrecked it and bloodied up his head on the way to the hangar. I said, “I’ll go get that [D4?] Cat [Caterpillar tractor] and we’ll pull it out of there.” “No, the hangar’s right there.” So, on the way over there, he says, “It’s real noisy in there. So, I’m going to tell you now.” He says, “Cowboys and Caterpillar drivers—they can just [00:43:00] fly airplanes. They just don’t know it. Somebody’s got to tell them.” He says, “You’ve got to have that bubble in your rear end. He says, “Cowboys and Caterpillar drivers have got that.” (laughter)

JUNGE: Bubble in your rear end?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, bubble in your rear end, yeah. (laughter) At any rate, he was telling me, “You know, get it up to sixty and push [the four?] and pull back.” So, we got in it and the wind was kind of blowing. He had me take it off. We went over there—that pine ridge. You can barely see it over there now on top of that. “See that cabin down there,” he says, “Fly around it and keep the same distance.” You know, that wind would take me way down one way, and then I wouldn’t quite get around it. So, we were headed back and he said, “Now, you get it lined up with the runway.” He says, “Then, hand me that stick.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, it just pulls right out. You just pull it out and hand it to me.” So, when I got lined up, “Oh, no,” he says, “Get closer,” and I put it back—the skinny little thing. You put it back in. [00:44:00] He says, “OK, now, I’ll take it,” and he led it. He says, “I apologize but Heddy, my dog, rides in the backseat, and if I leave that back stick in there, it hits him when I’m flying, so I took it out and forgot to put it back in.” (laughter) That was my first—my first lesson.

I was pretty much on my own.

JUNGE: Oh, man! So, after that—after that, did he teach you—did he take you up again?

SHEPPERSON: Now, the third time I was going over there, he was going to solo me and I didn’t think I was ready to solo, but he thought I was. At any rate, he wrecked his airplane. He was flying out of a draw and the wind caught him, and he wrecked his airplane. So, I went into Casper and drew another guy that—and he was pretty wild, too. He said, “Well, Bob says you’re ready to solo.” He said, “I’m going to have you solo,” but he kind of got a wife problem and pulled a gun on somebody. They sent him to jail. So, I got my [00:45:00] third instructor. He was so darned safe he wouldn’t even let me touch the stick for another six hours. (laughter)

JUNGE: Who was the guy that you originally learned to fly with over here?

SHEPPERSON: Bob Parsons. They owned this big Parsons Ranch over here.

JUNGE: I’m surprised you got up on the plane with him when he—because he was loaded.

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Oh, he could fly better drunk than most people could sober. He was a good pilot.

JUNGE: Did he have a landing strip over there?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: Do you have a landing strip?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. You see my hangar here?

JUNGE: Oh, I saw it, yeah.

SHEPPERSON: Well, there are two strips. This is the north to south one. It comes right here to the barn. Then, there’s one—[two one?].

JUNGE: So, you took your lessons and got your license in Casper?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. official license? Yeah.

JUNGE: OK. So, did you buy a plane right away?

SHEPPERSON: When I was rodeoing and stuff, I was looking for an airplane and, you know, they were just expensive and I wasn’t too flush. Finally, a guy named Bill Barber down by Glenrock [Wyo.] had one for sale. It had 180 hours on a 182, and he sold it to me for ten thousand dollars. I went to the bank and they said, “We don’t loan on airplanes, but do you have any debt on your pickup or trailer?” I said, “No,” so they mortgaged my pickup and trailer and I bought the airplane.[00:46:00] No, that was in the ’60s, and then …That’s the one I’ve still got down here. It’s a ’62. I bought it in ’73.

JUNGE: What model is it?

SHEPPERSON: A Cessna 182B.

JUNGE: a ’63?

SHEPPERSON: Two.

JUNGE: Sixty-two, and you got it in ’73?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: What’s that thing worth now?

SHEPPERSON: Forty or fifty thousand.

JUNGE: So, it’s appreciated.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, it’s really appreciated. Well, I’ve kept it up. [00:47:00] You know, I’ve got new paint and new upholstery and, you know, I’ve got five thousand hours in that airplane.

JUNGE: Is that quite a bit for a rancher?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. Yeah, it is. You know, I fly other airplanes. I’ve got two airplanes down here. I’ve got Lisa’s also, you know.

JUNGE: Oh, that’s—what’s it—Cita—

SHEPPERSON: Citabria.

JUNGE: Citabria.

SHEPPERSON: That’s acrobatic spelled backwards. [Citabrias are very agile aircraft; Citabria backwards is airbatic]

JUNGE: Yeah, OK. Have you had any rough times in that plane?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I haven’t wrecked it, if that’s what you mean. (laughter) Yeah, I’ve had a lot of fun in it. I’ve got lost over Los Angeles in the smog and—(laughter) my radios didn’t reach everybody. I had to switch off the radio frequency. They couldn’t find me and so I’ve had some exciting experiences. You know, I’ve had it all over Canada. I left [00:48:00] Calgary one morning with another bull-rider. We flew to Wyoming, Michigan, crossed Lake Michigan, and worked that rodeo. I was back at Laramie, Wyoming, that night. (laughter)

JUNGE: God! Well, what happened in Los Angeles?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, when I bought it, it had what they call a [Mark V?] with a little coffee grinder radio, and you could put it on the VOR—Vision Omni Range—you know, that would direct you where you’re going. But, then, when you call them, you had to take it off of that. Well, I got down in that smog and I called them, but then I didn’t know where I was at. They asked me, “What’s under you?” and I said, “A Seven-Eleven store,” and they said, “Well, there are ten thousand of them here, and if you can read that, you’re too low.” (laughter) When I got over the ocean, I knew I’d gone too far.

JUNGE: So, what did you do then?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I—they kept talking to me and trying to figure out where I was at and some other stuff and then they had me make some turns and stuff and put me on the radar. Then, I had crossed a couple other airports and, anyway, when I came in to land, they said, “Thirty-three-Aggie. Wiggle your wings. We want to make sure it’s you this time.” I told them ahead of time I’m just a cowboy from Wyoming. I don’t know about these places, you know. They were good to me. (laughter)

JUNGE: Did you have a rodeo there?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah, Los Angeles Coliseum.

JUNGE: How was that?

SHEPPERSON: Good—really good, yeah.

JUNGE: You know, you had to take a plane because you were in more than one rodeo in a day. Can you give me an example of that—I mean, besides the one you just mentioned?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, one—I was up on the Fourth of July in Cody [Wyo.], Red Lodge [Mont.], and Livingston [Mont.], and then—but I made the finals in Greeley [Colo.]. So, I had four rodeos that day. So, I had Cody that morning, [00:50:00] Red Lodge at—it was fairly early. Then, I flew to Greeley—in the finals there, and then I had to go back to Livingston for that night, and I had my wife up there to pick me up at the airport. I was up after the rodeo in the slack. Anyway, it thundered, lightning, rained and hailed. Suzy is at the airport. There’s one guy there. He says, “You might as well go someplace else.” He says, “Nobody is going to fly in this weather.” Pretty soon, I come putting down the Interstate. (laughter) I made the rodeo. (laughter)

JUNGE: You were flying or you were driving?

SHEPPERSON: Flying.

JUNGE: You were flying?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Using the Interstate as your guide?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, that’s called eyeball or eyeball roads when the weather gets bad.

JUNGE: Holy cow! How many miles do you suppose you travelled in that day from here to Cody to Red Lodge to Greeley–

SHEPPERSON: [00:51:00] Back up to Livingston.

JUNGE: Back up to Livingston.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Well, was it worth it?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. Yeah, the fact is I won second in Red Lodge, placed in Livingston, and I placed at Cody, too. I placed— (laughter)

JUNGE: But, did it pay financially?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: Paid for your gas?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: I’ll bet some of those other cowboys had some hairy experiences with you, too.

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Yeah.

JUNGE: Did they?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we—the fact is, I lost some of my friends that flew also, you know. There was a kid from Canada. They lost him for about three years. He was down by Oregon. But–

JUNGE: Oregon Buttes or Oregon?

SHEPPERSON: Oregon. They lost him in one of those forests down there—him and some of his buddies, yeah.

JUNGE: Well how is it that you’re now [00:52:00] 72–will be 72. How is it that you’ve survived this long after spending five thousand hours in the air?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Oh, those are pretty forgiving airplanes because, you know, I tried one of them. Another partner and I were going to buy one of those Skymaster 335’s; their push-pull Cessna that’s got an engine on the back. You know, it’s supposed to be a lot safer, and I tried it out in Omaha. You can shut off one engine and still fly. But, the surface ceiling with one engine was five thousand feet., and I told him, “That’s two hundred feet below the ground where I live.” So, I didn’t buy it. But, these single-engine airplanes—you know, if you really pay attention, you can set them down and walk away from them, even in the mountains or something, you know. If you just stall it in and get your wings between a couple trees, use your head and just fly it, palms to the ground, just like riding a bucking horse, ride it plumb to the ground. (laughter)

JUNGE: You’ve [00:53:00] done that?

SHEPPERSON: No, I haven’t. I haven’t wrecked it. But, you know, you’ve got to keep all that stuff in your mind. I left Edmonton, Alberta [Canada] one time, going to Spokane, [Wash.] and the clouds over the Rockies were ninety-five hundred tops when I left. But, by the time I got down into southern British Columbia, there were about fifteen thousand and I was kind of flying through the valleys about fifteen-five and everybody with me was asleep because there’s no oxygen, you know. (laughter) But, when we got to Spokane, it was clear. But, you’ve got to—when you’re up there, you know, you don’t know where you’re going to come down. You’ve just got to put it on fifty-five, sixty miles an hour and when you come into the side of something, figure out where you’re going to bounce her in.

JUNGE: How did you happen to stay awake if everybody else was asleep?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I come from a higher elevation, you know, and people that come from a higher elevation can get by with a little less oxygen.

JUNGE: What do you think they would have thought of it [00:54:00] if they had been awake?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Oh, you know, I’ve had that happen to me several times, and most of the young cowboys—you know, we’re all dumb. But, most of them, you know, don’t even realize why they went to sleep. (laughter)

JUNGE: What’s the furthest you’ve had to fly?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I left—I don’t know—that trip from Calgary to Wyoming, Michigan, back to Laramie is one of the furthest, but one time I left Washington, headed for Nebraska, and I was up by [Coeur d’Alene?] and going up through that valley and the clouds came in; trying to get over there, you know, by Missoula and stuff. The clouds came in and I was by myself, and I finally ended up in the clouds, got her turned around and climbed just–climbed until I got out of them. I had to go all the way back to Spokane [00:55:00] and then go down through southern Idaho. By the time I got to Nebraska to that rodeo, I was pretty wrung out. I wasn’t worth much. (laughter)

JUNGE: You didn’t do very well?

SHEPPERSON: I didn’t do very well. That’s true.

JUNGE: Oh, man, man! Well, when you’re in the clouds and you don’t know there are mountains around you–

SHEPPERSON: That’s true. That’s true. One time—oh, I’d get the other guys that could take the stick for a while, a lot of times, you know, but at that time, I knew there were mountains on both sides of me. I just had to turn around and climb as fast as I could. But, yeah, my father-in-law said it best. You know, I was flying with him one day, and there was a little cloud there. I said, “Should we go through it or go around it?” He said, “There might be some damn fool in there.” (laughter) So, we went around it.

JUNGE: Well, he might have been right, too.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, that’s true.

JUNGE: You’ve had to land on some pretty rough [00:56:00] places. Can you give me some examples of that?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I’ll try, I guess. In Oklahoma, I’d been down there with [Shaun?] Davis, and I’m trying to remember the little town. We’d flown in there to a rodeo. About two or three years later, Barry Burke and I were in Indiana and coming into there, and we stopped after the rodeo. I told him I knew where the airport was because I’d been there a couple years earlier. I flew around. I couldn’t find it, and I had my lights on and flying lower and lower. I finally found it and I lit, bounced her in and this cop came out. He said, “Oh, it’s good to have somebody land here.” He said, “You know, this airport has been closed for three years. There are big ruts in it.” (laughter) But, the other thing is my old house down there had a little short runway. Oh, we’ve got these—landing at night in these [00:57:00] places—I’ve lit here at night quite a bit and one year when Suzy was—I think she was going to have Lisa —I came back from Dickinson in thunder. I told her to shine the lights down the runway, you know, if I came in. About midnight, she came out. There’s a mountain—the Tisdale Mountain—on one end. It’s about six or seven thousand feet and the river over there is about 5,000 feet. So, I go over the river. I knew where I was at and did a circle. When she lit, I was going to come—you land right over the headlights, you know. But, just when I got there, she took off driving. So, I climbed as fast as I could and went back over the river. I had big Casper [Schaefer?] with me, another rodeo guy who went to the finals with me that year. But, at any rate, it just happened a couple times. He swore that she was trying to kill us, but at night, you know, with her headlights, she couldn’t see where the runway was. The grass was pretty high and it hadn’t been mowed. She had seen me coming and took off [00:58:00] driving. Finally, her dad came out. I waited and they lined up on each end and I lit over them, you know. Casper got in with Tom and said, “Tom, what do you do in those kinds of situations?” Tom said, “I don’t get in those kinds of situations.” (laughter)

JUNGE: Oh, man, man! Well, when you got to a rodeo at the town where you were going to do the rodeo and get involved, you had to have transportation to get from the airport to the rodeo grounds.

SHEPPERSON: Right. A lot of times—a lot of airports have a car they’ll let you use or something. Sometimes, we made arrangements with one of our friends and used to say, “If you see us fly over, just send somebody to the airport to pick us up.” But, you’ve got to be careful. I had a buddy that flew over that Red Lodge airport and the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] got him sitting in there; turned him in for flying too close to a crowd, you know. (laughter)

JUNGE: Did you ever buzz anybody?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. [00:59:00] Sometimes, I’d—oh, about four or five years ago, we—I had my yearlings up here in this pasture before you turn off the Interstate, and there’s a big spring on the very north edge and it joins my neighbor, the Tobins. Those yearlings get to rubbing on the fences; you know, itching in the spring. I didn’t want them to get on the neighbors. So, about every other day, I’d go fly that fence line, you know, to make sure that they hadn’t got out. I see a pickup parked over there, you know, pretty close. At any rate, the FAA called up and said I’d been buzzing some bow-hunter, you know, and they said, “You were turned in.” They said, “We didn’t get your numbers, but you were turned in.” I said, “Well, that was me.” I said, “I never did see him.” He was in camouflage, hidden someplace evidently. I saw his pickup but I was checking that fence line, you know.

JUNGE: He thought you were getting too close to him?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, he thought I was keeping an eye on him, you know. So, at any rate, the FAA guy was real nice. He says, “Well, there’s [01:00:00] not a lot of you guys that still fly, and that’s our business and that’s your business.” He says, “You’re completely legal.” He says, “I get these calls. I’ve got to follow up on them. But, you’re just fine.” So, at any rate, I called the neighbor rancher. I said, “I apologize but I got turned into the FAA. I guess I’m buzzing one of your hunters.” They said, “Well, that’s not our hunter. He doesn’t have permission to be there.” (laughter)

JUNGE: You know, when I worked—I worked for Bob Eisele one summer.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, did you?

JUNGE: At Big Horn Airways. I was a flagger. I’m sure I got pretty well doused with 2-4D. But, those planes would come over so low—those Snow Commanders would come down so quick and so low that they’d—I could hear the squeak of the wheels on the top wire of the barbed wire fence.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Did you ever get that low?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Did you?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Well, when you were landing or just–

SHEPPERSON: Oh, I’ve made the antenna on a [01:01:00] (laughter) car go like that.

JUNGE: Waving back and forth?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. (laughter) Yeah, that Bob Parsons that to taught me to fly—he’d catch me on a bronc out here … he’d be flying. He’d see me on a bronc and he’d [give] me a buzz. I was down here on the flat and fence there. … Spooks the heck out of a horse. So, this one day, I thought, oh, he isn’t as low as it seems like. You know, it just seems like they’re lower. So, I watched him. He didn’t clear that fence that high. I knew he was low then. I took my horse and I was headed for a draw. (laughter)

JUNGE: I’ll bet he was laughing the whole time.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Did you give him hell afterwards?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. Old Bob Eisele, though—he was a particularly good pilot. He used my runway right here to spray off. But, those spray planes—they’re a lot more powerful … horsepower … and they’re noisier than what I fly on.

JUNGE: Yeah. I’m going to go talk to Bob this afternoon [01:02:00] or this evening, I hope.

SHEPPERSON: Good.

JUNGE: So, do you have any stories about him?

SHEPPERSON: Well, he used this runway, here because it was-the weather was like this, and my runway is kind of sandy. Where he was flying and the runway is gumbo—but, you know, instead of putting it off, he just came over here and he said, “How’s your runway?” I said, “I think it’s OK.” He’s a good pilot. He’s–

JUNGE: Yeah, yeah, he’s a good pilot.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, Robbie Duncan–

JUNGE: I remember him.

SHEPPERSON: Do you? Well, anyway, that’s–

JUNGE: I remember him because he buzzed me.

SHEPPERSON: OK, that was the number two pilot that got in trouble that I took lessons from. (laughter)

JUNGE: You mean, got involved with a gun or something?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, with his ex-wife.

JUNGE: Yeah, he was a wild character.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, but what a good pilot. Yeah, he’s a good pilot.

JUNGE: I don’t think he liked to—what was it he said? He didn’t mind flying low but he didn’t like to [01:03:00] fly high?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: He flew the transports to Alaska or something, and he didn’t like flying high.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. (laughter)

JUNGE: Most guys aren’t—isn’t it the other way around?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. Yeah, the first time I went with him, I said, “What’s one of these spins?” He said, “I’m so glad you asked.” Boy—whoo. I never asked him again! (laughter)

JUNGE: Did that put a few gs on you—the spin-like wave?

SHEPPERSON:… I don’t know if you—do you know what an airplane spin is? It’s when one wing stalls and the other doesn’t. So, it’s an uncontrolled spin. They did the spin and you’ve got to—to get them out of it, you’ve got to push your stick and your pointer straight to the ground. You’ve got to push your stick forward and use opposite rudder. Your rudder is the only thing getting—and everybody panics. That’s what kills them is they pull back. It just keeps it stalled, see?

JUNGE: So, he did that?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: That scare you a little bit?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. (laughter)

JUNGE: Robbie Duncan—I remember him because we were—the—Eisele [01:04:00] and the crew—we were all supposed to spray somewhere in the Rawlins area. So, we stayed at Marv [Harshman’s] Travelodge. Do you remember that? There’s a big rock opposite, on the other side of the street. Robbie Duncan says, “I’m going to climb that. So, do you want to come with me?” We went, “Sure.” So, we climbed it. … He got a little close to the edge. Then, I remember I went up one time up in Montana. He had us climbing to the top of a long, long climb up to the top of a mountain. This guy was just crazy. Then, … the last day we worked for Eisele or at least on this one job, he came low to me and I didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t know what buzzing was. I hit the deck, and I guess I went down, and my nose must have been in that sagebrush roots—the roots of the sagebrush. Then, he went across the way and buzzed the other flagger, Jay Bridger, and Jay hit the deck pretty hard. Boy, when we got back to town, he was cussing Robbie out, [01:05:00] you know, “You son of a—you-know-what.” He had hit the ground so quick that Jay split the back of his jeans open. Robbie Duncan said, “Come on, come on. That’s just the way it is. Come on. I was just happy. I’m happy to get home, to see my wife,” or something like that.

SHEPPERSON: He started flying for Eisele on my father-in-law’s place, right over here. He just came out and he said, “Bob, I want to fly a spray plane.” So, Bob says, “OK.” He said, “I’m going to give you half a load to begin with, you know.” He took the plane up, flew it. He said, “I’ll give you half a load.” He went and sprayed the half load and then he came back in and said, “Fill her up,” you know. Rob—he had no fear.

JUNGE: Yeah, good pilot, though.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, a very good pilot, yeah.

JUNGE: He wasn’t in the military, though, was he?

SHEPPERSON: Not to my knowledge.

JUNGE: A lot of these pilots, I think, were in the military, weren’t they, at one time?

SHEPPERSON: [01:06:00] Yeah.

JUNGE: Were you in the military?

SHEPPERSON: No.

JUNGE: How did you get out of that?

SHEPPERSON: I was in college at the time and college deferment and then, on the ranch here, I was kind of the manager of the ranch, and I just told them. I said, “I’m managing a ranch.” They said, “Well, where’s your dad?” I said, “Well, he started a little oil field contract and deal with Midwest, you know, to kind of make ends meet. He expects me to be at the ranch.” They said, “Oh, that’s fine.” They called it agricultural deferment.

JUNGE: Yeah, that was back in the late ’60s?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: Yeah, I was—you know, I’ll tell you. I was also deferred. I had a—what did they call them in those days—2S or 2A—student deferment? Then, before too long, that wasn’t good enough. You had to be in graduate school. Well, I was just about to enter graduate school. Then, that wasn’t good enough. You had to be married and have a kid or else [01:07:00] be married, and I was married with a kid. Then, after that, I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. But, it was just dumb luck. It kept me out of Vietnam. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you.

SHEPPERSON: You know, the same thing happened to me because I took that Air Force or ROTC down there and was going to come out a second lieutenant. I just figured I had to go. Anyway, there was a colonel down there, and I went through the whole thing. I explained to him, you know. I said, “Well, it really kind of puts me in a jam because they do need me at home because my younger brother is still in school. My sister is married and up there and my dad doesn’t have anybody on the ranch.” Colonel Hodges, kind of a big, old, heavy, nice guy—anyway, he says, “Come see me tomorrow morning.” So, anyway, I went to see him the next morning. He says, “Here are your papers.” He says, “You signed them in purple and that’s not a legal color. You’ve got to resign them in black, [01:08:00] blue or blue/black.” You know, the dumb old college kid—I say, “Well, I don’t have a pen that’s that color.” He says, “Well, you kind of talk like you might not want to resign them for [it?], you know.” (laughter) I said, “OK,” and I did sign them. Oh, their little sergeant down there where you had to turn in all your clothes and stuff—you know, he’d make you hang them up and oh, he was a grouchy little bugger, you know. I took my stuff in and I put them on the desk, you know. Oh, he came undone and then he looked at me. He said, “You got out, didn’t you?” (laughter) “That’s fine. I’ll take them.” He was nice as heck then, but if I was a soldier, he was going to give me hell.

JUNGE: Yeah, well, as it turned out, you have to feel pretty lucky–

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE:—because we both would have been over there, probably.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: We would have been cannon fodder, basically. [01:09:00] That’s exactly right. I’ve got a friend the same age. He is in the hospital in Casper now, and he was over there. Oh, he’s been going through cancer and everything. He’s really had—he was just a medic, but, you know, you’ve got to spray that Agent Orange and stuff, and they can’t get him cured up. He’s lost the whole side of this face.

JUNGE: So, what do you think about—looking back on that war, what do you think about it?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I know we—you know, I just don’t know enough to say a lot. I know we made a lot of mistakes. You know, I guess, my total answer would be we didn’t fight it to win. You know, we should have gone and beat the hell out of them or left, (laughter) you know. So, it would have been OK if we fought it to win, but the way they did it, it was not quite right, yeah.

JUNGE: Are you a Republican?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Your daughter is a Republican as well. Is everybody in the family [01:10:00] Republican?

SHEPPERSON: Well, we’re all conservative, yeah.

JUNGE: OK. So, you’re not a Republican. You’re a conservative.

SHEPPERSON: Right.

JUNGE: I think she even said she had a little bit of libertarianism there.

SHEPPERSON: Sure, yeah. Yeah, she was at Lesley, you know, for–

JUNGE: I know, yeah. Was she with Bonnie Smith on that mountain lion–

SHEPPERSON: No, no. You know, Bonnie’s our friend and Bonnie’s dad was the one that started that mountain lion crusade. But, it’s worked. There is no limit on the mountain lion. My boy has dogs, and he hunts mountain lions on the Bighorns. Heck, he can get seven or eight in the fall—

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON:—guiding people, yeah; you know, not for himself, but he guides people and gets seven or eight of them and—

JUNGE: Is there a limit on them or–

SHEPPERSON: No, there are so many mountain lions up here. You know, each area has their limit, and there’s a limit, like when they’re having cubs in the spring, you can’t go on them and stuff, but [01:11:00] up here, I don’t think they have a limit, and that is because of Bonnie Smith. You know, they’re trying to get them cut down for the sheep people. They’re everywhere. Just a year ago, there was one right over here. You know, the deer–

JUNGE: You’ve seen them, then?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Have you ever shot one?

SHEPPERSON: No, I haven’t, no.

JUNGE: What about coyotes? Did you shoot them from the air?

SHEPPERSON: No. No, I–

JUNGE: Some guys did.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. They just came in here with an airplane. Yeah. And got seven of them right on our—(inaudible) our cows here, oh, a week or two ago. But, no, I haven’t done that.

JUNGE: You mean they got them with the airplane? They wouldn’t travel out?

SHEPPERSON: No. They got them with the airplane. But, no, I don’t do that. I fly a lot on the ranch, just checking. You know, we—[01:12:00] my neighbor, Randy, over here and I … oh, we each have about 250,000 acres to run cattle on. So, you know, with a short crew, you’ve got to fly and see where they’re at and see what’s happening. We dropped part—we had a lease over there by Garfield Peak, about 95,000 acres. We just dropped it this year. But, it had us spread too thin, you know; just everybody going too hard.

JUNGE: How often do you fly now, Frank?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, I—this year, I’ve flown less than ever. Les, my son, flew last week when he was home, and, oh, it’s been about—close to a month since I’ve flown, I guess, yeah.

JUNGE: So, do you keep Avfuel [aviation fuel] right here—right next to the hangar?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: OK. Does that lose its octane power if you don’t use it?

SHEPPERSON: No. [01:13:00] No, I don’t think it does.

JUNGE: Isn’t it about 110-, 120-octane?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, and our—both my planes are made for 80-octane, but you can’t buy 80-octane now, so you’ve got to buy 100, which is more expensive. So, if we lose a little octane, we don’t worry about it. (laughter)

JUNGE: OK. Well, do you still like flying?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. I don’t like it like I used to, but I still enjoy flying, yeah.

JUNGE: You don’t like it like you used to? Why?

SHEPPERSON:… I made all the kids work off the ranch for a while before they came back and Amy was a range con in northwest Nevada, and Suzy went out and helped her go out there. I flew out there to get Suzy. I used to fly that all the time to … going to California. When you leave Ogden, there’s an MOA on each side, you know.

JUNGE: MOA?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, Military Operating Area.

JUNGE: Oh, OK.

SHEPPERSON: So, there’s a little, narrow place where us private [01:14:00] people fly through. So, you’ve really got to stay at your levels. Going west for VFR, [Visual Flight Rules] it’s an even number plus 500 feet because there are so many people in that little area. Well, I got over there close and a friend of mine had given me one of those GPSs. Anyway, it started blinking and telling me what–and it was on a Sunday. I thought, oh, I’ll radio them up. So, anyway, this lady says, “Yes, we see you. You are three seconds from entering into controlled airspace,” you know. She says, “Would you like tracking?” You know, they track you through there. I said, “No. I don’t want anybody to know where I’m at.” (laughter) She laughs. “That’s fine,” she says. “You know, there’s not another airplane within 100 miles of you.” Anyway, when I got out there to Cedarville, California, that guy hadn’t sold [01:15:00] 200 gallons of Avgas. But, anyway, I stopped. I always stop at [Elko?]. That’s one of the places—you know, they’ve got a good place to eat and a good airport.

