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THE WYOMING STATE ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS AND HISTORICAL DEPARTMENT

The function of the Wyoming State Archives, Museums and Historical Department is
to collect and preserve materials which tell the story of Wyoming. It maintains the state's
historical library and research center, the Wyoming State Museum and branch museums,
the State Art Gallery and the State Archives. The Department solicits original records such
as diaries, letters, books, early newspapers, maps, photographs and art and records of early
businesses and organizations as well as artifacts for museum display. The Department asks
for the assistance of all Wyoming citizens to secure these documents and artifacts. Depart-
ment facilities are designed to preserve these materials from loss and deterioration. The State
Historic Preservation Office is also located in the Department.

WYOMING STATE LIBRARY, ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS AND HISTORICAL BOARD

Frank Bowron, Casper, Chairman

Lucille Clarke Dumbrill, Newcastle

Mary Sawaya, Kemmerer

Tom Mangan, Laramie

Bill Bruce Hines, Gillette

Gladys Hill, Douglas

Mary Guthrie, Attorney General's Office, Ex-officio

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Dona Bachman

James Donahue

Rick Ewig

Mark Junge

Linda Rollins

Ellen Mueller, Ex-officio
President, Wyoming State Historical Society

Frank Bowron, Ex-officio
Chairman, State Library, Archives, Museums and Historical Board

ABOUT THE COVER— A sketch of the Wyoming Capitol in 1890, found in the Cheyenne Daily
Leader, July 23, 1890. The accompanying article stated: "In all Cheyenne, which is preeminently
a city of handsome buildings, no structure compares in massiveness and beauty with Wyoming's
statehouse, a noble structure at the head of Capitol avenue. " Wyoming will celebrate the centennial
of the laying of the Capitol cornerstone on May 18, 1987. (AMH Dept. photograph)

NNALS of WYOMING

Volume 59, No. 1
Spring, 1987

GOVERNOR OF WYOMING

Mike Sullivan

DIRECTOR

Dr. Robert D. Bush

EDITOR

Dr. John P. Langellier

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Rick Ewig

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Jean Brainerd
Roger Joyce
Ann Nelson

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Kathy Martinez
Judy West

PHOTOGRAPHIC
ASSISTANTS

Paula West-Chavoya
Carroll Jones
Ed Fowler

WYOMING STATE PRESS
MANAGING EDITOR

Dr. John P. Langellier

TABLE OF CONfT^NTS

7 5%

BEHIND THE CAPITOL SCENES:
The Letters of John A. Feick . .
edited by Rick Ewig

THE CULTURAL ROOTS OF INDIAN WATER RIGHTS 15

by Michael Massie

THE F.E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE WAR

TROPHIES FROM BALANGIGA, P.I

by Gerald M. Adams

THE HISTORY OF VOLUNTEERING IN WYOMING
by Hugh Jackson

AMAZONS, WITCHES AND COUNTRY WIVES:

Plains Indian Women in Historical Perspective 48

by Thomas SchUz and Jodye Lynn Dickson Schilz

REVIEWS 57

CONTRIBUTORS 61

INSIDE WYOMING 61

INDEX 62

ANNALS OF WYOMING is published biannually in the Spring and Fall by the Wyoming
State Press. It is received by all members of the Wyoming State Historical Society as the of-
ficial publication of that organization. Copies of previous and current issues may be purchased
from the Editor. Correspondence should be addressed to the Editor. PubUshed articles repre-
sent the views of the author and are not necessarily those of the Wyoming State Archives,
Museums and Historical Department or the Wyoming State Historical Society. ANNALS OF
WYOMING articles are abstracted in Historical Abstracts. America: History and Life.
© Copyright 1987 by the Wyoming State Press

Lizzie Feick

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY FEICK FAMILY

The Wyoming State Capitol, completed almost a cen-
tury ago, still serves as the seat of Wyoming's government.
The design and the construction of the structure, however,
have a decidedly Ohio influence as both the architect and
the construction firm came from that state. Correspon-
dence from John A. Feick, a member of A. Feick & Bro.,
the firm which built the Capitol, still exists in the Feick
family archives. The letters, written during John's stay in
Cheyenne, provide an interesting look at the Wyoming of
100 years ago and at the construction of the Capitol.

President Andrew Johnson signed the organic act
creating Wyoming Territory on July 25, 1868, although the
territorial government did not officially organize until 1869.
Cheyenne, the largest city, became the capital. Because
there was no Capitol building, two rooms were rented, one
on Sixteenth Street and one on Seventeenth Street, for use
by the two houses of the legislature, the Council and the

House of Representatives. The territory rented other
quarters in later years until the governor and legislature
gave consideration to a permanent building in 1886. ^

Governor Francis E. Warren in his 1886 address to the
legislature broached the topic of a government building.
He stated "it would afford greater convenience to the
public if the various territorial offices could be brought
together in a central location. "^ The legislature agreed and
authorized the Capitol to be built at a cost not to exceed
$150,000.

To begin the process of construction Warren appointed
a five man Capitol BuUding Commission. The members
first elected Erasmus Nagle, a well known Cheyenne
businessman, as chairman and then began the process of
selecting site and architect. The commission chose two
blocks on Hill Street, now known as Capitol Avenue, for
the location.^

John A. Feick

Considering bids from firms in Ohio, Minnesota and
Michigan, the commission decided upon architect David
W. Gibbs of Toledo, Ohio, to design the building. Accord-
ing to the commission's final report, Gibbs had much ex-
perience in the planning and construction of large public
buildings and "had given to that class of work special and
particular attention."*

Again drawing from Ohio, this time from Sandusky,
the commission selected the firm of A. Feick & Bro. to con-
struct the Capitol. Feick's successful bid came to $131,275.13
for a building of wood construction with an iron tower. ^
The contractor broke ground on September 9, 1886.*

Adam and George Feick founded A. Feick & Brother
in 1872.'' Adam, born in Germany in 1832, emigrated to
the United States in 1852 and settled in Sandusky, where
his older brother Philip had taken up residence a few years
earlier. George, younger than Adam, did not arrive in

America untU 1866, when he also located in Ohio. Adam
employed George in his construction firm untU they
formed their partnership in 1872 which lasted until Adam's
death in 1893.

At the time the Capitol Building Commission awarded
the contract to the Feicks, their company was completing
several buildings on the campuses of Oberlin College and
Lake Erie College for Women. The firm already had con-
structed several large stone churches in Ohio along with
buildings for the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Home.

The distance between Sandusky and Cheyenne, how-
ever, presented some problems and necessitated a long
stay in the West for a member of the company. The Feicks
subcontracted with Robert C. Greenlee of Denver, but still
needed someone to be in Cheyenne. At first George trav-
eled to Wyoming and made the early arrangements. He
then expected to return to Ohio while his nephew, Adam's

son, John A. Feick, oversaw construction. On November
26, 1886, George wrote to John from Cheyenne:

Mr. Greenlee furnished good bond and think from present
intimation all will go well as may be expected I have made
contract for cut stone Have also completed contract for about
1 'A million brick The weather just now is bad but as soon
as the weather is better things can move all right I am getting
prices on lumber by different home parties and will try Chicago
on my way back. My present plans are as follows 1 will engage
a small house right near the Capitol building and expect you
to move out here perhaps in February or March all depending
some what on the weather. WiU get all lumber and (nock down)
frame here by the same time you can easily take charge of all
we have to do make the centers frame Joist and put frames
to gether. In fact one man can take all of the wood work until
the building is inclosed of course all the interior wood work
will have to be prepared East and we can easily bring a few
good men to put it up. This is a very lively town and you and
you wife will like it very well I think better than Oberlin or
eaven Sandusky. As I have learned so far if a man wants to
do the right thing the people will Stand by him. Think it would
be well for you when in Sandusky to have some one file a ap-
plication for you to the Masonic fratternity, as it will be of some
use to you and will take you about two month to become a
master mason.

WUl write you again from Chicago

Yours as ever

G. Feick*

February 5 1887
Dearest Wife:

I suppose you received the letter I wrote you when I
arrived. I had quite a long trip, and feel very lonesome and
homesick for you, to be fifteen hundred miles away from
you and in a part of the country where you have to wear
a beUy-band to keep your cap on your head is a pretty hard
thing.

