Wyoming Will Be Your New Home . Ranching, Farming, and Homesteading in Wyoming, 1860 –1960 Michael Cassity PREPARED FOR THE WYOMING S TAT E HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE PLANNING AND HISTORIC CONTEXT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM WYOMING S TAT E PARKS & C U LT U R A L RESOURCES Wyoming Will Be Your New Home . Wyoming Will Be Your New Home . Ranching, Farming, and Homesteading in Wyoming, 1860 –1960 Michael Cassity PREPARED FOR THE WYOMING STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE PLANNING AND HISTORIC CONTEXT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM WYOMING STATE PARKS & CULTURAL RESOURCES Copyright © 2011 by the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources, Cheyenne, Wyoming. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act— without the prior written permission of the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. Printed in the United States of America. Permission to use images and material is gratefully acknowledged from the following institutions and repositories. They and others cited in the text have contributed significantly to this work and those contributions are appreciated. Images and text used in this document remain the property of the owners and may not be further reproduced or published without the express consent of the owners: American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming; Bridger–Teton National Forest, U.S. Forest Service; Casper College Western History Center; Hot Springs County Museum and Cultural Center, Thermopolis, Wyoming; Johnson County Library, Buffalo, Wyoming; Michael Cassity historical collections; Museum of the Mountain Man, Sublette County Historical Society, Pinedale, Wyoming; National Archives and Records Administration, Denver, Colorado and Washington, D.C.; Natrona County Library, Special Collections, Casper, Wyoming; Richard Collier, Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office; Riverton Museum, Riverton, Wyoming; Special Collections, University of Wyoming Libraries, Laramie, Wyoming; Sweetwater County Museum, Green River, Wyoming; University of Oklahoma Press (for map / image by Edward Everett Dale in The Range Cattle Industry. Copyright © 1930 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman); Washakie Museum, Worland, Wyoming; Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum, Douglas, Wyoming; Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Illustration on page i: Unidentified Crook County ranch, probably about 1910. Photo: Magic Lan- tern Slide from Michael Cassity Collection Page xviii : Stove from abandoned homestead, Campbell County. Photo: Michael Cassity, 1981. Cover images (left to right): (1) Sheep shearers postcard from collection of Michael Cassity; (2) thresh- ing near Ranchester, postcard from Michael Cassity collection, (3) woman and infant in wheat field, from Stimson photo collection, Wyoming State Archives; (4) cattle branding photo from Michael Cassity col- lection; (5) Wostenburg family, sugar beet fields, courtesy Washakie County Museum, Worland. For the fi rst time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it—for a little while. Willa Cather, O Pioneers! (1913) contents Abstract IX CHAPTER 4: From Cattle Kingdom to Acknowledgments XI Homesteader Haven 1890–1910 89 Purpose and Scope of the Historic Context Study XIII Against the Grain: Wyoming Homesteaders in an Urbanizing Nation 89 When Sheep Trails and Cattle Trails Intersect 113 CHAPTER 1: Visions of the Future: 1820s to 1870s 1 A Life as Good and as Worth Living 130 Prelude: Charting and Changing the Landscape 1 “This country has always been death on women” 135 The Jeffersonian Vision, Land Law, and Democracy 9 A Minority of Agriculturists 14 CHAPTER 5: The Seeds of Modern Times in the early Twentieth Century 1900–1920 141 CHAPTER 2: Different Visions: The Rise of A Patchwork Quilt of Social and Economic Fabric 141 Ranching in Territorial Wyoming 1868–1886 21 Dry Land and Dry Farming 146 Sheep and the Social Landscape of Territorial Wyoming 22 The Song of the Harvest 159 The Cattle Bonanza 27 Putting Industry into the Ranching Industry 176 Stocking the Range 32 Women, Families, and Farms in the Equality State 194 Wyoming and the Texas Ranching System 40 CHAPTER 6: Social and Economic Upheaval in the 1920s 205 CHAPTER 3: A War for Wyoming 1885–1892 53 War and Transformation 205 Two Wyomings 53 Modernizing the Countryside 213 Collapse of the Cattle Empire 71 The Perseverance of the Homesteader 227 Social Struggle on the Prairies 77 The Agricultural Depression of the 1920s 231 vii CHAPTER 7: The Transformative Power of Economic Crisis and War: 1929–1945 243 Drought, Depression, and Despair 243 Ranching, Farming, and the New Deal 251 Factories in the Field 275 The Dynamics of War 284 CHAPTER 8: A Harvest of History: 1945–1960 293 Dreams of the Future and Dreams of the Past at Midcentury. 