JUNGE: A Scotsman—a [Stockman?], right?

SHEPPERSON: Well, the star kept a bay down there … But, at any rate, at the airport, is usually a good place to eat, too, you know, if you’re just getting breakfast, going through. Anyway, I pulled in there and they came out, brought guns and said, “You can’t stop here. This is an air terminal.” I said, “Well, goddamn, I’m in an airplane, you know. I ought to be able to stop here.” They got pretty aggressive with me. They said, “No.” After 9/11 if you don’t have clearance and go through some kind of … you can’t leave a ranch and go to an air terminal. I had a little place down there. I said, “Well, do they serve breakfast?” “No.” “How can I get up here?” “We don’t care. You—get that airplane out of [01:16:00] here!” But, you know, I used to fly in the mornings and stop in at Casper. They have a nice place to eat in there. I can’t do that anymore. I’ve got to stop way down there someplace and borrow a car to get up there. But, you know, the 9/11 rules have changed so many things … they’re a lot stickier about things than—(laughter)

JUNGE: Did you ever know a guy named Clyde Ice—Clyde [Icefield?] in Spearfish [S.D.]?

SHEPPERSON: I know of him, yeah.

JUNGE: I interviewed him about twenty, twenty-five years ago. He was 102, and he was sharp. He said, when he was 100, the governor of Wyoming gave him a moose permit.

SHEPPERSON: My God!

JUNGE: He said, “What do you think of a 100-year-old man shooting a moose?” I said, “Did you get your moose?” He said, “Damn right!” One hundred—one hundred and two years old and he had a mind that was still really sharp. But, he told me all sorts of [01:17:00] stories. One of them had to do with crossing the border and Mexicans with bandoleros across their chests, shooting at him. I said, “In your plane?” He said, “Yeah.” He said, “They didn’t—thank God, they didn’t know how to shoot an airplane.” But, have you ever been in situations like that?

SHEPPERSON: Well, going to Canada one time, I was—you know, you’ve got to check in, and you’ve got to have a—you know, a flight plan. They’ve got to know when you’re going to land and stuff like that. They check you well. At Lethbridge, [Alberta], I was—had a flight plan that landed at Lethbridge. I heard her talking to an airplane ahead of me … that was checking in there, also. So, big Casper Schaefer, a big [tough] bulldogger, and I lit there. When we got there, they had that other airplane took apart, the tires turned inside out, everything—all the [01:18:00] luggage in there, everything, everything off of it. I lit there and they said, “You go in that room and wait.” So, Casper and I were sitting there, and they were doing body searches on these people that had flown in, and big [Casp?]: “By God, they ain’t going to get no body search on me.” (laughter) You know, they said they strip-searched and (laughter) I was—“Well, just don’t say anything. Just see what happens, you know.” Finally, one of the guys came by. “Where are you headed?” I said, “Calgary at the rodeo.” “Go on,” he said, and that was—that was the end of it. Boy, I’ll tell you. I sure hated—but when they do that, they—you’ve got to hire a mechanic to put it all back together. They won’t put it back together and you can’t put it back together.

JUNGE: So, if there wasn’t a mechanic at the Lethbridge airport, you were out of luck.

SHEPPERSON: That’s exactly right.

JUNGE: Now, who was this guy you rode with—Casper—what’s his name?

SHEPPERSON: Schaefer.

JUNGE: Casper Schaefer?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, but–

JUNGE: You got any stories about him?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, but you don’t want to hear them. [01:19:00] But–

JUNGE: Sure.

SHEPPERSON:—I’ve got to tell you about Spearfish. We were working in Deadwood [S.D.] and I had a couple guys with me. Tom Ferguson—he was a world champion all-around cowboy—and Rickie Bradley. At any rate, they wanted to—we were up in Helena [Mont.] in the finals that night and they wanted to ride in my airplane, you know. For Deadwood, the best place to land is at Spearfish. Well, I’d left there, and, you know, when I was going, I’d have filled up with gas. Well, my airplane holds long-range fuel tanks. You know, it’s—so a lot of weight of gas. So, anyway, these guys want to ride. So, I didn’t want to be overweight. It’s about 110 in the summer, you know, so I said, “I’ll go over there and get the airplane out and ready. As soon as you guys get done … we’ve got to sure get moving.” Well, anyway, I asked them. I said, “Can you guys take some of this gas off—pump it off?” They said, “No, we don’t have any way to do that.” So, [01:20:00] I—you know, it’s got a fuel strainer there. So, I just pulled that fuel strainer and, all the time waiting for those guys, you know, to try to get it down, to get some weight off of there because if I was overloaded–so, anyway, when they got there, we took off. We got over to Billings [Mont.]. Barry Burke was one of them and they went to sleep. Everybody goes to sleep in there, anyway, but I said, “Barry, you know, my fuel gauges say they’re empty.” I said, “I’ve been trained. I’ve got to trust them. I’m going to land here at Billings, you know.” I said, “They can’t be because—” you know. Anyway, I lit at Billings. Just before I got to the terminal, it shut off on me. That fuel strainer had stayed open. It hadn’t shut, and so I drained fuel all the way across there, you know. (laughter) Tom Ferguson says—when we got out, we had to push it the last 100 yards up there. Tom Ferguson [01:21:00] says, “Hurry up! Hurry up!” I said, “Well, you’ve been sleeping. What’s the hurry?” He said, “When one of those Indians on the reservation lights a match, it’s going to catch up with us.” He said, “We’ve got to get it past us—into this fuel.” (laughter) We fueled her up. We made it to Helena.

JUNGE: What kind of guy was he—Tom Ferguson?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, a good travelling guy; kind of laid-back. You know, he was one of those rodeo guys that practiced, practiced, practiced, but it’s just … him. You know, he never—wasn’t a guy that got excited. He practiced just the way he competed. He’s a good cowboy and a good hand, and—

JUNGE: Was he a good hand, actually?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. Yeah, he was.

JUNGE: Some of these guys that you competed against weren’t hands at all.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, but, you know, most of them are pretty good hands. You know, I brought a lot of them—heck, that house up there—those rodeo guys helped me build it—that log house.

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, when it was rodeo (inaudible). There would be five or six of them come in, and we’d stay here [01:22:00] for a week and I’d make them help me build that house. (laughter)

JUNGE: They were captive, right?

SHEPPERSON: They were captive, yeah.

JUNGE: They didn’t drive in or did they?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, sometimes, we’d fly.

JUNGE: Yeah, so they were going to be walking out unless they worked. (laughter)

OK. So, you were going to be this Casper –

SHEPPERSON: Schaefer.

JUNGE: Schaefer. You said you had a couple stories about him?

SHEPPERSON: Well, he’s a—he’s one of the bigger, tougher people you’d ever know. He was the champion heavyweight boxer of the 7th Fleet and–

JUNGE: How big was he?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, he was about my height and probably two-sixty when he was slim. (laughter) But, he was raised where he didn’t pay income taxes. When he got out of the [U.S.] Navy, he went to Billings and went into places and said I’d like … to work for cash and [01:23:00] they said—be your bouncer—and they said, “Well, I’ve got the toughest guy in the state right here.” Casper says, “Nothing personal, but let’s go out and see who’s toughest.” Then, Casper went back in and he says, “Now, would you like to hire the—,” and he worked there for years before he went rodeoing, you know.

JUNGE: So, he beat the other guy?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, yeah; not much match, yeah. (laughter) But, while he was up there in Billings, it’s interesting. I met him. I was rodeoing and we were over in Bismarck, [N.D.] and he went over there. I was winning it; these little, bitty steers, you know. They’d crumple on everybody. But, they had—he came. “How come those steers are crumpling with everybody?” “Well,” I said, “You’ve really got to keep their nose straight and their back straight and stuff to get a flat fall out of them, but if you really mash back into them, they’ll crumple.” So, anyway, he won something the next go around. He said, “Well, I’m going with you,” and he stayed [01:24:00] with me for ten years, worked here at the ranch and rodeoed and–

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: What’s his name?

SHEPPERSON: Casper Schaefer.

JUNGE: Oh, that guy. I thought you mentioned somebody else. So, he worked for you for ten years?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: What kind of hand was he?

SHEPPERSON: A good hand. He could … he was a good hand; different. He was kind of a different guy, but he’s a good hand. He could work. Well, like I was down the old house and I had to go check the heifers and I told him, you know, “Put this post in the ground.” I had a post about two foot by two foot and we used it for the bottom on a gate that had a little plate there, you know, where it pivoted on it. The other one had rotted out. I said, you know, “We’ll dig that one out.” I said, “There’s a cross-cut saw there. That post is about eight feet long. We’ll cut it down to about three feet or four feet and bury that for the base.” At any rate, I was quite a while checking the heifers and stuff. (laughter) When I got back, [01:25:00] you know, if he pooped off, he’d get a cup of coffee and go to the outhouse or read a western book or something. I looked. I couldn’t find him. So, finally, I went and looked at this hole, and there he was down in there. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Easier dig this eight feet deep than it is to cut that post in two, you know, with that cross-cut saw.” (laughter) But—oh, he could dig.

JUNGE: That’s hilarious. Whatever happened to him?

SHEPPERSON: He had a license for dealing up there at the Bison Bar; you know, to deal the cards. He’d been there. He sent his kids down. They go on the trail with me and stuff sometimes. At any rate, last fall, he had a heart attack and died. You know, a big, healthy guy—he was a really good athlete. He had the record, you know—they had those Senior Olympics, and he won the shot put, the high jump, the foot race [01:26:00] and everything just last year.

JUNGE: How old was he—about your age?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah, but he worked out and stayed in shape.

JUNGE: Who was the best hand you ever had on this ranch?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, gosh, I don’t know. I think my kids probably are.

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. Yeah, they are. They’re the most conscientious hands. Anything that can be done, they can do it. You know, Justin, my son-in-law—he’s been here for ten, twelve years. He has turned into a really good hand. But, those girls—oh, they’re workers, you know.

JUNGE: The girls are just as hard workers as the guys?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, gosh, yeah. … I’d lease the big place and was running some other cattle when, oh, Les and Amy were pretty little and was trailing them across some rough country … [01:27:00]… Anyway, Les got sunstroke and passed out, and we set him under a bank. Amy was getting sick. We were a long way from nowhere. So, anyway, I gathered up the kids and I said, “You know, we can drop these right here and come back tomorrow.” I said, “You know, that might be the healthiest for the kids and stuff. But, we’re going to have to work the cattle, and to gather a lot of country, it’s going to be a big job tomorrow.” Lisa said, “And if we go on, what?” I said, “Well, we could [take] tomorrow off.” She said, “We’re going on.” (laughter)

JUNGE: She’s a pretty big gal. She’s pretty big. Is everybody that—is everybody in your family big—big people?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, she’s—Amy’s as tall as she is or taller. She’s probably the heaviest. Amy’s slimmer. Les is [01:28:00] six-two or six-three.

JUNGE: Lynn?

SHEPPERSON: Lynn—she’s shorter–five-nine and a half or so.

JUNGE: So, they—just the fact that they were bigger kids meant that, in a way, they had more output.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, they’re—yeah.

JUNGE: So, you’re pretty proud of these kids?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, … yeah, I am. They’ve done very well. You know, when we were doing some … work on the ranch … on passing it on down and stuff, the lawyer said, “You know, you should put this in a trust and you should do this and that.” I said, “Oh, no.” I said, “That means no trust.” I said, “They’re my partners.” I said, “They own as much as I do.” I said—“You know, instead of—they’ve known from day one what they were working for, and they’ve been my partners from day one.”

JUNGE: [01:29:00] In other words, they have wanted to be (telephone rings) on the ranch–

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE:—and work the ranch.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, well, and I’ve made them all go and do something else. (telephone rings)

JUNGE: Go ahead.

SHEPPERSON: That’s Les. …

SHEPPERSON: Hello. Hello. Hello. Must have lost him. He’s in California at Red Bluff at the rodeo.

JUNGE: Oh, OK. Where’s that? Is that near San Francisco?

SHEPPERSON: Northern California, north of there, about two hundred or three hundred miles.

JUNGE: Frank, have you been everywhere in this country? …

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Right. So, your kids—are you saying your kids have always wanted to be in the ranch business?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. You know, I said—I told them all they had to work somewhere else. Lisa worked for [01:30:00] Farm Credit and she moved up so fast, they tried to move her to Omaha, and she didn’t want to go to Omaha. Then, Lynn—she went down to Texas—rode cutting horses for a while. She came back and said, “I want to ranch.” Amy—she’s a range con and worked in Nevada and then for the oil and gas up in Buffalo for a little while. But, I made them all go somewhere else and work somewhere else before they came back. I said, “You really won’t know unless you’ve tried something else.”

Les— he went rodeoing, you know.

JUNGE: It was a pretty smart thing to do. Was that your idea?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s very important that they go somewhere else and work somewhere else. Then, they really know in their own mind. If they never leave the place, they think maybe they missed something, you know.

JUNGE: Yeah. Now, you said your —one daughter is in Nevada in con— something con? [01:31:00]

SHEPPERSON: A range conservationist for the BLM. [Bureau of Land Management].

JUNGE: Oh, OK.

SHEPPERSON: But, now, she’s the one at the Teapot Ranch.

JUNGE: OK. I got you. So, all four of them—you have four kids. All four of them want to stay here now.

SHEPPERSON: They’ve got to now. They each own a place. (laughter)

JUNGE: Well, when Les gets through—how old is Les?

SHEPPERSON: Thirty-five. He just got married a year ago, and so did Amy. I got the last two married off last year, yeah. (laughter)

JUNGE: Does that mean you have no more responsibilities?

SHEPPERSON: No more responsibilities. They’ve got—I’m their responsibility.(laughter)

JUNGE: Well, fair is fair, right?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: So, Les is getting—is he getting on up in years for rodeo hand?

SHEPPERSON: Not steer-wrestling. Steer wrestling—your prime is from thirty-two to thirty-eight in the steer wrestling. That’s when you’re the [01:32:00] strongest, and that’s when your mind is the best.

JUNGE: I feel like I was the strongest—it doesn’t look like it, but I was the strongest I’ll probably ever be when I was thirty-two and I was lifting weights, and I was running, and I was in great shape. If somebody were to ever ask me, well, what year or how old were you when you were in the best shape of your life, I’d have to say thirty-two, overall. There were times when I was quicker or, you know, maybe could do something different, but thirty-two is prime. Is he built like you—Les?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: How tall is he?

SHEPPERSON: A little over six-two, weighs about two-twenty.

JUNGE: Is he a national champion as well?

SHEPPERSON: Well, he won the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.

JUNGE: Oh, in 2012 or was it last year? So, how’s he been doing since then?

SHEPPERSON: Well, he got married. Actually, he’s going to be [01:33:00] more busy ranching. His rodeoing days are numbered. He just bought—we just bought another ranch over here.

JUNGE: Where at?

SHEPPERSON: West of us, over towards the Bighorns here.

JUNGE: On the other side of the Interstate or—oh, no, the Interstate is here.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Yeah, that’s right. So, he’s going to have his own place?

SHEPPERSON: Well, this is his place now. I don’t own an acre anymore. I turned it all over. At the end of 2012, you know, was the last year you could give away stuff before the tax thing changed. I told him to go get the papers made up, and I just quit-claimed to put it, and they were all full partners beforehand, but I quit-claimed the rest of what Suzy and I had. … They’ve just got to run cattle for me, but they own the land.

JUNGE: How does it feel to have all four of your kids on this land?

SHEPPERSON: Well, you know, truthfully, that was up to them. I guess, what makes me happiest is they’re all really, really good hands and [01:34:00] enjoy doing it, and that’s what they love to do. But, if they didn’t want to do this, that would have been fine with me, too, you know.

JUNGE: This is isn’t the kind of job for a guy that’s in his seventies, is it, or is it?

SHEPPERSON: No, no, no. No, there are a lot of things that, when you get in your seventies, you just don’t do as good as you could beforehand.

JUNGE: But, yet, I know that there were guys like Norris Graves who would get on a horse and stay on it until he fell off the horse, probably.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: I mean, you could still ride a horse.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, I still ride. I trail the cows, the mountain hikes. I still go, just like I did. I just—but if there is something in these badlands that needs roped, I can’t beat the kids to it. (laughter)

JUNGE: But, you can still rope?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughter)

JUNGE: Do you still enjoy doing stuff like that?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

JUNGE: You don’t have arthritis or anything? Frank, have you ever been hurt steer-wrestling?

SHEPPERSON: You know, [01:35:00] not bad. But, you know, one of the main things is—two main things—stay in shape all the time and quit when it’s time to quit, you know, before you start getting stiff and hurting.

JUNGE: When did you quit?

SHEPPERSON: I quit in ’77, ’78. When I quit, I never went to an old-timer’s rodeo. I never went to anything. I quit and came back to the ranch and never entered another rodeo.

JUNGE: You could have been a roper.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, I know it. I know it. But, you know, I came home and team-roped but, having been a professional, I go around with these … ranchers and stuff around here, and they go beat the hell out of the …, they don’t appreciate somebody that’s made a living at it coming roping, getting their four dollars. So, you know, it’s just–

JUNGE: Getting their [01:36:00] four dollars?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, you know, your little jackpot. Everybody puts in ten dollars and stuff. But—(laughter) so, anyway, you know, it’s—it’s just better if I just quit, you know.

JUNGE: So, how do you feel, looking back on your rodeo career?

SHEPPERSON:… Rodeo was good to me. … It’s the best sport in the world and the sorriest profession in the world, you know. You just can’t make a living at it the rest of your life, you know. (laughter)

JUNGE: Which is the best rodeo, in your estimation?

83

SHEPPERSON: Well, Cheyenne is one of my favorites.

JUNGE: What about Calgary?

SHEPPERSON: Calgary used to be but they quit being PRCA [Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association] and they have an invited thing there. It was fun when I was going there, but they’ve changed it so much now, and times have changed a little up there. But, it used to be a good one, yeah.

JUNGE: Oklahoma City?

SHEPPERSON: Well, there are two Oklahoma City rodeos. [01:37:00] Oklahoma City used to have the national finals. That’s where it was when I rode, and that was a good rodeo. Then, they have their state fair in Oklahoma City, also. But, it was one of the better ones, you know, when I was rodeoing. But, I’m so tickled that they moved it to Las Vegas. The first year I went to national finals, I won the first two or three go-arounds, and it paid $880 a go-around. Today, it pays $14,700 a go-around, you know.

JUNGE: What do you think about that?

SHEPPERSON:… A couple of things. One of the things that rodeos pay a little more but they aren’t doing quite as good as we did because they tripled or quadrupled their entry fees. A lot of them are running against their own money. Then, the other part of it is, you know, gas was 25 cents a gallon, and … motel rooms were $18. [01:38:00] (laughter)

JUNGE: That’s when the Super 8 and Motel 6 were six dollars and eight dollars.

SHEPPERSON:… And then we’d get six or eight guys and go in a pickup. Well, you know, it didn’t cost you anything to travel, hardly. So, truthfully, it’s tougher now, you know. You know that big rodeo that RFD put on, and it was the world’s richest rodeo?

JUNGE: Where at?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I think it was down in Dallas. That’s where they ended up having it, but they had all these qualifying deals, and a lot of these things have become scams to a degree. Are we still on?

JUNGE: Yeah, go ahead.

SHEPPERSON: I shouldn’t be talking about it. I’d better–

JUNGE: Well, we can take any of this off that you don’t want.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: So, anyway—anyway, so what’s the scam?

SHEPPERSON: Well, to qualify, they go to three different little rodeos to qualify, and it costs five hundred dollars, entry fees. So, if you figure how many people in each event tried to qualify for this, they got the million dollars from the [01:39:00] cowboys before the rodeo ever happened.(laughter)

JUNGE: These guys aren’t stupid.

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Yeah.

JUNGE: Yeah, well, you rodeoed then with the biggest rodeo people of your time. Did you know Larry Mann?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, very well. I still know him.

JUNGE: Do you? He’s still around?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. The fact is I gave a talk at CWC a couple weeks ago—Central Wyoming College [Riverton, Wyo.] because, you know, they have the booster club. Larry Mann was the one that talked the year before and stuff. But, I knew him when I was rodeoing, yeah. I think he was quitting about the time I started, but–

JUNGE: What about Jim Shoulders?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, he was a stock contractor, and—when I was rodeoing. He rodeoed when my dad rodeoed.

JUNGE: Quite a bit older?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Is he still around?

SHEPPERSON: No, he died.

JUNGE: Who are some of the other champs that you knew?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, Dean Oliver, you know. He was the–

JUNGE: In what event? [01:40:00]

SHEPPERSON: Calf roping.

JUNGE: Yeah, OK. I remember that name.

SHEPPERSON: Phil Lyne, all-around cowboy—he used to travel with me some. Roy Cooper—he’s been in my airplane.

JUNGE: Roy Cooper?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Where was he from?

SHEPPERSON: Oklahoma—Texas now but Texas, yeah. That’s where he’s from.

JUNGE: What about Chris LeDoux? [LeDoux was a country western singer and songwriter from Kaycee, Wyo., who also sculpted bronzes in addition to rodeoing. He died in 2005.]

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. He—you know, he just lived right here. Yeah, we were roommates at the Oklahoma City finals a lot of times.

JUNGE: Well, would he be about your age or a little younger?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, just a little bit younger.

JUNGE: What kind of guy was Chris?

SHEPPERSON: Chris was a good guy—a really good guy; a good family guy. You know, he—when he was trying to learn to play the guitar and stuff, he’d lock himself in the bathroom when we were travelling together and shut the door where it would reverberate back. He worked hard at being a musician—worked very hard at it and a really good guy to be around. He wasn’t [01:41:00]—I shouldn’t even say this—probably wasn’t the best bareback rider, but the year he won it, was whoever won the national finals, and he’s the only guy that rode ten horses that year. But, you know, he wasn’t in the top five or anything like that when–

JUNGE: He rode ten horses?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, whoever won that average at the national finals was the world champion. That was 1976, and he’s—when it came down to the eighth or ninth horse, everybody had fallen off but him, so he made sure he stayed on. (laughter)

JUNGE: He died of cancer, didn’t he?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. You know, he’d had his liver replaced, and he had that same liver problem that that football player—that great football player—remember, he had a liver problem? I can’t think of his name right now. But, yeah, he had a bad liver and not from drinking or anything. He was a good guy. [01:42:00]

JUNGE: Yeah, some people have got cirrhosis. … I had a good friend who died of cirrhosis of the liver. He didn’t drink. He was a doctor, and somehow or other, he picked up that problem. I don’t know whether it was genetic or he was around something. But, I told Lisa that I knew Chris LeDoux but just by sight because I taught up at Sheridan College for a couple years, and Patsy Hamilton was the rodeo coach up there. Did you know her?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, I remember that name but I can’t place her right now.

JUNGE: Pat Hamilton? She was rodeo coach and she just loved Chris LeDoux, and who wouldn’t? The guy was a good rodeo hand. He could play the guitar, and he wore a cowboy hat and was good-looking. What else did you need in life?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) A good guy, too; always a gentleman.

JUNGE: Yeah, but must have been a heck of a competitor.

SHEPPERSON: Well, you know, he really worked at his music. He just wasn’t quite—[01:43:00] like the year he won it, Joe Alexander had won way more money than he did that year. You know, he—Chris wasn’t quite built right to be the top bareback rider.

JUNGE: Too heavy or what?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, pretty big and heavy and it’s hard–awful hard on his arm. … He’s the one that kind of invented that, where they take the arm, where it can’t straighten your elbow out and stuff and–

JUNGE: Oh, really? Is that why they do that?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, because that jerk—if it jerks your arm straight, pretty soon, your elbow gets bad, you know. So, he got—he’s the one that kind of taped it so it jerks it but it doesn’t straighten your arm out and really pull your ligaments.

JUNGE: Was your dad athletic?

SHEPPERSON: Mine?

JUNGE: Yeah.

SHEPPERSON: Very, very.

JUNGE: Your grandpa?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, very.

JUNGE: So, you inherited that.

SHEPPERSON: Right. My dad’s—[01:44:00] it would be granddad—came up the Chisholm Trail and Bax Taylor and his brother, Buck Taylor—Buck Taylor was the world champion bronc rider and King of the Cowboys in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. That was my dad’s kind of great-uncle—a big guy.

JUNGE: Interesting stuff. Did you ever find out about them driving up the Chisholm Trail? They probably came right through Pine Bluffs [Wyo.], didn’t they—or is that the Texas Trail?

SHEPPERSON: That was the Texas Trail. You know, I—they probably did come through Pine Bluffs. You know, they kind of came and hit the Platte. But, he came up here in 1867 or 1868.

JUNGE: Well, Frank, did either one—your dad or your grandpa or anyone in the family leave any journal or diary or–

SHEPPERSON: No.

JUNGE: Because that would be fun—that would be fun to follow up [01:45:00] their activities.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, my great-granddad, that Bax Taylor–he came up here. … There’s a letter, and I don’t know where it’s at. My sister has it or my mother had it—from a guy named Colonel North in Texas. It said that Bax and Buck Taylor were the best two hands that he—he sent a lot of cattle up—best two hands that had ever come up the Chisholm Trail, and there’s a big, long letter that—and it says in there they could outrun, outshoot, and outride everybody, you know. I don’t know, but–

JUNGE: (laughter) Well, you’ve been around a lot of—let’s just say bullshitters, right?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: So, you probably know how to judge bullshit, right –

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE:—which is not and which is, so you think that’s true or–

SHEPPERSON: Oh, very definitely. Buck Taylor became the world champion bronc rider and King of the Cowboys in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Bax Taylor was

about—you know –six-four. He got killed [01:46:00] by a runaway team, and then, anyway, he had twin daughters, and they’re the twins that are written about in The Virginian—that book [1902 western novel by Owen Wister set in Wyoming]. The Taylor Twins, it talks about, at the Goose Egg where they changed their clothes. Well, that was my grandmother and aunt.

JUNGE: That was your grandmother and aunt—those two kids?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Are you serious?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah, yes, Ruth and Aunt Francis.

JUNGE: How do you know that?

SHEPPERSON: Because Aunt Francis—I can take you up there and show you her piano—the old roller piano that came in on a team wagon—sitting up there at the house. But, Aunt Francis just died about fifteen, twenty years ago. I’ve got the pistol that Bax Taylor brought up the Chisholm Trail over there at the house.

JUNGE: God! Is this your—on your mother’s side or your dad’s?

SHEPPERSON: Dad’s. On my mother’s side, her granddad came up the [01:47:00] Chisholm Trail about the same time and settled and started the 4J’s Ranch by Guernsey, and he was—had an alias because he was a gunfighter in Texas. But, he ended up being one of the first sheriffs over there. His stuff is in the museum, and his pistol, and saddle, and stuff is in the museum in Cheyenne.

JUNGE: At that Old West Museum? [Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum]

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: What was his name again?

