03 - Summer Fall 1992 - Watermark

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8
0UTLAWTMILJOURHAL
VOLUME 2 SUMMER/FALL 1992 NUMBEiR 2

20th Century Pioneers Going to the Basin
Inthis issue:
LandRushand
OpeningtheUintahBasin
toHomesteading
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THEOUTLAWTRAILJOURNAL
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Volume 2 Summer/Fall 1992 Number 2
Contents
page
The Rush for Land: Opening of the
Uintah Indian Reservation Craig Fuller 2
The Frontier:
Pioneers of Duchesne County, Utah Michael Kelley 10
The Outlaw Trail,
The Trail that Never Was William Webb 23
Western Poetry 33
Folk Tales from the Outlaw Trail 36
BookReviews:
Killing Men is My Specialty ..... reviewed by Richard Wm. Horton 47
In The Company of Cowboys reviewed by John Barton 48
"The Outlaw Trail Journal" is a journal of history published semi-annually by the Outlaw Trail
History Associati 1 It is a journal dedicated to the preservation and research of the history of the
Outlaw Trail, tI, ter Uintah Basin region and the Intermountain West. Historic interpretation
ofarticles are t!.. I rs' and do not necessarily reflect those of the Outww Trail History Association.
Manuscripts f') /(111 'Ii articles or folk-tales are welcome. Article manuscripts should be submitted
in duplicate, II ',j 'aced, with footnotes following the Turabian style of annotation. Folk Tale
manuscripts n<'c t: eannotated. Ifpossible, please includeacopyofthe manuscript ona disk if typed
on WordPeifect. . I 'Q;e sendall manuscripts for consideration of publication to the Managing Editor,
The Outlaw Trail History Center, 155 East Main Street, Vernal, Ut. 84078. Manuscripts will not be
returned unless a self addressed, stamped envelope is included.
Copyright 1992
The Outlaw Trail History Association
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2 THE OUTLA WTRAIL JOURNAL
TheRushforLand:
OpeningoftheUintahIndianReservation
by Craig Fuller'
In 1861 Abraham Lincoln issue an Executive Order creating the
Uintah Indian Reservation in Uintah Valley for relocating Ute Indians
living in Utah Valley and elsewhere in the territory. Lincoln's action
was part of a federal policy of isolating Indians from whites, prevent-
ing conflicts between the two cultures, and opening western lands to
white development. Following their removal to the Uinta Basin
reservation, the Utes lived peacefully without much interaction with
the gTowing Mormon population.
Following the Civil War trouble and conflict resumed between
Indians and whites especially on the Great Plains. Concerned with
this gTowing "Indian question," eastern Protestant churches called for
reforming the ailing Indian reservation program of the federal gov-
ernment.
2
Christian reformers met annually late in the 1870s at
Mohonk Lake, New York, to find a workable olution to the "Indian
problem." From these series of annual conferences a plan developed
to solve the Indian question. The reformer called for complete
civilization of all Indians living in the West through the distribution of
reservation lands to Indians in small 160 acre homesteads with the
balance of Indian reservation lands opened to white homesteaders.
Reformers convinced Massachusetts senator Henry L. Dawes,
chairman of the Senate Indian Committee, that distributing land in
severalty to Indians was a solution to the Indian problem. Through
hard workDawes pushed his bill throughCongress and on8 February
1887, President Grover Cleveland signed the Dawes Severalty bill into
law. During the next three decades thousands of acres of Indian
reservation lands were thrown opened to white homesteader result-
ing in a rush for land throughout the West. Before Congress passed
the Dawes Act Indians held over 155,600,000 acres of land on99Indian
reservations and the Indian territory. Thirteen years later Indian
reservation lands had dwindled to less than 79 million acres.
3
The
opening of the Uintah Indian Reservation to white homesteaders in
1905 was part of this national Indian reservation reform movement. It
took nearly two decades, however, following the passage of the
Dawes Act before Utes received land in severalty and whites home-
steaded on the former Uintah Indian Reservation.
T comply with the Dawes Act, Congress inJune 1898 passed a bill
allotting lands in severalty to the Utes living on the Uintah Indian
Reservation. The 1898 act called for all adult male Ute Indians to
approve the government's plan of receiving land in severalty; each
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3 THE OUTLA W TRAIL JOURNAL
Waitingfor the drawingof homesteads- 1905
OutlawTrailHistoryCenterCollection
Indian family receiving 160 acres of arable land with lesser amounts
to single male Indians and independent children. The balance of
reservation land was then to be thrown opened to white homesteaders
or withdrawn for public uses such as reclamation and national forest
reserves.
At the outset the Utes refused to accept land in severalty. They, like
white farmers living elsewhere in the arid west, fully understood the
need for further water developments for their lands if they were to be
successful farmers and ranchers. As early as 1899 Uintah Indian
agents and Bureau of Indian Affairs officials in Washington urged
Congress to appropriate funds for an irrigation system for the Utes
living on the Uintah Indian Reservation. Congress's niggardly appro-
priations during the next several years, however, did little to develop
the crucial irrigation needs for the Ute people. As a result Ute leaders
and federal Indian agents remained firm over the issue of water and
reclamation development for their land when in 1899 the government
asked the Utes to accept land in severalty.
4
Ute leaders also demanded
additional grazing lands for their livestock as well as land containing
coal reserves. These demands in part delayed the opening of the
Uintah Reservation until the summer of 1905.
5
Postponing the opening of the reservation had repercussions
elsewhere as well. For some time UtahValley farmers had looked with
itching palms to the Uinta Basin as an untapped source of irrigation
water which they could divert to their fanns. Delaying the opening of
the Uintah Indian Reservation provided Utah Valley farmers with
additional time to develop their water scheme. Their plan was similar
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4 .THE OUTLAW TRAIL JOURNAL
to the earlier success of Heber Valley farmers. In the late 18805farmers
living in Heber Valley met with some success when they diverted
Basin water over the Wasatch Mountains to tl' '>IT farms in Heber
Valley.6 Utah Valley farmers wanted to rephcate this successful
transmontane diversion but on a much larger scale.
The delay in opening the Uintah Indian Reservation was fortuitus
for the Utah Valley farmers. In 1902 Congress passed the Newlands
Act creating a federally funded revolving fund for water reclamation
in the west.? Federal funds were now available to Utah Valley farmers
to build the huge Strawberry Reservoir and diversion tunnel.
Fully aware of the Utah Valley farmers' reclamation scheme to
divert Uinta Basin water to Utah Valley, the Vernal Express, the Uinta
Basin's only newspaper, declared: "[W]e cannot help but admire the
supreme effrontery with which our friends over the [Wasatch] range
set about appropriating something [water] to which they have no
moral right in the world."
8
The opportunity for land in the Uinta Basin also became entwined
in political turmoil and animosity between certain Mormon Church
officiab, Senator Reed Smoot and the Republican party, and Thomas
Kearns and his Salt Lake newspaper, The Salt Lake Tribune, and the
American Party. In 1901 the state legislature with the apparent full
support from the state's Republican party and Mormon Church
officials selected Thomas Kearns, a Catholic mining magnate, to the
United States Senate.
9
By 1905 Kearns, however, had fallen out of
political favor within the Republican party resulting in political
fighting between Kearns and the state's junior U. S. Senator Reed
Smoot and his control of the state Republican party. As a result, the
Republican party withdrew its support for Kearns and instead backed
non-Mormon and former Utah representative George Sutherland as
its senatorial candidate. The Republican controlled state legislature
selected Sutherland to the U. S. Senate in 1905.
10
Kearns was outraged with the turn of events and being denied a
second term by the state Republican party. He charged the state
Republican party and certain Mormon Churchofficials with a political
double cross for not supporting his senatorial candidacy. Keams
believed that Reed Smoot and Mormon Church President Joseph F.
Smith were controlling the Republican party and were therefore
instrumental in denying him his second term as U. S. senator.
In the midst of this political turmoil in 1905Thomas Keams learned
that the Church hierarchy, his new political advisory, was working on
a scheme to secure Uintah Indian Reservation lands for its members.
Kearns was convinced that the church under the leadership of]oseph
F. Smith and Reed Smoot were working to gainpolitical and economic
control of the state; a similar fate the state before statehood in 1896.
Near the center of the controversy was William H. Smart president of
the Wasatch Stake, and a loyal supporter of Reed Smoot and member
of the Republican Party. Headquartered in Heber City, Smart's
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5 THE OUTLA TRAIL JOURNAL
ecclesiastical jurisdiction also included the Uintah Indian Reserva-
tion.
On several occasions before the opening of the reservation in 1905
Smart had secretly entered the reservation to identify suitable land
which could be homesteaded and water resources which could be
developed for homesteaders. Smart was convinced that certain
sections of the reservation provided excellent opportunities for home-
steading. He also believed that he and the church should take an active
role in helping church members homestead the reservation. He
further recognized that developing water resources was essential if
Mormon homesteaders were to be successful in proving up on their
homestead. Smart moved quickly in his thinking. In 1905 he
organized the Wasatch Development Company, a land and water
resource company. He also wrote to stake presidents in the state
indicating to them that his company was ready to help church mem-
ber secure land on the reservation.
Kearn. and The Salt Lake Tribune, having learned of Smart's
clandestine forays onto the reservation and the organization of the
Wasatch Development Company, accused Smart, Senator and Mor-
mon AposLle Reed Smoot, Mormon Church President Joseph F. Smith,
and certain land office officials in Washington, D. C. with a" hierarchic
plot and conspiracy" to gain control of all of the Uintah Indian
Reservation for church members. The Salt Lake Tribune in an editorial
declared:
Besides, what mischief has the I ecclesiastical jurisdiction' of the
stake presidency ofWa atch to do with this question of land opening
by the United States? His notin the least an ecclesiastical question, but
an opporrunity for Americancitizens to obtain a stated amount of land
for a homestead or other occupancy. The intrusion of the ecclesiasti-
cism into the matter is an impertinence that deserves the sternest
rebuke. It seems, however, that the beautiful and strenuous hand of
President Joseph F. Smith is in this ecclesiastical move. The impudent
interference assumed by the Wasatch presidency 'is desired by the
First Presidency,' to the end that 'our people' may get the land. It is the
most daring encroachment upon the Government's prerogatives, the
most insolent aU mpt to thwart by underhand means, the efforts of the
Government to give every land-seeker a square deal, that has devel-
oped under the pr sent odious presidency of Joseph F. Smith.
11
The Women's Auxiliary ofthe American Party in the state also took up
the fray accusing the Mormon Church with the same "plot and con-
spiracy." The women's group went so far as to petition the federal
government asking for a full investigation of the Church's role in
openingthe Indian reservation and controllingland and water resources
on the reservation for its members. The Deseret News, organ of the L. D.
S. Church, responded to the women's auxiliary charges.
What can be thought by decent people of the ministerial and journal-
istic deceivers who, not content with making ninnies of themselves in
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their furious assaults upon an imaginary 'hierarchy' tricked a number of
ladies of this city into assuming an absurd position before the country
and exposing themselves to public ridicule.
12
W. A. Richards, Commissioner of the Land Office in Washington,
D. c., rebutted the accusations levied by Thomas Kearns and the
Women's Auxiliary that certain land office officials were somehow
involved in defrauding Americans from reservation lands. Richards
conducted his own investigation of the matter and found no wrong
doing bySmart, Smoot, the Mormon Church hierarchy, or federal land
office officials.
These charges levied by Thomas Kearns and others at Senator
Reed Smoot, U. S. Land Office officials, President Joseph F. Smith, and
William Smart were part of a long encounter by individuals and
special interest groups (including individual states) to gain control of
public western land. Land speculation, land fraud, and questionable
activities and improprieties by government land office officials, specu-
lators, and homesteaders have been continuous problems since the
American Revolutionary War and the drafting of the United States
Constitution. Congress to solve these land problems during the
nineteenth century passed numerous land laws.
13
At earlier Indian reservation openings following the distribution
of land to Indian families under the Dawes Act, there were numerous
problems and difficulties. Typical of this experience was the mad rush
for Indian lands by white homesteaders during the opening of the
Cherokee Outlet in 1893 when 100,000 homesteaders made a mad
dash for land in the Oklahoma Territory. To avoid further difficulties
and problems, the United States Land Office adopted a system to
reduce the made rush for land while at the same time provide a degree
of fairness for all those interested in taking up 160 acres of Uintah
Indian Reservation land. New Land Office rules required would-be
homesteaders to register at one of the special temporary land offices
located at Provo, Price, or Vernal, Utah, or Grand Junction, Colorado.
Each registrant received an entry permit granting him permission to
enter the reservation to scout out possible homestead lands. Land
Office clerks also placed the homesteader's name in an envelope
which they placed in a large wooden barrel. Homesteaders then had
two weeks to survey reservation lands before the drawing of names
for 160 acre homesteads took place at the Proctor Academy in Provo
on August 16, 1905. Nearly 37,000 individuals from all over the
country registered for Uintah Reservation land during the first two
weeks of August. The number of registrants, however, fell short of
anticipated numbers. Some land office officials expected 100,000 or
more would-be homesteaders.
During the first two weeks in August all roads and trails leading
to the Uinta Basin were choked with wagons, horses, and buggies
carrying homesteaders in search of lands on the reservation. All
dreamed their names would be drawn first giving them top selection
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7 THE OUTLAW TRAIL JOURNAL
to unallotted reservation lands. The temporary land office cities were
choked with people. In Grand Junction, Colorado, the city council
hired special police to control the anticipated crowd of land seekers.
The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad added several special trains to
Provo to accommodate homeseekers from Sanpete County and else-
where. As many as 500 single women registered for land in Grand
Junction. One young single woman indicated that she was indeed
interested in land but she also expressed interest in a man to assist her
'n proving up on her land.
14
Franklin P. White, a Denver architect and
leader of the Emethaehevahs, a religious sect, hoped to draw a high
number. He intended to establish a religious colony in the Uinta
Basin.
15
Enterprisingentrepreneurs in each of the designated cities vied for
the homesteaders' money. In one Grand Junction newspaper ap-
peared the following advertisement: "To get a good choice in the
Uintah [Basin] you will need good eyesight. Have yours fitted with
proper glasses in time by G. W. Strong, jeweler and optician."
16
In
Provo local saloons remained open all night to meet the needs of
thirsty men. Due to the lack of boarding houses and hotel rooms in
Provo, city officials granted temporary permits to enterprising resi-
dents to establish tent cities in several open fields in the city. As many
as 150 tents, each containing from two to four cots, were hastily
pitched on the west side of the courthouse in Provo. Cots were rented
out for $1.00 or more per night. Members of the L.D. S. Church First
Ward organized a special dining room and kitchen in the basement of
the old Provo L.D.5. tabernacle.
By evening of August 15 all preparations for the land lottery were
completed. Land Office personnel had built a temporary wooden
lento and platform canopied with white canvas on the side of the
Proctor Academy where the drawing for land was to take place.
