Tenderfoot

Hey There Tenderfoot

In 1830  William Sublette, one of the founders of Fort Laramie I posted about last week, brought five cattle into the Wind River area of Wyoming. These were the first cattle into the territory of Wyoming, maybe the first Wyoming rancher.

Local Indians were fascinated by the docile creatures, waiting their turn to let a cow lick their hand. Three years later Robert Campbell brought a few cattle to the Green River Rendezvous. The cattle had walked over 1400 miles and arrived with very sore feet. The cattle’s feet had became so bad, on the way west, that the men driving the cattle made shoes for them from raw buffalo hide. These footsore cattle spanned a new term for someone recently arriving in the west – tenderfoot.