SHEPPERSON: Covington—Ed Covington. … He changed his name because he was— left Texas probably under (laughter)—I don’t know what, but–

JUNGE: You know, in all your travels, you must have known characters like this, right?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Did you meet a few characters like this?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, this Casper Schaefer I was telling you about—when he came to work down here, he always wanted to get the paper. He was raised [01:48:00] by the main bank robbers—you remember in the late ’60s and early ’70s all the banks getting robbed in Chicago and back east and everything? Well, those bank robbers all lived in Billings, and they kind of supported him, and they taught Casper about playing cards and this and that. But, he’d get that paper. They ended up catching most of them, but—

JUNGE: Did they wind up in jail?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: These were friends of his?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, they kind of raised him. To Casper, you know, they’re just old, ordinary people and they didn’t rob banks around here. They went back east to rob the banks. Yeah–

JUNGE: Did you know any renegade cowboys?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: Can you think of any offhand?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. I think a lot of my—a lot of the guys that rode—you know, they’d get into those drug deals and stuff, you know, and they’d get in trouble. When you’re rodeoing, [01:49:00] a lot of scam artists come around, you know, that try to get you in on this or that.

JUNGE: You mean, like a business proposition?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, but most of them were scams, you know, where you’d make some money if you do this, do that, pack this here or that. You had to really be careful.

JUNGE: Who was the best all-around cowboy you ever saw?

SHEPPERSON: I guess Phil Lyne.

JUNGE: Where was he from—Texas?

SHEPPERSON: But, you know, he went to the national finals in bull-riding and the calf-roping. You know, he worked both ends of the arena. Most of the all-around cowboys are one end or the other end, but Phil Lyne—he rode broncs and bulls. I think he was world champion calf-roper several times.

JUNGE: You’ve got to have a lot of athletic ability to do that, don’t you? I mean, to work both ends of the arena?

SHEPPERSON: Right. But, old Benny Reynolds was also right up there. He was an all-around cowboy that worked both ends of [01:50:00] the arena. He just died a month or two ago from—

JUNGE: Where was he from?

SHEPPERSON: Montana, up there; a good guy. In fact, he rodeoed until he was 70-some years old. He just died of a heart attack about a month or two ago, but a big, tough guy.

JUNGE: Do you know any Latino or Indian cowboys?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah.

JUNGE: Mexican cowboys or–

SHEPPERSON: Indians.

JUNGE: Indians?

SHEPPERSON: You know, the Smalls and some of them from up here in Montana there.

JUNGE: Pretty good?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, they’re good hands. Then, Larry McKane [sic?] from Okanagan Falls. He was a good—he never won the all-around, but he was a good calf-roper and a good bronc-rider—Kenny McLean.

JUNGE: Now, you got as far as–

SHEPPERSON: He was an Indian, also.

JUNGE: Oh, was he?

SHEPPERSON: But, he was—I think he was a world champion bronc-rider, and he went to the national finals in the calf-roping. He was–

JUNGE: [01:51:00] So, he worked both ends of the arena?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Well, not really, but –

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, he did. He did bronc-riding and calf-roping. But, he never won the all-around, see? He wasn’t the all-around champion, but he was a good hand—a good guy.

JUNGE: You’ve been out to the west coast. Have you been in Madison Square Garden?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. I won it.

JUNGE: What did you win?

SHEPPERSON: I won it in ’74 or ’75. We rodeoed on the fifth floor of the Madison Square Garden, yeah; took a horse right up that ramp.

JUNGE: (laughter) This was in steer-wrestling?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: What was that like?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, it was really different. They had big, old Hereford steers. There was a guy back there from Cowtown that knew those people, and those people rooted for the livestock. You know, if you threw one good, they’d boo you. But, if something just … trumped you, oh, that just made those people back there happy. They’d— (laughter)

JUNGE: [01:52:00] Different point of view, isn’t it?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, it really is. We went. You know, a bunch of us cowboys got together and went around to Greenwich Village. Well, we didn’t know hardly anybody back there, you know.

JUNGE: What did you think of it?

SHEPPERSON: Well, it was different. … We were around there—had to be around there quite a while and they had these little pigeonholes of … somebody would mail you something, anyway, by your back number. Hell, I had mail one day, and all those guys stand around there. “Goddamn,” I said, “I’ve got a letter.” You know, I opened it up and I started reading it to them. It said, “I watched at the rodeo,” you know, “You’re sure strong and athletic and good-looking,” and went on and on. Got down to the bottom and it’s signed Charles. (laughter) I got down to the bottom and I stopped, and I looked around at everybody. They snatched that from me. They gave me (laughter) (telephone rings)—I’ll try him again. Hello.

LES: What’s going on?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, muddy and wet and [01:53:00] rainy.

LES: Oh, really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. What’s going on with you?

LES: Oh, nothing.

SHEPPERSON: Still in Red Bluff?

LES: Yeah, I roped earlier this morning but sure didn’t leave very good.

SHEPPERSON: I see. Well, there isn’t much going on here. I’ve got a guy here. I’m bullshitting a little bit or quite a bit.

LES: No?

SHEPPERSON: He wanted to talk about flying, but all we’ve talked about is rodeoing.

LES: So? (laughter)

SHEPPERSON: So, when do you get your second one?

LES: Tomorrow morning.

SHEPPERSON: Tomorrow morning?

LES: Yes.

SHEPPERSON: Then, where do you go?

LES: Clovis, next week. (inaudible) [01:54:00]

SHEPPERSON: Well, I appreciate your calling.

LES: Yeah. Allen Keller says hello.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, did he? Good. Good. (laughter) Tell him hello if you see him again.

LES: Yeah, I will.

SHEPPERSON: Okey doke.

LES: He’s a lot better today but–

SHEPPERSON: Oh, is that right?

LES: Yeah, like last time I talked to him, he was crazier than shit up your ass, you know. He couldn’t even hold a conversation. But, then, today—he was pretty good today.

SHEPPERSON: Good, good.

LES: All righty–

SHEPPERSON: OK. Thanks, Les.

LES: (inaudible)

SHEPPERSON: This Allen Keller—he’s one of the bullies. He was a national champion wrestler heavyweight. But, anyway, he’d just pick people out [01:55:00] and decide he’s going to whip them and chase them for a month or two and then beat up on them and stuff.

JUNGE: How old is he?

SHEPPERSON: How old is he? He’s my age.

JUNGE: Where’d he go to school?

SHEPPERSON: He went to school at CSU, [Colorado State University] so I’ve known him since college.

JUNGE: Because there was an Allen Keller at Western State College.

SHEPPERSON: I think that was him. He was—he went to some school down there—Lamar.

JUNGE: Junior college?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. He was the national champion from Lamar —heavyweight wrestler.

JUNGE: I think he wrestled at Western State.

SHEPPERSON: That could be.

JUNGE: He didn’t go to CSU, though, did he?

SHEPPERSON: Junior or senior year, he did.

JUNGE: OK, because I knew an Allen Keller when we played. I think I was a freshman in college in ’61, and he was on the football team. Was he on the football team?

SHEPPERSON: Could have been. He was a big, huge guy.

JUNGE: Well, maybe, this isn’t even the same guy, but there was an Allen Keller who was on the football team at Western State, and he was in rodeo, too, and [01:56:00] he—we were playing flag football that day. It was an intramural thing, and he came down the field and put a block on me. I thought every bone in my body was broken, and he just—I think he just loved doing that.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, that was probably him.

JUNGE: In fact, I was paralyzed momentarily. I couldn’t move my arms. That’s how hard he hit me.

SHEPPERSON: When he wrestled for CSU, after he got through the junior colleges, he was the—they had the semi-finals in Laramie, and us cowboys—anyway, he drew Curly Cope, and old Curly Cope just beat the hell out of him, you know. All of us cowboys were around the ring, and we were rooting for Curly Cope. (laughter) When Allen got done, “Who were you guys rooting for, anyway?” “Oh, we were rooting for you, Allen.” (laughter) [01:57:00]

JUNGE: You know, I have to tell—say this—but Curly Cope was as black guy at Arizona State and national NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion. Curly Cope—I don’t think anybody could have beat him.

SHEPPERSON: No, but Allen gave him a pretty good tussle there, for a little while there.

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Could you wrestle?

SHEPPERSON: No. I’d run around with the wrestlers and stuff, but no, I didn’t wrestle. They didn’t ever wrestle at Midwest.

JUNGE: But, at UW, they had wrestling.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, but, you know, you almost have to go through high school wrestling to get into the college wrestling. (laughter)

JUNGE: Well, you know what? It seems like some of the principles would be the same; like on a steer, don’t you have to knock it off its balance?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. Oh, they’re the same. I’ve wrestled with a lot of wrestlers, you know. (laughter) In fact, we roomed with them down there. But, at any rate, this same Allen Keller—that’s who just said to tell me ‘hi.’ When he was rodeoing, he—there were three or four people who were going to kill him. So, he put word out that he’d got [01:58:00] killed, and he was—oh, running a little dope, I think, for some of the people in Vegas and doing some of those bad things. He, anyway, put it out that he’d been killed, but he hadn’t, you know. He hid for a year or two. He’s from Olathe, Colorado. That’s where he’s from.

JUNGE: Yeah. Did you know the [Irvines]?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, which ones?

JUNGE: Frank and—

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: When I was at Sheridan College, they had a hell of a bad reputation.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, still does. (laughter)

JUNGE: They were hell-raisers.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah. You know, he’s got arthritis so bad now, he can’t even–

JUNGE: Frank?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. He can’t even move his hands or anything. His little sister just ran out of gas over here a month or two ago by the Teapot and called me up, and I went and she was with Heidi [Merritt?]—Linda and Heidi. Anyway, I went and took them over to Amy’s and got them gassed up. But, yeah–

JUNGE: [01:59:00] He told me—I saw him at Spotted Horse a year or two ago.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, he’s still up there.

JUNGE: Yeah, and I saw him—met him at a bar—at the bar.

Well, there’s only one place at the Spotted Horse, I guess—the bar. It used to be a filling station, I think. But, anyway, I got to talking to him and I said, “What’s your name?” He said, “Frank Irvine.” I said, “I knew a Frank Irvine at Sheridan College,” and he just laughed. He said, “Yeah, that was me.” “[Paxon?] was your brother?” “Yeah, that’s a cousin.” I think it was his cousin. I’m not sure.

SHEPPERSON: Pax is his cousin.

JUNGE: Yeah, and so–

SHEPPERSON: Frank’s dad is Billy and Pax’s dad is Van.

JUNGE: Which was the one in the Johnson County War?

SHEPPERSON: Their granddad, William C. Irvine. (laughter)

JUNGE: Did you know any of these guys?

SHEPPERSON: All of them. They’re my neighbors. I bought—part of this land came from Van Irvine.

JUNGE: Really?

SHEPPERSON: Yes. Yeah, Van—[02:00:00] they write letters, back and forth. Van … I was one of the few people that went to his thing, you know, when he died. But, hell, the last time he got married, I went up there. Billy still lives in—Frank’s dad still lives in Buffalo.

JUNGE: How old is he?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, he’s in his late eighties. But, he got hurt real bad steer-roping. He cut his head and he just—some things, old times he can remember, but he can’t remember much.

JUNGE: Well, that’s typical. That could be just dementia, too, don’t you think?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. But, Frank’s mother died. She got Alzheimer’s. She died about two years ago—Sally. I was raised around them. Yeah, they—the fact is, Van and my dad rodeoed together.

JUNGE:…Were they really the type of people who could live up that reputation they had?

SHEPPERSON: [02:01:00] I’ll tell you what—Van Irvine—his place—you know, when you leave Edgerton and go over the hill? It’s the Flying Diamonds where he was born and raised.

JUNGE: East of Edgerton or–

SHEPPERSON: Northeast. Hell, I’ve known him, but he and Dad rodeoed together and stuff. But, truthfully, he put together probably—he owned more land than anybody in the state of Wyoming for a while. But, he kind of leveraged it, and then when the interest rates came high, Metropolitan Life ended up having to buy him out. But, when he leveraged—he’s kind of a funny—you know, he’s sharp in ways. He leveraged it. You know, he’d buy this land, like these old wheat fields up here. He bought it and then plowed it up because he knew the Interstate was coming through and got more money. Then, when he got more money per acre, then he mortgaged [02:02:00] it for higher.

He mortgaged it just as high as it would go. Then, he took that cash and sometimes he’d buy other places. But, anyway, when he sold out to Metropolitan, he moved to Arizona, and he had a safe in the floor of his house that was plumb full of cash that he took all these places. You know, everybody said he went broke and he kind of did, except he had a safe full of cash. Well, he was up here for a year. He went back down, and he’d had those floods down there, and that damn safe had gotten water in it and sat there for about a year and was just almost green jelly-like. He got part of it back, where if they could read the numbers on it, you know, they took care of it. But, he lost a lot of money that way. God!

JUNGE: In a way, kind of like cosmic justice, wasn’t it?

SHEPPERSON: What’s that?

JUNGE: Cosmic justice. Don’t they call it cosmic justice?

SHEPPERSON: But, yeah, I’m just [02:03:00] going to show you. I stay in touch with him. This is—Lee Irvine wrote me that.

JUNGE: Should I read this?

SHEPPERSON: That’s Pax’s brother.

JUNGE:“Dear Frank, hope all is well with your family and its expanding empire. (laughter) A few of us know that wisely-invested capital plus a lot of hard work (and some luck),” in parenthesis, “will result in success. Comments like, ‘You must own half of Wyoming by now,’ come along, mostly from jealous people, but from a few friends. I wish you all the luck in the world, and if Van was still here, he would, too. My kids are all out of the ranching business and don’t have any interest in the business, so I thought, since you are president of the Stock Growers and have to give speeches and write articles, you might like to have this book that Van gave me. You were one of his heroes, college RCA, Rodeo Cowboy Association, and now, large rancher. [02:04:00] Take care and don’t take too much debt. Sincerely, Lee. September 30, 2010.”

SHEPPERSON: He sent me —his dad was president of the Stock Growers [Wyoming Stock Growers Association] and kept every speech and stuff, you know, that he had to write for the cattle country and all that. Anyway, his dad had put that together in a real nice book, and Lee had sent it to me. It was really interesting because a lot of the same problems that I had as president–you know, very thoughtful of Lee to send that to me. But, anyway, when—I put it in the Stock Growers’ archives. They’ve got one of those big archives deal and kind of museum-type deal. That’s where the book is now.

JUNGE: I didn’t know you’re president of the Stock Growers. How long—when was this?

SHEPPERSON: Oh, probably, let’s see. There’s been—probably four years ago.

JUNGE: Four years ago?

SHEPPERSON: Four or five years ago, yeah.

JUNGE: [02:05:00] How long were you president?

SHEPPERSON: For two years. I was first vice-president for two years, president for two years.

JUNGE: Which meant you had to go to meetings down in Cheyenne? How did you like that job?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I didn’t get everything done I wanted to, but, you know, I liked it. … The stock growers' people are the best people in the whole world, but, you know, they’re—too often, the Cheyenne people become too involved in the NCBA and some of these big, bureaucratic deals that don’t represent the ranchers quite as good as they should.

JUNGE: What’s the NCBA?

SHEPPERSON: National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. That’s the national organization.

JUNGE: So, what did you want to get done?

SHEPPERSON: Well, several things but one of the things was this country of origin labeling. I really believe in it.

JUNGE: You don’t?

SHEPPERSON: I do. [02:06:00] I really do believe in it. I believe the consumers deserve it, and I think us producers deserve it. You know, if we don’t raise something good, people won’t buy it. If we raise something good, they want it, and I just think it’s good for the United States. But, the NCBA and some of the higher-ups that are in somewhat with the packers and stuff—they don’t want it because they can bring Brazil beef, Australian beef in and put the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] stamp on it and the consumer doesn’t know what they’re eating, and it cheapens beef up.

JUNGE: Yeah, it competes too much with you guys.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Well, do you think you—if a person were to taste the Brazilian or Argentinian beef or Australian beef and taste U.S. beef that they would notice a difference?

SHEPPERSON: Very definitely. Most [02:07:00] of the beef that comes in here isn’t corn-fed. The fact is, all of it isn’t. What they’re really importing is bulls and old cows and cutting meat to put in hamburger. We’ve got the best beef in the world. You know, they can cheapen it up—the hamburger and everything else—by bringing in this other meat and mixing it. So, anyway, you know, there were a lot of political issues and, truthfully, it has passed and it is the law and Canada and Mexico and the NCBA are still fighting it, and the World Trade Organization is going to look at it again and see if we can comply with all of our trade agreements.

JUNGE: Now, do you—as ranchers, do they still get subsidies?

SHEPPERSON: No. [02:08:00] No, we never did.

JUNGE: Oh, I thought the beef cattle industry did get subsidies. No?

SHEPPERSON: Well, the grain-growers do. We get it—if we buy insurance, for disaster insurance, we get paid for that but no subsidy whatsoever. The fact is, you know, the beef cattle industry doesn’t have any subsidies. The farmers—you know, they’ve got minimums and stuff that they don’t meet them, they–

JUNGE: Oil people have subsidies.

SHEPPERSON:… I guess it depends on how you look at it. They get a tax break, but their tax break is to put that money into more exploration. You know, I don’t know if a tax break is a subsidy or not.

JUNGE: Oh, I suppose it is. I mean, I would imagine you could call it anything you want to call it, but it’s an encouragement.

SHEPPERSON: [02:09:00] Yeah, it’s an encouragement.

JUNGE: Yeah. Well, do you ever get into any problems—do cattlemen and the oil industry people get along generally or do they have problems?

SHEPPERSON: Generally, we get along very good. Like I said, we run cattle in the oil field and the people that work for the oil companies are really good. The problem that we have is some of the little scab oil people on the outside, on our private land, the oil—the minerals—are rated higher than the private land ownership. But, they’re supposed to pay damages; you know, make an agreement and pay damages for the surface damage that they do.

JUNGE: I’ve got oil under my property in Cheyenne, and I own it. I own the mineral rights.

SHEPPERSON: Good.

JUNGE: Well, I’m not the only one. I’m just the little landowner and we’re surrounded by people who have–one guy has twenty acres right next to me. I’ve got a little eight- and-a-half-acre [02:10:00] plot on an intersection. But, everybody—there’s oil under everybody and they’re fracking down there; you know, near the Hereford Ranch, as you know, they’re fracking down there. So, one of my neighbors, Bob Williams, said that they—his wife got three letters from some company in Canada. It wanted to know if they wanted to sell that land or lease it. I would suppose it was an oil company. I think that’s what he told me. But, I—we sold it. Well, let’s see, they paid us three thousand dollars or five thousand dollars for—I think it was trespass rights or something. But, we had to sign a contract. We all got together as neighbors and we signed a contract because some lawyer said, “Look, I’ll do you guys all together and it will be cheaper that way.” I found out after I read the contract—(laughter) after I signed the contract—I read it.

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) You must have been working for the Obama administration. (laughter)

JUNGE: [02:11:00] Ouch! Come on, Frank. I’m a Democrat. Give me a break! All right, all right. So, anyway, I read this thing afterwards, thinking that I trust my neighbors. They think it’s OK. I think it’s OK. My wife and I sign, and then I read it. It said, “You will help—if we do drill for oil near your property or on your property,” and of course, they have to stay three hundred and fifty feet away. But, we—“you have to help pay for the transportation of the oil, and you have to help pay for the marketing of the oil.” I went, “What?” So, in other words, if the secretary of that oil company is in New York and they want me to pay her salary, I’m paying her salary. Some other lawyer told me, “Oh, you never should have signed.”

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. See—that’s the same problem—same type of problems we have and, you know, we’ve [02:12:00] got some mineral rights on some land I just bought up by [Linch?]. Lisa owns it now, so it’s her problem. But, at any rate, I got ten percent of the minerals, and they came and wanted to lease my minerals. Well, we bought this place because it’s good water and good grass, and it’s just a pretty little place on both sides of the highway. But, as soon as they put an oil well on it, it diminishes the value a bunch. But, it’s—we bought it … for livestock but knowing that we could get our money out of it because it’s such a pretty little place that people would want. But, if they put an oil well on it, then it isn’t that pretty little place that everybody is going to want. So, anyway, they came in to lease our minerals and I told them, no, I didn’t want to lease the minerals with them. The ninety percent-owner leased their minerals, and they told me, “Well, they can come in there [02:13:00] and drill anyway,” which they can. Then, I got to reading, and I’ve got the laws right in this little thing here that if they hit oil, I have to pay double my share for the drilling, triple my share for all the equipment—tanks, pump jacks and all that stuff on it. This is state law. That’s state law. It isn’t anything I’ve signed. That is state law. Then, after all that is paid, then I can start getting my royalty.

JUNGE: Holy cow! You have to pay double what?

SHEPPERSON: I have to pay double of my share of the cost of drilling and triple of all of the infrastructure they put on there—the tanks, the pump jacks, the pipelines, and all that.

JUNGE: Triple your share? Why?

SHEPPERSON: That’s the state law.

JUNGE: [02:14:00] Is that right?

SHEPPERSON: No, it isn’t right, but it’s the way it is. (laughter) But, at any rate, you know, you wonder why people get into the politics and stuff. Well, they—the oil industry has had a lot to do with running our little Legislature down there and, you know, the eminent domain laws are so set against us landowners and stuff. We just—we’ve gained a little bit at a time, but, boy, I’ll tell you what—we’re a long ways away from being where we should be.

JUNGE: Do you think that the laws—this trespass law—is because the oil industry got it set up that way?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, and, you know, let me give you another example. The XL Pipeline [Keystone XL Pipeline]… all they need to do is tell those people, “We’re going to pay you an annual on that [02:15:00] pipeline going through there. You know, we’re going to pay you the damages. We’re going to pay you so much, you know; twenty dollars, twenty dollars a rod, to go through your farm. But, then, every year, we’re going to pay you a little bit.” The reason they need to do that is because they’ll come—for the rest of the length of that pipeline, people coming in, you know, and they’ll be driving it. They’ll be checking it. They’ll be sending probes down to it, you know, and digging up to see if it has corrosion and all that stuff and none of that stuff is in there. We can’t get the oil. We’ve got pipelines sitting here, and we can’t get the oil industry to—and the oil

industry—we just had a fight with Pacific Power and Light. They came in and just tore the heck out of the country, and it’s in the contract that if they do damages, you know, under reconstruction or maintenance, that they’re supposed to pay for it.

JUNGE: So, what you’re trying to get them to do on the pipeline is pay for damages–

SHEPPERSON: Right.

JUNGE: [02:16:00] —or pay you some compensation?

SHEPPERSON: Yes, compensation, and annual compensation because they’re going to be going through there every year and stuff. When it gets 15 or 20 years old, then they’ll be going through there ten times a year; you know, when it really needs maintenance. The first few years, they won’t be back a lot but after that. But, the land—the taxpayer, the landowner should be getting—the other part is, is your thing on or off?

JUNGE: It’s on, but like I say, we can take all this off. I won’t—we’re not going to use this. I’m just talking to you, and I’m just interested in this. If you don’t want it on, we don’t have to keep it on.

SHEPPERSON: Well, you know, I’ve got to be careful on using names and stuff, but—because it’s on.

JUNGE: Sure. …

SHEPPERSON: Anyway, I was talking to one of their main accountants the other day. They make more money off their pipelines [02:17:00] than they do the trucking, oil fields, and stuff because those pipelines pay. Every day, the stuff is going up and down there, and they put other people in there. Yet, the landowner doesn’t get anything. But,

It could be, but—once they get a pipeline in—they are one of the most lucrative things there is is a pipeline.

JUNGE: They’re not dumb people, you know.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, no, and I’m not blaming that family or anything.

JUNGE: No, I –

SHEPPERSON: I’m just letting you know how I found that out.

JUNGE: You know, I’m going to raise your hackles here a little bit. Is that OK?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: OK. I don’t think the trespassing law, as it was written by the oil and gas industry, if that’s who wrote it or representatives who lobbied for it—I don’t think it’s much different from the fence-out law that the stock growers got established years ago.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. The trespass laws—if you’re speaking of the trespass laws, there are two types of trespass. Civil—civil trespass—and that’s like if you came in here, [02:18:00] I would have to say, “You get out of here,” and I couldn’t do anything to you. You could come in here anytime you wanted to. In the civil trespass law, I’ve got to give you a chance to get out. The hunting trespass law is written into law that if you come in here hunting that you have to have permission. I can get you charged, but on the civil trespass, there’s not a thing I can do to you.

JUNGE: Because this is a county road or what?

SHEPPERSON: No, that is the trespass law. I’m just poking a hole in your thing because, if somebody—if I see somebody walking over that hill right now, I can go down there and there’s not a thing I can do about it except tell him to get off. If he doesn’t get off, I can call the law. But, as far as charging him with anything, I can’t charge him with anything. You brought up the trespass laws. I’m just telling you what they are.

JUNGE: Yeah, but the example that I was always given was, OK, let’s say [02:19:00] somebody’s got this nice—and I told this to Lisa—they’ve got this nice, little garden and their neighbor’s cattle come in and tramp it all to bits and–

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, OK, but that’s not the trespass law. Now, you’re talking about the fence-out law.

JUNGE: OK. I’m sorry. (laughter) Never mind. Never mind. No—but, OK. So, the fence out law is what I was trying to explain that the stock growers got passed that seemed to me—and maybe I’ve just got the little ranchers’ point of view—it seemed to me to be unfair because, if his cattle or my neighbor’s cattle comes over and ruin’s my wife’s garden, why should I have to build a fence to keep his cattle off of my garden?

SHEPPERSON: You’re kind of right, and truthfully the fence-out law—the owner’s got to pay for—supposed to—he’s supposed to pay for half of it.

JUNGE: Oh, is that what it is?

SHEPPERSON: There is such a thing in law of what a legal fence is, and so if an animal breaks [02:20:00] into a legal fence, he has some responsibility. But, if your fence doesn’t fit the–

JUNGE: The guidelines–

SHEPPERSON:—the guidelines, then that’s completely your problem. But, let me tell you a little bit about the other side of that—how they’re developing north of Cheyenne, how they’re developing up here, north of Casper. If you have a ranch there, and somebody has something, and then all these people come in, and I’ve ranched there for a hundred years, is it my responsibility to go fence each one of them and make sure my cows stay out of each one of them? So, (laughter) they’re going to try to change. They’re looking at changing the rules on a legal fence, and a legal fence between my neighbor who has one hundred thousand acres and I have one hundred thousand acres over here is a little different than somebody that has five acres and a garden and the cows are hungry outside of [02:21:00] it. (laughter)

JUNGE: All right, Frank. OK. All right, but I would assume that you could fence your property in such a way that you didn’t have your cows going over and eating somebody’s grass on their own front yard. I mean, wouldn’t you normally have that fence, anyway?

SHEPPERSON: No, this country was never fenced, like I told you when I was a kid. But, when the ranchers—they started to fence it, I didn’t know our ranch was so little. (laughter) But, at any rate, they get together. Each one of them pays for half of it, and then each one of them was responsible for the maintenance of half of it. But, as the ranches have changed hands, some of them four or five or six times, a new rancher comes in, and if a rancher goes over and he’s from Arkansas and a rancher goes over and says, “Now, you maintain this part of your fence as yours.” He says, “What the hell makes you think so?” you know. [02:22:00] He says, “I want this part,” because it’s been maintained better, see? There’s no—when that new guy comes in, there’s no legal way for me to say, “No, that’s not your part.” So–

JUNGE: Oh, so I’m looking at it from the little guy’s point of view but—and kind of a slanted point of view because what you’re saying is the assumption is that both parties will have to share the load. OK. But, what if one of those parties is a huge landowner with lots of cattle and the other guy is just a little guy?

SHEPPERSON: Well, what happens is just exactly like I said. When thirty people come in and buy forty acres each, does the poor old landowner have to share in every one of their fences? He didn’t sell them the land.