There are very wealthy people living in this town but
they all look to me like Cow-boys, Lizzie you can not
imagine what kind of a country this is you can go just one
hundred miles straight out in the country and not see a
house or a living sole, but wolves, prarie Dogs, Deer, there
are some very heigh mountains that you can see from
Cheyenne that have snow on the top all the year around
and the cars run to the top of them and that is 8000 feet
heigher than Cheyenne. Cheyenne is just two and one half
miles heigher in the air than Sandusky is, so you can
imagine how the wind blows.

I will close for two night and write you another letter
in the morning, hoping to hear from you soon ....
Your true & faithful husband
John A. Feick

It is not known how John, only 24, reacted to this
assignment, the first where he could not commute between
home and worksite, but during his stay in Cheyenne he
wrote many letters to his wife of only two years, Lizzie.
Her widowed father, Constantine Zipfel, was in Germany
at the time visiting various spas, leaving Lizzie to care for
her brothers and sisters in Sandusky and keeping her from
accompanying John. They did not know when she could
join him.

John's correspondence provides an interesting look at
his first reaction to Wyoming and how it changed, his
loneliness, the hard work involved and his many activities
and acquaintances during his stay.

Feby 2, 1887
Dearest Wife!

I just arrived at Cheyenne right side up and handled
with care. 1 tell you it was a long ride. 1 thought that I went
around the world five times, can not tell you any thing
about Cheyenne yet, just came in and is very dark, will
write you a good long letter tomorrow which you will get
Sunday morning if you go to the post office between 9 & 10

It is snowing & blowing bad enough to scare a man
to death the first night, would have written you from
Chicago, or Omaha but train went right straight through.

Do not worry about me I will try & do the best I can
I feel very lonesome & tired ....
Yours
John A. Feick

Feby 13, 1887

Dearest Wife,

I received your first letter and was glad to hear from
you I thought you would never write. I am well but terri-
ble homesick, you asked me where I was last Sunday, in
the morning 1 had breakfast at 9 o clock Then Mr.
Greenlee & I went out after Jack Rabbits Came back at 2
o'clock and had Dinner Then we took a walk around the
town Had supper at six Then 1 went to church till half
past nine, and then to Bed. 1 am stopping with Commis-
sioners Nagle's Mother a very fine place and get my meals
at the Hotel. We have had very cold weather heare 12
below zero, and the next day it would be so hot that I could
not stand it with my under cloths on. We have some terri-
ble winds heare will write you this evening again must
go to Dinner
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

Feby 14, 1887

Dearest Wife:

I received another ones of your letters and two papers
this evening and was glad to hear from you. I see by the
papers you have plenty of rain East .... we never have
rain here all the year around but we have some very queer
weather in this country in the morning it is bitter cold from
10 to 2 o'clock in the afternoon the sun shines so hot that
we are looking for shade and from 2 o'clock the wind will
blow so hard that you would think the world was coming

'c c^a-a

^. -, .. >■

5 i',-'

1 -1 - ^'

;.-/-.. u -"ly Ar..

''<^^ ^^^-^ i-ti^ I'l.-^^O

t/,M

■,- ^/i-/ /n^t./

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^Ic^^-^ ^v-Z^^t*^. V'-!^^/>"^ W^,1^<'^ _

John A. Feick's first letter to Lizzie from Cheyenne.

to an end. Sunday morning I was to church in the after-
noon I went for a walk in the country had supper at six
and then went to church again We have some very nice
churches in this city. ...
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

Feby 17, 1887

Dearest Wife:

We had a fire here last night and the wind blew at the
rate of 75 miles an hour and now are having a terrible snow
storm but very little of the snow stays on account of the
wind, I am getting a little over my being Homesick cause
I get a letter or paper of you most every night. The maU
comes in once a day and that is in the evening after sup-
per. 1 was to see Katie Putman at the Opra House last rught
it was a very good show wish you could have been here
to see it. I am getting aquainted with a good many very
nice folks, but have not been inside of a Saloon yet nor
have I touched a drop of intoxicating liquor since I left
home & don't intend to if I can holde it out which I think

I can ....

Your most affectionate Husband

J. F.

Feby 18, 1887

Dearest Wife:

I received your sixth letter of Feby 15 to night and was
verry glad to hear from you. The wind done considerable
dammage around here, a freight train of 48 cars was blown
off the track about a mile from town all telegraph wires
are down, yesterdays train was 19 hours late. The Denver
passinger train that left here in the morning was blown
of the track & rolled down a steep hill, 2 passingers were
killed and a good many had their arms & legs brooken.
The roof was blown off of the Catholic Convent which is
west to the capitol it is a large four story building (Brick)'
... I am very sorry that 1 could not be home on your 20th
Birthday, but still I thought of you all the time I wanted
to buy you a small it was verry pretty something new that
I never saw before there were 4 nice gold leaves hooked
together & looked very rich, but the price was to rich for
my pocket Book $42.00 is what he asked and it was not
longer than your little finger but it was a daisy, but never
mind I love you just the same only take good care of your
self. . . .
Yours as ever
John A.

^sicK & a^j^

^■/ff.

^^.

/tSi-c^^^ ,</t'^

^O"-^/'*. a»^^rt^ ^i^^CM^ tf^ -tt^^*- /^^(, , /^i^ ,ta-c--^ —if-^^.

■,'fe-«6<^

Feby 20, 1887
Dearest Wife:

. . . the house that I wanted to get is rented to another
man that was right close by the Capitol. Board is very high
here I pay $10.00 ten dollars a month for my room and five
& a half dollars a week for my meals, so that comes very
high. Meals I get at the Restaurant and the room of Mr.
Nagles mother the man was at Sandusky, I have a very
nice room and a good bed so 1 can rest well at night. But
sometimes I get so homesick for you that I think I must
pick up and go home, but it can not be helped, you must
not worry about me will try and take good care of myself
you need not be afraid of me making a mash the women
that are in this city are all homely, if I was to kiss one of
them it would turn my stomach, have not seen a good
looking girl yet. ... 1 will send you a newspaper from
Cheyenne which you show to the boys and then you send
it to your father which I think will interest him very much
in telling old country people how they Brand Cattle in the
Wild West send it as soon as you can that he will get it
before he leaves there. . . .
Yours as ever
John A. F.

Feby 22 1887

Dearest Wife:

. . . the weather was very warm today and tonight
it is 12 below zero. You can tell L. Kinzler that I am Board-
ing Mrs. O'Reiley's Hotel, . . . You can tell Cap Brown
if you see him that that there is plenty of game in this
country such as Deer, antelope. Jack Rabbits wolves etc
and if he wants to enjoy a good hunt, to come out here,
give him my best regards. Cheyenne has about 15 thou-
sand inhabitants They were all enjoying Washingtons
Birthday today. They have some finer stores here than
there are in the East only that everything is very expen-
sive and the only thing I buy here for the same price as
I do East is postage Stamps. . . .
John A. F.

Feby 23, 1887

Dearest Wife:

... I was in the house all day last Sunday on account
of bad weather, you asked if they have any saloons here,
I can tell you the town is made up of Saloons but I have
not stepped inside of one yet. I am very tired and homesick
but feel very well otherwise. . . .
Yours John A. F.

March 1, 1887
Dearest Wife:

I received your letter of Saturday morn this evening
6

and tomorrow night I wUl be here just one month but that
one month seems to me like one year, we are have nice
summer here for the last two days & hope it will stay so
for some time It seems very queer to see no snow in
Cheyenne but at a hundred miles distence you can see the
tops of mountains covered with snow & does not seem
more than two or three miles away, this is a queer coun-
try I tell you. . . .

. . . You asked me if I had my washing done at the
laundry, I have not had any cloth washed since I am here.
The first day I struck town they told me any man that wore
a white shirt would be shot, so I bought a blue sailor shirt
or what ever you would call them in Ohio, I have not
changed since nor have I had my Sunday cloth on since
the day I struck town and the shirt will last 3 months longer
with out changing, you will think that 1 am a Cow-Boy
when you see me again. . . .
Respectfully as ever
John A. F.

March 9, 1887
Dearest Wife:

. . . We have not had any rain since I am here but still
have lots of wind. My cloths don't need washing yet and
my socks have no bottom, but will get them washed and
wear them as leggins I get shaved twice every week which
costs 15c every time and 35c for a Hair Cut. . . . You need
not be afraid of me looking for another bed pardner as long
as I am out here. They have plenty of bad houses out here
but they do not bother me.

