Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 32, Number 3, 1964

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HAUTE ILY

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

BOARD OF TRUSTEES j . GRANT IVERSON, Salt Lake City, 1967 President DELLO G. DAYTON, Ogden, 1965

JACK GOODMAN, Salt Lake City, 1965 MRS. A. c. J E N S E N , Sandy, 1967 HOWARD c. PRICE, J R . , Price, 1967

Vice-President J O E L E. RICKS, Logan, 1965

EVERETT L. COOLEY, Salt Lake City Secretary

i,. GLEN SNARR, Salt Lake City, 1967 LAMONT F. TORONTO, Secretary of State

j . STERLING ANDERSON, Grantsville, 1967

LELAND H. CREER, Salt Lake City, 1965

Ex officio S. LYMAN TYLER, PrOVO, 1 9 6 5

ADMINISTRATION EVERETT L. COOLEY, Director

T. H. JACOBSEN, State Archivist, Archives F. T. JOHNSON, Records Manager, Archives K. w . INSCORE, Registrar, Military Records The Utah State Historical Society is an organization devoted to the collection, preservation, and publication of Utah and related history. I t was organized by publicspirited Utahns in 1897 for this purpose. In fulfillment of its objectives, the Society publishes the Utah Historical Quarterly, which is distributed to its members with payment of a $5.00 annual membership fee. The Society also maintains a specialized research library of books, pamphlets, photographs, periodicals, microfilms, newspapers, maps, and manuscripts. Many of these items have come to the library as gifts. Donations are encouraged, for only through such means can the Utah State Historical Society live up to its responsibility of preserving the record of Utah's past.

J O H N JAMES, JR., Librarian MARGERY W. WARD, Associate Editor IRIS SCOTT, Business Manager The primary purpose of the Quarterly is the p u b l i c a t i o n of m a n u s c r i p t s , p h o t o graphs, and documents which relate or give a new interpretation to Utah's unique story.

Contributions of writers are solicited for the consideration of the editor. However, the editor assumes no responsibility for the return of manuscripts unaccompanied by return postage. Manuscripts and material for publications should be sent to the editor.

The Utah State Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or opinions expressed by contributors.

The Utah Historical Quarterly is entered as second-class postage, paid at Salt Lake City, Utah. Copyright 1964, Utah State Historical Society, 603 East South Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84102.

SUMMER, 1964

VOLUME 32

NUMBER 3

HISTORICAL QUARTERLY • «*

AN OVERVIEW OF UTAH'S CATTLE INDUSTRY

BY EVERETT L. COOLEY

179

THE CATTLE INDUSTRY OF UTAH, 1850-1900: AN HISTORICAL PROFILE

BY DON D. WALKER

182

THE DEVELOPMENT OF UTAH LIVESTOCK LAW, 1848-1896

BY LEVI S. PETERSON

198

THE HERALDRY OF THE RANGE: UTAH CATTLE BRANDS

BY RICHARD H . CRACROFT

217

PRESTON NUTTER: UTAH CATTLEMAN, 1886-1936

BY VIRGINIA N . PRICE AND J O H N T. DARBY

232

WILD COWS OF THE SAN JUAN

BY KARL YOUNG, DRAWINGS BY ROMAN ANDRUS

252

THE CARLISLES: CATTLE BARONS OF THE UPPER BASIN

BY DON D. W A L K E R

268

LIVESTOCK AND THE PUBLIC LANDS

BY N . K E I T H ROBERTS AND DEL W O R T H GARDNER

285

AL SCORUP: CATTLEMAN OF THE CANYONS

BY NEAL LAMBERT

if h

301

Utah's public lands, such as this seeded range in Kane County, Utah offer good grazing for cattle.

U.S. SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR ART EDITOR

L. COOLEY Margery W. Ward Roy J. Olsen

EVERETT

L E G E N D O

Preston Nutter Range, 1886-1893 Nutter Strawberry Lease, 1893-1899

Š

Nutter Arizona Strip, 1893-1937 Nutter Range Valley, 1897Carlisle Range, 1883-1896 Scorup Range

8Rom'&

AN OVERVIEW OF UTAH'S CATTLE INDUSTRY

BY E V E R E T T L. COOLEY

The cattle industry has always been an important segment in the economy of the Territory and State of Utah, and yet little is known about it and still less published.

When white men first penetrated into the region which is now Utah, they undoubtedly brought cattle along to provide subsistence for the expedition. As the Pacific-bound immigrants crossed Utah from east to west, they drove oxen hitched to wagons and herded beef and milch cattle along to provide breeding herds once they were established in California.

The Mormon pioneers, coming to make their homes, brought with them the foundation stock which would reproduce animals for draft purposes, for dairy purposes, and for beef.1 Each successive wave of migration brought with it cattle as a means of transportation and for breeding purposes with which to make a start when once settled in Utah. By 1850 there were as many as 7,350 head of cattle in the Utah communities. 2 But the traffic in cattle was not a one way route. For shortly after Utah's first settlers arrived, cattle were being driven from Utah to supply the needs of miners in surrounding areas.

However, there seems to have been many more cattle coming into the territory than there were leaving. In fact, by the time the railroad entered the area, the cattle needs were being met by numerous herds being driven in from Kansas, Missouri, and Texas. 3 It is perhaps at this time that the economic possibilities of a Utahbased cattle industry were envisioned. Texas cattle were being driven onto the Utah ranges — into Brown's Hole and along the Green and Colorado rivers. Some of these were fattened for export to market; others were the breeding stock for some of the herds which soon overran Utah ranges.

Some of these herds grew to enormous proportions—a single owner claiming herds which numbered 25,000 head. Perhaps no other single Utah cattleman owned a number reaching any where near that figure; nevertheless, Utah could boast cattle operations of a sizeable nature. Even so, they could not compare to the King Ranches of Texas or the Swan Land 1 D o n D. Walker, "Longhorns Come to Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly, X X X (Spring, 1962), 135-47.

2 John R. Evans, et al., Beef Cattle in the Utah Economy (Salt Lake City, 1962), 2.

3 Walker, "Longhorns Come to Utah," U.H.Q., X X X , 139.

& Cattle Company, of Wyoming.

In fact, Utah is a state consisting of relatively small cattle operations. " I n 1959 only 150 U t a h farms or ranches h a d over 500 head of cattle. O n the other hand, nearly one-half of the total 14,000 [cattle] producers had fewer than 19 head each." 4 Nevertheless, the cattle industry of Utah, though not surrounded with as much of the glamour, the Hollywood trappings, the cowboy image, and the colorful tradition U T A H STATE FAIR ASSOCIATION as in the "cattle states," is important to the economy of Utah. "Cash receipts from marketing of cattle are greater than from any other segment of Utah Agriculture."" Furthermore, the cattle industry is of greater proportional value in Utah than in all but 17 states of the Union. In other words, Utah ranks 18 among the states when the value of cattle production is compared with total personal income.6 1

Evans, Beef Cattle in Utah, 3.

Ibid. Utah's 1961 agricultural receipts totaled $156.2 million. Of this cattle accounted for $44.4 million; dairy products, $30.2 million; while sheep and lambs brought $9.7 million. In 1959 cattle receipts were over $12 million greater than total receipts from all other Utah farm crops. ' Ibid., 5.

5

Four breeds of cattle that have been prominent in the cattle industry of Utah. The Galloway (upper right) and the milking shorthorn or Durham (lower left) were on the scene at an early date. The Hereford (lower

U T A H STATE FAIR ASSOCIATION

Besides supplying the domestic market, beef p r o v i d e s one of p Utah's major exports. In 1959 exports of cattle and dressed beef were worth $34.5 million to the state. This amounts to the most i m p o r t a n t single economic income to some counties of the AMERICAN GALLOWAY BREEDERS ASSOCIATION state. Such is the case in Rich, Piute, and WTayne counties. But the cattle industry is important to all counties, for all counties produce some cattle.

m

Because of the economic significance of the cattle industry to Utah, and because the history of cattle in Utah has never been adequately dealt with, the Utah State Historical Society presents an issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly devoted to a very colorful and important chapter of Utah's past. It does not purport to be a comprehensive history of the cattle industry of the state, but merely episodes in that history. It is a phase of history which should be told, thereby providing a stimulus for others to research and write on this interesting subject.

right) was introduced into Utah

by H. J. Faust in 1885 and is the most popular breed now raised.

The Angus (upper left) is preferred by some cattlemen, but has fewer characteristics which permit his grazing Utah ranges.

U T A H STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

When the first M o r m o n settlers established themselves in the Salt Lake Valley, they brought with them 3,100 head of cattle, 887 cows, and 2,213 working oxen. They were of course founding a religious haven, not a ranching empire. This large number of cattle thus represented the pulling power needed for the move west, not a beef-producing potential to be turned free upon the grasses of Zion. But meat demands developed; the grasslands of desert and mountains were ready for use. Naturally, if not inevitably, Utah became a grazing state. A century later, her people could count well over half a million cattle on her farms and ranges. This did not mean that Utah was a leader in the production of meat. Other states had more acres of range and sent more cattle to market. But it did mean that Utah's economy, more than some of her citizens realized, had been significantly enriched by her cattle industry.

The Cattle Industry of Utah

18501900

AN HISTORICAL PROFILE

BY DON D. W A L K E R

The first cattle into Utah were probably those driven along the route of exploration by the Escalante party, cattle to supplement the food transported on mule-back and to furnish fresh meat. 1 Early in the next century, before the coming of the Mormons, mountain men and Oregon immigrants are reported to have Dr. Walker is professor of English and director of the Program in American Studies, University of Utah. ' H e r b e r t E. Bolton, Pageant in the Wilderness, The Story of the Escalante Expedition to the Interior Basin, 1776 Utah Historical Quarterly, X V I I I (1950), 13.

CATTLE INDUSTRY

183

wintered a few oxen in Brown's Hole, the Salt Lake Basin, and Cache Valley.2 And in the summer of 1847, when the Mormons explored northward from Salt Lake, they found the ranch of Miles Goodyear, "some log buildings and corrals stockaded in with pickets" and "a herd of cattle, horses and goats." 3 However, the real start of the cattle industry came with the Mormon arrival. Even before the end of the first year of settlement, the church leaders saw the need of more cattle, particularly dairy cows, and authorized a buying expedition to the California ranch of Colonel Isaac Williams.

Led by Jefferson Hunt, the party started back to Utah in February 1848, driving 200 cows and about 40 bulls. But only half of the cows and one bull survived the ordeal of desert and Indian attack. 4 By 1850 the cattle of Utah numbered well over 12,000, statistical evidence of profitable trading with the hordes of gold-seekers hurrying west.

These migrants offered economic advantage to Utah's cattle interest in a number of ways. On the way west, they sometimes found their own oxen exhausted, footsore, unable to start across the remaining deserts. They were thus eager to trade for better animals — to the gain of the Mormons. And once in California in their booming mining camps, they needed almost unlimited supplies of beef and more working oxen. In 1853 some 2,300 work steers were driven to Sacramento, where they are said to have sold at $200 to $250 per yoke.5 In 1855 Major Howard Egan drove 1,500 shorthorns to the California markets. 6 And in addition to making drives o

of this kind, Utah breeders and traders began furnishing starting herds for other western ranching areas. For example, in 1859 Granville W. Huffaker moved his Utah cattle to Nevada, where he continued his ranching operations. 7 The Eighth Census of 1860 showed more than 34,000 cattle in Utah, an increase over 1850 of nearly 300 per cent. However, in the same period the human population increased nearly 400 per cent. The evidence shows that though stock increased during the decade there was as yet no widespread interest in building up large permanent producing herds, no exten2 U.S., Bureau of the Census, "Report on Cattle, Sheep, and Swine, Supplementary to Enumeration of Live Stock on Farms in 1880," Report on the Productions of Agriculture as Returned at the Tenth Census (Washington, D.C., 1883), 117.

3 Dale L. Morgan, "Miles Goodyear and the Founding of Ogden," U.H.Q., X X I (October, 1953), 314. *" ^ ' Interview with John Hunt, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), October 7, 1905.

5 U.S., Bureau of the Census, "Report on Cattle, Sheep, and Swine," 117.

6 Richard H. Dillon, "Introduction," California Trail Herd, The 1850 Missouri-to-California Journal of Cyrus C. Loveland (Los Gatos, 1961), 47.

7 Granville W. Huff aker, Early Cattle Trade of Nevada (MS, Bancroft Library).

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

184

sive effort to use Utah's full grazing potential. Moreover, the evidence shows that the young cattle industry, whatever the intent of its leaders, was still precarious, still threatened by the unforeseen forces of an uncertain climate. During the summer of 1855 drouth and grasshoppers destroyed the valley grasses, forcing a movement of cattle to the virgin ranges of Cache Valley, northern Utah, and southern Idaho. But then followed the worst winter in the experience of the settlers. Of 2,000 head of church cattle grazing in Cache Valley, only 420 survived, and similar losses could be noted in other counties. In all, about half the cattle in the territory died.8 The Ninth Census of the United States counted only 39,180 cattle.

Ten years later the count showed 95,416, but even this figure does not fully indicate the rapid increase in Utah's livestock population. The Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society report for 1875 listed 174,076 cattle, an increase over 1870 of more than 340 per cent. What brought this tremendous increase in the number of cattle? And what brought the dramatic decrease between 1875 and 1880?

The expansion of the cattle industry before 1875 resulted from economic changes both within and without the territory. Before 1870, two needs had sustained the markets of the territorial cattle raisers: pulling power and food. By 1870, however, particularly after the completion of the railroad, demand for working oxen had seriously diminished. In 1860 27 per cent of Utah's cattle were oxen; in 1870 the percentage had decreased to nine; in 1880 it had dropped to three. With this loss of market for oxen seemingly went a loss of interest in growing beef cattle, the demand for meat apparently itself being too weak to generate a new incentive. However, in these very years of weakened cattle production, territorial meat requirements increased, and the national livestock industry 8 U.S., Bureau of the Census, "Report on Cattle, Sheep, and Swine," 117; Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints 1830-1900 (Cambridge, 1958), 150-51.

Any material at hand was employed to construct corrals, such as this willow corral at Callao.

DON D. WALKER

f|'|fe|f

CATTLE INDUSTRY

185

expanded into many hitherto unused ranges of the West.9 If the people of Utah, as one observer reported, were not a meat eating people, 10 the workers in the new railroad towns and mining camps were. In 1870 Utah's cattle growers were unprepared to satisfy this growing market, and they were equally unprepared to stock their empty ranges to join the national beef boom. However, other areas were more than ready to export cattle to fill the vacuum. The Salt Lake Daily Herald editorialized on September 14, 1871: "With fewer cows in the Territory the slaughter of calves and heifers has increased, and the result to-day is, that feed for hundreds of thousands of cattle is wasting on the ranges and hill-sides, while Texas cattle by the thousands are being driven across the plains to supply this market." 1 1 During the next five years thousands of cattle poured into Utah from the great cattle exporting states of the West. Colorado supplied a great many,12 but Texas continued to be the seemingly unlimited breeding ground of the marching longhorns. Great herds of these tough Texans trailed to Utah's markets, some to the butcher's block, others to the territory's virgin ranges.13 One of several cattle-growing ventures begun in these years was the Tintic Ranch of William and Samuel Mclntyre. About 1870 these brothers returned to Texas, sold the land they had inherited from their father, and bought cattle. In April the following year, they moved between 6,000 and 7,000 Mexican longhorns up the Chisholm Trail for Utah. Arriving some eight months later, they took up land just east of the West Tintic Mountains and wintered their cattle. Then in the spring they sold their stock, getting $24.00 per head for cattle which had cost them only $3.75 in Texas. With their profits they went to Omaha, bought more cattle, and thus began their ranching business."

By 1878, however, a change of economic direction could clearly be noted: the vacuum had filled, and now Utah was ready to export rather than import. In a retrospective editorial, the Salt Lake Daily Herald observed: "Many thousands of Texas cattle were brought to Utah, at one 9 "In 1870 the 'Mormon Territory' . . . had a population of nearly 87,000 in its 89,970 square miles; and around that year its resources for range operations in cattle- and sheep-raising began to receive enlarged attention." James W. Freeman, ed., Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry (New York, 1959), 456.

10 Stock Raising in Utah (MS, Bancroft Library).

11 Salt Lake Daily Herald, September 14, 1871.

12 Hiram Latham, Trans-Missouri Stock Raising (Denver, 1962), 42. " F o r further detail, see Don D. Walker, "Longhorns Come to Utah," U.H.Q., X X X (Spring, 1962), 135-47.

14 William H. Mclntyre, Jr., "A Brief History of the Mclntyre Ranch," Canadian Cattlemen (September, 1947), 86. See also the booklet A Brief History of the Mclntyre Ranch.

186

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

time our ranges being almost exclusively stocked by them. . . . Within the past few years this has all been changed. Cattle are no longer coming west, but on the [contrary], the territories . . . are driving large herds to the east." 15 Large herds were not only going east but other directions out of Utah as well. In 1877 an estimated 23,500 cattle were driven to Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska; 4,500 were shipped by railroad to Chicago. In 1878 another 35,000 head were driven to Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska; 2,000 rode live to Chicago, and another 100 frozen carcasses went to the same market; 3,000 carcasses were shipped in refrigerator cars to San Francisco. In 1879 an estimated 47,000 were driven to Wyoming, Nebraska, and southwestern Dakota; 3,500 were shipped by railroad to Chicago; another 1,000 carcasses went to San Francisco in refrigerator cars. In 1880 the number driven to Wyoming, Nebraska, and southwest Dakota rose to 53,000. Other drives took 3,000 head to Arizona and 900 to Montana, and the railroads carried 2,300 to Chicago and 231 to San Francisco. In four years nearly 180,000 cattle left the territory. In the same period 6,700 moved into Utah, but all of these were making a temporary stay, wintering from the Oregon Trail. 16 These sizeable exports represented in part the inner pressures of an expanded industry, perhaps, too, the need to adjust to the advance of the sheep industry, which made great progress in Utah in 1878 and '79.17 Shown on the economic graph, they perhaps indicate the healthy ups and downs of a young industry trying to find its own stability. But the census of 1880 also showed another sort of adjustment, the heavy loss of livestock in a killing winter.

The summer of 1879 was dry. In some areas ranges were eaten out; in some areas the hay crop was only half of what it usually was. The winter which followed was long and heavy with snow. In Brown's Hole, usually a winter haven, the snowfall was greater by half than in any season since the memorable winter of 1862.1S On some ranges of the Uintah Basin, there was no feed above the snow for five months. 19 At the end of February^ cattle wintering on the north fork of the Virgin River could still not get at snow-covered feed/" On February 27. the Salt Lake Daily Herald 15 M

Salt Lake Daily Herald, September 11, 1878.

U.S., Bureau of the Census, "Report on Cattle, Sheep, and Swine " 123

"Ibid., in.

18

'

Salt Lake Daily Herald, March 5, 1880. '° U.S., Bureau of the Census, "Report on Cattle, Sheep, and Swine," 122.

20 Salt Lake Daily Herald, March 4, 1880.

187

CATTLE INDUSTRY

printed a report of snow depth at Honey Comb Flat in Big Cottonwood Canyon: 33 feet 6 inches on the level/ 1 From late in February to the middle of April, reports of extreme hardship and heavy losses filled out the sad picture of men and animals caught again in the unpredictable circumstances of an uncertain climate.

Under pressure from the widespread livestock hunger, the price of hay rose. In Manti, it reached $16.00 per ton, double the usual figure.22 With the supply of hay low or wholly depleted, even straw came into critical demand. A correspondent in Chester, also in Sanpete County, recalled Brigham Young's advice "Take care of your straw." Some farmers had taken care of it and now sold it at a good price. 23 By February cattlemen in Cache County had nothing but straw to feed. At Lewiston they hauled thousands of tons the 16 miles from Smithfield, old straw that normally would not have been taken at any price but which was now "greedily bought at $1 to $3 per load." 24 But even this supply was eventually exhausted, and cattle were turned loose to fight for their own survival.

"Ibid., 22 Ibid., 23 Ibid., 21 Ibid.,

February 27, 1880.

March 12, 1880.

April 16, 1880.

April 22, 1880.

'*'

DON D. W A L K E R

The Mclntyre range as seen from the Mammoth Mine. West Tintic Mountains in the background.

Bridge and barn at the Mclntyre Ranch near Leamington. The barn, approximately 100 yards long and called "the biggest barn in the world," was blown down by the wind. The bridge in the foreground spans the Sevier River.

WILLIAM MCLNTYRE

Accounts of losses differed, but there was no mistaking the heavy blow the winter had struck to many of Utah's cattlemen. In the Virgin River drainage, a Cedar City stockman lost all but 20 head of nearly 600.25 On the Island Park range of the Green River, 60 per cent of 1,900 head were reported lost.26 Some 625 head of dry cattle belonging to the townspeople of Tooele City wintered in Skull Valley; only six head survived. In Tintic Valley around 5,000 cattle started the winter; in the spring fewer than 1,200 head could be rounded up.27 A visitor to Brown's Hole reported: "I am informed by persons who should be well posted, that not less than sixty per cent of the stock will perish. During a recent trip as far southward as the Ladore Canon I counted not less than 300 dead animals, and this is not a tithing of the numberless multitude which lies in out of the way 25

Ibid., March 4, 1880.

U.S., Bureau of the Census, "Report on Cattle, Sheep, and Swine " 122 "Ibid., 119.

28

CATTLE INDUSTRY

189

places which will probably never be seen." 28 The pathos of the range reached its peak in a report from Cache County: "The hundreds of cattle dying on the ranges, have been the means of employing many boys securing their hides. No attention seems to have been paid to ownership, dead stock being regarded as common property. Not a few cases are reported where a number of boys, finding an animal down, would sit around waiting for it to die. They had no pity, and only waited until starvation had completed its work, to rob the emaciated frame of its covering. 3 5 29 CATTLE AND M E N IN UTAH, 1850-1950

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950

Cattle

Population

12,616 34,094 39,180 132,655 278,313 264,750 379,294 505,578 393,848 373,635 550,997

11,380 40,273 86,786 143,963 210,779 276,749 373,351 449,396 507,847 550,310 688,862

Cattle Per Man

1.13 .85 .45 .92 1.32 .96 1.01 1.12 .78 .68 .80

The winter had been crippling to Utah's cattle industry, but it had by no means destroyed it, and it may have taught the cattle growers some valuable lessons. In the years following, the number of cattle again began to climb, and by 1890 Utah could count more than 278,000 head of neat cattle while counting fewer than 211,000 human heads.30 At no time in Utah's history had the cattle/human ratio been so high, and in the next 60 years it would not again reach this peak.

During the decade 1880-90, while Utah continued to export cattle from its established farms and ranges, it also began to exploit the grasses 23 Salt Lake Daily Herald, March 5, 1880. The reporter added his account of the effect of these losses upon the cattlemen: "The effect on the heretofore happy-go-easy cowpuncher is fearful to contemplate. There is now in their camps a sound of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, such as holy writ says there will be amongst the spirits of the damned."

29 Ibid., April 22, 1880. T o the modern newspaper reader, this overstated nineteenth century report may seem touched with bathos as well as pathos.

30 The cattle count here includes the 200,266 counted "on farms" in Utah and the 278,047 counted on the ranges of the sixth district, which included both Utah and Nevada. Final accuracy for Utah alone is thus impossible. An early historian of the cattle trade found this second count so incomplete that it must have "caused a smile to some of the big cattlemen of that portion of the country." James Cox, Historical and Biographical Record of the Cattle Industry and the Cattlemen of Texas and Adjacent Territory (New York, 1959), I I , 14. Subsequent reports of agricultural census give the count in Utah in 1890 as 278,313.

190

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

of areas hitherto little used. In exporting, for example, Utah, along with Texas and Oregon, continued to supply Wyoming. According to Edgar Beecher Bronson, in 1882 annual drives from these states were "doubling, increasing at a rate that made it sure that ranges would soon become so badly overcrowded that profitable breeding and beef fattening would be no longer possible." 31 In 1884, the Wyoming Live-Stock Journal observed that "the entire range country is full of stock except in very few localities."

"There is room," it added, "for a few cattle west of the main ridge of the Rockies in Colorado and Utah." 3 2 By the late 1880's, even this range was in extensive use. "Between 1885 and 1890," says one study of Utah's cattle industry, "all the Utah ranges were fully occupied." 33 A study of county census reports shows what had happened as centers of livestock interest shifted, as new ranges within the state were occupied.

In 1850, the 12,616 neat cattle were concentrated largely in four counties, Salt Lake, Davis, Utah, and Weber, with smaller herds in Sanpete, Iron, and Tooele counties. In 1849, 50 Mormon families had been called to settle in Sanpete Valley; that year a colony had been established in Tooele Valley; and by the end of 1850 the advance company of what was to a Mormon iron mission had moved into Little Salt Lake Valley. By 1860 the push of settlement and cattle had penetrated all of the western counties and Cache County to the north, but still the greatest numbers fed in Salt Lake and Utah counties. By 1870, however, these counties were losing importance as beef counties. The census of that year, excluding milch cows and working oxen, showed 2,773 head in Millard County, only 974 in Salt Lake County. There were cattle, too, in Rich, Summit, Wasatch, and Kane counties. By 1880 the movement farther eastward across the Wasatch Mountains became clear, with cattle counted in Emery, Uintah, and San Juan counties. Still another decade later, these small pioneer herds had been inundated by a torrent of new cattle. In 1880, Uintah County had 231 head other than milch cows and working oxen; in 1890 there were 1,902. In 1880 Grand County reported no cattle; in 1890 there were 6,038.

But most dramatic of all was the increase in San Juan County. In 1880 there were 267 head of cattle other than milch cows and working oxen, 1.3 for every human head counted in the census. In 1890 there were 17,100 cattle, 47 head for every man, woman, and child. Never again in Utah history would so few people live with so many cattle. 34 " Reminiscences of a Ranchman (Chicago, 1910) 293-94 "Breeder's Gazette, VI (October 23, 1884), 608 ' " William Peterson, et al., Cattle Ranching in Utah (Logan 1927) 5-6 •' As a matter of fact, census reports here are rmtnrir-alK, J,- i A ' i, Y these eastern counties in the late 1870's but thev Hn „Z u ™ l s I t a d ; n § - M a n X cattle reached Ut t n e y d 0 n o t s h o w ' "P m the 1880 census reports

CATTLE INDUSTRY

191

CATTLE IN UTAH COUNTIES, 1850-1900 18501

Beaver Box Elder Cache Carbon Davis Emery Garfield Grand Iron Juab Kane Millard Morgan Piute Rich Salt Lake San Juan Sanpete Sevier Summit Tooele Uintah Utah Wasatch Washington Wayne Weber 1

I8602

1870"

1880'

1890'

1900'

941 1,957 2,669

2,923 1,776 1,602

2,377 8,542 6,349

5,266 17,486 10,637

1,522

2,998

631

4,208 1,050

639

1,122 763

2,114 1,067 1,385 4,956 419

867

6,464 1,292 3,200

5,616 1,036 2,745 1,003 1,471 1,285 5,234 4,680 393 6,197 2,446 5,763 10,441 298 8,537 3,455 7,920

6,420 4,624 5,382 6,345 4,265 1,117 12,490 7,981 4,030 3,850 17,463 8,441 17,346 11,076 8,641 9,271 4,861 2,471 12,059 7,215 2,540

3,819

1,709

4,360

8,980

7,116 20,493 24,017 3,235 9,803 6,926 11,323 6,613 4,864 9,650 7,697 20,019 7,421 5,439 13,857 14,207 9,866 25,960 18,278 15,948 9,045 8,504 36,650 16,018 9,753 6,095 13,033

1,523

5,552

5,126

443

4,290

183

1,136

2,793

6,140

1,484

338 1,669 3,702 2 1,758 2,031

Neat cattle. U.S., Bureau of the Census, Statistical View of the United States, . Being a Compendium of the Seventh Census (Washington, D.C., 1854), 334.

Milch cows, working oxen, and other cattle. Small returns from Greenriver and Shambip counties not included. U.S., Bureau of the Census, Agriculture of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census (Washington, D.C., 1864), 180.

3 Milch cows, working oxen, and other cattle. Returns from Rio Virgin County not included.

U.S., Bureau of the Census, The Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the United States, . . .from Returns of the Ninth Census (Washington, D.C., 1872), 263.

4 Working oxen, milch cows, and other cattle. U.S., Bureau of the Census, Report on the Production of Agriculture as Returned at the Tenth Census (Washington, D.C., 1883), 173.

5 Neat cattle on farms. U.S., Bureau of the Census, Report on the Statistics of Agriculture in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890 (Washington, D.C., 1895), 310.

0 Neat cattle of all ages on farms and ranges. U.S., Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States, Agriculture, Part I, Farms, Livestock, and Animal Products (Washington, D.C., 1902), 486.

2

192

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

These increases resulted from the meeting of two waves of cattle migration, one eastward out of settled Mormon areas and one westward out of Colorado. One of the most powerful of the westward penetrations was the entry of the heavily capitalized Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company, which in 1883 acquired ranges and cattle north and east of the Blue Mountains. 35 The company bought up local herds, brought in more cattle from Colorado and New Mexico, and moved in still more stock from west of the Wasatch Mountains. For example, in the summer of 1883, the company contracted with J. D. Reece to have 2,000 head of cattle driven to the Blue Mountain ranges.36 In the decade from 1880 to 1890, Utah's cattle not only increased in numbers but also improved in quality. Of the slightly more than 200,000 head counted in 1890, 2,501 or 1.25 per cent were recorded purebreds, and 26,560 or 13.5 per cent were of a grade one-half blood or better. By standards of today, these figures may not of course be impressive, but compared with those of some other Western States they show that Utah was ahead in the effort to breed better cattle. Wyoming that year counted nearly 686,000 head. Of these only .3 per cent were recorded purebreds, with another 8.7 per cent of a grade one-half blood or better. Texas, the mother rangeland, had nearly 6.25 million head, but of these 93 per cent were common, ungraded cattle, only .3 per cent being purebreds. 37 Within Utah, the three leading cattle counties helped hold up the state average. In San Juan County, with 17,346 head, only 24 or .14 per cent were recorded purebreds, but 2,501 or 14.4 per cent were of grade one-half blood or better. In Box Elder County, while only 137 or .78 per cent of the 17,486 cattle were recorded purebreds, 2,771 or 16 per cent were of grade one-half blood or better. In Rich County, the general quality was even higher. Of 17,463 cattle, only 38 or .22 per cent were recorded purebreds, but 5,355 or 30.78 per cent were of grade one-half blood or better. However, the strongest evidence of breed improvement came from Sevier and Salt Lake counties. In the central Utah county 649 or 7.5 per cent of 8,641 head were recorded purebreds. And in Salt Lake County purebred or graded stock made up 53.5 per cent of all cattle counted. 38 These figures reflected nearly two decades of effort to improve the quality of Utah's cattle. The cattle of the first decade of settlement were (Summ 5 er, e i9M) °68 W 8 a 4 ker ' " ^ C a H i S l e S : C a t t ' e ^ 30 Daily Herald (Durango), July 30, 1883.

°f

the V

at the EUvfn\hc7n7us°1890e ( W S & C D C W f m V j 38 Ibid., 310.

^

* " - . " U.H.Q., XXXII

Agrieultur

'

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the

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"*<*

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CATTLE INDUSTRY

193

of fair quality, but during the 1860's and early '70's the influx of Texas and California herds led to a general deterioration. However, in the 1870's some cattlemen began to show great interest in the improvement of their stock. For example, between 1870 and 1873, William Jennings, of Salt Lake, imported 25 shorthorns from Canada, all of them Herd-Book animals.39 By 1880 the practical results of such efforts could be observed.

T h r e e - a n d - a - h a l f year

tJZlt^ll dressed out at an average of 550 pounds, but beeves of the same age from g r a d e d bulls d r e s s e d o u t at 6 1 5 pounds. An increase in average weight of 10 or 12 per cent was generally b e l i e v e d to h a v e come from better breeding."

The 1880's saw an intensification of this move for improvement.

In 1881, believing that example might afford "greater and more satisfactory encouragement" to stock raisers, White & Sons offered $400 for a steer of any breed that would surpass William Jennings' model steer Perfection. (See advertisement of the Pembroke Market.) Just 3D U . S . , B u r e a u of t h e C e n s u s , " R e p o r t on C a t t l e , Sheep, and Swine," 117.

"Ibid., 123.

PEMBROKE MARKET. 1238 First South Street,

White & Sons, LEADING O F

BUTCHERS TTT-A.EC DKALEIiR IN THE

&hoica$t

ยง&e<2L SlfCii I ton, a-nb ยง a w e I3ST

SIยฃ3-A.SOIsr

Stock Raisers visiting the Fair will do well to all on us before selling elsewhere, as we are always buyers of choice stock.

Of late there has been so much talk about encouraging Stock Raisers of Utah, to produce a better class of stock. We have cotne to the conclusion that a little more example and a little less precept, might afford greater and more satisfactory encouragement, therefore we offer

Four Hundred Dollars FOR

A STEER ANY BREED,

That will surpass the three year old Steer "Perfection," bred and fed by William Jennings, and purchased by us.