JUNGE: The poor old landowner?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: What if he’s got two hundred and fifty thousand acres?

SHEPPERSON: Well, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have a crew that’s going to be fencing everybody that moves in on forty acres and maintaining their fences. Do you want him to come down and maintain it [00:23:00] also? You know, an old mom and dad go out and go for a little walk across the land. They’d push the top wire down, climb over it and go. You know, are they the ones that are supposed to tighten the wire back up and put the staples back in, you know? I understand it’s a problem, and I don’t know the answer to the problem, but I just let you know both sides of it. You know, like up here, this is—these poor ranchers in this area up here—there’s one rancher over there, all of a sudden, had no neighbors for a lifetime. All of a sudden, he’s got forty neighbors, and each one of them has three dogs and they’re running all over, and they give him hell if the cows get in there. You know, he—it’s changed his life completely. I don’t know. I know the problem, but I don’t know the whole answer [02:24:00] to that. But, I know that the whole answer isn’t—if you go buy forty acres, that he’s got to maintain your fence or build your fence or–

JUNGE: Well, it would seem to me like he’d already have his fence that would keep his property apart from all these other people. But, I could see where they might say, well, you—you know, this part of your fence broke down, Mr. Shepperson, and I’ll go in with you and work with you on getting this part of it done, but you’ve already got that fence there, right, before these other guys move in?

SHEPPERSON: No, no. What happens is—and it happens a lot in our country—just north of Edgerton, there are six hundred and forty acres that have belonged to a family. Oh, they live in California. Their granddad homesteaded it. You know, they just kept it kind of in the family and paid the taxes and we send up a little bit of lease money. Right in the middle of our pasture—what if they decide to [02:25:00] break it up in forty-acre plots and sell it?

JUNGE: Then, who has to build the fences, right?

SHEPPERSON: Right, right, you know, and—

JUNGE: Well, I’d say they–

SHEPPERSON: But, it’s right in the middle of our pasture, so there are no fences.

JUNGE: You know what my solution is to that? Don’t let them build houses in the middle of–

SHEPPERSON: I know, but you can’t stop them. You know, that’s their private property. They can sell that to whoever they want to.

JUNGE: You don’t have any—as a lessee, you don’t have any rights t –

SHEPPERSON: I don’t have any rights. The fact is, if they’ve got to cross my deeded land to get there, I’ve got to give them access, and they can get there, and they can build the thing and–

JUNGE: You’ve seen—this country wasn’t fenced when you were a kid. So, you’ve seen a lot of change.

SHEPPERSON: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

JUNGE: You think, for the better or for the worse or just change, period?

SHEPPERSON: You know, there are good parts and there are bad parts. There are

good—just like the Interstate. It came here in 1981. Oh, I didn’t [02:26:00] want that Interstate in the worst way. They condemned me. (laughter) I went to court without a lawyer, and they condemned me. (laughter) But, there have been a few good things in this state. But, oh, there have been a pile of bad things, too, you know, because of the trash, and the people, and the fires and, you know, there are just—there are all the different things. You know, every winter, people run through the fence and get their car out of there and go on. That’s a controlled access highway. Somebody run through the fence up there and I had to (inaudible) it out there one night when it was slick. A guy from Ohio—he had hit it, and it didn’t hurt him, but it ruined his car. Of course, my bulls run. So, anyway, the highway patrolman calls and says there’s a crippled bull here along the road, and somebody’s hit it. So, I go up and he’s on the fight. I get in through the fence, [02:27:00] and then I patched it up the best I can. I’m not supposed to mess with that fence. It’s controlled access highway. I don’t even have a key to the gates going onto it. So, the lawyer from Ohio calls me up and wants me to pay for the car. (laughter)

JUNGE: Wait a minute. This wasn’t your fence.

SHEPPERSON: That’s what I told him.

JUNGE:… a right-of-way fence, isn’t it?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah, it’s a right-of-way fence. Anyway—but, part of it is—anyway, I told him, you know, I the other—you know me. I told him. I said, “I want to see your license to practice law in Wyoming.” That’s the first thing I said. (laughter)

JUNGE: So, how did you resolve it?

SHEPPERSON: Well, I told him to go jump in a lake and get hold of the Highway Department. That isn’t my fence, you know. I don’t know if he did or not, but it’s hard to sue the Highway Department. But, Jim Moore, on the road to Gillette—his horse got out there and some people hit it and it killed them. They sued Jim Moore because there was a cattle guard there [02:28:00] but there was no gate across it, and I don’t know how they did it for sure, but that’s a state highway, which is a little different than a federal highway. But, yeah, they sued him.

JUNGE: But, it would seem like there would still be—the right of way is controlled by the state–

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE:—because the right of way at my house is controlled by the state—the highway.

SHEPPERSON: But, it’s—the rules are—you know, you were asking me how things changed. We never even saw people when I was a kid. (laughter) You know, we lived in the country then. Truthfully, our neighbors are really good—really good. You know, we’d—that’s our job—keep our cattle kind of on our side of an imaginary line and then if a few of them got over there, the neighbor would come in. Our neighbors were sheep people, and my granddad and my dad would say, “Well, I had the kids up there doing the best they could do, but some of them got over there. But, [02:29:00] we left some grass up here. Just take your herder and use some of that, you know, to keep it even.” You know, they got along really good. But, as new people come in that aren’t used to our custom and culture, those things change.

JUNGE: Well, you’re—there’s an old saying and you know it and everybody knows it—good fences make good neighbors.

SHEPPERSON: Yeah.

JUNGE: Do you think that’s true?

SHEPPERSON: No. (laughter)

JUNGE: Well, thanks a lot! (laughter)

SHEPPERSON: My best neighbor over here is (inaudible).

JUNGE: Who—south of here?

SHEPPERSON: Yeah. Oh, what a good neighbor he is. There is about a two-or three-wire fence between him and us. Usually, there’s at least one strand up. (laughter) Every year, we mix up a few cows but not very many. My cows kind of stay over here and his—you know, neither one of us [02:30:00] overgraze and they’re used to their home range. But, a few of them get over. I say, “Randy, I’ve got a hired man with a few days and, you know, we could go up and kind of rebuild some of that fence and make it better.” He says, “You send somebody and we’ll share some material.” He said, “Frank, I’d just rather gather them, horse them back, and work them separate.” Just all he said— (laughter)

JUNGE: It didn’t bother him.

SHEPPERSON: Doesn’t bother him. We—he’s fair and square and even. But, I’m giving you an example. A good fence doesn’t make a good neighbor, particularly. A good neighbor is a good neighbor, no matter what the fences are.

JUNGE: Good point, good point, yeah. Well, you know, there’s so much more I wanted to talk to you about. Didn’t I come in here to talk about aviation?

SHEPPERSON: (laughter) Yeah. You want to see my airplane? (laughter)

JUNGE: Yeah. I want to take a picture of you with your airplane, but is it—it’s pretty wet out there yet. Is that OK with you?

SHEPPERSON: We can jump in that little four-wheeler and–

JUNGE: [02:31:00] OK. Well, let me put all this stuff away and I need to call Bob Eisele because he’s expecting me. I don’t think I’m going to make it today. Sheridan is how many—

SHEPPERSON: Two hours.

JUNGE: Two hours away? But, I can’t get him. I can’t get him by my phone. I don’t think I—I couldn’t even–

SHEPPERSON: You can right now. You’re sitting in front of that thing.

JUNGE: All right. Well, now, wait a minute. Oh, I guess it must be out in the –

SHEPPERSON: No wonder you can’t get him on your phone. You don’t have a phone! (laughter)

JUNGE: Oh, man!

SHEPPERSON: Can I take this thing off?

JUNGE: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I’m sorry. Here—let’s stop.

SHEPPERSON: You going to leave me pinned down here?

JUNGE: I got it. I got it. Thank you.

END OF AUDIO FILE

Illustrations

• The portrait of Frank Shepperson is from the Wyoming State Archives Aviation Oral History collection. Used with permission and thanks.
• The 2012 photo of Frank Shepperson in the tack room on his ranch is by Dan Cepeda of the Casper Star-Tribune. Used with permission and thanks.

In February 1931, advances in radio technology reached tiny Medicine Bow, Wyo., allowing pilots to fly coast to coast regardless of weather conditions. While few understood the significance at the time, aviation historians now equate the event with the driving of the golden spike that completed the transcontinental railroad 62 years earlier.

When the Medicine Bow low-frequency radio signal connected the radio beams from Rock Springs and Cheyenne, Wyoming, this completed the route from San Francisco to New York, and pilots now could fly across the country more safely and efficiently than ever before. The event was a game-changer for aviation and the transcontinental airmail system, which helped create the passenger airlines people rely on today.

The railroad had played an important role, too, in helping pilots find their way. From the air, early U.S. Mail pilots followed the tracks, referring to them as “the iron compass.” Often, the mail was carried on the airplanes part of the way and then transferred to trains for land transport. The installation of a series of beacons and large, concrete arrows visible from the air aided pilots day and night in so-called contact flying.

The post office tries out airmail

The transcontinental airmail actually began during World War I, thanks to an idea generated by U.S. Post Office executives. The war itself had brought about rapid advances in aircraft design and engine reliability, advances which did not go unnoticed by two visionaries within the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.

In fiscal year 1917-1918, Postmaster General Albert Sidney Burleson and Second Assistant Postmaster General Otto Praeger won a congressional appropriation of $100,000 and embarked on a bold experiment to sponsor the growth of commercial aviation with federal support. Trial flights began in May 1918 on a short, 218-mile route from Washington, D.C. to New York City, with a stop in Philadelphia. But flying even over that short distance with unreliable compasses, inadequate maps and no ground-based navigational aids, pilots often got lost.

For the next five years, they resorted to “contact” flying, maintaining visual contact with geographic features such as rivers, shorelines and the “iron compass”—the tracks. Flying at night or during stormy weather was hazardous, and all pilots risked their lives delivering the mail. And despite the hazards, the mail got through—the completion rate gradually improved to 95 percent or better.

By 1921 the U.S. Airmail Service had firmly established itself as a daytime-only operation between New York and San Francisco—sometimes referred to as the Columbia Route, or the T Route. Mail planes would land in the evening at selected points; mail would be transferred to a waiting train, which would haul it further down the line to be picked up in the morning by another plane. This leapfrogging drew the ire of congressional appropriation committees and the scorn of rail officials, as it yielded only a minute commercial advantage.

On February 22, 1921 with the threat of Congress’ cancelling further funding for the Air Mail Service, Colonel Paul Henderson, Second Assistant Postmaster General, staged a daring night flight from coast to coast. Only one pilot got through—Jack Knight, who braved treacherous winter weather in a heroic night flight between North Platte and Chicago—thus convincing congressional members of the value of the airmail system.

Beacons light the route

To make night flying safer, the post office in 1923 began building a series of lighted beacons between Cheyenne and Chicago, Ill., improving on marine technology developed by General Electric and the American Gas Accumulator Company. This particular section was chosen partly because of its relatively flat terrain and proximity to commercial power.

But more importantly, westbound planes leaving New York could reach Chicago by nightfall, while eastbound departures from San Francisco could land in Cheyenne before dark. Supplementing the beacon system were intermediate landing fields every 30 to 50 miles to provide a haven in the event of difficulties. Westbound flights could now traverse the continent in 34 hours, while eastbound services, with their prevailing tailwinds, took only 29 hours, besting the railroads by some two days.

The state of Wyoming was surveyed by ground and air in the summer of 1923. Construction of the airway started in the summer of 1924. Airways were designated by the first letters of their terminal cities and read from west to east and south to north. They were designed so that no segment exceeded 1,000 miles and were subdivided in to 100-mile sections. Wyoming fell within the Salt Lake to Omaha section of the route which was designated SL-O. In the interest of bookkeeping, the beacons were numbered based on mileage from a terminal point west to east with the unit digit dropped. Thus Medicine Bow along the SL-O airway, 325 miles from Salt Lake City, became Site 32.

Fourteen intermediate fields located, from east to west, at Pine Bluffs, Burns, Federal, Laramie, Rock River, Medicine Bow, Dana, Cherokee, Latham, Red Desert, Bitter Creek, Lyman, Le Roy and Knight spanned the state. Sites located far from any nearby municipalities were named for the closest railroad siding. Land was leased from private individuals, the state or commercial entities based on prevailing land values, with leases running anywhere from a year to ten years.

The Medicine Bow intermediate field was one of 90 established along the Columbia route from New York to San Francisco and was initially located one mile west of town. It was relocated about 1929 to its present position, about nine-tenths of a mile southeast of Medicine Bow, to take advantage of the proximity to local utilities.

While under the administration of the federal government, the field had several classifications.

Earliest records list the property as a type “C”field. This was an intermediate field with boundary lighting, a rotating 24-inch beacon atop a 51-foot skeletal tower with primary electrical power supplied by an onsite gasoline generator with an extra generator for standby power.

The beacons rotated at six revolutions per minute.

Drum-style beacons housed a 24-inch parabolic mirror with a 1,000-watt Mazda lamp projecting 1,000,000 candlepower. Inside the drum was an automatic lamp changer with a spare lamp. Should the lamp burn out, the replacement could be installed and in focus in a matter of seconds. Flashing every ten seconds for one-tenth of a second, the beam was elevated about one degree above the horizon and could be seen at a distance of 40 miles on a clear night.

Below the beacon were two course lights, mounted on a 6-foot square maintenance platform, pointing forward and backward along the airway. Equipped with red or green lenses, the course lights indicated the presence of a beacon only (red) or a landing field within two miles of the beacon (green). Amber colored course lights denoted a landing field suitable for daytime operations only. The course lights flashed out a system of codes, which allowed the pilots to determine their mileage along the airway.

Concrete arrows point the way

Fifty-four-foot concrete day-marker arrows pointing to the next higher numbered beacon—that is, the next beacon to the east—were also installed as navigational aids. These were originally painted chrome yellow with an 8-inch black border. During the night, this arrow was lit from above by high intensity lights mounted on the beacon tower frame. At the “feather” end of the arrow was a 22 foot by 14 foot power shed housing a Kohler or Westinghouse generator if no local power was available. On the roof of the power shed was painted the airway route and the beacon site number.

Although the lighting of the federal airways was a profound success for night navigation, it fell far short of the requirements for all-weather work. The beacon system still required pilots to navigate by the contact method and was virtually useless when it was needed most—in times of low or nonexistent visibility. Commercial aviation had to compete with existing forms of transportation on reliability. It was toward this goal that researchers and engineers began to experiment with a technology that would revolutionize scheduled commercial flying: Radio!

Radio signals connect the coasts

As early as 1916, engineers at the National Bureau of Standards recognized the value of radio for marine and aircraft guidance. At the time, two technologies were available: The German designed Telefunken and the Bellini-Tosi radio compass. At the behest of the U.S. Post Office, research continued until 1919, which proved the practicality of the Bellini-Tosi system. By 1921 the Post Office had lost interest; however, the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the National Bureau of Standards at College Park, Maryland during the next four years continued to refine the Bellini-Tosi system along with incorporating several European patents.

After much experimentation the definitive version that emerged was the aural radio range that transmitted four courses and operated on frequencies between 200-450 kilocycles, which had an effective range of about 100 miles. The letters A (dash dot when transmitted in Morse code) and N (dot dash) were used as alternate signals; the signals overlapped and provided a steady monotone, or Morse-code T.  This created a “beam” for pilots to use as their course.

If a pilot flying the “beam” drifted off course, an N or A would predominate in his earphones and warn him to make the necessary corrections. The signals were interrupted for station identification every 20 seconds and every 15 minutes for weather information. Wherever possible, the radio range courses were made to overlie the existing lighted airway.

By 1926, the four-course aural range had come into technical maturity and was only awaiting practical application along the federal airways.

On July 1, 1927, the Department of Commerce, Aeronautics Branch took over the U.S. Post Office’s existing infrastructure and began fulfilling its congressional mandate to upgrade the nation’s airways.

That fall, the airmail system ceased to be funded directly by the government and began to be operated by private contractors. The city of Cheyenne purchased a $600,000 facility and leased it to Boeing Air Transport, which had won the mail contract to San Francisco. According to Wyoming Aviation Historian Michael Kassel, interviewed for the Wyoming PBS documentary,  “Without airmail, lots of companies we know as passenger airlines wouldn’t exist.” 

In 1928, the Bellefonte, Pa., range became the first four-course aural range to be commissioned on the federal airways. Three years later, on Feb. 12, 1931, the Medicine Bow low-frequency radio range was switched on, thus connecting the two powerful beacon signals from Cheyenne and Rock Springs, Wyo., and completing the all-weather Columbia route, ushering in the world’s premier commercial airway.

The implications were profound. Now for the first time, an airliner could traverse the entire continent on schedule, without regard to the limitations of adverse visibilities. Airlines now had a commodity—service—that they could sell with confidence, and passengers could purchase a ticket with the reasonable expectation of arriving at their destination on time.

In the 1930s, Cheyenne’s Transcontinental Airport was among the busiest in the nation. Cheyenne eventually became the maintenance base for United Airlines, and the mechanics, according to Kassel, performed “literally magician’s work.” Many of them had learned their skills repairing aircraft flown during the early transcontinental airmail days. 

During World War II, Cheyenne also served as a B-17 modification plant. When the plant was operational, 4,000 aircraft were modified there, according to aviation historian Moser. After the war, the service was no longer needed, and airline hubs moved to Chicago, Denver and San Francisco.

Airway keepers help pilots

Across the country, in the 1920s and 1930s, intermediate fields were staffed on site by Department of Commerce personnel, referred to as airway keepers, who were fortunate enough to be provided prefabricated accommodations at a nominal fee. Assistant Airway Keeper Edwin Crucikshank, at Medicine Bow, received an annual salary of $1,200 and was charged $20 per month for his quarters.Pilots, in comparison, earned $4,000 per year for flying the mail across the country.

Bachelor quarters were fully furnished, while families had to provide their own furnishings. Medicine Bow had two assisitant airway keeper’s residences, each with its own seperate septic system, which were built along the northwest boundary fence approximatley 100 feet east of the teletype office. A third residence, the supervisor’s, was located approximately 1,200 feet east of the teletype office in the seven acres allocated for the radio range.

“K”  quarters, as they were called—keepers’ quarters—were 22 by 28 feet. Roofs painted in red served as aeroglyphs with the name of the field, airway route, elevation and site number painted with yellow letters and numbers outlined in black. Families took advantage of the markings to identify their residences by referring to the roof markings.

“Each house had two bedrooms, a very small kitchen with built-in cupboards; the dinning room and living room were combined,” Betty Jean Cruickshank recalls. “The greatest thing about the new house was the indoor plumbing! It was a very small bathroom, but we had a toilet, a bathtub, a sink, a medicine cabinet and linen closet, which I was quite impressed with as we never had a linen closet in our other homes. We also had hot and cold running water. By today’s standards, it was a very small house, but to us it was a castle!”

Although many sites were isolated, personnel often led idyllic lives. Leave time was ample, and keepers and their families found time to enjoy areas that often abounded with fish, game and pristine forests.

Airway keepers shared their unusual experiences in a publication of the Department of Commerce Air Commerce Bulletin’s section called “Along the Airways.” Intermediate fields were open to all aircraft. Keepers were obligated to extend aid and hospitality to all aircraft and their occupants, as the following two incidents from the bulletin reveal:

“On August 3, 1933, Pilot Jack Huff in NC215M enroute from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Riverton, Wyoming with two expert nitroglycerin men and three hundred pounds of nitro for shooting a burning  oil well at Riverton, landed at Medicine Bow for an overnight stay. On August 8^th  while on another trip of the same type, Huff said that due to the excellent condition of the Medicine Bow field, he decided to land for another night stay with three hundred more pounds of nitro for the same well at Riverton. On both visits the crew at Medicine Bow field was more than glad when the above part[ies] were safley in the air.”

In Feburary 1934, the U.S. Army began flying the mail after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order canceling all existing commerical airmail contracts. The following illustrates the degree of ingenuity exhibited by airway personnel:

“One Army pilot landed at night and shut off his motor.[T]he next morning the weather was very cold, and with the aid of a large size blow torch, borrowed from the local garage, and a stove pipe, inserted through the motor cover, along with heating the oil, the motor started almost immediately. Several trips were made to town and to the post office with the mail, and transporting the pilot. For which no one was compensated for.”

By the early 1930s with the introduction of longer-range, all-metal monoplanes-such as the faster and more reliable Boeing Model 247 and the Douglas DC-2, along with budget cuts demanded by President Roosevelt’s economic measures, there was a substantial decrease in the intermediate field network. Intermediate fields were reduced from a high of 385 in 1931 to 250 in 1934. Medicine Bow survived the budget cuts until 1938 when the radio range, communications equipment and weather reporting capabilities were deactivated; however, the intermediate field still remained as a Department of Commerce operated facility until March 1, 1958. At that time, stewardship was assumed by the town of Medicine Bow.

Resources

• Air Commerce Bulletin, 1, no. 8, 1929; 2, no.17, 1931; 4, no. 9, 1932; 5 no. 10, 1934. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
• Cheskaty, Larry. “ The Last Lighthouse.” FAA News. Oklahoma City, Okla.: Federal Aviation Administration, 1977,19-20.
• Cole-Keller, Betty. Edwin M. Cruickshank, Airways Keeper Site 32, Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Hudsonville, Mich.: Self-published, 2007.
• Heister, Dale.“Airways” End of the Seat-of-the Pants Flying.Los Angeles: Self-published, 1978.
• “How The Zeppelin Raiders Are Guided by Radio Signals.” Popular Science Monthly, April 18, 1918, 632-634.
• Jackson, William P., ed. The Federal Airways System.Washington, D.C.: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc., 1970.
• Komons, Nick A. Bonfires to Beacons. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
• Manufacturers Aircraft Association, Collection 6858, Box 373, Folder 25.American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
• New York Times, May 18, 1918, A:1.
• “Night Air Mail Started July 1^st.” Rock River Review.July 3, 1924, 1.
• Oral Interview with author. Robert Cruickshank. Son of Medicine Bow Airway Keeper Edwin Cruickshank. Basin, Wyo. March 2006.
• Roberts, Henry. Aviation Radio. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1945.
• Rosenberg, Barry and Catherine Macaulay.Mavericks of The Sky. New York: Harper Collins, 2006.
• Smithsonian National Postal Museum. “Airmail Creates an Industry: Knight’s Night.” Accessed May 25, 2016, at http://postalmuseum.si.edu/airmail/airmail/coast/airmail_coast_knight.html.
• U.S. Department of Commerce.Airway Bulletin, No. 786. Oct. 15, 1929. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office (hereafter GPO).
• _____. Bureau of Commerce Radio Facilities. March 5, 1935. Washington, D.C.: GPO.
• _____. Daily Radio Report. Form 68. June 30, 1930, Washington, D.C.: GPO.
• _____. Domestic Air News, No. 49, March 30, 1929; No. 7, June 30, 1927.  Washington, D.C: GPO.
• _____. Time Sheets, Form 46. August-December, 1930. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 
• Warner, Edward P.The Early History of Air Transportation.A Lecture Delivered by Edward Pearson Warner; under the James Jackson Cabot Professorship of Air Traffic Regulation and Air Transportation at Norwich University, November 21, 1937.Northfield, Vt.: Norwich University, c1938.
• Wolff, Steve. “Sentinels of The Airways.” Airways, (May 2008):58-61.
• Wyoming PBS. “Cowboys of the Sky.” Producer, Steve McKnight.KCWC-TV, 2013. Accessed May 20, 2016, at http://video.wyomingpbs.org/video/2365117704/
• Wyoming Tales and Trails. “Cheyenne Photos.” Accessed May 25, 2016, at http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/cheyairport.html.

Illustrations

• The 1920s postcard of the Air Mail Service hangar at Cheyenne is from the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. Used with thanks. The 1936 photo of the field at Dana, Wyo., is from the Kitching Collection of the Hanna Basin Museum. Used with permission and thanks.
• The rest of the photos are from the author’s collection. Used with permission and thanks.

Finally, the Warm Spring Canyon tie flume was complete. After months of hard labor in the steep canyon, workers of the Wyoming Tie and Timber Company and some 250 guests celebrated in November 1928 at a banquet-dance in the DuNoir tie camp, high in the Wind River Mountains. At five o’clock dinner was served in the large mess hall. “Long tables the full length of the room fairly groaned under their heavy load of fried chicken, veal, salads, oyster dressing, biscuits, sauces, and many more good things to eat,” the local Courier Dubois reported.

Paddy’s Jazz Kings of Riverton took the stage after the tables were cleared, and the dancing began. After a midnight lunch, couples danced until the sun came up. Flapjacks and country sausage were served for breakfast and the guests found their weary ways to bed.

Built to carry railroad ties from camps high in the Wind River Mountains to the tie plants in Riverton, the flume still clings to the steep walls of Warm Spring Canyon, a rugged and isolated cleft in the mountains about four miles west of Dubois in northwest Wyoming. Remains of the flume can still be viewed by those willing to maneuver the rocky bed and cliffs of Warm Spring Creek.

The five-mile V-shaped wooden flume begins southeast of the Union Pass Road in the Shoshone National Forest and ends a short distance west of the Wind River on the old Harrison/Wagon Box Ranch. Though rock slides and tree falls have breached short segments of the flume, remnants can be traced along its entire length. Its overall physical integrity is remarkable, considering the erosive forces at work since 1942, when the flume was finally abandoned.

From lodgepole to railroad tie

From the 1860s until the early 1940s, hand-hewn crossties were the basis of the railroad tie industry. Some 2800 ties were needed for each mile of track, so a large and inexpensive supply was critical. Lodgepole pine grew in abundance in all the major mountain ranges of Wyoming -- straight and tall with gradual taper and a trunk relatively clear of knots. A sixteen-inch diameter lodgepole could yield up to six crossties

An efficient method of tie production evolved. Lumbermen who hewed railroad ties were known as tie hacks; many had honed forestry skills in their native Scandinavia. Each tie hack was allotted his own strip of timber, about 150-200 feet wide and up to one-half mile long. First, he felled a suitable tree with a one-man crosscut saw, then limbed it with a double-bitted ax, which was also used to score the surfaces to be hewn—making two flat sides on opposite sides of the tie. A seven-pound broadax with a ten-to-twelve-inch blade was used to hew the wood to the final dimensions. A finished surface hewn by a skilled hack appeared to have been planed. The bark was then removed with a “spud” or “spud peeler,” a long wooden-handled tool with a curved blade on one end.

The tie hack dragged the finished ties to a strip road with a pickaroon, an ax-like tool with a metal point on one end, and stacked them along the road five high, with at least 25 ties to a stack. A competent hack could hew 25 ties per day; some were known to hew 50 or more. (Over time, virgin stands of timber became scarcer, challenging that level of efficiency.)

Enter the tie haulers. With a team of horses and a 16-foot sled called a “go-devil,” they could carry fifty ties per trip. They worked the strip roads, interconnected with main roads throughout the cutting area, moving the ties to landing banks to await the spring thaw and tie drive.

Tie drives–floating the ties on fast-flowing streams—were the climax of the season. So-called splash dams were built near the headwaters of the smaller streams in late spring. As the snow began to melt, the dams were closed at night, storing water to be released the next day and flushing the ties downstream. Jams were broken up with pike poles and pickaroons. Most tie-cutting areas were laid out around a major central stream or river, where the ties from various tributaries were gathered and driven downstream to major shipping points, such as railroad crossings or railroad towns like Riverton, where tie-treating plants were located.

