STOCK-RAISING, RANCHING, AND HOMESTEADING IN THE POWDER RIVER BASIN HISTORIC CONTEXT STUDY February 15, 2007 Michael Cassity, Ph.D. Historical research and Photography 304 West Albuquerque Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 74011 Phone: 918 / 451-8378 y FAX: 918 / 451-8379 [email protected] Abstract This study explores the settlement and development of northeastern Wyoming, an area known as the Powder River Basin, from the removal of the Native American inhabitants in the 1870s to 1940. The focus of the investigation is ranching (both cattle and sheep) and farming activities in that time period, and especially the role of homesteading which often included both ranching and farming. In fact, homesteading itself included the taking up of the public domain by individuals under a series of land laws not limited to the 1862 Homestead Act. While there was a diversity of land use activities, including the development of small farms, the Texas system of cattle ranching early came to dominate the area, but after natural calamity and social crisis, that system gave way to small farms and ranches, and those settlers came to the area in increasing numbers. And even though sheep grazing increased dramatically, the small farms continued to grow and the practice of dry farming enabled the parts of the area that were not naturally watered or irrigable to support crop-raising activities. In the early twentieth century a revolution in agricultural technology both enhanced production and undermined the system of small farm agriculture that had once prevailed and farming activity—and farms too—continued to expand in the area. After World War I, a series of crises rooted in the larger economy and national social structure extended into this area, and by the Depression of the 1930s, which converged with a series of droughts, ranchers and farmers of all sizes were in serious trouble here. The response of the Roosevelt administration resulted in a series of changes in farming and ranching that reversed the in-migration to the area, that emphasized grazing over farming, and that relocated some vi Abstract families from the smaller operations to other places. By the end of the 1930s the system of agriculture in the Powder River Basin reflected the fundamental trends in the nation of modernization which had been underway and which would continue. Acknowledgments I wish to acknowledge cheerfully and gratefully the help I have received at many points in the preparation of this study. Assistance has come from many offices and many individuals in ways that have been both direct and indirect. While I cannot name everyone who contributed, there are some particular debts, both personal and institutional, that I want to note. Almost every member of the committee made up of cultural resource professionals from the Bureau of Land Management and the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office offered suggestions and raised questions, and sometimes engaged in vigorous discussions about the historic resources of the Powder River Basin. I appreciate their sustained, thoughtful, and generous attention and especially am grateful for their willingness to spend a day in the field with me examining and evaluating historic properties. The staffs at several research archives have been generous in talking with me about the project and drawing upon their intimate knowledge of the holdings of their archives and then directing me to special collections or digging out particular items that they knew about. This includes especially the archivists at the Wyoming State Archives, the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, the Nebraska State Historical Society, the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, and the staffs of the county libraries in the study area. Some of these repositories have provided images that I have used in the text. I am grateful for being able to use them and have given credit to their owners at the places where they are used. Several individuals at these institutions deserve particular thanks. Carl Hallberg of the Wyoming State Archives shared with me viii Acknowledgments the results of his own research on agriculture in the Powder River Basin and ferreted out reports on agriculture that surely I would have missed otherwise. Nancy Jennings at the Johnson County Library in Buffalo spent considerable time with me talking about the issues and resources available and kindly provided some crucial photographs that I have used in the text. In addition, Ross Hilman allowed me to use some images from his own family’s collection. Mary Hopkins helped me work my way through the very substantial and complex database in the Wyoming Cultural Records Office in Laramie so that I was able to draw upon the valuable information there. With great generosity and only a thank-you in return, Robert Righter and David Kathka read the completed