The Steer to be put on the market any time between noW and the spring of 1883.

White & Sons.

UTAH HISTORICAL

194

QUARTERLY

how "fancy" this prize was can be seen by a glance at prevailing market prices. In January 1885, prime steers sold for between $30.00 and $40.00.

In Tooele County, at a cost of "many thousands of dollars," W. C. Rydalch and H. J. Faust had also imported shorthorns from Canada. In 1885 Faust reported that Rydalch's herd, improved with quarter, half and two-third graded cattle, was "without doubt the best stock in Utah." Included in the Rydalch herd were 75 full-blooded shorthorns. 41 Similar efforts were being made to improve dairy stock. For example, a cattle grower in Sevier County shipped in 11 Holstein calves costing from $300 to $500 each.42 Such efforts of individual cattlemen to breed and sell better bloodlines would of course have proved chaotic without some territorial organization, some central record of pedigrees. In March of 1884, at the urging of livestock men, the territorial legislature passed a bill creating a territorial recorder of the pedigree of stock. "It shall be his duty," the act said, "to keep suitable records, properly indexed for reference, for recording the pedigree of each of the following kinds of animals, in separate books: one book for horses, one for horned stock, and one for sheep." Early in 1885 Recorder N. W. Clayton could note a growing interest. "I have just had two applications," he said, "one from Jno. R. Winder and another from Frank Armstrong. Both have some very fine blooded stock, and both are desirous of recording the pedigree of that stock." 43 One of the most vocal of breed improvers was H. J. Faust, a man who seems to have lost no opportunity to speak and write for better cattle. Early in the summer of 1884, he visited the Wyoming Hereford Cattle Association at its 30,000 acre ranch near Cheyenne.

At this t i m e t h e A s s o c i a t i o n boasted about 500 imported Herefords of all ages, including the great bull Rudolph. "These cattle," Faust told theSalt Lake Daily Herald, "are all whitefaced, [with] four white feet, brisket white and 41

Salt Lake Herald, January 6, 1885. " Salt Lake Daily Herald, July 13, 1884. " Salt Lake Herald, January 8, 1885.

AUGUSTUS F. FAUST

Henry J. Faust

(1833-1904)

CATTLE

INDUSTRY

195

bush of tail white, the sides red. Think of 500 cattle all in uniform.

Everywhere you look you see clean, whitefaced cows and calves, male and female." 44 The Wyoming Hereford Association had been organized in K E I T H ROBERTS 1883, with A. H. Swan Rudolph 2nd, whose sire, the English-bred "the as president and George mighty Rudolph," was imported to America by G. F. F. M o r g a n as general Morgan, general manager of the Wyoming Hereford Association.

Morgan paid $3,500 for the bull. manager, and with the principal purpose of importing and producing purebred Herefords. 45 Morgan, who had been born and reared in Herefordshire, started the movement of Hereford royalty to America in 1879 when he bought and imported the great bull Anxiety.

Anxiety died within a year, but other bulls were brought to America, including Anxiety's son, Anxiety 4th. As manager of the Wyoming Association, Morgan imported 186 English-bred bulls.46 Most famous of all was of course Rudolph, the "mighty Rudolph" he was called, for whom Morgan paid a then record price of $3,500. Faust described him for Utah readers: "He is now 4 years old and weighs 2,800 pounds. All men who have seen him pronounce him the finest animal in the world; his brisket is just twelve inches from the ground; handsome and perfect is the verdict by all. The company refused $10,000 for him." Seeing one of Rudolph's calves, Faust asked Morgan what the calf would cost at weaning time.

"Well," said Morgan, "if you would take it away at early weaning time you can have it at five hundred dollars." 47 Early in January 1885, Morgan arrived in Salt Lake to set up a Utah outlet of the Wyoming Hereford Association.48 Three miles south of the city he bought the Pitts' Gardens to be converted to a stock farm. Here, the Salt Lake Herald reported, "they will always keep on hand pure blood Hereford cattle, bulls and heifers. This will give an opportunity for all " Salt Lake Daily Herald, July 18, 1884.

"Donald R. Ornduff, The Hereford in America (Kansas City, Missouri, 1957), 53.

M Alvin H. Sanders, A History of Hereford Cattle (Kansas City, Missouri, 1914), 706. " Salt Lake Daily Herald, July 18, 1884.

48 Salt Lake Herald, January 16, 1885.

UTAH HISTORICAL

196

QUARTERLY

who wish to improve their herds, to make a profitable investment.'" ' The first shipment of "whitefaces" reached the branch yard early in February, followed by a shipment of 24 "thoroughbred^ Hereford yearling heifers and one two-year-old bull the first week in April. 50 Faust continued his own efforts, bringing into Utah fine cattle of other breeds. In March of that year, he shipped from Missouri "thirtysix head of pure Galloway yearling bulls, twenty pure blood Galloway yearling heifers, one imported Galloway bull, one imported cow and calf, one Short-horn bull, one Jersey bull, five grade yearling Galloway bulls and heifers," in addition to other stock. Observed the Cheyenne Livestock Journal: "This is the largest shipment of fine stock ever made to Utah." 5 1

DON D. W A L K E R

The Mclntyre

summer

ranch, West Tintic

Mountains.

At the turn of the century, the cattle census had fallen below the peak of 1890. However, more than anything else, this decline represented further adjustments on the way to maturity and stability in the range in40 Ibid., January 18, 1885. That same issue of the Herald contained the company's advertisement of "Thoroughbred graded Hereford Bulls & Heifers."

50 Breeder's Gazette, VII (February 12, 1885), 236; VII (April 9, 1885), 552.

51 As reported in Breeder's Gazette, VII (March 26, 1885), 471.

CATTLE INDUSTRY

197

dustry. Certain grazing areas had proved more suitable for sheep; certain areas had proved suitable only for reduced numbers of cattle. The San Juan ranges, for example, had lost nearly half the cattle which had been counted a decade earlier. Big beef adventurers in the nineteenth century cattle boom, men like Harold and Edmund Carlisle, were gone. Some overgrazed lands would perhaps never again revive to their pristine lustiness ; but more and more cattlemen knew that ranges, like the cattle themselves, must be protected if they are to have a continuing value.

That Utah continued productive during these years can be seen in the size of some cattle deals of the 1890's. In June 1893, Bell and Hake of Juab County shipped 31 cars of beef cattle east.5" This same company had only recently purchased 5,000 head from the Sparks Cattle Company of Nevada. In September nearly 5,000 steers crossed the Colorado from Arizona on their way to the Strawberry Valley ranges of Preston Nutter. 53 That same year a herd of between 6,000 and 7,000 head was reported to have passed through Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on their way from Utah to the Sweetwater range. 54 And in 1896 Pierre Wibaux, the cattle king of North Dakota, contracted with Green & Badger for 10,000 head of Utah cows and calves. The first shipment reached the W-Bar Ranch in June, with final delivery in August.55 By 1900 the cattle industry had become a stable, state-wide industry, with 343,690 neat cattle having a value of more than $7 million. More than a thousand Utahns identified themselves that year as stock raisers, with an additional 1,952 counted as herders and drovers. The next 64 years would see further changes in the industry, more stability, more improvement in breeds, more improvement in feeding methods and range management; but for the historian no period could ever match the starting excitement, the drama of success and failure, the colorful personalities of that first half-century.

52

Salt Lake Herald, June 6, 1893.

Gathered in herds of from 25 to 90 in the area of the Bill Williams, Santa Maria, and Big Sandy rivers, these cattle were brought to Hackberry and then driven by Mexican herders to the Colorado crossing. There they were met by Nutter's crew, who drove them by a dry, difficult route over the mountains, then up the Virgin into Utah. Howard Price, information from Preston Nutter papers.

54 Ora Brooks Peake, The Colorado Range Cattle Industry (Glendale, 1937), 28.

55 Donald H. Welsh, "Pierre Wibaux, Cattle King," North Dakota History, X X (January, 1953), 15-16.

58

THE DEVELOPMENT OF

UTAH LIVESTOCK LAW 1848-1896

BY LEVI S . P E T E R S O N

The cow or horse or sheep was a piece of ambulatory property. Looking much like any other of its kind, it had to be protected against loss and confused identity. Having value, it had to be protected against theft. Being prone to wander, it had to be kept from trespass and destruction of agricultural property. Thus arose in Utah's territorial period a considerable body of livestock law which may be divided into three general groups: laws disposing of grazing lands; laws establishing and ensuring the ownerMr. Peterson is a candidate for the doctorate in English at the University of Utah. His dissertation will be a study of law and lawlessness in the novel of the American West. Research for this article was done under a Graduate Research Fellowship for 1963-64 from the University of Utah Research Fund.

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ship of animals; and laws dealing with trespass and strays. Three legislative bodies contributed to this law. T h e Salt Lake High Council acted as the city's legislature from late 1847 to late 1849.1 T h e legislature of the provisional State of Deseret functioned from 1849 to 1851. From 1852 to 1895 the legislature of the Territory of Utah passed the bulk of the law with which this essay is concerned.

GRAZING AND RANGE L A W S

The territorial laws governing the disposition of grazing lands were not imposing in number. Their cultural importance, however, was great, for they in effect countered federal policy concerning the public domain.

By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States government acquired title to the area later to be called Utah. T h e federal government 'Dale L. Morgan, The State of Deseret, Utah Historical Quarterly, VIII (1940), 76-78.

w

• il-

200

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

gradually diminished the public domain through reservations for military bases, Indian lands, and forest preserves and through alienation to private owners by means of the pre-emption and homestead laws. The pre-emption and homestead laws gave each settler a maximum of 160 acres, far from enough in many areas of the arid West where livestock grazing was the only possible utilization of the land. The livestock industry of Utah, like that of other Western States was of necessity based upon the public domain. Over the vast portion of Utah that remained the public domain, there was no strictly legal way to regulate conflicts arising from its competitive use. Not until the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 did Congress give the livestock owners a secure tenure upon the part of the public domain that their animals customarily grazed. 2 There is little evidence of conflict over the range in Utah before the late 1870's. This was undoubtedly due in part to the non-violent nature of the Mormon settler who preferred buying out his competitor or simply sharing his range to fighting for it. The Mormon colonists at Bluff, faced in 1884 with the alternative of violence or purchase as the means of removing a herd of sheep from grass essential to their milk stock, chose to buy the sheep at an extortionate price. 3 Conflict over range land was also averted in early Utah by legislation. Both Mormon Church and territorial government favored a controlled disposition of the public domain. Speaking as prophet, Brigham Young advised cattle owners in 1853 to group into fencing companies and to enclose vast tracts of land — plots of "about fifty thousand acres" — until "all the vacant land is substantially enclosed." 4 He showed this same indifference to the federal government's right to the final disposition of this land in his message as governor to the territorial legislature of 1853. He recommended that legislation be passed for the strict regulation of herding and grazing grounds. 5 For some 20 years, the territorial government legislated control over the public domain. In a series of laws not in strict harmony with federal policy, the Utah Legislature prevented non-resident herders from encroaching upon grazing grounds necessary to settlements and regulated resident stockmen in their use of the surrounding public domain. These laws reversed an early act of the State of Deseret. In its fence law of 1851, 1960). 2 P h i " i P °" F ° S S '

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Journal of Discourses (26 vols., Liverpool, 1854-1886), I 251-52 ""Governors' Messages," December 12 1853 nn %1 W TL ' .

1851-1876 are bound in a single volume found in the: LHah State A i S ^ 6 ™ "

^

^

LIVESTOCK LAW

201

this government gave momentary recognition to the freedom of the public domain. All unenclosed lands were "hereby declared common pasturage, and all peaceable animals shall be free to run at large and graze thereon, except swine." 6 However, from 1855 to 1857 more than 30 acts were passed granting herd grounds on the public domain to private citizens and to the Mormon Church. Grants involving a hundred square miles were not unusual. This kind of territorial control over the public domain did not last long, for Governor Alfred E. Cumming reminded the legislature in 1859 that only the federal government could give valid title to these lands. Claiming that the private grants had "become exceedingly oppressive to certain portions of the community," he recommended that they be abolished.7 The legislature of 1859-60 heeded his recommendation by repealing 33 acts granting grazing grounds on the public domain.

A more enduring territorial control over the public domain was written into several acts which in effect authorized county courts to regulate grazing grounds locally. The herdsman act of 1854, designed primarily for licensing professional herders, also gave county probate judges power to designate the location and size of their herd grounds. This act specified that the designated herd grounds must not be "so located as to interfere with any previous rights, nor with the range necessary for the animals of any settler or settlement." 8 This assumed right to reserve the public domain to those settlements which it surrounded appeared again in the surplus stock act of 1865, by which the legislature authorized citizens to vote whether the grazing grounds immediately surrounding their respective settlements would be reserved for their milk and draft animals. If twothirds of the citizens so voted, all livestock not needed for daily use were to be driven to more distant herding grounds. 0 The right given to county courts to license herdsmen and designate their grazing grounds appears to have worked into effective local control over the public domain. County records show that grazing grounds were granted to numerous applicants, both as individuals and as communities.

Although these grants were to expire annually and often stipulated that other residents of the county could graze their animals on the designated a Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed by the First Annual, and Special Sessions, of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, . . (Salt Lake City, 1852), act of February 12, 1851. The laws will hereafter be cited as Laws of Utah. The date, upon which all acts referred to in this paper were approved, will be given in the footnotes. The text of the ordinances of the Salt Lake High Council and the acts of the legislature of the State of Deseret can be found in Morgan, State of Deseret. The acts of the territorial legislature can be found in the annual or biennial publications of those laws.

7 "Governors' Messages," December 12, 1859, pp. 82.1-82.8.

8 Laws of Utah, act of January 18, 1854.

"Ibid., act of January 16, 1865.

202

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

herd ground, they appear to have offered a security of tenure that made them attractive. Court records reveal cases in which stockmen of one precinct or county were protected in their possession of herd grounds against stockmen of another precinct or county. In July of 1866, for example, a selectman from Rockville was appointed by the Kane County Probate Court to warn the people of Toquerville to remove their cattle from a certain herd ground. The selectman reported in September that the people of Toquerville had removed their cattle as requested. 10 Regulation of grazing upon the public domain lost all statutory support by the animals-at-large act of 1874 which repealed the early acts authorizing county courts to designate herd grounds and to prevent non-resident grazers from placing their animals upon ranges close to settlements. Bills providing for new regulation were presented in later years, but did not become law. With the passing of local control over the public domain and with the increase of cattle and sheep herds, the problem of insecure title to grazing lands became more acute. In the late 1880's and early 1890's, Utah governors made frequent mention of the problem in their messages to the territorial legislatures and to the secretary of the interior.

They agreed unanimously that the stock owner had to be given some kind of secure title to grazing lands, whether by sale or by lease. Governor Arthur L. Thomas's report of 1890, urging the secretary of the interior to work for a federal law giving a more secure title, summarized the shortcomings of the uncontrolled competition which ruled the range: . . . I again call attention to the unsatisfactory conditions under which the lands are occupied. The title being vested in the Government, they are looked upon as lands which may be used by any one. The result is that the man who to-day may find a place where he can feed and water his animals, may tomorrow find himself surrounded by other men with their animals, and in a short time the forage plants sufficient to maintain a limited number of animals are eaten out, or completely Q â&#x20AC;˘ l r P r o° b ffi e f i ?° U r t 1 ^ i n ^u e S : R e c o r d A ." Rockville,Utah, July 11,1866; September 2, 1866 p. 19. The county court records used in this study are found in the valuable though incomplete abstracts compiled by William R Palmer and entitled "Gleanings." They are deposited in the Utah State Archives.

203

LIVESTOCK LAW destroyed. Again, it is well known that between the cattle and sheep interests there exists a bitter antagonism, and it is proving to be a blight not only to these interests but to the Territory also.11

11 Territory of Utah, Governor, Report of the Governor of Utah to the Secretary of the Interior, 1890 (Washington, D.C., 1890). The Reports are bound in a single volume found in the Utah State Archives.

Trachyte Ranch in the southeastern portion of Utah.

Note the extensive use of board and barb wire fences.

U T A H STATE T O U R I S T & P U B L I C I T Y C O U N C I L ( PARKER H A M I L T O N )

204

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

The violent conflicts which the Utah governors repeatedly predicted occurred during the late 1880's and on into the twentieth century. A terse news entry of 1888 warned that "the San Juan River country, even down beyond the Utah line, is getting so many cattle that serious fears are expressed of short picking for them, and trouble among the stockmen is looked for."12 Instances of violence were abundant, although it should be noted that they usually occurred on the unsettled periphery of the territory. An incident on the Utah-Nevada border illustrates the difficulty into which the lack of a secure title to grazing grounds put a Utah stock owner.

Sheep herded by James Sharp and owned by his father of Vernon, Utah, had customarily summered in the Grouse Creek area of northwestern Utah. Not far to the north across the border in Idaho, the cattle of a Nevada cattle company also summered. This company, the S & H Ranch, had set deadlines on the borders of its range, which, because of its reputation for violence, James Sharp had carefully respected. In the summer of 1898 Sharp drove his sheep onto his accustomed range to discover that S & H cowboys had crossed their own deadlines and had occupied his range with a large herd of steers. To convince Sharp that they meant to appropriate his grazing grounds, the cowboys scattered his sheep herd. Desperate because he had no other range on which to take his sheep, Sharp drove them into Idaho across the deadlines of the S & H range. An outlaw from Oregon, whom Sharp had befriended earlier, helped Sharp hold his sheep on these forbidden grounds. The outlaw and a handful of companions threatened the cowboys of the S & H company with gunplay if they molested Sharp's herd. Although Sharp occupied the S & H range throughout the summer, he never afterward returned to this or to the Grouse Creek range. 13 This incident illustrates a further complication in the conflict over public range in Utah. Like other western states and territories, Utah was seized with the idea that cattle and horses could not graze on lands where sheep grazed. A number of bills presented to the Utah Legislature attempted to regulate the supposed antipathy between cattle and sheep. A bill of 1888 sought to reconcile the conflict by establishing legal title to range areas on basis of prior use. Asserting that "it is a well attested and settled fact that horses and cattle cannot be grazed, reared or kept on the 12

Salt Lake Tribune, April 25, 1! e details of of this this incident im . £the details were learned in an interview with Glynn Bennion, of James James Sharp, Sharp, at at the the Bennion Bennior homestead at Riverbed, Utah, November 30 1963 The cousinI of general outline of the story was verified on^February" 15,' 1964? b^ r t e k p w " o n v e r » a t i o ^ with very old still in Salt JLake City Mr Sharn declined a JJamess Sharp himself, who though J lives " " " - , . ... Jlt unJj lA '„ . m , JA» o m „s™ JA. . .y:;I . j? S O :c-_." v e s l n ,.„.

Salt'•,Lake n»r.™o -""VC City.

KAiiy. Mr. ivii. Sharp onarp declined a personal visit and thus made a more detailed verification difficult.

13 M Most M 0St oof f f T

LIVESTOCK LAW

205

range, pasturage, and waters occupied or used by sheep," this bill proposed to secure both cattlemen and sheepmen against the encroachment of each other upon range which they had customarily used. This attempt to regulate the public domain failed to become law.14 It is significant that the Utah Legislature attempted to reconcile differences rather than to discriminate in favor of either the cattle or the sheep interests. Unfortunately, its good intentions failed to prevent conflict. Many of the incidents of range violence in Utah, like the Sharp episode, involved cattlemen and sheepmen. The basis of the conflict, of course, was the public domain. The open public range thus became in Utah, as in other western territories and states, a source of violence and injustice.

BRANDING AND HERDING L A W S

A more extensive law grew up in Utah Territory to provide for the identification of ownership of livestock, for the recovery of lost animals, and for the prevention and detection of theft. Because it was indubitably the property of the Utah resident, the cow, unlike the land it grazed on, could be carefully controlled by legislation. One course by which early Utah Legislatures attempted to preserve animals to their proper owners was the regulation of professional herdsmen. Because Indians and thieves made loose ranging dangerous and because the Mormon mode of settlement induced cooperative effort, herdsmen were as necessary to the early cattle industry as to the sheep interest.

By the herding act of 1851, the State of Deseret made the herdsman responsible for all animals in his care and required that he post bonds of twice the value of the animals. He was relieved of responsibility only if the animals he herded were destroyed by means beyond his prevention. 13 The territorial legislature soon modified this law by the herding act of 1854, which required that the herdsman be licensed by the court of the county where he intended to herd. This act required the posting of bonds and enjoined all drivers of livestock, whatever their professional status, to prevent the mingling of local animals with their own herd. 16 The effectiveness of this law is uncertain. Court records at least show that during the 20 years of its duration, many persons applied for herding licenses and posted bonds. The animals-at-large act of 1874, which repealed the herding act of 1854, retained only one provision of the older law, that requiru

Legislative Manuscripts: 1884 (Utah State Archives).

Laws of Utah, act of February 12, 1851.

M Ibid., act of January 18, 1854.

13

206

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

ing all herders to prevent local animals from mingling with their herds. 17 This provision remained in Utah law through and beyond the territorial period.

Of more lasting importance in the identification and preservation of ownership of animals was the development of the brand law. Marks and brands were a kind of certificate of ownership cut and burned into the hide of a cow or horse with a degree of permanence. Because the custom of branding and marking was imported into Utah with the pioneer Mormons, a reasonably well-developed brand law appeared in an ordinance passed in 1849 by the Salt Lake High Council. This ordinance created an office for recording brands and marks. The recorder was to keep a permanent and public record in which he would record marks and brands and the names and addresses of their owners. In the design of the brands, the recorder was to "consult the convenience" of the applicant. This provision permitted the unusual and flamboyant brand designs that were the affection of cattlemen in all western states and territories. This ordinance also required that upon the sale of an animal, its former owner reverse his brand. Reversal of a brand was an early equivalent of a bill of sale. When the new owner of an animal placed his own brand upon it, the reversed brand of the former owner stood as testimony that the new owner had received legitimate title. By this ordinance, altering brands and branding cattle not one's own were classified as a felony.18 This early act contained the essentials of Utah brand law. The first territorial brand act altered it chiefly in details. This act of 1852 expanded the office of brand recorder from a single bureau at the seat of government into a main office with auxiliary offices in the counties. The record of marks and brands was to be open to public inspection in all offices. The crime of altering brands or misbranding remained a felony. The recorder was still required to "consult the convenience" of the applicant in the design of a brand, although a condition was now added that the applicant must pay for the casting of an unusual design required in printing the brand book. A significant detail was added to the provision requiring the reversal of brands at the sale of an animal. Pound keepers and county officers were required to examine all herds of animals passing through their counties. If they found animals bearing neither the brand of a present owner nor the reversed brand of a former owner, they were to seize the animals as stolen property. If a seller had failed to reverse the brand on " Ibid., act of February 20, 1874.

18

Morgan, State of Deseret, U.H.Q., V I I I , ordinance of December 29 1849.

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(PARKER HAMILTON PHOTOGRAPH)

Rounding up cattle to brand on the Ekker range, which is located on the San Raphael Desert near the Green River. In the background can be seen cedar poles thrown together in a haphazard fashion to form a fence for the branding corral.

animals legitimately sold, he was liable for damages and expenses arising from the seizure.19 The brand law was revised again in 1866. It retained the main features of the earlier laws, being designed chiefly to alter administrative details. Otherwise, its chief alterations were its failure to reinstate the reversal of brands as a sign of changed ownership and its reduction of the crime of altering brands from a felony to a misdemeanor. Thus, 1866 became the year in which the reversal of brands passed out of Utah law books if not out of practical use. It also inaugurated a 10-year period in which the illegal use of brands was to be a misdemeanor rather than a felony.20 Utah brand law thus took its essential form early in the territorial period. No law in the territorial period made branding and marking universally mandatory. The herding act of 1854 required that persons driv13 20

Laws of Utah, act of March 1, 1852.

Ibid., act of January 13, 1866.

208

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

ing stock into the territory brand and mark them immediately and record their brand. 21 The various pound and stray acts soon put pressure upon stockmen to maintain a brand, for they permitted the state to confiscate an unbranded animal running at large. Finally, the branding and herding act of 1886 required that no unbranded animals were to be either sold or slaughtered.22 Utah law in effect gradually made branding and marking difficult to avoid.

Another group of laws developed to aid in establishing the ownership of livestock and in preventing and detecting theft. These laws prohibited driving off animals without their owner's permission, required that the sale and slaughter of animals be publicly recorded, and established measures for enforcing livestock laws beyond the means of law ordinarily operating in the counties.

These laws were late in developing. Except for the herding and branding laws already reviewed, only two acts were specifically designed to deal with theft before 1886. The earliest was the ordinance of the Salt Lake High Council in 1849 which forbade anyone to ride or drive horses, mules, or cattle from their accustomed range without their owner's permission,23 This law lapsed with the advent of the territory. T h e other early act was the slaughtering act of 1865 which required that butchers and professional slaughterers be licensed by county courts and keep a written record listing the numbers, age, size, color, and brands of all cattle slaughtered; the names of persons from whom they were obtained; and the time of slaughter. This record was to be open to public inspection.24 The far reaching branding and herding act of 1886 was prefaced by a decade of increased theft of livestock, although references to cattle and horse theft are by no means scarce before 1876. Governor Cumming reported to the legislature in 1860 that the "northern part of the Territory is infested by bands of cattle thieves, who commit depredations upon the ranges and dispose of their plunder in the vicinity of the military reserves." 5 The journals of early livestock owners like John Bennion are dotted with references to cattle and horse theft.26 But references to theft become much more numerous in the late 1870's and early 1880's Governor George W. Emery pointed out to the legislature in 1878 that one of 21 22

Ibid., act of January 18, 1854.

Ibid., act of March 11, 1886.

22

Morgan, State of Deseret, U.H.Q., V I I I , ordinance of February 24, 1849 Laws of Utah, act of January 11, 1865.

25

"Governors' Messages," November 12, 1860 pp 82 14-82 21

2

° John Bennion, "Journal [1855-1877]" (original, Utah State Historical Society).

LIVESTOCK LAW

209

the great risks of the Utah stock industry was "the men who drive out of Utah annually large numbers of stolen cattle and horses." 27 A news item of 1882 reported that Kane County was "overrun with cattle and horse thieves" who appeared to have grouped into an organized band. 28 A petition to the Millard County Court in 1884 represented "the great amount of cattle and horse thieving in the County" and asked county aid in combatting it.29 Especially interesting are two petitions sent by county sheriffs to the territorial legislature in 1884 asking reimbursement for funds and time spent in pursuing stock thieves. Anson Call, sheriff of Rich County, reminded the legislature that the $500 reward offered by the Wyoming Livestock Association pushed thieves over into the safer operating grounds of the northern Utah ranges. 30 John W. Turner, sheriff of Utah County, asked reimbursement for a month's journey into Colorado in pursuit of thieves who had driven about 200 head of cattle and 60 or 70 horses from Emery and Sanpete counties.31 Further evidence of increased cattle theft was the formation in Kane County in April 1883 of the Southern Utah Stock Protective Association, probably the earliest of such organizations in Utah. One of the main objects of this association was the "protection of the interests of the stock owners of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona from the raids of Cattle thieves and other unprincipled persons who may seek to destroy, or injure the stock interests in the region of county aforesaid " 32 The legislature responded to the mounting evidence of stock theft by passing in 1886 the most protective act of the territorial period. By the provisions of the herding and branding act of 1886, the herdsman frequently had to examine his herd and drive out animals not belonging to him. The theft of cattle, horses, sheep, goats, mules, asses, or swine from owners known or unknown and the knowing purchase of such stolen animals were made a felony punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment and by a fine of up to $5,000. To control the sale of animals, this act required that a written bill of sale be delivered with both living animals and the hides of slaughtered beasts. First purchasers of hides were required to keep 27 Governor's Message . . . in the Journals of the Legislative Assembly . . . for the Year 1878 (SaltLake City, 1878), 31-50.

28 Salt Lake Tribune, September 16, 1882.

29 "Millard County Court: Book B," Fillmore, Utah, March 3, 1884, pp. 170-71.

30 Petition of Anson C. Call, January 28, 1884, Legislative Manuscripts: 1884.

21 Petition of John W. Turner, February 4, 1884, Legislative Manuscripts: 1884.

32 "Kane County Incorporation Register: Book B," Kanab, Utah, April 3, 1883, "Gleanings"; see also the Salt Lake Tribune, April 11, 1883. The full title of this corporation was the Southern Utah and Northern Arizona Stock Protective Association.

210

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

a written record of the sellers of the hides. Only an owner or his agent was permitted to remove the hide from animals found dead. Professional slaughterers were required, as in the butcher's act of 1865, to keep a written record of all animals killed. Even nonprofessional, occasional slaughterers were required to exhibit the hide of an animal at the time and place where its meat was placed on sale. Further control over slaughtered cattle was authorized in the establishment of precinct pound keepers as inspectors who had to inspect and issue certificates for all cattle about to be slaughtered. These inspectors were also to inspect and issue certificates for cattle shipped on any railroad at night. In addition to such inspectors, county courts were authorized to appoint and pay for detectives to discover violations of the stock laws. They were also authorized to offer and pay rewards for the apprehension of thieves.33 Money for hiring detectives and paying rewards was provided for in a sister act. The pound and stray act of 1886 ordered that funds from the sale of stray and forfeited animals should go into a separate "Live Stock Fund" under the control of county courts.34 County court records show that citizens and officials made immediate use of the acts of 1886. The court at Parowan, for example, appointed four detectives for Iron County in December 1886.35 It is interesting to note that the Southern Utah Stock Protective Association was made the court's agent in Kane County, much as the Wyoming Livestock Association was the agent of the Wyoming Legislature for some years. Kane County provided expense payments for the association from the Live Stock Fund in 1889.36 In 1890 the association was appointed "a Detective to detect any violation of the Stock laws" in Kane County.37 How effective the stock laws of 1886 were is uncertain. For reasons no longer apparent, they lasted only four years. An act of 1890 dropped entirely from the law the provisions for a written bill of sale, for controls over professional slaughterers, and for the office of cattle inspector. The status and punishment of animal theft were not defined at all in the act of 1890. Other provisions were changed, but retained their essential form The provision prohibiting the shipping of uninspected cattle by railroad at night was changed into a prohibition of loading cattle at night under any 23 Laws of Utah, act of March 11, 1886 " Ibid.

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C U r t MinUt£S: 1889, ^ S S ° "Ibid., June 23, 1890, p. 78.

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' March 4, 1889; December 30,

LIVESTOCK LAW

211

circumstances. Nonprofessional slaughterers were now required to display hides "in a conspicuous place" for 20 days after killing. The provision permitting only owners or their agents to remove hides from animals found dead was retained. County courts could still offer rewards and pay detectives from county funds, although there was no more mention of the special Live Stock Fund. 38 From the highly protective law of 1886, then, these provisions survived to and past the end of the territorial period.

FENCING AND STRAY L A W S

A third body of livestock law dealt with fences, animal trespass, strays, and pounds. Pounds were necessary for the distraint of two classes of animals : strays â&#x20AC;&#x201D; animals without an owner â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and trespassing animals forfeited because their owner refused to pay their damages to property. The latter class of animals was determined by the Utah fence acts. Where a fence law was in force, animal owners were liable for damages only if their animals broke through a legal fence. Where a no-fence law was in force, animal owners were liable for damages whether or not the damaged property was protected by a fence.

The earliest acts were in effect no-fence laws. An ordinance of the Salt Lake High Council in 1848 made it a trespass for stock to run "upon the wheat land, or be driven on the road passing through it." 39 A year later the council expanded this ruling by requiring that residents of the Salt Lake Valley "keep all kinds of stock off the farming land, and city lots." 40 The State of Deseret, however, placed the burden of protecting crops upon the farmer. By the inclosure act of 1851, agricultural lands were to be inclosed by a fence sufficient to keep out "all kinds of peaceable animals." 41 For the following 14 years, farmers had to prove that a legal fence had been broken through in order to hold trespassing animals for damages.

It was inevitable that as the agricultural interest became distinct from and stronger than the livestock interest, farmers should demand a no-fence law. In a letter to a newspaper in 1880, a truculent farmer asked What righteous reason is there that the cattle man should not be compelled to fence in his cattle to keep them from depredating upon the cultivator's crops, rather than that the cultivator should be compelled to fence in his crops to keep the cattle man's cattle from depredating upon them . . . ?42 28

Laws of Utah, act of March 3, 1890.

Morgan, State of Deseret, U.H.Q., V I I I , ordinance of January 25, 1848. i0 Ibid., ordinance of April 28, 1849.

41 Laws of Utah, act of February 12, 1851.

'2 Letter to the editor, Salt Lake Daily Herald, February 15, 1880.