Throughout the night men and women gathered around the
school. By early morning the air was thick with dust from the feet of
hundreds of men and women stirring up the dirt. By 9:00 a.m. hour
the hot August sun was making the day uncomfortable. Those selling
cold drinks made good money that day.
At precisely 9:00 a.m. land office officials John Dern and Irving
Hewbert were ready to announce and record the names drawn from
the barrel stuffed with envelopes. Earlier land office officials selected
teenage boys Ly an Noyes, Arnold Rawlings, Earl Gillespie, and Earl
Dusenberry from the Parker School in Provo, and Hoyt Ray, Charles
Petersen, Raymond Peterson, Walter Williams, and Arthur Goodwin
from the Proctor Academy to draw from the wooden barrel envelopes
containing the names of the would-be homesteaders. I? Before the first
envelope was drawn ananxious homesteader shouted: "Five hundred
dollars, boy, if you draw my name firSt."
I8
The first envelope drawn
fro the barrel by Lyman Noyes contained the name of RoyDaniels.
19
During the next few days over 5,772 names were drawn from the
barrel. Thereafter, land office officials drew additional names from
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8 THE OUTLA WTRAIL JOURNAL
the barrel at the land office in Provo. All the names drawn were
reportedinthestate'sdailynewspapers.
Ineverycase,individualshadhighhopesof securingandproving
uponachoice160acrehomestead.Somehomesteadersweresuccess-
ful. Others, however, discouragedwith the poor soil andlackof water,
lefttheBasinafterafewyearsofstruggle,hardship,andpoverty.
The openingof the UintahIndianReservation to homesteading
was part of the earlier federal Indian program established by the
DawesActof1887. Onecanseephysicalremnantsofthehomestead-
ing experience today in parts of the Uinta Basin if one searches
carefullyfortheisolatedandoftenlonelylogcabinabandonedtotime
andweather. Otherhomesteadsblossomedintosuccessfulfarming
andranchingoperations. Irrigationcanalsbuiltwiththeassistanceof
theWasatchDevelopmentCompanyandlaterDryGulchIrrigation
Companyandotherssnakeacross theBasindeliveringwaterto the
drylandinthesummermonths. TheUnitedStatE: lndianIrrigation
Servicebuiltandmanagestodayanextensivenet,vorkofirrigation
canals and ditches for the Ute Indians. Not :111 irrigatorsmetwith
success. TheBlueBenchCanal,locatednorthwestofDuchesne,after
alongandfinanciallydisastrousstrugglefailed. Forthefarmersliving
"overtherange" theimpoundinganddiversionofStrawberryRiver
watermetwithsuccess. AndfortheUteIndiansundertheDawesAct
and later laws, their control of Uinta Basin land was severely re-
duced.
20
NOTES
1Dr. CraigFuller, PhD, isan historianfor the Utah StateHistoricalSO(1<'. "SaltLake
City, Utah.
2 RichardWhite, "It'sYour MisfortuneandNoneof My Own":A i s t o ~ v oj;he
American West (Norman, Oklahoma: Universityof OklahomaPress, N()}), p. 102.
3 White, "It'sYour MisfortuneandNoneofMyOwn". pp. 110& 115.
4 In 1906MinnesotaSenatorMosesEdwinClappsuccessfullyamendedthegeneral
Indianappropriationsbill, adding$600,000fortheconstructionof anIndian irrigation
systemforthe Utepeoplelivingin the Uinta Basin.
5-Forafullerdiscussion &Jlke process%peningthe UillJah IndianReservationsee
CraigFuller, "LandRushin ZionOpeningoftheUncompahgreandUintah Indian
Reservations(Ph.D. dissertation, BrighamYoung University, 1990).
6. CraigFuller, "DevelopmentofIrrigation in Wasatch County"(M.S. Thesis, Utah
State University, 1973), pp. 112-125. Forfurther discussion aboutthediversion ofwater
from the Uinta BasinseeThomasG. Alexander, "AnInvestmentin Progress: Utah's
FirstFederalReclamationProject, TheStrawberry ValleyProject,"Utah Historical
Quarterly39(Summer, 1971):286-304;andKathrynL. MacKay, "TheStrawberry
ValleyReclamationProjectandtheOpeningof the Uintah Indian Reservation," Utah
HistoricalQuarterly50(Winter, 1982):68-89.
7 TheNewlandsActalsocreatedwhatlaterisidentifiedastheBureauofReclamation.
R VernalExpress, 5September1903.
9 0.N. Malmquisr., TheFirst 100 Years: A HistoryoftheSaltLakeTribune. 1871-1271
(SaltLakeCity: UtahStateHistoricalSociety, 1971), 185-186.
10 GeorgeSutherlandwaslaterappointedto the UnitedStatesSupremeCourt, theonly
Utahn toserveon theSupremeCourt.
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9 THE OUTLAW TRAlLJOURNAL
/I Salt Lake Tribune, 2 July 1905
/2 Deseret News, II July 1905.
/.1 There are a number of good works on the land question in American history. Several
good works include Vernon Carstensen, ed., The Public Lands: Studies in the History of
the Public Domain (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968); Paul Wallace Gates,
History of Public Land Law Development (Washington, D. c.: Government Printing
Office, 1968); and Malcolm 1. Rohrbough, The Land Office Business: The Settlement and
Administration ofAmerican Public Lands, 1789-1837 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1968). For a closer look at land policies in Utah see George W. Robbins, "Land
Policies of the United States as applied to Utah to 1910," Utah Historical Ouarterly 20
(July 1952): 239-251; Lawrence B. Lee, "Homesteading in Zion," Utah Historical
Quarterly (January, 1960): 29-40; Gustive O. Larson, "Land Contest in Early Utah, "
Utah Hist. al Quarterly 29 (October, 1961): 308-326; Carlton F. Culmsee, "Flimflam
Frontier: . " 'marginal Land Development in Utah, " Utah Historical Quarterly 32
(Spring, 1964): 91-98; and Craig Fuller, "Land Rush in Zion.' Opening of the
Uncompahgre and Uintah Indian Reservations" (Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young
University, 1990).
/4 Salt Lake Tribune, II August 1905.
/5 Grand Junction News [Grand Junction, Colorado], 12 August 1905.
/6 The Daily Sentinel. [Grand Junction, Colorado] 2 August 1905.
/7 The Provo Daily Enquirer, 17 August 1905,
/8 Ibid.
/9 Salt Lake Tribune, 18 August 1905; The Provo Daily Enquirer, 17 August 1905.
Daniels worked at stone quarry east of Colton, Utah, and had come to Provo to se" the
circus which was in town at the same time as the land lottery.
20 In 1934 the United States government reversed the Dawes Act of 1887. Congress in
1934 passed the Indian ReorganizationAct which permitted Indians to reestablish Indian
tribes and eventually reclaim lost Indian reservation lands.
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Campingon thetrailtoaUinta Basil/homestead.
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THEFRONTIER: PIONEERSOF
DUCHESNECOUNTY,UTAH
by MichaelKelley'
Most contemporary historians of the American We t disregard the
famous Turner Thesis of the American Frontier, but I believe that an
explanation of the turner Thesis andits modificationbyProfessor Ray
Allen Billington is necessary in order to define the Uintah Basin
Settlement of Duchesne County as it occurred from 1905-1915.
American history was made on a hot summer's night, July 12,1893,
when a 32-year-old slim, trim, blonde headed professor of History at
the University of Wisconsin, Frederick Jackson Turner delivered an
address to the American Historical Association Meeting in Chicago to
attend the Chicago World's Fair. Professor Turner had been train d
in the graduate seminars f Johns Hopkins University (the first major
graduate degree grantinginstitution in this country) and there he had
been taught that American in titutions had evolved like germs from
a European background going back to the early, almost mystical,
Teutonic forests of our Germanic ancestors. Turner's talk, entitled
"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" was both a
declaration of independence from his graduate training and was a
new look, a new perspective, and a new departure for American
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THE OUTLAW TRAIL JOURNAL 11
historians. He stated that the Frontier was the key to American
historical development l(Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in
development (Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American
History: University of Arizona Press: 1986, p. X. Cited hereafter as
Turner). Turner impressed his audience with the idea that the Frontier
was a mirror of American history that told demarche concepts about
Americans; and, that during a period of three centuries of Westward
migrations, there had occurred a social process of" Americanization"
which spread its imprint upon the entire nation 2(Turner, pp. XII-XIII).
Pioneers, on each successive American Frontier, had had to solve their
Indian problem, set up political organizations, allocate the public
domain, and serve as guides for those who came later to their frontier
3(Turner, pp. XII-XIII). Turner constantly harangued Americans to
take another look at their past. He was also heavily influenced in his
thinking by environmental determinism and how the Frontier envi-
ronment impinged upon American development. In the words of one
of his admirers, "His (Turner's) frontier theory was perhaps the best
explanatory model for America's development that we have had from
any historian" 4(Turner, pp. XVIII).
FrederickJackson Turner began his process of development for his
Frontier Theory from the statement issued by the Superintendent of
the Census for 1890: that there no longer existed, as of the 1890 Census,
a Frontier. He remarks: "The existence of free land, its continuous
recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain
American development" 5(Turner, pp.1-2). What had happened in the
case of the United States was that beginning with the Atlantic Coast,
White men (and by inference White women) had founded primitive
homes and, over time, ended the Frontier and settled the country. This
had occurred in a constant fluidity of time from the early 1600' s until
1890. What made the American Frontier so unique from its European
counterpart was the salient fact that at the outer edge of the latest
White settlements, there had always existed free land 6(Turner, pp. 2-
10. He describes the First Frontier as the Atlantic Coast with the first
English settlers (in his theory he consistently ignores both the French
and Spanish Frontiers and settlers); then it went to the Piedmont: a flat
rolling country above the navigational parts of the early rivers, the
Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys, the
Great Plains and California, and finally, the Rocky Mountain Region
7(Turner, pp. 7-10). He noted that in general, the Frontier was settled
by three kinds of people: the Pioneer who first breaks the ground and
exists on subsistence farming with hand made tools; this group is
followed by emigrants who purchase the land and build homes, who
in turn are finally followed by men/women of enterprise and capital
who build cities where once a Frontier stood 8(Turner, pp. 19-21).
Finally, Turner attributes the national character of Americans and
their intellect as the result of the heritage of the Frontier: "That
coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitive-
ness, that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients;
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that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but
powerful to affect great ends, that restless nervous energy, that
dominant individualism working for good and for evil--these are the
traits of the Frontier" 9(Ibid., p. 37). In his later work on the Frontiers
of colonial Massachusetts, the Ohio and Mississippi River Valley,
Professor Turner further elaborated the thoughts which he gave first
expression in his seminal paper of 1893 lO(d ibid., pp. 40-260). He
reiterated in a litany of papers that the Frontier had acted as a gate for
people to found freedom of expression and that the development of
these Frontier free lands had promoted the unique American charac-
teristics of individualism, economic equality, freedom to rise, and
democracy" ll(Turner, p. 259). But writing in 1903, Turner noted that
the great supply of free lands which had created the Frontier and its
mentality was now exhausted: "the free lands that made the American
pioneer are gone" 12(Turner, p. 244). Obviously, Professor Turner,
when he wrote his papers, was unaware of the northea tern corner of
Utah and the Uintah Basin which was still for the most part unsettled
in 1890.
Another foremost authority of the American Frontier is the con-
temporary Professor Ray Allen Billington who ha written a classic:
Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier 13(Fourth
edition: New York, Macmillan, 1974. cited hereafter as Billington). In
his book, Professor Billington elaborates on Turner's Thesis; he de-
fines the frontier as an area containing not less than two, not more than
six individuals to the square mile 14(Billington, p. 2) and develops a
model for the appearance of social characteristics in the Frontier. He
states that the Frontier began with those men of romance--the fur
traders and trappers--who began the conquest of nature and exposed
the Indians to White Civilization (and, to some of the worst aspects of
White culture: alcohol and guns). After the fur trapper and traders
had come, the cattlemen who then followed wherever possible by the
miners. All of these first three categories were content with surface
exploration, content to leave the rich land to actual settlers. The first
real settlers were the Pioneer farmers who viewed these vast lands as
gifts of God or nature to be used. These farmers tended to hate the
Indians and to curse the fur trapper who traded guns and alcohol to
the Indians. The pioneer farmer started communities which were then
taken over by "equipped farmers:" men/women who had some
capital and who really founded towns and communitie . Finally, a
virtual urban frontier was created when towns became the centers of
the disposal of agricultural surpluses of the farms; where th y became
depots to provide necessary goods and services to the farmer and
where finally cultural activities and institutions were creat d to
answer the need for higher human aspirations than just creating
homes out of the Frontier 15(Billington, pp. 3-61: in all fairness to
Turner, he had also spoken of a common sequence of Frontier Type
such as the fur trader, cattlemen, small primitive farmer and farmer
engaged in intensive agriculture: Turner, pp. 12, 43-44). Professor
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13 THEOUTIAWTRAILJOURNAL
Billington basically divided the men and women who came to the
American Frontier into two groups: the Users who were intent upon
preservingNature--these would be made up of fur trappers/ traders,
rrtissionaries, herdsmen/ cattlemen; and the subduers who were bent
on conquering nature--these would be composed of farmers, speCUla-
tors, town planters, merchants, and leaders of higher culture
JO(Billington, p. 7). What Professor Billington found out in his research
was the fact that East Coast workingmen/laborers did not, as a rule,
migrate to the Frontier or West. An 80-acre farm could cost as much
as $1,500 to get established in the mid 19th century--this, at a time
when a day laborer would scarcely earn $1 a day. So the people who
really came to the Frontier who stayed and settled, who had the
technical knowledge to conquer the wilderness, plant crops, establish
home and raise families were other farmers. As Billington cogently
writes on the settling of the West: "Romantic characters took part:
coon-skinned trappers and leather clad Mountain Men, starry-eyed
pro pectors and hard riding cowboys, badmen and Vigilantes. But the
true hero of the tale was the hard working farmer who, oxen in hand,
marched ever West until the boundaries of his nation touched the
Pacific" 17(Billington, p.11). Let us see if the Turner and Billington
models work for the Uintah Basin and Duchesne County in particular.
One of the aspects of the Frontier lightly touched upon by turner
but dealt with more detail byBillington 18(cfBillington, pp. 15-28) is the
issue of the Native Americans or Indians. Turner constantly refers to
this issue as the "Indian Problem" 19(cfTurner, pp. 14-19 for example):
what he really means is that it was a problemfor Whites that the Native
Americans were already here. This paper is too short to give a detailed
history of the Native Americans/Indians in Utah except for a few
sweeping generalizations. What is now Utah was the home of the Ute
and Shoshone peoples who were actually related to each other but
who were mortal enemies. Because of the Utah climate, these people
lived a hunting and nomadic life. Such was the case when the great
Mormon trek led by the brilliant prophet and colonizer, Brigham
Young (1801-1887), arrived with over 1,800 emigrants to the Great Salt
Lake Valley by 24 July 1847 and since celebrated as Pioneer Day by
Utahns 2O(the story that Brigham Young said when he saw the Great
Salt Lake Valley: "This is the place" is apoClyphal--no contemporary
account of him saying this is recorded (Billington, pp. 458-59). At once
the Mormons took over the Great Sale Lake and Utah Valleys, estab-
lishinghomes, farms, churches, and schools. The Ute Indians who had
hunted upon these lands were displaced. The Mormons tried to deal
equitably with the Ute Indians, especially, as according to their
theology, the Utes and all other Native Americans were Lamanites or
descendants of the Lost TenTribes of Israel. Brigham Young and other
church leaders tried to convert the Ute Indians and to transform them
from wandering hunter and pastoralists into sedentary farmers--
they even tried to set up farms for the Indians, but the latter would
have none of it. During the 1850s with the ever increasing tide of
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migration of Mormons to Zion or Utah, the clamors of the white
populace was for Indian Removal. But the question to this was where?