It is true what I told you about wearing white shirts.
I wish you could be out here when the corner stone will
be laid The Free Masons are going to lay the stone and
expect to have a grand time over it. I think George will
be out when the time comes and if your father is at home
then you can come with him. . . .
Yours in haste
John A. Feick

March 12, 1887

Dearest Wife:

The mail is four hours late this evening so I can not
get it until morning but will try and write you a little letter
tonight. I am feeling considerable better today than I have
been for some time. I will move to my new palace'" as soon
as my blankets come I have it fixed up in grate shape, it
is a room about the size of your dining room on the East
side I have four bunks two over each other, one for Chas
W. one for George when he comes, and one for myself
and the other is a spare bed for company when we have
any I got some coffee sacks filled them with straw and that
makes a very good straw tick. On the West side in one cor-
ner I have my wardrobe for my cloths & C next to that is
my desk for my papers. Books & c.f. and in the west cor-
ner is my wash stand have a baisen, dipper, soap pail &

C in it under it a place for my shoe brush and blacking
and other thrash and a room for a chamber but dont need
any on the north side back of the door is the grand look-
ing glass, towels, broom and C and on the South side is my
trunck with shelves and c.f. over it, and in the center of
the room I have a center table of my owne make. Monday
the men are coming to put Electric light in my room, a lamp
would have been good enough for me but the electric light
is just as cheep and there is no danger with fire, the room
is not very heigh just heigh enough so that I can stand up
straight. I made it low on count of the wind, have two win-
dows in the room with curtins on them so you can imigine
what kind of a palice I have. If Chas. W. is not gone yet
when you get this letter send two good towels and an old
hair brush so that I can brush my hair once in a while. I
will write you more about it & tell you how I like it when
I live in it a while, my meals I shall get down town at
Wilcoxes'i^ the same as always. Having no news I will close
hoping you are all well and that I may hear from you soon
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

March 15, 1887

Dearest Wife:

... I begin to like this country better every day the
grass is coming out green and the leaves are coming out
on the trees, the air is so clear and pure that you can see
one Hundred and fifty miles and see the snow on all the
tops of Mountains. Mr. Nagle took me out for a ride last
Sunday and I enjoyed it very much, he has a very fast
team. . . . They are blacks and are well mated and I tell you
I rode just as fast as I ever want to ride in a buggy. You
tell Chas Joe and Joe Lerman if they want to see nice horses
and horses that are fast they should come out here. Mr.
Nagle sold a horse to a Chicago man for six Thousand two

hundred dollars last Saturday, he would not have sold her,
but she was a terrible kicker and he could not drive her. . . .
This morning when I went to Breakfast I saw a Chinaman
laying in the Street with his head cut off and it looked terri-
ble."

. . . You asked me in your last letter if I chewed I do
and every body else in town even every little boy that can
walk, there is something in the climate that makes people
chew here so excuse me I never drink, they tell me the
whisky a man gets here would make a man go home and
rob his own trunk

You dont see as many drunkards in Cheyenne as you
do in Sandusky and the town is kept very orderly other
wise I think you will like it when you come out, perhaps
you can get your father to come out with you for a visit
when he comes back. 1 know he would enjoy himself very
much to go out on the ranches Sunday N. [Nagle] and I
were on Arbuckles ranch that is 14 miles from town, he
is the only man around here that raises sheep and has two
hundred thousand sheep on his ranch (Arbuckle is the man
that manufactures Coffee in the East) then we went to Posts
Ranch and saw 18 Stallions that he Mr. Post got from
France Europe last week, he told us he had over two thou-
sand horses on his ranch and they are all well bred
horses Mr. Post has the largest horse ranch in the
world he says the 18 Stallions cost him Sixty two thou-
sand dollars. ^^ I will close for this time hoping you are
all well
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

March 18, 1887
Dearest Wife:

... if you come 1 will not keep house but will board

7'-^

f /i ? C^ :.i>t^'/'i^

Feick's drawing of the interior of his "palace" located on the Capitol grounds taken from his March 12, 1887 letter.

and sponge on the neighbors as a good many other peo-
ple do. I shall stay until the building is finished if I keep
well that is if you come out, if not 1 shall come home once
to see you George will be at Cheyenne the First of April.
The carr came to Cheyenne this evening and will
urdoad it tomorrow afternoon if everything goes all right.
The apples you sent with Chas are very good But I tell
you the nicest thing we have in our shanty is the electric
light we take it in bed with us. . . .
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

March 19, 1887

Dearest Wife:

. . . We got our carr unloaded this after noon and
found the cake which pleased me very much and the
sausage was emence you teU Charly that 1 am ever so much
obliged for it. Mr. OBrine" one of the Territory Commis-
sioners says he never saw such sausage, he eat half a pice
and wanted to take the other half to his wife he says he
never eat any sausage that tasted better to him than that.
The cake is good and did not dry up very much for which
I am ever so much obliged. . .hoping you are all well
Yoiirs as ever
John A. Feick

March 20, 1887
Dearest Wife:

I received your letter this evening and was very glad
to hear you are all well. 1 will draw you a better picture
of our room when I have a little more time You can send
towels that go on a roller and I will make a roller for them.
Today I bought a stove and a large chair in a second
handed store, 5.00 for the stove and 2.50 for the
chair AUmost every body in Cheyenne has been to my
room to see it and think it is very comfortable little
place. . . .
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

March 29, 1887

Dearest Wife:

I received your letter No 25 this eve but did not get
any papers If Katies sister could talk English she could
get work here girls are very scarce in this country and get
big pay for ordinary house work they get Twenty dollars
(20) a month room and board and that is a big pay for a
young girl. . . . The wind blew very hard today so that
a person could not see their hand before their face. . . .
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

View of the Capitol cornerstone laying ceremony, May 18, 1887. After a parade through downtown Cheyenne, people gathered for the official Masonic
dedication ceremonies and speeches by Joseph M. Carey, Wyoming's delegate to Congress, and Governor Thomas Moonlight. On the left is what
probably served as Feick' s "palace."

Immediately following the cornerstone laying the crowd enjoyed a barbecue held on the grounds just west of the Capitol. The menu consisted of
mutton, bread, "cornerstone pickles," lemonade and roast beef The Cheyenne Daily Sun reported "the fare was unusually good and tasted all
the better from the fact of keen appetites and being eaten out of doors. "

Apr. 2, 1887
Dearest Wife:

I received two of your letters this evening No 29 & 30
and was glad to hear from you. 1 got a letter of George
saying that he was going to Denver Colorado and would
not be in Cheyenne till Tuesday night, he is going there
to See George Cooke & his wife. If George asks you again
about comming out you tell him you insist on comming
out or want me to come home, 1 know one thing that I
shall not stay here alone all Summer if I can help it. . . .
You must think I look terrible raggid the way you write I
have lots of mending to do and keep my cloths in good
trim.

Mrs. Nagle is going to take me to the Ranch tomor-
row morning and we are going to stay all day to have a
ruck pick. Wish you could be here to go along Having no
more news I will close hoping you are all well which I am
the same. . . .
Yoiurs as ever
John A. Feick

April 7, 1887

Dearest Wife:

I have not written to you for two or three days, have
allways been busy during the day and at night time we
were with the Capitol Commission or at Nagles's house^^
so I did not get time to write, but am sorry for and will
try and be a little more promt after this George came Tues-
day night and was very glad to see some one from San-
dusky. Mr. Filbys son is out here too and seems to like
it very well. The towels you sent me are very nice and so
is the comb & brush for which I am ever so much obliged.
George sleeps on the top bunk in our castle, 1 will close
and write you more news tomorrow night
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

April 11, 1887

Dearest Wife:

... I supose you think it queer, because I did not
write to you this and last week as much as usual George

& I were off every night and was kept very busy It is
twelve oclock now, and just came home from Mr. Nagles.
Sunday Mrs Nagle & I were out to the Herferd ranch all
day and had a grand time & wished you were here very
much. . . .