Men called river rats waded ice-cold water, moving the ties steadily downstream and steering them clear of rocks, islands, or other obstructions. Lead gangs preceded the main drive in order to keep ties from floating into side channels, sloughs, and low spots. The drive cook and his flunkies provided huge meals and set up the night camp, where tepee tents sheltered two men each. Wagons (and later, trucks) hauled food and supplies, keeping pace with the drive downriver. Meals and fresh bread were baked in Dutch ovens placed in hot coals; on occasion, the men were treated to T-bone steaks.

Ties from the Upper Wind River

During the late 1800s, the Chicago and North Western Railroad expanded westward across the Great Plains. Tracks were laid through long stretches of generally unsettled land, luring emigrants and creating towns along the line. The C&NW reached Wyoming Territory in late June 1886 and extended west along the North Platte River Valley, reaching Casper by 1888 and the Shoshone-Riverton area by 1905. The Wind River Indian Reservation had just opened 1.4 million acres to homesteading; a large irrigation project and the extension of the railroad led to the creation of the town of Riverton, where the railroad crossed the Wind River.

The C&NW maintained nearly 700 miles of track between Lander, Wyoming, and Blunt, South Dakota. The Wind River Timber Company of Riverton was established to supply this section with 500,000 crossties per year. The company planned to cut ties from the forests about 100 miles upstream from Riverton and float them to a tie-treating plant to be constructed by the railroad.

Late in the fall of 1913, a crew of twenty workers headed to the timber northwest of Dubois. They built a base camp and began cutting ties in February 1914, first along Sheridan Creek and later DuNoir Creek on the north side of the Wind River. By March, forty-five tie cutters were at work; river crews prepared for the first tie drive, cutting and placing logs along the Wind River to hold the ties in the main channel. Three gangs of men worked with teams of horses below Dubois, dynamiting boulders out of the river bed to create a clear channel.

Early that summer, workers drove 35,000 ties downstream to Riverton. The local newspaper described the first drive: “This drive was more of an experiment than anything else and it removes all doubt of the complete success of the undertaking. The next thing in order will be the building of the pickling [preservative] plant, which probably will not be done until next spring.” The treatment plant was laid out in the southern part of Riverton along the Wind River; it was completed in 1915 and began full production the next year. By then, the Wind River Timber Company had been bought by the Wyoming Tie and Timber Company.

“A big job is underway”

In 1919, the company planned to cut ties in the Warm Spring Creek area near the Union Pass Road on the south side of Wind River. Martin Olson, the woods boss, guided Ricker VanMetre, later president of the company, over the region and convinced him that the ties could be successfully transported from this rugged, isolated location.

Long before the flume was built, locals knew the steep and dangerous nature of Warm Spring Canyon. In the early 1900s, settler Olney O. “Ollie” Green was caught in a storm while riding home from the high country near Union Pass. In the thick fog, he turned his horse down Warm Spring Canyon, not realizing his mistake until he could no longer turn back.

He managed to ride and lead his horse most of the way down to the area of two natural bridges formed by Warm Spring Creek, near the end of the treacherous canyon. Near dark, he tied his horse to a tree and hiked out. The next day he returned with some ranch hands and rescued his horse from the canyon bottom with slings and block and tackle.

During the 1920s, the challenges of the terrain became evident. Floating the ties from the cutting area to the Wind River below would necessitate building a flume down Warm Spring Canyon, considered a nearly impossible feat.

To access the cutting area, Martin Olson laid out a steep switchback road up from the Wind River valley, completed in 1925. Finally, in 1928, headquarters for the tie cutting operation were established in a meadow along upper Warm Spring Creek; it was known as the second DuNoir. The Courier Dubois announced on May 19, 1928 that work building the new tie camp would start soon, “as will also the construction of the gigantic flume which will carry the ties over the natural bridge.”

Headquarters camp consisted of a company store, company office, post office, schoolhouse, blacksmith shop, hay barns, storehouses, and housing for a dozen families, who paid $14 per month. Tie hacks lived in outlying camps near the cutting sites. Total cost of the headquarters camp, auxiliary camps, roads, and the flume was estimated at $125,000.

Martin Olson designed the proposed flume, and it was built in the summer and fall of 1928 by an engineering firm from Spokane, Washington, one section at a time from the top of the canyon down. Materials were floated down each completed segment for use in the next section.

The V-shaped flume was supported by wooden trestles or stilts. To maintain an even grade, the height of the flume varied—on the more level areas it rested nearly on the ground, but along steep canyon walls the trestle was over thirty feet high. In places, the flume was suspended from steel cables anchored to eyebolts drilled into the sheer rock canyon walls.

A wooden walkway or catwalk was built along the flume for workers to manage the ties as they floated down. A telephone line ran along the flume for communication. The east end of the flume passed over one natural bridge and through a second. Feeder flumes were constructed along three tributary creeks, and others augmented the flow of water to parts of the main flume. A large holding dam was built at the west or upper end of the flume to hold the ties. In the spring of 1929, some 300,000 ties were funneled into the mouth of the flume and flushed down the canyon.

One man’s tie drive, 1937

Mark Goodman, a college student from Minnesota, worked the later years of the tie drives. The drive began at DuNoir, where the men camped in tepee tents along Warm Spring Creek above the holding dam. Tie hacks made up about one-third of the laborers; the rest consisted of local seasonal workers and a few college students who could earn their tuition in a short time. Average wages at the time were $2.00 per day, but during the 1937 tie drive, Mr. Goodman earned $4.50 a day, including meals. The workers supplied their own tents and bedrolls. Most purchased Bergman boots made in Sweden for nineteen dollars at the company store. The boots had thick soles and heels that held tungsten steel caulks for maneuvering on wet, slippery ties. Each man wielded an eight-foot long pike pole with a sharp point for pushing ties and a barbed hook for pulling them. The task was daunting – thousands of ties were piled up behind the holding dam and on stream banks, ready to be dragged by hand down to the water.

Goodman recalls that some of the men, seeking relief from the monotonous labor, would drive the twenty miles to Dubois for carousing, returning to their tents well after midnight. Ignoring the “roll out” call the next morning, they would be rudely awakened when someone yanked out the tent poles and their tents collapsed on them. Sometimes punishment included a pummeling with knees; this practice led to few men lingering in their tents after a hard night out.

To start the ties down the flume, men with pike poles guided and turned the ties lengthwise as they entered the flume gate. The V-shaped flume was about five feet wide at the top and full of fast-flowing water, carrying the ties down as fast as fifty miles per hour. Up to 4,000 ties were floated down the flume in an hour. A break in the flume meant that hundreds of ties could spill to the bottom of the canyon. Workers manning the catwalk would telephone the flume gate operator, and the flume was shut down until repairs were made. When such a break occurred in the natural bridge, some 1,500 ties spilled into the creek. Workers hauled them up a steep path by hand and dumped them back into the flume.

The Warm Spring portion of the tie drive lasted about three weeks; workers were then transferred to the Wind River for the rest of the tie drive to Riverton. A large boom was constructed across the river at the Riverton tie plant to catch and hold the ties; from there, two conveyors carried the ties to the tie yard for sorting, stacking, and drying. Rejects were culled and sold for firewood or building material.

A “dinky” or small steam locomotive carried the dried ties to the boring mill, where small holes were drilled to help the preservative penetrate the ties. They were then hauled to the retort, where they were treated with zinc chloride, which doubled the life of the tie. They were finally transported to a loading dock, then into rail cars for shipment.

The Wyoming Tie and Timber Company and the tie treating plant in Riverton boomed during the 1920s. The operation peaked in 1927 when 700,000 ties were driven down the Wind River. In August 1928, the Courier Dubois announced the “annual tie drive fiesta” in Riverton, which would begin when the tie drive reached town. “A band is usually on hand to provide plenty of music, and the townspeople flock to the yard where a big feed is given. There is a free movie and dance for the drivers.”

Mechanization in the 1930s brought big changes to the tie industry. Portable sawmills gradually replaced tie hacks and broadaxes. The Warm Spring Canyon flume was abandoned in 1942 and never used again. Starting in 1943, ties were transported down from the mountain by truck, stacked along the Wind River, and then pushed into the river by bulldozers. During World War II, the tie-cutting operation faced a manpower shortage as the demand for ties increased. Although some local residents were hired, the problem was solved when VanMetre secured the assistance of an entire German prisoner of war contingent housed in 1944 at one of the upper tie camps.

The final tie drive on the Wind River was held in 1946, and all 150,000 ties came from sawmills. Between 1914 and 1946, some ten million railroad ties had been treated at the Riverton tie yard. In 1947, the Wyoming Tie and Timber Company was sold to J.N. Fisher, a Wisconsin businessman. Roller-bed trucks hauled ties from the woods to the treating plant on a year-round basis.

This system provided steady employment and a monthly payroll from the tie-treating plant built and owned by the railroad. The Riverton plant was modernized and used creosote rather than zinc chloride, increasing the serviceable life of the railroad tie from seventeen to thirty-five years. It continued to operate until 1969. Tie cutting in the Wind Rivers had come to an end.

Remnants of the flume today

The writer surveyed the Warm Spring Canyon Flume in 2010 for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The flume begins near the bridge crossing on the Union Pass Road, where the Warm Spring Creek valley is wide and relatively level. Remains of the holding dams are located a short distance southeast of the bridge and consist of three rectangular-shaped log cribs filled with rocks. These cribs anchored the dam, which consisted of boards and steel cables. The dams were equipped with a central sliding floodgate opened to regulate water level. A second gate on the north side allowed ties to be loaded into the mouth of the flume.

Below the dams, the creek narrows and enters the canyon. About 100 yards downstream, one first glimpses the flume. The overall configuration, a V-shaped trough on wooden stilts, remains consistent throughout the canyon; the height of the supporting trestles varies greatly according to terrain. Overall, some portions of the flume have rotted and collapsed or been destroyed by rockslides. In places, lodgepole pine and spruce trees have grown up through the structure. However, it is generally intact.

About three miles east of the Union Pass Road, the flume crosses from National Forest to Bureau of Land Management ownership. Access from the southeast is via a series of two-track roads and the Geyser Creek Trail. Two natural bridges are located in this area. The flume was built above the first (western) natural bridge, which has been impacted by falling rock and trees. The flume crossed from the north to the south side of the canyon—the north wall is so steep that eye bolts were driven into the cliff face, and the flume was suspended from steel cables anchored to the bolts. Remnants of the flume cables and some of the flume timbers still hang from the north cliff, but most of the flume here has been destroyed.

Both the flume and the creek pass though the more easterly natural bridge, a cavern almost 100 yards long, then emerge through the natural opening on the northeast side. Inside are travertine deposits in the shape of stalactites and stalagmites. The flume has been completely encased in travertine where it entered from the west side. The structure was once suspended from eye bolts and steel cables that hung from the roof and north wall. Collapsed wooden remnants of the flume can be seen at the downstream opening of the cavern.

East of the natural bridges, the flume is remarkably intact along a steep cliff face, elevated on wooden stilts 20 to 30 feet above Warm Spring Creek. This is one of the most spectacular remnants of the entire flume structure. Where the topography becomes more level, the flume enters private land owned by the Harrison Wagon Box Ranch and is currently not accessible to the public. The flume once continued southeast to its junction with the Wind River, but the remnants were probably salvaged for ranch use, and no physical remnants were found.

Legacy of the tie industry

The railroad tie industry made a significant contribution to the economy of Wyoming from the late 1800s through the early to mid-1900s and aided the expansion of railroad lines throughout the region. The railroads stimulated settlement and development of natural resources by linking Wyoming to distant markets. These rail lines could only be maintained by a constant source of locally available replacement ties.

The tie industry required a substantial work force and provided steady jobs and income, both in the mountains and at the Riverton plant. The crews were expanded during the spring/summer tie drives and provided much needed income to unskilled laborers, including ranchers, Native Americans and even college students. This industry was also composed of a significant foreign-born skilled work force, generally Scandinavian, who enhanced Wyoming’s ethnic diversification.

The Warm Spring Canyon Flume represents a uniquely engineered wooden structure. It is a testament to the superior design and construction of the Warm Spring Canyon Flume that so much of it remains intact.

Resources

Primary sources

• “All Doubt Removed; Tie Treating Plant to Locate at Riverton.” Riverton Republican, Riverton, Wyoming, 13 June 1913:1.
• “Celebration at Tie Camp Proves Year’s Big Event.” The Courier Dubois, Dubois, Wyoming, 10 November 1928, p. 7.
• “Five Mile Flume Being Built Thru Warm Springs Canyon by the Timber Co.” The Courier Dubois, Dubois, Wyoming, 4 August 1928, p. 5.
• “News Items.” The Riverton Review, Riverton, Wyoming, 13 March 1914:6.
• “River is Jammed with Ties, Logs, Props, and Fence Posts.” The Riverton Review, Riverton, Wyoming, 4 September 1914:1.

Secondary sources

• Dickson, Bly. “Retired Forest Employee Reveals Old Flume History.” Sheridan Press, Sheridan, Wyoming, 12 July 1967.
• Goodman, Mark. From the Broadax to the Railroad Tracks. Privately published in cooperation with the Wind River Historical Center, Dubois, WY. 2002.
• James Gores and Associates, Historic Warm Spring Flume Dubois, Wyoming Draft Assessment Report Condition Assessment. Report prepared by James Gores and Associates, P.C., Riverton, Wyo. and on file at the Bureau of Land Management, Lander Field Office, Lander, Wyo., 2002.
• Lepponen, Peter, retired Union Pacific Tie Inspector, Walden, Colorado. Interview, 6 June 1982.
• Massey, Rheba. Wyoming Comprehensive Historic Preservation Plan. Prepared for Archives, Museums and Historical Department, Wyoming SHPO, Cheyenne, 1989.
• Moline, Nels A. retired tie hauler, Saratoga, Wyoming. Interview 4 April 1982.
• National Park Service. How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, National Register Bulletin No. 15. U.S. Department of the Interior. National Park Service, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991.
• Pinkerton, Joan Trego. Knights of the Broadax: The Story of the Wyoming Tie Hack. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1981.
• Rawlings, Charles. Our Neck of the Woods: Memoirs of a Pioneer Banker. Casper, Wyoming: Hawks Book Company, 1964 (reprinted 1994).
• Sintek, Skylar Scott. An Historical Overview of the Tie Treating Plant and Yard, Riverton, Wyoming. Report prepared for ARIX Corporation, Riverton, Wyoming, and on file at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, Cheyenne, 1981.
• Wroten, William H. Jr. “The Railroad Tie Industry in the Central Rocky Mountain Region: 1867-1900.” Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Department of History, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1956.
• Wyoming Public Television. Brotherhood of the Broadax: Wyoming Tie Hacks (DVD). KCWC-TV/Wyoming Public Television, Riverton, Wyoming, 2005

Illustrations

• The black and white photos are all from the Wyoming State Archives. Used with permission and thanks.
• The color photos are by Elizabeth Rosenberg. Used with permission and thanks.

Field Trips

• Exhibits at the Dubois Museum, below, include artifacts from the lives of tie hacks and river rats.

Abandoned railroads evoke nostalgia. Conceived in optimism, initiated with fanfare and laid out in orderly increments, these railroads pass through stages hauntingly similar to human development: growth, vigor, decline and demise. In the end, most railroads are forgotten.

One such enterprise, the Wyoming North and South Railroad, emerged onto the plains of Natrona County in 1923 as a 40-mile standard-gauge link of what was hoped to be a grand chain connecting trunk lines in Canada, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. Due to the accelerated pace of the 20^th century, the Wyoming North and South Railroad evolved from birth to abandonment in just 12 years. The following account is written in the nostalgic spirit that vanished railroads, like old friends, should be remembered.

Aspirations

Though promotion of large western railroad networks peaked during the late 1800s, there was enough momentum left to stimulate ambitious projects after the turn of the century. In 1902, David Moffat organized the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway Company to push westward from Denver across the continental divide toward the coast. The line progressed no farther than Craig in northwest Colorado (1913), later assuming the less expansive title of the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad Company, to be eventually absorbed by the Denver & Rio Grand Western and finally the Union Pacific.

For nearly a quarter century, until completion of the Moffat Tunnel in 1927, trains labored up and over 11,600-foot Rollins Pass, braving the most adverse conditions of snow, wind and cold ever encountered by western standard-gauge railroaders. The “Moffat Road,” as the line between Denver and Craig came to be known, was to play a role in the planning of an equally ambitious railroad, the North and South Railway Company, of which the Wyoming North and South Railroad became an integral part.

In 1922, former Oklahoma Gov. Charles N. Haskell, an oil promoter with interests in the Salt Creek Field north of Casper, Wyo., conceived the idea of a 566-mile rail line linking the Moffat Road at Craig, Colo., with the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad at Miles City, Mont. Haskell’s projected south-north route would also funnel traffic to and from the Union Pacific in southern Wyoming, as well as the Chicago & North Western and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (now Burlington Northern Santa Fe) railroads in central Wyoming. Haskell envisioned that his grand trunk line might someday be extended as far north as Regina, Sask. to connect with the Canadian Pacific Railroad! (See Map 1).

Organization and Incorporation

To speed construction of the first phase of the 335-mile north-south line between Casper and Miles City, the promoters decided to form two carriers under separate state charters, later to be merged into one company under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission. On Dec. 31, 1922, the Middle States Oil Corporation of New York City incorporated the Montana Railway Company to construct and operate a railroad from Miles City to the Wyoming border, 138 miles to the south.

On Jan. 25, 1923, Middle States organized the Wyoming North and South Railroad to build 197 miles of line northward from Casper through Buffalo and Sheridan, Wyo. to the Montana border. Charter members of the Wyoming company were former Oklahoma Gov. C.N. Haskell, C.S. Lake, Peter Rohrbach Jr., C.A. Eastman and R.S. Healy, all residing in New York City. Incorporation papers noted that each of the five subscribed to 100 shares of capital stock at $100 per share for a total of $50,000, and that they expected to raise $7 million by selling 70,000 shares at $100 each.

The Wyoming secretary of state certified the Wyoming North and South Railroad Company to be a Wyoming corporation on March 21, 1923. Listed as officers in the Annual Report to the Wyoming Public Service Commission were: C.J. Haskell (son of Charles N. Haskell), president; Peter Rohrbach Jr., secretary; F.A. Winkler, auditor; W.M. Cannon, attorney; J.J. Foley, general manager; W.K. Sheridan, general superintendent; and D.C. Fenstermaker, chief engineer.

Construction

In January 1923, while promoters were busy incorporating the Wyoming portion of the railroad, C.S. Lake made a reconnaissance trip along the proposed route between Casper and Miles City. Engineers surveyed the line in February and March. Grading crews moved first dirt at Miles City on April 2.

In late May, grading commenced at Illco (See Map 2), a small town located 15 miles west of Casper on the main lines of the Chicago & North Western and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroads. Because the Wyoming North and South Railroad shunned publicity, few Casper residents realized that a rail connection was being built to the oil fields north of town.

Maney Brothers, a construction firm based in Wichita Falls, Texas, employed a force of 300 men (mostly black southerners) and 200 mule teams. Employees and families lived in tent cities which moved northward as grading progressed. Their work songs drifted across the prairie, a strange sound to the ranchers in this remote part of Natrona County. Three locomotives borrowed from the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific shuttled materials to the track-laying crews. A few reports on construction progress appeared in newspaper ads placed by the Wyoming-Montana Investment Company, which promoted sale of lots in the booming oil town of Salt Creek, soon to be the site of freight and terminal yards.

By mid-September 1923, tracks reached Salt Creek, 36 miles north of Illco. Discovered in 1906, Salt Creek Oil Field achieved its peak production of 132,000 barrels of oil per day, coincidentally, in the same month the railroad arrived. The field was served by the towns of Midwest and Edgerton, as well as by the now vanished communities of Salt Creek, Snyder, Lavoye and Teapot. In December, track laying progressed to Midwest, bringing mainline mileage to 41. Addition of yard and siding track increased the total to 45 miles.

Newspaper accounts heralded the “excellent condition” of the roadbed, citing 85-pound rail (per yard), maximum curves of 5 degrees radius, and maximum grade of 1 percent. Cross ties, numbering 3,040 per mile, were 8-foot lengths of untreated Oregon fir. Unmentioned by the press was the fact that the amount of crushed stone—so-called ballast—placed under the ties was insufficient to support them in areas of clay-rich soil, an engineering oversight that was to play havoc with future operations.

First Train

No ceremonies heralded inauguration of train service between Casper and Salt Creek on Sept. 25, 1923. Equipment on the first run consisted of a borrowed Milwaukee, St. Paul& Pacific team engine, a boxcar, one passenger coach and the private car of A.J. Worthman, superintendent of the local division of the Chicago & North Western Railroad. Departing from Casper at 7 a.m., the train arrived at Illco at 8 o’clock and Salt Creek at 9:50.

In an open letter to the president of the Casper Chamber of Commerce, published in the Casper Daily Tribune, C.S. Lake noted construction had taken just four months, attributing this feat to the “vision, courage and sincerity of purpose of Charles N. Haskell.” In later years, skeptics were to cite the haste with which the line was built and lack of sound construction as evidence that Haskell never intended to push the railroad farther north than Midwest.

1923-1924: A Fast Start

Initially, the Wyoming North and South Railroad, commonly referred to as the “North & South,” made use of terminal facilities of the Chicago & North Western. Regular westbound C&NW trains pulled passenger cars from Casper to Illco for transfer to the North & South line. Plans to extend North & South tracks into Casper never materialized. The fledgling railroad located its business offices in the Consolidated Royalties Building—the Conroy Building on Center Street —of downtown Casper.

Northbound mixed trains (freight and passenger) left Illco at 8 a.m. after connecting with early morning trains from Casper. The return train departed Salt Creek at 1 p.m. As the southern terminus of the North & South, Illco enjoyed the distinction of being the only town in Wyoming serviced by three railroads (Chicago & North Western tracks were paralleled at the time by Chicago, Burlington & Quincy tracks).

In addition to three railroad agency offices, Illco featured a post office, bar, large warehouse and laborers’ shacks. North & South business boomed at the beginning. Three small steam engines furnished motive power. Two ran in tandem (a practice called “double heading”), pulling two trains a day between Illco and Salt Creek, while the third handled switching duties.

In 1923, Nick Hahn joined the North & South as master mechanic and engineer. His daughter, Madeline Hahn Brott of Casper, recalled to the author years later that some 2 a.m. departures from Salt Creek. The Hahns lived in a section house in Salt Creek, shared by another engineer, R.S. Bell. In 1924, Nick’s son, Carl Hahn, joined the railroad, making the North & South a family enterprise.

During the three months of operation in late 1923, the North & South carried 6,000 tons of freight and 893 passengers (Table 1). Employees numbered 22. The railroad took in modest operating revenue totaling $23,000, offset by $18,000 operating expenses. Equipment rentals of $8,000, when added to expenses, accounted for a loss of $3,000 (See table).

Although tracks terminated at the town of Midwest by the end of 1923, grading for extension of the railroad progressed in the Buffalo and Sheridan areas. A report to the Wyoming Public Service Commission noted that by the end of 1924, a total of $2,865,556 had been invested in construction of the Wyoming North and South Railroad.

The need for stronger motive power became apparent as more freight flowed onto the North & South. Nick Hahn was dispatched to Atlanta, Ga., to fetch a larger engine. Finding the machine unsatisfactory, he spent 55 days in that southern city supervising cleaning and repair of the equipment to meet his standards. Later, a second engine was obtained in Atlanta and a third brought from Shreveport, La. All were oil-burning steam locomotives of the 2-8-0 variety (two pilot wheels, eight drivers, no trailing wheels under the cab), numbered 101, 102 and 202.

In terms of freight volume, 1924 represented the peak of North & South operations. The three locomotives worked overtime to haul 106,000 tons, aggregating 4,196,000 ton-miles (tons multiplied by miles transported). Principal commodities were crude oil, sand and gravel, lumber, oil field equipment and refined petroleum products (Table 1).

Most of the heavy equipment that went into the Salt Creek electric plant, placed in operation in January 1925, traveled by rail. A total of 4,311 passengers rode the rails in 1924. The employee roster jumped to 56. Gross operating revenue increased to $380,000 and expenses amounted to $221,000, yielding a net of $159,000. For the first time, an ominous entry called “interest on debt” appeared on the ledger. Interest of $169,000 exceeded net revenue and, when combined with other impairments, yielded a loss of $56,000.

On May 8, 1924, as envisioned by the promoters, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) granted a corporation called the North and South Railway Company the right to combine the similarly named Wyoming North and South Railroad and Montana Railway Company into a single interstate carrier. The merger was undertaken without exchange of money, with the understanding that investment in the constituent companies would be liquidated as soon as the North and South Railway Company made arrangements to obtain money under a method of financing approved by the ICC.

The new North and South Railway Company turned out to be ill-fated. On July 31, 1924, the district court in Johnson County, Wyoming, judged that the North and South Railway Company and Wyoming North and South Railroad were identical and that both were insolvent. The court appointed Charles S. Hill and D.C. Fenstermaker as receivers.

A month later, the Montana Railway Company was also handed over to receivers. These legal actions were undertaken to protect creditors on account of large unpaid construction bills. Among companies establishing liens against the North & South were the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, the Cloud Peak Timber Company, and Roberts Brothers, Peterson, Shirley & Gunther. To make matters worse, the latter company was eventually sued by a subcontractor for grading work done in Montana.

Receivers expressed hope that financial affairs could be straightened out to the end that responsible parties would take over the North and South Railway and resume work on the original project of linking Casper to Miles City. Such was not to be. Construction never resumed. Prior to receivership, grading had been completed over one-third of the Montana portion of the projected railroad line and one-third of the Wyoming part. From 1924 to abandonment in 1935, the North and South Railway (one and the same with the Wyoming North and South Railroad) operated as a ward of the court.

1925-1926: Solid Performance

Though freight volume decreased 22 percent to 83,000 tons in 1925, reduction in operating expenses enabled the North & South to realize net revenue of $164,000, which proved to be the fiscal high point of the line’s brief career. As might be expected for a railroad terminating in an oil field, a large proportion of the tonnage (43 percent, or 36,077 tons) consisted of pipe for oil wells.

Interestingly, the railroad carried 7,497 tons of refined oil to Salt Creek and Midwest, bringing a 20th century twist to the expression “carrying coal to Newcastle.” The reason for this reversal was that the refineries were in Casper, and the busy Salt Creek communities consumed large quantities of gasoline and other petroleum products. Crude oil, on the other hand, never contributed more than a small percentage of freight, owing to the oil pipelines that already ran from Salt Creek to Casper.

For the first two years of the railroad’s existence, locomotives burned crude oil taken directly from an oil company stand pipe at Salt Creek. By the end of 1925, however, engines were converted to burn processed crude purchased by the tank carload from Casper.

Madeline Brott recalled that her father, Nick Hahn, frequently complained about the poor quality of oil brought from Casper. One day, Superintendent Sherman D. Canfield (a former secretary of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show), who had replaced W.K. Sheridan strolled by while Carl Hahn was behind the section house rendering a badger to extract the animal’s fat. Sniffing the fetid vapors, Canfield explained “this oil is bad!” and ordered a new shipment of boiler fuel the next day.