The area determined was the Uintah River Basin and Valley in
northeastern Utah as this area had been rejected between August and
September 1961 as an area of settlement by the Mormons 21(Helen Z.
Papanikolas, The Peoples of Utah (Utah State Historical Society: Salt
Lake City, 1981, p. 37. Cited hereafter as Papanikolas). On 3 October
1861 President Abraham Lincoln set aside the Uintah River Valley as
a reservation for the starving Utes. Congress did not ratify this
creation of a Ute Reservation until March of 1864 by which time many
hundreds of Utes had starved to death. Several leaders of the Ute
people decided to try to maintain their ownership of the Provo,
Spanish Fork, and San Pete areas of Utah. They were inspired and led
by the Ute Chief Black Hawk. There erupted a short, but violent
conflict known as the Black Hawk War in which Ute Indian bands
fought and attacked Mormon forts and farms. The Mormons in fact
had to build forts and stockades to protect themselves from Indian
raids. But by 1868, this war was virtually over when a new Chief
Tabby-to Kwana led the Utes to the Uintah Basin. Various Indian
agents were appointed to help the Ute people out, the most noted of
whom wasJohnJ. Critchlow, who from 1871-1881 founded sawmills,
day schools and had land broken up for agricultural pursuits. The
Utes from Colorado joined their distant kinsmen in the Uintah Basin
in 1880-81 following the Meeker Massacre. Nathan C. Meeker was an
irascible puritanical type who had a national reputation as a Socialistic
reformer who tried to make the Colorado Utes into White Puritan
farmers. Not only did he fail in this, but his efforts cost him his life and
the lives of 12 other residents at his Indian agency. The Meeker
Massacre was the pretext by white Coloradans to insist that the
Colorado Utes must go (by an 1868 treaty the Utes owned 1/3 of
western Colorado). The Ute Chief Ouray" Arrow" persuaded the
Utes that resistance was hopeless: so the Uncampaghre Utes came to
the Uintah Basin. The Federal Government built two forts: Fort
Thornberg, named after Major Thornberg, who was killed by the Utes,
and Fort Duchesne: the latter was established in September, 1886, and
was operational until August 1912. The Dawes Allotment Act was
passed in Feburary 1887, in which Indian lands were allotted to
individual Indians: 160 acres per head of household and 40 acres per
adults. The Utes remained in the Uintah Basin, but they were not to
be left undisturbed for long. Despite strong Ute protests, the Uintah-
Ouray Reservation was opened up for White settlement in 1905. A
group of about 400 Utes led by Red Capp from the White River band
left the Reservation for the Sioux Nation in the Dakotas: this was an
expression of Indian resistance to homesteading. But after a couple of
years of starvationand White harassment, these Utes returned to Utah
22(Robert Hugie, "The 1905 Opening of the Uintah Reservation"
January 1985, p. 21: Uintah County Library Regional Room, Vernal).
The Utes returned to the Uintah Basin in 1908 and accepted the fact
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that the Whites were here to stay 23(Papanikolas, pp. 37-43). Now it is
necessary to examine the white presence of pioneers in the Uintah
Basin and Duchesne County.
The early recorded history of the Uintah Basin and Duchesne
County follows pretty much the model of the American Frontier
created by Professors Turner and Billington. From the outset, the
recorded history of Duchesne County is limited to primarily two
works: The Early History of Duchesne County (Springvale, Utah
1948) compiled by Mildred Miles Dillman (cited hereafter as Dillman)
and From Then Until Now: 75 Years in the Central UintahBasin: 1905-
1980, Vol. I (Roosevelt, Utah 1987) compiled by Em' y T. Wilkerson
and Lester uH" Bartlett (cited hereafter as From Then Until Now).
Both of these works draw heavily upon oral traditions, stories and
memories of the early settlers of the County. In fact the Wilkerson
book is really a compilation of oral history composed of 1,078 indi-
vidual coup es' entries followed by 50 composite or family entries.
Whatever their limitations, both these books provide a fascinating
look and glimpse at the Frontier in Duchesne County.
The origin of the words Uintah and Duchesne are a matter of
c nsiderable debate. According to Dillman, the word Uintah stems
from Uimpah ow-ump (uim=around, pah=water, ow-ump=long leaf
pine tree) which became transliterated by Whites into Uintah: "Land
high up where the tree grows" 24(Dillman, Introduction). Although
the Spanish were the first Whites to appear in modern Duchesne
County with the Dominguez Escalante expedition of 1776, the name
Duchesne is French and was given by French fur trappers in honor of
Mother Rose-Philippine Duchesne who founded the Order of the
Sacred Heart in St. Louis, Missouri by 1818 25(Dillman, Introduction,
Charles W. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, Encyclopedia of the Ameri-
can Religious Experience, (New York, 988), Vol. I, p. 365; Vol. III, p.
1554). Still other modem authorities see Duchesne as stemming from
the French colonial Fort Duquense built on the modern site of Pitts-
burgh, Pennsylvania, or that it carne from an Indian word 'I doo-
shane" which means "dark canyon": John Van Cott, Utah Place
Names (Salt Lake City, 1990), pp. 117-118; Utah Place Names (Utah
Writers Project WPA(Salt Lake City, 1941),3: Uintah CountyRegional
Library, Vernal).
The first Whites who entered the Uintah Basin and left record was
the Dorning-llez-Escalante expedition of mid-September 1776
26(DiIlman, p. 65). Thereafter, there is no record of Whites being here
until 1824 whenFrench fur trappe s from St. Louis appeared. In 1825,
William H. Ashley, then Lieutenant governor of Missouri who had
founded a fur trading company in 1821, came out to have the first
rendezvous at Henry's Fork in the northern Uintahs. He arrived a
month early, buried his trade goods which he would give to the fur
trappers in exchange for furs and came down to the Uintah Basin in
search of furs and a new trapping area. Ashley never was a real
Mountain Man or fur trapper: he was a business rna and politician.
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16 . THE OUTLAW TRAlLJOURNAL
One of the fur trappers whom William Ashley probably met was
Antoine Robidoux, who was a fur trapper here in the Uintah Basin for
the twenty-year period: 1824 until 1844. Robidoux was responsible
for building a trading post or fort in the Uintah Basin called Fort
Uintah, Windy or Robidoux which was located at the junction of the
Uintah and White R .eks Rivers. At this time the Uintah Basin was part
of Mexico and remained so until 1848. n ~ o i n Robidoux had the
dubious distinction of being the only fur trapper who had his fur
trading post attacked and destroyed by the Indians. This occurred in
1844 and was probably the result of Robidoux's engaging in Indian
slavery, prostitution, and selling liquor to the Indians 26(Professor
John Barton, USU, 30 July 1991; cf Dillman, p. 69). In 1828 William
Reed and his nephew Jimmy Reed (ancestor of many Basinites today)
came with Denis Julien and Augustus Archambeaux from the Mid-
west and founded a post just south and east of White Rocks: this was
called the Reed Post and was located just 20 yards from Fort Robidoux
27(Dillman, pp. 68-69). The era of the fur trappers and Mountain Men
was a relatively short lived one; by the mid 1840's, there were no
longer fur trappers looking for beaver skins in the Basin. The fur trade
was a thing of the past.
We next hear of Whites in the Uintah Basinin 1861. By this time the
Mormons had come to Utah and this territory was American land.
Pressures had built up with an ever increasing number of emigrants
to Utah so that in August 1861 Brigham Young decided to send out a
scouting party to go into the Uintah River Valley with an eye for the
establishment of Mormon settlements there. A party left Salt Lake
City on 2 September 1861 but returned to Salt Lake City on 25
September with the following report: II the fertile vales, extensive
meadows and wide pasture ranges so often reported to exist in that
region were not found and the country... is entirely unsuitable for
farming purposes... the "mount of land suitable for cultivation is
extremely limited" 28(Dillman, p. 75). Thus the Mormons, for the time
being, abandoned the Uintah Basin. As stated earlier, this whole area
was set aside as an Indian Reservation for the Utes by President
Abraham Lincoln on 3 October 1861.
However, there were a few Whites who appeared in the Uintah
Basin during the 1860's and 1870's. Pardon Dodd made a trip in the
fall of 1867and a year later he established a tradingpost at Whi te Rocks
to trade with the Indians. He remained for a could of years and was
succeeded by John J. Critchlow in 1871 who remained for a decade as
an Indian agent at White Rocks 29(Dillman, pp. 79-81). Meanwhile, the
Federal Government, to keep peace in the area, established Fort
Thornberg in 1881 (lasted until 1884) and after its closure opened Fort
Duchesne in September 1886. This latter fort was in operation until
August 1912 when it was closed by the Federal Government 3O(cf
Dillman, pp. 84-86).
During the 1870's and 1880's, the discovery of such minerals as
gilsonite and copper made the Uintah Basin valuable to Whites. Many
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miners wanted to get onto Indian land for the purpose of developing
them. Then Congress and the White majority of the country decided
to change Indian policy completely by the Dawes Allotment Act of
February 1887: this act provided for the allotment of lands to the Ute
Indians. Each head of families was to receive 160 acres, each child 40
acres, and each single person over the age of 18, 80 acres. The Utes
were to have four years to make their choice--whatever was left over
wa to be given to Whites. The Utes protested this Act vehemently and
sent several committees to Washington D.C. with petitions. They
want d to keep theUintah Basinfor themselves.. Under pr I::sure from
politicians, the Federal Government started a Ute Reservati In survey
in 1897 which was completed in 1902. Even before it was completed,
many White rushed on to the land to establish squatter rights. The
results of the government survey were: 282,460 unallotted acres (1/
6 of tribal land) to Ute tribe members, 1,010,000 acres as forest reserve,
2,100 acres as townsites, 2,140 acres as mining claims, 60,160 acres as
reclamation projects and 1,004,285 acres thrown open for homestead-
ing in July 1905 31 (Robert P. Cooper, Leota: End of William H. Smart
Stew rdship (Salt Lake City: 1979, pp. 9-10. Cf Robert Hugie, "The
1905 Openingofthe Ui . 'hReservation" Jan. 1985, pp. 25-26: Uintah
County Library Regie Room). A council was held with the Ute
Indians at White Rod Jm 18-23 May 1903 led by the Special Indian
Agent, James McLaug. n, who had been sent from Washington to
obtain the consent of the Indians to the opening of the Uintah-Ouray
Reservation. McLaugWin bluntly told the Indians that Congress had
already decided to open up the Reservation to Whites; the question
which rf-mained was to allot lands to the Indians. Many Indians
refusee' select an allotment or to live on allotments chosen for them;
white ker were brought in to survey the Indian land as Indians
refused do it. But, by an Act of Congress of 27 May 1902, it was
decided that as 1 October 1903 all unallotted lands in the Uintah
Reservation in the State of Utah would be restored to the public
domain. These lands could be homesteaded at the price of $1.25 per
acre 32(Hugie, p. 21; Dillman, pp. 84, 88-90). It was also decided that at
9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 1 August 1905, registrations would be held at
V rnal, Price, and Provo, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colorado, for
people to enter their names as homesteaders in the newly opened
Uintah Reservation. Re ervations for a homestead could not be made
by mail except honorably dis harged veterans of the Civil War and
Spanish American War. During the firs t 60 days of the opening, no one
but registered applicants coul go to the newly opened lands. The
drawings for the numbers for the applicants was to be done by a
committee of three men of unimpeachable integrity chosen by the
Secretary of the Interior. The registration offices above named were
to make out individual cards with a description of the applicant so that
local land offices could identify him. At the end of the registration
period, the cards would be given numbers. The numbers assigned
would be posted each day at the place of drawing and the results of
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each days drawings would be published in the local newspapers.
Beginning Monday, 28 August 1905, at 9:00 a.m. at Vernal, Numbers
1-50 would be selected, the day after numbers 51-100 and so forth until
all the registered applicants had been entered 33(Dillrnan, pp. 90-94).
The Frontier had finally come to the Uintah Basin and what later
became known as Duchesne County. On 16 August 1905, a lottery was
held at Provo to determine who would get a 160 acre homestead.
People came everywhere from the East and the West while the
Mormon Church was actively promoting the colonization of the
Uintah Basin. The first settlers set out in September 1905 to claim their
lands--"What they found when they entered the Basin was not a
paradise, but a dry inhospitable land. The better land with easy acces
to water had already been taken by the Indians or other homestead-
ers" 34(Robert HUgie, "The 1905 Opening of the Uintah Reservation"
Jan. 1985, p. 25. Cited hereafter as Hugie). "White settlement patterns
like those of the Indians were determined by availability ofarable land
and by access to water. Upon arrival, the white settlers found most of
he Utes liVing along land adjacent to the Uinta, Whiterocks, and lower
Duchesne rivers. Contact with the Indians was insignificant at first a
most whites chose lands located in the western portion of the former
reservation. Utes had the best "lands in the east rn portion... So what
emerg d after allotment and settlement were two racially separate
and distinct communities" 35(Hugie, p. 26).
What an exciting time for the Uintah Basin. The American Frontier
and Pioneers were here to stay. In reading the 1,078 entries of oral
accounts of settlement of Duchesne County c mpiled by Emily T.
Wilkerson, one is struck by the similar experiences of back breaking
work and dedication followed by the Pioneers in their quest to create
newhomes for themselves and their families 36(see Appendix for three
representative accounts of Pioneer experiences of Duchesne County:
Charles W. Smith, Gwvington David Lawson, and Joseph Harold
Eldredge).
Two of the leading Pioneer Fathers to be mentioned in any history
of Duchesne County are William Henry Smart and Alvah Moroni
Murdock. Indeed, William Henry Smart has been called the "Found-
ing Father of Duchesne County" 37(Dillman, pp. 112-113: here he is
erroneously called William Haines Smart). William Henry Smart was
bOU1 6 April 1862 in Franklin County, Idaho; he was a graduate of
Cornell and Bringham Young College--now Utah State University--in
Logan in 1886. There he met and married his wife Anna Haines. He
was sent on two LDS missions to London and Palestine before the
1890' s. by 10 Feb. 1901, he had become President of the Wasatch Stake
in Utah and his work was of such high calibre that he became
successively President of Uintah Stake (1906), Duchesne Stake (1910)
and Roosevelt Stake (by 1913). William and Anna Smart were among
the leaders of the community of Roosevelt and when Duchesne
C unty was created in 1914 he tried very hard to get Roosevelt chosen
as the county seat but without success. He was also one of the chief
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19 THE OUTtAW TRAIL JOURNAL
promoters and leaders of one of the first irrigation companies in the
Basin, the Dry Gulch Irrigation Company which was formed in 1905.