We are having very nice weather and am beginning
to like this place very much, when you come I think you
will have to move out here I think you will like it very
much after you get aquainted
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

April 25, 1887

Dearest Wife:

. . . Chas & I were working at Nagles house for the
last three days we had an awful snow storm here last
Thursday, the snow was even with the top of our shanty
and could not get out untill we had shoveled our way
out the snow was 15 & 20 feet in some places. . . Hav-
ing no news 1 will close hoping you are well & that I may
see you soon
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

May 1, 1887

Dearest Wife:

I received your letter and papers and was very glad
to hear from you 1 was not feeling very well for the last
two days. We had a terrible Snow storm last night and it
is terrible cold today. We are going to have a grand time
at the laying of the corner stone and wish you could come
by the 18th of May, it will be something that you never
see before the train is here and must get this mailed to go
off

Yours as ever
John A. Feick

I wish you would bring Alfred with you, speak to Chas
& Joe about it I think it would do him considerable good,
there are good & better Catholic schools here than there
are in Ohio. Mr. Nagles little boy would like to have him
come very much he has a very nice little poney & buggy
and is just about Alfreds size, if he did not want to stay
long he could go back by the first of Aug When Geroge
or one of the Commissioners went East.
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

May 6, 1887

Dearest Wife:

I received your letters & papers tonight and was very
glad to hear from you, but not that you was not comming
out for the laying of the corner stone. We are estimating
for May again so 1 do not get time to write long let-
ters have to sit up half of the night to get through with
my work. Having no news I will close hoping to hear from
you again.
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

May 26, 1887
Dearest Wife:

... 1 supose by this time you know what kind of a
time we had at the laying of the Corner Stone," people
expect to have a larger time on Decoration day,^'' I tell you
this is a great country for excitement.

People are more liberal & a nicer class of people than
you find in the east.

Train is here & I must close hoping to see you soon.
Many kisses.
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

May 2, 1887
Dearest Wife:

. . . People here are going crazy over the corner
stone they have collected $1800.00 Dollars to lay it with,
they are going to have a Barber Cue, that is something that
you or I never saw in the East, perhaps you don't know
what a Barber Cue is, if you dont I'll not tell you what it
is untill you come to see it. The People of Cheyenne have
appointed me on two committees on Committee of ar-
rangements, and on the Committee of receptions, so you
see 1 don't belong to you common people in Ohio any
more. Inclosed find notice they sent me, was to the meeting
tonight and had quite a time, Mrs. Nagle & Mrs Wilcox
expect to see you by the 18th of May 87 If you come out
here and stay till fall you can vote, all women have the
right to vote when in the Territory 3 months.

... If the boys and the other children do not care,

May 31, 1887

Dearest Wife:

Received your letter but no paper this evening have
had lots work to do and did not feel very well is the reason
that I did not write so often. Before you come out go to
George and have him explain to you how to come. You
can go to Chicago without a sleeper you get there about
12 o clock at night that same day you start, then you change
& take the Rock Island R. R. to Omaha you get there the
next night about 7 50 o clock; on that train you can get your
meals in the Dining car that costs 75c a meal, you must
ask the conductor where to get your sleeping car ticket or
ask George he can tell you more about it than I can rite.
At Omaha you change cars again and take the Union Pa-
cific R.R. that runs to Cheyenne, there is one that leaves
for Denver at the same time so be careful that you get in
the right one, you must get your sleeping car ticket at

Omaha as you go through the depot to the Union Pacific
that will cost you 4.00 Dollars, the one you get at Chicago
will cost 3.00 Dollars, if you take the sleeper you wUl be
well taken care of if you dont know just what to do ask
the porter on the sleeper and he will tell you just what to
do, you will not have to waight more than an hour any
where if you dont miss any trains. Have Geo. give you
time tables of the 3 roads & explain to you so that you know
where you are going Enclosed find time card of the
U.P.R.R. you can telegraph when you come having no
news I will close hoping to see you soon many kisses to you
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

June 1, 1887
Dearest Wife:

1 received your letter and papers and was very glad
to hear from you. . . You rite that you all wondred what
I was doing Sunday Mr. Nagle took me to the post in his
buggy we had a nice time hearing the band play then we
went to the fairgrounds & saw the Base Ball game.

Hoping you will get out all right & have a nice journey
1 will close hoping to see you soon Many Kisses to you^^
Yours as ever
John A. Feick

January 11, 1888

Dearest Lizzie:

I've received no letter of you yet and am patiently
waiting for one to see how you got home and what all the
folks thought when they saw you come in the door. . .
We are having regular summer weather it is very warm.
The town has considerable life in it since Lection day, than
the Legislature met last Tuesday and the Street Cars run
every five minutes, there are many strange people in town
and everthing is very lively about Chian. . .
Yours
John A.

January 12, 1888
Dearest Lizzie:

Have received no letter of you yet but shurely aught
to get one tonight or in the morning; We have had nice
weather ever since you left but today it is blowing terrible
hard the sand is blowing around so that a person can
hardly see their hand before there face.

I have no news at present only that 1 miss you a great
deal & feel terrible lonesome and everybody else that sees
me asks where you are

WUl close this hoping to hear from you tonight. . . .
Yours,
John A.

January 17, 1888
Dearest Lizzie:

Just got home from the Capitol and it now is half past
eleven, Mr. & Mrs Wilcox are drinking a Tom & Jerry on
the head of the new mothern— law. We work all last Sun-
day and every night this & last week hense the delay of
my writing. I think we will get home very soon so have
a little patience and we will soon be together again. . . .

. . . Sam Wilcox wants me to go in Business with him
and will give me a good show 1 am really on the fence
& don't know what to do, but will want to go home once
more and see all the folks & what father thinks about it.
Of course 1 do not want to leave him if I am any help to
him.
Your Dear John

Jany 22, 1888
Dearest Lizzie:

I received your letter this evening and was very glad
to hear from you, we are all well at present & hope we
will be until I get home. We have regular summer weather
for the last five days and it seems so funney when you say
that you go out sleighing in Sandusky.

The plasterers left on the new road tonight and wanted
me to go with them the worst way, & said they would pay
my fare If I would go with them. They will send us a dog
(Pug) to Sandusky to my address so when it comes you
will have to take good care of it until I get home. They
hated to leave with out me but it will not be very long
before I get home.

We worked hard all day at the Capitol we have sec-
ond & third stories finished and have the dome very near
finished then all there will be left is the basement & first
story settling up, pack our trunk & tools, sweep out the
building, have our trunks taken to the depot, buy our
tickets, tell them all good bye, jump on the train, kiss my
best girl, ride for two days and a night on the train, then
we are in Sandusky. . . .
Yours
John A

Jany 28, 1888

Dearest Lizzie:

I received a letter of you this evening and was very
glad to hear from you, 1 did not write to you last night 1
was very tired and came home late tonight we did not work
at the Building but 1 had to work at the office awhile tonight
it is now ten oclock and being my Birthday is today I send
Toney over for a Growler which we quietly are drinking
on the head of the Birthday, we have got to work in the
morning so you cant expect much news of me tonight.
Yours
John A.

February 1, 1888

Dearest Lizzie:

I received your letter this evening and was very glad
to hear from you again We are having it very warm here,
warmer than it was any time last summer and we are work-
ing as hard as we can to get finished and get home. . . .
Yours
John A.

Feby 9, 1888

Dearest Lizzie:

. . . Lizzie how would you like to move to Denver to
live I think there's where 1 will spend my next summer
I might just as well get out of Sandusky first as last and
try my luck. . .
Yours
John A.

Feby 23, 1888

Dearest Lizzie

. . . Dear Lizzie if everything goes right we will leave
Chian about 4 weeks from next Saturday and be in San-
dusky about the 28 of March and then wont we have a
bulley time. I can hardly wate till the time comes. . .
Yours
John A.

Feby 25, 1888

Dearest Lizzie

four weeks from tonight you will get a telegram of me that
I leave Cheyenne

Feby 26, 1888

Dearest Liz:

I received your kind & welcome letter I supose you will
miss some of my letters the passinger going East caught
a fire & burnt 15 cars Killed several and injured a good
many." Adolph & Crist were scart to go last night they
will both come to see you. . . .
Yours
John A.

March 5, 1888

Dearest Lizzie:

I received all of your letters supose you think 1 have
forgotten you because I did not write for so long The
members of the Legeslature had an excursion to Denver
and invited us along so George, Gerlach, Louey, and I
went. We had a nice time. John Greenlee took me all
around the town, and at night we went to the Labor Opera

house and saw Fantasnia it was a good show and we en-
joyed it very much.
Yours
John A.