39

212

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Such an attitude undoubtedly inspired the inclosure act of 1865. The chief clause of this act established a no-fence law, making the owners of livestock doing damage to property liable "whether said premises are protected by fence or not." However, this act also provided means for rendering the main clause inoperative by local option. If a county court considered a given portion of its county better suited to grazing than to farming, it could declare the no-fence clause inoperative. Similarly, residents of an entire county could choose by a two-thirds vote to render it inoperative. In counties and parts of counties which thus rejected the no-fence law, the farmer was still required to fence his crops with a legal fence in order to hold livestock owners liable for damages to those crops.43 There was some suspicion that unscrupulous property owners might use the no-fence law not as a rightful protection for their crops but as a means of profiting from collection of damages. The writer of another letter to a newspaper asked, "Will not a man be justified in leaving his stacks in an exposed condition, and U . S . SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE driving all stock to the stray pound that would get caught in w h a t I would style a trap set for them?" 44 To prevent abuse of the no-fence law, the legislature passed the fencing act of 1880. This act, made slightly more inclusive in 1882, required that fences be placed about "orchards, stackyards, gathered crops, and town and city lots."

Owners failing to do so were to lose damage rights upon trespassing animals. 45 "2 Laws of Utah, act of January 19, 1865. " Letter to the editor, Salt Lake Daily Herald, February 1, 1880. " Laws of Utah, acts of February 20, 1880, and February 25, 1882.

In areas where timber is plentiful, poles are used to fence rangeland and build corrals.

LIVESTOCK LAW

213

This was the essential Utah fence law through and beyond the territorial period. In general, livestock owners were liable for damage made by their animals whether the damaged property was fenced or not. By local option, however, counties and parts of counties could choose to fence farms and let animals run at large. In all cases, orchards, stackyards, and city lots were to be fenced.

The inclosure acts determined the status of one class of animals held in the pounds. The pound laws defined the status of the other class, the strays. The pound laws did much else, but were so complex that little can be said of them here. U p to and including 1896 there were eight major revisions of the original pound law. These acts enacted and repealed dozens of devices for the organization of the pound system, for the distraint of animals, for the appraisal of damages, for making known to owners the impounding of their animals, and for advertising and conducting sales.

The bewildering complexity of these experiments in pound law may be briefly seen in the provisions for establishing pounds and electing poundkeepers. The pound act of 1851 provided for a poundkeeper and a pound in each precinct of each county.46 Pounds were not quickly established in all precincts, however, for the trespass act of 1865 turned much responsibility for the distraint and holding of trespassing animals over to the endamaged farmer in precincts where there was no pound. 47 In 1866 the legislature repealed the provision for the private distraint of animals and not only authorized but required that pounds be established in each precinct. This act also centralized the pound system by providing for a central county pound to which precinct poundkeepers had to forward for sale all strays and forfeited animals. 48 For reasons now obscure, an act of 1869 repealed the pound law entirely,49 leaving Utah for three years without any pound system whatsoever. The pound act of 1872 re-established the pound system but altered its centralized structure by providing for four central pounds in each county, to the nearest of which precinct poundkeepers could forward animals for sale.50 More than a decade later, the pound act of 1886 decentralized the pound system by abolishing district pounds and by returning to precinct poundkeepers the right to sell strays 40 Ibid., act of February 12, 1851; for earlier fragments of the pound law see Morgan, State of Deseret, U.H.Q., V I I I , ordinances of the Salt Lake High Council of January 25, 1848; November 24, 1849; and December 29, 1849. " Laws of Utah, act of January 19, 1865.

18 Ibid., act of January 17, 1866.

49 Ibid., act of February 17, 1869.

B0 Ibid., act of February 13, 1872.

214

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

and forfeited animals. 51 The pound act of 1890 eviscerated the system by repealing much of the existing pound law and, without providing anew for precinct pounds, by requiring that constables take over the duties of precinct poundkeepers. 52 The pound act of 1892 restored precinct pounds and poundkeepers, but gave poundkeepers no right to sell distrained animals, which right had passed in 1890 to the court of the justice of the peace in each precinct.53 The pound act of 1894 retained precinct pounds but again abolished the office of poundkeeper, returning his duties to precinct constables.54 Other aspects of the pound and stray law were changed just as constantly and with the same confusion as were these provisions for pounds and poundkeepers.

Aspects of the pound law worth further consideration are the definition of strays and the disposal of funds from the sale of strays and forfeited animals. The successive pound laws gradually brought an ever more precise definition of what kind of animal could be called a stray. The pound act of 1851 defined a stray simply as an ownerless animal found doing damage within a lawful fence. By 1886 the definition had expanded considerably. Ownerless animals found doing damage to property were still strays. Two other kinds of animals had become known as strays: any 51

Laws Ibid., 53 Ibid., 54 Ibid., 52

of Utah, act of March 11, 1886. act of March 13, 1890. act of March 10, 1892. act of March 8, 1894.

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LIVESTOCK LAW

215

unbranded animal running at large except for a sucking calf or colt and any branded animal running at large for two years the owner of which was unknown.

Funds from the sale of strays and forfeited animals went to various sources as the territorial period developed. An ordinance of the Salt Lake High Council ordered that such funds be paid into the Perpetual Emigrating Fund. 55 Territorial laws disposed of these funds similarly until the pound act of 1865 turned them into the territorial treasury for the public schools. They continued to be used for territorial or county schools until 1886 when they were diverted into the special Live Stock Fund. The pound act of 1890 ordered that they be used as general county revenue.

From 1886 to 1890, then, Utah used the funds from the sale of strays for the enforcement of livestock laws, much as did Wyoming before and during the same period. However, in Utah the disposal of strays never passed into the hands of private citizens or a cattlemen's association as in Wyoming. From the earliest years, church and territory both looked upon strays as public property. One of the questions of the catechism posed by Mormon authorities to the church membership during the Reformation of 1856-57 shows the church's attitude toward the public disposal of strays: "Have you taken up and converted any stray animal to your own use, or in any manner appropriated one to your benefit, without accounting therefor to the proper authorities?" 5G

DON D. W A L K E R

The county courts similarly exercised care to reserve strays for the public profit. For a time, Utah stockmen gathered their cattle from the open range by concerted action. However, it was the county courts, not a cattlemen's association as in Wyoming, which governed these roundups, or "drives," as they were called in Utah. An Iron County Court order of 1867 illustrates the inner workings of one of the drives. It ordered that notices of a drive be given in the precincts where the drive would take place and in the surrounding precincts as well. It named county selectmen who were to supervise the drive and to "deliver the cattle at the correll to the owners 55 Morgan, State of Deseret, U.H.Q., VIII, ordinance of November 24, 1849.

56 Andrew Love Neff, History of Utah: 1847 to 1869, ed., Leland Hargrave Creer (Salt Lake City, 1940), 550.

Remains of a corral on a ranch in Snake Valley, located in extreme western Utah along the Nevada border. The corral was made of willows packed tightly between juniper posts.

:_-*-Âť! "mi

Fairview Ranch, south of Hanksville.

The flowers and curtained window indicate this ranch is still occupied.

U T A H STATE T O U R I S T & PUBLICITY COUNCIL ( P A R K E R H A M I L T O N )

at one dollar per head, the balance remaining unclaimed to be turned over to the Pound Keepers at the same rates." 57 In his message to the legislature of 1868, Governor Charles Durkee revealed t h a t these county roundups were common:

It is usual at present for all cattle running at large to be annually collected at some point in each county for identification. M u c h complaint is made by persons having small herds of cattle which they themselves watch or have herded, at being obliged to drive their cattle to the general rendezvous and bear a proportion of the expenses of such collection. 58

Governor Durkee recommended that the legislature give statutory remedy to the abuses of the drive system without impairing its efficiency.

No Utah Legislature gave the legal regulation that he called for. Nor is it certain how long the counties continued to call and supervise roundups.

Nonetheless, these drives were important as another instrument by which the counties appropriated stray animals to the profit of the public.

From the first, Utah Legislatures recognized the importance of the livestock industry and passed acts that slowly accumulated into a large body of law. Up to the 1870's, territorial and county governments exercised a fairly careful control over the livestock industry. They supervised roundups and appropriated strays to the public use. They regulated the disposition of the public domain as if it were their own. This control undoubtedly had the merit of reducing the conflict that later plagued Utah in the kind if not the degree that troubled surrounding territories. Utah law arbitrated fairly between livestock and agricultural interests. The nofence law favored the farmer, but regions predominantly suited for grazing could elect to fence farms and let livestock run free. There was no discrimination against either the sheep or cattle industry in favor of the other. Finally, the laws of the 1880's, establishing stringent control over slaughter, sale, and shipment of animals and providing special funds for prevention of theft, suggest a growing likeness between the Utah stock industry and that of surrounding territories and states.

"Iron County Court Minutes: Book B," Parowan, Utah, March 18, 1867, "Gleanings,'

80-81.

58

"Governors' Messages," January 13, 1868, pp. 123-29.

U . S . D E P A R T M E N T O F AGRICULTURE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

The Heraldry of the Range

UTAH CATTLE BRANDS BY

RICHARD H . CRACROFT

2i 8

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

To most red-blooded, straight-shooting, movie-going Americans, cattle and cattle branding are as familiar as NBC's Cartwright boys and their ponderous "Ponderosa Ranch." In fact, Americans are constantly aware of the cattle industry, which has evolved its own national literature, mythology, and symbolism, for "the cattleman's role has etched itself more indelibly on the public mind than that of any class in American history." 1 And few books or movies dealing with cattle can divorce themselves entirely from mentioning one of the more colorful aspects of the industry â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cattle branding. Indeed, not only does the modern American doff his Stetson to a "western" rancher-president, whose brand (believe it or not) is the "Diamond LBJ," but with one of his dozen credit cards he purchases Conoco gasoline, "the hottest brand going," and eats "Bar S" Holiday ham sandwiches each Sunday evening while watching the Chevrolet brand burn an impressive hole in "Bonanza's" map of the Utopian Ponderosa.

Yet in spite of this national awareness, few Americans, well-done, medium or rare, can name many of the famous cattle brands. However, few self-respecting Yankees, Rebels, or cowpokes would fail to recognize the brand of Colonel B. H. Campbell, known forever as "Barbeque" Campbell, who left his adopted brand and name on thousands of flyinfested, burnt-fingered outdoor picnics throughout the nation. Beefeaters should likewise be aware of the famous "Running W " of Richard King, founder of the enormous King Ranch; of the "Maltese Cross" and "Elkhorn" brands of Theodore Roosevelt, the great popularizer of the West and its vast ranching enterprises; and of the famed "Old Spanish brand" of Steve Austin, "Father of Texas." Each of these brands, with countless others, has played a colorful and significant role in the history of the American West.

The cattle brand was equally important to the Mormon pioneers, who depended heavily on cattle in establishing their Zion in "the tops of the mountains." Early brand books clearly demonstrate the important role Mormon leaders played in fostering the cattle industry in the infant territory. These leaders, with thousands of their Mormon and "Gentile" brethren, have left a colorful range heraldry of Utah cattle barons and knights â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a registry of coats of arms which symbolize the toil, success, disappointments, courage, and love of Utahns who have been willing to stake their lives and fortunes on cattle. They have left to posterity, in neatly kept brand books, this heraldry of the Utah range.

Mr. Cracroft is a member of the English Department, Brigham Young University, Provo.

Lewis Atherton, The Cattle Kings (Bloomington, 1961) 29

CATTLE BRANDS

219

Branding in Utah began soon after the arrival of the Mormons in 1847. The first brand book, started by an act of the State of Deseret, was begun on December 11, 1849. This brand registry, now housed in the Utah State Archives at the Utah State Historical Society, shows as its initial entry the " W R " of Willard Richards, Mormon apostle, counselor to Brigham Young (1847-54), and first editor of the DeseretNews. Itwas a small horn brand (7/8 of an inch by 1 / 2 inches) to be branded on the left horn of his animals. Richards' brand is followed by the " S " of Daniel Spencer and his brother Orson, both Mormon leaders and educators, and by the large " H " of Heber C. Kimball, counselor in the First Presidency to Brigham Young (1847-68).

Busy taming an arid country, the Mormons were usually practical in their brands; most of their recorded marks are the less imaginative "initial" brands. It would remain for their more established posterity to record brands sparked by the imagination. One such practical brand is the twenty-first entry in the old brand book — a large ( 4 / 2 inches by 3 ^ inches) " Y " of President Brigham Young, of the "Eighteenth Ward, Great Salt Lake City."

Yet even some of the "initial" brands are, from a twentieth century perspective, a bit humorous. George A. Smith, apostle and later member of the First Presidency (1868-75), registered his "GAS" brand on January 8, 1850 — a brand which takes on more colorful meaning in an era Recorded Brand CATTLE AND HORSES

STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE STATE CAPITOL. SALT LAKE CITY. UTAH

Certificate No..

This Recorded Brand is to be used on animals exactly as it appears on this certificate.

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An official brand certificate,showing the"AHE" brand, which was issued to the Preston Nutter Corporation.

220

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

of horseless carriages and Turns. One "initial" brand which would upset Utah Republicans is the " F D R " brand of Franklin D. Richards, another member of the Mormon hierarchy. The "SOB" brand of Samuel O. Bennion of North Jordan recalls to saintly minds that "Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled . . . is nothing pure" (Titus 1:15).

Not all early brands were "initial" brands. Elder Daniel H. Wells, later counselor to President Young (1857-77), registered a large heart as his brand; this was an appropriate symbol, for Wells no doubt required a big heart to contain the abundance of love needed for his parcel of wives and bundle of children.

The official brand of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as recorded on May 21, 1850, was the " + , " to be burned on the left hip of cattle and horses. The L.D.S. Church has recorded no brand in Utah for many years, but the books are full of ward, stake, and priesthood quorum brands, clearly revealing the continued Mormon interest in cattle as a means of securing the physical welfare of church members.

READING CATTLE BRANDS

In Utah, as throughout the West and Southwest, there are definite rules in reading a brand: from top to bottom, from outside to inside, and from left to right. Reading from top to bottom, a 6 with a bar beneath it is the "Six Bar," registered to William and Leonard Beaumont of Beaver, and to Richard Williamson of Pleasant Grove; a 2 enclosed in a circle, reading from outside to inside, is the "Circle Two" of Clarence Ingram of Nephi; and the J L of James Louder of Kamas, reading from left to right, is the "J Bar L." Incidentally, the same brand may be registered to several different cattlemen. In such cases, the location of the brand on the cow serves to differentiate between the owners. William Beaumont, for example, brands his "Six Bar" on the left side, while Leonard Beaumont places his on the right, and Richard Williamson works the same "Six Bar" on the cow's right hip or thigh.

Utah cattlemen are second to none where imaginative brands are concerned, but there are certain established forms used by all cattlemen as a point of departure for their brands. Such forms as the "box," "open " "bench," "drag," "flying," and "forked" brands are widely used. The brand of Gene B. Thomas of Spanish Fork, for example, is a " T " enclosed in a "box." Reading from outside to inside, this is the "Box T." An "open" brand, or one not "boxed," is seen in the "inverted V " or "open A " of

CATTLE BRANDS

221

Lloyd Poulsen of Promontory. There are five such brands in the most recent (1960-61) Brand Book.'1 The "bench" is a horizontal bracket with its feet down. Roland Webb of LaVerkin encloses a " W " in such a bracket to obtain his "Bench W." The "drag" brand is so named when a projection is angled off the bottom of the brand, as in the "Drag Seven" where the seven receives a projection from its base. Whenever "wings" (projection) are attached, the brand is "flying," as in the "Flying Triangle" of the Flying Triangle Ranch Company, of Roosevelt. When prongs are added, as with an "N," the brand is "forked" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in this case the "Forked N " or "Forked Lightning."

Other familiar brand forms are "tumbling" brands, where one or more figures of the brand are tilted in an oblique position, as in the "Tumbling J A " of John Alger of St. George, registered in 1867; or the famous "lazy" brands, where the figure is lying on its back. Such a brand is the "Lazy P " brand of J. Leonard Topham of Paragonah, a brand first used in 1875 by Topham's forefather, John Topham, organizer of the Parowan Co-operative Cattle Company. The "Lazy P " recalls a famous brand registered in many Western States â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the "Two Lazy Two P " brand. This brand reflects the universally humorous attitude of cattlemen toward the naturally lethargic nature of their four-footed, cud-chewing charges.

The "quarter-circle," the "half-circle," the "three-quarter circle" and the "circle" are additional brand forms which are used in a variety of ways to achieve original brands. Thus the crescent preceding an " L " of C. Little and Sons, of Morgan, is the "Quarter Circle L," and the half-circle preceding an " O " is the "Half Circle O " of the Valley Livestock Auction Company, of Grand Junction, Colorado, and the circle enclosing an " M " with a bar beneath is the "Circle M Bar" of Ivan Donald McCourt, of Columbia, Utah.

If the "quarter-circle" is attached beneath a figure or letter it is no longer a "quarter-circle" but a "rocking" brand. A lower case " h " attached on a "quarter-circle" thus becomes the "Rocking Chair" of S. Hal Guymon, of Huntington.

Other important brand figures are the "rafter," a brand comprised of two semi-coned shaped lines or "inverted V " placed over a figure or numeral, and the "diamond." The diamond brand may be used in a variety of ways, as the "diamond dot," "diamond and a half," "barred dia2 The Official Brand Book of the State of Utah, issued by the Utah State Department of Agriculture, is published every 10 years, with yearly supplements. The most recent Brand Book was published in 1961. Members of the Brand Board are Ray Theurer, James E. Manning, Richard Leigh, Simeon Weston, Joe Haslam, and James A. Bevan.

222

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

mond," or even the old "Diamond D " of R. M. Carlisle, of Big Cottonwood, registered in 1868 as a " D " enclosed inside a diamond.

The "number" brand is nearly as frequently used as the "initial" brand. For example, Jacob Hamblin, "Mormon apostle to the Indians," registered his " 1 " brand in 1867 — to be burned on the nose and forehead of the animal. The various United Orders seemed to have been especially fond of using number brands, such as the " 7 1 " of the Oak City Order, or the "07" of Orderville. Undoubtedly such numerals had special significance to the various groups.

Every "number" is well-represented in the Utah Brand Book. Under the " 7 " brand, for example, there are "Rocking 7's," "77's" "Seven Lazy Sevens" (one " 7 " standing, one lying down), "Barred Seven" ("7" with a bar through it), "Seven Bar's" ("7" with a bar beneath), and many other variations. Likewise Roman numerals are frequently used, but " X " is not called "Roman Ten," but simply " X , " as in the " X I T " brand of J. Parley Laws of Blanding — the same brand as that of the famed " X I T " ranch — "Ten In Texas" — so named because the huge spread covered most of ten Texas counties.

One of the most famous number brands is not an original Utah brand, but the "6666" of Burk Burnett, a Texan who played and lost heavily at poker. One evening in a frontier Texas town Burnett hit an amazing streak of luck and collected a huge pile of money. His desperate rancher opponent frantically agreed to play his ranch and cattle against the whole pile.

Burnett drew two sixes, discarded three cards and then drew two more The simpler the brand, the harder it is to change. A freshly branded bull in the foreground is carrying the "Double Circle" brand adopted by Preston Nutter about the turn of the century.

VIRGINIA AND HOWARD PRICE

CATTLE BRANDS

223

sixes. With those four sixes Burnett is said to have won the ranch and the cattle. The brand naturally became "Four Sixes." Oil was later discovered on Burnett's range and he became a millionaire. At the death of Burnett's widow, Texas Christian University became the recipient of several million dollars, leading many to say it was the "best poker hand a Christian institution ever drew." The "Four Sixes" was recorded in Burnett's name on September 22,1885, at Wichita, Texas. 3 The most popular brand, however, is the "initial" brand. Even the Utah State Prison has its own prosaic "initials" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "USP." As shown earlier, most of the Mormon leaders used the "initial" brand, as did Abraham O. Smoot, first mayor of Salt Lake City, who used an "AOS." A more ornate use of the "initial" is seen in the " T A " of Truman O. Angell, architect of the Salt Lake Temple. Angell mounted the top of a " T " on an elaborate " A " to achieve a distinctive "initial" brand.

Instead of initials, other cattlemen use a shortened version or symbol of their name. Such is the " J E F " of James Jeffs of Castle Dale (1890), or John I. Hart's " J I Heart" (1876). Edward W. Starr naturally registered a "Star" brand (1867), and John Harry Spader of Tooele recorded a "Spade" in 1944; likewise, several cattlemen named Bird have entered various "Bird" brands in Utah's range heraldry.

Some brands have no apparent relationship to the cattleman's name and are chosen simply because of the distinctive legibility of the brand.

Such a brand is the "Pothook D " of Glynn S. Bennion. Originally the Bennions used a " B , " but found the middle section was generally blotched, as is frequently the case with ornate brands, so the family changed to the more practical " D . " Other brands seem to present even less connection with the family name and allow the reader's imagination free rein. It takes little, for example, to imagine that the " F A T " brand of Arthur O. Johnson (1886) was a self-description of a healthy, ruddy, beefeating cowman, reminiscent of the "2 F A T " brand of a rancher in neighboring Arizona. The "Lazy Heart" brand of John Holman (1894, and still registered to a Holman) could symbolize anything from cardiac problems to the conjecture that Holman failed to respond to romance until late in life.

And the many "pipe" brands and "coffee pot" brands give rise to conjecture as to whether these were symbolic of the wistful longings of a Mormon rancher or the defiant symbols of a ranching Gentile.

The Brand Book of Utah is loaded with unusual "symbol" brands.

Hats, pistols, bells, shoes (high and low cuts), dollar signs, wigwams, 3

Oren Arnold and John P. Hale, Hot Irons (New York, 1949), 47-48.

224

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

coffins, hogs, horses, ducks, horns, arrowheads, hands, scissors, tongs, and even eighth notes occur in its interesting pages. Each brand gives rise to conjecture as to the cowman's personality and the humor, the human drama, or comedy hidden behind the selection of that particular, peculiar brand. The history behind some of the brands is obvious. The "I O," the "I Bar O," is the eloquent brand of a saddened cowman who is experiencing a universal plight. Another universal malady is homesickness; the "SX" brand was the brand of one old-timer who hailed, with a touch of homesickness, from Essex, England.

Some brands even reveal the reluctance with which the cowman left his college and fraternity days behind. The Greek letters of Sigma Chi fraternity are registered to Robert E. Griffiths, of Smithfield. The question which naturally arises is, "does Mr. Griffiths use the brand only on select 'Sweetheart' cattle with golden hair and blue eyes?" And the Utah Brand Book sometimes makes for strange bedfellows. In the 1960-61 edition, the "Star of David" brand, for example, is placed only two entries away from the "Swastika" brand.

Probably the most descriptive of all "symbol" brands is that of Branham's Sunset Canyon Ranch, in Virgin. The brand shows two squaredoff mountains with a setting sun going down between them. The combination "symbol" and "initial" brand of Lynn W. Johnson of Monroe takes the blue ribbon for being the most "loyal to Utah" brand. Johnson's brand, the "Utah L," is an " L " centered inside the outline of the State of Utah.

Very often brands undergo a switch in names and receive a name far different from the one intended. Such was the case with the "L in a House" brand, which became, naturally, "Hell in a House." 4 This same transition occurred with the " U p Y Down Y Bar" of T. N. Porter, a devout Mormon rancher in northern Arizona. A cowboy from a neighboring ranch came across Porter early one morning as the Mormon cattleman was kneeling beside his bedroll and offering up his morning prayer. The cowboy, greatly impressed, told and retold the story. Soon Porter's " U p Y Down'Y Bar" became the "Lord's Prayer" brand, by which it was known until Porter sold out many years later. 5 Today Utah boasts a variety of more than 10,000 recorded brands, and many widely known brands and cattle companies. Many of these companies run their cattle under several brands. The Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company runs under the "Bar Lazy Y," the "Flying V Bar," and 'Ibid., 232. " Ibid.

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226

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

the "Bar X Bar." The Deseret Livestock Company runs its cattle under the "Bar S," the "I X , " and the "Quarter Circle J." The Redd Ranches, with headquarters at La Sal, have now limited their brands to one â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the "Crossed H . " The Preston Nutter Corporation still has registered the "A H E," the "Circle," and the " 6 3 " ; and the "Running M c " brand is the widely known brand of the Samuel Mclntyre Investment Company, an historically rich brand originally registered in 1873.

BRANDING HISTORY

The history of branding stretches back to 2000 B.C. Ancient Egyptian tombs not only reveal paintings of cattle branded with the pharoah's personal brand, but portray the branding process as well.6 Branding was common in the Scandinavian countries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and in Iceland "All cattle . . . were to be marked 'when eight weeks of summer were past,' under a fire."7 Marco Polo reported seeing the Tartars herding branded cattle on the Asiatic steppes in 1292,8 and Frank Dobie points out that Chaucer's pilgrims doubtlessly rode branded horses when they set out on their immortal journey to Canterbury. 9 It was probably Cortes who introduced branding to the New World.

At any rate it is certain that Coronado brought branded cattle with him when he entered Arizona in 1540.10 Throughout history there has been little discrimination between the branding of cattle or human beings. The Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and other nations, as well as southwestern and western Indian tribes, branded criminals, slaves, and captives. Towne and Wentworth note that the Indian might have adopted the custom from Cortes, who burned a letter "G" for guerra in the cheek of the Aztec prisoners. Many of the Aztecs were impressed into service as Cortes' herdsmen, making it possible that "the first 'critter' to be branded in the New World was neither calf, nor cow, but cowboy." 11 Will C. Barnes (1858-1936), Arizona soldier, cowboy, sheriff, and ranger, tells of seeing his boss, a prominent Mormon stockman in northern Arizona, slap a hot iron on a woman's thigh. According to Barnes, he and the Mormon were branding some calves near the ranchhouse, but were ' Ibid., 28. '"Brands," Archaelogia, X X X V I I (1857), 383-84.

8 John L. Sinclair, "Branding Irons," New Mexico Magazine, X V I I I (November 1940) ' J. Frank Dobie, "Heraldry of the Range," Saturday Evening Post (December 20 1930) 10 10 Arnold and Hale, Hot Irons, 28-29.

11

Charles W. Towne and Edward N. Wentworth, Cattle & Men (Norman, 1955), 119.

227

CATTLE BRANDS

constantly harassed by the women of the household, who were stirred by the squeals of the calves. The rancher gave a stern partriarchal order that the women should return to the house. All returned but one, who disobeyed the Saint's injunction and slipped around to a different vantage point. The fiery-tempered Mormon saw her, grabbed the red-hot iron, and gave chase. The shrieking woman, handicapped by long skirts, fell, exposing part of one leg. The rancher promptly lifted the skirts still higher and slapped down the iron, "branding the woman forever with a two inch circle on her thigh." 12 BRAND ALTERING AND U T A H L A W

But the brand — whether on a human being or a cow — does not always assure the owner that he will be able to keep the animal, for the timeless cattle rustling custom of burning out brands is still not a lost art. ("Human rustling" is still carried on by draft boards and football coaches, but hot brands have now been discarded.) Although Utah has had her brand artists and cattle rustlers, she has nevertheless been comparatively free from the practice — especially when compared with Texas, New U . S . D E P A R T M E N T O F AGRICULTURE SOIL CONSERVATION Mexico, and Arizona, where an " E " brand was readily t u r n e d into a "Pitchfork" ( E ) , or an "I C" became an "I C U " brand. So upset was the "I C " owner with the practice that he promptly rebranded the "I C U " cattle with a new brand — the "I C U Bar 2." 1 3 In all of the range states the frequently used "Arnold and Hale, Hot Irons, 188-89.

"William MacLeod Raine and Will C. Barnes, Cattle (Garden City, 1930), 186.

At branding time the cattle are driven into a corral. A cowboy selects an unbranded calf and "heels" it by letting the loop of his rope catch the "critter" by the hind legs. The calf is thrown to the ground where it is then tied down.

The "iron man" then takes a red-hot iron from the fire and works the brand on the hide of the calf. The branding iron must not slip or the brand will be blotched.

SERVK

VIRGINIA AND H O W A R D PRICE

Branding is a difficult job. A mule, to be branded, is being rendered immobile by cinching up one leg.

"7 P " brand was easily made into a "7 U P " brand, and "half" and "quarter circles" were readily altered into "full circles."

The enormous " X I T " outfit in Texas was so dumbfounded as to how a rustler was changing their brand that they offered the alterer $5,000 to tell his secret. He told. By careful manipulation he had expertly turned countless " X I T " brands into the completely unrelated "Star Cross." 14 At another Texas ranch the owner noticed that the "Yes Jenny" brand was all-too-often becoming the "Cloverleaf" brand, under the skilled artistry of a cowman named Ike Smith, alias Isaac Hobard, a deserter from Robert E. Lee's army. As in many similar cases, Ike was made intimately aware of some famous cattlemen terms, for the "strangulation jig," a kind of surprise "necktie party" or "lynching bee," was held in Ike's honor â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in his own front room.15 To protect Utah cattlemen against such brand altering, the Utah livestock brand and anti-theft acts require that every "livestock owner who allows his livestock over six months of age to range upon the open range or without an enclosure, shall have and adopt a brand and shall brand his livestock with such a brand, which brand must be recorded in the office of the state board of agriculture." 16 The brand, recorded for a $5.00 fee, must be renewed every 10 years for an additional $3.00 fee, or the brands " Arnold and Hale, Hot Irons, 183.

15 Ibid., 94-96.

B ra d a d A n eft T>I / p Chap. r t a h l V13, T t 0Sec. l k f i 1-67.

7 QSee "i oh T ?Supplement. ^ C t '" S t a t e Title 4, also ,1961

of U t a h

> Utah Code Annotated, 1953,

CATTLE BRANDS

229

and marks will be forfeited and others will be allowed to use and register the brands.

To provide further protection, the state appoints brand inspectors to several brand districts in the state. The law reads that inspections must be made of any cattle being transferred from one district to another, or out of the state. The branding laws give inspectors wide police powers to enforce the laws, and the inspectors are experts at detecting brand altering. Indeed, most inspectors are proud of their ability to recognize brands.

One old-timer claimed he could "tell what brand an animal had on it by tasting the beef."17 To further thwart brand alterers' cattlemen use an earmark in addition to the brand. The earmark also facilitates ready identification of branded cattle when they are bunched together in a herd, where rib and 17

Arnold and Hale, Hot Irons, 180.

Preston Nutter applies his "63" brand to a mule.

VIRGINIA AND H O W A R D PRICE

230

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

shoulder brands are difficult to observe. The earmark is simply a design cut in the cow's ear. The design is registered at the same time as the brand.

A variety of earmarks may be used, in one or both ears, from holes to slits, slopes, swallowforks, half crops, crops, bits, and steeple forks, but the Utah State law provides that "in no case shall the person . . . cut off more than one half of the ear." 18 T H E BRANDING PROCESS

Thus the process of branding and earmarking, though time consuming, is necessary to insure protection of property. T o facilitate the process, modern electric and chemical brands are coming into wider use, but the old hot-iron method is still widely practiced—especially on "Mavericks" 19 encountered on the range.

After the cowboys have singled out the mother cows and their unbranded calves, these cattle are driven into the corrals. A roper selects a calf and "heels" it by letting his loop catch the "critter" by the hind legs.

The calf is thrown to the ground where two cowboys, "flankers," tackle it and hold it down. In small operations, in Utah and elsewhere, the calf is very often tackled without the roping procedure. Indeed, in most modern operations the calf is driven into a squeeze chute, which traps the calf and makes for greater ease in handling.

The "iron man" then takes a red-hot iron from the fire and works the brand on the hide of the calf. The iron must not be allowed to slip or the brand will be blotched. If the "iron man" uses a "stamping iron," which has the brand symbol forged on the end of the iron, this step merely requires the pressure of the heated end against the hide until the burn is enough to cause an indelible scar. This takes practice. If a "running iron" which resembles a poker with a curved end, is used, the mark is "pencilled" in. The "running iron" was so popular with rustlers at the end of the last century that Texas passed a law against its use, thereby bringing about a widespread use of the "stamping iron." Utah's Brand Book lists no law against the "running iron," but the "stamping iron" is predominantly used.

After the burn, which leaves the acrid, repulsive odor of burning hair and hide, the bawling calf is subjected to its next operation — earmarking.

The cowboy deftly slits a design in one or both ears and throws the pieces in a pile which will later provide the owner with a tally of the number of 18

Utah Code Annotated, 1953, Title 4, Chap. 13, Sec. 1-67.

- A "Maverick" is an unbranded animal of unknown ownership. The name apparently derives from Samuel A Maverick who sold his cattle rights to Toutant de Beauregard. At roundup time Beauregard s cowboys searched over several counties, placing the Beaureeard brand on ah U ^ t ^ f m ^ T r t Y °f M a V e r k k ' ° r " M - i c k ' s P c o w s " R a m r F S A d d i n d C 0 0 , n 4

CATTLE BRANDS

231

calves operated on. Then the calf is often vaccinated, with blackleg, or other serums, and the male is castrated. After all this rough treatment the calf is sent bawling back to his anxious mother. The iron is then rubbed into the dirt to free it of burnt hair and flesh and is placed back in the fire to reheat.