He spent his last three years working at the Salt Lake City Temple for
the LDS Church and did in December 1937 38(From Then Until Now:
"William H. Smart, Anna Haines", pp. 792-794).
Alvah or Al Murdock was a go-getter, a real activist. He was the
father of Duchesne City. Murdock was apparently the first white
person to make the Basin his home and to make constructive use of its
land. He was born April 26, 1957 in Carson Valley, Nevada... Later his
father and family moved to Heber Valley whe.re the elder Murdock
was a Bishop... Alvah had an interest in livestock so he and his partner
Jim Clyde investigated the Uintah Basin. They leased the entire Basin
for $1,000 a year according to a history of Murdock and they confined
their herd to cattle... Alvah kept his family in Heber while he ranched
on the Basin--to make more moneyhe freighted goods to FortDuchesne.
In 1885 he established a trading post at White Rocks and moved his
family there. He got along well with the Indians and fed them... He
later moved his family back to Heber... In 1905 he joined in the great
Land Boom to the Uintah Basin. he brought in two wagons and kept
his merchandise in a cabin and used a tent for a store and boarding
house. The town was namedDora in honor of Murdock. Later he built
his store called the Pioneer Supply Store which became a community
center. A story is told of the first winter after the homesteaders
arrived. The settlers had not been in the Basin long enough to plant
crops. Freighting was difficult when the first rains came and turned
the roads into impassable mud bogs. When he was unable to get
supplies, Murdock mounted his horse and visited every ranch in the
area and begged or borrowed whatever supplies could be spared.
These he distributed to the families that were out of food. So he saved
many early settlers from starvation.
Murdock brought the first woman to the Basin, gave the town its first
name, brought the first mail, became the first LDS Bishop, and was the
first mayor. He also ran the first store and operated the first stage.
39(Uintah Basin Standard, June 26,1991).
To sum up then, the Pioneers and the Frontier had come to the Uintah
Basin in 1905. To follow Billington, the Subduers of the land were here
in abundance although there were lots of cowboys, miners, and
cattlemen along with the Homesteaders. Settlement went on quickly
after 1905 and Duchesne County was created in 1914 from Wasatch
County 4O(Dillman, p. 101). Practically all of the towns of Duchesne
County were founded from 1905 until 1912. Three institutions ap-
peared very soon after the first pioneers got here: churches, schools,
and irrigation companies to build the vital irrigation canals and
ditches 41(Dillman, pp. 140-471). In fact, the early appearance of
schools made the UintahBasin Frontier very different from most other
American Frontiers; this can be attributed to the Mormon love of
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learning and education (the only early frontier that also had schools
very soon after settlement was colonial Massachusetts 42(cf Billington,
p.461). I have been unable to find stories of the 1920's or 1930's but
from the oral traditions handed down by residents of this County, it
seems probable that frontier conditions existed here as late as at least
1930. Thereafter, Duchesne County was no longer a frontier.
In conclusion, we can say that here in Duchesne County, we have
had Mormons and Gentiles, Native Americans and Whites, Blacks and
other ethnic groups, men and women, create and experience what was
uniquely one of the last true American Frontiers.
APPENDIX
As examples of the Pioneer experience of settlingDuchesne County from
the participants own words, I have chosen to quote extensively from three
accounts to give a flavor of what it was like to settle one of the last American
Frontiers. I have chosen to let the participants speak for themselves. The
accounts come from Charles W. Smith, Guivington David Lawson, and
Joseph H. Eldredge.
Charles W. Smith recalls:
In June, 1905, I drove to Provo to register for a drawing of landat the opening
of the Ute Indian Reservation which would take place at Vernal... In the
forefront of September, 1905, I left for Vernal. Our numbers were so height
that all of the good land had been taken before we had a chance to draw. It
seemed there were people from all parts of the Union: White, Black, and
Yellow. There was a mad scramble for locations when the drawing began
with every kind of conveyance imaginable (there were no motorized vehi-
cles). The second day out, we met many who were disappointed, begrimed,
and weary from a hot dusty trip into the in known region of rolling, barren
hills with out water except that which flowed down the everal rivers. To
subdue the sunbaked prairie appeared to many to be an in urmountable
task. Many of these discouraged victims were ready to sell their number of
a song and return to their homes. Bishop Goseph A.) Franscen bought some
of these relinquishments and sold one to me through the Wasatch
Devleopment Company... On June 5, 1906, all were ready to go to the
homesteads: Hyrum Nicol and nine other men accompanied me to Myton
by June 8, for an LDS conference... We gathered around over the campfire at
night and singing and offered up our thanks to God for His protecting care
over us... Our first task was to build houses so that we could bring our
families here. We realized that without them we would soon tire in this
windswept desert... When we reached the Strawberry and Duchesne Rivers
with our first load of logs, the water had risen so high that the Theodore
(Duchesne) Townsite was completely under water up to our waists. There
was nothing for us to do but pull back up the canyon and take the old road
to Myton. After a hard day, we arrived at Myton after dark. We found this
place mostly under water. It was with difficulty that we found a dry spot to
make our bed. Just after daylight, a young man, Rob rt L. Rohn, with pants
rolled above his knees, bareheaded and with an armful of wood made for a
shack labeled Bakery. Just before reaching the door, he stepped into a hole.
It was almost over his head. When he came up, the air was blue and vibrating
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21 THE OUTIA WTRAlL JOURNAL
with every cuss wordthat I have ever heard... To crossthe LakeFork Bridge
BarrMusserledandIfollowedwithastrapbetweenus. Westartedtocross
overthebridgebutthecurrentwassostrongwehaddifficultykeepingon
ourfeet ... WefoundTracy,myoldestsonwhohadbeenleftaloneonthe
homestead,gladtos eus. ThishomesteadwasinMidview.
(FromThenUntilNow,"CharlesWilliamSmith,AmeliaBarben"pp.795-
796)
Gui7.lington David Lawson remembers the Basin as follows:
"In September,1905, theUte IndianReservationwasopenedforhomestead-
ers. Adrawing washeldinProvo. Thosepeoplewhosenamesweredrawn
wereallowedtocorneintothearea to homesteadonhundredsixtyacres.
Theywereexpededto proveup ontheirclaimsbybuildinga horne and
livingontheproperty. Peoplecarneboilingintotheareabythehundreds.
Theycamewiththeideathiswasamildclimate. Theyweremisinformed
throughfalseadvertisingby landspeculators.Many ofthepeoplewho were
originallyawardedlandfoundtheirlandwasnotgoodforfarminganddid
nothingwithit. Someofthepeoplemortgagedthehalfoftheirgroundthat
wasn'tgoodtoMillerandVieleRealEstateCompany,VanKleekMortgage
Company,LandBankof California,andother loancompaniestoget enough
moneytobuymachinerytofarm theotherhalfoftheirland. Manyofthe
peoplewerenotabletopayoffthemortgage... Somepeoplewouldbuilda
cabin on their ground and would hang clothes on a clothesline so the
government inspectorwouldthinktherewassomeone livingtheretoprove
uponthehomestead. Aftersevenyears,ifthepeopleabandonedtheland,
thelandwas oldfortaxes. WaterrightstothegroundreturnedtotheDry
Gulch office (i.e., TheDryGulch Irrigation Company, foundedin1905 MK) ...
Muchofthegroundstayedvacantforyearsandmuchwassoldfor taxes.
A.(AI) M.Murdockwas one of the firstfamilieswhich carne intothe country.
Before the opening of the Reservation he freighted to White Rocks--he
brought bands ofhorsesintothearea.It isclaimedhisdaughterwasthe first
whitebabytobeborninthisareaoftheUintahBasin. Theyfirstnamedthe
townDorain honorofher,laterit waschangedtoTheodore,andlaterto
Duchesne...
...TheRoosevelttownsitewaspartoftheEdF.Harmston,H.FrankOrsers,
andotherhomesteads. OriginallyEdnamedthetownDryGulchCity. His
wifedidn'twanttobeknownasadrygulcher. Shewasapersonalfriendof
PresidentTheodore Roosevelt and talked Ed into changing the name to
Roosevelt...
Thefarmerscouldraisemostoftheirfood. Whattheyneededwasacash
croptobeabletobuy necessitiesandpaytheirtaxesandwaterassessments.
Theybegandevelopinglivestockherds. Manyinvestedineithersheepor
cattle--someinvestedin both... Manyfarmers workedincoalorgilsonite
minestoearnmuchneededcash($4 aday).
(FromThenUntilNow: "CrescentMemories: GuivingtonDavidLawson,
pp.991-992)
Anotherearly Pioneer, Joseph Harold Eldredge, who settled in Myton in 1913offers
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History Center
a fascinating side light to what life was like in a Pioneer town:
The saloons had all the rough elements which could be attracted to a frontier
town. There were shooting scrapes. One man was shot down in the street
as he ran from the marshal. The marshal shot him as he tried to escape. They
eventually got another marshal in office. However, he worried so much
about the fighting and rough stuff that went on in the saloons that he
eventually became mentally disturbed and tried toblow up the saloons with
explosives. He succeeded in blowing the entire front out of one of the
buildings one night after everyone had gone home. No one was injured by
the blast, but of course, we had to get a new marshal...
... Two saloons and three houses of prostitution were doing a flourishing
business. There was no secret of their existence... I had not been in town
many months until I heard two shots which killed two people. One of them
was a man who lived in a white topped wagon with another man and a
woman. They professed to be brothers with one of the men married to the
woman. There was some doubt raised about their relationship after they
quarreled over the woman and one man shot the other. When I helped
prepare the man's body for burial, we found a money belt strapped around
his waist. The bullet had passed through the belt and carried parts of
greenbacks all the way through the man's body. The other man claimed that
he shot in self defense and the woman verified his story so they were not
prosecuted for the killing. However, we later learned that he had also killed
a man in Colorado under very similar circumstances. But the killer and
woman had left town before the news of the Colorado killing was known...
We never saw nor heard of them again.
I found the Indians of the Uintah Basin very friendly and interesting. I made
friends with several Indians and participated in the Bear Dance on several
occasions. (This was a spring festival dance. He had an Indian costume on
and got a beaded bag to wear with his outfit. The Indians laughed at Harold
Eldredge for wearing the bag as they thought it was a pipe bag. So an Indian
got him a beaded vest to wear which he did with great pleasure and finished
dancing the Bear Dance). Most of the white people would not eat Indian
food. But I ate it. I wanted to show the Indians that I considered them to be
my brothers and sisters... I wanted their respect and got it.
(Finley Pearce, 0 My Father: ABiographyofIoseph Harold Eldredge (Yorba
Linda, CA: 1980), pp. 74-75, 81-82)
NOTES
JDr. Kelley is an assistant professor of history at Utah State University's Uintah Basin
Education Center.
Property of the
Outlaw Trail
History Center
THEOUTLAWTRAIL
THETRAILTHATNEVERWAS
by William Webb
l
The Outlaw Trail, that meandering, phantom path along the
Continental Divide never really existed. From its name, one might
think it was a well-worn path running north and south through the
intermountain we l. That was not so. Instead, the trail was a network
of friendly ranchers, settlers and others who provided food, shelter
and fre h horses to the traveling outlaws.
Some of these accommodatingpeople expected to be paid for their
hospitality. However, many provided it simply out of friendship or
because they had an inherent dislike of the oft-times overbearing,
arrogant, shoot-first-and-tell-em-about-it-later deputies. This senti-
ment was best described by an old-timer who said, "The outlaws
would help with the dishes, but the deputies just demanded dinner."
Two things caused the Outlaw Trail. They were changing popUla-
tion mores and settlement. In earlier days, an outlaw could go west to
Texas, Oklahoma Territory or the end-of-the-rail towns on the Great
Plains when his indiscretions became too noticeable around his home
neighborhood. With societal changes and population growth that
brought better law enforcement, this was no longer possible. Judge
Parker had tamed Oklahoma Territory; Texas had lawmen all over the
place; and the rail towns were building churches instead of saloons.
In the 80s' and 90s', civilization extended to a line running north
and south through Santa Fe and Denver and the mining camps to the
west. The Old West hadshrunk to that narrow strip between the Rocky
Mountains and the red desert of Arizona, Utah and Nevada. With only
that left, where could a man hide after a saloon killing or the robbery
of a bank, train or post office?
Earlier, the lawbreakers could find refuge with friendly local
people, butwhenlaw andorder began to arrive in thewestthis became
more difficult. It was one thing for a rancher to put a man up for a .ght
or so, but it was an entirely different thing to hide him for several
weeks.
The outlaw's solution to this problem was simple. After commit-
ting his crime, he would do much the same as he had in the past, but
with one difference. Instead of hiding with friendly people nearby, he
woulduserelays of horses and travel as fast as he couldto some distant
hideout. Thus, the long rider, as so many have called him, was born.
With him came that north-south network of ranches we now call the
Outlaw Trail.
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24 THE OLITLA W TRAiL OLIRNAL
In this article and, perhaps, in following ones, we are going to
locate and describe some frequently used stops along the trail. For no
good reason, other than it's winter and cold outside, we will start with
the south end of the trail.
The friendly southern terminus of the Outlaw Trail was William
Cornell Greene's Cananea Cattle Company E'nch in Sonora, Mexico.
The unfriendly south end of the trail was in Fronteras and Ascension,
Chihuahua where, if apprehended without bribe money, an outlaw
might languish in jail for many months.
William Greene was a wealthy mining man who owned extensive
interests in gold, silver and copper mines in southern Arizona and
northern Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico. Besides his mining enter-
prises, he operated the Greene Cattle Company ranch on the San
Pedro River in southern Arizona and the Cananea Cattle Company
near Cananea, Sonora.
Doubtless, Greene had no idea that his ranches were harboring
outlaws. However, as at other ranches, friendly foremen and range
bosses often put fugitives up without saying anything about it to the
management.
The Cananea ranch was managed by William Greene's step son
Frank Moson. Moson would later marry a niece of outlaw George
Musgrave, an original member of the Black Jack Christian gang. Less
prominent outlaws often stopped at the Cananea, but the high-profile
members of the Black Jack Christian gang members were the most
notable visitors.
After the attempted holdup of the International Bank at Nogales,
Arizona in August 1896, the Black Jack Christian gang hid at various
ranches on both sides of the border. Among the e wa_ Greene's ranch
at Cananea, Ed Roberts' OH ranch and Billy Plaster's place. near the
south end of the San Pedro valley in Arizona.
InJanuary 1897, after a posse ambushed the gangat theDeer Creek
horse camp of the Diamond A, the outlaws again holed up at Greene's
Cananea ranch. However, when the lawmen arrived they were too
late. The boys had departed up the trail toward New Mexico.