A bad omen for the railroad was loss of a mail contract on Sept. 1, 1925. The government awarded the mail to a bus line, which made three daily trips from Midwest to Casper.

On Sept. 8, 1925, Charles Hill resigned as receiver, leaving D.C. Fenstermaker the sole proprietor of that position.

In early 1926, a series of stories in the “Salt Creek Gusher” rekindled hopes for extension of the North & South to Miles City. The newspaper offered a map of the proposed route provided by Hugh Lee Kirby, president of the “Wyoming Montana Railroad Company.” Wyoming Sen. John B. Kendrick reportedly urged financial interests to complete arrangements for backing the project. Completion cost was estimated at $17 million.

Net revenue for 1926 declined to $83,000, about half the previous year’s total. This drop, combined with inexorably rising debt, produced a loss of $213,000. Nevertheless, business was still relatively healthy, as the railroad hauled 72,000 tons.

On July 8, 1926, a flood triggered by the second cloudburst in four days hurled a 500-barrel tank into a trestle that spanned a creek between the towns of Salt Creek and Midwest. According to Madeline Brott, the trestle was suspect even after normal heavy rains. At times, engineer Nick Hahn was so concerned that he would not let his son, Carl, ride the locomotive across the structure.

Of course, there was no doubt about the condition of the trestle after July 8; the rails hung by a thread. Repairs were made by jacks–165 of them–until more permanent restoration could be made. Driving locomotives over this jury-rigged structure was a hair-raising job. Rail service between Salt Creek and Midwest did not resume until July 30.

In 1926, the North & South listed total trackage of 45.4 miles, which included 41 miles of main line plus sidings at Salt Creek and Midwest, together with long-forgotten turnouts at Williams, Carter, Kasoning, Mutual, Ohio, Codona and Lakota. A passing track was located at Owens, and a water tank marked the midway point.

The equipment roster of the North & South was never very extensive. In addition to the three locomotives, the railroad owned two combination freight and passenger cars, two flat cars, two tank cars and two cabooses. Freight transferred in rolling stock from other carriers generated almost all the revenue. Madeline Brott remembered well the shiny oil-burning steam engines that seemed to pass perilously close as she made the daily trip from the section house to the freight yard to hand lunch up to her father.

D.C. Fenstermaker resigned as receiver in 1926 to be replaced by R.E. McNally of Sheridan, who was to hold this position for the duration of the railroad’s existence.

1927-1934: Struggle to Survive

Net revenue plunged to $43,000 in 1927, a year which saw freight volume fall off 33 percent to 48,000 tons. Only 49 passengers travelled by rail, as opposed to 4,311 three years before. Clearly, improving auto roads were siphoning off freight and passenger traffic. Ironically, a substantial share of freight in 1927 consisted of road building materials. Volume of sand, gravel and clay, considered “mining product,” jumped to 12,390 tons—27 percent of all freight—as compared to 4,262 tons the previous year.

Shortcuts taken in construction, particularly omission of ballast, took their toll of railroad operations during the middle years. Flash floods frequently cut roadbed and bridges. Nick Hahn recalled daily derailments, one of which dumped 10 cars of gravel on Rock Cut curve near Shepperson Ranch. A C. & N.W. wrecker came to the rescue. Once, the water tender, which rode just behind the engine, suddenly jumped the track and streaked across the prairie.

Because of the unpredictable condition of the roadbed, engineers tried to hold speed below 20 mph, not always possible on the long downgrades on the flank of Twenty Mile Hill. Carl Hahn remembered that the pitching and rolling of flat cars often tossed pipe over the embankments. Coming south toward Illco the day after a night run to Salt Creek, the crew was astounded to see pipe sticking out of the soft ground like telephone poles.

Harsh winters contributed to operational problems. Madeline Brott recalled that during the winter of 1930-1931, 30 men toiled 10 days to clear snow that blocked the railroad at Petterson’s Cut. On the lighter side of operations, the North & South took time out from a busy schedule to shuttle revelers among Salt Creek, Lavoye and Midwest during Saturday night dances.

The mineral-rich water supplied to the Salt Creek boom towns played havoc with locomotive boilers. Madeline filled out boiler washout reports as her father strived to keep the boiler tubes free of scale. Notwithstanding his efforts, the boilers sprang leaks so often that a special tank car was hooked behind the tender on each trip to furnish extra water if needed.

Freight volume fell further still in 1928 to 30,000 tons. Refined petroleum products (treated as “manufactured goods”) contributed 17,000 tons, representing 57 percent of all freight. The employee roster numbered 32, compared to the 1924 high of 56.

With the beginning of the Depression in 1929, the North & South for the first time failed to show a net gain from operations. Though the shortfall was only $1,000, this deficit was the harbinger of future difficulties. On Nov. 27, the District Court of Johnson County authorized sale of four receiver certificates, each paying 7 percent interest on face value of $25,000. Not surprisingly, only one was purchased.

A bright note in 1929 was the upswing in livestock business. Sheep and cattle added 2,600 tons to the freight roster, together with 327 tons of wool. Livestock and animal products comprised 10 percent of total haulage, a figure that grew to 34 percent by the last year of operation. Sheep and cattle from the Big Horns, Gillette, Kaycee and Buffalo converged on Salt Creek for twice weekly hauls to Illco and points beyond during the fall shipping season. The railroad moved 30 to 35 carloads of animals each week.

Operating revenues continued to decrease from 1930 through 1933, a year that recorded revenues of $32,000 against expenses of $45,000. Only two passengers bought tickets in all of 1933! On many occasions, employees found themselves empty-handed on paydays. Engineers and mechanics had to improvise to find badly needed spare parts. The office of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad furnished many materials.

In the annual statement to the Wyoming secretary of state for 1933, auditor and treasurer C.W. Kimball of Salt Creek listed book value of equipment and real property as $119,436. For the same year, the State Board of Equalization levied an assessment of $231,000, no doubt following the practice of valuing railroad property based on miles of main line.

In 1934, the final full year of operation, the North & South carried just 16,000 tons of freight. By then, annual interest on debt had soared to nearly a half million dollars, truly a staggering sum for an enterprise which recorded a revenue deficit.

1935: End of the Line

Soon after the first of the year, R.E. McNally, who had served as receiver for more than eight years, secured a court order to curtail operations, after which he filed a petition for abandonment. Without fanfare, the last train steamed southward into Illco on March 8, quietly ending an era that had quietly begun 12 years earlier. Ironically, five days before the last run, the Casper Tribune-Herald proclaimed in a headline “North and South Railroad Project Still Live Prospect in State.”

In the fall of 1935, rails were torn up and shipped to China. The engines were cut up at Illco. Boilers were installed in a Riverton refinery. No doubt the assessed valuation of $12,000 reflected scrap value.

Perspective

On a local scale, the Wyoming North and South Railroad was built too late to effectively bridge the gap between slow, expensive horse-drawn freighters and efficient high-volume motorized transport by truck, bus and car. As a regional north-south trunk line, however, tie-in with the Union Pacific, Burlington and, possibly, Canadian Pacific Railroads was an idea of considerable merit.

In answer to suggestions that the North and South Railway originated as a scheme to fleece gullible investors, records show that over a hundred miles of grading and 45 miles of track laying were completed with funds advanced solely by the promoters, before capital stock or other securities went public. Receivership forestalled issuance of stock during the remainder of the railroad’s existence. Simply stated, the North & South Railroad of Wyoming was built as part of a flawed vision, overtaken by 20^th century transportation realities.

Crumbling embankments and cuts still mark the abandoned course of the Wyoming North and South Railroad, as it arcs northwestward and then northeastward across northern Natrona County’s 33 Mile Road toward Midwest. In places, mounds of earth that once bore rail and locomotive now impound water for livestock that roam a landscape where whistles wail no more.

Acknowledgements

I wrote “The Wyoming North and South Railroad, 1923-1935” as a term paper for History of Wyoming, a Casper College course taught by acclaimed historian William F. Bragg Jr., in the fall of 1982. Bill’s enthusiasm kindled my fascination with Wyoming history. The only changes from the original manuscript are notations of the current ownership of railroads that changed hands since 1982.

Although the Wyoming North and South Railroad contributed significantly to the growth and vitality of the Salt Creek area during the mid-1920s, initially forming a reliable transportation link when roads were still inadequate, few written accounts of the line exist. As a result, I relied heavily on unpublished records, most of which came to light through efforts of Jim Donahue, Archives Research Supervisor in what then was called the Wyoming State Archives, Museums & Historical Department. Division Director Bill Barton pointed the way, and Ida Wozny lent assistance.

Mary Lynn Corbett of the Natrona County Public Library provided several information leads and secured copies of two elusive newspaper articles. Ed Bille, author of Early Days at Salt Creek and Teapot Dome, a colorful account that stimulated my interest in the North and South Railroad, kindly gave permission to reproduce a map and photo.

Statistics and legal documents provide little flavor. For this reason, I am especially grateful for the shared recollections of Madeline Hahn Brott, whose father Nick Hahn and brother Carl served the Wyoming North and South Railroad faithfully and well during its brief existence.

Resources

Primary sources

Documents

• Articles of Incorporation of Wyoming North and South Railroad Company (State of Wyoming, Office of the Secretary)
• Certificates of Agent and Place of Business, Wyoming North and South Railroad Company
• Annual Statement to Secretary of State, Wyoming North and South Railroad Company (Microfilm)
• Minutes of Wyoming State Board of Equalization
• August 11, 1914 to March 31, 1924
• April 1, 1924 to December 31, 1941 (Microfilm)
• Public Service Commission
• Annual Report of the North & South Railway Company, aka Wyoming North and South
• Railroad Company (Microfilm)
• Note: All of the above documents are available from the Wyoming State Archives.

Periodicals

• Casper Daily Tribune
  • “Salt Creek rail service launched.” September 25, 1923
  • “Bridges washed out,” July 9, 1926. P.1.
• Casper Tribune-Herald
  • “North and South Railroad Still Live Project in State,” March 3, 1935
  • “Dream Railroad,” April 9, 1950
• Casper Star Tribune
  • “North and South Railroad,” Annual Edition, February 13, 1955
• Midwest Review
  • “Building Railroad through Salt Creek,” Vol. IV No. 5, June 1923
  • “First Railway Train into Salt Creek,” Vol. IV No. 9, October 1923
    • “Railroad Rails into Home Camp,” Vol. IV No. 11, December 1923
• “Flood Causes Troubles,” Vol. VII No. 8, August 1926
• Salt Creek Gusher
  • “Railroad Completion Looking Good,” Jan. 15, 1926
  • “Salt Creek Chamber of Commerce Receives Map Showing RR Extension,” Jan. 222, 1926
  • “Completion of Wyoming-Montana Line Will Be Big Boon to the Whole State,” Jan. 26, 1926.
  • “North and South to Begin Work Soon,” Feb. 19, 1926.
  • “Effort Made to Speed Work on North & South,” March 19, 1926
  • “RR Officials Visit Salt Creek,” April 23, 1926
  • “Contractors are Sued by Subcontractors,” Sept. 24, 1926.

Secondary sources

• Bille, Ed, Arlene Larson, and Bill Dickerson. Early days at Salt Creek and Teapot Dome. Casper, Wyo.: Mountain States Lithographing, 1978.
• Bollinger, E.T., and Bauer, F., 1962, The Moffat Road; Chicago, The Swallow Press, Inc. 359 p.
• Roberts, H.D. Salt Creek, Wyoming; The Story of a Great Oil Field. Denver: Midwest Oil Corporation, 1956.

Illustrations

• The photo of Charles Haskell is from Wikipedia. Used with thanks.
• The two maps are from the author’s collections and the fact box was prepared by him. Used with thanks.
• The photo of the two locomotives is from the Garrett collection and the photo of the washed-out trestle is from the Wyoming Highway Department collection, both at the Casper College Western History Center. Used with permission and thanks.
• The panorama of the Salt Creek Field, 1924, showing the trestle and a line of tank cars on a North and South Railroad siding, is from the Wyoming State Archives. Used with permission and thanks.

Wagon-train emigrants got their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains when, near Scotts Bluff in what’s now western Nebraska, Laramie Peak appeared on the horizon about 85 miles away.

A branch of the Oregon/California/Mormon Trail passed through Robidoux pass, a low opening south of the bluff. There, Antoine Robidoux, with his two American Indian wives and their families, kept a trading post and blacksmith shop. Many diarists noted Robidoux’s operation—along with the startling mountains dominated by a high, cone-shaped peak.

“Passed a blacksmith shop even it looks sociable in this wilderness, from tip of bluff. … I saw distinctly Laramie Peak and could distinguish the snow on its tops & sides, looks like a huge blue mound,” California-bound Peter Decker wrote late in May 1849—the first Gold Rush year.

“Passed this evening a trading house owned by a white man who has two Indian wives and several children,” Jackson Thomason wrote that June. “Some men can cut themselves off from the world and Society but I could not. After passing this trading house we crossed over a high ridge where I seen at a considerable distance Laramie’s Peak it being the first view of the Rocky Mountains to be seen.”

The West was changing now for the travelers, becoming drier and higher. The Platte and North Platte rivers, which they had followed through most of what’s now Nebraska and Wyoming, provided a broad, relatively level, natural roadway with ready supplies of water, forage and game.

“The scenery” from Scotts Bluff, Ansel McCall wrote in mid-June 1849, “is very beautiful, presenting to the view mountains, hills and valleys in every direction, changing the outlook entirely from that which we had been so long accustomed to, and convinced us that we were in reality approaching the Rocky Mountains, so long talked of. I do not know when I have witnessed a more beautiful sight.”

But on the western edge of the Great Plains, shortly after the emigrants passed Fort Laramie, the landscape began breaking up into a series of deepening ravines and pitched ascents. And many travelers were astonished, in late May or early June, to find the mountain still covered in snow.

“It is, at this day, covered with snow, which glitters in the sunshine like a diamond in the dark,” Dan Gelwicks wrote on May 28, 1849.

“We were at this point just opposite Laramie’s peak and near to it,” James Pritchard wrote about a week later, from the spot where the trail comes closest to the mountain that rose up about 20 miles to the southwest. “Its Snow caped summit seemed to peer to the Skys. Thus winter Stood aloft, in bold relief upon the left, beautifully reflecting the rays of the sun through the light fleeces of cloud that floated across the blue vault of heavens, while upon the right Nature was clad in all the soft, sweet, and gentle beauty of vernal bloom.”

But it was a cold spring. “Today has been a cold day throughout,” Charles Glass Gray wrote on June 13, 1849, “so as to make an overcoat, thick gloves, and flannels necessary. ... [N]o accidents occur’d though several threatenings of them, such as breaking axle trees and capsizing. For nearly all day we had a fine view of Laramie Peak from which I could not keep my eyes, render’d grander no doubt from our crawling along the prairies for so long a time and at night as it faded away I said to myself – All my troubles are forgot, gazing on this!”

But it was hard to avoid noticing the troubles of others, and hard sometimes, too, to believe one was seeing what one actually saw. “Passed several piles of baked beans and flour,” H.C. St. Clair wrote June 18, 1849. “One company throwed away 1.000 pounds of flour. We are in plain view of Laramie Peak. It appears to be 3 or 4 miles off but it is supposed to be 25 miles from the road and it is thought to be one mile high. There is something on it that looks white. Some think it is snow.”

While many emigrants found Laramie Peak awe-inspiring, the sight also dredged up anxiety as it signaled the beginning of their ascent into the mountains. From here on, the route would become more and more arduous. Laramie Peak would guide their journey for about a week. Although they would skirt the mountain itself, the peak was a towering presence that sometimes seemed to mock them as they struggled to ascend the more minor ridges nearby.

“We sometimes travel in the gorges between the hills and sometimes mount to summit when the prospect would be enchanting,” William North Steuben wrote June 15, 1849. “Right before us is Laramie Peak, one of the highest of the Rocky Mts most always in sight whether you are in the valley or on the hilltop. I cannot describe the Mts. they are so lofty, dark, rugged, dismal and hideous that they remind me of Nature in Chaos.”

Resources

Primary sources

• Decker, Peter. The Diaries of Peter Decker—Overland to California in 1849 and Life in the Mines, 1850–1851. Edited by Helen S. Griffen. Georgetown, Calif: The Talisman Press, 1966.
• Gelwicks, Daniel Webster. Diary kept by Daniel W. Gelwicks from Belleville, Illinois to the South Pass, in 1849. Typescript of MSS 71/161 c, Carton 24, Folder 2, Dale Lowell Morgan Papers, Bancroft Library.
• Gray, Charles Glass. Off at Sunrise: The Overland Journal of Charles Glass Gray [1849]. Edited by Thomas D. Clark. San Marino, Calif: The Huntington Library, 1976.
• McCall, Ansel J. The Great California Trail in 1849: Wayside Notes of an Argonaut. Bath, N.Y: Steuben Courier Printing, 1882.
• Pritchard, James A. The Overland Diary of James A. Pritchard, from Kentucky to California in 1849. Edited by Dale L. Morgan. Denver, Colo: Fred A. Rosenstock and The Old West Publishing Company, 1959.
• St. Clair, H. C. “Journal of a Tour to California [1849].” WA MSS S-1449, Beinecke Library. Typescript.
• Steuben, William N. “Memorandum Books 1849 Journal,” transcribed and edited by Harry Rutledge. Hayward, California, 1960.
• Thomason, Jackson. From Mississippi to California: Jackson Thomason’s 1849 Overland Journal. Edited by Michael D. Heaston, Introduction by Martin Harris. Austin, Texas: Jenkins Publishing Company, 1978.

Secondary sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• National Park Service. “Robidoux Pass,” Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary. Accessed Jan. 9, 2017, at https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/scotts_bluff/robidoux_pass.html.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Laramie Peak.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed Jan. 13, 2017 at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/laramiepeak256k.htm.

Illustrations

• The 1851 William Quesenbury sketch of Laramie Peak is from the collections of the Nebraska State Historical Society. Used with permission and thanks.
• The other two photos are by trails historian Randy Brown of Douglas, Wyo. Used with permission and thanks.

Rocky Ridge, where the Oregon Trail climbs a steep, stony slope to a high plateau about 40 trail miles east of South Pass, was troublesome to all emigrants. But it was deadly to some starving Mormons pulling handcarts through snow in 1856.

To avoid a steep-walled canyon, the trail leaves the bottomlands of the Sweetwater River and climbs about 700 feet in two miles through a rugged, boulder-strewn path. It was one of the most difficult stretches of the emigrants’ entire journey.

“About 10 we left the valley by an abrupt turn to the right,” Joseph Berrien wrote June 13, 1849, “and began to ascend the mountains. ... The steep hills and rocky ridges nearly shook the waggons to pieces and we passed several ravines where the snow still lay several feet in depth. Camped at night in a beautiful little ravine completely enclosed by surrounding hills, a fine stream of snow water running through it, taking its rise from a large snow bank on the shady side of the hills at least 12 feet deep [Rock Creek].”

“Curious rocky riffles or rows of rocks,” forty-niner Peter Decker wrote with remarkable precision two days later, “running lengthwise over ridges of hills, sticking out bristling toward the West, one to 2 ft high and on level of ground.”

Greenberry Miller noted later that same month that “[s]ome of the rocks over which we traveled today lay in rows and lapping one upon another like shingles on the roof of a house. These lines of rock stretch southeast and northwest. Over this we had some of the roughest driving that we had ever met with yet.”

“It was continual rise and fall, from one rock to another for our wagons,” Edward Harrow wrote July 1, “which I thought would every minute fall to the ground smashed to pieces, such was the roughness of the roads.”

But by the time the 500-member Willie Handcart Company of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the Mormons—reached Rocky Ridge in late October snowstorms in 1856, they were dealing with far more than just a rough trail. Most members of the Willie Company and of the even larger Martin Handcart Company travelling two weeks behind them were recent converts from factory towns in England and Denmark. Their leaders were experienced trail travellers, however. A series of missteps—a very late start, poorly built handcarts, a failed system of resupply and a sudden onslaught of bad weather—had led to disaster.

Advance members of a relief party from the Salt Lake Valley reached the Willie Company, entirely out of food, camped on the east side of Rocky Ridge. Many hancarters had already died. The rescuers provided some food, and wagons for many of the children to ride in.

“We buried our dead, got up our teams and about nine o’clock a.m. commenced ascending Rocky Ridge,” diarist Levi Savage wrote. “This was a severe day. The wind blew hard and cold. The ascent was some five miles long and some places steep and covered with deep snow. We became weary, set down to rest, and some became chilled and commenced to freeze.”

The relief wagons were so “perfectly loaded down with the sick and children, so thickly stacked I was fearful some would smother,” Savage wrote. After a 16-mile journey up the rocky trail, across the high plateau, across creeks and through snow, much of it in the dark, they reached camp on the Sweetwater River. The next day, they buried 15 people there.

The full stretch of trail known today as Rocky Ridge runs about 12 miles, across two high ridge shelfs, crossing Strawberry Creek and passing the old ghost town of Lewiston. The rock cuts left by wagon wheels are among the most dramatic trail remnants remaining on the westward emigrant trails.

Rocky Ridge, not surprisingly, has become a compelling story in Mormon lore, and the church has erected monuments at the lower and upper ends of the 12-mile stretch.

Resources

Primary sources

• Berrien, Joseph Waring. “Overland from St. Louis to the California Gold Fields in 1849: The diary of Joseph Waring Berrien.” Edited by Ted and Caryl Hinckley. Indiana Magazine of History (December 1960), 273-352.
• Decker, Peter. The Diaries of Peter Decker — Overland to California in 1849 and Life in the Mines, 1850–1851. Edited by Helen S. Griffen. Georgetown, Calif: The Talisman Press, 1966.
• Miller, Greenberry. Diary. Mss 74/157 c, Bancroft Library, University of California. Richard L. Rieck transcription.
• Harrow, Edward C. The Gold Rush Overland Journal of Edward C. Harrow, 1849. Austin, Texas: Michael Vinson, 1993.

Secondary sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Del Bene, Terry A. “Trails Across Wyoming: The Oregon, Mormon Pioneer and California Routes.” WyoHistory.org, accessed Jan. 19, 2017, at http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/trails-across-wyoming-oregon-mormon-pioneer-and-california-routes.
• Hein, Annette. “Journey to Martin’s Cove: the Mormon Handcart Tragedy of 1856.” WyoHistory.org, accessed Jan. 19, 2017, at http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/martins-cove.
• Long, Gary Duane. The Journey of the James G. Willie Handcart Company: October 1856. Published by author, 2009. Based on diaries of Willie Company members, diaries of members of the rescue party and on later, reminiscent accounts, Long traces the company’s route day by day across Wyoming. With detailed topo maps of each day’s progress. Events surrounding the difficulties on Rocky Ridge are on pp. 59-86. The quote from Willie Company member Levi Savage is on p. 77.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Rocky Ridge.” Emigrant Trails throughout Wyoming. Accessed Jan. 19, 2017. at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/rockyridge.htm.

Illustrations

• The photos of Rocky Ridge are by Tom Rea.

Just beyond the wide, low summit of South Pass stand the Oregon Buttes—two flat-topped hills and a smaller, conical one. To Oregon Trail travelers coming from the east, the buttes dominated the horizon for a day’s travel or more as they crossed Rock Creek, then Willow Creek and, for a ninth and final time, the Sweetwater River.

Standing as they do just beyond the pass, these buttes marked the earliest pioneers’ crossing from the United States into the Oregon country, claimed jointly by the United States and Great Britain until the United States acquired it by treaty 1846. West of the pass, travelers were in what soon became Oregon Territory. The name “Oregon Buttes” remains on maps to remind us of these shifting claims.

“Today we set foot in the Oregon Territory, the land of promise,” Theodore Talbot wrote in 1843. But his journey had made him wary, and thinking perhaps of previous weeks’ hard travel, he added, “As of yet it only promises an increased supply of sage and sand.”

Most early travelers on the trails, however, appear to have used a more physically descriptive name for the buttes: Table Rock, or Table Rocks.

“In the afternoon came in sight of three buttes … to the left,” California-bound Thomas Evershed wrote in June 1849. In that high, wide-open country, the road was smooth and hard and made for easy traveling. “With the exception of some sharp hills & the rocky ridges the road has been for the last two days superior to any McAdamized road I ever saw & composed of fine gravel hard & firm & altogether from the states I doubt if taking away the bridges there could be so good a road found of equal length.”

Joseph Warren Wood turned his journey into a nature walk on July 3 of that year. “We are now in Oregon,” he wrote. “At noon I started in co[mpany] with Allan for the Table rock on the south side of the pass. We passed over 4 or 5 miles of arid plain when we came to a steep high bluff with snow on one side, a small cool stream of water ran from it, through a grove of poplar. The birds were singing in the branches, the grass was green & it was a beautiful spot to spend a little time. … We climbed the snow bank & hill with considerable difficulty—went down into another valley & in 4 or 5 miles came to the foot of the rock. It was higher than I had anticipated finding it & after an hour’s severe toil we found ourselves upon the top. It was clad with pines & the ground was covered with cones. The area of the top would amount to several acres. It was connected by an isthmus with another still higher elevation on the south. … The views from it was grand & imposing. It seemed as though we could see 200 miles in almost any direction, on the W & S & North the view was bounded by Mts. On the east by distance.”

Near the end of July 1849, Joseph Middleton tried out a new name for the hills. “About 7 miles from the river we come opposite the two insulate truncated hills with horizontal tops which I mentioned far ahead yesterday afternoon. They are a few miles south of the road. ... I call these flat top’d hills M’s [Middleton’s] tables.”

Emigrant diarist Byron McKinstry, always a careful observer, included the buttes as part of a clear description of South Pass topography July 9, 1850. “In 9 ½ miles from the Sweetwater [on a] gradual rise we came to South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, 7,085 ft. above the sea. I could hardly tell where the summit is. We rise gradually to a ridge, then flat for nearly a mile, then another slight elevation. It has nothing of a mountainous appearance, almost a plain, barren, the soil is decomposed granite from the size of a hens egg to the finest sand. The sage is small, the prickly pear has entirely disappeared, and all the beautiful flowers of the Platte. The Wind River Mts. Rear their hoary heads to the N. of the Pass – a singular kind of table hill to the S., leaving a pass 18 or 20 m. wide.”

Passing the same spot, John Steele was similarly impressed just three days later. He and a companion thought at first they would climb Fremont Peak in the Wind River Range to their north. That proved to be too much of an undertaking. Still, he noted, “[W]e obtained a grand view of the road, with its long lines of emigrant wagons, the valley of the Sweetwater, the South Pass and Table Rocks.” Thanks to the California gold rush, that year was one of the two most crowded ever on the emigrant trails; 50,000 made the trip, of whom 44,000 were bound for California. A few days later, Steele would find about 100 tents pitched at Pacific Springs, just west of South Pass.

First, however, he was struck by the look of the pass, which “instead of being a shadowy mountain gorge, is a broad and beautiful prairie, somewhat undulating, with here and there a snow bank glistening on its green surface. … The Table Rocks rise about twelve hundred feet above the South Pass, southward; the top is apparently miles in extent and level as a floor, supported by immense cliffs, and inaccessible from the west; but there are places toward the Pass where a person may climb to the summit.”