So the process repeats itself year after year, as cattle continue to play a key role in the nation's economy. Cows have naturally become the subject of congressional lobbies, numerous federal bills, agencies, and federal loans. One cowman applied for federal aid and listed seven cattle guards among his assets. With "insolence of office" the federal agency wrote back, "Inasmuch as you seek a readjustment of finances you must cut down your pay-roll first. Discharge five of those guards, as two should be ample to care for the number of cattle you have." 20 Far away from the national and state capitols, on the sage-covered benches, alkali flats, and dry gulches of Utah, cattlemen go about their hard work, and their indelible marks are burned not only into the cattle, but into the American tradition as well. From the table of the merchant in New England to that of the factory worker in Detroit or the schoolteacher in Seattle, Utah cattle is good, and tasty, business. And an integral part of this business is the colorful, yet utilitarian brands traced into the hide of every cow â&#x20AC;&#x201D; brands which form a fascinating, proud, and tradition-packed heraldry â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the heraldry of the Utah range.

20

Arnold and Hale, Hot Irons, 211.

PRESTON NUTTER:

Utah Cattleman, 1886-1936

BY VIRGINIA N . PRICE AND J O H N T. DARBY

31

It would appear to be impossible to write of the history of the cattle industry and its founders in the Territory, later the State of Utah, without writing of Preston Nutter. Yet by some odd quirk of the written word, he has been ignored to such an extent that anyone who did not know him personally finds it difficult to think of him as anything more than another phantom western figure of the past, remembered only by the old-timers.

Perhaps this is due, at least in part, to the fact that Preston Nutter himself was a quiet man who avoided publicity. However, the fact remains that until his death in 1936, he had been one of the biggest cattlemen in Utah for over 50 years.

Today we often think of the early cattle baron or cattle king as a rich despot who rode roughshod over his neighbors to satisfy his greed for more land and cattle. In some instances this was true, but everything Preston Nutter owned he acquired through his tireless energy, courage, and ability to take advantage of a situation when it presented itself. He was capable of great physical endurance. Old-timers who knew him take pride in recalling how he could ride a mule for days at a stretch without stopping for food or sleep. H e accepted this as routine because of the vast distances he had to cover. When there was other transportation available, he took advantage of it with the same sense that a job was to be done. He was a good judge of horses, mules, cattle, and men and knew how to get the most out of them in an orderly manner. He was not the swashbuckling type one is generally inclined to attribute to the period. It is said that he never owned a pair of cowboy boots, yet he led a colorful life that reads like a western adventure story.

Mrs. Price is the daughter of Preston Nutter and is now president of the Preston Nutter Corporation. Mr. Darby is a professional writer.

The Nutter crew on the Arizona Strip, the breeding range for the cattle. In the spring steers were shipped to Utah and trailed from the railhead at Colton to the range on the West Tavaputs Plateau.

VIRGINIA AND H O W A R D PRICE

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Preston Nutter was born in Virginia in 1850. He was orphaned at the age of nine; and after a miserable two years with relatives he disliked, he ran away and worked for a time as a cabin boy on the Mississippi River.

At the age of 13 he joined with a government wagon train in St. Louis and headed west. The year was 1863 and a precipitous occasion for the youth.

He bought his first horse and commemorated the year by giving it a " 6 3 " brand. (The same brand is still being used today on all Preston Nutter Corporation horses and mules.) The Civil War was crippling the South, but the West was wide-open to an adventurous young man with ambition.

He went west with the wagon train and never returned to his birthplace.

Somewhere along the way he acquired something more than an ordinary amount of education. People who knew him in later years assumed he had some college education, but if he did there was no old school tie or "rah-rah" talk from him to bear this out. About all that is known for certain about his educational background is that after selling his first mining claim in Nevada for $5,000 he went to San Francisco to supplement his education. During this time he worked Preston Nutter (1850-1936), about the time he left as a hostler at the Cliff House while San Francisco, where he attended business college. attending business college. This was a VIRGINIA AND HOWARD PRICE natural and happy occupation for the lad. His father had been a breeder of blooded horses in the South, and Preston had inherited a natural aptitude and love for horses. There is a photograph of Preston Nutter taken about the time he left San Francisco. From this it would appear he had grown into a tall, wiry, handsome young man with either a frightened or worldly outlook on life.

In 1873 Nutter and a friend were prospecting for gold at the placer mines in Idaho when the first news of a rich strike in Colorado Territory's San Juan District leaked through to them. They promptly packed their horses and headed out. When they got to Provo, Utah, they met 19 other prospectors preparing for the same trip.

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Winter was approaching and it is doubtful that the group would have considered going into a higher elevation of the Rocky Mountains before spring if the frenzy for gold and one Alfred Packer had not been present to urge them on. Packer claimed to be well-acquainted with the Colorado country. From all accounts he was the perfect villain type, and he had a convincing way with words. Packer was so convincing that he persuaded the group to hire him as their guide, and the party took off in the face of one of the worst winters on record.

The infamous case of "Alfred Packer The Man-Eater" is now a wellhashed story. Nutter served as scout for the party until it reached the winter camp of the Ute Indians near present-day Montrose, Colorado.

By this time it had become all too obvious to him and some of the other men in the party that Packer was a whining fraud. He had been lost almost from the time the party left Provo.

Chief Ouray personally advised the group to spend the winter along the lower elevations with him and predicted dire consequences for anyone foolhardy enough to venture into the San Juan region during the winter months ahead. Packer insisted Ouray was only after what little money the party had left and eventually persuaded five of the men in the party to continue on with him. Nutter and some of the other men chose to remain with Chief Ouray and Chipeta.

Nutter arrived at Los Pinos Agency, Colorado Territory, early the next spring about the same time Packer arrived in camp looking fat and flourishing. He also had money jingling in his pockets. His accounts of the fate of his companions were so varied that Nutter soon surmised that all was not as Packer presented it and forced him to return to the San Juan country to look for the other men. Packer led Nutter on a wild goose chase for several days; it was not until the snow melted in the summer that the remains of the five men, whom Packer had eaten, were found.

When Packer was eventually brought to trial for his crimes in 1883, at Lake City, Colorado, Nutter was the prosecution's chief witness.1 By this time Nutter had served a term in the Colorado State Legislature and established a successful ore freighting business from the mining centers of Creede, Lake City, Aspen, and Ouray.

Nutter did little or no prospecting in the San Juan region. Soon after his arrival he made a more valuable discovery. There was an acute shortage of transportation to get the ore out of the mountains. He used what 1 Personal account of Preston Nutter. All material used in preparing this article is in the possession of the author, Mrs. Price. . .

The People of the State of Colorado v. Alfred Packer. District Court (Judicial District â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7th), April Term A.D. 1883, Hinsdale County â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Lake City.

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capital he had to buy ox teams, horses, wagons, and mules. It was said that San Diego, California, had an abundance of the latter at this time, so Nutter and a companion took delivery of a hundred there. Unbroken, untrained when purchased, the mules served as transportation east. Each man rode a different mule every day and when they arrived in Colorado the animals were ready for packing.

Colorado State records show that Nutter headed several house committees f it appears he was popular with his fellow Democrats in the state legislature, but one term was enough to convince him that he was not a politician. In 1883 he gave up his seat to Otto Mears and began looking toward the more lucrative and independent cattle business. For some years he had been buying cattle to pasture in the vicinity of Montrose, Colorado. A receipt dated 1881 shows a transfer of $6,100 to a Manti, Utah, bank for this purpose. It had become all too obvious to him that his freighting business would soon be obsolete with the advent of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad's narrow-gauge line across the western slope of Colorado to the mining communities.

Two of Nutter's major moves were made during the most disastrous periods of the cattle industry. The first of these was in 1886. By this time he had sufficient capital to launch him into a rather extensive cattle operation. He sold his freighting business and moved to Grand Junction, a new railroad town of about 150 hardy souls at the forks of the Grand and Gunnison rivers. Here he began looking for a range where he could eventually run between 15,000 and 20,000 head of cattle.

With the forced removal of the Utes, the fertile Uncompahgre had been opened to homesteaders, leaving little room for cattle or catdemen.

What range remained was being flooded with sheep, and the cattleman's rights to the free grass were being challenged. In search of more favorable conditions, Nutter turned again to Utah and the country he had scouted 13 years before while en route to the San Juan gold fields.

Along the northeastern part of Utah Territory in the vicinity of Thompson's Spring and north to Hill Creek, he found ideal country for cattle. There were relatively few settlers in the vicinity, and the only cattle outfit of any size was the Webster City Cattle Company. There was also a new railhead through Thompson's that could, on occasion, serve a useful purpose.

Here Nutter acquired a range described in documents as "ten by thirty miles" and transferred the cattle he had been pasturing around 2

State of Colorado, House Journal, 1881.

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Montrose. 3 Most of these were a breed referred to as "pilgrims" or descendents of the Texas longhorn intermingled with Durham breeding.

Herefords were scarce and expensive.

Nutter barely had time to get his operations started before the sheriff of Gunnison subpoenaed him to appear again as chief witness at the second trial for Alfred Packer. Due to some legal technicality, the first trial held in Lake City had been declared a mistrial.

At the end of the second trial in May 1886, Nutter met S. G. Warzv, manager of the Cleveland Cattle Company, from Fairplay, Colorado. For some time the Cleveland Company had been experimenting with Hereford cows and bulls, but now the owners were interested in a more general run of marketable steers for a quick turnover in cash. This was an opportunity well-suited to Nutter's needs. He wanted cows, calves, and bulls to build up his herd. The Cleveland cattle were superior in breed and required less range country while supplying more beef for the feed than the mixed longhorn and Durham breed.

Nutter signed what was called a "Mutual Exchange Sale" with the Cleveland people. The contract called for exchanging a thousand head of two- and three-year-old steers of "good Utah cattle of native American stock," for an equal number of the Cleveland Company's cows and bulls.

The Cleveland cattle were to be gathered by the first day of September 1886 "at some convenient place upon the range in Park County near Fairplay, Colorado, and with the assistance of Mr. Nutter and his outfit, be driven to a sufficient pasture range selected by Mr. Nutter in Emery County, Utah." 4 Considering the unprecedented drought that prevailed in the spring and summer of '86, creating a crucial shortage of feed and water on the ranges, Nutter found the Cleveland cattle in good condition for wintering when he and his crew arrived there in the fall. Perhaps if good fortune instead of fortitude had been his lot, Nutter would have had a big advantage in the exchange. The contract allowed him until the following spring to deliver his thousand head of steers. With his cattle ranging from the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers north to the Hill Creek area in the Book Cliffs this gave him ample time for gathering. It also gave him time to place the Herefords and have them settled by calving time. The Cleveland Company, on the other hand, was able to avoid the necessity of wintering the steers. s 4

Preston Nutter correspondence and 'contract of the Strawberry Land and Cattle Company.

Contract in possession of Mrs. Price.

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As agreed upon in the contract, Nutter and six men in his outfit picked up the cows and bulls on the range near Fairplay in the early part of September and began the long drive across the Continental Divide at Tennessee Pass. From there they trailed by way of Glenwood Springs and picked up the old Indian trail that led along the Colorado River to Grand Junction. In fair weather and less mountainous country, this would have been an easy 200-mile drive that could have been covered in less than three weeks, but across the western slope of Colorado lies some of the most rugged country in the Western Hemisphere. The cattle could not be pushed.

It is not known just how long it took Nutter and his outfit to get the cattle to Emery County; but considering the blizzardous conditions that prevailed, it is safe to say they broke no trail-driving records. However, from all indications his losses were small, and the cattle were in good condition to winter out.

By January of 1887, the northeastern plains of Utah resembled the Arctic Circle. Snow obliterated all signs of the waist-high grass. Rather than allow his cattle to roam in strange country during such severe weather, Nutter kept them bunched in the vicinity of Thompson's Spring where the railhead made it possible to ship in feed. At this time feeding was looked upon as an oddity rather than the custom; but there is every indication it paid-off because his losses were small and receipts show him buying more cattle throughout the entire bleak winter.

On May 14, 1887, Nutter and his crew met S. D. Pollack, agent for the Cleveland Cattle Company, in Thompson's Spring with a sufficient number of steers to satisfy the contract. "The steers are as good as the contract calls for and are perfectly satisfactory," wrote S. D. Pollack upon inspection at Thompson's Spring. "After receiving steers I have turned them over to Mr. Nutter to be delivered at or near Jacks Cabin on East River Gunnison County, Colorado. For which I am to pay him one dollar The remuda, ranch headquarters in Nine Mile Canyon.

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PRESTON NUTTER

23g

per head for all steers delivered. Mr. Nutter agreeing to be responsible for all losses except by death or accident." 5 From the old tally sheet, it would appear that Nutter was 125 head shy of the agreed upon number called for in the contract, but no mention of an adjustment was made in S. D. Pollack's receipt. No doubt the Cleveland Company was grateful just to find Nutter still in business. Many established cattlemen had been wiped out by this time.

The drive from Thompson's Spring to Jacks Cabin, situated about 30 miles east of Gunnison, Colorado, was west of the Divide, but the killing winter lingered on into the spring making the drive slow and tedious. The trails, streams, and ranges were strewn with dead carcasses of cattle and animals that failed to survive. There was little feed to be found along the way. However, this was country Nutter knew well from his freighting days; and according to a receipt signed in early June of 1887, he arrived on the Gunnison with all the steers in good condition. On his return trip to Utah he picked-up and delivered a few hundred head of cattle along the way for other ranchers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; many of whom were selling out.

During the following year Nutter continued to build up his herd around Thompson's Spring, but in the latter part of 1888 he went into partnership with Ed Sands and Tom Wheeler. The three formed what was called the Grand Cattle Company, named after Grand County, and began operating in the triangle between Thompson's Spring, Cisco, Moab, and West Fork Canyon. The partnership was of short duration. Being a depressing period for cattlemen, only the determined and hardy survived. In 1889 Nutter bought out Sands and Wheeler and extended his operations further into the Hill Creek and Book Cliff areas.

At about the same time Nutter signed a contract to supply beef to the army and Indian agencies at Fort Duchesne, he also began shipping beef to the stockyards at Kansas City and other marketable points east. Instead of the present trend toward grass-fat yearling steers, Nutter shipped three-, four-, and five-year olds.

There is no record of how many cattle he ran during this period, but from the number he was selling he must have owned a good size herd.

Many people were of the opinion that Nutter himself did not know the number of cattle he owned. At this gross assumption Nutter was prone to smile. He was much too shrewd a businessman not to have had a reasonably accurate tally, but cattlemen are, by tradition, a silent lot when it comes to discussing their business.

'Receipt dated May 14, 1887.

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Today there is still a water hole in the Hill Creek Area named Bullprick Spring. Legend has it that the place received its name after Nutter and Red Moon, a renegade Ute operating off his reservation, had a run-in there. The story goes that for some time Red Moon and his band of renegades had been rustling Nutter's cattle. Eventually Nutter, who had an impressive appearance and commanding eyes, caught up with Red Moon and gave him a severe warning. Red Moon was in no position to retaliate at the time; but true to the form of all bad Indians, he and his renegades ambushed Nutter and his crew later at the waterhole. The Indians had rifles and were spread out in the surrounding brush. They had the drop on Nutter and his crew. However, Red Moon was more interested in humiliation than killing. The cowhands were eager to fight it out with the Indians, but to avoid bloodshed Nutter allowed Red Moon to give him several lashes with a bullprick whip. By such incidents water holes were named.

Others disagree with this version of the story, saying a vengeful, halfcrazed Indian would never stop short of killing; and Nutter, who was wellacquainted with Indian behavior, would rely on his Colt revolver rather than the mercurial mind of such an adversary. After all he had grown-up on a more realistic code than noblesse oblige, a code that permitted a man to survive in the West.

Legend also has it that Nutter once saved an Indian from a hanging.

It seems he rode into camp to find his boys and the Webster City hands with their lariats already around the poor fellow's neck. With a stern, nononsense approach, he made them cut him loose. Red Moon? Perhaps.

Mrs. Nutter recalls a charming anecdote. On a provision buying trip to Myton, the Nutters were followed by a rather frail looking Indian, small in stature but great in exuberance. Nutter paid no attention until the Indian finally planted himself in front of him and with pixy, dancing eyes demanded "Who you?"

Nutter gave him a quzzical smile and said, "Who are you?"

"Me Chester, Moon's boy."

"Moon was a bad Indian," Nutter replied.

And Chester, teetering back and forth, threw back his head and laughed agreement.

"Old Man Nutter, always fighting." Chester was delighted with the attention he was receiving.

Nutter smiled and went on about his business.

Anyway, everyone seems to agree that Red Moon was in truth a "bad Indian." He was later killed by a member of his own tribe.

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TVir amount of this receipt for delivery of cattle indicates the size of the Picstan Nutter operation.

This was also the period when Butch Cassidy, "Gunplay" Maxwell, and the Brown's Hole, Wyoming gangs were operating as freely as they pleased in the vicinity. Between train and bank robberies, the outlaws often turned to rustling. Like a lot of other ranchers, Nutter often found it more practical to hire the outlaws to work as cowhands during their "cooling off" periods. Most of them were cowboys at one time or another and made top hands, but what was more important their code prevented them from rustling from an employer.

Quietly living out his years in a small town in southern Utah is an old cowhand who worked for Nutter and at the same time led a nefarious life with the outlaws. Some of his old canceled checks from Nutter bear several pseudonyms, but the signatures arc unmistakably the samc. c In the spring of 1892, "Gunplay," who was more noted for his talltalk than his fast action, was caught rustling Nutter cattle south of the White River. Nutter took him into Vernal, Utah, and filed a complaint, but by some unexplained means "Gunplay" managed to side-step the charge for a time and got out of jail. Before he could be brought to trial on the rustling charge, he was killed escaping from a bank holdup.

Nutter's second major move in the cattle business was made in 1893, during the disastrous year of the Silver Panic. For some time he and several old friends from his Lake City days had been negotiating in Washington for a lease on the fertile Strawberry Valley, located in the westernmost part of the Uintah Basin east of the Wasatch A fountains and Salt Lake City. In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln had set aside the entire valley of the Uintah River (now known as the Duchesne) within Utah Territory, extending on both sides of the river to the crest of the first range of contiguous mountains on each side, as an Indian reservation. In 1882 0

Canceled checks in possession of Mrs. Price.

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the Uncompahgres and White River Indians, who had been unceremoniously removed from their reservations in western Colorado, began to move into the Uintah Reservation. A few cattle and sheepmen continued to use Strawberry Valley for grazing purposes, but the Indians were getting nothing out of it.

In 1893 Nutter and his friends, who had become New York businessmen, acquired a five-year lease on Strawberry from the U.S. Indian Department for $7,100 annually and formed the Strawberry Cattle Company. The lease included all the land that drained into the Duchesne River from the west â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 665,000 acres of excellent range country. Nutter owned 50 per cent of the shares and was company president with the power and authority to transact all business in Utah Territory. In turn he agreed to sell all his personal holdings in Utah.

Nutter sold his cattle and Utah property to the Webster City Cattle Company but retained his old " 6 3 " brand and continued to use it on his horses. As soon as the sale was completed Nutter's outfit joined with the Webster City crew for one vast roundup. They gathered all the " 6 3 " cattle and tally branded some 5,000 head at the end of a rope with the "Bar 63" brandâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a job that required only the addition of a bar to the top of the six.7 By the first of September 1893, Nutter was ready to stock the Strawberry Cattle Company range. He sent word to cattlemen in Arizona, informing them that he was in the market for 5,000 head of cattle and that he would take delivery on the north side of the Colorado River near ScanIon's Ferry, east of the present site of Boulder City, Nevada. He made Hackleberry, Arizona, his headquarters for dealing and contracting. As soon as the cattle were on their way, he wired Bishop Franklin Johnson in Kanab, asking him to send the Nutter outfit to Scanlon's Ferry and have them pick-up eight more good men along the way.

Meanwhile, the Silver Panic was creating havoc in banks across the country. To avoid any last minute confusion when the Arizona cattlemen arrived with their stock, Nutter fortified himself with certified bank drafts from the McCornick Bank in Salt Lake City. He also had Mr. McCornick send telegrams to some of the leading Arizona stockmen, assuring them that the bank drafts would be honored.

The bulk of the Arizona stock came from south of Kingman, some as far south as 300 to 400 miles, along the Bill Williams, the Santa Maria, and the Big Sandy rivers. In all there were 15 Arizona ranchers who agreed to deliver cattle. The various herds ranged from 25 to 900 head.

7 Tally branding is branding done when cattle change ownership. In this case the "63" brand was altered only slightly to show new ownership.

PRESTON NUTTER

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The ferry at Scanlon's was small and impractical for handling any large number of livestock. The Colorado was wide and the water was swift in the area. As far as Nutter knew no one had tried crossing with such a large herd. However, by the time the cattle arrived Nutter had found a place that was reasonably flat and smooth. When a final tally was taken, it was discovered there were 4,652 head. Some 400 head had been lost in the hot desert crossing from Arizona.

As the cattle converged on the river, Nutter and his cowboys bunched them and commenced the hazardous and unprecedented job of pushing them in to swim to the north side. Time after time Nutter, his riders, and the Arizona men plunged their horses into the silt-laden Colorado to point and wing the swimming steers. It was a three-day operation with men, horses, and cattle fighting to stay alive. Amazingly, neither a man nor an animal was lost in the crossing. Nutter was always proud of this feat, but in recounting it in later years would say, with a twinkle in his eyes, "It is possible we lost a few spectators lined up to watch from the banks. I was too busy to keep an eye on them."

As agreed upon, McCornick Bank drafts were paid to the ranchers on the north side of the river.

For several decades some of the old-timers around St. George have insisted that Nutter lost the bulk of these cattle between Scanlon's and the rocky bed of the Virgin River outside their town. Letters to and from his New York partners during this period fail to substantiate this theory.8 Due to a water shortage, desert heat, and sudden winter squalls, he did suffer some losses, but the number was small compared to the figures magnified over the years.

For some time Nutter had been considering running cattle on the Arizona Strip country in the northwest corner of Arizona south of St. George.

The warm climate made excellent breeding grounds, but water was the prime factor that controlled the country. Several cattle and sheepmen from around St. George were using the Strip, but they were doing so without valid government titles. However, there was still sufficient grass and water for everyone if properly developed.

With winter fast approaching the higher elevations of Strawberry, Nutter decided to take his herd to the Strip in the fall of 1893. He ran into strong opposition from the men who operated there. B. F. Saunders, a large owner and dealer in cattle, claimed a number of springs on the Strip.

Anthony Ivins, an apostle in the Mormon Church and owner and manager 8

Preston Nutter correspondence.

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of the Mohave Cattle Company, claimed several of the springs. Nutter was hard pressed to find water for his cattle. Outsiders were not accepted, and the men who used the Strip backed up their claims with the theory that "might makes right." However, Nutter was not easily discouraged.

He developed water holes of his own, and then took necessary steps to acquire legal titles on some of the land and springs, using preferred Indian scrip that he bought in Washington, D.C., at a premium price. This required a lot of time, effort, and money; and since he had no support from local St. George authorities, he was forced to hire Texas cowhands and deputize them to protect his cattle and springs. The Arizona Strip range war against Nutter might have continued on much longer if he had not, after having legally acquired title on all the springs, bought out the opposition.

In the spring of 1896 Nutter bought the cattle, improvements, and all rights and titles claimed by Anthony Ivins. The following year he bought Mr. Saunders' claims and improvements for $3,000, and a small spring called "Wolf Hole" from M. W. Andrus for $500. The next year he bought Mr. Foster's range rights, one-half interest in Big Spring, and 2,000 head of his cattle. At about the same time he bought Andrew Sorenson's cattle, about 500 head, and all his range rights and claims. Before the turn of the century, he had acquired most of the cattle outfits on the Strip. He improved upon the land and springs, but the Strip was lawless, rugged country that continued to plague him to the end.

While Nutter's agreement with the Strawberry Cattle Company excluded his owning personal property in Utah, it did not prevent him from owning property in any other state or territory. Therefore, when he acquired the Arizona Strip property, he did so on his own hook. He used the Strip as an additional breeding ground for company cattle, but the springs and land were his personal holdings.

In 1898, at the end of the first five-year lease on Strawberry, the commissioner of Indian Affairs granted an extension of one year, but the end was in sight. Utah sheepmen began putting pressure on Washington for possession of the land. One of the main reasons the Indians leased to the Strawberry Cattle Company was to keep the sheepmen out, but now the "woolly" owners were appealing to higher government sources. At the end of the year's extension, the Strawberry Company lost its lease.

Some of Nutter's New York partners complained that he had been too liberal with the sheepmen in allowing them to graze their sheep and thereby realize the great value of the range. It was big country and not always a simple matter to keep them out. Too, Nutter strove to avoid

VIRGINIA AND HOWARD PRICE

The West going modern with a motorized chuck wagon.

range wars whenever possible. He preferred settling disputes legally and spent a fair amount of his life in courts. After he married his wife once inquired why he spent so much of his time in courts. Nutter's answer was simple but to the point, "Because I enjoy winning when I K N O W I'm in the right."

At this time the Territory of Utah was not particularly noted for its justice, especially where outsiders were concerned. Nutter was not a Mormon. He had no conflict with the church. Most of his business dealings were with Mormons, and he respected every individual's right to believe as he pleased. But he felt no urge to join the Mormon Church just for the sake of compatibility.

On January 11, 1901, Nutter bought out his New York partners.

They wanted to get out of the cattle business and invest their money closer to home. His major problem now was to find summer range where he could run steers. He owned about 25,000 head of cattle. The Arizona Strip was excellent breeding grounds, but higher elevation was desirable to develop the beef that was shipped in the fall.

When it became apparent that the Strawberry lease was not going to be renewed, Nutter began buying land as it became available in Nine Mile Canyon, between Price and Myton, Utah. Here he found excellent summer range country on the West Tavaputs Plateau. In 1886 the government had built a road through Nine Mile so that supplies could be moved to the garrison at Fort Duchesne. The country was opening up, but as yet there were no roads from Nine Mile up the side of the mountain to the fertile West Tavaputs stretching some 30 to 40 miles southeast of the canyon. From his early days in Utah and Colorado, Nutter had had plenty of experience in road building. He promptly set about hewing a road out of the side of the mountain by way of Cottonwood Canyon.

VIRGINIA AND HOWARD PRICE

A peaceful scene in Nine Mile Canyon today, with a peacock ruffling his feathers in front of Peter Francis' old saloon.

He also found excellent grazing land available in Range Valley, on Range Creek in the northeastern corner of Emery County where the creek joins the Green River. When old friends heard of Nutter's move into this area, they decided he had finally turned into a hermit. Range Valley was about as isolated as a cattleman could find, but it was ideally situated for Nutter's new plan of operation. The lower elevations of both Range Valley and Nine Mile Canyon made good winter country for steers that were not shipped in the fall. From the West Tavaputs summer range, there were natural drifts into both areas. He kept the Arizona Strip for breeding purposes, but the northeastern section of Utah became his new home base of operations.

Early in 1902 Nutter bought the Brock Place in Nine Mile Canyon and made it his first permanent ranch headquarters. Pete Francis had been operating the Brock homestead as a saloon and hotel. There was also a telegraph relay station maintained by the soldiers from Fort Duchesne.

After a barroom brawl in his own saloon abruptly ended Pete Francis' career, his wife sold out to Nutter. The inventory included several barrels of grain alcohol as well as Pete Francis' impotent gun and a peacock that by some devious means had found a home there. Nutter eventually found a mate for the peacock. They multiplied at an alarming rate, and over the years became something of a curiosity flock in Nine Mile Canyon.

With the new operations Nutter discontinued using the various brands used by the Strawberry Company and began using the circle brand on the right shoulder and the right hip on his cattle both in Arizona and Utah.

He had never ceased using the " 6 3 " brand on his horses, so there was no problem there. It took some years, however, to get rid of the many brands

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used on the cattle under the Strawberry Valley Company. Meanwhile Nutter had been improving his herd. From 1900 until the late twenties most of his cattle were Durham, but then he switched to Herefords.

Nutter was 58 years old before a woman came along who was clever enough to outmaneuver him. When the Uintah Basin was opened to homesteaders in 1905, Katherine Fenton, the attractive manager of Colorado Springs' Postal Telegraph, as a lark, put her name in the lottery along with several other young ladies. After drawing a winning number she was determined to visit the Basin. Along the way a stagecoach driver, who was new on the job and became lost between Price and Myton, mistook the Brock house for the Rock House stage stop. The stage was forced to remain overnight. Nutter gave the pretty passenger and her companion, a schoolteacher destined for Vernal, his bed for the night. Miss Fenton continued to manage the Postal Telegraph in Colorado Springs for three more years, but at the same time she spent the required amount of time on her homestead in Ioka. In 1908 she gave up her telegraph job and married Nutter.

Mrs. Nutter insists that the itherine Fenton (Mrs. Preston Nutter) was manager of only way she was able to catch e Colorado Springs Postal Telegraph Co.'s office during e Cripple Creek boom days and, after the death of her Preston Nutter was to agree that \sband,was president of the Preston Nutter Corporation. the honeymoon be incorporated VIRGINIA AND H O W A R D PRICE into an eastern cattle buying trip.

During the next few years, the Nutters had two daughters, Catharine and Virginia, and settled down on the ranch headquarters in Nine Mile. However, Nutter was continually on the move. He controlled a lot of country, and it was necessary for him to spend a large amount of time on the Arizona Strip. Transportation was slow and not too accessible between Nine Mile and the Strip.

Little wonder he was so adept at sleeping in the saddle.

With the death of W. C. McCoy in 1915, Nutter lost a trusted lieutenant and firm friend. McCoy, a native New Yorker, had been associated with Nutter for

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decades and directed many of the time-consuming business details. In the earlier days he had handled the deliveries of beef to the military at Fort Duchesne and the Indian agencies at Whiterocks and Ouray. Often he accompanied shipments of cattle to Omaha and other eastern markets. It seems that he had originally come to Utah convinced of the country's industrial potential. He built and operated the coke ovens at Tucker, the junction for the "Calico Road." McCoy's tally book also shows him shipping cattle for Nutter from PV (Pleasant Valley) Junction in 1891.

Whatever thoughts McCoy entertained regarding Nutter's sudden renouncement of bachelor status, he apparently kept to himself. It must have been quite a change suddenly to accommodate himself to feminine frills, baby buggies, and nurse maids. Undoubtedly, much of the time he found enough to do at the Nine Mile ranch to keep out of the way of the paraphernalia.

This was the great day of freighting. Horses and wagons swirled up great clouds of dust or cut deep ruts in the mud as families loaded with all their earthly belongings moved along the Nine Mile road and upward through Gate Canyon to take up farming in the Uintah Basin. And following them came more wagon trains loaded with provisions to keep the settlers supplied. It was the custom of the teamsters to camp one night under overhanging cliffs just below Nutter's corrals so their teams would be fresh to start the climb. Doubling-up their horses, whips cracking, wagons creaking in the dawn, they started the ascent. Fire-blackened rocks and names inscribed on the cliffs with burnt axle grease confirm the numbers, and the designated name places vouch for the tortuous roadâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"Seven Mile Twist," "Ded Hors Springs."

There were the inevitable break downs; there were horses too weak to travel. Hundreds of stories are told by the old-timers of the feats of Mr. Nutter's "Big Red Mules" which were sent to the rescue. And over this presided McCoy, an aging, somewhat benign major-domo. Whether his Good Samaratanism was inspired by charity or the more practical desire to keep the transients moving is debatable.

The booming years of World War I gave way to major economic disaster for the western cattle industry after the Armistice. The bottom dropped out, and hundreds of big outfits were going broke. An alarmed Washington sent several delegations to consult with Nutter. It appears that his empire was kept intact by various measures. He owned in fee some of the best grazing land in the west; he was able and energetic; he did not overextend in anticipation of a prolonged war. Instead of putting his profits into cattle to yield yet greater profits, he promised Duchesne County

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that he would match their subscriptions in the Liberty Bond Drives. This he did.

The depression years of the 1930's were bleaker. With politicians spouting that unless they were elected the western cattlemen would see beef drop to a nickle a pound, the old-timers chortled. Four cents was the top price in those days, but try and get it. As for "grass growing in the roads," that sounded better â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the cattle industry was based on grass. But bankers lost faith, and Mrs. Nutter, with her Irish wit showing, said, "Your old time bankers knew the use of an umbrella. Later ones were afraid it might get wet." The situation was critical when the government stepped in and updated a former government loaning agency with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

During the decades there had been a steady encroachment of sheep on the grazing lands of the West. Whereas the cattle operators were more or less stabilized and kept their livestock near their holdings, the sheepmen were migratory. Bands of sheep had a way of appearing wherever the feed was good regardless of who held title to the land or who had a priority of use. It was not unusual for Nutter to find a band of sheep in the lush mountain pastures of his fee land on the Tavaputs Plateau. Without exception, the herders would pretend complete ignorance of the English language.