Across the border northeast of Greene's ranch, there was another
hospitable stop on the Outlaw Trail. This was the Erie CattleCompany
in the Sulphur Springs valley of Cochise County, Arizona.
The Erie's range was some twenty miles northeast of Bisbee and
northwest of the Swisshelm mountains. It was operated by a TOUp of
PennsylvaniaDutchwho rarely, if ever, visitedthe outfit. Stub .hattuck,
a member of the group, served as the liaison and was the only one ever
to spend much time there.
At its peak, the Erie ran about 20,000 head of cattle. Although the
rule of thumb was one cowboy for 1,000 head of cattle, the Erie
exceeded that. Because of high employee n'mover, it usually had
twenty-five to thirty cowboys on the payrol It any given time.
Prominent alumni of the Erie outfit incl'Jaed Butch Cassidy and
Elzy Lay. They worked there in the fall of 1 before moving up the
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THE GUTLAW TRAIL JOURNAL 25
trail to the WS ranch at Alma, New Mexico. The Erie also prov'ded
employment for Black Jack Christian and his brother when they first
arrived from Oklahoma in 1896.
The Erie had a division at Mud Springs over near the New Mexico
territorial line. This camp was close to both the Chiricahua and
Peloncillo mountains. After the Apaches were corralled, these unin-
habited mountain ranges provided hiding places for outlaws when
times really got hot. The Mud Springs camp had another advantage.
It was a short ride to the Diamond A outfit over in New Mexico.
\
Around the tum of the century, the Diamond A, or Victoria Land
and Cattle C"mpany as it was officially known, was the largest ranch
I
in the n t i o n ~ s range covered some 4,500,000 acres and stretched
south 120 miles from near Silver City to fifteen miles over the Mexican
border. It ran 60 miles east and west from the Arizona territorial line
to the Mimbres River near Deming, New Mexico.
Besides the Diamond A, Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, wife of George
Hearst, owned the La Ba Victoria ranch in northern Sonora and
Chihuahua. It may have contained as much as a million acres. How-
ever, it never was part of the Outlaw Trail.
George Hearst, father of William Randolph Hearst, and three other
rich Californians started this ranch near Hurley, New Mexico in 1883.
The ranch was developed by the purchase and homesteading of
springs and water holes. Thus, they gained control of the range
between them.
The first brand recorded for the outfit was (Three H's). In 1884, a
new brand was recorded. It was the (Diamond A) burned on the left
hip of the animal. A horse brand was recorded simultaneously. It was
the (10 quarter circle) placed on the left thigh.
Over the years, some confusion has occurred regarding the Dia-
mond A brand. There were four or five similar brands listed in the
New Mexico brand book. However, all but one of these belonged to
outfits in northern New Mexico. The one that didn't was owned by the
Bloom Cattle Company of Roswell, New Mexico.
Although the Bloom range ran to the Rio Feliz south of Roswell, no
difficulty was experienced in differentiating between the two brands.
I Bloombranded on the left ribs while Hearst and company placed their
!
brand on the left hip. In addition, different earmarks were used.
The Diamond A's first purchase was Cow Springs southeast of
Silver City. Then they got Jack Frost's place eighteen miles southwest
toward Lordsburg. A little later, they bought Warm Springs at Hot
Springs, Faywood. This acquisitionextended their range to the Mimbres
River. Although nothing more than a running spring, they next
bought out the small Block outfit. This extended their range to Separ,
New Mexico. Later, they bought out the Baker brothers and a man
named Davenport. Also, several small ranches along the Mexican
border were purchased.
The Diamond A paid good prices when they bought property.
Sometimes, they paid as much as $10,000 for springs and water holes.
Property of the
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History Center
This was a high price when cows were selling for $20 with the calves
thrown in.
While buying these properties, the Diamond A was busy drilling
wells and digging tanks. One well, which turned out to be a wonder,
was at Las Cienegas. Next, they bought a ranch at Walnut Creek and,
soon after, the springs at Deer Creek on the east slope of the Animas
Mountains. Later, the Deer Creek tract became the company horse
camp and a popular stop for outlaws. Finally, they controlled all of the
4,500,000 acre range described earlier.
In its peak years, the Diamond A carried upwards of 50,000 head
of cattle. It also had 3,000 horses of which 500 were saddle horses used
in ranch work. Efforts were made to keep the horses in the Deer Creek
neighborhood, but they could often be seen as far away as sixty-five
miles south in Mexico.
In 1899, the companybought 800,000 acres northeast of Engle, New
Mexico. The boundaries of this range were completely fenced. The
ranch sent yearling calves to this range until they were two years old.
Henry Brock and Walter Birchfield thought the property was a bad
investment, but the Diamond A used it for many years.
TheDiamond A, particularly when HenryBrockwas manager and
Walter Birchfield range manager, was not averse to hiring men from
the wrong side of the law. The only question asked on applying for
work was, "Can you do the job?" Correct names, background and
origin were not important to Henry Brock and the Diamond A.
Sometimes, the company headquarters in California would write
Brock, asking him to fire a cowboy. Usually, Brock ignored the letters
and the company soon forgot the request. More often than not, the
man was the subject of letters from lawmen wanting to know his
whereabouts.
Several members of the Black Jack Christian gang worked at the
Diamond A from time to time. George Musgrave, Cole Estes and Bob
Hays worked there and Bronco Bill, formally known as William
Walters, hung around the horse camp. The Christian brothers never
worked for the company, but they usually could be found at the Erie
outfit just across the Arizona line.
On November 18,1896, the BlackjackChristian gang embarrassed
the Diamond A. The boys had eaten the night before at a headquarters
unit in the Playas Valley after robbing Stein's station. They spent the
night in the hills between the valley and the Deer Creek horse camp.
Early in the morning, they rode down to the horse camp for
breakfast. Unknown to them, a posse including the murderous Steve
Birchfield, Les Dow, Baylor Shannon and five others was waiting for
them.
2
Although some Diamond A cowboys tried furtively to warn them,
a shootout followed. Bob Hayes was killed in the fracas, but the others
escaped. Doubtless, the fight required some explanations to the man-
agers in California. However, the embarrassment soon passed and life
went on at the Diamond A. This was neither the first nor last lawman
Property of the
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History Center
Canada
<, <;"f' I
'"': I"
1. CI\ ">rJ Cananea Cattle Company
2. Erie Cattle Company
3, wDiamsRondch
A
Ranch 1_,.
4
. an
5. Carlisle Ranch
6. Robbers Roost
7. BfOMl'S Pari<
8. Powder Springs/Baggs/Dixon, Wyo
9. Lande!, Wyo.
10. Hole In The Wa!lIlosl Cabin
11. Thornhill Ranch
12 Eddy CoISe"en Rrvers, N. H.
13. San Saba Co., Tx.
14. Las VegasiCimarron, N.M.
15 Colorow Canyon
16. Mancos, Colo.
'"
\i
. ,\2
(.

\ \ \JJ
\."\ \ \
\ \
J
r-<..
\,"
\
Prominetlt Places - Outlaw Trail
and outlaw confrontation at the ranch.
Harvey Logan was no stranger to the Diamond A. He worked there
in 1895 under the name of Tom Capehart. With the exception of Will
Carver who had some shirttail kin living near Rodeo, New Mexico,
Logan was probably th first member of the northern Wild Bunch to
spend time in southwestern New Mexico.
Both Henry Brock and Walter Birchfield thought highly of Logan
while he was there. According to Brock, he was a good cowboy, good-
humored and affable and rarely found fault with anything. Brock said
Logan had a unique laugh that"could be heard for a mile." Later, in
April 1900, Logan's laugh would identify him as one of the four men
- the others were Butch Cassidy, Will Carver and Ben Kilpatrick -who
ambushed George Scarborough at Triangle Springs, 30 miles from San
Simon, Arizona.
3
John "Salty" Cox, another old time cowboy, worked with Logan at
the Diamond A. At first, he thought Logan was a green hand because
he used a buck strap on his saddle. However, he soon came to admire
Logan's outstanding ability as a bronc rider and cowboy.
When Logan worked for the Diamond A, he ran with two other
Property of the
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28 THE OUTU. WTRAIL JOURNAL
cowboys, JimRoberts and BuckHardin. Roberts, whose real name was
Franklin, was wanted for shooting up a sheep camp. Logan didn't
limit his companionship to those two men, but he did tend to run with
them most.
It seems fair to say that the Diamond A probably leaned more
toward helping the outlaw element than the lawmen. Many lawmen
in southern New Mexico were arrogant, demanding and not pleasur-
able to be around. Some were outright killers. These lawman charac-
teristics were not limited to the New Mexico end of the Outlaw Trail.
Many throughout the west had the same oaits.
The Diamond A was a good neighbor in southwestern ew
Mexico. Althoughit hired some outlaws, it treated the small ranchers
well. Often they hired them as "reps" to watch their stock. This
practice gave the small operator a chance to make some money. If he
occa ionally killed a beef, well, the Diamond A thought that was part
of the costs of doing business.
The Outlaw Trail split when it left the Diamond A. One branch ran
east toward Rincon, Seven Rivers and Roswell. The other went almost
straight north along the Arizona and New Mexico line. We will stay
on the westerly trail for now and take up the easterly trail later.
When they left the Diamond A, the outlaws had a choice of going
north on either the New Mexico or Arizona side of lhe territorial line.
If they chose the New Mexico side, their route would take them
through Silver City, Glenwood and Alma. If they went up the Arizona
side they would pass through the San Simon valley toward Safford,
Clifton and Morenci. Both routes carne together near St. Johns, Ari-
zona.
From the horse camp of the Diamond A on Deer Creek, it was an
easy two day ride to reach the WS ranch at Alma, New Mexico. Once
there, a man could count on a meal or two, a place to sleep and a respite
from the lawmen who didn't relish the thought of venturing in the
Blue River country.
The WS ranch, located one mile north of Alma, New Mexico, had
its headquarters on the San Francisco River. Harold C. Wilson, a
British businessman and investor, started the ranch in 1882. In 1883,
while on a shopping trip for a ranch of his own, Captain William S.
French ofIreland, a former British army officer, stopped for a visit. The
visit ended with French buying some cows with the agreement they
would be grazed on the WS range. This resulted in French staying at
the ranch and lending a hand whenever possible. Later, he became the
manager and representative for the Wilson interests.
Like many other outfits, the WS did not own much land in fee
simple. Actually, it owned less than 1,500 acres, but its range was quite
large. It extendedfrom Alma, NewMexico on the east to the Blue River
in Arizona, a distance of about twenty miles. It went south along the
San FranciscoRiver and north toward Milligan's Plaza, now known as
Reserve, New Mexico.
Much of the former WS range between the San Francisco and the
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29 THE OUTLAW TRATL JOURNAL
Blue River is mountainous and rough. All considered, it was, and still
is, a difficult place in which to keep cattle. However, it was a good
place for a man to hide out for a while.
The WS had several horse and line camps distributed throughout
its range. The horse camp, where most of the outlaws gathered, was
somewhere in the extreme western part of the range near the Blue
River.
4
By 1899, the WS ranch had operated for fifteen years in Socorro
County west of Alma. During that period, operations were difficult
and expen iv be aus of the rough terrain ~ remote range. In
addition, it was becoming more difficult to control the range since the
outfit owned so few acres.
In late 1898, Captain French began negotiations to buy another
ranch in the old Maxwell land grant northeast of Cimarron, New
Mexico. A year later, he completed the deal. The New Mexico news-
papers announced the sale of 120,000 acres for seventy cents per acre
to the Wilson interests.
s
Wilson also purchased the J. H. Nash ranch of
5,000 acres and smaller outfits owned by J. H. CodUn, Peter Jameson
and Hunt and Crocker. The last three were in the Point country
northeast of Cimarron. This ranch never became a stop on the Outlaw
Trail.
The WS ranch managed to become well-known for two reason.
One was that in 1898 and 1899 various members f the Wild Bunch
used it as a hideout and gathering place. The second is that Captain
French wrote a book about it in the 1920s' that, a few years later,
became quite conrroversial.
Butch Cassidy, using the name Jim Lowe, and Elzy Lay, known as
William McGinnis, worked for the WS. Also, Ben Kilpatrick, going as
Big Johnny Ward, and Harry Longabaugh, using the name Frank
Scramble or Harry Alonzo, were seen around the neighborhood.
When they worked for the Erie outfit, Cassidy and Lay became
acquainted with Perry Tucker, a ranch foreman from around Deming,
New 1exico. It wasn't long before Tucker received a letter from
Captain William French of the WS ranch at Alma, New Mexico asking
if he would consider becoming its foreman. Tucker accepted the offer
and moved to Alma taking Lowe and McGinnis with him. Three other
cowboys, Mack Axford, Jim Jones and Clay McGonegal, also moved
north to Alma with Tucker. This was a significant move because it
soon attracted other members of Cassidy's Wild Bunch to the Alma
neighborhood.
A little later, Harvey Logan, known as Tom Capehart, and Bruce
Weaver, sometimes going as Charles Collings, joined the others at the
WS. Will Carver and the Ketchumbrothers probably would hav done
the same, but they were unwelcome because of their recent theft of half
of Captain French's prized buggy team and his personal riding horse
as well.
All was going well at the WS until Lay and Weaver left to join the
Ketchum brothers and Will Carver in a train robbery near Folsom,
Property of the
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History Center
New Mexico. After the robbery, the boys failed to observe the long
standing practice started by Butch Cassidy of riding long and far.
Instead, they holed up in a canyon near Cimarron, New Mexico. A
posse found them and a gunfight resulted in which Sam Ketchum was
fatally wounded and Elzy Lay was shot twice.
After Lay's apprehension near Carlsbad and trial at Raton, the
outlaws began to drift away from the WS going north up the Outlaw
Trail. After this, the WS ranch was not used by the Wild Bunch.
When the outlaws left Alma on the OutlawTrail, they u ually went
northwest toward St. John ,Arizona. The main reasonfor this was that
the terrain is less mountainous and travel was easier than in northern
New Mexico. The next reliable stop on the trail was about four or five
days ride north through the Four Corners country.
The Carlisle ranch was about five miles north of Monticello, Utah.
It, much the same as the Erie, Diamond A and WS, was a rowdy outfit
that did not hesitate in hiring men with unknown identities and an
obscure past.
The three Carlisle brothers started the ran h sometime in the early
1880s' by purchasing land from early settlers. As usual, the Carlisle
controlled most of the range around Monticello, Utah through own-
ership of the water holes and springs.
Like the WS ranch in New Mexico, the Carli Ie ranch owned very
little land outlight. Although its range was big, the fee simple owner-
ship was only about 2,000 acres. The Carlisle outfit branded a bar on
the hip, side and shoulder of its cattle. Sometimes, it was referred to as
the Hip, Side and Shoulder Cattle Company.6
One Carlisle brother, Harold, married a widow who probably was
the mother of William E. "Latigo" Gordon, longtime ranch manager.