March 13, 1888

Wife Lizzie

... I think we can start for Sandusky a week from
next Saturday if nothing happens so you can stop writing
a week from tomorrow the 14/88 having no news I will
close
Yours
John A.

March 14, 1888

Dearest Lizzie:

. . . we will get done here just the time I have
promised and all the men will go east just that time if
nothing happens I will go to Salt Lake City if 1 possibly
can so I will be home 2 or three days later, of course this
may not be for certain but want to go very much if I
can. . . .
Yours
John A.

March 17, 1888
My Dearest Lizzie:

I received your kind & welcome letter this evening and
was very glad to hear from you. I am well & glad to hear
you are the same, only that I am terrible homesick and anx-
ious to see you all again I supose in a week from tonight
by this time we will have all our tickets bought and on the
train then 1 will be happy when two days are gone by so
as to see Sandusky, but for some reason I hate to leave
Cheyenne I dont know why I am not very much stuck
on the town but 1 hate to leave it

Mr Nagle wants me to stay here the worst way & says
he will help me in every way that he can Mrs. N. sends
her best wishes to you. . .
Yours
John A.

March 20, 1888

My Dear Lizzie:

I received your letter & was glad to hear from you we
are having lots of snow and bad weather, we will all be
finished to go home Saturday, if I go to Salt Lake City you
must not be angry with me for I would like to see it very
much if I can work some skeame to get there without Geo
knowing it. Mrs. Nagle sends her best wishes to you &
wishes you were back again. I will telegraph you when I
start for home. . .
Yours
John A

View of the finished Capitol in 1888. Wings were added in 1890 and again in 1917.

The Capitol Building Commission accepted the com-
pleted building and submitted its final report on March 31,
1888. By that time, however, the legislature had author-
ized the addition of wings onto the Capitol which were
completed in 1890. Wings again were added in 1917. Chey-
enne contractors constructed both additions, not A. Feick
& Bro.

John and Lizzie never did settle in the West. Instead
they chose to remain in Sandusky. After the death of
John's father in 1893, John and George formed a partner-
ship. In the early 1900s, John started his own company and
in 1914, his son, John Charles, became a partner. Still ac-
tive today, the family company now is known as Feick
Contractors and rehabilitates Sandusky's older buildings,
many built by their ancestors.

The Wyoming Tribune reported on the day of the lay-
ing of the cornerstone. May 18, 1887, on what had
transpired up until that time and looked ahead. "Work on
the capitol was commenced September 1886 since which
time a large force of men have been constantly em-
ployed. . . . The Contractor for this immense work
Messrs. Feick & Brother, are deserving, and are receiving

the warmest congratulations of all our people for the
elegant and artistic manner in which they are fulfilling their
contract. The firm has the distinguished reputation of not
only being in every way responsible, and as builders of
large structures they stand second to none in the United
States as the splendid capitol of Wyoming will fuUy testify
when completed. Mr. John Feick is ably representing the
firm in the work of construction here." The Feicks did con-
struct a building in which Wyoming always has and always
will be proud.

1. T. A. Larson, History of Wyoming, 2nd ed. (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1978), pp. 64-74.

2. Cheyenne Daily Sun, January 20, 1886, p. 4, c. 2.

3. "Final Report of the Capitol Building Commission," Office of the
Capitol Building Commission, Cheyenne, Wyoming, March 31, 1888,
p. 4, Archives Division, Wyoming State Archives, Museums and
Historical Department (AMH Dept.), Cheyenne, Wyoming.

4. Ibid., pp. 8, 13.

5. Ibid., p. 25.

6. Cheyenne Democratic Leader, September 10, 1886, p. 3, c. 3.

7. All background material on the Feick family taken from Anita Gund-
lach Feick, Building America: A History of the Family Feick (Feik-Fike)
(Baltimore, Maryland: Gateway Press, Inc., 1983), and letter from
Anita Gundlach Feick to editor.

8. All correspondence can be found in Feick family archives, Sandusky,
Ohio. Letters are presented exactly as written.

9. This wind storm derailed four trains in Colorado. According to the
newspaper report, no one was killed, but several severely injured.
In Denver the storm unroofed buildings, leveled smokestack chimneys
and telephone and telegraph poles, while in Cheyenne it damaged
the roofs of the convent, the new Union Pacific Railroad depot and
other buildings. Cheyenne Democratic Leader, February 18, 1887, p. 1,
c. 1, p. 3, c. 1.

10. John located his new "palace" on the Capitol grounds.

11. The WUcox' owned a restaurant in Cheyenne at 217 West 16th Street.

12. On March 14, 1887, the body of the "Chinaman" was found under
the floor in a vacant house. Authorities identified the person as Charlie
Thong, also known as Charlie Sevan. Cheyenne Democratic Leader,
March 15, 1887, p. 3, cc. 1-2.

13. Morton E. Post served on the Capitol Building Commission. He ar-
rived in Cheyenne in 1867. In 1872, he founded the PO Ranch north
of Cheyenne in order to raise horses. Besides ranching. Post also
owned a Cheyenne bank, Morton E. Post & Company. The Wyom-
ing ranching industry experienced a devastating winter in 1886-1887.
Post's bank, because of its many loans to ranchers, failed in 1887.
Post, who lost almost everything, eventually paid back most of his
creditors and moved to California. The Arbuckle Coffee Company
purchased the PO Ranch in 1891. "PO Ranch," by Ellen Mueller,
Vertical File, "Arbuckle Coffee," Historical Research and Publications
Division, AMH Dept.

14. Nicholas J. O'Brien, a stockman, was a member of the Capitol Building
Commission.

15. John Feick helped in the construction of Erasmus Nagle's house,
located on 17th Street in Cheyenne. Nagle used stone block originally
meant for the Capitol, but which the Capitol Building Commission
rejected. By the 1950s, this stone began to flake and crumble,
necessitating a stucco covering.

16. The Capitol's cornerstone was laid May 18, 1887. That afternoon, peo-
ple from around Wyoming and from Colorado and Nebraska wit-
nessed a parade through Cheyenne and the Masonic dedication
ceremony, listened to speeches by Judge Joseph M. Carey and Gover-
nor Thomas Moonlight and enjoyed a barbecue on the grounds just
west of the Capitol. Cheyenne Daily Sun, May 19, 1887, pp. 1, 3;
Cheyenne Democratic Leader, May 19, 1887, p. 3.

17. Decoration Day, begun by the Grand Army of the Republic as a way
to honor those who died in the Civil War, is now known as Memorial
Day. Cheyenne celebrated in 1887 with a parade, the dedication of
the Grand Army of the Republic monument at the city cemetery and
the decoration of the graves of the Civil War veterans. Cheyenne
Democratic Leader, May 28, 1887, p. 3, c. 2.

18. Lizzie did come out West during the summer of 1887. She returned
to Ohio in January, 1888, when the letters again resume.

19. A passenger train and a freight train collided on the main line of the
Union Pacific Railroad near Colton, Nebraska, on February 25, 1888.
Several of the freight cars carried "gasoline oil," which burst into
flame. An engineer was the only fatahty, although the crash injured
many. Cheyenne Daily Leader, February 26, 1888, p. 1, c. 4.

Sketch of the Capitol after the first addition.

THE CULTURAL ROOTS OF
INDIAN WATER RIGHTS

by
Michael Massie

Throughout Western history, water has played a crit-
ical role in the evolution of this arid region's economic and
social institutions. In the past, this scarce resource has pro-
vided urban centers with the sustenance for growth, has
converted dry, barren land into productive agricultural
areas and has fostered the development of the stockrais-
ing and the mineral industries. Today, a host of interest
groups competes for the right to use this dwindling water
supply in order to survive and to expand in the future.
Native Americans represent one of these contestants.

In 1977, the State of Wyoming sued the Arapahoes and
the Shoshones of the Wind River Reservation in order to
determine the tribes' claims to the Wind River. This case
deals with such issues as beneficial and future uses, storage
and priority rights. While the state hopes to define the
quantity of the Indians' water rights in order to insure
downstream Whites a definite flow of water, the tribes
desire to retain enough of the resovirce to guarantee an eco-
nomic base for their society. The Wyoming Supreme Court
is now considering the case. Appeals to federal courts are
possible and a final decision is years away.