study and offered a number of important suggestions and observations that have been, and will be, enormously helpful. Over the years, and quite separate from her participation in the committee that exercised oversight and consultation in this project, Judy Wolf has graciously shared with me her exceptional knowledge of historic resource management in Wyoming and has often stimulated my thinking about resource management with her thoughtful questions and suggestions. Lee Ann Swanekamp, a gifted writer and friend, has provided encouragement and support in my own striving for clarity in expression and for relevance and authenticity in content. To all of these people and institutions I am deeply grateful. Table of Contents Abstract . v Acknowledgments . vii Purpose and Scope of the Historic Context Study. 1 i. Introduction. 1 ii. Methodology. 8 Chapter 1: Seeds of a New Social Order: 1860s and 1870s. 11 i. Passing Through. 11 ii. “Our Accepted Destination”. 25 iii. Public Domain, National Birthright. 40 Chapter 2: The Rise of a Ranching Kingdom in the 1870s and 1880s . .. 47 i. Land, Water, and the Arcadian Promise. 47 ii. The System of Cattle Ranching. .. 53 iii. Diversity and Division in the Cattle Kingdom. .. 75 Chapter 3: Social Crisis and Agricultural Transformation in the 1880s and 1890s . 91 i. The Cattle Kingdom in Crisis . .. 92 ii. Agrarian Ascendancy. .. 100 iii. Agriculture and Social Struggle. 114 Chapter 4: Bucking the Trend: Agrarian Growth, 1890-1910. 129 i. Agriculture and the Winds of Change. 130 ii. Sheep and the Cold War with Cattle. .146 iii. A Garden of Diversity. .. 165 Chapter 5: Harvests of Plenty: 1900-1920 . .. 181 i. The Advance of the Dry Farmer. .. 182 ii. Machines in the Garden. 209 iii. Rangeland in Transition. 224 Chapter 6: From Homesteader to Industrial Agriculture: 1920-1940. 251 x Table of Contents i. The Challenge of Modernization . 253 ii. Agricultural Crisis, Social Crisis. 279 iii. Federal Assistance and the Transformation of the Landscape . 288 iv. Family Farms and Factory Farms in Modernizing Society . 318 Chapter 7: Management of Historic Resources in the Powder River Basin . 337 i. Impacts and Threats to the Resources . 338 ii. Research Needs and Priorities. 346 iii. Strategies for Site Assessment . 353 Appendix: Property Types and Registration Requirements . 363 Bibliography . 427 Index of Historic Themes and Areas of Significance . 445 Purpose and Scope of the Historic Context Study i. Introduction To drive across the broad swath of land that is generally referred to as the Powder River Basin is to experience the intersection of a complex environment and a rich history. Too often, however, the traveler passes through the area quickly, dismissing the power of the place with a reference to its emptiness and never pausing to reflect on the meaning of the scattered remnants of the past that frequently intrude on the vista. And for the people who live there, they are so common that they are often taken for granted. But the remnants are many: A windmill here. An eroded dam that once held water for livestock there. An abandoned farm with sage creeping back where a garden once grew. A gate with a cattle brand on its cross timber. Crumbling stones on the side of a hill where once a dugout provided shelter. A prosperous ranch with multiple buildings and machines neatly arranged. Fences that sometimes seem to go nowhere and to serve no purpose. An abandoned post office and school marking where a community once thrived. A sheepherders’ monument on another hill on the horizon. What may at first appear to be empty space, is actually filled with the marks and remains from earlier generations. It is as if pieces of a puzzle have been scattered broadly across the land and there is no guide to how the individual pieces actually fit together or even what the total picture looks like. This study is an effort to provide at least a partial guide to the puzzle pieces and the way that they make sense in combination with each other, and the way that the puzzle 2 Purpose and Scope of the Historic Context Study changed over the long period of time that started with the removal of the Indian inhabitants from the area and then their replacement with other groups of people who came in to make very much different kinds of lives and societies. Those lives and those societies evolved, transformed, or were replaced over the years, and the society around us in the Powder River Basin is the result. This study is thus an effort not only to understand how the pieces fit together, but to understand how we came to where we are today. The study actually proceeds along two levels at the same time. One effort is to identify the themes and issues that have shaped one part of the history of the area—how people have used the land to produce fiber and food and make a living thereby—and for most of its history that was the dominant use of this land.