293 Thinning the Herd at Midcentury 300 Requiem for a Rancher 312 Bibliography 315 Index 329 viii abstract HIS IS A STUDY of the historic context—the broader framework in These patterns are not just abstractions; they are, instead, the patterns T and forces helping us understand the lives people led and the resources which specifi c developments can be better understood—of home- steading, farming, and ranching in Wyoming from pre-Territorial they left on the ground. The critical point in this historical context study incursions to around 1960. The study considers many forms of home- is that historical signifi cance derives from our effort to connect any given steading, including especially those people who took up land under any feature to a larger system, both conceptually and physically. To be old is of the laws providing for the distribution of the public domain, but others not enough. To exist is not enough. The historical signifi cance must be as well, and thus examines the broad contours of farming and ranching in precise and demonstrable. This historic context indicates the patterns to Wyoming for a period of around a century. Special attention is given the which the resources can be connected and thereby better understood. In competing uses to which land is put, the different orientations and pur- addition to a historical narrative, this context includes guidelines to assist poses that Wyoming’s citizens have held as they developed their farms researchers in their evaluation of the state’s homesteading, ranching, and ranches, the technology of agricultural production, the role of power- stock-grazing, and farming resources for their eligibility to the National ful economic, social, and political forces in shaping the choices available Register of Historic Places. to Wyoming’s rural population, and throughout the challenge presented by patterns of modernization. ix acknowledgments G OOD HISTORY IS NEVER a matter of just looking up what other the beginning of the project, Judy Wolf, Chief of Planning and Historic historians have written and is always a matter of raising questions, Context Development in the SHPO, has provided expert guidance and seeking new information, rethinking the patterns of the past, and unfl agging assistance essential to this study. She has, moreover, served exploring issues both old and new for their larger meanings. I thank all as a point of contact, sounding board, careful reader, and alternate per- those who have joined me in that adventure. Without the support of oth- spective at many steps along the way. A true professional, she deserves ers, quite simply, this could not have been done and certainly could not great credit for seeing this study through to completion. have been completed in the form that it is. While I cannot name everyone I have been fortunate in being able to draw upon the thoughtful read- who contributed and helped, there are some particular debts, both per- ing of the manuscript and guidance at different stages by people with sonal and institutional, that I want to note. different perspectives from my own. The State Historic Preservation Of- The Wyoming State Legislature and Governor Dave Freudenthal fi ce’s Historic Context Advisory Committee, and its member profession- deserve special recognition and gratitude because of their vision and als Lynn Harrell, John Keck, Judyth Reed, Ian Ritchie, Lysa Wegman- leadership in funding a historic context study of ranching, farming, and French, and Dave Searle, provided thoughtful perspectives on a multitude homesteading in Wyoming so that we may better understand and appro- of complex issues. In addition, Wyoming SHPO staff Betsy Bradley, Kara priately manage the state’s resources associated with that history. In ad- Hahn, Mary Hopkins, Laura Nowlin, Nancy Weidel, and Judy Wolf of- dition, Milward Simpson, Director of Wyoming State Parks and Cultural fered thoughtful advice and provided valuable suggestions, raised impor- Resources, has from the very beginning given this project his personal tant questions, and