Whatever the determination is, most of it wiU be based
upon the activities surrounding the Fort Belknap Reserva-
tion in Montana around the turn of the century. In the 1908
court case of Winters v United States, the U.S. Supreme
Court supported the Assiniboines' and the Gros Ventres'
claims to Montana's Milk River and established, for the
first time, a general definition of Indian water rights. Since
then, historians and lawyers have dwelled upon the legal
foundations of this crucial interpretation. Unfortunately,
they have generally ignored the social, economic and po-
litical movements that shaped this important decision and
still continue to influence the contemporary status of
Indian water rights.

A few historians, such as Norris Hundley in YJater and
the West, have examined the long history of Western water
development and conflicts. In "The Winters' Decision and
Indian Water Rights: A Mystery Reexamined," Hundley
also analyzed many of the factors that eventually encour-
aged the federal government to defend the Indians' rights
to water.

However, these previous works have not investigated
the cultural, political and economic forces that significantly
affected the landmark Winters decision. The history of the
Assiniboines and Gros Ventres, federal Indian policy and
the demands of Western Whites influenced the court's final
judgment. As a result, the events centered around Mon-
tana's Fort Belknap Reservation profoundly shaped the
futiire course of Indian water rights. ^

Neither of the Fort Belknap tribes were residents of
Montana before the Whites arrived on this continent. In
the 17th century, the Gros Ventres lived near the Blackfoot
in the Saskatchewan River Basin of western Canada. At
the same time, the Assiniboines, having separated from
the Sioux Nation in northern Minnesota, traveled to the
eastern Canadian grasslands. These Indians possessed a
woodlands cultiire in which their economy depended upon
hunting and agriculture. ^

By the mid-18th century, portions of each tribe mi-
grated onto the Great Plains and formed a new cultxire.
Here, they found a large number of bison and soon
depended upon this ariimal for their food, clothing and
shelter. Agricultural practices disappeared and hunting
became the central part of their economy. While some
northern bands maintained a woodlands lifestyle, the
southern people evolved a Plains culhire.^

In evolving this Plains culture, water performed signifi-
cant social and economic functions in the peoples' lives.

Important ceremonies such as the Sun Dance depended
upon an abundant supply of water in order to meet the
desires of a large gathering of Indians. Throughout the
years, the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres searched for
the river valleys in order to protect themselves from the
winter wind and cold and to sustain their large horse herds
on the vegetation that surrounded the streams and lakes.
Since the bands often needed a fresh supply of water, they
camped near a river or stream after a day's travel. As a
result, water was one of the most important resources these
tribes used.*

The destinies of the Southern Assiniboines and Gros
Ventres paralleled those of other Plains Indians. In the
1750s, the Assiniboines were one of the first tribes in the
region to receive guns from the British traders. With their
allies, the Crees, they used their superior military power
to expand further West and to force other tribes out of the
North Central Plains. This movement displaced the Gros
Ventres and these people formed an alliance with the
Blackfoot in order to fight the Assiniboines.'

These Indians remained enemies until intertribal war-
fare and White immigration forced them to cooperate. The
advancing frontier decreased the bison herds of the eastern
plains, and the Sioux, moving West in their search for more
bison, encroached upon the Assiniboines' territory. The
large bison population of Montana also induced the Black-
feet to enter the area from the north. Soon, fights erupted
as each tribe competed for the decreasing food supply. In
the 1860s, caught between two powerful nations, the
Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres were forced to share
the declining resource.*

As more frontiersmen settled in the region, conflicts
increased between the Whites and the Indians. The tribes
resisted this advancing frontier, but treaties and thefts
slowly eroded the Indians' land base. By the 1870s, the
bison was rapidly disappearing in most sections of the
Plains. This destruction of the Native Americans' tradi-
tional economy altered their culture and drove the people
onto a reservation to seek food, clothing and shelter.^

In 1873, the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres agreed
to reside on the Fort Belknap Reserve, a small tract of land
on the Milk River. The acceptance of a limited reservation
marked a new era in the tribes' histories. Some aspects of
their cultures changed, but many people also retained
some of their traditional customs. As a result, various
lifestyles and ideologies arose on the reservation as each
individual attempted to deal with a new environment in
his own way.

One of the last remaining herds of bison in the United
States grazed on the Fort Belknap Reserve. Thus, the
tribes' economy and lifestyles did not change immediately.
From 1873-1888, the reserve's agents made few attempts
to teach White practices to the Indians. Superintendent
W. L. Lincoln encouraged some farming, but the tribes,
still relying mostly on the bison for food, clothing and

shelter, ignored the agent's demands. By 1884, cultivation
consisted of 350 acres.'

Instead of imitating Anglo customs, most of the In-
dians adhered to traditional values. The people continued
to practice horse raids. Sun Dances, purification cere-
monies and bison hunting. To demonstrate their freedom
from the superintendent's control, most bands camped
long distances from the reserve's headquarters. As a result,
the chief maintained his leadership status while the agents
exerted little authority over the Indians.' As Lincoln noted,
"they cling with great tenacity to many of the old usages
of the race."^°

This apparent independence from White authority and
acculturative demands suddenly ended with the local ex-
tinction of the bison in 1884. During the winter of that year,
many Assiniboines and Gros Ventres starved or froze to
death. Since these conditions compelled the tribes increas-
ingly to rely upon federal rations for survival, most of the
Indians moved closer to the agency headquarters. ^^

With the destruction of the traditional economy, some
people experienced changes in their lifestyles and beliefs.
Generally, many members of the older generation con-
tinued to follow some traditional customs such as leader-
ship roles, religious ceremonies and the tribal languages.
However, many of the younger generation, especially
those born after 1884, did not strictly adhere to ancestral
practices.

Since the reservation confined the Native Americans'
mobility and flexibility, the band organization no longer
proved viable. The traditional leaders such as the chiefs,
council members and warriors no longer held as much influ-
ence over the group. These authorities' past experiences
and honors had little relevance to the younger generation.
Even though they still possessed some significance as the
bearers of the traditional society, their roles as political
leaders dwindled with the increasing power of the White
agent. ^2

This disruption in band organization resulted in a
leadership crisis among the Assiniboines and the Gros
Ventres and precipitated a split in tribal unity. Those In-
dians who were born on the reservation and who attended
St. Paul's Catholic Missionary School tended to question
the power of the traditional government. Former leaders
no longer provided the guidance that many members of
the younger generation needed in order to cope with a new
cultural environment. However, these same Indians pro-
tested the corruption and the domineering attitudes of the
White agents. By rejecting traditional authority, these
Native Americans formed a divisive element within the
tribe yet failed to replace the former political organization
with a more contemporary adaptive system."

The role of tribal societies also fell into disuse or
changed. These organizations no longer provided the tradi-
tional services for the band. Many dissolved shortly after
1890, but the police society continued to exist. Instead of

enforcing council decisions, these members often carried
out the agents' directives. This society soon lost much of
its influence within the tribe."

Divisiveness also characterized reservation religious
practices. Even though the agent prohibited most former
ceremonies such as the Sun Dance, some past dances per-
sisted on Fort Belknap. The Ghost Dance Hand Game con-
tained many of the social elements found in past
ceremonies. These functions continued to hold meaning
for the older generation, but many of the younger Indians
did not perceive the relevance of these traditional rites. As
a result, most of them turned to White sponsored events
such as square dances and rodeos. These activities con-
tained some psychological connection to their daily lives
in agriculture or in stockraising."

Whether a person continued to foDow traditional prac-
tices, accepted new ideas, or both, the Assiniboines and
the Gros Ventres needed to create a new economy to
replace their past reliance on the bison. Not only would
this financial foundation provide the necessary sustenance,
but it would offer some stability in this era of ideological
change. The Whites' American Indian policy greatly in-
fluenced the economic systems that arose on the reservation.