They neither knew to whom the sheep belonged, where they came from, where they were going, nor their numbers. After a singularly unintelligible conversation with one herder, the old fellow in a burst of confidence easily overcame the language barrier. "They tell me I be all right if I don't run into old man Nutter." Nutter had to smile. "They told you right." And then he was off to gather the pertinent facts and consult with lawyers concerning trespass action and restraining orders.

Utah sheepmen began overrunning the Arizona Strip. Some with leases on railroad land in their pockets would claim to be merely trailing the sheep through the country. The "trail" encompassed the whole area, and Nutter contended they never got to the leased land. On one occasion he found his own land and a water tank fenced against his own cattle.

Crazed cows were pawing the ground where a trickle of water had made a damp spot. Some were already dead, their calves bawling piteously at their side. Inside the fence was a band of sheep.

It is no wonder that he wrote of the lawlessness in the country. "I am plagued by rustlers, bootleggers, and sheepmen." 9 A man would have to have eyes in the back of his head to patrol so vast a country.

9

Ibid.

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While Nutter continued to try to rectify the situation by bringing court action, a number of livestock operators in Montana had banded together to combat a similar situation in their state. They organized the Mizpah-Pumpkin Creek Stock Grazing Reserve. This was a cooperative effort to take state, private, and federal land and administer it under partial state rule. It was hoped that some such orderly process could be made effective in Utah. A paper issued by the General Land Office, Helena, Montana, says that it was understood that "the stockmen of Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Oregon have filed application for the establishment of grazing areas similar to the area established in Montana." It adds, "This undertaking has demonstrated, beyond any question of doubt, that the livestock producers are capable of conducting their own business, and administrating the range allotted to them under long term lease, without intensive supervision." This then was the beginning of a plan for orderly use of the public lands, initiated by the stockmen themselves, and a prelude to the Taylor Grazing Act.10 It is generally thought today that the West was antagonistic to the Taylor Grazing Act, however, the experienced, seasoned cattlemen felt regulation of some kind was necessary. Nutter did not look upon the Taylor Act as a panacea, but he was impressed by its terms and felt that its intent "to stabilize the livestock industry" was worthy. He also liked the calibre of the delegation, headed by Oscar Chapman, who came from the Department of the Interior to meet with stockmen in Prescott, Arizona.

Attending the meeting with his wife and daughters, Nutter spent some time closeted with the Washington representatives discussing the terms of the bill and the plans for establishing a grazing service. The implementation of the Taylor Act would put to rout the itinerant sheepmen and allow the established, legitimate rancher to manage the feed and forage.

For a man of his years with a lifetime use of public lands in conjunction with the lands he had leased and owned, this might appear to represent radical thinking. However, Nutter was a man who looked to the future. His great passions were grass and grass-fat cattle; the latter dependent upon the continuation of the former. He did not think of conservation in terms of sentiment. He had ridden too many lonely miles to be unaffected by the splendor of the country — he felt a custodial care for it and also for the wildlife it supported which grazed so amicably with his cattle. An expert marksman, it was known that he never hunted except for food, and for years Nutter had protected the game on his private lands.

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He had an abhorance of waste of what he considered natural and national resources. He was a builder, a man of wide interests with a practical consideration for reclamation and land improvement. In these respects he had blazed a clear trail.

Harold Ickes was secretary of the Department of the Interior, and J. N. "Ding" Darling, a Des Moines, Iowa, cartoonist, was head of the U.S. Biological Survey. Ding was an enthusiastic wildlife man, and it was his dream to turn the Strip into a big game preserve. Nutter was willing, almost eager for this. Numerous letters passed between the two with Nutter offering his holdings. Unfortunately, the Department of the Interior had no funds allocated for this purpose and the negotiations ended.11 During this period of transition, a time that Nutter felt held promise for the livestock industry (the National Advisory Board was meeting in Salt Lake City). Preston Nutter's tired heart ceased to VIRGINIA AND HOWARD function. It was fitting that the Salt Lake Telegram of Tuesday evening, January 28, 1936, would describe him as "One of the last links between the old west and the n e w . . . , " continuing with, "over six feet tall, white haired, grey eyed, straight as a lodge pole pine and physically hard as the saddle he rode. From the Masonic temple, Wednesday afternoon will be buried Utah's last great cattle king â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Preston Nutter." * " L e t t e r dated June 14, 1935, from Nutter to J Bureau of Biological Survey. * Ed. note: After the death of Preston Nutter, Mrs. Nutter took charge of the operations and assumed the presidency of the corporations. In 1932 the northern operations had been incorporated into the Preston Nutter Corporation and the Arizona Strip into the Nutter Livestock Company. The Nutter Livestock Company was dissolved and the properties sold in 1937.

In 1956 Mrs. Nutter resigned the presidency to become chairman of the Board, a position she still holds. Her daughter, Virginia N. Price, succeeded her as president. The Preston Nutter Ranch is very much in operation today, doing business in Nine Mile Canyon where the founder of the operation located in 1897.

Preston Nutter on "Coalie," a fastwalking mule. Nutter rode mules because he said a "horse will go beyond his endurance.

A mule knows his limitations and when to stop. He has more sense than a horse and some men."

PRICE

WILD

COWS OF THE SAN JUAN

BY KARL Y O U N G DRAWINGS BY J . R O M A N A N D R U S

"See all them trees down there?" said Zeke Johnson to a bunch of dudes on the south rim of Elk Mountain. They reined up and looked out over the vast forest of pifions and junipers that sweeps south toward the San Juan River and Monument Valley and west to the Colorado. "Sure thick," Zeke went on, "And I've had a wild cow tied to every one of 'em."

The remark was no more exaggerated than the country at which they were looking. It was the wild canyon country of southeastern Utah, a wilderness of pinnacles and spires, of slickrocks and sudden gorges, of box canyons and rimrocks; a place that called for absurd boasts like Zeke's.

But the boast was no more than a match for the trouble it took to catch a wild cow and get her out to market.

In July of 1962, I rounded up seven of Zeke's old-time cowboy companions who chased wild cattle here when they were spring-heeled and reckless. Unfortunately, Zeke was not among them, as he had drifted on Mr. Young is professor of English, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Professor Young is presently preparing a book, Ordeal in Mexico, dealing with stories of Mormon colonists in the Mexican revolution. Mr. Andrus is professor of art, Brigham Young University.

to the big range in 1957. Riding in trucks, which hauled our horses, and following roads recently dozed out by uranium and oil seekers, we penetrated deep into the areas where the wild stuff once ran. The object of the trip was to get on tape the stories of the chase by the cowboys who had ridden in it.

The wild cattle which these men rode after were a product of their remote and isolated habitat. Cows that did not see a man and horse more than once or twice a year became especially spooky when horse and man started interfering with their lives. They tried to escape. And if a critter once eluded the riders who sifted the trees, arroyos, and canyons during the roundup, its next escape was easier. Thus escape became a habit, and the critter became a "runnygade," a wild one.

Runnygade cows had calves, some of which matured before they ever saw a man. These critters were wilder than deer, much more wily, and almost as fleet. By comparison with them, deer were naive. The runnygades, for example, would drift ahead of riders, stealing away before the horses came in sight and circling back around as the searchers passed them.

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Or they would learn to run hard and fast and then lie down and watch the back track. They generally haunted the most difficult terrain, which was slashed and cut by gullies and canyons, walled with rimrock, and densely grown with thickets of pifion and juniper. A horseman here might well be frustrated when trying to ride through this snaggled labyrinth at a jog trot.

Yet it was here that Zeke Johnson, with a score of other old-time, wild cow hunters, rode at full speed, flinging himself violently from side to side of his horse's withers or ducking clear down below his saddle horn to avoid being swept off by low limbs as his eager cow pony strained to catch a fleeing critter.

From 1900 to the late thirties, wild cattle infested the heavily treed sandrock country lying between the summer range on the Elk and Blue mountains and the winter range on the desert. Ordinary range cattle, when drifting to or from the summer range, would sometimes join with wild cows and, after running with them for a year or so, would become just as wild as the runnygades â&#x20AC;&#x201D; spooky, hard to catch, and difficult to control when caught.

Rye Butt tells how one night some cowboys put a bunch of cows they had been rounding up into a small corral to hold them until the next day.

Since there were a few wild ones in the bunch, one of the cowboys objected when the boss, Dalton, directed the men to tie a couple of night horses to the corral posts. But Dalton cut him down with the curt reply, " T h a t corral is made of cedars. I built it myself. They won't get out of there." However, shortly after midnight one of the night horses shook his saddle. The rattle of the stirrups and fenders and the coiled rope hanging against the skirts was too much for the herd, and the cows stampeded. They went right through that cedar fence, taking down several panels and tromping three cows to death as they fled.

Not that ordinary range cattle would be unlikely to stampede at night for trivial causes, but wild cattle intensified the probabilities. Therefore, to prevent this erosion and contamination of their herds, the cowmen attempted to eliminate the wild stock by taking everything they could capture out to market. The difficulty was that by no means could every cowboy catch wild critters. To do so required a special kind of cowboy, both gifted and heedless. He had to have one of the top horses in the country, clever as well as speedy, for the pony had to have the whole business in his head. There was little time for a rider to give directions when crashing through the trees after a longear.

Charlie Redd, whose success in building up the Cross-H Ranch in San Juan County makes the talk good around a camp fire or in a London

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drawing room (he was decorated by Queen Elizabeth for his years of genial hospitality to visiting English notables and "got to kiss the Queen," as the natives tell it), gives an ebullient account of the chase, which earmarks the kind of man and horse that were necessary to catch wild cows.

"Just catching up with the wild cattle was a sort of victory all in itself.

For a cowboy couldn't begin to dodge all the trees in his way. He had to hit many of them and hit them so hard that he'd break the limbs. And both horse and rider had to have pretty fair judgment about how big a tree and how big a limb would break. But they could never hesitate. They had to hit it so hard that something would give, and they were always in hopes it would be the tree or limb, not them. However, there was something about chasing these wild cattle that got into their blood. It was kind of like a young feller getting all hopped up over a love affair. Once you got started after the critter you forgot yourself. You forgot the risk of breaking a bone or shoulder or the bumps and pains you were going to be exposed to and felt only the intense excitement of a terrific sport. You did it partly because it was your job and your livelihood depended on it, and as you set out you usually rather hated to find the wild cattle because you knew that when you did you were going to be in for some heavy bruises.

It was deadly earnest business. But once you got under way, both you and the horse got the feel of it, and then the excitement swept you along, and nothing but a crippling pile-up could stop you.

"You were often very glad when the chase was over, especially if you had a nice two-year-old tied to a pifion tree. But the satisfaction you felt was not merely owing to the $18.00 your critter would bring if you got it out to the railroad. It was also the hunger for victory that must have made those Greek boys go after the wild boars with nothing but a spear. Nothing else mattered but getting your critter."

Bill Young, another of my old-timers, who was man enough at the age of 22 to run Hardy Redd's cattle outfit when the latter died suddenly in the 1920's, illustrated the point.

"Once Wally Burnham and I chased two wild bulls down onto a steep point. Wally, who was in the lead, throwed his rope over one of the bulls just as it took off over the hillside. The bull's weight as he run down the slope was too much for Wally's horse, and it jerked the horse off his feet, bustin' the rope and at the same time pinning Wally under him. The bull galloped and slid on down the hill and out across the flats. A moment later when I caught up with Wally and jumped off my horse to help him, he was laying there under his horse, pointing off down the hill and yelling,

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'Right down there! They went right down there!' He didn't want no help.

He wanted me to catch them bulls."

It was rough going, and the wear and tear on man and horse were brutal. I have seen Charlie Redd recall, with a far look in his eyes, how his mother used to cry when, as a boy, he would come in from these wild cow hunts looking skinny and poor, with his clothes all torn and no meat on his bones.

Nevertheless, certain cowboys became proficient in catching wild critters, and every year the big cattlemen would send out two or three of their most skilled hands to clean up an area where the wild stuff was beginning to multiply. Or a group of small, independent owners, the "league of nations," as they got to calling themselves, would plan a ride together.

Four or five men combined their resources in an attempt to capture the outlaws. Sometimes 15 or 20 cowboys would gather from the ranches and pack into the Brushy Basin, or Wooden Shoe, or Dark Canyon to make a sustained drive for two weeks in an attempt to rid the area of wild stock.

On such occasions each man brought his three best horses and a pack mule. He packed about 200 pounds of oats for his mounts, but otherwise he rode on grass, and his supply of chuck and his bed were scanty, for he traveled light.

Usually the cowboys made these rides for wild cattle in the late winter or early spring when the cows had just come through the hard part of the year and were a little on the weak side. On the other hand, the men chased the critters on stout, grain-fed horses. And they needed this advantage, for even so it was touch and go whether a horse carrying a 40-pound saddle

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and a man with boots and chaps could overtake a longear running free in all these rocks and trees.

But winter also gave the cowboy two more advantages he needed.

First, it was easier to locate the animals by their tracks, and once on a fresh track in the snow a man could follow it as fast as he could ride. But more important, if a rider jumped a critter in heavy snow, it had to break trail, whereas the horse, merely following along, had much easier going and tired less quickly. So after a hard run in the snow, a rider might get right up alongside his critter and drop his loop over its head without snagging up on a cedar limb.

But the advantages of making drives for wild stuff in the winter were partially offset by the hardships implicit in riding and living in the snow.

There were no wagon roads into the country then, and cowboys never cared to bother with tents; so they slept in the open or under overhangs in the rocks, such as sheltered the ancient "Moki" dwellings in this remote area. When they slept out, they would not infrequently wake up under four to six inches of snow.

"The only trouble with that," said Harve Williams, an old-timer whose unremitting days in the saddle from dark to dark had earned him a partnership in the immense Indian Creek Cattle outfit, "was that you got so hot under the snow. Your tarpoleon shed the water all right, but the snow like to smothered you. But that wasn't so bad. The odds against you rose when you got up after a fresh snow and started chasing wild cows.

Big, old wet snow over all the trees, and after you hit a few branches you'd be pretty cold-shouldered and miserable. But suddenly you'd jump a cow and start to run, and after you'd knocked two or three saddlefuls of snow down, why you'd just turn everything loose and go. You'd be sweating inside three minutes. I see John Palmer run a steer through wet trees with snow on 'em like that, and when he caught the steer he had so much snow in the bottom of his saddle he could hardly reach the stirrups. Six or eight inches right in the seat of his saddle!"

"Yes," said Clarence Rogers, summing it up, "you get wetter chasin' through these cedars after a snow than you would jumpin' in a pond. It just piles right on you, piles in yer eye, and yer ear, and down yer neck, and everywhere else. You hate to hit 'er at first, but after you get going it's all right."

Yet, whether chasing wild cows in snow or in sand, the cowboy had merely made a beginning when he caught up with his critter. He then had to rope it and get the cow out to the ranch and so to market. And

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roping was a tricky business in the trees. John D. Rogers, now an official in the Mormon Temple at Manti, Utah, but once a wild-cow chaser with the best of them, told us what happened then.

"You couldn't lay that rope on in any fancy way like these trick ropers in the rodeos because of the thick trees. Oh, they wasn't so thick but what you could get your breath, but too thick for ridin'. Here's where a good fast tree horse earned his money. He'd get you right up there, trompin' on the steer's heels where you could lean over and lay your loop right over his horns easy like. Then you'd bust him. When his head whipped around behind him and his belly went into the air, if you hurried you could get him hogtied before he even tried to get up.

"Of course, a cowboy was in luck if he got his steer hogtied in those few seconds, because any critter older than a calf or yearlin' would most likely get up full of fight. Older cows and steers had long, sharp horns, which were wicked and vicious, and a bull's strength and quickness could give you a scare. Many a horse has been horned, and some of them gutted and killed by angry critters that got up before the hogtie was completed.

But a good horse would keep the rope taut and the animal stretched out.

Without that perhaps you'd just as well not try."

Gradually the punchers worked out a routine for handling the wild stuff in this area. The first step after bustin' and hogtyin' a critter was to get rid of those murderous horns. Clarence Rogers, a cowman who, seen from a distance sitting in his saddle, would pass for one of his sons, described the technique this way: "Every puncher carried a small keyhole saw in a scabbard tied to his saddle, and as soon as he had a critter hogtied he'd cut off his horns with this saw, leaving only short stubs, just long enough to keep a headrope from slipping off. The headrope was a soft rope about 12 feet long, like the tie-rope we used to carry in a rig to hitch horses to a rail in town. Once he'd sawed off those horns and drawed up the headrope tight under the stubs, he'd tie a knot around the nearest pifion, not too tight but what the rope would slip round the tree when the animal circled it, and then untie the critter's legs. Of course, the brute would fight the tree and rope, but the more he fought, the more tender his head became at the base of the horns and the better he was gentled for leading out when the time came.

"Usually you'd leave your critter tied up for a day or two, but if it was a bull or some other big stout animal, you might leave it longer. I've heard tell of leaving them four days or more but never did see it. Then you'd come back and get the end of that headrope in your hand. When the critter came at you, which he'd sure do, you'd wind your dallies quick

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around the saddle horn, snubbing him up so short that his nose was practically in your lap and you'd be gettin' each other's breath."

Cutting off the critter's horns and "gentlin' him down" were essential steps because the next phase in the routine was the leading of the animal off to a holding pen. John D. explained how a man used to lead them.

"Well, next morning you'd come back to that tree where your steer was tied short, and how you'd find it in all those trees might be a problem to some folks, but a cowboy can do it, cuttin' sign and all that if he has to.

You didn't need to bring your best horse 'cause 'most any horse could lead a steer if he knew his business. He'd have to crowd the steer, which was snubbed right up to your saddle horn. The steer would rear back, and push, and try to hook, but you'd cut off his horns to prevent that hookin'.

He'd jump around, but the horse would keep crowdin' him. When the steer would break to run, why the horse would go with him, and when he'd stop and start plungin' again, the horse would just keep crowdin' him.

"Sometimes you'd have a big bull that stood eight inches higher than your pony's withers, and he'd be a lot heavier. Then your horse would have a rough time to keep from being jerked over. But the critter's horns would be tender from being tied to the tree for so long, and pretty soon he'd be leadin' just like a calf right down through the trees.

"Of course, a man and his horse got bruised aplenty by those stub horns, and the puncher's right leg was black and blue clear down to his ankle. But if his horse knew when to crowd and when to give, he could generally handle the critters. We'd lead them down to where we had a little holding canyon fenced off under the rim. They'd find a little grass and water in there, and we'd leave them in for a few days and then if we'd gathered enough, we'd teach them to drive and take them out to town."

When the steer's horns were sawed off close to his head, he bled profusely. Hence, after dehorning a few animals, a cowboy got to looking like a butcher would if he were real careless. The fact that the animals bled heavily was another reason for riding after wild cows in the winter when there was no danger of fly-blowing. Moreover, an animal could endure being tied short to a tree for one day or two if the weather were cool, whereas if he were tied this way in the summer, he would very soon die.

Actually, the visiting dude is appalled at how easily cattle will die when they are subjected to treatment sharply different from their usual life patterns. The mere pursuit of cattle in hot weather is sometimes fatal to them, though this is probably more true of "soft" ranch cattle nowdays than it was of the tough wild stock that grew up on the run, as deer do.

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When the cowboys had finished riding in an area or had collected enough wild cattle to make a drive out to town, they would go into the pasture and teach the critters how to drive. What the brutes had to learn, of course, was to heed a man on a horse. They had to learn to obey â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to turn when he rode out in front of them. The men entered the pasture and drove the cows up and down, teaching them to stay together and move in a herd. If a critter broke from the bunch and refused to turn back, a cowboy roped it and led it back. It had, of course, already had some tolerably rugged experience in leading, which it remembered. Nevertheless, quite often, when turned loose in the herd again, the critter went right on through and out the other side. Then a rider on that side had to repeat the lesson. Occasionally, this routine of running away and being roped and brought back would go on as many as five or six times. But gradually most of the critters learned that they had to turn for a horse. When they had thus been taught to handle, they were ready to be driven to town.

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If there were some gentle cows around, the men would run a few of them into the pasture with the wild herd to help teach them to drive. But despite all this, when the bars were dropped and the herd was headed toward home, there was generally some headstrong old outlaw that got away. Naturally the cowmen would all get acquainted in time with such animals and give them names, such as "Old Brock" for a brockle-faced steer that had given the drivers the slip many times, or "Old Garda" for a cow that had never been taken clear out of the cedars. Garda was the name of the wife of the cattleman whose brand the shrewd old cow bore, and the nickname was bestowed without malice by the cowboys who had to cope with the old outlaw.

"When we'd catch one of these real bad ones," Bill Young observed, "we used to try to figure out ways that we could hold 'em. We'd sometimes tie their head to their foot, or perhaps tie a little pole across those stub horns, or we might neck two of them together. Occasionally, we even cut the cord over the knees so the critters couldn't run. But the ones I did that to died later. We tried every scheme we could think of to keep these cattle in the herd and under control.

"I remember," said Bill, "there was a Flyin' V-Bar got off the V-Bar range and wandered down into Chimney Park. He was a big brocklefaced steer, and he lived there for years. Of course, everybody would be looking for him whenever they were in the area. This one spring Rye Butt and I were riding down there and caught that steer and tied him up. Then the next day we led him right up over the top of Elk Mountain and down to the rim of Dark Canyon. He got a mite tired and so we tied him to a big sapling, a pine tree. It was a good big sapling, what you'd call a pretty good tree. Well, we went on down to the cabin to see if there was anyone there, and we found John Palmer and Andy and stayed with them overnight and told them about this steer. Next day they went back up to get him, but the old boy had pulled up this big sapling and drug it off. They had to trail him up to get 'im."

Sometimes the cowboys would have a streak of good luck catching the wily wild stuff. John D. tells of one winter when quite a crowd of cowboys were riding in the Brushy Basin and all lucked out.

"We went up on top of that black knoll and run onto a bunch of six big steers and two cows. We were all acquainted with those animals. They had been in here for years. One of the cows belonged to me, had my brand on, and the other was a Flyin' V-Bar cow. That cow of mine had raised a calf every year, but I don't think I ever did get one of her calves. But I

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helped to eat one of them one time when we killed a beef out here to live on. Well, those big steers were all from five to eight years old and had been chased a lot of times, and they knew how to take care of themselves. However, this time the snow was about a foot and a half deep, and we jumped them on what you'd call pretty good country for runnin' 'em. It was about as good a place as you could jump anything in this area. We were close to them when we started, and we all made a break, and caught those six big steers, all six of 'em.

"The steer I got after was one of Bayles', and I happened to be riding for Bayles at the time, partly for him, and I was mounted on one of his horses that he had just bought out in Colorado. It was the first time this horse had ever been up in here, and I thought he was a pretty good horse.

But it didn't turn out that way. Well, he got me up close enough for me to throw a rope, and I caught the steer around one horn. He had high, long horns, and my rope was wet from draggin' in the snow, and that loop drawed up right close against his head on that one horn and stayed there.

I throwed the steer and jumped off and run for him. But my horse give rope, give slack, and the steer got up. I got back to my horse again, but the steer was on the fight and I had an awful time with him. I couldn't throw him. The horse wouldn't run on him hard enough. He'd hit the rope a little bit and turn and start to buck. And all the time we had to keep away from that steer. I couldn't throw the steer, and I couldn't jerk the rope loose off his horn. I was tryin' there for two hours, I guess, until Wally Burnham come back-trackin' and helped me tie up the steer. Wally had caught a steer, a Flyin' V-Bar, and Zeke had got after another and roped him, a big one.

"Zeke was riding a pretty good horse, one that I had owned formerly and sold to him. The horse knew his business and you could usually trust him, but when Zeke roped that steer and run on him, the windup was that the steer throwed the horse. The horse fell downhill, with his back right against a tree, right kinda under the tree. And the rope, of course, was fast to the horn of the saddle. You had to tie your rope hard and fast to the horn in all those trees, or when you were chasing something a tree would take it away from you.

"Well, the steer was out there on the end of the rope and the horse couldn't get up. Zeke had to whip out his knife in a hurry and cut the rope He cut it right at the horn of the saddle, and the steer took off down the ridge. Zeke got hold of his horse's tail and twisted him round in the snow and got him onto his feet, and then he follered that steer down off the ridge

WILD COWS

263

and into Cottonwood. When he caught up with the critter he picked up the rope and throwed him and tied him. It wasn't too hard to catch up with him in that deep snow.

"Tom Jones was there and caught a steer, and though I don't remember all the fellers that were there, we caught those six big steers in that bunch and tied them and led them up to our corral and got them out. It was a kind of record. We took every steer in the bunch, and at the end of the trip we got them all out to town and fed them till spring and sold them and got rid of'em."

Incidents in John's story suggest how important the horse was in the teamwork that was necessary for the catching of wild cattle. If the horse was really good, the cowboy was generally free in giving credit to him as being the more important member of the team. Rye Butt tells how, as a stripling of fifteen, with the guidance of an experienced old cow horse, he caught his first wild steer.

"George Dalton was running the K-T outfit over at Verdure, and my dad was riding for him and wanted me to learn to be a cowboy. So they give me a horse that they called old Danny. He was a good cow horse, and Vern Dalton had been ridin' him before they give him to me. Of course, the reason George give me the horse to ride was that I was light, didn't weigh over 85 pounds, and would be easy on the horse, which was gettin' kinda old. Then, too, George knew that old Danny could teach me a lot about chasin' wild cattle.

"Old Vern didn't much like their givin' Danny to me to ride, because Danny was one of his best horses. He didn't own him, but he'd been used to ridin' him in his string and had got to feelin' like he was his own horse, as a cowboy workin' for an outfit is bound to do. So old Vern kep' tellin' me, he says, 'That ol' Danny's goin' to take you for a ride one of these days.

When he does,' he says, 'you'll be up the top of one of them cedar trees.'

"So we was ridin' down on the Devil Canyon rim one day, and I was moseyin' along on old Danny when they suddenly jumped a bunch. We was just runnin' trail, and all at once Danny took out to the side, and I thought, well, here is where he takes me for that ride. He started down through the trees with me, goin' just as hard as he could go. Maybe I could've held 'im, but I realized he wasn't tryin' to scrub me off. He was after something, and I didn't know what it was he was runnin' for, but I let 'im go. I figured he must be chasin' something, but I couldn't see; I was too busy dodgin' trees.

264

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

"Pretty quick he come out into a little flat, and he was trompin' right on the heels of a big, old two-year-old steer. And that's the first I'd seen of the steer. Well, I had my rope down, and I just made a hole in it. And there was Danny trompin' that old steer's hind legs, so I throwed the rope down, and it happened, I guess, to go over his head. When I looked around, why that steer was about four feet off the ground and all his legs up in the air. I had a piggin' string looped around my saddle bows, and when he hit, I jumped off and wrapped two of his legs together. I also had a headrope, and I tied the legs together with that rope too. Then I tied my lasso rope over to a pine tree and went back to find the fellers."

The well-trained cow horse, then, was indispensable to efficient pursuit of wild cattle. But without cowboy ingenuity it would, of course, still be inadequate. Bill Young tells how his brother Ray improvised to meet the unexpected situation over in isolated Wooden Shoe canyon one spring.

"Wooden Shoe Canyon is a wild place, hardly anyone ever in it, and the cattle that run in there never see anyone hardly and become mighty spooky. We used to try to get in there once a year and get the calves branded up and bring out what sale stuff there was. Then we'd let the rest of the critters go for a year.

"Well, Ray and I went up to the head of the canyon and saw the tracks of a few animals going off up a side canyon. So Ray stayed at the mouth of that little canyon, and I went up in to drive 'em out. He was going to hold them up and get them bunched there at the bottom. Ray was riding a little bay horse we called Geronimo. Quite a small horse, but with a lot of pep and go. So I got up ahead of these cattle, four head of long-eared yearlings that we had missed branding the year before. They had been in there all the time, born there, and had never seen a man and was mighty spooky.

"But I got behind them and turned them back, and they kept goin' a little faster and a little faster. When we got down near the mouth, I dropped back to give them room, so's Ray could bunch 'em and hold 'em.

But when I come down to Wooden Shoe I see that he was gone. I started to ride on down the canyon, and right away I run across one yearlin' tied up with his piggin' string. I follered on down a little further, about a quarter of a mile, and there was another tied up with his lasso rope. Then about another quarter further down I found one side-lined with one of Ray's bridle reins. And as I continued on down the canyon I at last found Ray sittin' on a fourth one.

"When Ray give up his lasso rope, he spurred this little horse he was ridin' till he would crowd these calves so close he'd knock 'em down, and then Ray would pile off and get on 'em before they could get up again.

So he caught all four of 'em within a mile. We just branded them there and turned 'em loose."

The cowboys kept insisting that you couldn't catch these wild cattle on an ordinary horse. You had to ride an animal that was not only strong and willing, but also fast and sure-footed. Most of all, however, he had to have quick and accurate judgment about how wide a gully he could safely jump with more than 200 pounds on his back and which trees he could go through and which he'd have to go around. The cows would rarely turn aside for anything as they crashed through the trees and purely flew over washes and slickrocks in their panic. The best tree-horses could generally outrun the cattle in a fair race, but occasionally the cowboys struck a critter that was long-legged and rangy, built like a horse and able to outrun most horses. John Rogers remembers a superb creature that gave his horse a good exercising down in the Milkranch country years ago.

266

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

"We were riding down there by the slickrocks where the trail comes up onto the Milkranch point, when we saw a bunch of cattle quite a ways off. Their location give us a good chance to go around by a draw towards Hammond Canyon on the north, and we climbed up over the hill and got right onto the bunch before they saw us. They were in a little sagebrush flat, and we all made a break for them. I got after a big Bar-X-Bar steer about three years old. He belonged to Hardy Redd's Dark Canyon outfit.

Hardy was in our party, but not right on the spot with us at the time, and I knew he would want this steer pretty bad. So I took after him. I was riding a fairly good horse and I thought I could catch the steer. I ran him for about a quarter of a mile and caught up quite close to him, but he was just loafing along. When he looked back over his shoulder and saw me, he lit out and just run away from me.

"The trees weren't too thick there, not bad at all, and I was plumb surprised. But it was the first day I had ridden that horse this spring, and I thought maybe he would settle down a little bit and I could do better.

So when the steer got out of sight I followed his tracks for a few miles on down toward Cottonwood, where the trees were a little thicker but there weren't so many rocks. It wasn't a bad place to run where I caught up with him a second time. But he was high-headed and high-horned, and he took off like he was real fresh and soon got out of sight again. I followed him the third time, and each time I caught up with that steer he'd run away from me. He just clear outrun me.

"So I give up. My horse was about run down anyway, and I went back to camp. Well, that night I got to tellin' about him, and Hardy was kinda mad. He says, 'Been your own steer you'd a got 'im. They just don't get away from you, John.'

"I said, 'I wish I had been on my other horse. I could a caught 'im on that other horse.'

"Well, the next day we moved camp. We moved several miles further down and then rode out in the trees. And if I didn't jump that steer again!

This time I was on my best horse, old Ike. But I did the same thing over again. I run that steer three or four times, good heats, and every time I caught up to him he run away from me. He was long-legged, and highheaded, and built like a horse, and when he saw me comin' he just run away from me.

"So he got away again. Hardy was mad at me for sure then. He says, 'Don't anything get away from that old horse if you want him.' He says| 'You didn't try. You let'im go.'

WILD COWS

267

"But we moved camp again the next day, on down into the head of the Butler Wash. That's where Old Posey, the runnygade Ute that started the last Indian war in the country was shot in 1922. Well, there's a lot of open country down through there, over next to the Comb. There's trees and then open flats, and that steer had moved right on into there. Well, the next day Hardy was ridin' the best horse he owned, a big old roan that was a good tree-horse. He was the best horse in our bunch and one of the best in the country. And Hardy jumped that steer. He run him for all he was worth for three or four miles right down through that open country, and the steer just run off and hid from him. He told me that night, 'I'd always been mad at you if I hadn't chased that steer myself.'

"A good many cowboys chased that steer after that for several years, and he had the reputation of being the fastest cow brute that ever run in the trees. He run there till he was about eight years old. And then one winter we were out there when it snowed deep and was right hard going.

And in that deep snow and rough country Frank and Wylie Redd struck that steer's trail and follered him until he got tired from breakin' trail for them. So they got up to him and roped him. But they hadn't had much experience with these wild critters and hardly knew what to do. They both roped him around the neck, and when they set back, one up and one down, they choked him to death right there. The steer couldn't give when they were pulling from opposite directions.

"So they got off and bled 'im and skinned 'im and hung 'im up in a tree and went to camp. Then they brought back some mules and packed him out, and that was the end of the fastest steer that ever run in that country."