Resources

Primary sources

• Evershed, Thomas. “The Gold Rush Journal of Thomas Evershed.” 1849. Ed. by Joseph W. Barnes, with biographical sketch by J. H. Madden. Rochester History 39:1&2 (January and April 1977), 1–44.
• McKinstry, Byron N. The California Gold Rush Overland Diary of Byron N. McKinstry, 1850–1852. Ed. by Bruce L. McKinstry. Glendale, CA, The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1975. McKinstry’s figure for the elevation of South Pass, 7,085 feet, is slightly low; the actual elevation is just over 7,400 feet.
• Middleton, Joseph. The Diary and Letters of Dr. Joseph Middleton: Joseph Middleton Papers. MSS S-39, Beinecke Library. Richard L. Rieck transcription.
• Steele, John. Journal. Across the Plains in 1850. Edited by Joseph Schafer. Caston Club. Chicago. 1930.
• Talbot, Theodore. The Journals of Theodore Talbot. Edited with notes by Charles H. Carey. Metropolitan Press. Portland, Oregon. 1931.
• Wood, Joseph Warren. Diary, 1849. HM 318, Huntington Library. Richard L. Rieck transcription.

Secondary sources

• Unruh, John D. The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-1860. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1979, 119-120, 185. Accessed Feb. 13, 2017, at http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminarsflvs/UnruhTables.pdf.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Oregon Buttes.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed Feb. 13, 2017 at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/oregonbuttes.htm.

Illustrations

• The photo of Oregon Buttes in springtime is by Tom Rea. The 1866 Jackson sketch of wagons, the telegraph line and Oregon Buttes on the horizon at South Pass is from the William Henry Jackson Collection at Scotts Bluff National Monument. Used with thanks. The winter photo of the buttes is by the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Used with permission and thanks.

As travelers on the Oregon Trail made their way west up the Sweetwater River valley, they found the grade even, but the road was often sandy and the winding river required many crossings.

Thirty miles or so before the trail left the valley to climb steeper stretches toward South Pass, emigrants forded the river yet another time, crossed a sandy, five-mile stretch and then came to a place many seem to have heard about in advance, though some doubted its existence.

This was Ice Slough, better known in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s as Ice Springs.

“We were told we would come to ice spring this evening,” California-bound Thomas Eastin wrote July 14, 1849. “[W]e were told that we would find it in a low swampy place and that by digging a little below the surface we would find plenty of ice. The story appeared incredible and we paid no attention to it …”

But when Eastin’s party arrived they found other travelers already camped there—and, in fact, one or two were eating ice. “They took us to the place where they got it and with a spade we dug down about 12 inches beneath the surface and there sure enough found as pure ice as I ever saw about 10 inches thick,“ he wrote.

“We took up a bucket full. The story I fear will hardly be believed but it is nevertheless true.”

The Ice Slough is actually a small, subsurface tributary that drains into the Sweetwater. A variety of marsh grasses and related tufted marsh plants, known as sedges, form a patchwork of surface plant life. Water flowing underneath this peat-like vegetation freezes solid in the winter and remains frozen during the spring and early summer, thanks to the insulating peat.

Longtime trails historian Gregory Franzwa called the slough "one of those absolutely delightful interludes that somehow seemed to crop up just as the incessant slogging west was putting emigrants in the lowest of spirits."

“Here we found a great curiosity,” Mormon pioneer Norton Jacob wrote June 24, 1847. “[It] would seem that Vegetation & Frost had agreed to operate in copartnership, for in digging through a grassy turf to open a Spring we found plenty of Ice!”

Some travelers were prepared for a treat. “[W]e gathered several buckets full [of ice], Dr. William Thomas noted on June 16, 1849, “from which we have had mint julips in abundance.” Others could only remember past pleasures. “[W]ere it not for the absence of Brandy and mint, we might have had a beautiful Julep,” Henry Mann wrote when he passed Ice Slough two weeks later.

Because the place was such a novelty, many, many diarists wrote about it. In spring and early summer, some described a layer of peaty plant life floating on a layer of heavily alkaline water, under which lay the ice—clear, sweet, thick and good tasting.

“The Ice is found from 8 to 10 inches beneath the surface,” James Pritchard wrote on June 16, 1849. “There is from 4 to 6 inches of water above the Ice, and a turf or sod of grass apparently flo[at]ing on the water, upon which you can walk all over it. You can stand and Shake for 2 or 3 rods Square.” Many emigrants noted this shaking ground as they passed; some seemed to have seen similar shaking in bogs elsewhere.

“The water above the Ice is pretty strongly impregnated with Alkali,” Pritchard continued. “To get to the Ice you take a spade or Ax & cut away the sod & then strike down & cut it out in Square blocks. The Ice is clear & pure entirely free from any Alkali or other unpleasant taste. It is from 4 to 10 inches thick, and as good as any I ever cut from the streams in Kentucky,” he concluded.

As the summer weeks passed, emigrants described a layer between the ice and the peaty plant layer that was more and more like mud and less like clear--if alkaline--water. By late summer, many were unable to find any ice at all.

Steady use of the trail over three decades by what eventually totaled hundreds of thousands of people and millions of head of livestock seems to have changed the place as well.

In early July 1862, Oregon-bound Aaron Clough found a company of around 40 soldiers camped near the slough, and most likely near what had been a Pony Express station the year before until that operation was abandoned on completion of the transcontinental telegraph. The troops were probably members of the Ohio cavalry regiment that had arrived in the area a few weeks earlier to protect white travelers from raids by Indian warriors.

The place seemed less charming to Clough than it had to earlier diarists. “The slough at Ice springs is a spouty, swampy place, and is a dangerous place for stock. You can shake the ground for rods around by jumping up and down. If an ox gets stuck in the slough, it is almost impossible to get him out. … The water has a bad taste, a kind of sulphury or stone coal taste, like the water in the wells down on the Platte.”

Two weeks later, Randall Hewitt found the place littered with the carcasses of dead animals, killed, apparently, by the bad water. Buzzards were preying on the carrion. “It was a dirty, sandy, pestilential hole,” he wrote.

And the Army’s horses and mules had eaten nearly all the grass. “This escort had so far succeeded in just about denuding the country of what little feed there was, and was always sure to locate and occupy the best spots,” Hewitt wrote.

He felt tricked; it made him angry. “This delectable spot is named ‘Ice Spring’ by the guide books,” he noted. “It was said ice could be found by digging down about two feet. All traces of ice, if there had ever been any in the summer season, had disappeared before we got there. That ice story was a cold-blooded romance, put in the guide books to deceive.”

Today, the place is accessible only by crossing private land. Little ice is left, according to the National Park Service, since well over a century of trampling by wild horses and season-long grazing by livestock has so damaged the peaty layer that it offers no insulation to protect ice from melting.

Resources

Primary sources

• Clough, Aaron. Diary. Aaron Clough Papers, 1860–1862. Microfilm 81, Oregon Historical Society of originals in possession of Mrs. J. M. Stamps, Portland, 1950. Richard Rieck transcription.
• Eastin, Thomas N. Journal, 1 May to 19 August 1849. Manuscript, Filson Club, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky. Typescript.
• Hewitt, Randall Henry. Across the Plains and Over the Divide: A Mule Train Journey East to West in 1862. New York: Argosy-Antiquarian, 1964.
• Jacob, Norton. The Mormon Vanguard Brigade of 1847: Norton Jacob’s Record. Ed. by Ronald O. Barney. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2005.
• Mann, Henry C. Diary. MSS C-F 130, Bancroft Library. Transcription by Richard L. Rieck.
• Pritchard, James A. The Overland Diary of James A. Pritchard, from Kentucky to California in 1849. Ed. by Dale L. Morgan. Denver, Colo: Fred A. Rosenstock and The Old West Publishing Company, 1959.
• Thomas, Dr. William L. Diary. Mss. CB 383:1, Bancroft Library. Transcription by Richard L. Rieck.

Secondary sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Ice Slough.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed Feb. 16, 2017, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/iceslough256k.htm. The Franzwa quote and the Park Service information about the present lack of ice are from this article.

Illustrations

• The photo of Ice Slough in summer is by Jonathan Wheeler, from Panoramio. Used with thanks. The winter photo is by Randy Brown, used with permission and thanks. The aerial photo is from Wyoming Tales and Trails. Used with thanks.

Wagon-train emigrants traveling the Oregon Trail along the Sweetwater River in the mid-1800s came to a place called the Narrows, where steep hills close to the river forced the trail to cross it three times within two miles.

Threading the Narrows was not the travelers’ only option, however. Also available was the so-called Deep Sand Route, which stayed south of the river but forced animals to pull wagons through several exhausting miles of deep sand. A stage station, Pony Express station and Army outpost were located here in later years. The spot was a few miles north of present Jeffrey City, Wyo.

Most emigrants used the canyon route unless water levels were too high or, as was the case in some later years, the road was washed out and impassable. As the years passed the place gradually became known as Three Crossings.

On the north side of the river the hills at one point pressed in so closely there was room for just wagon at a time between the water’s edge and a wall of granite. Here, hundreds of emigrants left their names on the rock, as they had earlier at Independence Rock and Devil’s Gate.

“Some more recording of little names on the granite rock after immediately crossing the ford – done as usual with cart grease,” Joseph Middleton wrote in July 1849, a year when he and many others noted hundreds of names. By the 1850s, diarists counted names in the thousands. Only a few remain.

Travelers who passed in June frequently mentioned high water.

“The crossings were bad and dangerous for wagons,” Isaac Wistar wrote June 28, 1849, “–especially the last [crossing]–where the current and deepest channel were immediately under the near bank, and notwithstanding the many tons of rock thrown in to level up, the mules were swimming from the start, the wagons taking a headlong plunge after them.”

Traffic was especially heavy in the gold-rush years of 1849 and 1850.

“We crossed the river at the first ford,” Alonzo Delano wrote June 25, 1849, “and entered the rocky gorge through which the river flowed, and proceeded about a mile to the second ford. A narrow pathway had been cut on the bank, capable of admitting but one wagon at a time, and the ford was so deep that every wagon box had to be raised about six inches from its bed to prevent the water from flowing in.”

But the ford looked so bad, and there were already so many teams ahead of them waiting to use it, that Delano and his party backtracked and took the Deep Sand Route instead.

That alternative bypassed the so-called Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Crossings of the Sweetwater. The first three of the series are the Three Crossings, after which the wagons ended up on the north side of the river and crossed to the south side again eight miles further on at the Fifth Crossing.

The two roads merged again a mile or so west, on the high ground above that point. When Delano and his party reached the junction, after traveling eight miles around the Narrows—four of the miles very sandy—they nevertheless “found ourselves meeting trains which had been a day ahead of us,” he wrote, pleased to have made up time.

The 1850 season saw the heaviest traffic of all. On June 25 of that year, James Evans found the Narrows entirely congested. “There were a train of wagons nearly a mile long; some had mule teams and some had oxen; here for two hours we moved along inch by inch, while the scent of dead cattle was unremitting and utterly obnoxious,” he wrote.

“When the front wagon would move three feet, the whole string of wagons a mile long would close up. No one had room enough in the narrow road to run on ahead to see what was the matter. Those who were riding mules like myself had to keep close to the hind part of some wagon. This was by no means an enviable position, for it so happened that a ‘horned team’”—an ox team—“was just behind me, and when the lash of five hundred whips was sounding in the rear, amid the curses loud and deep, the impatient teams would occupy every inch forward they could; and when the horns of the oxen would tickle the flanks of my frightened mule, he had no room to kick.”

By 1860, when British adventurer and travel writer Richard Burton made the trip in a stage coach, he was pleased to report that something like what he considered civilization had arrived ahead of him. “At 11 A.M. we reached ‘three crossings,’” he wrote Aug. 19, 1860, “when we found the ‘miss,’ a stout, active, middle-aged matron, deserving of all the praises that had so liberally been bestowed upon her.”

“The little ranch,” Burton continued, meaning a road ranch, probably a low cabin with a dirt roof, “was neatly swept and garnished, papered and ornamented. The skull of a full-grown Bighorn hanging over the doorway represented the spoils of a stag of twelve. The table cloth was clean, so was the cooking, so were the children; and I was reminded of Europe by the way in which she insisted upon washing my shirt, an operation which, after leaving the Missouri, ça va sans dire, [it goes without saying] had fallen to my own lot.”

When Lucia Darling, bound from Tallmadge, Ohio, to the gold fields of western Montana, passed with a party in August 1863, they were pleased to find a troop of Ohio cavalry at the outpost near the former stage and Pony Express station. “Some of the company climbed to the top of a high rocky steep cliff and as we looked at them from camp they looked like insects crawling up the side and when they reached the top, looked still smaller against the white sky,” she wrote.

One soldier, at least, made a good impression. “The Captain of the station came out to meet us and went with us to camp, staying until evening. He is an Ohio man and expects to return to his family there when his time expires. We liked him very much and we all had a good sing, Mr. Everhart accompanying us on the violin.”

Resources

Primary Sources

• Burton, Richard F. The City of the Saints and across the Rocky Mountains to California [1860]. London, UK: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1861. American edition, New York, N.Y: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1862. Reprinted as TheLook of the West, Overland to California, University of Nebraska Press, 1963.
• Darling, Lucia A. Diary of a Trip Across the Plains from Tallmadge, Ohio, to Bannack City, 1863. Lucia Darling Collection, Montana Historical Society.
• Delano, Alonzo. Life on the Plains and among the Diggings. Auburn, N.Y: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1854. Reprinted New York, NY, Wilson-Erikson, 1936.
• Evans, James William. Trip to California Across the Plains in the Year 1850. MSS C-F 80, Bancroft Library. Richard Rieck transcription.
• Middleton, Joseph. The Diary and Letters of Dr. Joseph Middleton: Joseph Middleton Papers. MSS S-39, Beinecke Library. Richard L. Rieck transcription.
• Wilkins, James F. An Artist on the Overland Trail: The 1849 Diary and Sketches of James F. Wilkins. Ed. by John Francis McDermott. San Marino, Calif: The Huntington Library, 1968.
• Wistar, Isaac Jones. Diary in Autobiography of Isaac Jones Wistar, 1827–1905: Half a Century of Peace and War. Philadelphia, Penn: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, 1937.

Secondary sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Three Crossings Canyon.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming. Accessed March 2, 2017, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/threecrossings.htm.

Illustrations

• Wilkins’ watercolor sketch is from his book, An Artist on the Overland Trail: The 1849 Diary and Sketches of James F. Wilkins. Ed. by John Francis McDermott. San Marino, Calif: The Huntington Library, 1968.
• The two 1870 William Henry Jackson photos are from the Tom Perry collection, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Used with thanks.
• The 1933 Jackson painting is from the William Henry Jackson Collection at Scotts Bluff National Monument. Used with thanks.
• The color photo of the Trippett grave, with the Narrows in the background, is by Randy Brown. Used with permission and thanks.

Names Hill, a cliff of soft sandstone on the west side of the Green River, was a popular stopping place for travelers on the Sublette Cutoff of the Oregon Trail. Emigrants at this point had just crossed the river, and many travelers inscribed or painted their names on the cliff face. But before the white emigrants arrived, others had already inscribed a portion of the cliff.

On Aug. 7, 1849, J. Goldsborough Bruff described the cliff and these earlier inscriptions. “Reached an ascent, rather steep, but not high, and just at the foot, on right of trail – 20 paces from it, vertical cliffs of a mouse-colored sand-stone, on the face of which was engraved with a fine-pointed instrument, an Indian diagram, representing 43 rifles, nearly vertical, and a chief and horse, apparently separated from 4 other Indians and a horse laying down, by a stream with a small fork to it.”

From the spot by the cliff the trail climbed steeply. Above, just to the left of the road, Bruff found a grave with a stone inscribed

“Mary, consort of J. M.
Fulkerson, Died July
14. 1847”

“[B]y the names,” Fulkerson’s account continues, “it will be seen that the lady is the mother of the youth, buried in the Rattle-snake Pass, [195] ms, back, which I visited July 26^th. The youth died on the 1^st. and 13 days after his mother died here.” Frederick Fulkerson’s grave remains today at Rattlesnake Pass near Devil’s Gate.

The following year, another diarist mentioned his party’s recent crossing of the Green. J. F. Snyder’s entry for June 17, 1850, is solemn, perhaps for good reason.

“About nine o’clock we succeeded in getting the wagon ferried over, at the moderate charge of seven dollars per wagon, besides having to row the boat themselves. In this dreary place, I saw several graves, some of persons drowned in crossing the river – For some time, we have passed one or two graves each day.”

Before leaving the river, he continues, “I carved my name deeply in the sandstone, as a notice to my friends behind me, that I had passed. – It will probably remain on that rock, in that lonely place many years after I am gone.” The inscription, showing he was from Belleville, Ill., is still on the cliff.

Emigrants who chose to paint their names, rather than to inscribe them, had to improvise their materials. No doubt, their months on the trail had already improved their resourcefulness.

William Wagner’s diary entry of June 23, 1852, notes that “[h]undreds & even thousands of names are painted or registered upon – the Rocks.” He continues, “The absence of paint or something desirable led to the discovery that the tar or pitch in the end of the wagon hubs was an excellent substitute, & would last a number of years—The pencil used for painting ‘is the finger’ which should be previously greased to prevent the tar from sticking.”

Many travelers were still coming through in 1854, even after the years of the California gold rush, 1849 and 1850, when traffic was highest. W. S. Ebey’s report of what he observed at Names Hill on July 16, 1854, quietly shows, with its list of abandoned objects, the discouragements emigrants faced—and the opportunities those objects offered for those who followed.

“Formerly many wagons were left here,” Ebey writes. “I am told that 500 have been seen here at one time. Many left them here and packed through. [The wagons] are all burned now but the ground is covered with Wagon Iron, Log Chains, & other hard ware. A great deal of this Iron is now being picked up, & hauled to Salt Lake where Iron commands a high price.”

Mary Fulkerson’s grave was destroyed in the 1930s by construction of a gas line relay station. The Indian petroglyphs have also disappeared, though there are others not far from the site.

The best-known name on Names Hill is Jim Bridger’s. The early explorer, guide and mountain man was illiterate, however, and the inscription is probably not genuine.

Resources

Primary Sources

• Bruff, J. Goldsborough. Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff, Captain, Washington City and California Mining Association, April 2, 1849–July 20, 1851. 1 vol. edition.  Ed. by Georgia Willis Read and Ruth Gaines. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1949.
• Ebey, Winfield Scott. The 1854 Oregon Trail Journal of Winfield Scott Ebey. Ed. by Susan Badger Doyle and Fred Dykes. Independence, Mo: Oregon-California Trails Association, 1997.
• Snyder, John F. Diary. Mss. 180E, Illinois State Library. Typescript.
• Wagner, William. Journal of An Ox Team Driver, 1852. Photocopy of manuscript, 262 p. and two newspaper clippings. Plumas County Museum, Quincy, CA. Richard L. Rieck transcription.

Secondary Sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Names Hill.” Emigrant Trails throughout Wyoming. Accessed March 3, 2017, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/names_hill.htm

Illustrations

• The photo of Names hill showing the cliff and the historical marker is by Venice Beske, from Wyoming Places. Used with permission and thanks.
• The images of the Bruff sketch of the petroglyphs and of the Bridger inscription are from the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Used with permission and thanks.
• The photo of the Snyder inscripton is by Randy Brown. Used with permission and thanks.

In a U.S. Army career spanning three wars and four decades, Paul Kendall, of Sheridan, Wyo., never forgot the moment when his platoon, guarding a Siberian rail station, was attacked one night at 30 below—by an armored train full of Bolshevik partisans.

The attack came on Jan. 10, 1920. Young 2nd Lt. Kendall’s 34-man platoon was part of a 90,000-man force of American, Canadian, British, French, Italian and Japanese troops, which had landed 16 months earlier in Vladivostok, Russia, at the Pacific end of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Their mission was to cover the retreat of the famed Czechoslovak Legion, by then allied with the Tsarist Whites against the Communist Red Army in Russia’s bitter Civil War.

The U.S. mission was never particularly realistic, relationships with supposed allies, especially the Japanese, were rocky, and the American experience in Siberia proved to be confusing and frustrating. The night attack was Kendall’s first taste of combat, however, and he and his men performed well.

Young Paul Kendall

Paul Wilkins Kendall was born July 17, 1898, in Baldwin City, Kan. His family subsequently moved to Sheridan, Wyo. As a boy, Kendall remembered years later, he was absorbed by a series of books, “The West Point Series,” by West Point graduate Capt. Paul Malone. These novels, with eye-catching, full-color covers of young West Point cadets in all their glory, featured cadet life and were extremely popular.

Kendall attended Sheridan High School, where he captained the football team, and graduated in 1916. He was accepted at West Point, where he arrived the hot, muggy morning of July 10, 1916, as a member of the class of 1920. At the academy he wrestled, played football and served as a cadet sergeant.

The United States entered World War I in April 1917. Facing a high demand for junior officers, the Army accelerated West Point graduations. Kendall’s class graduated Nov. 1, 1918—just ten days before the armistice that brought an end to the war was signed in France.

U.S. troops in Russia

But large pieces of that conflict lingered elsewhere. Pressures of war were one of the immediate causes of the Russian Revolution, which deposed the Tsar and brought the Bolsheviks to power in November 1917. Quickly, the Bolsheviks made a separate peace with the Central Powers—Germany and Austria—and began withdrawing Russian troops from the Eastern Front.

The peace stranded 60,000 battle-hardened, high-morale Czech and Slovak troops, who had allied with the Tsar’s army to fight the Austrian overlords that had ruled their provinces for centuries. Trapped deep in the Ukraine between Russia and Poland, which with the peace had become German territory, the Legion’s officers believed they would be shot as traitors if they surrendered to advancing German troops. They figured their best hope was to travel 5500 miles east on the Trans Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. There they planned to board ships, continue east around the world and rejoin their French and British allies fighting Germans on the Western Front.

Circumstances intervened. When the Russian Revolution devolved into Civil War, the Legion joined the Tsarists in a railroad war that involved heavily armed trains on both sides.

Bound for Siberia

Kendall, meanwhile, underwent three months of infantry training at Camp Benning, Ga. before shipping out—for Siberia via San Francisco. He arrived at Vladivostok March 28, 1919, where he was assigned command of the 3^rd Platoon, Company M, 27th U.S. Infantry, nicknamed the Wolfhounds.

The earliest American troops had arrived in September 1918, initially parts of the 27^th and 31^st U.S. Infantry regiments ordered from garrison duty in the Philippines. Under the command of Maj. Gen. William S. Graves, this 9,000-man American force was supposedly safeguarding American property in the port of Vladivostok, securing the Trans-Siberian Railway, and defending the Czechoslovak Legion, troops of which by then had been arriving at the port for several months.

Difficult service

For Kendall and his fellow doughboys, service in Siberia was austere, and living conditions were primitive. The climate was brutal. One soldier with the 31^st Infantry wrote a poem ending, “The Lord played a joke on creation, When he dumped Siberia on the map.”

The U.S. Army lacked adequate cold weather gear, and had to issue muskrat coats, gloves and caps dating from the the Indian Wars on the Northern Plains 40 years earlier. Military duties proved tedious and boring.

In June 1919, Pvt. John Speer threw down his rifle and bayonet at Lt. Kendall’s feet, cursing “I’ll be damned if I can stand it any longer and you can give me six months or a year, I don’t give a damn which.”

Anton Karachun, a soldier in the Machine Gun Company of the 31^st Regiment, married a Russian woman, deserted to the Bolshevik partisans, and became a leader fighting against the Americans until he was captured and court-martialed.

Kendall’s 34-man platoon was assigned to guard a portion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, at Posolskaya Station, Siberia, on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal and 2,000 rail miles west of Vladivostok.

A night attack

At 1 a.m. on Jan, 10, 1920, Kendall’s position was attacked by the Red Russian armored train, the Destroyer, operated by the free-wheeling Cossack, Ataman Semionoff, a self-styled general with dreams of rebuilding the empire of Genghis Khan. The train was directly under the command of Semionoff’s chief, General Nikolai Bogomolets.

With the Americans in the process of withdrawing from Siberia, the Cossacks doubtless expected to catch the doughboys enjoying a long winter’s nap, for the Fahrenheit temperature was 30 below. Unfortunately for the Bolsheviks, Kendall had been warned, and his platoon was alert and waiting. Instead of silence and surrender, the Bolsheviks met hot gunfire and an aggressive counterattack.

Sgt. Carl Robbins climbed up on the locomotive, threw a hand grenade into the cab and disabled it, being killed in the action. Another soldier, Pvt. Homer D. Tommie, also attempted to climb on the Cossack train, was wounded, and fell under the wheels of the train, losing his leg.

The Reds and their train, including Bogomolets, were forced to surrender to Kendall. His small command had overcome a heavily armored and well-armed train manned by no less than 48 Cossacks, killing 12 of them. His platoon lost two killed and one wounded. This proved to be the final combat action of World War I.

A long career

Kendall’s platoon received an unprecedented three Distinguished Service Crosses in this action, with Kendall, Sgt. Robbins and Pvt. Tommie recognized. Kendall captured a Hotchkiss Model 1914 heavy machine gun, manufactured at the Japanese Koishikawa Arsenal, perhaps showing some double-dealing by the Japanese allies.

Just two weeks after the attack, Kendall on Jan. 25 left Siberia with his regiment. He donated the machine gun to Sheridan High School upon his return, and this historically significant gun remains at the Sheridan National Guard Armory today–the last weapon captured in the First World War.

Kendall went on to one of the most distinguished careers of any Wyoming soldier. During World War II he commanded the 88th Infantry Division in Italy; and, in 1952 and 1953 he commanded the I Corps in the Korean War. He retired as a lieutenant general in 1955, and died at Palo Alto, Calif., Oct. 3, 1983. He is buried at the West Point Cemetery beneath a simple soldier’s headstone.

In his incredible military career that spanned 37 years, three wars and four continents, Paul Kendall’s finest moment was as a 21-year old second lieutenant on a dark, frozen Siberian night.

Resources

Primary Sources

• Faulstich, Edith Collection, Hoover Institution, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California. Box 19, Paul W. Kendall Folder.
• Kendall, Paul. “Horizontal File: Sheridan High School, Class of 1916,” Sheridan County Fulmer Library, Sheridan, Wyoming.
• Kendall, Paul. Entry in The Howitzer, (West Point, New York: U.S. Military Academy Yearbook), 1920.
• West Point Association of Graduates. “Memorial: Paul W. Kendall, 1918, Cullum No. 6212.” Accessed March 9, 2017 at http://apps.westpointaog.org/Memorials/Article/6212/.

