The Cattle Industry of Utah: An Historical Profile

The Cattle Industry of Utah 1850- 1900: AN HISTORICAL PROFILE

BY DON D. WALKER

When the first Mormon 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 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. Early in the next century, before the coming of the Mormons, mountain men and Oregon immigrants are reported to have wintered a few oxen in Brown's Hole, the Salt Lake Basin, and Cache Valley. 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."

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.

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. In 1855 Major Howard Egan drove 1,500 shorthorns to the California markets. 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.

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 extensive 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.

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 expanded into many hitherto unused ranges of the West. If the people of Utah, as one observer reported, were not a meat eating people, 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."

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, 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. 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 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."

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.

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. 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. On some ranges of the Uintah Basin, there was no feed above the snow for five months. 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 printed a report of snow depth at Honey Comb Flat in Big Cottonwood Canyon: 33 feet 6 inches on the level.

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. 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. 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." But even this supply was eventually exhausted, and cattle were turned loose to fight for their own survival.

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. On the Island Park range of the Green River, 60 per cent of 1,900 head were reported lost. 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. 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 places which will probably never be seen." 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.

CATTLE AND MEN IN UTAH, 1850-1950 *

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. 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 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." 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." 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."

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.

CATTLE IN UTAH COUNTIES, 1850-1900*

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.

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.

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.

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 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. By 1880 the practical results of such efforts could be observed. Three-and-a-half year old grass-fed beeves of the native ungraded sort dressed out at an average of 550 pounds, but beeves of the same age from graded bulls dressed out at 615 pounds. An increase in average weight of 10 or 12 per cent was generally believed to have 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 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. 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.

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."

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 time the Association 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 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."

The Wyoming Hereford Association had been organized in 1883, with A. H. Swan as president and George F. Morgan as general manager, and with the principal purpose of importing and producing purebred Herefords. 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. 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."

Early in January 1885, Morgan arrived in Salt Lake to set up a Utah outlet of the Wyoming Hereford Association. 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 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.

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."

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 industry. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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.

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