Mrs. Carlisle was not one to brook muchfoolishness from rustlers and
horse thieves.
When the rustlers began stealingCarlislecattle, Mrs. Carlisle made
a blackflag with skull and crossbones on it. She hoistedit and declared
war on them. In the process, she and the management sought out and
hired the worst outlaws they could find. Doubtless, that was the
beginning of the ranch's practice of hiring men on the dodge. Since the
Carlisle ranch existed for many years after that, the plan must have
worked.
Latigo Gordon, the longtime ranch manager, was born in North
Carolina in 1865. He was a tough, strong individual cut from the same
mold as his cowboys. His reputation was also somethingless thanthat
of an altar boy. Solid Muldoon, a fictitious editorialist for a Durango,
Colorado newspaper, once facetiously said that to work for the
Carlisle, a man had to have robbed at least three trains.
As a youth, Gordon lived with an uncle in Oklahoma Territory
before it was opened for settlement. They squatted in the Cherokee
Outlet and the Cheyenne-Arapahoe lands and ran 16,000 head of
cattle. At the time, itwas against the law for cattlemen to use the Indian
lands for pasture. Frequently, Federal troops were sent to run them
Property of the
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History Center
out. This happened to Gordon and his uncle several times and usually
ended in a fight. Gordon once said, "The troops would burn down our
houses as fast as we could build them."?
One day, Gordon saw one of their men being chased by a company
of black cavalry troopers. This incensed Gordon greatly and he
opened fire on them with a rifle. Later, after things had cooled off, he
was arrested for treason and firing on Federal troops and taken to jail.
He purportedly was released before his trial when the complaining
general died. It's a strong possibility that he broke jail because in later
years he would say that he couldn't return to 9klahoma even then.
Anyhow, he fled to Utah to escape the charges and wound up working
for the Carlisle ranch the next thirty years.
During the late 1870s' and early 80s', southeastern Utah was full of
outlaws. The Robbers Roost area was only a short distance northwest
and many outlaws that hung out there passed by the Carlisle ranch.
Latigo Gordon was known for maintaining a supply of hay and other
supplies in a thicket a mile from the ranch headquarters. This made it
convenient because the outlaws did not have to approach ranch
headquarters and it could not be said that the outfit was knowingly
harboring fugitives.
Although he never worked there, Butch Cassidy was known to
stop by the Carlisle ranch from time to time. He, Tom McCarty and
Matt Warner stayed there a night or two just before the Telluride bank
robbery. Gordon said that the three outlaws sewed up some buckskin
bags for use in hauling away the loot. After the robbery, they stopped
by the ranch again. Gordon always said that they got much less from
the Telluride job than they expected.
Dan Parker, Butch Cassidy's brother, worked for the Carlisle
before his arrest for robbing the mails in Wyoming. During his time
there, he was known as Tom Parker. After the Wilcox, Wyoming train
robbery Charles Siringo trailed Harvey Logan to the Carlisle ranch.
Logan camped there one night on his way to a hideout in Colorado.
In 1911, the Carlisle sold out to Lemuel H. Redd acting for the
Mormon church. The church wanted the land for a group of polyga-
mists who were tired of living in Mexico. The total price paid was
$68,000 which included 8,173 head of sheep at a price of $32,692. Some
water rights from North Montezuma Creek and Gordon springs were
also included in the sale. By the time t e Carlisle sold out, Latigo
Gordon had become a partner with Harold Carlisle in the land and
sheep.
A few years after the ranch sold, Gordon became the sheriff of San
Juan County, Utah. In later years, he lived in Ogden, Utah where he
died in 1947.
Although there were many other ranches that aided and abetted
the outlaws, these were the main ones along the south end of the
Outlaw Trail. Perhaps, next time we can describe those along the
central part of the trail around Robbers Roost, Brown's Park, Baggs
and Savery and other places in central Wyoming.
Property of the
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History Center
If any of our readers have information regarding any of the
stopping places, we would like very much to hear from them.
NOTES
I William Webb is the current chairman of the Outlaw Trail History Association. He has
served as chairman of the National Outlaw/Lawman Association and is the author of
several articles on outlaw history.
2 The eight members of this posse were Les Dow, Charley Ballard, Fred Higgins, Frank
McGlinchy, Frank Preiser, Baylor Shannon, Pink Peters and Steve Birchfield. The last
three, Shannon, Peters and Birchfield, did not distinguish themselves with an exceptional
display of courage at this fight.
.l Jeff Burton. Dynamite and Six Shooter. (Palomino Press, Santa Fe, N.M., 1970), p.
136. Henry Brock and John Cox say that this ambush and gunfight was planned at the
Diamond A. The chase that-ended in the ambush started over a butchered calf that was
planted for Scarborough to find. Although George Scarborough was the intended victim,
Walter Birchfield was unintentionally wounded.
4 The actual location of the horse camp has been lost. Mr. John McKeen, the present
owner of the original WS fee land, thinks it was in the western part of the range. This is
based on information passed down to him by his father who farmed the cropland along
the San Francisco River for Captain French and who later sharecropped land in the
western end of the WS range.
I Las Vegas Daily Optic. August 16, 1899, p. 2.
6 James H. Beckstead, Cowboying. (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press,
1991), p. 75.
7 Charles Kelly, Microfilm Roll A -1320, Utah Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Property of the
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33 THE OUTLAWTRAIL JOURNAL
COLUMBINES
by Carolyn M. Squires
Hiseyes,driftingopen,focusonthetangledweb
Ofbranchesframingnature'scathedral,
Filteringlight,color,warmth.
Heturns,rufflinghisdustybed;
Softenedbypineneedles,hissleephasbeenwarm.
Againhiseyesdriftopen,
Level withthemountaincolumbine--
Fragile,fragrant--
Itsrootsclingingtotheshallowsoil
Betweenlichenedrocks.
SolikeSarah.
Beatingthedustfromhistrousers.
Runninghisfingersthroughhishair.
Agulpfromthecanteenandachewofjerky
Sufficeforameal.
Newlybrokengroundiswaiting,
Newlyhewntimbersarewaiting,
Awateredmeadowiswaitingtobecomeafarm.
Hewillbehometoday,thelongridecomplete.
HometoSarah.
Horsesaddled,anotherburdened,
Hefollowstheevolvingtrail,
Wideningalittlewitheachpassage.
FlOUT, rice, wheatandgardenseeds,
Alittlesugarandapintofmolasses
Bounceinrhythmtotheanimals'gait;
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34 THE OUTLAWTRAIL JOURNAL
Somestripsofleatherandalengthofgoodrope,
Ashinyshovel,ahandplow,andburlap.
Nogingham,nocalico,notortoise-shellcombs.
NothingforSarah.
Sarah, thebeauty,inamudlean-to
Dugintoahillandshornupwithtimbers--
Damp,cold,dark. Whataplaceforaflower!
Butherquiltsarebright,theroseofhercheeks,
Andhereyes...
Theyseemorethanmud--ormarble--ormisery.
Reverieendsashorseshaltonthetrail.
Theshovel,theburlapareflungto theground.
Carefullyheloosensthesoil--shovel'sfirst task--
Andwrapseachrootmassinwetburlap.
Columbines.
Fragrantandfragile. Yetsturdyandreliable,
Clingingto thegoodnessofearth.
AgiftforSarah.
JAILS, CELLS OR WEDDING BELLS
by Wilma M. Rich
Amountainranch,afightin'chance
Wereall MattWarnerwanted.
Butwhenitcameto loveandfame
It seemedhisfatewashaunted.
Outlawlifewithoutawife
Grewoldastimewentby.
Helongedtochooseawomanwho
Wouldmatchhimeyeto eye.
Onewintercold,youngMattwasholed
AwaywithTomMcCarty.
Theiroutlawbandhadleftthemand
Theyhankeredfora party!
Thevillagequarewasstarkandbare;
Timesweremightytough,
Tho' folkswerepoor,theonlystore
Refusedtrade' onthecuff' .
MattandTomwithmuchaplomb
Tooktheirill-gotstash
Andtoldtheowner,"Makealoanor
Letuspaywithcash."
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Wordspreadaroundthelittletown
Abouttheircharity.
Thentheywereinthesocialswim
Ofpopularity.
MattWarnerchoseagirlnamedRose,
McCarthy'slovewasSary.
Thecouplesbegantospoon
Andplanhowtheywouldmarry.
owWarnerknowthesheriffwho
Wa searchin'fortheirhides
Mightinterveneandcomebetween
Theoutlaw andtheirbrides.
Sureenough,thesherifftough
Cametofind themen.
Buttheydroveoutadifferentroute
Andtruelovewonagain!
MattandRosehadmanywoes
Butalsohappydays.
ThenRosesuccumbedandleftMattnumb
Withlittleone to raise.
Hisfaithfulwifehadchangedhislife
Andthroughatwistoffate,
Mattbecameamarshalltame
NearfamousCastleGate.
TIN STAR GLORY
by Beulah D. McConkie
Thattinstarbadgethesheriffwore
somanyyearsago
hasmadealotofgladdenedhearts
where-everitwouldgo.
Pinnedtothepocketofashirt,
homemade,trail-wornforsure,
itwasthefirstthingthatwasseen
whenhecamethroughthedoor.
Thi chiseledpiecewitnessed hootouts
occurringdaybyday
aslawmensoughttostopthemen
whospreadchaostheirway.
Thenlittleladsmimickedthetraits
ofthosebravemenin play
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andworeanimitationof
thatstarofyesterday.
Nowcopsandrobbersisthegame
andsilveris thestar
that'swornastheyseekjustice
withstick-horseorpatrolcar.
Thisbadgestandsforsecurity
asit ridesyearonyear
uponthebreastofhonestmen
whosustainlawfrom fear.
It neverstoodfor' dirtycops'
orthosewhowoulddefraud
andstill mustshinewithgloryif
we'dbuildonfreedom'ssad.
HATSOFFto eachsucceedingbadge
ofcouragethatwemeet;
andmaytheyalwaysupholdgoals
setbythatfirstone'sfeat.
FOLK ALES
FROMTHE OUTLAWTRAIL
OUTLAWS
by Lloyd M. Croley
(These five verses were taken from Lloyd Croley's twenty verse poem.)
HarryTracywastheoutlawbrave
Wholivedsolongago
Butnotthemanwho'sin thegrave
Thatthepossegunslaidlow
If hewere,youwouldnotnow
Be readingwhatIwrite
HewasmyfatherthisI vow
Andtruthshouldcometolight
Meninpositiontosell
Someknowingtheyarewrong
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Notmanyquestionwhattheytell
Thereadersgoalong
OfamancalledHARRYTRACYthen
Notmuchwaseverknown
Fromfictionoutofwriter'spen
Thepresentstory'sgrown
If reallifestoryyouwouldread
ThishistorytrueI'llshare.
If ereIgainthehelpIneed
To helpmegetitthere.
HARRY TRACY - OUTLAW
byLloydM. Croley
IhavebeenaskedtowritewhyIbelievemyDadwasHarryTracy. As for my
ownself, Idon'tbelieve. Iknow. AndthingsabouthimthatIwriteareastrueas
Icangetthem. Idon'tintendtoreferreaderstooldpapers,etc.,sotheycanreadfor
themselvesthatitwaswrittenbefore. ButalotofwhatDadtoldmewhenIwasa
kid doesappear inold books and
papers.
Itwouldn'tmakewhatIsay
eithertrueorfalse. I'mnotsure
ofwhereI receivedwhatI know;
acombinationIbelieve,ofwhat
I've read, whatJ've heard, and
inheritedmemory. Peoplemay
notbelievememoriescanbein-
herited,butIdoandIknowfeel-
ingscan. IknowhowTracyfelt
andwhYheactedlikehedid. I
amwritinghereaboutTracybe-
fore he was the outlaw, about
Tracy the outlaw, and after he
quitbeinganoutlaw.
It doesn't take much to be-
comeanoutlaw--justgoagainst
themenwhowritethelaws,for
theirownbenefit,mostly.If any-
oneexpectsmetobeashamedof
him,forgetit. Shameshouldgo
towhereit fits, andif you read
this story, youwillseewhereI
seeit andwhy.
Differentwritershavewrit-
tenaboutthe"sullen"lookof TracyintheOregonprisonpicture. Theydon'tknow
whattheyarese ing. Thelookisnotsullen--itis amanbeatenwithfists andclubs
andkickedwithheavyshoes--givenbytheprison'sfriendlywelcomingcommittee.
heman who would beknownas TracywasbornonFebruaryI,1872. Although
hegaveMissouriandKan asasbirthplaces, atleastonsomeofmybrothersand
HarryTracy
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sisters' birth certificates, he told me it was a different place-far from both Missouri
or Kansas. If he didn't tell me right, it was because hewasn't told right. I never knew
him to lie to me. His name at birth was Charles Edward roley -- Scotch Irish.
His mother died when he was three, and his father married his first wife's sister.
She died when Dad was eight. His older brother went one way and Dad was
"bound" to a cruel farmer who had a nice wife and one daughter. The man worked
him hard and beat him every day until he was twelve when he ran away. The cruel
farmer ridiculed him for being Irish and called him the little Mick, others called him
Mickey, and when he grew up, they called him Mike.
One time he was being beaten with a horse whip at the bam and a horse got
scared and kicked himin the face, breaking his upperjawand teeth, andell tting open
his face from under the n se on the right side to and thr ugh the comer of his mouth.
The cut was stitched, but the face bone wasn't set. Although in terrible pain and
feeling ugly, he never got to rest from work becaus of it. The man told him that it
was going to hurt anyway so he might as well go on working. If he ran off, the law
would catch him and bring him back, and then he wouldg t areal beating. The p'ly
was that the law would have brought him back if he was caught and he would have
been beaten. The only person around who cared for him at all and helped what she
could was the man's wife, but she couldn't stop her husband.
At twelve, he did run off and went to Kansas City, Missouri, where he lived by
his wits. He worked when he caul and stole when he had to. He grew up rough
and tough. Dad worked in a coal mine near Kansas City when he was a teenager and
gave money to his older brother so he could go to school andbecome a teacher, which
he did. Dad said he never got tired when he was young--worked all day. Then many
nights went to a little place named Tracy, north of Kansas City. He danced all night
to Irish dances.
His face was scarred because of the many boils he had when he wa a kid, and
coal dust got in some of the wounds. They looked like tatoos--black. He told me that
when a man wanted to g t 10 t, he would go west and become another Tom, Dick,
or Harry. I believe he picked Harrybecause he had lived in Henry County for a time,
but I don't know for sure and I don't really care.
When asked why I have known all these years and never aid anything until
1980, I will try to answer. First of all, it wasn't anyone else's business. Second, when
I started on genealogy, I had to write the truth for the family, and I began to wonder
what if someone else ever finds out from sam of Dads oth kids before us? And,
what if they don't really know him like I did, because I lived with him out in the hills
and mountains where none of the others ever did. Then the history written on him
already bypeople who write by goingthrough old papers, etc., which were one sided
anyway, can and will say the same old lies and add some of their own to it. So their
story will be a little different.