(PARKER HAMILTON PHOTOGRAPH)

THE CARLISLES: Cattle Barons of the Upper Basin

BY DON D. W A L K E R

Southward toward the deep center of the Upper Colorado Basin, two magnificent ranges lift their forested shoulders out of the painted world of red sand and rock. Between what is now Moab and the Colorado border the La Sals rise to more than 13,000 feet, and to the south and west the Blue Mountains stand dark against the desert sky. Although some cattle were in this region earlier, the ranching history of the La Sals really begins with the arrival in 1877 of Tom Ray, his family, and 60 head of Durham milk cows. Seeking good pasture, the Rays moved southeastward around the mountains to Deer Creek, near what is now La Sal. Soon the Maxwells came with 2,000 head of cattle to settle on Coyote Creek, also on the south slope of the La Sal Mountains. And that same year the Taylors and John Shafer drove 3,000 head of cattle to the northeast side of these mountains. 1 By the late 1870's, great herds of cattle had also reached the Blue Mountains. First there, apparently, were Pat and Mike O'Donnel. 2 Then in 1879 Spud Hudson, who had ranched on the "Picket Wire" near Trinidad, Colorado, brought in 2,000, making his headquarters at the Double Cabins, a few miles north of what is now Monticello. The next year a man named Peters drove another 2,000 head to the Blues, and left his name on Peter's Spring and Peter's Hill. 3 Yet farther south, in these same years, the longhorns of Texas poured across the San Juan on their way to the Utah ranges. A local historian of that region has described their coming: the g r e a t b a w l i n g h e r d , a m i l e l o n g , c a m e s t r a g g l i n g d o w n t h e river t h r o u g h Bluff â&#x20AC;&#x201D; yellow c a t t l e , w h i t e , b l a c k , b r i n d l e ; all of t h e m s t a r v i n g a n d hollow from t h e l o n g t r a i l ; all of t h e m coyote-like in f o r m , little b e t t e r in size.

A n d h o r n s ! s u c h a r i v e r of h o r n s as y o u m i g h t see in a n i g h t m a r e â&#x20AC;&#x201D; h o r n s r e a c h i n g o u t a n d u p , o u t a n d u p a g a i n in fantastic corkscrews. 4

Some of these cattle trailed on to Elk Mountain; 5 other longhorns took up range southward and eastward from South Montezuma Creek.6 In 1883, according to one count, there were 15,000 cattle in San Juan County,7 the herds of pioneer cattlemen who had moved in or of small Dr. Walker is presently working on a literary history of the cowboy.

Frank Silvey, "History and Settlement of Northern San Juan County, . . ." (typescript, Utah State Historical Society), 3-4. s K u m e n Jones, " T h e San Juan Mission to the Indians" (typescript, Utah State Historical Society), 102; Cornelia Adams Perkins, et al., Saga of San Juan (Salt Lake City, 1957), 89. Pat O'Donnel had come into the Mancos Valley in 1876. Mike was later killed in a shooting fray. Ira S. Freeman, A History of Montezuma County, Colorado (Boulder, 1958), 28, 54.

3 Silvey, "History of San Juan County," 8.

4 Albert R. Lyman, "The Fort on the Firing Line," Improvement Era, L H (December, 1949), 820.

5 Ibid. ' Silvey, "History of San Juan County," 8. ' Utah Gazetteer, 1884, 296.

1

270

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

ranchers just getting a start. 8 In either case, the cattleman was his own company, and he was usually both owner and manager. The only stock involved had four feet, an endless hunger for grass, and probably more horns than it needed. But the time was ripe for economic changes on the plains and in the canyons of the grazing West.

On May 31,1883, a news story in the Durango Daily Herald reported a significant new development in the range history of the Upper Colorado Basin. Eli Iliff and Harold Carlisle, identified as "the great English capatalist," had just returned from the Blue Mountains, where they had purchased 7,000 head of cattle. 9 Behind this story was an interesting turn in international economics, for back of Carlisle's purchases was £150,000, $720,000 of British capital, invested in a new company, The Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company, Limited, just one of the many large companies putting Scottish and English money into the range industry of the American West.

Only a couple of months earlier Carlisle had been in London helping to organize the new company. Some time before 1883, he and his brother, Edmund Septimus Carlisle, had acquired nearly two sections of ranching property in Sedgwick County, Kansas. Now this property, plus the buildings and stock on it, became the Kansas part of the company. For $38,250 the Carlisles sold their holdings, taking in payment 796 shares, valued at £10 each, in the new company. In addition the company picked up the rights to a vast area of land along the south side of the San Juan River, this being the New Mexico part of the new enterprise. 10 With only something more than $700,000 of capital, this company was a rather small venture in the growing boom. Bigger outfits like the Matador and Prairie companies controlled at least a million acres of land, with a capitalization of $2.5 million. In 1884 a brokerage firm estimated the Scottish money in American cattle at $25 million, in an area from Montana south to Texas. 11 In New Mexico alone, one paper reported, ° A good example of this early range venture can be found in the ranching starts of Dudley Reece and Green Robinson After Spud Hudson brought his cattle to the Blues, he left for the settlements to buy more cattle. With him were Reece and Robinson, to whom he loaned $5,000 each with which to buy their own cattle. These cattle, along with those of Hudson, were driven back to the Blues. Silvey, "History of San Juan County," 8. ° Daily Herald (Durango), May 31, 1883. ,0 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company (m.crofilm, Colorado State Historical Society).

-n ^ ° g e . r Y - , C l e m e n t s . "British Investment and American Legislative Restrictions in the ^ t M ? n T S T W C 1 ' 1 8 8 0 - 1 9 0 0 ; " Mississippi Valley Historical Review, x t u (SepteZber, h e m o s t com •™ • i \ T Pi"ehensive account of British investment is W Turrentine Tackson "British Interests in the Range Cattle Industry," When Grass Was King (Boulder 1956 W n en' sive studies of British-owned cattle companies are L. F. Sheffy, The Franklyn Land & Cattle Com TaZ ( N o r m a n ! W W ™ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ' ^ ™ ' ^o?Land and Cattt Col-

THE CARLISLES

271

"English syndicates and noblemen" owned 21 million acres of grazing land.12 Clearly the beef bonanza had become internationally known. Newspapers, magazines, and books having aroused dreams of ranching riches, all sorts of English men and women were ready to buy a piece of the American West. Some of these appeared on the roll of stockholders of the Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company: gentlemen, merchants, lawyers, manufacturers, and farmers. Two occupations of Carlisle stock owners are particularly interesting: one member of the Carlisle family, Arthur D. Carlisle, was listed as a tutor at Hailybury College, and another stock owner, the holder of 50 shares, was Mary Bridgett, Liverpool, occupation spinster. As the great herds marched bawling across canyons and deserts, as violence flared in this wild world of men and cattle, always back there in Liverpool was Mary Bridgett, spinster. What did she know, one wonders, of all that far away frontier venture in which she held her 50 shares?

The London records show no exact figures of stock and acres, but from other evidence we can size-up this British-owned spread. The 7,000 head of cattle which Carlisle had purchased in Utah were the herds of Peters, Dudley Reece, Green Robinson, and a half interest in the herd of Spud Hudson. 13 For these cattle the British syndicate paid $210,000," with as much as $35.00 going for yearlings.15 In addition to these Utah cattle and nearly 400 head in Kansas, 16 the company had sizable herds in New Mexico.17 In the spring of 1884, the Las Vegas (New Mexico) Stockman reported the company had over 11,000 head of cattle ready for the spring market. 18 In the spring of 1885, when the Carlisle cattle were 12

Optic, as quoted in The Breeder's Gazette, V I I I (July 23, 1885), 121.

Silvey, "History of San Juan County," 41. u Daily Herald, May 31, 1883.

15 Silvey, "History of San Juan County," 41. These prices reflect the economic optimism of 1883. From 1876 to 1881, according to Silvey, cattle sold for about $10.00 a head in the Utah "settlements." Ibid., 7. The year of the Carlisle purchases John Clay bought cattle for the " V W " outfit, paying $21.00 for yearling Iowan cattle and $27.00 for three-, four-, and five-year-old Texan steers. John Clay, My Life on the Range (Norman, 1962), 83-84. In the autumn of 1883, considerable selling took place on the ranges of the West "at prices that still were extravagantly high â&#x20AC;&#x201D; around $30.00 per head, calves counted with the rest, range delivery." James W. Freeman, ed., Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry (New York, 1959), 671. Better cattle had been selling still higher. In Texas the improved beef of Harrold & Ikard averaged $40.00 per head. Lester Fields Sheffy, The Francklyn Land & Cattle Company (Austin, 1963), 70.

13

16

The Articles of Association show 150 "superior grade" cows, 90 "superior grade" yearlings, and 140 two-year-old steers. " The Durango Daily Herald, May 31, 1883, reported "several thousand head" at the New Mexico ranch, up the Giago (Gallegos) Canyon south of Farmington. That year Edmund Carlisle bought from the Slane brothers a thousand head running on the Gallegos Canyon range. Carlisle to Governor Edmund G. Ross, February 13, 1886 (Ross Papers, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives).

18 As reported in The Breeder's Gazette, V (May 1, 1884), 674.

272

U T A H HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

rounded-up near the foot of Peter's Hill (north of Monticello), there were nearly 10,000 head. That year the calf tally was 5,300.19 According to Al Scorup, when about 1896 the Carlisles moved their cattle out, they drove 30,000 head to market. 20 If these statistics do not speak vividly, let us try another measure.

Within this livestock empire the cattle were moved from range to range, in the spring to the Blue Mountains, in the fall to Pueblo Bonito. Twice a year the great herd moved through Mancos, Colorado. As Louisa Wade Wetherill remembered, the schoolhouse was closed for the three days it took for the cattle to pass — three days of danger for children who might get in the way of the tramping feet. During that holiday the children watched the great herd pass. In the spring when the Mancos River was booming high, their chief amusement was to watch the cattle swimming across. 21

This amusement was touched with suspense, for the watching children knew that cattle rustlers waited their chance to drive away bunches of the cattle and change their brands from "Three-Bar" to "Seven-CrossSeven." 22

DON D. W A L K E R

Corral in the Carlisle roundup

country.

Peter's Hill is in the

background.

Although 11 different brands were registered in Utah Territory by the Carlisle Company in 1884,23 the "Three-Bar" became the herald of British ownership, the brand of the largest herd of cattle in eastern Utah or western Colorado. 21 Peters, from whom some of the first Utah cattle 10

Silvey, "History of San Juan County," 42.

versify)",1^111'1111 D a Y ' " T h e ^ " ^

IndUStry

°f

Sa

"

J u a n Count

y " <thesis'

Bri

S h a ™ Young Uni-

» Frances Gillmore and Louisa Wade Wetherill, Traders to the Navajos (Boston, 1934) 27.

Ibid.

23 Nine brands were registered on September 19, 1884, another two on December 31 of that

\l%in^L^^efrdS' 21

UtaH T£rrit0ry DeCe;nber

Silvey, "History of San Juan County," 42.

'

"'

^-»^*l^

THE CARLISLES

273

were purchased, had owned the brand, three bars on the left hip. But as if to make a mark to be seen across great mesas and great canyons, the Carlisles separated the bars, putting one bar on the hip, one on the side, and the third on the shoulder. 25 And soon the company was known as the "Hip-Side and Shoulder Cattle Company." 26 The first bearers of this bold brand were probably a mixed lot. The original herds of Hudson, Robinson, Reece, and Peters were Durhams. 27 An additional 2,000 head Reece contracted for driving from Salt Lake to the Blues were probably Durhams too.23 But undoubtedly these shorthorns got mixed with ordinary western and southwestern cattle of the longer-horned sort. In fond Texas memory, the longhorn is a magnificent beast, tough, aggressive, able to walk thousands of miles while still putting on weight. And his meat, also in fond Texas memory, has a special flavor.

But to the cattle buyer, especially Scotch and English buyers with a long tradition of well-bred cattle behind them, a herd of longhorns was not always impressive. By the early 1880's the longhorn was being replaced by other breeds, the shorthorn, the Galloway, the Angus, and particularly the Hereford. In January 1885, the Wyoming Hereford Association extended its operations into Utah. The first carloads of Hereford bulls and heifers arrived in February, followed by another shipment in April.29 A similar action to upgrade range cattle came to the ranches of the Colorado Basin, partly the consequence of prejudice and preference in beef breeds, partly the result of legislation. By the middle of 1884, Colorado had passed a law preventing low-grade bulls from running at large on the public domain. The Colorado Live-Stock Record predicted that as a result of such a law 5,000 bulls would be imported that year.30 A week later the Record observed: W e s t e r n C o l o r a d o is filling u p w i t h c a t t l e a n d w h a t is n o t i c e a b l e a b o u t it is t h a t t h e r e a r e n o n e b u t t h e best b l o o d e d a n i m a l s g o i n g in. I n o n e year from n o w t h e w e s t e r n slope will h a v e m o r e of t h e S h o r t - h o r n s , t h e H e r e f o r d s , t h e 25

Ibid.

At one point in Fred Keller's song of the region, the cowboy says: For the brand L. C. I ride With Sleeper calves on my side I'll own Hip-Side and Shoulder When I grow older Zippatara don't tan my hide.

Walter W. Hiller, "A Brief History of San Juan County" (typescript, Brigham Young University).

27 Manuscript History of the LaSal National Forest (typescript, LaSal National Forest office, Moab, U t a h ) , 8.

28 Daily Herald, July 30, 1883.

29 Kansas City Indicator, as reported in The Breeder's Gazette, V I I (February 12, 1885), 236; Cheyenne Live-Stock Journal, as reported in The Breeder's Gazette, V I I (April 9, 1885), 552.

30 As reported in The Breeder's Gazette, V (June 12, 1884), 923.

274

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Galloways and the Polled-Angus cattle than will all the plains country east of the mountains.31

Utah passed a similar range law in 1892, requiring a bull (at least a halfblood) for every 20 cows. But well before the passing of the Utah law, the Carlisle brothers had begun the improvement of their herds. In February 1884, a report told of plans to ship a large number of fine bulls to their ranches.32 Another report indicated the superintendent of the New Mexico Land and Cattle Company had gone to Missouri to purchase high-grade bulls.33 Sometime after he began working for the Carlisles, Emmet Wirt, with Frank Allen and Frank Townsend, traveled to Fort Wingate, near Gallup, where they took delivery of 16 or 18 bulls. Brought back to the Gallegos, these were the first Herefords to reach the San Juan country.34 In 1885 Frank Silvey helped drive 75 head of yearling Herefords from Colorado to the Blue Mountain ranges.35 However, if new bulls were coming to the herds, if a new and different blood was being added to the cattle, the old breed of men still rode the Carlisle ranges. At the level of man to cow in the new cattle empire, it was still old-time know-how, mostly Texan, that handled things. John Mosley, apparently one of the first Carlisle foremen, was a pioneer cowman of Kansas.36 Foreman in 1885 at the Utah headquarters, east of Monticello at Piute Spring, was Mack Goode, an old Texas cowboy, with a crew of men nearly all from Texas.37 The next year the outfit moved its headquarters to the Double Cabins, six miles north of Monticello, and W. E. Gordon became foreman.38 Gordon, better known as "Latigo" Gordon, epitomized the tough, colorful men who rode the Carlisle ranges. Good-looking, intelligent, and ordinarily kind and peaceable, he nevertheless had his streak of wildness, brought out particularly by a keg of "red eye." On his right hand he had no fingers, and according to story his body was marked by several bullet scars. The fingers he had lost to a rope loop while showing how to throw a cow. The bullet marks he had got in a shooting fray at the Double 31

Ibid. (June 19, 1884), 961.

Barber County (Kansas) Index, in The Breeder's Gazette, V (February 14, 1884), 232.

33 Las Vegas (New Mexico) Stockman, in The Breeder's Gazette, V (May 1, 1884), 674.

M Frank McNitt, The Indian Traders (Norman, 1962), 311.

33 History of the La Sal National Forest, 8.

30 Barber County Index, in The Breeder's Gazette, V (February 14, 1884), 232. â&#x20AC;&#x17E; u , " S i l v f > \ "History of San Juan County," 4 1 . In September 1883, Goode was still in Texas.

Mack Goode is here again reported the Mobeetie Panhandle, "having just returned from a visit to the Li, and Rail and Splinter ranches in the upper country." The Breeder's Gazette, IV (Sepv tember 6, 1883), 296.

32

33

Silvey, "Add Folklore ( U t a h ) " (typescript, Utah State Historical Society), 3.

RHgi

I

DON D. W A L K E R

Buildings

at present-day

Carlisle, originally

the Double

Cabins.

Cabins. After that fracas, a Denver doctor gave Gordon one week to live.

The Carlisle foreman is reported to have replied: "G — d d — n you, I'll be riding the range when you are dead." Two years later the doctor died.

Gordon still rode the range. 39 During its first 10 years of operation, this English cattle company felt most of the tensions and became involved in many of the conflicts of the rapidly changing frontier.

The first of these developed as the result of the application on the rangeland of a new American invention, an invention which perhaps more than any other single factor transformed the cowman's world. In the history of the cattle trade, one can properly speak of time B.B.W., before barbed wire, and time A.B.W., after barbed wire. In 1874 Joseph F. Glidden won his first fight over barbed wire patents and began putting the great rolls of barbed fencing on the market. After a slow start, the result of initial unwillingness of the cowman to string the spiked stuff across his free world, the manufacture and use of barbed wire increased rapidly, from only 40,000 tons in 1880 to 190,000 tons in 1890.40 The advantage of the wire to the small farmer was the protection it gave him against the crop-eating and crop-trampling livestock of other men. The advantage to the big cattle companies was the exclusion of the homesteader and small rancher from the great ranges needed for the immense herds of cattle. If there had been enough rangeland to divide fairly, all would have been well. Or if big and little could have fought each other with equal economic power — in this instance equal miles of barbed wire — a crude competitive justice might still have prevailed. But eco' Henry L. A. Culmer, Diary (typescript, Utah State Historical Society), 7-9. ' Fred A. Shannon, The Farmer's Last Frontier (New York, 1945), 205.

276

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

nomically the matching was clearly unequal: the small rancher rarely had money for wire and the large company was often backed by impressive sums of domestic or foreign capital.

Unfortunately, the story of the Carlisle Cattle Company is not clear at this point. Because of scarcity of information, we do not know exactly how much range was fenced, if any, and what measures were taken to resist the fencing. However, there were reports of "immense" or "very large" areas of the public lands enclosed.41 James L. McDowell, special agent of the U.S. Land Office, wrote from Durango, on August 4, 1883: "Whilst in Montezuma Valley and on the Dolores River, I was informed by reliable persons that the Carlisle Cattle Company . . . were fencing a large tract of land in the vicinity of Blue Mountain." This land, he observed, "is said to be the best grazing land in the Southwest;... most of the herds in the San Juan country are in that vicinity, or going there, and there is likely to be trouble and complaint if the Carlisle Company is allowed to inclose and control the range." 42 But if there were outbreaks of violence, if Utah cowboys rode armed with wire cutters as well as Winchesters, we do not know. The Texas fence cutters won national notice; on February 3, 1884, the Salt Lake Tribune reprinted on its front page a defense of their action. And in other areas of the West, threats and counter-threats grew heated. At intervals along some fences were posted signs such as "The Son of a Bitch who opens this fence had better look out for his scalp." 43 The next conflict was more traditional, one more instance of a centuries-old clash of frontier interests. The Salt Lake Daily Herald of July 8, 1884, carried a story headlined RAIDED BY REDS, a report of a Ute Indian attack upon the roundup camp of Wilson, Carlisle, and Johnson.

Two whites were badly wounded, said the news story; five Indians were killed and a number wounded. However, other accounts gave a somewhat different view of the affair. The Indians, bronco Indians, camped a mile from the cattle roundup, were invited to eat with the roundup crew. After dinner four cowboys rode back with the Utes to their camp. But then the social graces dissolved when one of the cowboys, believing he saw one of his own horses in the Indian horse herd, uncoiled a lariat. Drawing his knife, a mounted Indian spurred toward the cowboy, only to be shot by another of the cowboys. Then, as one might say, the show really got exciting. Chased by the Indians, the four cowboys raced back to their camp.

11

U.S., Congress, House, 48lh Cong., 1st Sess., 1883-84, House Report 1325, p. 2.

U.S., Congress, Senate, 48th Cong., 1st Sess., 1883-84, Sen. Ex. Doc. 181, pp. 2 - 3 .

43 Shannon, Farmer's Last Frontier, 218.

12

THE CARLISLES

277

There the roundup crews, with only seven rifles besides their revolvers, fought off the Utes until they could flee across the Colorado line, leaving to the Indians their horse herd and chuck wagons. The casualties so far: two wounded cowboys and three dead Indians.4'1 Some 12 days later, 84 cavalrymen and 45 cowboys caught up with the Indians out in the rimrock country where they had taken up their defenses. There two more whites, a cowboy and a civilian packer, were shot as they tried to penetrate the barricades on foot. With this failure, the whites retreated, and the Indians went their own way.45 The battle had ended, but the trouble had not. Late in August, Harold Carlisle telegraphed to Denver reporting that the Utes had driven off more stock horses and killed more cattle. "Unless the military take some prompt and decisive steps," the report said, "the white settlers will be driven out of the country and their property destroyed." 4C This of course was an old cry, one which had been repeated again and again since the first Indians had tried to hold or regain their lands. For a cattleman like Carlisle, as for many settlers before him, the frontier lands were divided fairly: the Indians belonged on their reservations, and the cattle belonged on whatever else was left of the public domain. Treaties of 1863 and 1868 had created a reservation in Colorado and New Mexico for many of the Ute bands, but another treaty in 1873 had reduced this reservation by subtracting the San Juan region in Colorado. In 1875 the reservation had been enlarged by executive order; in 1882 another order had returned the added lands to the public domain. In 1880 the Southern Utes and the Uncompahgre had been settled on the La Plata and Grand rivers, and the Northern Utes, after the Meeker massacre, had been moved to the Uintah Reservation in Utah. In all of this action, however, the Indians had been "protected," if that is the right word, by being permitted to retain certain rights. For example, the treaty of 1873 had affirmed the right of the Indians to hunt upon lands which they had ceded, "so long as the game lasts and the Indians are at peace with the white people." 47 Clearly, the exercise of this right, on ranges filled with cattle, would lead to misunderstanding, if not bloodshed. " The narrative of battle here follows Forbes Parkhill, The Last of the Indian IVars (New York, 1961), 33-34. Other accounts differ in some details. Perhaps no one will ever know exactly how the skirmish happened. " Refinements of detail here, the numbers of cowboys and cavalrymen, and the identification of Wormington as a "civilian packer," come from the military documents.

"Colorado Live-Stock Journal, as reported in The Breeders Gazette, VI (September 4, 1884), 340. '" Parkhill, Last of the Indian Wars, 32-33. See also Frederick Webb Hodge, "Ute," Handbook of American Indians, I I , 875.

Indeed, bloodshed was not long coming. Almost on the anniversary of the shooting in 1884 six more Indians were killed or "assassinated," as Rocky Mountain News put it.48 Indian Agent Stollsteimer's report of the shooting, said the News, proved that "early on the morning of June 19 a large party of cowboys fired into a teepee containing a number of sleeping Utes, and that six of the Indians were killed by the fusilade." 49 But on this frontier, newspapers as well as cowboys and Indians were fighting. If the News was sympathetic to the Indians, the Denver Tribune-Republican was sympathetic to the cowboys. On July 9, 1885, it carried a story in part as follows: Mr. Carlisle, who has large cattle interests in La Plata county and in Eastern Utah, has, it seems, taken the trouble to go to Indian Agent Stollsteimer to know if the articles which have appeared in the News of Denver, charging the cowboys with the killing, represent the views of the Indian Department.

The Agent thereupon requested him to telegraph to the Denver papers that he was convinced from his investigation that the -â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;˘ Indians were slain by a band of horse thieves which infests that section of the country.

This puts a different phase upon the situation. It is a vindication of the cowboys. This will be a great blow to the News, for it has set out to annihilate the cowboys of the Southwest. It believes that they and not the Utes should go. 50

;

On the same day, the News published Stollsteimer's statement that the villains were horse thieves, not cowboys.

Such conflicts, however, were not limited to clashes with the Utes.

Another choice piece of Carlisle range lay in Canon Gallegos, New Mexico, some 15 miles east of the Navaho reservation. When 50 Navaho families moved off the reservation and into the canyon, the Carlisle foreman called on the military to remove the trespassers. Harold Carlisle is reported to have said that "he would rather lose thirty-thousand dollars than have to give up this range, as it was a most desirable one." 6 1 But if the cattlemen resented Indians, they had equal objection to sheepherders. By 1886, through an expenditure of over $5,000, the same "7 U & t' l ? 8 5 ' *S r ?P r o d u ,9 e d j n Clifford P. Westermeier, Trailing the Cowboy, His Life and Lore as Told by Frontier Journalists (Caldwell, Idaho, 1955), 168-69.

"July 6, 1885, ibid., 169.

"Ibid., 170-71. n " F r t 2 L ? - fr?S\ " A Navaho Struggle for Land," New Mexico Historical Review, XXI (January, 1946), 10. According to Edmund Carlisle, they were removed under orders from the Department of Interior. Letter to Governor Ross, February 13, 1886 (Ross Papers)

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U . S . D E P A R T M E N T O F AGRICULTURE CONSERVATION SERVICE

This water hole is located on desert winter range which receives about five to seven inches total annual precipitation.

Water is either hauled to the cattle daily on a tank truck or stored in livestock watering ponds as shown in this picture. The water used here is stored in a storage reservoir and then transported through a canal system to a number of ponds located at strategic points on the winter range area. This helps to achieve better distribution of cattle over the range during the grazing season.

Gallegos Canyon range had been improved with air pumps (windmills) and water tanks.52 Then Mexicans began to bring their sheep herds onto this pasture which the Carlisles regarded as their own. On January 31, 1886, the Rocky Mountain News had another story, a new story but reported with the same old bias: "Mr. Carlisle's cowboys in the Southwestern part of the state have been fighting again, this time with some sheepmen, who dared to intrude upon that portion of the public domain which Mr. Carlisle claims as his particular cattle range." 53 More detail appeared in a New Mexico newspaper: Down near Farmington the other day a cowboy named Lee Hamblett engaged in a personal altercation with a Mexican sheepherder, the latter firing at the former, so it is said. Bullets flew around promiscuously. Lee 52 53

Edmund Carlisle to Governor Ross, February 13, 1886 (Ross Papers).

Westermeier, Trailing the Cowboy, 181.

280

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY and three companions of the saddle were driven to a pump house, where they fortified themselves and killed three of the attacking Mexicans. A socalled militia company of Farmington was called out about this time to "protect" somebody's interests — the dickens only knows whose — and for several days the beleaguered cowboys were held at bay in their stronghold.54

But no number of such news reports could give the whole significance here. On this frontier, long after the last bullet had been fired, long after the last sheepherder had bit the dust, the battle of letters and telegrams would go on. The trouble started on January 23; on January 27, after a hearing before a justice of the peace, the cowboys were released. Then on February 5, Governor Ross of New Mexico wrote to the Carlisles expressing his concern and saying that he trusted they would find it to their interest "to employ men . . . who will not disregard the law or the rights of others on the public domain." Edmund Carlisle telegraphed from Durango on February 9: "It is reported in newspaper that you have issued a reward for the capture [of] the white men who took part in recent fight.

These men have already been tried before the justice and honorably acquitted through the testimony of the Mexicans themselves. Will you not stay all further proceedings and suspend your judgment until you have an opportunity of perusing the evidence taken before the justice." On the same day the governor's office issued a printed response and warning. To the governor, the behavior of the cowboys had betrayed the arrogance and threat with which so often the cattle interests had held their control. "I understand very well," wrote the governor, "and so do you, what a cowboy or cattle herder with a brace of pistols at his belt and a Winchester in his hand, means when he 'asks' a sheep herder to leave a given range. It means instant compliance or very unpleasant consequences to the herder and his flock. That has been the unvarying history of the controversy between cattle and sheep men in the Territory." Furthermore, the governor questioned the justice of the hearing which had acquitted the cowboys.

He had learned that the cowboys had taken "into the courtroom, at their pretended trial, their arms and equipment — wearing their pistols and ammunition in their belts and their Winchester in their hands — that a cocked Winchester was held upon one of the Mexican witnesses while testifying, and that the Mexicans actually gave their testimony under duress and in danger of their lives — " "You sent these men," the governor accused Edmund Carlisle, "with your cattle, upon a quarter of the public domain that has been occupied exclusively by these Mexican sheep herders for a generation or more — to which you had no shadow of priority of 54

Newspaper clipping (Ross Papers).

THE CARLISLES

281

right or title, not even, if I am correctly informed, the common right of American citizenship."

Carlisle fired back a barrage of letters and telegrams. Lee Hamblett, the cowboy who had started the fracas, was not even employed by the company. The Carlisle men, when they had become involved in defense of the pump house, had fired in self-defense. The range was not the traditional pasture of the Mexicans. And the governor was incorrectly informed : Edmund Carlisle was an American citizen. Still others, apparently at the behest of Carlisle, got into the act. J. D. Warner, of the Beef Cattle and Horse Growers Association of New Mexico, sent the governor a telegram from Las Vegas. But the governor held his ground. To Warner he wrote: "I have, officially and otherwise, sufficient information to satisfy me that the Carlisle Cattle Company is what is known in common parlance as a 'hurrah outfit,' reckless, and to a degree irresponsible." 5S In this judgment the governor was not alone. In other conflicts of rights and values on the Basin frontier, the Carlisles and their cowboys sometimes seemed arrogant, lawless, and wild. And perhaps the wildest of all images of the San Juan cowboys was that left in the memories of the Mormon settlers at Bluff and Monticello.

About 1890, at the close of the quarterly stake conference in Bluff, arrangements were made for a "rousing dance and social party to wind up the conference gathering." 56 In the spirit of good will, the Mormon leaders sent out invitations to the cowcamps. However, someone apparently underestimated the numbers and social enthusiasm of the San Juan cowhands.57 When it appeared that the affair would be overrun with outsiders, the invitation was modified, to the natural resentment of those who were invited to stay away. When the dance was held, some cowboys were permitted inside to dance; others remained outside to jeer. But "the hostile party," remembered Kumen Jones, " . . . carried the trouble no farther than 'shooting' with their mouths, until after the party was out, when they mounted their ponies and yelling and shooting off their guns rode out of town at full speed." 58 55

Governor Ross to J. D. Warner, February 16, 1886 (Ross Papers).

Jones, "San Juan Mission," 217.

57 In fact as well as in legend, the romance of the cowboy is not all gunfire. Into these deserts and canyons, along with his chaps and spurs and guns, he carried his loneliness, his ultimate hunger for a few hours of feminine friendship, if not love. In Fred Keller's song, the cowboy says: I drum with Latigo Gordon I drink at the "Blue Goose Saloon" At night I dance with the Mormon girls And ride home beneath the moon.

58 Jones, "San Juan Mission," 217.

56

282

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

At Monticello, however, events were not even this peaceful. According to a local historian, when the town was first settled, Harold Carlisle and "his horde of cheap, riffraff employees" decided the settlement was a threat to the Carlisle "empire." Under orders, company "gunmen" shutoff the stream flowing to the town and threatened anyone daring to break their dam. Furthermore, to intimidate the townspeople, they "raced back and forth in the streets of Monticello, firing their pistols, and pouring forth Comanche howls which the coyotes in the hills heard with envy." 59 On one occasion the Carlisle cowboys came into Monticello and shot up the schoolhouse. According to story, someone tied a bottle to the school bell and challenged the marksmen. Then extending the target, the cowboys shot through the windows until the students thought their end was at hand. 60 On another occasion, a woman counted 75 cowboys racing and shooting in the streets, counted them "by the light of their own guns." 61 If these last escapades were noisy but harmless cowboy capers, other adventures were not. At the July 24th dance in Monticello in 1894, a Carlisle cowboy named Tom Roach, becoming drunk and rowdy, was ordered off the dance floor. However, "he had the invincible strength and courage of a pint of whiskey," writes a historian of the region, "and he had his six-shooter within the swing of his right hand. He threatened the floor manager, he threatened the whole houseful of celebrators, and ordered them at gun point out of the room. He held the terrified company in the moonlight, swearing he would shoot anyone who tried to leave the crowd."

When Roach's friend Joe McCord attempted to reason with him, Roach attacked McCord, first with violent words, then with a bullet. And before the night's wildness had ended, Joe McCord was dead, and, in one of those tragic accidents with which such nights are flawed, so was Mrs. Jane Walton, the mother of two grown daughters and a son. No one seemed to know for certain who fired the bullet that tore through her heart. 62 In the perspective of such events, it may seem unlikely that the world of the cowboy and the world of the Mormon settler ever met except to clash, as if the chasm that separated them was like one of the deep canyons that ran through their land. Yet the complete story shows that, challenged by lawless outside forces, even "lawless" cowboys and law-abiding Mormons could come to cooperation and understanding. m

Albert R. Lyman, Indians and Outlaws (Salt Lake City 1962) 101-2 Culmer, Diary, 9.

