TRAILBLAZERS
PEOPLE WHO SHAPED THE WEST
Bill Greathouse Roving Cowboy By DARYL DREW
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is name was William Browning Greathouse, and in the Neutral Hills of Alberta he is still a legend. Born in Arkansas on March 31, 1866, Bill grew up in San Saba, Texas, a cattle shipping center known for violence during the post Civil War era. Comanche raids, vigilante actions and outbreaks of typhoid were more common than law and order, but by the time Greathouse turned sixteen, he had cowboyed on ranches in Texas and New Mexico and become a top hand. He eventually kept moving northward on cattle drives, and by Christmas 1899, he was in Medicine Hat and working on ranches in southern Alberta. In 1902, the Texas-based WilkinsonMcCord Ranch hired Greathouse as round-up boss to move their cattle north to the grasslands in Alberta. In the spring of 1903, 3,680 head of their cattle and 200 horses were loaded onto eight trains at Canyon City, Texas and shipped to Miles City, Montana. They were then trailed about 1,000 miles to Sounding Lake, Alta., covering about 15 miles per day. They arrived at Sounding Lake late in the season, and the weather proved unrelenting. The continuous rain had formed a huge bog at the confluence of Sounding Creek and Lost
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Creek. Greathouse and his team were able to swim the horses across, but the cattle had to be trailed around the bog. Their hooves churned the trail into mud, so the crew had to cut willow branches to make a corduroy road that would allow the wagons to follow. In 1906, Greathouse was still working for Wilkinson-McCord in the Neutral Hills, and on November 16, temperatures plummeted as an intense three-day blizzard struck. Cattle were still out on the range as three feet of snow fell on the range cattle and the winds topped the drifts with a thick frozen crust. Hungry, thirsty cattle drifted with the wind as the ice crust cut their legs. The cowboys (dressed in buffalo coats and coyote fur foot wraps) tried to drive them in closer to the haystacks, but the exhausted cattle would not move far. They brought hay to those they could reach and kept chopping water holes in the frozen ponds. Warren LaRoche and an unnamed WilkinsonMcCord cowboy froze to death in the storm. Greathouse, knowing the same thing could
happen to him, kept some money with a note that read, “kase I kick the bucket, fix things up.” During this same storm, Mrs. Ellis, the Wilkinson-McCord ranch cook, fell gravely ill. The nearest doctor was over 100 miles away in Stettler. Against all advice, Greathouse saddled up his strongest horse and rode off into the driving wind to get help. He rode from ranch to ranch, breaking trail on foot where necessary and changing horses at each ranch. Arriving in Stettler exhausted and frostbitten, Greathouse described the ailing cook’s symptoms, and the doctor gave him some medicine. Greathouse rode back the way he came, once again relaying horses. Pinned inside his coat was a note that gave his name and who the medicine was for in case he froze to death. He never stopped to rest, and the grueling round trip took 36 hours. Mrs. Ellis recovered. When the Neutral Hills School opened, the folks celebrated with a dance. A
Canadian Cowboy Country October/November 2019