So, I decided to go against the big odds and try to set a few things straight. I did
this mostly just because I don't like to see people distorting truth just for money or
renown, and I've always loved history. But I want it as it was, not some of the silliness
and stupidity that is written. I could point out a lot of that by people who are looked
up to, to tell the truth, but don't. As long as their voices are the only ones heard, the
truth will suffer. To the lovers of true history, I urge you to question what is written,
even by me, of course. If I am right, it can be proven, or wrong, it can be proven.
I had an undertaker form Wyoming look at the picture of the dead man who was
supposedly Tracy, taken at the undertaker parlor. He c mpared it La the prison
picture of Tracy and said that they could not be the same person. William Jolley,
undertaker from Vernal, Utah, compared the pictures and agre d they could not be
the same person. Tracy had a wide chin, the dead man had a narrower chin, as well
as other differences.
What kind of a man was Tracy? As far as I'm concerned, he was brave, caring,
and far more fair than the ones he fought against. Not like the big ranchers, who
wanted it all and had the local lawmen in their pockets, or the indian agent who
cheated the Indians and treated them so very badIy--causing starvation, freezing,
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and death. Tracy cared for poor peopIe and treated all women decent, from ranchers
wives to ladies of the night--forced into being what they were or die of starvation-
-like men who were forced to steal or rob sometimes, or starve, die, or both.
I don't mean to blame or praise anyone for their aetions--just tell it like it was.
Like the murder of Jack Bennett by the so-called legal law. Murder it was, pure and
simple, although the murderers called it different. Bennett was murdered because
of Valentine Hoy being killed.
Tracy got into trouble one time, not for money or meanness, but to help a man,
Johnson, who claimed the ranchers were going to hang him if they caught him. This
was due to an accidental killing ofa boy when the boy teased Johnson. Tracy decided
they weren't going to kill Johnson if he could help it, which I believe he was right in
doing. Later, when a legal trial was held, it was t ~ m i n that Johnson was
shooting around the boy, and a bullet ricocheted off the ground, hitting him in the
back. Stupid--but not murder. The court judged it as an accident partly because the
boy said so before he died.
Johnson, Lant, and Tracy were up among the rocks on a hill when Hoy started
up after them alone, against orders left by the sheriff. Some writers said Tracy lay
on the rock and when Hoy's hand and rifle came over the edge, Tracy grabbed the
rifle and shot Hoy point blank. Hoy was killed. First report was that Johnson killed
Hoy, then later Tracy was blamed. If Hoy was killed by a rifle shell, then it had to
be from Hoy's gun, because the rifles of Johnson, Lant, and Tracy were in their
scabbards, on their saddles, on their horses, which the posse had, along with the pack
horse. If Hoy was killed by his own rifle, it had to be an accident during the scuffle,
because there was no reason to kill Hoy. In fact, it wasn't Tracy's style to kill
needlessly, and if he was killed by a pistol, it wasn't Tracy who did it.
Tracy was not stupid. Hoy could have been shot with a pistol before he got up
there. Why wasn't he? Because they needed that rifle, were in bad need of it and
every shell it had in it for long shooting. You don't kill a posse member on purpose
when you are afoot in the mountains with no supplies.
So why would Bennett be bringing them supplies? I believe he was just caught
in the middle, and the men were angry at Lant, Tracy, and Johnson over Hoy. They
took it out on Bennett. Using the pack horse story as an excuse, they hung Bennett
from a cross pole over a gateway. While the lawman, whose duty it was to protect
Bennett, went along with them--and why not? The big ranchers had him in their
pocket. But again, can the men involved be blamed too much? Because that was the
way it was done in the West--vigilantes, under judge Lynch, with his neck tie party.
Around 10 years ago, a woman who worked in a cafe told me that her
grandfather was a Mormon Bishop in Utah, around Vernal, and he told this story
about Tracy. The Bishop had a wagon load of meat, and along came Tracy. Tracy
said he had to have the meat and was going to take it. The Bishop said, "No. I am
responsible for the food of the people here, and I need it for them this winter."
"Well," said Tracy, "1 need it and I'm going to take it, but I will tell you what will
happen in a week or two. A rider will come by and tell you where to find the team
and wagon, and the wagon will have store bought food in it to replace the meat for
your people." The Bishop said Tracy could be trusted and was liked, but that Dave
Lant was a bad one, and was sudden and couldn't be trusted. So he let Tracy take
the wagon and in a week or more, a rider did come by and told him where to find
the team and wagon. He went and it was as Tracy told him it would be--filled with
food stuffs from a store.
I've wondered all this time off and on, why would Tracy want a wagon load of
meat? Not for the outlaws, surely. They could take meat home on the hoof anytime
they needed it. Then one day not long ago, it came to me. While I was thinking about
something that happened when I was seven years old in Kaycee, Wyoming. It was
summertime, just after sun set, and we lived in a small log house with one room--one
half the floor being dirt. Dad was sitting on a straight back chair outside the cabin,
smoking his straight stemmed pipe, when an Indian boy about ten years old came
running through the sage brush, calling out, "Mike, Mike, hide me. The sheriff is
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after me."
I was playing outside and I saw Dad take his pipe out of his mouth and heard
him tell the boy to go in the house and limb a ladder nailed to the wall, up into the
attic, and wait until he called him down--which he did. Dad smoked his pipe some
more, and here came the sheriff--a big man in a big western hat whose belly hung
over his belt. He asked Dad if he had seen the boy, and then they talked so low I
couldn't hear. The sheriff left and after a little while Dad called the boy down and
they talked. All I heard was Dad telling him that he knew where to go and that he
should stay there for at least a year. The boy said ok and left.
Mom was upsetaboutDad not letting the sheriff have th boy,and was surprised
that Dad even knew him, and wondering why he came to Dad for help. "Well," said
Dad, "when I was young I lived with some Indians for awhile and became blood
brothers with a chief. And as such, it is my duty to watch out for the people too.
Indians don't have much chance against whites, and I first had to find out the trouble,
and then decide what to do about it. Where it was a serious thing for an Indian to
do, it wouldn't be for a white boy. And if the boy was of moneyed parents, it would
be a matter of 'oh well, b ys will be boys'."
Tracy took the wagon of meat because the Indians in Utah were needing. 1'd
always thought he was a blood brother to a Sioux Indian, but now I'm not sure. It
might have been a Ute. Anyway, the next day the boy's younger brother and I cut
our thumbs and held them together and became blood brothers.
The first time I ever remember hearingDad speak of HarryTracy was in Kaycee,
at age 7, living in a log house. Dad came home a bit drunk, and Mom told him we
needed food because itwas starting to get rough. He said, "Rough? You don't know
what rough is. HarryTracy knew what rough is. What do you know about the killing
and the blood and the hunger and thirst, and the entire country out trying to kill you.
You always have to be looking for a safe place to hide--somewhere maybe wann and
dry. No, you don't know what rough is." And he left and didn't come back for three
days. But before he left, my older sister, Betty, and I were some scared because he
was so upset, and the only Tracy we knew was DickTracy in the funny papers. And
we knew he wasn't in that kind of a mess, so we found the papers and Betty took it
over and showed him Tracy wasn't in a mess like that. He looked at it and slapped
her lightly, and said, ''I'm talking about a real person, not that silly damned thing."
When I was about nine and Dad was 63, another event happened that I
remember well. We lived in Kaycee, Wyoming, in a red house north of the school
house. It was night and Dad was reading the Bible, when a lady came to the door.
She said, "Mike, will you help me? It's my daughter. I believe she has been killed
by two youngdrunks about 21 years old who got her in heir car and drove north out
of town. Now they are back, and Nannaisn't with them. They are down inthe Saloon
drinking again. I think maybe they have Norma in the trunk of the car,"
Dad said, "Well that is the Sheriff's job. Why don't you get him to go?" And the
Lady said, "I asked him and everyone I know and none of them will go." SoDad got
up, put on his old battered hat, and walked out the door and headed for downtown.
We all tagged along because we knew where he was going--to the bar. And to the
bar he did go. A haIfa block from it, he told us, "stay here," We stopped and he went
in the bar and very soon came back out, herding the two young men ahead of him.
I couldn't hear his conversation, but I could hear theirs. It was" yes Mike" and"no
Mike." They opened the car doors and trunk lid. We could all see there was no body
in the car. It didn't seem odd to any of us to see how the young men acted--real
cooperative and polite to Da .
I wonder now why two young men, both drinking heavy, didn't just try to teach
the old man a lesson, instead of being so polite. I believe they saw something in him
that they didn't want any part of. Dad came back and we walked home. He told the
lady they went for a ride and Nonna refused their advances, so she is walking home-
-should be here soon. They won't bother her anymore. He went in the louse, took
off his hat, and continued reading his well worn Bible.
Another time while still livingin the same red house, Dad was a foreman for the
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41 THE GUTLA W TRAIL JOURNAL
W.P.A., and was at that time rebuilding bridges in the mountains west of Kaycee. He
never talked about his job. I never wondered until one day when I was downtown,
I heard two men talking about Dad and an unsafe condition on a bridge. One said,
"as dangerous as that was out on the bridge, I believe Mike was crazy to go out there."
And the other man said, "y all--real dumb. If I was the foreman, I'd have sent
someone else out there." I heard this and felt real ashamed of Dad. I went home and
told him what I'd heard, and
asked him why he didn't send
someone else out there ifit was so
dangerous. He looked at me and
said, "no--I will never send a man
where I'm afraid to go. It was
dangerous, but I am the foreman,
and a good foreman will never
send anyone into something like
that. A good foreman is a leader
and not a pusher. And Jhope you
remember that." I have.
Dad's actions were not
to be ashamed of, but
something to be proud of. I'm
glad he was my Dad. If he
weren't, and I am like I am, then
I would have hated to have for a
Dad one the following: crooked
Indianagent, greedy banker, land
and money hungry cattle baron-
-oh why go on? I believe I've
made my point. There is so much
more--but not now.
In the "Big Horn" Moun-
tains withDad, at the sheep camp,
age 12, nearly 13, a day stands
out in my memory. We slept in a
tepee on top of the mountain,
while the sheep wagon was by a
spring at the foot of the moun-
tain. This day, I rode my horse
down the mountain to fix break-
fast, like I did every morning. I
carried a 22 rifle with me. Where
it wasn't the fault of the rifle that
I got a real hard whipping, yet
without it, I wouldn't have. I've
never told anyone what I did,
and I won't now. Enough to say
that I was late getting breakfast,
and Dad headed the sheep down
the mountain and came on ahead, and caught me just getting things started for
breakfast.
I was going to try and talk my way out f it, but didn't have the chance. He got
his razor strop and hit my back side hard--quite a few times. I had to take it without
crying, which made m see red. He sat me down on the seat by the table and told
me to sit there until he said I could move. He took over the cooking and seemingly
ignored me. I wanted to kill him, and there by me, hanging in two loops from the
wagon bows, was his big rifle with the butt towards me. A sheep wagon is pretty
small, and it would take some time to get the rifle out of the loops, turned around,
Harry Tracy, fatherofLloyd
Croley
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and a shell jacked into the chamber.
I believed then, and now, that if I failed, I would die, that he would kill me. He
wasn't over three feet from me. I decided it couldn't be done, and why was Iso mad
anyway? I was wrong and I knew it. I knew the rules: do wrong and pay for it. Don't
do wrong and everything is fine. I realized I was so mad because I felt I hadn't been
caught fair and square, but the fact remained, I was wrong. I knew the rules, so I gave
a sigh and put my chin in my hands, with elbows on the table. He turned his head
and looked square at me. His eyes were a brilliant blue and he had the strange little
smile he some times had, which meant some one had better look out. Fear went
through me like a knife, because I knew then that he knew what I was thinking. I
never had a ghost of a chance of doing what I wanted to. He put the food on the table
and sat across from me. His eyes still dark blue. Strange, I thought, because I'd
always thought his eyes were light blue, or ever gray. Mom's eyes were blue.
Curiously, I asked him, "How did you know what I did? He said, "I was a boy once
and I remember." I had never thought of him as a boy, and suddenly I was interested
in his childhood. I asked if he had any pictures taken when he was a kid, and he said,
"I left it all behind me a long time ago." His eyes were turning color--back to the
lighter color.
When we took the sheep back up the mountain, he asked me if I ever trapped or
hunted, and I said, "no." Well, he said,"guns are all right for that, but use themonly
for that, and don't hang around with guys who think they are tough." I did and I got
into a lot of trouble. They even had me in jail for awhile. I had whittled a wooden
gun and carried it in a holster I had made from an old piece of cowhide I had found.
He asked to see it and I gave it to him. He looked at it and said, "1 whittled a couple
of pretty good ones when I was young."
Dad was a good baker--not many women could match him at making bread and
pies. So I asked him, "where did you learn to make bread so good," and he replied,
"1 worked in a bakery when I was a kid. But one time when I was traveling through
the country, I stopped at a house and a woman had some graham bread. I'd never
seen that before and told her I wished she could teach me, but I didn't have the time."
I said, "you could have gone back later." "No," he said, "No, I could NEVER go
back." I didn't ask why. It wasn't allowed for kids to question grownups then. He
told ofa man who looked like himthat he ran around with when he was young. I said,
"gee, that's neat. I wonder what ever happened to him?" He gave me a hard look
and said real hard, "we parted company." Then he kicked his horse and went up the
mountain. When I got there, we stayed mounted and I put my right leg around the
saddle hornand waited. He told me more about his life, like a young woman he knew
when he was young named Anne Bassett, a nice girl who some of the big ranchers
called a cow thief. Some writers picked it up and called her"Queen of the rustlers;"
not true--a real injustice.
He told of a real lady named Thompson who he said probably saved his life once
when he got locked up in a logbuildingin the winter time and the chinking had fallen
out from between the logs. It was bitter cold. She told the men who locked him up
to either go bring him and his friend into the house, or they could stay out in the cold
with them. They brought them in the house.
I would like to add that I loved and do love my Dad. I never really resented any
spankings I got. I knew the rules and the faults were mine. Compared to the beatings
he received as a boy, mine were light. I can't remember of any time he ever got after
me when I wasn't wrong. So I would never get so mad again at him, I decided to stay
ahead of the game, and have more coming than I ever got. Thenif he made a mistake,
I could just mark one or two off.
Before hunted people can ever live in any peace, they have to"die." There has
to be a body and a believable witness. The man called Harry tracy knew this--as did
the law men and other hunted outlaws. Once this is understood, then the actions of
Tracy no longer seem crazy or stupid--hanging around the country while he could
have gotten away, but didn't try.
There was consistency to him. He was intelligent and fit a pattern and followed
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43 THE OUTIAW TRAIL jDURNAL
it. It shows through the maze of stories made up by different writers who never knew
him at all. I believe the first thing readers should do is to study pictures ofTracy and
the dead man, and see if they believe they are the same man. If so, then there is no
reason to read any more. If believed not the same man, then questions arise. If the
dead man wasn't Tracy, then who was he? He had to be someone. Everything seems
to point to a man named Henry Sevems--posing as Tracy. If Severns, not Tracy, then
who was Tracy? And what? He was no mad dog killer, and the common man never
saw him as such.