81 Lyman, Indians and Outlaws, 104 .

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THE CARLISLES

283

About 1886, William Ball, foreman at the L. C. Ranch, was killed while chasing horse thieves. A posse of cowboys, led by Mack Goode, Carlisle foreman, rode down into Bluff and asked for guides to help in running down the killers. Amasa M. Barton and Kumen Jones agreed to go along. Led by these Bluff Mormons, the posse then rode west and north, down Red Canyon to the Colorado River. Here they hailed Cass Hite in his boat across the river and promptly arrested him. For apparently helping the thieves and killers across the river, the cowboys were ready to lynch Hite then and there. How31 VJR \<unj f.*°,»< ever, Barton and Jones objected, and after talking with the guides Goode cooled d o w n e n o u g h to yAuTytttVtttX J%e? e/imeSaJa^^Jiary^txa/^tt. agree, but not without a warning to Hite: "In case any of the boys of this party are under the necessity of following horse thieves or other outlaws to this ferry in the future and find that he has put them over the river and taken no step to notify the proper authorities, he need look for no mercy a g a i n . " At c a m p that night, friendly conversation developed. Apparently the cowboys were curious about the Mormons; obviously the Mormons were willing to talk about themselves. " O n breaking c a m p the next morning," Jones would reAgreement between the Carlisle brothers and Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Co.

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UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

member, "the friendship of the great majority of the boys was apparently warm and sincere, and altho I have never met but very few of that posse I feel sure most of them would always remember some of the things they heard that quiet night at the Dripping Spring in the wilderness west of Bluff."63 The mid-nineties brought more changes in the course of men and cattle. A period of drought blighted the ranges. The price of beef remained low. Then sheep began coming in. According to one report, in 1883 there were only 900 sheep in San Juan County; 64 by 1900 there were nearly 60,000. Cattle would continue to graze the canyonlands but never again in such freedom and in such numbers.

The cattle barons were gone too. For four years in the early nineties, the Carlisle Company had been shipping out its stock. Then its remaining interests were sold to local Mormon ranchers. The beef empire in the Basin was now history. But when in 1900 the Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company, Limited, ceased its operations, Mary Bridgett, spinster, still held her 50 shares. Obviously she had not grown rich; perhaps she was a good bit poorer. What had it all meant to her? What had it been like to own some of the cattle that trailed and bawled through those redrock canyons 8,000 miles away? Here our history must end.

ra 84

Jones, "San Juan Mission," 215-16.

Utah Gazetteer, 1884, 296.

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The Soil Conservation Service and the Forest Service are actively engaged in reseeding depleted forest and rangeland, such as this area on Pleasant Creek, Sanpete County.

Livestock and the Public Lands

BY N . K E I T H ROBERTS A N D B . DEL W O R T H GARDNER

286

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Nature's precarious balance in the high arid country that is today's Utah went relatively undisturbed until 1847. Prior to then, Indians had been the only residents in the area. And the Indians tried to blend with nature rather than to change her.

The Mormon pioneers, however, looked upon the land with a far different perspective. They thought in terms of security and permanence, and this necessitated irrigation systems and herds of cattle and sheep. By the mid-1880's, all of the accessible range areas of Utah were being grazed by domestic stock. The increasingly heavy and uncontrolled usage was soon visibly exhausting nature's capacity to rejuvenate herself each year.

The need for some sort of regulation of the use of the public range soon became evident. Each rancher knew that every blade of grass his stock did not harvest would be taken by some other rancher's animals.

With free and unrestricted access of the range to everybody, the resulting competition inevitably produced range destruction. Thus, farsighted individuals, both ranchers and non-ranchers, turned to the federal government as the only agency powerful enough to exercise control over this rich and widely used resource. Governmental agencies became increasingly involved and the elements of today's public land policy began to take shape.

HISTORICAL C H A N G E S IN PUBLIC LAND POLICY

Originally, governmental land policy in the United States was concerned primarily with the disposal of land. Thus, the federal government gave land to states and private agencies to encourage expansion of transportation and communication facilities, broadening of educational opportunities, and attainment of other socially desirable goals. As with other states, Utah benefited from railroad grants, school grants, and grants to other state institutions when she attained statehood in 1896.1 The key law which influenced all subsequent settlement was the Homestead Act of 1862, signed by Abraham Lincoln. This act permitted settlement of 160 acres by anyone who would reside there and cultivate the land for five years. More than a half-century later, in 1916, a stock raising homestead law permitted settlement of 640 acres and eliminated the 1862 cultivation requirement. In 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act forProfessors Roberts and Gardner are in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Center for Social Science Research on Natural Resources, Utah State University Logan The authors wish to thank Lois M. Cox, Agricultural Experiment Station technical writer who read an earlier draft of this paper. ' 1

E. B. Wennergren and N. K. Roberts, Federal Grant Lands in Utah (Logan, 1963).

LIVESTOCK AND THE PUBLIC LANDS

287

bade settlement of public land in advance of classification by the United States Department of Interior. 2 The problem was that the acreages permitted under these laws were too small to sustain private farming enterprises in the range areas. The demand for homestead on range lands was pretty well limited to ranchminded individuals who were interested in using the surface resources of these lands for grazing. Thus, it was largely livestockmen who homesteaded the livable areas of the West, including Utah, and established a ranching system that necessarily combined public and private land resources. This system is still predominant. During the winter a rancher grazes his stock on publicly-owned desert range, or feeds the animals on his home ranch. He shifts them to the publicly-owned forest lands when these become accessible in the summer.

In recent years population pressures and changing philosophies have shifted the emphasis of government policy from one of land disposal to one of land management. Improved transportation facilities, rising personal incomes, and more abundant leisure time all have whetted the popular interest in the public lands. Public agencies have been asked to assume more and broader based management responsibilities.

The development of this concept came slowly. The first national park (Yellowstone) was not established until 1872; the Forest Service was created in 1905; the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1928 provided for lands to be used as bird refuges; and in 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act provided for governmental management functions to be associated with public range lands. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Department of the Interior traces its origin to provisions of that act.3 LAND O W N E R S H I P IN U T A H

Before describing the evolution of the policies of the BLM and the Forest Service in Utah, it might be useful to note Utah's present pattern of land ownership. This pattern effectively emphasizes why the policies of these two agencies are so important to all of Utah's citizens.

As can be seen in Table 1, in 1961 the federal government controlled about 73 per cent of Utah's land area of 52.7 million acres.4 Almost half the total land area in the state was administered by the BLM that year.

The state-owned lands, which also support considerable livestock grazing, 2

U.S., Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Historical Highlights of Public Land Management (Washington, D.C., 1962), 1-39.

3 Ibid., 22-50.

4 U.S., Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, 1962 Public Land Statistics (Washington, D.C., 1962), 14-37.

288

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

are generally scattered throughout the BLM lands and are administered to a large extent by the federal government. 5 Lands held by the other governmental agencies, except the Forest Service, are used for special purposes and trusts, and relatively small amounts of grazing are permitted.

Obviously, then, the range livestock industries in Utah have been and are vitally concerned with the policies of two federal agencies — the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service. Because the lands administered by these agencies also supply such things as water and recreation, the rest of Utah's citizens and other people throughout the nation are becoming increasingly concerned with their usage.

TABLE 1 LAND OWNERSHIP STATUS, UTAH, 1961 (SOURCE: U.S., Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Land Management, Public Land Statistics, 1962 [Washington, D.C., 1962]; L. A. Reuss and George T. Blanch, Utah's Land Resources [Logan, 1951]; and N. K. Roberts and E. B. Wennergren, The Economics of Selecting and Administering State Lands for Grazing Use [Logan, 1963].)

Agency

Acres

Total Area Inland Water Total Land Area Total Federal Land Forest Service Bureau of Mines Bureau of Land Management Fish and Wildlife Service National Park Service Bureau of Indian Affairs Bureau of Reclamation Department of Defense Other Agencies Indian Tribal and Trust Lands State Lands Private Lands*

54,346,240 1,649,280 52,696,960 36,382,429 7,913,308 12,347 24,314,289 89,060 295,908 439 1 851 664 1 899 796 5 618 2 370 956 2,985,200 10,958,375

* Preliminary estimates.

T H E U N I T E D STATES FOREST SERVICE IN U T A H

Not until March 3, 1891, did Congress give the President of the United States power to establish forest reserves from land taken from the Lands )or f ^ U s e ^ n ,

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LIVESTOCK AND T H E PUBLIC LANDS

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public domain. Less than a month later, on March 30 of that year, President Benjamin Harrison created the first reserve, the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, an area of 1,239,040 acres in Wyoming. Over the next few years seven Utah forest reserves were set aside.6 These are listed in Table 2.

Approximately 8 million acres are presently included in these national forests in the State of Utah.7 TABLE 2 T H E E S T A B L I S H M E N T OF F O R E S T R E S E R V E S IN U T A H

Forest Reserve

Year Set Aside

Location of Headquarters

Uinta

1897

Provo

Fish Lake

1899

Richfield

Manti-LaSal Dixie Wasatch

..1903

Price

1905

Cedar City

1906

Salt Lake City

Ashley

.1908

Vernal

Cache

1908

Logan

6 U.S., Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Highlights in the History of Forest Conservation, Agricultural Information Bulletin No. 83 (Washington, D.C., 1961), 5-27. ' M a r i o n Clawson and Burnell Held, The Federal Lands (Baltimore, 1954), Appendix, Table l , p . 403.

Cattle grazing on forest land in the LaSal

Mountains.

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290

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

An act of Congress in June 1897, officially gave the federal government the legal authority to administer grazing. 8 Soon after that, Forest Reserve lands previously claimed by individual ranchers were available for grazing only to those who qualified for government issued permits.

Permits were allotted on the basis of prior use of forest lands, ownership of commensurate property, and the need for forage to satisfy the feed requirements of a sound ranching program. These permits became a valuable asset, and forest permits in Utah came to have a market value of $20.00 to $25.00 per animal unit month (AUM).° Fees have been charged for this grazing since about 1906, when fees ranged from 35 to 50 cents per head for cattle and 5 to 8 cents per head for sheep for a season's grazing each year.10 Following a study in 1927, fees were set at 14.5 cents per animal unit month for cattle and 4.5 cents per animal unit month for sheep. After 1933 grazing fees varied with livestock prices. In 1962 fees in Utah averaged 60 cents per animal unit month.

In order to facilitate and simplify the administration of grazing in the national forests, Congress approved the Granger-Thye Act in 1950. This provided for the election of local advisory boards and defined a framework which these boards could operate. Range improvements were also authorized, and a 10-year duration was established for grazing permits.

In bringing forest lands under protection and management, government officials sought to bring the depleted range back to its pristine productivity by gradually reducing the number of cattle and sheep that were permitted to graze. There was an increase in the number of cattle and sheep grazed during World War I. In 1924, 150,642 cattle and 749,825 sheep (equaling 300,607 animal units) grazed Utah's forests.11 Throughout the twenties, cattle numbers were rather sharply reduced while sheep numbers increased and reached a peak in 1930. By that year cattle numbers had dropped to 119,946 while sheep numbers had increased to 797,722.

Since 1930 both cattle and sheep numbers allowed to graze the forests have been constantly reduced, with sheep being cut back even more sharply than cattle. In 1940, for example, permitted cattle numbers fell to 118,192 and sheep to 713,331. In 1950 the respective figures were 119,"U.S., Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Service Manual, Title 8, Range Management (Washington, 1960), I I I , 3. ° One cow or five mature sheep grazing for one month.

10 W. L. Dutton, "History of Forest Service Grazing Fees," Journal of Range Management, VI (1953), 393-98. i s s 11 Technically these data include livestock under paid permit and non-use and come from private correspondence with Assistant Regional Forester F. C. Curtiss, Division of Range Management, Intermountain Region, Ogden, Utah.

LIVESTOCK AND THE PUBLIC LANDS

291

380 cattle and 545,662 sheep. In 1963 cattle grazing national forests numbered 105,580 head while sheep equaled 397,547 head. In terms of animal units, the 1963 total was only 62 per cent of the 1924 total.

Grazing on the national forests has been decreased even more than these reductions in sheep and cattle numbers suggest. The reason is that the length of the grazing season has also been varied. In 1923, for example, the length of the grazing season in the country as a whole was 5.36 months; in 1933, it was 4.92 months; in 1943, 4.64 months; in 1953, 4.34 months; and in 1960, 4.22 months. 12 Although data for Utah are not as complete, the average grazing period for cattle in the state in 1940 was 5.08 months; in 1950, 4.48 months; and in 1960, 4.07 months. For sheep in Utah the corresponding figures are 3.25 months in 1940; 2.98 months in 1950; and 2.82 months in 1960.

These sizeable grazing reductions on the national forests seem to rest primarily on two basic policy decisions. The first involved an attempt to correct the depletion of the forage resources that had resulted from unregulated, excessive grazing. The second involved recognition of the large increases in the uses that compete with livestock grazing for access to these lands.

FORAGE DEPLETION

One of the most interesting sources of evidence for widespread range depletion in Utah around the turn of the century comes from the diary of Albert F. Potter. 13 Potter made an extensive survey of the forest lands in Utah and recorded careful daily observations relative to grazing practices and the general condition of forage and timber resources. He comments 12 These estimates were computed by dividing total animal unit months of grazing by the number of animal units grazed.

13 This material is taken from the unpublished diary of Albert F. Potter, former associate chief of the Forest Service, recorded from J u l y 1, 1902, to U.S. D E P A R T M E N T O F AGRICULTURE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE November 22, 1902. A mimeographed copy of this diary was provided by Mr. Floyd Iverson, regional forester, Ogden, Utah.

This land was in the heart of the original dust bowl in the early 1930's. Many acres have been seeded, and crested wheat grass well-established on this 30,000-acre tract. The Grantsville Soil Conservation District continues to reseed.

**&r*E

292

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

on badly depleted ranges in all areas of the state which he visited. The following is an example recorded on August 7, 1902, in the Hobble Creek Daniel's Canyon area in Utah County.

Grazing lands on the outside of the reserve lands have been bought from the state by the stockmen. As soon as the unsurveyed lands are entered a difference can be noticed in the feed and the further up the canyon you go the more heavily grazed the country is, the head of the canyon is being just about tramped out.

An extensive study of range condition by the United States Department of Agriculture (published in 1936 under the title of The Western Range) provides another valuable source of historical data. Both public and private ranges are evaluated in the report. With respect to forest grazing throughout the United States, the report includes the following observation : "On the national forests a reduction in stocking averaging 6.5 percent is necessary to reach the present grazing capacity of the range." 14 If the recommended 6.5 per cent reduction is accepted as accurate, forest ranges are hardly overstocked at the present time, since reductions of about 35 per cent have actually been made.

Of about 80 million acres of grazed forest lands, the report indicated that about 33 per cent was still being depleted, 15 suggesting that depletion had been arrested or reversed on 67 per cent. The USD A report further stated that public domain and private grazing lands were in much worse shape than forest land. It would seem, therefore, that 30 years of Forest Service management had considerably improved the productivity of the forested mountain ranges over the rather serious state of depletion that existed in 1905. While the report admittedly was concerned with the national picture, the observations were also applicable to Utah.

RECREATIONAL U S E

As early as 1899, Congress passed an act providing for recreational use of forest reserves. In 1908, three years after the Forest Service had been created, six district offices came into being as a way to bring the administration of field work closer to the forests. The six included the Intermountain district office, which was established at Ogden. In more recent years there has been a truly phenomenal rate of increase in the various outdoor recreational activities taking place on forest lands. This has been due to the population explosion; the greater mobility of that p. 54. " U " S " ' C ° n g r e S S ' 15 Ibid., 6.

Senate

'

The

Western

Ran

Se, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., 1936, Senate Doc. 199,

Utah national forests not only have beautiful scenery but provide excellent grazing, such as that located in American Fork Canyon.

U . S . D E P A R T M E N T O F AGRICULTURE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

population because of better transportation; higher incomes and more leisure time; and a general burgeoning of the tastes and preferences of the public for outdoor recreation.

For example, hunting on Utah's forests has increased markedly since World War II. It has been estimated that 5,650 big game hunters were in Utah in 1925.16 By 1940 this number had increased to 60,000; by 1950 to over 93,000; and in 1962 to over 163,000. One interesting facet of the hunting picture is that the proportion of hunters bagging a deer has not diminished over time, implying increased numbers of big game animals.

Numbers of fishermen have increased at a rate somewhat comparable to that quoted for hunters.

According to the Forest Service records 1,318,000 visits were made to national forests in Utah in 1945. These records note people visiting the national forests for camping, picnicing, winter sports, and for other miscellaneous activities wherever a stop is made for some specific recreational purpose. In 1950, 2,975,000 visits were recorded; in 1955, 3,918,000 visits; and in 1960, 6,233,000 visits.17 The most recent estimates indicate that 8,881,000 visits were made to the nine national forests with land in Utah in 1963.1S Obviously our forest recreational resources are subject to great pressures.

Consistent with this important use, the Forest Service, in 1957, started Operation Outdoors, a five-year program to improve and expand recreational facilities in the national forests. The Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, signed June 12, 1960, by President Eisenhower, is the most recent 16 State of Utah, Department of Fish and Game, Utah Big Game Investigations and Management Recommendations, 1961-1962 (Salt Lake City, 1962).

17 U.S., Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics (Washington, D.C., 1962).

18 Salt Lake Tribune, March 2, 1964.

UTAH HISTORICAL

294

QUARTERLY

pertinent legislation. This act declares that national forest areas are to be used for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fishing purposes.19 The difficulty is that the recreational uses of public lands often conflict with livestock grazing. Livestock and game animals compete for forage under some circumstances. In addition, many recreationists do not enjoy being thrown into contact with range cattle, and range stock often diminish the attractiveness of camping and picnic sites. It seems inevitable that the Forest Service will be subject to steadily increasing pressure to divert larger quantities of forest resources from grazing to recreation. How these pressures are met will obviously affect a far broader segment of society than just the livestock industry.

T H E BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT IN U T A H

The Bureau of Land Management was established as an entity in the Department of Interior on July 16, 1946.20 It consolidated the functions of the General Land Office, which had been created by an Act of Congress in 1812, and of the Division of Grazing (renamed the Grazing Service in 1939), which had been established in 1934 with passage of the Taylor Grazing Act. The intent of the Taylor Grazing Act was to: 1) stop the degradation of public grazing lands through improper usage, 2) stabilize the range livestock industries, 3) classify lands in order to assure proper use, 4) facilitate land transfers between federal and state governments, 5) establish ,-° UoSo' £ e P a r t m e n t servation, 11—15.

PublicLa^ndM^ZtZ:t&.

of

Agriculture, Forest Service, Highlights in the History of Forest Con^

^

^ ^

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Mana

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Cattle trailing to water across the arid ranges of Utah. In the distance can be seen the Henry ( PARKER H A M I L T O N P H O T O G R A P H )

H

'^ical

Highlights of

south-central Mountains.

LIVESTOCK AND THE PUBLIC LANDS

295

grazing districts and permits to graze, and 6) facilitate the charging of a "reasonable" fee for use of grazing lands. 21 Although the act recognized as legitimate public land uses other than grazing, ranching was considered the dominant use. The framers of the act were primarily concerned with establishing an orderly and conservative use by livestock operators. Today's problems in the ranching communities of Utah, relative to BLM lands, result from three factors: the long period of uncontrolled usage of range resources prior to 1934, the public private land relationships imposed by the Taylor Grazing Act, and the increased demand that uses other than grazing be made of these public resources.

Even before the Taylor Grazing Act was passed, livestockmen in Utah clamored for the creation of grazing districts.22 Following passage of the act, hearings were to be held in each area of the country in which a petition for a district was submitted. During these hearings producers were to elect men to represent them. In 1939 advisory councils were established on national and state-wide bases.

On October 22, 1934, a hearing was held in Salt Lake City concerning the establishment of the proposed West-Central Utah Grazing District. About 300 cattle and sheep producers met at that time with Division of Grazing personnel. The chief grazier, whose office was in Salt Lake City, reported the following to the secretary of the interior: "This was the most enthusiastic and unanimous meeting we have held. The Utah people wanted to debate it very thoroughly but once ready to act, they acted quickly and in a body." Comparable hearings were ordered for Price, Vernal, Brigham City, and other towns in Utah. The Utah hearings and others held throughout the West made it apparent that considerable con21 U.S., Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, The Taylor Grazing Act of June 28, 1934 with Amendments to February 1, 1962 (Washington, D.C., 1962). " Historical records from the files of the Utah State office of the Bureau of Land Management.

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U . S . D E P A R T M E N T O F AGRICULTURE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

Charbray cattle, a new breed recently introduced into Utah, grazes on the Fish Lake National Forest.

fusion existed as to how grazing districts and their boundaries were to be developed and defined. The Division of Grazing suggested that the Geological Survey classify the grazing lands and recommend administratively feasible district boundaries.

About 200 livestock producer representatives attended the December 19 hearing in Salt Lake City. The Division of Grazing recommended eight districts for the State of Utah. After considerable discussion, the suggestion was accepted unanimously by the delegation of producers.

These Salt Lake hearings superseded decisions made previously on individual and association applications for establishment of grazing districts.

Upon a recommendation of the secretary of the interior, executive orders were then issued for the creation of eight grazing districts in the State of Utah (Table 3 ) . In April, May, and June of 1935, districts were established. Permits were issued so that the restrictions imposed upon grazing by the Taylor Grazing Act became effective in Utah on October 2, 1935. District offices were set up in 1937.

Almost immediately, the secretary of the interior was petitioned for changes in district boundaries. Some requests for boundary changes were made because certain ranchers found themselves required to graze their stock in two districts. State lines generally delineated grazing district boundaries, and in some cases ranchers were involved in districts in two states. Other petitions were made because certain ranges were hard to administer from the assigned district office, or because range-use conflicts existed between users.

LIVESTOCK AND T H E PUBLIC LANDS

297

The advisory council system played an important part in arbitrating disputes between districts and between ranchers and in settling overlapping claims. Some districts were later split and districts 9,10, and 11 were created. These rearrangements resulted in better range management and also reduced the friction between livestock producers.

TABLE 3 T H E E S T A B L I S H M E N T OF GRAZING DISTRICTS IN U T A H District

Year Established

Location of Headquarters

1

1935

Brigham City

2

1935

Tooele

3

1935

Fillmore

4

1935

...Cedar City

5

1935.....

Richfield

6

1935

7

1935

.....Monticello

8

1935

9

1939

...Monticello

10

1944

Fillmore

11

..1944

Price Vernal

Kanab

Immediately after the Taylor Grazing Act was passed, permitted usage was often established by the number of animals a man had to graze rather than by the carrying capacity of the range. Readjudication has continued through the years in an attempt to bring livestock usage into line with appraised range potential productivity.

The Taylor Grazing Act specified that ranchers, to be eligible for permits to graze the public domain, had to have enough privately-owned land to produce the amounts of feed required during the seasons that livestock were not permitted on public lands. This and other requirements effectively linked BLM permits to graze public range to private property.

Over time, the public grazing permits inevitably took on value to the rancher over and above the cost of the forage. For instance, in Utah today, BLM permits sell for $8.00 to $12.00 per animal unit month. This means that ranchers have considerable capital invested in permits. Today's ranchers actually go to considerable lengths to protect their allotted AUM's regardless of whether they use all of them over a long period of time.23 Animals are often removed from a range before the required date !3 See B. D . Gardner, "Transfer Restrictions and Misallocation in Grazing Public Range," Journal of Farm Economics, X L I V (February, 1962), 5 0 - 6 3 ; and N. K. Roberts ''Economic Foundations for Grazing Use Fees on Public Lands," Journal of Farm Economics, XLIV (November, 1963), 721-31.

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

298

if the rancher decides that the forage has been sufficiently grazed. Also, especially in drought years, ranchers voluntarily put fewer animals on the range than their permits stipulate.

The Taylor Grazing Act specified that the secretary of interior should charge "reasonable" fees for the use of public lands by ranchers. The first fee was set in 1938 at 5 cents per animal unit month. This fee was increased to 8 cents per animal unit month in 1947. In 1958 a formula was established whereby the past year average price for lambs plus the past year average price for beef was divided by two. The formula-calculated fee in 1962 was about 19 cents per animal unit month. In 1963 the fee was 30 cents per AUM, with about half of the money earmarked for range improvement practices.

RECENT TRENDS

In recent years the BLM has been increasingly concerned with other than just custodial objectives. Range improvement activities have been receiving greater emphasis. Reseeding projects, water development, erosion control, and other measures have been introduced on a cooperative basis with the ranchers concerned. In many cases these undertakings have improved the long run forage productivity of the ranges and increased their carrying capacity.

Cattle numbers in the state have grown through the years and give every sign of continuing to do so. This has occurred in the face of more and more stringent limitations on permitted animal unit months on public lands. For example, animal unit months of grazing by cattle on BLM lands declined from 1,005,223 in 1939 to 829,174 in 1961 — a n 18percent drop.24 By contrast with cattle, sheep numbers in the state have been steadily decreasing. Animal unit months of grazing by sheep on BLM lands declined from 2,051,490 in 1939 to 927,925 in 1961, a 55 per cent drop. The decreases in numbers of sheep have been influenced not only by limitations in access to public range but also by other economic pressures.

It is significant that most of the decrease in animal unit months of grazing by cattle and sheep has been accomplished by limiting the number of animals rather than grazing time. Grazing time for cattle has fluctuated between 4.5 and 5.5 months a year and was about the same in both 1939 and in 1960 — 4.9 months. For sheep, grazing time has varied from nearly (Washing^', S . ^ l M 2 ) . ^ ^

^

^ ^

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Mana

™ t > Annual Statistical Report,

L I V E S T O C K AND T H E P U B L I C LANDS

299

4.0 to almost 5.0 months a year, but no consistent trend either up or down has been evident.

How can the ostensible paradox of increasing cattle numbers and decreasing animal unit months on the public range be explained?

For one thing, the number of permitted AUM's has never been an accurate gauge of actual animal numbers. In fact, the permitted AUM's on the public ranges, especially those managed by the BLM, have often exceeded the ranchers' use. For example, the director of the Utah BLM office once estimated that permitted AUM's in Utah in 1960 were approximately 15 per cent greater than actual usage.

Another explanatory note is that the ranchers have been utilizing intensive land management practices on their base property holdings. As a result they have substantially increased the carrying capacities of these lands and have been able to shift their livestock from public to private lands.

This photograph shows the result of properly used range and overgrazed rangeland on an area which is located approximately 10 miles southeast of St. George, Utah.

U.S. D E P A R T M E N T O F AGRICULTURE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

300

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

These recent trends, although manifestly inconsistent, do seem indicative of the general tendency to foster wider use of public lands by interests other than the livestock industry.

TOWARD TOMORROW

Utah's pattern of land ownership has decreed that not only her history and present, but also her foreseeable future must be tightly tied to the public land management philosophies of two federal agencies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. In the past the policies of these agencies have been of prime concern only to relatively small, rather specialized groups both in the state and in the nation. Recently, however, the BLM and the Forest Service have found it increasingly necessary to heed the insistent voices of an ever widening cross section of citizens. Most of these citizens have been particularly interested in promoting recreation-oriented uses of the public lands. The possible uses they cite may or may not be competitive with grazing in given instances.

As a result of such public pressures, both the BLM and the Forest Service have been adjusting their land management policies to more adequately reflect the nation's changing system of value judgments. One procedure they have used has been to cut livestock AUM's while allowing big game AUM's to increase.

In addition, livestockmen as well as agency personnel have recognized that no one segment of our economy, regardless of historical precedence, can monopolize the potentially varied productivity of the nation's public lands. To implement this realization, the advisory councils of the Forest Service and the BLM have been increased in membership. Representatives from the diverse interested groups in our society have been included in the councils at the national, state, and local levels.

The foundations are in place â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a transition is in process â&#x20AC;&#x201D; tomorrow's style of living is in the balance.

AL SCORUP Cattleman of the Canyons

BY N E A L L A M B E R T

In the spring of 1891, near a wide place in the Colorado River called Dandy Crossing,1 a 19-year-old boy headed his horse through the red sand and willows along the river edge toward the mouth of White Creek. Behind him trailed an extra horse packed with a couple of patchwork quilts, some flour, bacon, and pinto beans. Ahead of him, in the wild and beautiful breaks of White Canyon, was a chance to be a cattleman. That, more than anything else, was what Al Scorup wanted to be.2 From the time when he was a little boy, when he and his brother Jim rode stick horses around their yard in Salina and "branded" imaginary calves with pieces of twisted wire, John Albert Scorup had wanted to be a "cattleman." Once he earned 400 lambs helping his father with a cooperaMr. Lambert is a candidate for the doctorate in English at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. In preparing this article the author received much assistance from friends of Al Scorup and members of his family. The help of Henry Lyman, Veda Williams, Harve Williams, Merrill Nelson, and many others is gratefully acknowledged. The author also spent three weeks as a cowhand working for the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company. To the "Flying V Bar" cowboys, Billy Shupe, Lou Schmidt, "Hide" Scott, and the foreman, "Cy" Thornell, who added so much to his knowledge of Al Scorup and the canyon cattle business, the author is much indebted.

Located on most road maps as Hite, Utah, White Canyon, one of those fantastic gorges that drain west from the Blue Mountains, breaks into the Colorado gorge at this point.

2 Stena Scorup, / . A. Scorup, A Utah Cattleman (Privately printed, 1944), 25.

M R S . VEDA S C O R U P W I L L I A M S

Al Scorup when he was almost 80 years old. Dressed in cowboy boots and white shirt, he sits astride one of his favorite mounts, "01' Booger," at the Indian Creek Ranch.

tive sheep herd, but he soon traded them for cattle. 3 When he was 16 he used part of his summer wages to buy a new suit, but he used all the rest to buy steer calves.4 Herding cattle as soon as he was big enough to ride, trailing cattle as soon as he was old enough to leave home, Al Scorup was quickly recognized around Sevier County as a good cattle hand. Before he was old enough to have shaved many times, he had been given sole charge of the Salina Grazing Company herd; he had punched cows for both Mormons and "outsiders"; he had worked in trail herds as big as 1,500 head; and he had ridden a cattle train as far away as Omaha, Nebraska. 5 By the time Claude Sanford saw him on a horse roundup at Grass Valley in ' Ibid., 23.

From reminiscences of Al Scorup as recorded by his daughter, Mrs. Veda Williams March 30, 1954.

6 Ibid.

1

AL SCORUP

303

March of 1891, Al Scorup had become a good cowboy, good enough at least that Sanford wanted to hire him to take care of 150 head of longhorns running wild in White Canyon.

When it came to deciding whether or not to accept the offer that Sanford made, Al had little difficulty making up his mind. "I knew everything [around home] was taken by someone in Salina," he later told his sister, and Sanford's deal "looked like a chance to get some cattle and a place to range them.'" 5 So over the protests of his father and the tears of his mother, Al saddled his horse, packed his quilts, rode 300 miles to the Colorado, swam it, and now with the red stain of the cold muddy water still on his legs, he was heading up White Canyon to look for Sanford's longhorns.

When he saw the country he was up against, Al Scorup may have had some second thoughts about Claude Sanford's deal. Al was to get onethird of the calves born, that is, if he could find the cattle in the maze of cracks, washes, creeks, and cliffs that split and hedged the country. Then, if any of the bulls ever found any of the cows so there would be some calves, and if the calves that were born lived through the drought in the summer and the bitter cold in the winter, and if he himself survived in this forsaken country, then he might, just might, become a cattleman.

The nearest town (if the collection of cabins at Bluff could be called a town) was a good three days' ride away. The only human companions were a few prospectors like old grey-whiskered Charlie Fry, who kept some mares at what is now called Fry Spring. 7 For the most part there was just the ripple of the heat waves and an awful silence during the day, a breeze, and maybe a coyote at night â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and always Sanford's spooky, wild cattle.

For Al Scorup the days were long and hard; and with the appetite that goes with hard work, he soon ate through the "chuck" that he had brought with him from Salina. There was some game around, but he had no gun. Trying to keep from starving, he sold a steer to some placer miners for $20.00; but when Cass Hite took 11 of those dollars for one sack of flour, Al knew that it was find another job, starve, or give up and go home!

He decided to find another job. 8 Punching cows alongside the swearing, chewing, drinking, gun-carrying "gentiles" who worked the large herds flooding over the ColoradoUtah border was not the kind of job Al's mother would have recommended for her son. But Al needed cash. So, knowing he could earn * Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 25. ' F r o m reminiscences of Al Scorup as recorded by Veda Williams, August 27, 1953. Fry Canyon is a tributary that runs north into White Canyon. Fry Spring is about four miles up this side canyon and about one and one-half miles off Utah Highway 95.

8 David Lavender, One Man's West (Garden City, 1956), 191.

304

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

money with one of those large "gentile" outfits, he shoved Sanford's cattle into a side canyon where he might find them again and headed for the big herds on the border. 9 Al hired out to a Texas outfit that was trailing 350 steers from the Elk Mountains to Ridgeway, Colorado. "The Mormon Cowboy," the Texans called him,10 probably with as much respect as fun intended, not only because of his lack of the usual "habits" but because of his unusual prowess with horse and rope.