Throughout the 19th century, many reformers at-
tempted to "civilize" the Indians. By teaching White values
to the Native Americans, these humanitarians sought to
end the conflicts between the tribes and the frontiersmen
and to absorb the Indians peacefully into the "superior"
culture. This policy of assimilation received much support
in the 1870s and the 1880s. Eastern organizations such as
the Indian Rights Association and many church groups
desired to change the Indians' lifestyles and to prepare them
for entry into White society. ^*

The General Allotment Act of 1887 reflected these con-
cerns and profoundly affected American Indian poUcy until
the 1920s. In constructing this law, most Congressmen
believed that farming would provide the Native Americans
with the necessary morals to become United States citizens.
Through an agricultural existence, the Indians would aban-
don their traditional hunting lifestyle and would under-
stand the importance of private property and Anglo eco-
nonuc values. Consequently, the reservation agents urged
the Indians to till the land and to assume the social
characteristics of self-sufficient farmers. ^''

In permanently establishing the Fort Belknap Reser-
vation for the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres, the 1888
Executive Agreement reflected this American Indian policy.
The pact called for the conversion of the Indians from an
existence based on hunting to an economy dominated by
farming. The government also granted a large amount of
money to assimilate these people. Besides encouraging
"... the Indians to buUd houses and enclose their farms
. . .,"1* Congress gave the tribes $150,000 for "the pur-
chase of cows, bulls, . . . agricultural and mechanical
equipment, . . . [and] any other aspect to promote their
civilization.""

This desired transformation to a new lifestyle de-
pended upon a past tribal value. In order for farming to
succeed in the arid West, the Indians needed to irrigate
the land. Hence, the traditional importance of water in the
tribes' cultures continued on the reservation.

Even though the agents promoted farming on the Fort
Belknap Reservation, many Indians preferred stockraising.
Previously, the bison had determined the male and female
duties in society. Essentially, the men hunted the bison
while the women prepared the kUl. In the agricultural
economy, the men perceived farming to be the women's
duty, and many refused or were reluctant to till the soil.
Therefore, the tribes needed a different means of dis-
tinguishing men's and women's roles. Since the horse-
manship and the other skills involved in stockherding
resembled those found in bison hunting, many males
chose raising cattle over growing crops. ^°

Farming and ranching without irrigation proved dis-
astrous for the Indians. Even though the agents tried
various programs to induce the people into agriculture,
continued crop failures discouraged the tribes from tilling
the soil. In a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
agent Simmons stated that "... there are many seasons
of drought and discouragement experienced here in agri-
cultural pursuits and only those who have reliable facilities
for irrigation succeed in the business. "^^ Many of the Gros
Ventres moved away from the ai;id land surrounding the
Milk River and settled in the mountainous area of the Lit-
tle Rockies region with the hopes of grazing some cattle
on the lush, stream-fed ranges. But, the stock quickly con-
sumed the grass, and, without irrigation, the Indians were
unable to grow the necessary hay to retain a large herd."
Beginning in 1896, the agents petitioned Congress for
money to build an irrigation system on the reservation.
Superintendent Hays believed that irrigation was the only
way to convert the Indians into farmers and to assimilate
them into White society. In his 1898 annual report, he
stated that:

When these systems have been established and the Indians
taught to handle the water properly, and with those already
in operation, there is no reason why they should not be able
to make their own living and become independent citizens. Ir-
rigation is the only salvation in this arid section."

Congress agreed with Hays and biannually appropriated
$20,000 to the Fort Belknap Reservation for irrigation as
a means of furthering Indian acculturation. 2*

The watering systems greatly improved agricultural
conditions. By 1905, the reservation had four irrigation proj-
ects, and nearly one-tenth of the land was suitable for
growing vegetables and grains. The canals encouraged
some Indian families to accept an agricultural existence.
Despite these successes, though, most Native Americans
continued to snub farming, and instead used the water to
increase their horse and cattle herds. ^^

By 1905, the tribal livestock industry had greatly ex-
panded, and the reservation sold thousands of pounds of

Irrigation system in Lodge Pole Canyon on the Fort Belknap Reservation.

beef to surrounding communities and to the nearby Great
Northern Railroad. The irrigation system made possible
this dramatic increase in cattle production. The people used
the water to grow large fields of hay, thereby supple-
menting the food supply of the cattle. As a result of these
higher jdelds in farming and stockraising, the Fort Belknap
economy became more stable throughout the 1890s and
the 1900S.26

Despite this growth, the Indians experienced mixed
economic results. The agents' insistence upon farming im-
peded the full development of the stock industry. Since
cattle represented the only possible means of gaining finan-
cial independence in an arid region, this hindrance pre-
vented the reservation from reaching self-sufficiency.
Nevertheless, economic activity did increase due to the
construction of the irrigation system. 2''

As in the past, water continued to play a significant
social role for the tribes. The increased reliability of farm-
ing and ranching that irrigation offered was important to
the Indians in a time of ideological transition and dis-
ruption. Since water constituted an integral part of their
life, just as it had in the pre-reservation years, anyone who
threatened the supply of this resource also endangered the
Assiniboines' and Gros Ventres' existence. In this instance,
the policy of assimilation and the corresponding emphasis
upon agriculture and stockraising fortified the traditional
importance which the tribes placed upon water.

However, the tone of American Indian policy began
to change around the turn of the century. By the 1900s,
the Whites' optimism for quick acculttiration of the Indian
turned to pessimism. Congress still used assimilation as
the foundation of its Indian policy, but most Anglos real-
ized that the Native Americans would not entirely accept
White values on their own volition. On many reservations,
the people continued to follow traditional practices.^*

Most Whites recognized that assimilation might take
decades to accomplish. However, instead of questioning
the false, ethnocentric assumptions that characterized the
policy of acculturation, the Whites assumed a more active
role in coercing the Indians into accepting Euro- American
values. By allowing settlers to buy or lease tribal lands,
federal officials hoped that White industry would serve as
an example of perseverance and enterprise for the Indians.
Congress believed that the Native Americans would be
forced over a long period of time to adopt the methods and
ideas of their bosses. Furthermore, in extinguishing the In-
dians' title to their land, the government fulfilled Western
desires for more territory and started the process of ter-
minating the reservation system.^' In other words, govern-
ment officials used acculturation as a tool to control most
of the Indians' remaining land and resources.

This attitudinal shift from optinusm to pessimism
greatly affected the Fort Belknap Reservation. Since most
of the prime property in northern Montana had been set-
tled by the 1890s, incoming cattlemen desired more land.
Instituting its new policy of buying or leasing tribal areas.

Congress met these Western demands by purchasing
18,000 acres in 1896 from the Assiniboines and Gros
Ventres. In addition, federal administrators encouraged the
agents to offer inexpensive, short term leases in order to
induce White businesses to move onto the remaining por-
tion of the reservation. Many stock associations, including
the Matador Cattle Company, rented good grazing tracts,
and corporate officials of the Amalgamated Sugar Com-
pany perceived the reservation as a source of cheap labor
and land. 3"

As these Whites moved onto tribal areas, they too
utilized the irrigation works as the basis of their economy.
These settlers appropriated some of the water from the
canals to increase their herds and to raise farm products
and sugar beet crops. The White population grew through-
out the 1890s and the early 1900s, and by 1920, non-Indians
controlled over 58% of the tribes' irrigated lands. Just as
the Indians, these reservation Whites depended upon Fort
Belknap's watering system for economic survival. ^^

Besides expanding onto the reservation, many Whites
settled around the Indian lands in northern Montana. Like
the tribes, these immigrants also needed water to grow hay
and to support their livestock industry. However, these
Whites adhered to state water laws in appropriating the
area's water. ^^

In apportioning the region's scarce water supply, most
states abandoned the Eastern tradition of riparian water
rights and practiced the doctrine of prior appropriation.
Since the areas to the east of the 100th meridian experi-
enced sufficient raii\fall for agriculture, the use of water
in rivers, streams and lakes was not necessary. Conse-
quently, riparian water law prohibited the consumption
of this resource by individuals.