When men carry guns, they fight with guns, and Tracy was good at it. But there
is no place mentioned where he harmed women and children, or men he didn't feel
he had to. Of course, he could have just stepped out and told the brave posse
members to shoot him because he was a bad boy and deserved to die by these men's
guns. Because they were out there to servejustice, and reward had nothing to do with
them being there? Nonsense. Tracy was an outlaw, but an honest one. He didn't hide
behind the skirts of the law, or money, or power, as some ofthe real wrong doers do.
I am not here desperately hoping and praying for people to believe me, and that
includes family. All I want is for interested people to make up their own minds and
believe what they want to.
Tracy--his real name was NOT He ry Severns, nor was he from Wisconsin. Still
everything seems to indicate that Severns was the man who was killed as Tracy. He
called him elf Tracy, and got himself killed by an impromptu posse who had dollar
signs in their eyes and shot too soon. Still, who canblame them? Had they asked him
and had it been Tracy, his answer would have been by gun fire. I believe he thought
the posse was quite a ways away, and the real one was! I believe he thought ifhewas
caught up with, he could prove he wasn't Tracy and wouldn't have been in too much
trouble. But he never had that chance--so 'Tracy' died. The real Tracy knew that
sooner or later someone would die as Tracy, and risked his life, hoping it would be
someone else. But if not, well better dead than in such a cruel place as the Oregon
prison. And Oregon wasn't alone. At last--a dead body and believable witnesses
with a tory so full of holes, it doesn't hold water.
I have good ideas of what happened in the last days before death, at death, and
afterwards--and many questions for which I have some good answers, but that is for
another time. This is enough for now.
Lloyd M. Croley
February 29, 1992
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44 THE OUTLAW TRAiL JOURNAL
STOCKMORE -- BOOM TOWN BUSTED
by Elden Wilken
Few customers were in the saloon in Park City that winter night in late 1905. The
snow was deep although the day had been warm, but now sled tracks were icy and
most of the miners had gone horne or some back in the mines digging for silver.
The bartender polished the walnut topped bar yet again. Two young miners at
a side table were finishing their second beer and were talking in low voices. A
gambler sat alone with a drink at his side idly shuffling a deck of cards, wistfully
eying the other patrons hoping to get a game of poker going. Two drummers sat at
the center bar, near the beer keg, discussing their wares and lack of sales that day.
The piano player and one of the girls were at the piano practicing some songs for the
corning Saturday night's performance.
The front door opened and a man stepped inside blinking in the lights and took
in the other customers with a quick scan of the room. He had a knit cap pulled down
over his ears and wore a long shabby coat that had seen better days. A once white
knitted wool scarf encased his neck with the ends tucked inside the coat. His
untrimmed hair and beard hid his face and nose red from the cold. He'd advanced
to the bar as he pulled off knit gloves that were so worn the fingers poked through
the holes. He ordered whiskey as he stuffed the gloves into a pocket of the coat.
The bartender poured a drink and sat it in fount of his customer and waited to
collect his quarter. The two drummers saw the man lean close to the bartender, then
the bartender stepped back and picked up a small balance scale foml the back of the
bar and sat it on the counter and placed a small weight on one balance cup.
The customer peeled off his scarf, stuffed it into the other coat pocket, reached
inside an inner garment and shielding his actions from the other patrons shooka few
grains of fine gold into the scales to balance the beam. Then he replaced the bag into
his shirt. He lifted and sipped the drink as the bartender emptied the tray into a shot
glass and put both the glass and the scales on the back bar.
Both salesmen sitting down the bar saw the transaction. The man drained his
glass, wiped his beard and mustache with his coat sleeve, and slowly started to pull
his scarf from his pocket. One of the drummers slid from his stool and, approaching
the man, offered to buy him a drink.
"Thank e kindly, sir. But I must be on my way. I just needed one shot to keep
me on my way."
"Another drink will help on a cold night. Do you have far to go?"
"Yes, it is cold, but I'm riding to Snyderville tonight, to a friend's house, then to
Salt Lake tomorrow."
"You've got another four miles to ride in this cold, soyou'd better have another
drink ... on me" he stressed, "to last you to your friend's house."
"Well now, mebby I will have another. I've come quite a ways today and my
horse does need a breather."
The second drummer moved to a vacant table and called to his buddy to bring
his new friend and their drinks to the table.
(The following was not heard bythe bartender so the writer has addedwhat he thinks
could have happened.....)
"How far have you corne today?" a drummer asked their guest.
"Oh, not so very far, but there was a lot of snowand the trail was hard to follow
by horse."
"Did you corne through Heber?"
"Yea . I stopped there a bit to feed and rest my horse."
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45 THE OUTLAW TRAIL JOUR AL
"Bartender," calleda salesman, "we need another drink ... better leave the bottle,
our friend has had a hard ride today and needs warmed up. Ain't that right friend?
We are your friends, ain't we?"
"That's right. I got me two new friends."
"We saw you pay for your drink with gold. Where did you get gold?"
"There ain' no gold. I'm jist an 01' prospector down on his luck. But come spring
I'm gonna sh---sh---st-strike it ric 'n 'nen' I'll have lotsa frens and mebby find me
a woman too."
"That's right. Our bu dy's going to make a big strike. But I don't think he'd
know gold it he sat on it. He don't look like no prospector. He looks like an out of
work logger. Ain't that right partner?"
"I ain't no farmer 'n that's a fac. "N' I do know gold." He reached inside his shirt
and brought out a small buckskin poke hung round his neck by a thong; let his new
friends heft the poke, and then poured some of the yellow metal into his hand. "Look,
tha's gold y're lookin' at. Ain it purty?" and he turned his hand towards the light
to show off his treasure.
"Now that's right pretty. But I'll bet you got it from one of them mines in
Colorado."
"Naw, I ain' never been to Colorado."
"I seensome ohhegold that came from Colorado. That looks like some that came
from Cripple Creek."
"Naw, I tell ya. I ain been near crip...cropl crick. It's from Stockmore."
"I ain't heard of any place called Stockmore in Utah, and I'v traveled the state
quite a bit. You're just drunk and don't know what you're talkin about. Stockmore.
Hah! There ain't so such place."
"aye there is" the miner insisted. "N' I ain' drunk. It's overthe hill in the Indian
reservation" the prospector declared.
II Wow, you must ha e found Kale Rhodes' gold. His mine is on the "Rez"
somewh reo No ody's found it since the old man died."
"Nope. Tain't Kales gold ... I'm talkin to much, and he fell silent. Then he
dropped his head on the table and was heard to mumble something that sounded like
West Fork and Duchesne River and slid from his chair onto the floor.
Later the bartender reported he saw the stranger slide from his chair to the floor.
The two drummer left him on the floor and hurried to leave the room, but not before
the bartender had extracted money for the drinks from the duo.
The two miners left the saloon too. The bartender asked the piano player and
gambler to help him lift and drag the prospector from the saloon and heave him onto
the sadd.le of the only horse at the hitch rail. The bartender untied the horse, looped
the reins over the saddle hom and started the horse on his way. As the horse moved
away the bartender saw the rider straighten on the saddle and spur off at a fast trot
to disapp ar into the night.
In reconstructing events, the same type scene was probably repeated in saloons
through Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Provo during that winter by the same prospec-
tor.
The next spring people began to appear at "Stockmore" to be met by a Mr.
Stockman or a Mr. Moore, who sold them lots in the new townsite.
By September, 1906, the town boasted four saloons, one operated by FrankDefa,
who later became quite noted for his quality whiskey. There was also a general store,
a livery stable, hotel, boardinghouse, barber shop, and an assay office. The latter was
kept busy by the prospectors, but no gold showed up on the assays.
The disgusted miners were getting mean. Frequent fights developed and
townspeople decided a sheriff was needed to keep the peace. A day was set for the
election in late September with three candidates seeking election.
George H. Wilken, the writer's father, had herded cattle for the Carter Livestock
Company on the "Rez" since 1896. The "Rez" was opened for white settlement by
an Act of Congress approved March 3, 1905. The "Rez" was officially opened July
10,1905 to white settlers.
Property of the
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In late summer of 1906, George and a friend, John Toops, had staked out lands
and rode to the land office in Vernal, 90 miles away, to file their claims.
While the papers were being prepared George asked the clerk about the
Stockmore townsite.
"What about Stockmore? where is it?" the officer said, only hall li tening.
"Oh, there's quite a town," George said. "They're having an election in a couple
of days to elect a sheriff."
. "Is that so?" said the officer. "Where is this Stockmore located?"
"It's on a bench, about a mile east of the junction of the West and North Forks of
the Duchesne River. That's about three and a half mil s from my filing," George
directed.
The officer brought out his maps, hecked his ledger, then said, "Who's selling
lots in that townsite? Do you know?"
"Only names I've heard is a Mr. Stockman and a Mr. Moore. I'd say the wo
names were combined to come up with "Stockmore."
"We don't have anything in our files on that town. I'll end a marshall over to
look into this" the officer promi ed.
Their business done in Vernal, the t 0 pioneers, Wikken and Toops headed
back to the homesteads.
Election day was drawing to a close as the two settlers rode into Stockmore with
the news from the land office that no town was listed on the UnitedStates landfilings,
and as the news sunk in, the polls closed and the ballot box was not opened.
The following evening the u.s. Marshall ani ed in town, but Stockman and
Moore could not be found. The residents of Stockmore abandoned their buildings
and left. Homesteaders of the Hanna country salvaged the lumber, timbers, and
other building materials for use on heir own homesteads.
Several months later the news filtered back to the home teaders the swindlers
had been found, one in Montana and the other in Colorado; and the tory of the
prospector unfolded and connected back to the saloons where he'd acted drunk.
The prospector had made a small strike on the Klondike and arrived in Salt Lake
City with some flake, dust and nuggets in his poke. By chane ,or by design, it is not
clear, Stockman and Moore met up with him and hatched the scheme to pull a joke
on a lot of gullible people and gain a fast buckin the process. The entire act of paying
for a drink with gold dust, when suffidently II drunk," then let slip where the gold
came from ... Stockmore ... all done with the skill of an actor.
All traces of the hoax town Stockmore had vanished by 1926. A Forest Service
work center near the old site is called Stockmore Guard Station. There was the
Stockmore School ... a one-room with eight grades and one teacher, that continued
into the middle thirties. When it too vanished the children were bussed to Tabonia.
While the author was growing up, he attended the Stockmore School, went to
Church in the Redcliff Ward, and got mail at the Hanna post office.
Prospectors still comb the Uinta mountains searchingfor the Lost Rhoades Mine,
fabled to be extremely rich and supposedly located somewhere in those mountains.
Tales of the fabulous mine persist with the element of fear thoroughly mixed in the
story; Indian guards sworn to protect the sacred site, unseen presences felt, and
apparitions appearing to terrify and stupefy prospectors who might have ventured
too near. The lure of gold still beckons, causing men to abandon more reliable
pursuits to wealth, as they did following the rumor of gold at Stockmore over 80
years ago.
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BOOKREVIEWS
KILLING MEN IS MY SPECIALTY
by Chip Carlson, (Cheyenne, Wyoming: Beartooth Corral, 1990.)
It is very difficult to write about a person whose life supposedly
represents both good and evil. Carlson has accomplished this. His
research indicates a tremendous amount of effort in locating and
developing his extensive use of available personal contacts, historical
documents and photographs. He uncovered the known facts and
added his opinion occasionally, which is his prerogative as the author.
Carlson's book has a place in everyone's library, both for research
and pleasure. Where there are several new facts and photographs that
have been introduced, I must admit, lest I be considered a misogynist,
the attempt to psychoanalyze a person that has been gone over ninety
years opens a new facet, however, it leaves me cold within the
framework of facts.
The history of Tom Horn proves that he was a loner, and perhaps
this added to his demise. The job that he held as a range detective
disgusted people in general. His ability to drink, fight, and exaggerate
did not enhance his personality and this led to his downfall. When the
trail for the Nichols boy began, perhaps the jury may have looked at
the facts and by-passed the law. They had Horn hung before his trail
ever began. But before judging Horn the reader must take into
consideration his previous record.
Here was a man whose few friends made a very impressive list of
important people: Generals Miles, Crook, Lawton, and Wood, Chief
Scout Al Sieber, Captains Crawford and Gatewood, Major Chaffee,
Colonel Carr, Micky Free, and of course, Geromino. Upon arriving in
Wyoming and Colorado Hom was soon accused and judged by the
people of Brown's Park of backshooting and suave deviltry for which
he was never tried in a court of law. It leaves but one true fact -- only
the real killer knew who was guilty of the crime Hom was hung for,
and whether or not Horn was the real killer will probably never be
known.
Richard Wm. Horton
Vernal, Utah
,
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IN THE COMPANY OF COWBOYS
by Howard E. Creager, (New York: Vintage Press, Inc., 1990).
In this short reminiscent journey through western Colorado folk-
lore and personal stories the author, Howard E. Creager, In The
Company of Cowboys, (New York: Vintage Press, Inc0' 1990) success-
fully recaptures the feel and flavor of life around the turn of the
century into the 1950' s. This is a series of hort stories, some told first
person, and others are recounts of family folktales known by the
author. The writing style is easily followed but there is no congruence
between stories except their focus on the region.
There are many colorful characters including tenderfeet, outlaws,
Indians, cowboys, sheepherders, fighters, hunters and animals of a
time not so distant past. Many people assume that the "wild west"
ended with the turning of the 20th century. Creager proves this to be
untrue. Many of his stories, though setin the 1920's, 30's, and ev n into
the 1950' s, read like old western stories in action, content, and excite-
ment.
This book is recommended for those who love Western stories,
local history, and folklore. The author grew up in the Disappointment
Valley region of western Colorado and worked cattle, broke horses,
and lived the lifestyle he depicted in his book. Though it does not add
significantly to the scholarly field of Western History it is a good read.
John D. Barton
Utah State University, Uintah Basin Education Center
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utah Outlaw Trail Festival City
Outdoor Musical Production
FeaturingEvents& Local tfistoryAbout:
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WildBunch QueenAnn Bassett
Tom Horn Etta Place
Elza Lay MattWarner
SheriffJohnT. Pope
13 Performances During the Month ofJUly
Attend the Best of the Old West Outdoor Theatre
Activities
June July
Trail Ride Western Song, Poetry,
JosieShoot(women) ArtContests
Shoot-Out Quilt&: ArtDisplays
StoryTellingU.S.U.
Outlaw&: Lawmen
Festival Day8:00to 12p.m.
HistoryCenter
1-800-388-4538
ForInformation& Reservationswriteorcall:
UintahArts
Toll Free- 1-800-477-5558
P.O, Box1417
Local (801) 789-6932
Vernal, Utah 84078
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(801) 789-7396
Sponsored by Uintah Arts Council
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