Chief Washakie and President Grant

 Wyoming Fact & Fiction

January 10, 2022

Last weekend I was part of a discussion about listening to books. I don't do a lot of books on audible platforms, but when traveling, we always take one or two along. I enjoy listening and am contemplating putting some of my books on one of the listening programs. That is quite an intro to Chief Washakie – I haven't got around to him yet. Here is the tie-in. My daughter mentioned she was listening to a book and laughing about their pronunciation of Washakie. I have heard the same when listening to some books set in Wyoming. Before moving to Wyoming (1983), I taught in Nebraska and remember butchering the name myself. Guess if you are not from around here, it is difficult to say. But, not as tricky as the Popo Agie.

The first tribes that settled in today's Wyoming in the late 1600s were the Staitans, Comanches, and Shoshones. Like many other plains and foothills tribes, they were bison hunters. It is interesting to note that Shoshone legend and spoken history talked of once living in a land where alligators inhabited the rivers.

Chief Washakie early on realized that friendship with the expanding population would be better than fighting the inevitable. Washakie was instrumental in the success of General Crook (Crook County Wyoming named after him)  fighting the Sioux in Wyoming and Montana.

Because of his help to Crook and the U.S. Army, President Grant sent a silver-trimmed saddle to the Shoshone Chief in appreciation for his service. Some history books have stated that he was given a "fine horse and saddle," but most list the gift as only a saddle. My guess, Washakie, would likely have preferred using one of his fine horses to anything offered up as a gift – he did use the saddle.

According to Virginia Cole Trenholm and Maurine Carley in their 1946 textbook, Wyoming Pageant - Washakie was told he should send some sort of a thank you to the president. Chief Washakie replied, "Do a favor to a white man; he feels it in his head, and the tongue speaks. Do a kindness to an Indian; he feels it in his heart. The heart has no tongue."

Wyoming Trivia – two questions today

1.  Of the four Shoshone branches, which did Chief Washakie and his Wyoming tribe belong to?

2. Washakie was only half Shoshone. What other tribe was he?

 

Answers for Today's Trivia

1. Wyoming hosted the Eastern Shoshone. Other branches were the Northern, Western, and Goshute. 

2. Chief Washakie was born in 1804 with a Flathead father and Shoshone mother.

See you next week!

 

 

Wyoming Pioneer Sheep-Man J D Woodruff

According to my calendar, Spring-2017 started yesterday, and it felt like it. Today seems like we slipped back into the ending days of winter, but that is March in Wyoming.

The first cabin in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming was built by, New Yorker who came west, J. D. Woodruff. He would go on to become a Wyoming pioneer in both the sheep and cattle business. Woodruff came early to Wyoming and served as a scout for the Washburn-Langford expedition into the Yellowstone area in 1870.

Not the Woodruff Cabin, his was not near this nice

The first cabin in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming was built by, New Yorker who came west, J. D. Woodruff. He would go on to become a Wyoming pioneer in both the sheep and cattle business. Woodruff came early to Wyoming and served as a scout for the Washburn-Langford expedition into the Yellowstone area in 1870.

In 1871, John Dwight Woodruff built his cabin on the Owl Creek in what is today Hot Springs County, an area that only a few years before was a sought after and fought over Indian hunting area. Woodruff’s cabin wasn’t much by today’s standard, but it served well enough for his trapping cabin. The structure was 12 feet wide, 20 feet long and seven logs high. The area where he built the cabin, had long been and remained Shoshone area and Woodruff was able to get permission from the famous chief himself, Chief Washakie, to graze sheep. Not sure he told the old chief he intended on grazing 6,000 head, but that is what he brought in from Oregon. It was the first large sheep operation in the state. Woodruff, by the 1880s, was still grazing the area but now with cattle.

Hunting ground became grazing for sheep and cattle

Woodruff later sold his cabin and site for $18,500 to Captain R.A Torrey stationed at Fort Washakie. Torrey later brought in his brother Colonel J.L. Torrey as a partner in the ranch. From the time of the purchase, the two expanded the ranch rapidly, and it soon became the famous Embar Ranch with a reported 40,000 cattle and 6,000 horses. The Cabin site has been noted in the National Register of Historic Places since 1970. The little cabin no longer stands but is marked by a bronze plaque noting its inclusion as a national historic site.

Woodruff seemed to have been lucky in life surviving many close encounters with Indians in the area. Once facing certain death he and three friends were saved when a party of Indians arrived and scared off the tribe Woodruff, and his buddies were fighting for their lives against. Sounds like they were friends with the newly arrived Indians, but according to Woodruff’s account, the second bunch did not know that Woodruff and his friends were there. On another occasion, he hid in the dark underbrush for eleven days as a group of warriors hunted for the trapper along the river. Woodruff survived because he always brought along fishing supplies, and lived on raw fish as he waited for the warriors to leave the area.

Quite an interesting and important man, now mostly lost in history.

