Wyoming - The First Cattle

Living only a few blocks from the North Platte River, I often think about how important it once was. Not that it is unimportant today, supporting wildlife and providing power along with, much needed the past few days, irrigation water down stream and providing recreation for tens of thousands of people year round.

North Platte River in the Red Cliffs area a mile north of Guernsey, Wyoming

What I am talking about is how important, as a boundary, it once was.  When cattle were first brought into southeast Wyoming, all lands north of the river were Indian lands. Wandering, and often hostile bands of native warriors made sure the land would not be used for cattle grazing.

The first cattle in the northern part of the state were brought in by Nelson Story in 1866, who bought more than a thousand cattle in Texas for ten dollars a head and drove them to Wyoming. After reaching Fort Laramie, he took the herd up the Bozeman Trail to Fort Phil Kearny. Because of Indian problems in the area he was ordered to hold the cattle at the fort until something could be worked out. After a three week wait, Story became impatient and drove the cattle from the fort at night. The herd was soon located and drove off in all directions by area tribes, and in the days it took to round up the cattle more than 30 Indians were killed.

These Longhorns of today are a bit, okay, a lot, bigger than the 1866 version

Nelson Story went on to establish himself, and the cattle ranching business, near Bozeman, Montana, where he became both rich and influential.

Today more than one and a quarter million cattle can be found in Wyoming, and more than two and a half million in Montana. Guess story knew what he was doing. 

We took some friends from Texas out to the Ruts yesterday - always fun!

Buffalo Bill the Actor

Buffalo Bill was an actor long before he came up with the idea of his Wild West show. 

 From 1872 until 1886 Cody led a troupe of traveling actors, a "Combination," through much of America presenting frontier melodramas. It was during this period that he honed, what would become, his Wild West Show. Bill Cody’s acting debut was in dime novel writer Ned Buntline’s, The Scouts of the Prairie.

In his 14 years with the traveling troupes, he tired of the same dull presentations of the west and wanted to offer a more real show of the west. It was during this time that he added shooting marksmanship exhibitions, and Indian dancers, and started to use animals onstage.

Cody started his, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, in 1883 and three years later acted only in his show. Interesting that it was not Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, but only Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

Cody’s portrayal of the Wild West toured widely in the United States and was so popular that eight different years the group visited Europe, putting on shows for commoners and crowned heads alike. Cody's show lasted for three decades, an excellent run by anyone's standards. 

Cody had two homes, one in North Platte, Nebraska and another in Cody, Wyoming. To most historians, this was the setting for his version of the west, central Nebraska through all of Wyoming.

How famous was he because of his show? Writer/western historian, Larry McMurtry says he was the most recognizable person in the world during the last part of the 1800s – pretty famous!

Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.