Al was to go on a lot of trail drives, but few of these cow trips influenced his life like this one. Before the drive started, Al met Frank Jacob Adams, a man who was to be his friend and a close companion in the San Juan cattle industry. For the two-month drive to Ridgeway the two "Mormons" worked as nightherders. 11 After the drive ended, Al met Emma Bayles, the girl who was to be his wife and the mother of his six daughters.

At Jacob's suggestion, Al stopped over in Bluff for a day or two before going back to White Canyon, putting up at Hanson Bayles's rooming house where Emma cooked for her brother and the roomers. "He was very attractive," Emma later told her sister-in-law. "All the eligible girls wanted him, but I said to myself, 'that nice looking Mormon cowboy was meant for me and I mean to get him.'" 1 2 But there was little time for courting.

Al had his grubstake now and he had to get back to Sanford's cattle.

In White Canyon, Al found more than just Claude Sanford's little herd; he also found a whole campful of new trouble. Five Texas cowboys met him; all were armed. Several more sat by a fire playing cards with Mancos Jim, Poke, Posey, and some other renegade Indians. One of the Texans told Al there was no room for him around White Canyon anymore and that he would be much better off where he came from. Al did not have much choice. Giving Charley Fry what money he could spare to look after Sanford's cattle until he got back, Al turned his horse northeast, recrossed the Colorado, and started for Salina.13 Back in Sevier County, Al wrote to his employer about what had happened. Sanford replied that he would give Al half of the calves if he would go back. "I liked that," Al said. "I really wanted to go back." 14 He knew the Texan's system of running cattle would never work out in the nmrock and arroyos of White Canyon; but until the interlopers did fail, D

Ibid.

Ibid. " Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 25.

12 Ibid., 92.

13 Ibid., 26-27. " Ibid., 27-28.

10

MRS. VEDA S C O R U P W I L L I A M S

The Scorup brothers (Jim, left, and Al, right),

as they appeared in April of 1905.

he needed reinforcements. By forgetting to mention the Texans, he persuaded his father and a neighbor, Hugentobler, to lease their cattle to him.

Using the same intentional forgetfulness, he persuaded his brother Jim, his sidekick of stick-horse days, to throw in his own small herd and come along to White Canyon. "Jim didn't believe much in the venture," Al said, "but he went with me." 1 5 After leasing another 150 head from Smith Parker, the Scorup brothers finally started toward San Juan with a herd of about 300 cattle.16 If they moved a dozen miles a day, Jim and Al felt lucky. Even driving that far often required the boys to be in the saddle 19 hours a day. By the time they reached the Colorado, it was December. Chunks of ice floated in the water. The cattle were gaunt and trailworn. But food and rest lay just across the river.

However, persuading 300 tired cattle to swim out into an icy river is no easy task. The cows mill around on the edge, snorting suspiciously at the chocolate water. The boys cut big willows to drive with and start the herd toward the river. The leaders splash into the cold water, then panic and turn back. In go the two cowboys to head off the turning cattle. The buoyant cows outmaneuver the heavier horses and swim toward the bank.

The calves bawl; the men shout. Calves begin to chill; their struggles slow down and they drift farther and farther downstream. All around cattle churn in the water and scramble up the bank. Al and Jim splash out of the water, round up the herd, and try again. Again the leaders panic and the herd turns back. The horses are tired. The boys are wet and muddy to 15 10

Ibid., 28.

From reminiscences of Al Scorup recorded by Veda Williams, March 30, 1954.

306

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

the waist. Al gets Cass Hite's rowboat and some miners to help. Reinforced, the boys try once more. Again the cattle try to turn back. The miners beat them with willows, their hats, and the oars. Everybody yells; the cattle bawl. Finally a long diagonal of backs and noses stretches across the river. But more calves weaken and slip downstream. The cowboys push their jaded horses into the water again and again. They rope the calves when they can and drag them along the sand at a gallop hoping the friction will restore circulation. But finally, the last cattle splash out on the east bank, and with the exception of a few stubborn stragglers still standing on the west side, the boys have their herd across the Colorado. 17 Sometime after they left Salina and before they started into White Canyon, Jim found out about the Texans. One can only guess at his reaction. But, however he felt, neither Jim nor Al was anxious to have a meeting with them just yet.18 The Texans ran in the pifion and juniper breaks on the south, so the Scorup brothers drove their cattle up onto the north side of White Canyon, into country so rough and wild that even the landhungry Texans had paid no attention to it. Driving up through this torn and broken country for the first time, Al and Jim guided themselves by two buttes that, seen together, somehow reminded them of one of the wooden shoes that their grandmother wore. In the area of these buttes (they are still called the Wooden Shoe), the two brothers finally ended their long drive. With the help of Charley Fry and an outlaw by the name of Billy Sawtell, they brought Sanford's cattle over to their side of the canyon; then the brothers settled down to the business at hand. 19 They did not have much besides each other and some rather dim prospects, but from then on Al and Jim were "cattlemen." By this time Al Scorup was just about three months past his twentieth birthday.

It is difficult for one who has never had his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth with thirst, or been so cold that he cannot let go of the bridle reins to realize how hard life was for the early cowboys of the San JuanColorado canyon country. Living almost like the Indians who preceded them, the cowboys slept in sandstone caves and cached their supplies in the fine, dry sand of the cave floor. One San Juan cow puncher says of these cowboy caves, We'd put the grain down and put a tarpaulin over it, then put the sand back on it. But them oP rats couldn't get in there, she was too loose â&#x20AC;&#x201D; fill up Js hole as fast as he dug. Yea, I've put flour in that Collins cave, left "Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 28-29; and Lavender, One Man's West, 194. " Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 29.

"Ibid.

AL SCORUP

307

it u p t' two or three years. Yes, you c'n keep anything as long as you keep it back away from the rock. If you bury it up close to the rock it'd draw moisture from that rock, but not back out in the cave. A lot of good caves in that country to camp in. 20

For water, the men and animals often had to depend on the residue of storms captured in cups and depressions in the rock. In some places, falling water had gouged out room-sized bowls that filled with water. But a small trickle from the precipice above that did not carry the sand on out, or a thirsty cow that fell in and drowned might, for a time, ruin one of these "tanks." More than one desperately dry herd has had to push on because "Cow T a n k " was filled with sand, or "Horse Tank" held the rotting carcasses of several drowned cattle. 21 Too often these "tanks" could not sustain the men and animals. So, using a Fresno scraper and a team of horses, the Scorup brothers often dammed up the mouth of a small wash or depression to augment the natural reservoirs.22 But lack of water was only one problem that confronted the early canyon cattleman. Huge herds of wild horses ate up the feed and ruined the range. One cowboy remembers that Al and Jim would "spend whole days shooting horses â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 700 at a time." 23 Besides the wild horses that ate the feed, lions and wolves killed the calves. For instance, "Ol' Big Foot," a large wolf, killed 150 calves in one fall, apparently just because of a lust for blood.24 20

From an interview with Harve Williams, December 31, 1963.

Albert R. Lyman, Man to Man (Salt Lake City, 1962), 74.

22 With the help of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company has built more than 150 reservoirs on their range.

23 From an interview with Harve Williams, December 31, 1963.

24 From reminiscences of Al Scorup recorded by Veda Williams, June 17, 1953.

31

Collins Cave, a cowboy camp. The white sacks contain a winter's supply of flour.

On the rock in the foreground are the bedrolls in burlap sacks, a keg of water, and a pack-saddle. Note also the "towel" hanging from the pole in the rear of the cave.

HENRY LYMAN

308

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Although many of the early San Juan cowboys carried guns to shoot these predators, they did not often carry guns to shoot other men. But this fact does not mean that the cowboy's life was not filled with violence and death. Al Scorup misjudged a wild steer once and ended up with his leg ripped open and his kneecap almost torn off. Tying himself to the saddle so he would not fall off when he fainted with pain, Al turned his horse toward Bluff, three days away.25 Jacob Adams, Al's friend from that first drive into Colorado and later a foreman for Scorup, tried to cross White Creek too soon after a thunderstorm. He told the hesitating boys who were with him, "Ah, hell, you c'n cross this," then spurred his own horse into the rush of brown water. Jacob's men found his horse a couple of hundred yards down the canyon. They found Jacob's body the next day four miles downstream lodged behind a rock. His neck and one arm were broken. 26 If the country was hostile and violent, it was also beautiful and aweinspiring. More than one cowboy carried a camera to photograph the cliffs, canyons, and fantastic formations of his world.27 Not the least of these are the great natural bridges that Jim Scorup rediscovered and helped to name, and which are now a part of Bridges National Monument.

But the beauty of these cliffs and canyons might well have been lost to the frustrated cowboys who tried to traverse them. Often a rider would have to detour for miles before he could find a break in the sheer walls of a wash.

Thus a cow just a few hundred yards away on the other side of White Canyon wash might just as well be in the next state. The ride was just about as long to one place as to the other.

By living in caves and shanties; eating sourdough, beans, dried fruit, and venison when they had time; by riding as long as daylight would let them see and often longer; looking for grassy pockets and drifting their herd along to each one; the boys kept their cattle alive.28 The first year the number dwindled, but the next year the cattle wintered well. By the summer of 1893, Al and Jim had good reason for hope. At the Wooden Shoe, they were able to brand 300 head of calves.20 By this time, too, the Texans had folded and pulled out, abandoning the summer and winter ranges and leaving the Scorup brothers pretty much to themselves in White Canyon.

25

Lavender, One Man's West, 198-99.

From an interview with George Lyman, September 1963. This country is still considered rugged in spite of modern water development and four-wheel drive vehicles. A story still circuating around San Juan County tells of an extra tough cowboy who came into Monticello riding bare and using a mountain lion for a pack horse. " I thought you were working for the 'Lazy 20

one friend sreeted him The cowboy just h l

UJ^^^:^^^^ ber into S u S ' * ^ ^ " ^ 28 Lavender, One Man's West, 194.

20 Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 31.

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AL SCORUP

309

But if Al and Jim felt any optimism, it was short-lived. In 1893 a group of Bluff businessmen who had bought out some of the failing Texas outfits pushed 1,300 "Bluff Pool" cattle and 300 horses onto the White Canyon range. 30 Once more the Scorup brothers were involved in an undeclared range war. Riding almost without rest, drifting the Pool cattle away from the grassy pockets and practically hand-feeding their own stock, the brothers hung on through the fall and through a hard winter.

By spring, the Scorups' small herd was even smaller; but the Bluff Pool had lost almost half of its stock.31 The bigger outfit gathered what stock it had left, about 600 head of cattle, and pulled out with new respect for the canyon country and the two boys who ran their cattle there, so much respect in fact that the Bluff Pool owners wanted Al Scorup as their foreman. The brothers were broke, so Al accepted the offer and went to work for $37.50 a month. Leaving Jim with their own cattle, Al took the Bluff Pool herd to Colorado, but whenever he could, Al rode back to the Wooden Shoe to help Jim with the roundup and branding. At best, these were hard, lonesome years for both men.32 During these years, Al also found some time to slip into Bluff to get some "book learning" at the one-room school,33 and to pay a call at the Bayles residence. At the school he soon acquired the fundamentals essential to his business transactions; at the Bayles's he soon acquired more than just a liking for the dark haired girl who cooked there. After a respectable engagement of "a year or two," Al decided that it was "time to settle down." 34 He and Emma drove to Salt Lake and were married in January of 1895. A bad winter made the return to San Juan next to impossible, so Al Scorup and his bride "honeymooned" at the Scorup home in Salina for the rest of the winter.

Returning to White Canyon the next spring, Al found a disgruntled, discouraged partner ready to sell out and go back to Sevier County. Jim has been described as "a hard twisted youngster, freer to fight, freer to laugh, and lacking Al's pigheadedness when it came to butting his skull against a stone wall." 35 And the evidence certainly indicated that the Scorups were butting their skulls against a stone wall. Four years of rimrocks, hard work, and loneliness had yielded exactly nothing. The brothers had in fact suffered a net loss. All Jim could count for their efforts was a 30

Ibid. " Ibid.

32 Ibid., 3 1 , 5 9 .

33 From interview with Albert Lyman, January 22, 1964.

34 Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 86.

35 Lavender, One Man's West, 192.

U T A H HISTORICAL Q U A R T E R L Y

310

shrunken herd of 120 cattle, and even some of these were leased from Smith Parker. 30 Jim wanted to quit.

As he was to do many times, Al sat down with his brother, and arguing with what must have been an almost religious fervor, he told Jim that there was nothing for them in Sevier, that if they were ever to be more than just second-rate cattlemen, they "must stick with White Canyon and the Wooden Shoe." Jim decided to stay.37 Trading with Parker for his White Canyon cattle, borrowing to buy cattle from Jacob Adams, Al tried desperately to get their failing enterprise going again. But the hard winter and low prices of 1896-97 made conditions even worse. With cattle going for $12.00 a head, everything that could be rounded up had to be sold just to pay debts and buy supplies.

The 40 cows and a few calves that Al and Jim kept must have looked like a pretty small return for six years of hard work.38 To keep from going broke, the boys needed more money. Once again Al rode towards Bluff, looking for a job.

This time he signed a contract with That. &r*>«~^^ t h e B l u f f P o o l to gather wild cows. For years cattle had been the partes of the first part, for and in consideration of the sum of slipping into a 60-mile £pollar0. maze of dry junipers in hand paid by ^Y- • ^r west of Bluff. T h e entanglement had the part 4* of the second part, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, kajf granted, bargained, ana conveyed, onvey, and by these presents do grant, bargain, sell and convey unto the said party of sold and p l e n t y of g r a s s a n d the second part, ^<—^2^J> y executors, administrators and assigns water, but it was so thick in many places f

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30 Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 33.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., 34.

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Typical of many of Al Scorup's early papers, this bill of sale shows how the Scorup brothers built their enterprise.

AL SCORUP

311

that a horse and rider could not get through. Unmolested now for years, generations of wild longhorns had grown up in this jungle-like juniper forest without ever seeing a human being. The Bluff Pool owners figured these wild animals belonged to them. Al Scorup figured that for $5.00 a head he could get the cattle out. So, taking some of the braver Bluff boys, Al went to work. The stories of what happened in that forest, sometimes comical in the telling but almost disastrous in the doing, have gone around many bunkhouses and campfires. Snubbing a recalcitrant animal to a stout juniper until he decided to be led, diving out of the way of a wildeyed steer that broke loose, yoking two animals together, twisting tails, dehorning, working, sweating, freezing, Al and his little crew worked all winter long dragging "wild-as-buckskin" longhorns out of the junipers.

By spring they had rounded up more than 2,000 head. Al deposited almost $10,00039 in the bank at Durango, and rode back to the Wooden Shoe.

Now with enough money to "run on" without selling, Al and Jim were able to shop around themselves for good buys. Later that same year (1898), the Bluff Pool collapsed and the Scorups bought it out. The next year they bought cattle from the Indian Creek Company and from Monroe Redd; the next year from Bob Hott. 40 And so it went each year. Al and Jim were building â&#x20AC;&#x201D; carefully buying, carefully selling, increasing their herd with every opportunity.

But Al was interested in the quality as well as the quantity of their cattle. He knew that on the same feed better cows put on more weight and that pounds meant dollars. Thus as early as 1901-02, he and Jim were back in Ephraim buying pure-blooded Hereford bulls.

The 300-mile trail drive back to White Canyon was no easier with 30 bulls than it had been with 300 cattle a decade or so earlier. To get their bulky animals across the river, the brothers once again hired some extra men and a boat. With one Scorup in the stern holding the halter rope and the other riding behind the bull laying on with a willow, the big brutes were "led" across the Colorado, one at a time. 41 But the bulls were not always reasonable about crossing. A splash of water or a gust of wind at the wrong moment would set off a grand melee of horse, bull, and boat in the middle of the water. Once when things were more than just a little hectic, with the bull trying to get into the boat, with Jim on the horse try38

ibid.

Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 35.

"Lavender, One Man's West, 197; Scorup, Utah Cattleman, of Al Scorup recorded by Veda Williams, August 27, 1953.

10

36; also from reminiscences

312

UTAH HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

ing to keep it out, and with the rivermen trying to keep the boat right side up, Al leaped out of the boat, lit straddle of the bull and rode it to shore.

"I wasn't trusting that boat in those huge waves," Al said later. "I couldn't swim and I knew that bull could." "2 By 1912 the "Scorup brothers" outfit had become a sizeable cattle concern; their "Lazy T Y " brand could be seen on thousands of cattle that ranged over tens of thousands of acres from the Elk Ridge of the Blue Mountains to the junction of the San Juan and the Colorado.

By this time also, the brothers were accumulating more domestic responsibilities. Jim had four children, one boy and three girls; Al had six children, all girls. Al's first home, a rock cabin that he and Emma rented in Bluff for $1.50 a month, had been replaced first by a two-room wooden house and finally by a large, ten-room home built from quarried stone.43 Providing the best that he could for his family, the now prospering cattleman even bought an automobile, one of the first in Bluff, though there were hardly any roads to drive it on.44 But if Al provided well for his family he was not often at home to help them enjoy the new car or the fine house. One of his daughters recalls that when he did come home, the first thing he'd do after he'd been out for months — I remember as a kid down there in Bluff — he'd come in just so tired and if he could possibly do it, he'd slip right in the bathroom, and off'd go all those old clothes, and he'd have his bath and he wouldn't allow anyone to see him until he was cleaned up. No sir . . . [he was] very p a r t i c u l a r . . . .

I remember that he never came in, you know, when there were real occasions in the family unless he could. . . . For instance, on Thanksgiving you never saw Dad. He was busy with the cattle getting them ready for the winter range — getting them off the mountains and seeing that everything was in. Then he'd come in for Christmas; he'd seldom miss Christmas — especially later years. Of course when he was younger he stayed out Christmas too It was sometimes six months [between trips home] [When he'd leave] we'd get up in night gowns. We always had these long flannell gowns . . . and dad'd have those pack mules packed and the moon was shining, and we'd go trailing out, and he'd lift us u p and kiss us and we'd stand there and wave as long as we could see him. O h that was sad We sure hated to see D a d go. 45

Jim got home even less than Al. On a bull-buying trip to Salina he had met Elmina Humphrys, a Salina school teacher, and in 1908 they were married. Thinking that life in San Juan would be too hard for his bride, Jim had insisted that Elmina stay in Salina. So, for almost 10 years, 42

From reminiscences of Al Scorup recorded by Veda Williams. '" Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 104.

44 Lavender, One Man's West, 198.

45 From interview with Veda Williams, January 31, 1964.

AL SCORUP

313

whenever Jim came home he had to plan on a trip of 600 miles, a lot of it on horseback.46 In 1918 Al and Jim started to talk about selling out in San Juan County. Prices were good and their brother Pete had a good ranch for sale at Lost Creek, just outside Salina. By buying the ranch they could get away from the rimrocks, settle down to a civilized life, and raise a few purebred Herefords. Al had already bought a home in Provo so his girls, now college age, could go to school. Jim was more than anxious to be with his family.47 Moving their operation to Sevier County seemed just the thing for the Scorup brothers to do. So Al and Jim sold the Wooden Shoe-White Canyon interests to Jacob Adams and his brother, the rest of their holdings to other San Juan cattlemen and bought Pete's Lost Creek Ranch.48 But before he even got the San Juan dust out of his saddle blanket, Al Scorup was bargaining for another big canyon country ranch. When he heard that David Goudelock was willing to sell the Indian Creek Cattle Company, Al could not resist the temptation. After walking up and down the streets of Moab with Bill and Andrew Somerville until they consented to go in with him, and by signing Jim's name along with his own, Al finally put together enough money for a down payment of $50,000.49 The Scorup brothers were back in the canyon cattle business.

When Jim found out what Al had done he was "not only upset but was fiery mad." However, pleading and reasoning as he had done before, Al persuaded Jim that it was "the only thing to do." 50 Still partners in the cattle business, the brothers decided that while Jim looked after their interests at Salina, Al would go to Indian Creek. The arrangement seemed ideal to Jim. Now he could spend some time with his wife and family. But Jim had just settled down to his new job at Lost Creek when Elmina contracted pneumonia and died.

Jim was not quite so "hard twisted" after that. The heavy buying at high prices in the fall, the falling market since the Armistice, the huge debt to Goudelock â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all the problems of the business seemed to set heavier on him than similar problems had ever done before.51 In February he "caught the flu"; it was soon pneumonia; and in less than a week, he was in his bed dying.

46

Lavender, One Man's West, 197-98.

Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 38.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid., 41.

50 Ibid. â&#x201E;˘Ibid.,\2.

47

UTAH HISTORICAL

314

QUARTERLY

The news that Jim was seriously ill came to Al while he was struggling with three feet of snow and starving cattle on the winter range at Indian Creek. Leaving the cattle as they were, Al saddled his horse and set out through the stirrup-deep snow for the nearest possible transportation, the railroad station at Thompson â&#x20AC;&#x201D; almost 120 miles away. Al just missed the morning train. He waited all day; then just as he was getting on the evening train, a telegram came. Jim was dead.52 "I think I really became an old man during the winter of' 19 and '20," Al told his sister. "It is the worst year I have ever lived." 53 Jim was gone.

The cattle market was gone. The feed on the range was buried under 36 62 33

Scorup, Utah Cattleman, 61-62.

Ibid., 73.

The "Hi Wilson Place," located about 10 miles up Cottonwood Canyon from the Dugout Ranch, is typical of many small homesteads that were absorbed into larger operations such as the Indian Creek Cattle Pool. Once surrounded by irrigated fields, this ranch is now high and dry. The water of Cottonwood Creek, that once irrigated the homestead now runs through the land in the bottom of a deep wash. Still an important overnight stopping place for Scorup-Somerville trail herds, the Wilson Place has seen tens of thousands of cattle stream by, either going up the canyon to summer pasture on the Blue Mountains or on to the Dugout Ranch and then out to market.

DON D. W A L K E R

AL SCORUP

315

inches of snow, and there was not a spear of hay to be bought. Cattle were dying everywhere. By spring almost 2,000 head of Indian Creek cattle were dead. Three hundred had starved to death right in the feed yard.54 Al paid a trapper $1.50 apiece to skin as many carcasses as possible. Then he sold the hides for $.28 a pound ;55 that was all he could do. On every side of him cattle outfits were folding up, but Al Scorup managed to hang on.

By now his methods were familiar to those who knew him â&#x20AC;&#x201D; buy carefully, deal shrewdly, work harder, ride longer, pull your belt tighter, do not spend anything you do not have to, and above all stay with the cattle. Such methods made life pretty difficult, but, at least for Al, they worked.

When prices began to creep back up, the Indian Creek cattle pool was still in business. In 1921 steers sold for $20.00 a head; in 1923 for $25.00 a head. In 1926, Al, the Somervilles, and Jacob Adams combined to form the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company; the bulk of the stock was Al's. In 1927, the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company held a U.S. Forest Service grazing permit for 6,780 head of cattle, the largest ever issued in the United States. In 1928 Al sold 4,400 head of cattle for $194,000 and paid Goudelock the final $ 100,000.50 Though the hard years of the depression still lay ahead, the S. S. Cattle Company was never in financial trouble again. Each year 7 to 10,000 head of cattle wandered over Scorup-Somerville range. And that range itself covered a giant triangle from the Blue Mountains to the junction of the San Juan and the Colorado, an area of almost 2 million acres.57 When Al was almost sixty years old, he was still spending long hours in the saddle. He could still rope and cut cattle, but most of his work now was supervising. Another generation of nephews and sons-in-law were carrying out many of the orders. Even members of a third generation of Scorups could sometimes be seen trotting along at Al's heels. Merrill Nelson, whose own father was killed in a fall from a horse at Lost Creek, often went with his grandfather out on the range. But even a grandson had work to do. For years, Merrill's main chore at the cowboy camp was taking care of his granddad's bedroll. The two mattresses, the pile of blankets, the pillow, and the double-sized tarpaulin were plenty for a grown man to handle, and almost too much for a half-grown boy. On many mornings, as he struggled to get the small mountain properly rolled, tied, and into the wagon, Merrill longed for the day when he would never see that bedroll 54

Scorup, Utah Cattleman, Ibid.

56 Ibid. , 4 6 .

"Ibid., 52-53.

35

42.

Watering the Scorup-Somerville trail herd on the way to the railroad at Thompson.

Taken in Spanish Valley, southeast of Moab, this shows only a part of the Scorup-Somerville herd.

again. Perhaps Al was remembering those mornings and the struggles of his grandson when he made one of his last requests. Al wanted Merrill to have his old bedroll.58 From the grandchildren to Al Scorup himself, everybody in the S. S. cattle outfit had to work; it was a tough business and hard country; to survive you had to be tough and work hard. Those who could not take it did not last long with Al; those who could take it and stayed were appreciated and respected. These were men of Al's own stripe, men who knew and had a high regard for the country and the cattle in it, men like the Adams brothers and the Somervilles; men like Henry Lyman who punched S. S. cattle for over 20 years; men like Harve Williams who went to work for "Mr. Scorup" in 1927, who stuck through the hard years, who drew only enough wages one year for a pair of levis and some cigarette paper to protect his chapped lips.59 Another man, crippled Fred Eiconberger, hardly left the ranch at all in the 15 years that he worked for "Mr. Scorup." The fact that he was crippled did not keep Fred from putting in a 38

From an interview with Merrill Nelson, September 1963.

From an interview with Veda Williams, September 1963. Many of the men who now work for the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company are men of the type mentioned above. Al Scorup (a nephew to the subject of this article) and "Cy" Thornell have both been punching S. S. cattle for well over 30 years. m

cw

M R S . VEDA S C O R U P W I L L I A M S

good day's work, but it did cause him some embarrassment. Al Scorup sent more than one otherwise excellent cowhand packing up the road without so much as a ride to the highway for making fun of Fred's twisted leg.60 Al would have no "nonsense" from his cowboys. At roundups there were none of those impromptu rodeos with an excited steer and an impetuous young rider that "sweat dollars right off a cow." 61 Nor would Al allow the cowboys to use whips or dogs.62 An overzealous nip by a dog might cripple a cow. O r she might decide to turn and fight. In either case precious pounds might be lost. But if Al was firm, he was also fair. In the summer of 1907 or 1908, Al and some companions were making a trip from Bluff to the Elk Mountain. A short time before they got to Twin Springs, Al's headquarters on the Elk, they met Old Posey Ute coming down the trail on a pony. He had killed three deer near Twin Springs.

One of them was tied on the same horse he was riding and two were lashed on a pony he was leading behind. Everyone stopped and the men exchanged a few greetings.

Al noticed a can of K. C. Baking Powder stuffed in a pocket of Posey's jacket and asked the Indian where he got it. Posey answered it was his.

Al told Posey he was sure that can had come from his provisions at the ' From an interview with Merrill Nelson, September 1963.

Lavender, One Man's West, 172. !

From an interview with A. C. Falster, former ranger, La Sal National Forest, October 1

1963.

318

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Twin Springs cabin and it was all the baking powder he had until he returned to Bluff in about a week.

Sitting on their horses, Al and Posey just looked at each other for several minutes. Finally, in a very deliberate manner, Al got off his horse, walked over to Posey and took the can from his pocket. Then Posey admitted that he had taken it from Al's cabin. But he said that he did not have any baking powder at his camp either. After a moment or two Al said, "Posey, get down from your horse and I'll give you part of the baking powder." They found an empty can, and the cowboy and the Indian sat on the ground and divided the baking powder.63 Al was just as firm and fair in his financial dealings as he was in his treatment of other men. At least one person certainly thought so. For 30 years Ed Lavender bought cattle from Al Scorup; sometimes as many as 2,000 head were involved, yet never once was there a signed contract or written agreement.04 "He was as regular as clockwork about everything," his daughter recalls. "He had every day planned ahead; the months too — the dates when he'd deliver, and things he was going to do." °5 Thus Al Scorup's day always began hours before sun up, even when he was 60 years old. His son-in-law remembers that "he'd get up at three o'clock in the morning, and he'd take a bath and then go back to bed for a little while. He done all his thinkin'then." 06 But while Al did plenty of "thinkin'," he was not known as a "talker"; he was certainly sociable; but in the true western tradition, Al Scorup was a man of few words. "Kind of draggy" is the way one good friend described his speech.67 His dress was distinctive too, at least in the later years. He always wore a white shirt, perhaps in reaction to other years when he did not have one. On or off the range he could usually be distinguished from others by his large frame, slightly bowed legs, and white shirt buttoned against the sun at the cuffs and collar. Al did not go much for bright colors or prints as many cowboys do. "Calico shirts" he called them. 68 The big man with the blue eyes and white shirt was a familiar sight to everyone around the Indian Creek headquarters for many years. Riding his favorite horse, "OF Booger," Al Scorup continued to direct the affairs 03 From a letter to Veda Williams from Leland W. Redd October 23 1Q^Q F™ *v, 6 part, the incident is related here just as Mr. Redd told it in his letter 04 From an interview with Veda Williams, January 31 1963 05 Ibid. m From an interview with Harve Williams, December 31 1963. "'From an interview with Alfred Martin, former brand'inspector, October 1963 oa From an interview with Harve Williams, December 31 1963

m

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H E N R Y LYMAN

Branding, marking, and dehorning Scorup-Somerville calves at the Twin Springs corrals. Working on foot, the cowboy slips up behind the calf, grabs its leg, throws it, and squats on it until the man with the branding iron, the knife, or the saw does his job. Working this way does not mean these men are inept with a rope and a horse. On the range or in a large corral, they "always let the horse do the work."

of the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company long after he had passed the normal age for retirement. Emma, his wife, had died in 1935. He had married again. But even the close attention of Laura, his second wife, could not prevent the stiffness in his bad knee, or the aches of other old breaks and bruises from reminding him that he was no longer a young man, that for a cowboy he had lived a long time. One night during those last years, Al stuck his head in the bunkhouse door, and motioned Henry Lyman, the only cowboy awake, to follow him over to his cabin. He wanted to talk, he told Henry, and so the two old cowboys sat and swapped wild cow stories and talked of the days of the long drives to Thompson before cattle trucks, and of the changes in the country since the uranium boom.

Each time there was a pause in the conversation Al's head would begin to nod; then with a jerk he would start to talk again. Finally Al's heavy chin settled on his chest and he lost all consciousness. Henry slipped out of his chair and back over to his own quarters, but in a few minutes Al was back again leading Henry out of the bunkhouse for the second time. "I'm not

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through talkin' yet," he told his friend. "If I fall asleep again, you just pick up the paper and read awhile. I'll wake up in just a minute. I don't want you to leave until I'm through talkin'." 69 And there were a lot of "old times" to be talked about.

Al Scorup kept riding until he was 80 years old. Then age finally did what bucking horses and wild cattle had been unable to do. A stroke crippled him. Not long after the stroke, he sat in his wheelchair at a stockholders' meeting and saw the reins of management of the Scorup-Somerville Cattle Company pass to Harve Williams, now his son-in-law. A few months later, on October 5, 1959, Al Scorup died.

His obituaries list many accomplishments and honors70 but none more fitting than his election to the Cowboy Hall of Fame to be remembered alongside Charles Goodnight, Richard King, and other great cattlemen of America. 71 Here in Utah he is still remembered as an outstanding cattleman, and Scorup-Somerville cattle still graze over much of that rugged country that he won for himself. But the piece of our heritage that Al Scorup represents is fast fading. Charlie Fry, the miners, the Texans, the Bluff Pool men are all gone. Many of those who rode with him, who knew him best, will soon be gone. Already the spot where he and Jim fought their herd across the Colorado is disappearing under the water of Lake Powell, and a large section of the winter range where he struggled with starving, freezing cattle when the snow was so deep will soon be lost behind the boundaries of Canyon Lands National Park. Now as missiles spook the cattle, as ore trucks roar along where only a horse used to go, as progress eats away at what he built, one wonders how long the memory of Al Scorup, of what he did, will remain vivid. One wonders how many of the tourists who may honk at "Flying V Bar" or "Lazy T Y " cattle will ever know the story of hardship, of disappointment, of sacrifice, and of success that go with those cattle. One wonders how many will know of that 19-year-old boy who crossed the Colorado 72 years ago with a spare horse, a couple of patchwork quilts, and a dream. â&#x201E;˘ From an interview with Henry Lyman, October 1963. r , , â&#x201E;˘,AI . S c o r u P . w a s a commissioner of San Juan County, president of the First National Bank of Moab, vice-president of the First State Bank of Salina, a director in the first Taylor grazing organization, and president of the Salina Land and Grazing Company. He was instrumental in obtaining culinary water and telephone service for Blanding and Bluff and also aided in organizing the first bank in Blanding. He was a member of the executive committee of the National Livestock Association, a charter member and first vice-president of the Utah Cattle Growers Association and was honored by the F.F.A. and Swift and Company as an outstanding stockman and rancher. " Always interested in promoting and improving the Utah cattle industry, Al Scorup made calves available to youthful, would-be stockmen, his own grandchildren included He sold good bulls to his neighbors for a fraction of their worth. He continually worked for more cooperation in market, breed, and range improvements.

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