Wyoming Forts 1841-1909

The Forts

Much has been written and numerous movies and Television programs made, that include forts in the west. Many of these fictional accounts were set in, or near Wyoming forts. Of course, Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger are the most prominent, but Wyoming was home to many forts. Most were built for one of two reasons, protect the trails or the rails and their builders. Fort Laramie, established as a military fort in 1841, after more than a decade as a trading post, and Fort Bridger, established in 1842, were the earliest of the Wyoming forts. Others, such as Forts Fetterman, Platte, Phil Kearny, Reno, Russell, and Fred Steel were important but shorter lived.

On the grounds of Fort Laramie 

In Honor of the Chief

When the wars on the plains ended, the forts were no longer needed and were closed. Fort Washakie, established from the old Camp Brown,  (1871-1909),  was kept in operation longer than any of the other forts, likely out of respect for the old chief, it was renamed for in 1878. Chief Washakie, who died in 1900, had long been a friend of the U.S. Government and spent much of his later life working toward a sustainable peace and prosperity for his people. Fort Washakie was kept open until 1909, making it the last of the Wyoming forts to close.

68 Years

1841-1909 is not a long period of time, only 68 years, but it was the time of forts in Wyoming. Those 68 years make up less than an average life span, in today's world, and oddly enough, my present age but that is not relevant here, except to me.

Still tellin' stories at 68

A Lot Can Happen

Throughout all of history, much happens in a span of 50-75 years, check out any year and take a look at what happened over the next 68 years,  you might be surprised. In the 68 years that Wyoming had forts a period of movement, settlement and development took place that American had not seen before, an entire culture was wiped out and America fought with others and itself. 

What was wilderness in 1841 was well know by the early 1900s,
but some places, like this one, are still pretty nice and mostly unchanged

Wyoming Top 10

Last week I posted numbers 1-5 of my famous Wyoming people top ten, today numbers 6-10 will complete my list. Like my five of a week ago these are in no particular order, only random.

Edgar Wilson (Bill) Nye (1850-1896) - Founded a Wyoming newspaper with one of the most unusual paper names in all of America, the, Laramie Boomerang. Nye was also a, worldwide know, humorist who traveled widely with both James Whitcomb Riley and Mark Twain. His column was so widely read that the Boomerang was sent to every state in the union and to several foreign countries. Nye wrote several political or historical humor books that sold very well. I have read all that I could of him and his writings over the years and posted quite a few times about him. Mostly forgotten now, too bad.

Chief Washakie (1804/1808-1900) - Shoshone chief who was convinced that peace with the whites would be the only sensible thing to do. So well respected by the American government that he was the last Indian leader to be able to pick the land for his people’s reservation. Famous for keeping peace among the Wyoming tribes by fighting and killing Crow Chief Big Robber at Crowheart Butte Wyoming. The two chiefs fought over tribal hunting grounds instead of letting the tribes fight it out.

Curt Gowdy (1919-2006) – Famous sports announcer and personality, possible best known in later years as the voice of the Boston Red Sox. Gowdy spend decades announcing, football, baseball and several Olympics. But what I remember was his job of host of the long running, American Sportsman. Being an avid outdoorsman I loved this fishing and hunting themed show.

Buffalo Bill Cody (1846-1917) – His life and time spanned the end of the old west but his promotion of the old west let it live on for several more decades. His life story has been well documented, from Pony Express rider, to scout and Indian fighter and Medal of Honor winner and Wild West show promoter. A remarkable man in real-life and in fiction. The wonderful Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming is a must see for everyone that yearns for the good old days.

Chris LeDoux (1948-2005) – Some might wonder about this cowboy singer and his place on my list, but none should. He was a world champion bareback rider and wrote songs about life and cowboys and rodeo. Garth Brooks describes his music as a combination of western soul, sagebrush blues, cowboy folk and rock ‘n’ roll. LeDoux sold over five million records and was also an accomplished artist working mostly in bronze.

 “Sleeping on the ground and takin’ a bath in the creek. That’s the stuff that really made it worthwhile, anybody can stay in a motel.” (Chris LeDoux)

 Can’t be any more Wyoming-like than that.

James (Jim) Bridger (1804-1881) - The legendary mountain man spent much of his adult life in Wyoming, and some of it not far from where I sit writing at this moment. Here is a man who never learned to read or write but quoted widely from the Bible and Shakespeare. Couldn’t read a real map but drew maps that helped build the Oregon Trail, find South Pass and the lay-out the Trans-Continental Railroad. Wyoming has a fort, a mountain, mountain range, river, plains, buildings and many more things named after this mountain man, affectionately known as old Gabe.

I know what you are thinking, this is six not five. Never was good at math and it was too difficult to list only ten – this may be the only top eleven ever written.

If only I would have written a top 12, I could have listed myself. Neil Waring - “He wrote the most well-known top-11 in Wyoming history, I could have been famous!