Secondary Sources

• 31st Infantry Association, “America’s Legion: The 31st Infantry Regiment at War and Peace.” Chapter 2- Siberia.” Accessed March 9, 2017 at http://www.31stinfantry.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Chapter-2.pdf.
• Bell, Ulric. “Colonel Morrow Bares Semenoff Atrocities as He Nears America,” Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal, January 16, 1922, 1-2. Accessed March 9, 2017 at https://www.newspapers.com/image/119471737/.
• Bibliomaven. “The West Point Series by Paul Malone -Penn Publishing,” July 9, 2009. Accessed March 9, 2017 at http://bookofbibliomaven.blogspot.com/2009/07/west-point-series-by-paul-malone-penn.html.
• Borch, Fred L. III. “Bolsheviks, Polar Bears, and Military Law: The Experiences of Army Lawyers in North Russia and Siberia in World War I.” Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration, 30:3, Fall 1998, 181-191.
• Filofey, Reverend F. “Asia’s Man on Horseback: The Story of Ataman Semionoff, Adventurer and Empire Builder of the Far East,” Sunset: The Magazine of the Pacific and of All the Far West, 44:4, April 1920, 30-32.
• “Find A Grave Memorial: LTG Paul Wilkins Kendall (1898-1983).” Accessed March 9, 2017 at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=52686798.
• HomeofHeroes.Com. Website: “Full Text Citations for Award of The Distinguished Service Cross, U.S. Army--Siberia Expedition.” Accessed March 9, 2017 at http://www.homeofheroes.com/members/02_DSC/citatons/02_interim-dsc/dsc_06siberia.html.
• House, Col. John M. Wolfhounds and Polar Bears: The American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1918–1920. 2nd Edition. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2016.
• Kindall, Sylvian G. American Soldiers in Siberia. New York: R. R. Smith, 1945.
• Military History Now. “A Long Way from Home: The Czech Legion’s Amazing Trek Across Siberia.” Accessed March 8, 2017 at http://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/06/02/a-long-way-from-home-the-czech-legions-amazing-trek-across-siberia/.
• O’Connor, Neil P., Jr. Website: “AEF Siberia: Everyday Life of a Soldier.” Accessed March 8, 2017 at https://sites.google.com/a/bates.edu/aefsiberia/home/everyday-life-of-a-soldier.
• O’Connor, Richard. “Yanks in Siberia,” American Heritage 25:2, August 1974. Accessed March 8, 2017 at http://www.americanheritage.com/content/yanks-siberia?page=show.
• Smalser, Colonel Robert L. The Siberian Expedition 1918-1920: An Early Operation Other Than War. Newport, Rhode Island: Naval War College Thesis, 1994.
• Smith, Gibson Bell. “Guarding the Railroad, Taming the Cossacks: The U.S. Army in Russia, 1918-1920. Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration, 34:4, Winter 2002. Accessed March 9, 2017 at https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/winter/us-army-in-russia-1.html.
• Willett, Robert L. “The Story of a Turncoat” Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration, 37:4, Winter 2005, 32-38.
• The author acknowledges the generous assistance of Ms. Carol A. Leadenham, Assistant Archivist for Reference, Hoover Institution Archives.

Illustrations

• The photos of the morning train in the station and of troops training in the snow are from Paul Kendall’s Siberian Scrapbook in the collections of the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum. Used with permission and thanks.
• The colorful 1903 advertising card is from the author’s collection. Used with permission and thanks.
• The photo of U.S. troops on parade in Vladivostok is from Wikipedia. Used with thanks.
• The photo of the armored train is from U.S. Militaria Forum, with special thanks to Bob Hudson.
• The Sheridan High School photo of Paul Kendall is from the historical collections at the Sheridan Fulmer Library. Used with thanks. The photo of cadet Paul Kendall is from Special Collections and Archives, Jefferson Hall, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. Used with thanks. The photo of Gen. Paul Kendall late in his career is from Findagrave.com. Used with thanks.

About 18 miles after travelers on the Oregon Trail crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass, they reached a junction known now as the Parting of the Ways. The right fork went west toward Fort Hall in present southern Idaho, while the left continued southwest toward Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City. The Fort Hall route was a cutoff, opened in 1844. It saved about 46 miles and two and a half days’ travel, but only by crossing a waterless, sagebrush desert.

Diarists sometimes referred to the roads at this junction as the California and Oregon trails. The northerly, straight-west route—the “Oregon” road across what’s now known as the Little Colorado Desert—was most often called Sublette’s Cutoff, although some called it Greenwood’s Cutoff. The decision to take one branch or the other was not irrevocable. The trails diverged again farther on, offering more than one way to Oregon or California.

Joel Palmer’s July 20, 1845, diary entry notes that “By taking this trail [the Sublette Cutoff] two and a half days’ travel may be saved; but in the forty miles between Big Sandy and Green River there is no water and but little grass.”

Despite its hardships, the cutoff became popular, as J. M. Hixson wrote four years later, on June 19, 1849. “Formerly the Oregonian and California emigrants went by Fort Bridger, but the past two years they had mostly taken the right hand road. So we took that although it was understood there was a forty-five mile desert before we came to Green River.”

By July 25, 1849, an informal message system had sprung up at the junction. Elisha Perkins wrote, “At the forks of the regular road & where Subletts cutoff leaves by[passing] Ft Bridger I saw some 40 or 50 notes stuck up in forked sticks with directions and news & c. from those in advance to acquaintances behind, none however from anyone I knew.”

These message posts were elsewhere as well and apparently unmolested. Perkins’s entry continues, “This kind of post office is very common at the different points on the road & I have never known an instance of any note or scrap of paper being disturbed or misplaced. Every person looks to see who they are from & goes on leaving all as he finds it.”

Apparently the sticks were not set deeply in the ground. About a week later, on Aug. 2, 1849, J. Goldsborough Bruff reported that “[a] notice requested travelers to throw stones up against the base, to sustain the stick.”

The following summer, on July 15, 1850, John Steele’s account of his company’s night journey to the junction conjures up hardships of blind travel through barren country by covered wagon. “Owing to the rank growth of sage all the wagons followed the same track, and of course the dust was deep and suffocating; and besides this, many oxen and horses had died on the way, and it was difficult for us to avoid stumbling over the carcasses which lay near the road; and so, considering the darkness, and the tainted dust-laden air, neither of us desired to repeat that six miles’ walk.”

Conditions were not greatly improved, Steele continues, even after he and his party could see. “A little before dawn we found the junction, and the train halted, hoping that daylight might reveal a patch of grass. It was a vain hope; the sandy plain was dry, and produced only bunches of greasewood and sage.” Despite previous days of little feed and water, they chose Sublette’s Cutoff. “[O]ver the same barren waste, and the sun beaming from a cloudless sky, we came to Little Sandy.”

Two years later, travelers were still coming through. On July 2, 1852, John Hawkins Clark’s party found “[a] man stationed at the forks of the road ... trying to persuade the emigrants to take the right hand trail. ‘Gentlemen,’ says he, ‘men, women and teams are starving on the Salt Lake road. There is no grass for a hundred miles, the water is poor and poisonous, and if by any chance any of you live to see Salt Lake the Mormons will rob and steal everything you have got, take your women and send you out of the country as bare as you came into the world.’”

Clark was not deceived, however. “The grand secret of this man’s persuasive eloquence was that he was the proprietor of a ferry and wanted as much travel over it as he could get. As we were not of the number he could persuade we proceeded on to Little Sandy river, where we went into camp.”

Parting of the Ways has been the subject of many misunderstandings. On Wyoming Highway 28 a few miles beyond the BLM interpretive overlook at South Pass, a marker erected by the Historic Landmark Commission of Wyoming in 1956 proclaims this site to be Parting of the Ways, stating, "This marks a fork in the trail, right to Oregon, left to Utah and California."

Thirty-two years later, the Oregon-California Trails Association erected another marker next to this one, which correctly states that the true Parting of the Ways lies another 9.5 miles to the west. This site on Highway 28 is now widely known as False Parting of the Ways and directions to trail sites in this area will often reference "False Parting." The real site will often be called "True Parting." At True Parting, the eye can follow the divergent trails for miles towards the horizon.

Parting of the Ways marked a spot where many emigrants bade a tearful farewell to friends they would probably never see again.

Resources

Primary Sources

• Bruff, J. Goldsborough. Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff, Captain, Washington City and California Mining Association, April 2, 1849–July 20, 1851. 1 vol. edition. Ed. by Georgia Willis Read and Ruth Gaines. New York: Columbia University Press, 1949.
• Clark, John Hawkins. “Overland to the Gold Fields of California in 1852: The Journal of John Hawkins Clark.” Ed. by Louise Barry. Kansas Historical Quarterly 11:3 (August 1942), 227–96.
• Hixson, Jasper Morris. Diary, May-August 1849. “A Gold Hunter. The Itinerary Across the Continent in 1849. J. H. Hixson’s Unique Diary. From the Missouri River to Sacramento in the Days of the Argonauts Mapped Out.” Los Angeles Daily Herald, 13 January to 30 April 1890. Typescript, MSS C-F 118, Bancroft Library.
• Palmer, Joel. Journal of Travels Over the Rocky Mountains, Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon Press, 1996.
• Overland Trail. Ed. by Thomas D. Clark. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1967.
• Perkins, Elisha Douglas. Gold Rush Diary: Being the Journal of Elisha DouglassPerkinson the
• Steele, John. Journal. Across the Plains in 1850. Ed. by Joseph Schafer. Caston Club. Chicago. 1930.
• Perkins, Elisha Douglas. Gold Rush Diary: Being the Journal of Elisha DouglassPerkinson the Overland Trail. Ed. by Thomas D. Clark. University of Kentucky Press, Lexington. 1967.

Secondary Sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for locating and providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “The Parting of the Ways.” Emigrant Trails throughout Wyoming. Accessed March 7, 2017, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/prtingoftheways.htm.

Illustrations

• The photo of the historical marker is from the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Used with permission and thanks. The photo of the two people at Parting of the Ways is by Tom Rea.

The ninth and final crossing of the Sweetwater River was variously called Gilbert’s Station, Upper Sweetwater Station and South Pass Station. In 1849, travelers who had reached this point found traders, including Jim Bridger, ready to sell them horses, oxen, bacon and buffalo robes.

The Sweetwater here is a fast-rushing mountain creek, thickly bordered with willows but very few trees. Many diarists noted the beauty of the place. On June 26, 1847, Orson Pratt, diarist with the first Mormon company to cross the mountains, wrote “It was quite interesting to see an abundance of good grass intermixed with various plants and flowers upon the bottom of this stream, while upon the same [creek] bottoms, and only a few yards distant, were large banks of snow several feet in depth.”

On July 1, 1849, Thomas J. Van Dorn’s party camped at the crossing. “The Sweetwater is clear as crystal here and deep and very rapid. Turned out at noon. Saw a kind of long leafed clover on the bottoms – not plenty. Snow lays along all the ravines bordering the river. To our right some 15 miles the snow capped mountains of the Wind River range are in view. Evening cool and overcoats are not uncomfortable.”

Van Dorn concluded, “The clear, cool atmosphere we experienced in this mountain range is bracing and pleasant.”

Not all the travelers felt so refreshed. On the same day, H. C. Mann commented, “We are now on the banks of the Sweetwater for the last time and shall not camp again on this side of the Rocky Mountains and we are not sorry for it.”

Some emigrants had an eye for rocks and minerals as well as plants. In an undated entry, possibly from 1850, Dr. Carmi Garlick noted, “Many of the emigrants were much deceived by the yellow mica in the river, supposing they had found gold. It really makes a beautiful appearance, flashing in the sunlight.”

Like others before him, Garlick “found flowers within 10 feet of the snow. In passing up the river today, I found many such banks on the north sides of the hills. I gathered strawberries within one hundred yards of them. The rocks of the ridges are of the argillaceous schist and shale.”

John Riker gave an account of one party’s crossing, on June 11, 1852. “Here we find hundreds preparing to cross. The emigrants have here constructed a temporary ferry of logs and poles, pinned together.” The river, he noted “is very high; consequently crossing in this way is attended with considerable danger.”

“Here is a severe trial to the ladies,” Riker’s account continues, “who are accompanying their husbands, fathers, or brothers to the far-off west. Some of them bear all with fortitude, while others give expression to their feelings by tears and wringing of their hands. Many gazing upon these angry waters would fain turn back—would return to meet their friends at home; but by reflections we know that even in this there is danger. The destroyer, cholera, is in our rear and is fast gaining upon us.” Cholera did in fact take a great many lives on the trail that year.

About a month later, on July 7, Richard Keen reported his company’s safe crossing without a raft. Others, he noted, were not so fortunate. “Another train then undertook to ford after us upset one of their wagons and lost all their provisions. The brandy keg was then brought forth and all indulged more or less.”

By 1859, emigrants were mentioning the Lander Route. This was a government-built road that bypassed Salt Lake City, routing travelers straighter west from South Pass and ending up in Fort Hall in present southern Idaho.

On July 5, 1860, Allen Tyrrell observed signs of a new civility at the crossing. “There was a trading post and mail-station here. A couple of white women lived here … One of them is the trader’s wife, the other is not married. There was an air of taste and neatness about the premises and the occupants seemed to live comfortably.”

Later that summer, and with an unmistakable tone of nostalgia, British adventurer and travel writer Richard Burton wrote on Aug. 20, “At Ford No. 9. We bade adieu to the Sweetwater with that natural regret which one feels when losing sight of the only pretty face and pleasant person in the neighborhood; and we heard with a melancholy satisfaction the driver’s tribute to departing worth, viz. that its upper course is the ‘healthiest water in the world.’”

Almost two years later, on July 29, 1862, John Clark wrote, “At the Sweetwater Crossing is the headquarters of the soldiers stationed along here for two hundred miles.” Units of the Sixth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, later reconstituted as the 11^th Ohio, were stationed there until 1868 when they abandoned the post. Soon after, the Indians burned it, and the place became known as Burnt Ranch.

A number of emigrants are known to have been buried in this area, including Charles Miller, Joe Barnette, and a Mrs. Bryan. Unfortunately, several of the graves have been vandalized.

The land is now privately owned.

Resources

Primary Sources

• Burton, Richard F. The City of the Saints and across the Rocky Mountains to California [1860]. London, UK: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1861. American edition, New York, N.Y: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1862. Reprinted as TheLook of the West, Overland to California, University of Nebraska Press, 1963.
• Clark, John M. Diary. Manuscript Collection P2077. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, MN. Richard Rieck transcription.
• Garlick, Dr. Carmi P. “A Trip Overland to California, 1850.” In Garlick Family History and Journal of a Trip to the Goldfields of California in 1850. Ed. by Norman Lee Garlick. Charleston, S.C: WA MSS S-2343 G184, Beinecke Library. Typescript.
• Keen, Richard Augustus. The Diary of a Trip to California and Return. State Historical Society of Iowa. Typescript.
• Mann, Henry C. Diary. MSS C-F 130, Bancroft Library. Transcription by Richard L. Rieck.
• Pratt, Orson. “Interesting Items Concerning the Journeying of the Latter-day Saints from the City of Nauvoo, Until Their Location in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake (Extracted from the Private Journal of Orson Pratt)” [1847]. Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star Compiled as The Orson Pratt Journals. Ed. by Elden J. Watson. Salt Lake City, Utah: E. J. Watson, 1975.
• Riker, John F. Journal of a Trip to California, by the Overland Route [1852]; Urbana, Ohio. 1855.
• Tyrrell, Allen J. A Journal of Plains. Manuscript journal in possession of Allen’s great grandson, Corby Dale, Lemore, California. Typescript.
• Van Dorn, Thomas J. Diary. Thomas J. Van Dorn Papers, WA MSS S-1319, Beinecke Library. Typescript.

Secondary Sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Del Bene, Terry A. “The Lander Trail: National Road Building Comes to Wyoming.” WyoHistory.org. Accessed March 11, 2017, at http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/lander-trail.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Ninth Crossing of the Sweetwater: Burnt Ranch.” Emigrant Trails throughout Wyoming. Accessed March 10, 2017, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/9thcrossing.htm.

Illustrations

• The photos are by Randy Brown. Used with permission and thanks.

Pacific Springs—an extensive marsh in a bleak, dry landscape—is in a low place just west of South Pass. For emigrants on the Oregon Trail, it was the first source of good water after crossing the Continental Divide. From the east-flowing rivers and streams they had followed for so many miles, the pioneers had finally arrived at water that would end up in the Pacific Ocean.

Isaac Wistar, in his June 30, 1849, diary entry, captures a sense of the magnitude of this transition. “With three cheers and several more, we rolled on downward toward the setting sun, not forgetting to carry a little water destined by nature for the Atlantic, to be poured into the first west-flowing water for transfer to the western ocean.”

Clearly filled with wonder, he adds, “How near together the solitary mountain sources of these little streams, and yet with half the world between them, how widely severed their ultimate destinations!”

Like Wistar, Patrick McLeod and his company were traveling in 1849, the first of the two years when, thanks to the California Gold Rush, emigrant traffic was the heaviest ever seen on the trails. “We had great difficulty in finding a camping place,” he wrote on July 4 of that year. “[A]ll round the springs was covered with camps, and even if such had not been the case the grass was so poor and growing in an alkali bottom we would scarcely have camped near them. Indeed the number of dead oxen was so great, that the gasses arising from their putrefying bodies rendered it very disagreeable to the olfactory nerves.”

Next summer the trail was crowded again and commerce had sprung up to serve the horde. James W. Evans wrote on June 28, 1850, “At the spring a Yankee of the Barnum school had turned his carriage around as if he were going back. A large placard announced the pleasing fact that it was an Express wagon to carry letters back to the States!”

He and others were glad to have this unexpected way to tell their families they were safe, and where they were. “Who among this vast emigration did not avail himself of this opportunity of writing a few lines back to their parents, or to their wives, to announce the fact that they were astraddle of the Rocky Mountains! I for one did and I saw many with tearful eyes and with a hand trembling with emotion, tracing a few short lines to their loved ones at home. The price for the transmission of each letter was fifty cents.”

Franklin Langworthy noticed that people were not just traveling in covered wagons. On June 29, 1850, he wrote, “While here, a fine train of sixteen splendid carriages overtook and passed up. It was one of the passenger trains from the city of St. Louis, which takes passengers from that place to California, for the sum of two hundred dollars.” This was probably the Pioneer Line.

Two years later, there was still significant traffic, and sometimes the wagons stopped long enough for socializing. On July 25, 1852, John N. Lewis wrote, “[T]here was about 100 wagon here & we got the girls together & had a fiddle & catarrh [probably “guitar”] & fine girls & another such a party was never got up all for Oregon.

“[W]e had no house to dance in,” Lewis notes. “We took it on the ground. The moon was shining bright & the dust could be seen rising over the party for 2 hundred yards.”

Others were less cheerful and energetic. Feed for their stock was scarce. “Went to the springs and found it all eaten away there and even below,” wrote Andrew S. McClure on July 7, 1853. McClure also noted the hazards which time and heavy traffic had not affected. The springs “are seeps which supply a marsh, which is very dangerous to stock as it is very miry and stock which has come through is apt to be hungry and dash headlong into the marsh, from whence some never return.”

About two weeks later, on July 23, Rebecca Ketcham found Pacific Springs “dreary … [and] gloomy-looking,” adding, “When there was a dry spot it had been camped on and was covered with manure and other filth.”

By 1860, there was a rudimentary post office and newsstand. Allen Tyrrell’s July 6 diary entry from that year states, “A log mail-station stands near the springs. I stopped in for a few moments. Noticed a N.Y. Ledger there among other papers.”

The marsh, apparently an enduring feature of Pacific Springs, was still there when James Yager arrived on June 30, 1862. Like others before him, Yager could shake the boggy ground “for several yards around.” Yager was also filled with the wonder of having crossed the divide. “[O]n the same day, on the same morning & within a space of two hours I drank of the Pacific & Atlantic.”

In the 1860s, a stage and Pony Express station existed in this area, probably near the Halter and Flick Ranch. It was apparently burned by the Indians in 1862. Its exact location is unknown. There are several graves in this area.

Resources

Primary  Sources

• Evans, James William. Trip to California Across the Plains in the Year 1850. MSS C-F 80, Bancroft Library. Richard Rieck transcription.
• Ketcham, Rebecca. “From Ithaca to Clatsop Plains: Miss Ketcham’s Journal of Travel” [1853]. Ed. by Leo M. Kaiser and Priscilla Knuth. Oregon Historical Quarterly 62:3-4. (September–December 1961); Part I, 3:237–87; Part II, 4:337– 402.
• Langworthy, Franklin. Scenery of the Plains, Mountains and Mines: A Diary Kept Upon the Overland Route to California. Republished with an introduction by Paul C. Philips. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1932.
• Lewis, John N. Overland Journal, St. Joseph, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, 15 April to November 1852. Beinecke Library. Richard Rieck transcription.
• McClure, Andrew S. The Diary of Andrew S. McClure, 1853. Eugene, Ore.: Lane County Pioneer-Historical Society, 1959. Typescript.
• McLeod, Patrick H. Diary, 1849. Mss. Collection No. WC001, Philip Ashton Rollins Papers, Box 11, F1, Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J. Richard Rieck transcription.
• Tyrrell, Allen J. A Journal of Plains. Manuscript journal in possession of Allen’s great grandson, Corby Dale, Lemore, California. Typescript.
• Wistar, Isaac Jones. Diary in Autobiography of Isaac Jones Wistar, 1827–1905: Half a Century of Peace and War. Philadelphia, Pa.: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, 1937.
• Yager, James Pressley. “Diary of a Journey Across the Plains” [1863]. E. W. Harris, ed. Part One, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, (Spring 1970) 13:1, 3–19; Part Two, (Summer 1970), 19–40; Part Three, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, 13:2–3 (Fall 1970), 27–48.

Secondary Sources

• Brown, Randy. Oregon-California Trails Association. WyoHistory.org offers special thanks to this historian for providing the diary entries used in this article.
• Moody, Ralph. Stagecoach West. N.Y.: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1967, 9.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Pacific Springs.” Emigrant Trails throughout Wyoming. Accessed March 15, 2017, at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/pacificsprings.htm. 

Illustrations

• The photo of Pacific Springs with the mountains in the background is by the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Used with permission and thanks.
• The photo of the cabin at Pacific Springs is by Randy Brown. Used with permission and thanks.

Scholars estimate that the year 1852 saw the largest number of emigrants ever on the transcontinental trails. Late in 1850, Congress had passed the Donation Land Act, guaranteeing free land to pioneers who could make it to Oregon Territory. Soon, California Gold Rush travelers were joined by a surge of people bound for Oregon. It was a crowded year on the plains, with long columns of covered wagons heading west.

Not coincidentally, 1852 is also estimated to be the year of the greatest mortality on the trails, caused principally by the cholera epidemic then plaguing most of America. Wyoming has seven extant graves of that year’s casualties, but one of these victims, Mary Homsley, succumbed to a disease almost as deadly in nineteenth-century America—the measles.

Conflicting records say that Mary Elizabeth Oden was born either near Truxton, Lincoln County, Mo., in 1824 or near Lexington, Ky., where her parents lived before moving to Missouri. Her father and mother, Jacob and Sarah (Fine) Oden, did eventually settle with their family in Warren County, Mo., where on June 3, 1841, Mary married farmer and blacksmith Benjamin Franklin Homsley. He was a native of Tennessee and 11 years older than she—born in 1815. The young couple settled on a farm located in Warren County close to where Benjamin’s brother, Jeff, and his family lived.

In April 1852, accompanied by Mary’s parents and 10 brothers and sisters, some with families of their own, they took the trail to Oregon. There was family precedent for this move. Mary Homsley’s Aunt Delilah (Fine) Shrumb had emigrated to Oregon with her husband in 1846.

The Homsleys had three children at the time of their departure: Laura (sometimes spelled Leura or Lura), age 6, 2-year-old Sarah Ellen and a baby boy, whose name is now unknown. Left behind in Missouri were the graves of their two oldest, Georgina and Lycurges. The children had been poisoned by a household slave, murdered in revenge for perceived ill treatment by Benjamin Homsley. Family tradition has it that they were twins, but the 1850 census says Georgina was 9 in that year, Lycurges, 7.

Many wagon train companies were hit hard by cholera, and the Oden clan was no exception. Bryant Thornhill, husband of Mary’s sister Rebecca (Oden) Thornhill, is reported to have succumbed to cholera “soon after” Mary Homsley had died, as did Samuel Thornhill from the same cause. It is likely the two men were brothers. In a letter dated June 20 from Fort Laramie reporting their deaths, they are both said to have been from Warren County. Rebecca gave birth to a son in Oregon in February 1853, eight months after Bryant’s death. The baby was named Bryant Gray Thornhill Jr. after his deceased father.

Shortly before Bryan and Samuel Thornhill contracted cholera, Mary Homsley and her baby son came down with measles, a serious affliction in early America. An epidemic of it broke out in the wagon train, and most of the children and some adults came down with the disease.

For several days a feverish Mary and the baby rode on a featherbed in one of their two wagons driven by 14-year-old Bailey Homsley, Benjamin Homsley’s orphaned nephew. When they crossed the river near Fort Laramie, either the Laramie or the North Platte, the wagon overturned, and Mary and the baby were immersed in the frigid water. Both were rescued, but Mary’s condition took a turn for the worse and on June 10, while they camped a mile west of the fort near the North Platte, she died.

With no lumber available for a coffin, Mary was wrapped in a feather bed and, as Laura said decades later, “They were buried by the side of the road. When Father buried Mother he found a piece of sandstone. With his jackknife he scratched this inscription ‘Mary E. Homsley, died June 10, 1852, age 28.”

When she was interviewed for a newspaper story 80 years later, Laura believed that the infant boy had died at nearly the same time as his mother. Other accounts say the baby lived for another several weeks, passing away sometime in July when the company was in western Idaho. Benjamin buried the boy in an improvised coffin made from a tool chest.

With her last words, Mary asked that Benjamin keep their children together. It was common practice in those days for widowers to give up their young children to be raised by aunts or grandmothers, especially girls who needed a mother to train them on how best to bring up the next generation, or so it was thought. Several family members were candidates for that position, in particular Grandmother Sarah Oden, but Benjamin granted Mary’s last request, raised the two girls himself and never remarried.

“Father taught us to cook and sew and keep house,” Laura remembered many years later. When they arrived in Oregon, Benjamin took a Donation Land Act claim on Elliott Prairie in Clackamas County—in the Willamette Valley about 25 miles south of Portland—where he helped to build Rock Creek Church. He lies there, buried in the church cemetery. Benjamin Franklin Homsley died in 1908 a few days short of his 93rd birthday.

One of Mary’s younger brothers was reported lost somewhere on the trail and never heard from again, so the company lost at least five of its members on their way to Oregon in events not atypical for overland companies of the day.

Mary Homsley lies in a sandy grave marked by the original headstone now encased in glass and mounted in a concrete pyramid. A passing cowboy discovered the grave in 1925 and alerted the landowner, Clarke Rice. Returning to the site, Rice found the base of the headstone still buried in the ground. The mended stone was encased in the monument and dedicated with great ceremony on Memorial Day, 1926, with well over 500 people attending.

Contacted in Portland, Laura Homsley Gibson could not remember her mother’s death, only that her father had told her the grave must be somewhere in Wyoming. “Father seldom talked about it. Of our mother we only knew that she had been a victim of measles and that she had been buried somewhere along the way.”

Sources

• Anonymous. “Deaths on the Plains.” Missouri Weekly Sentinel. Columbia, Mo. July 22, 1852. Vol. 1. No. 22. p.1, col. 8.
• Anonymous. “Pioneer’s Grave Gives Up Secret.” Morning Oregonian. Portland, Ore.. Jan. 11, 1926. Vol. LXIV, No. 20. p. 1, col. 6.
• Anonymous. “Baker Resident Survivor of Emigrant Train of ’52.” The Sunday Oregonian. Portland, Ore. January 17, 1926. p. 7. col. 5.
• Lockley, Fred. “Lura Homsley Gibson.” Oregon Journal, August 12, 1932. Reprinted in Helm, Mike, ed. Conversations with Pioneer Women. Eugene, Ore.: Rainy Day Press.
• Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. “Mary Homsley Grave.” Emigrant Trails Throughout Wyoming website, accessed April 7, 2017 at http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/mary_homsley.htm.

Illustrations

All photos are from the author’s collections. Used with permission and thanks.