The aridity of the West and the region's scarce water
supply prevented the implementation of the riparian
system in this area. Ranchers and farmers needed irriga-
tion water in order to raise crops and to support livestock.
Therefore, Western states followed the policy of prior ap-
propriation, which allows the first claimant of a stream or
river to divert as much water as he desires in fulfilling his
needs. Later settlers may also utilize this resource, but, in
times of scarcity, they must yield to the initial user as much
of the commodity as he presently employs. The only stipu-
lation that accompanies this right is that the owner apply
the water to beneficial purposes. By failing to meet this de-
mand, he loses his "first settler's" status, and the pri-
ority claim passes on to the new senior property owner. ^^

To Montana, the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres
not only stood in the way of White expansion, but the
tribes were not using the Milk River beneficially. The state's
officials failed to recognize that the tribes on the reserva-
tion had utilized the water before the Whites had arrived.
Because of this failure and because the federal goveriunent
promoted local White control of the reservation economy,
Montana did not uphold the tribes' claims to the Milk
River. Instead, due to the large migration of cattlemen into

the lush grazing lands of the Upper Missouri River Basin
in the 1890s, administrators issued priority patents to these
migrants in order to enhance the state's economic expan-
sion. ^^

The completion of the Great Northern Railroad and the
plentiful supply of inexpensive grazing land encouraged
many people to settle around the reservation. By 1900,
many cattlemen and some recently organized towns were
consuming large amounts of the area's water. Downstream
users such as the Fort Belknap Indians did not complain
about these increased appropriations, for the Milk River
contained enough water for all parties. However, droughts
began to occur after 1900, and the usually abundant water
supply decreased. 35

Thus, with state claims and support, Henry Winter,
Mose Anderson and other cattlemen continued to ap-
propriate water from the Milk River and, by 1905, cut off
all of the downstream flow to the Fort Belknap Reserva-
tion. This action shattered the reservation Whites and In-
dians' economies. Since the local officials refused to
acknowledge the tribes' water rights, the absence of water
continued and threatened to destroy Fort Belknap's farm-
ing and stockraising industries. ^^

The reservation faced a devastating situation. All of the
diverse interests depended upon the Milk River for
economic success. Agent Logan stated that:

So far this Spring we have had no water in our ditch whatever.
Our meadows are now rapidly parching up. The Indians have
planted large crops and a great deal of grain. All this will be
lost unless some radical action is taken at once to make the set-
tlers above the Reservation respect our rights. To the Indians
it either means good crops this fall, or starvation this winter.'''

Even though the absence of water endangered the oat,
wheat and vegetable crops, damage to hay production
represented the greatest menace. The loss of this product
would cripple the Indians' stockraising economy. In ad-
dition, the absence of a reliable water supply would
discourage White business interests on the reservation. In
order to prevent a complete financial collapse, Logan peti-
tioned the District Attorney General to bring suit against
the White ranchers upstream and to force them into allow-
ing a downstream flow.^*

Government officials encountered a difficult situation.
By following its policy of forced acculturation. Congress
condoned Western progress and favored White control of
tribal resources. Conversely, assimilation required a self-
supporting occupation for the Indians. Officials recog-
nized the inherent contradiction of forced acculturation.
Through the events transpiring around Fort Belknap, the
government realized that advancing local control en-
dangered this self-sufficient tribal economy. Should they
ignore the plight of the Assiniboines and Gros Ventres and
promote Western development, or should they preserve
the Indians' rights to water and bolster the reservation's
economy? The answer was not based upon legal matters
but upon financial, social and political considerations.

The tribes' farms and stock depended upon irrigation.
Without water, most of their economic foundation would
collapse, and the only stability in a period of social change
would die also. As a result, the Indians requested that
agent Logan attempt to restore their traditional water sup-
ply. In an era when federal officials did not consider most
Native Americans as citizens, this appeal would have gone
unnoticed if the reservation Whites had not supported the
tribes' demand. ^^

Logan played a critical role in sustaining the tribes'
demands for water. As a devout follower of the national
policy of forced acculturation, he promoted farming as the
key to assimilation. Even though most of the Indians
preferred stockraising to farming, and ranching proved
more successful in this arid environment, the agent con-
tinued to advocate agriculture as the route to assimilation.
As Logan stated in a report to the Commissioner:
I firmly believe that the Indian has to learn to be a good farmer
before he can be much good at anything else ... I have often
wondered if the Office [Commissioner of Indian Affairs] realized
the magnitude of this undertaking— the heart breaking, nerve
racking work that it takes to make 1300 people, who only a few
years ago were savages whose energies were spent only in war
and the chase, and scorned the use of the plow, into intensive
farmers.'"'

The absence of water destroyed many of the tribes' farms
along the Milk River. In order for Logan to accomplish his
goal of assimilation, he petitioned the government to
uphold the Native Americans' rights to the resource. Since
most of the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres spurned
farming and many chose cattleraising for a living, the
agent's demand for water reflected more the nation's goal
of acculturation rather than the tribes' economic interests.^'
Despite this desire to "civilize" the Indians, the need
of the reservation Whites for a dependable water supply
was the determining factor in Logan's request to uphold
the tribes' water rights to the Milk River. Even though
Logan perceived agricultural skills as an important factor
in acculturation, he emphasized White leasing and owner-
ship of reservation land as the key to the tribes' eventual
assimilation into the dominant society. The reservation
Whites would employ the Assiniboines and the Gros
Ventres who refused to farm and would serve as examples
of industry and progress to these recalcitrant Indians. By
1905, many Whites rented or owned large sections of the
tribal property. Some local settlers married Indian women
and began to farm land and to graze stock for free on the
reservation. Of the 5,000 acres of irrigated land, the Assini-
boines and the Gros Ventres used approximately half of
this area while reservation Whites and the agricultural
school tilled the remainder. Since the tribes irrigated most
of their property from streams and springs, the absence
of water in the Milk River affected at least as many Whites
as Indians. Finally, Logan received more than $10,000 in
grazing permits that year despite canceling many leases
due to the water shortage.*^

Besides these Whites who already lived on the reser-
vation or who rented property, Logan was attempting to
lure more businesses and ranchers onto tribal lands. The
agent encouraged local farmers and corporations to grow
sugar beets on the reservation in order to employ those
Indians who refused to till the soU. In implementing his
sugar beet program, he offered at least 10,000 acres of in-
expensive irrigated land to W. B. French of Harlem, Mon-
tana, to H. H. Nelson and to David Eccles, Henry H.
Rolapp and Matthew S. Browning. This acreage repre-
sented at least four times more irrigated land than the In-
dians presently used. Also, Logan began to negotiate with
the Amalgamated Sugar Company to establish a large
sugar beet operation. Moreover, he desired to lease sec-
tions of land to White ranchers, including thousands of
acres to the Matador Cattle Company from Trinidad, Col-
orado, and to Edward A. Lacock.*^

Through his ambitious leasing program, Logan had in-
duced many Whites to move onto the reservation by 1905.
Additionally, he had promised thousands of acres more
of land to sugar beet growers and grazers. However, a
thriving White economy depended upon a reliable water
supply. Many stockgrowers threatened not to renew their
leases if sufficient water were not available. Before agree-
ing to rent land for sugar beet crops or grazing, busi-
nessmen demanded irrigated land and an adequate water
source.**

Without water, the Whites would leave the reserva-
tion. To Logan, governmental officials and many Eastern
reform groups such as the Indian Rights Association, the
absence of a White presence removed the "civilizing" in-
fluence from the Indians' lives. Logan believed that in
order to assimilate the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres
successfully. Fort Belknap needed a stable economy and
a reliable water supply. As a result, the reservation Whites'
economic requirements and the acculturative goals of
American Indian policy were the determining factors in the
federal government's support of Indian water rights. There
was little interest in regaining the water in order for the
Indians to build a self-supporting economy of their choice.
In 1905, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis Leupp
ordered the District Attorney General to sue Henry Winter,
Mose Anderson and the other ranchers. ^^

On June 26, 1905, Attorney General Carl Rasch, on
behalf of the federal government and the tribes, sued the
Montana ranchers and demanded that these Whites allow
5,000 inches of water to flow down the river. The defen-
dants objected, stating that they received their priority
water rights legally from Montana and that these state
patents were superior to the Indians' claims. Rasch insisted
that the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres had utilized
the river long before the Whites had settled in the area and
thus possessed a priority title. Judge William H. Hunt of
the Ninth Circuit Court of the District of Montana listened
to these contentions and issued his decision on August 7,
1905.*^

In addition to the legal concerns. Hunt also empha-
sized social, economic and political reasons for his affir-
mation of the Indians' water rights. He pointed out that
in order to sustain their culture and society, these tribes
had used the Milk River for over a century. Consequently,
when the Indians relinquished their title to much of the
surrounding land in the 1888 agreement, they did not
release their claim to the river, for they realized that the
water was necessary to survive on the arid Plains. The
judge stated that:

The parties to the [1888] agreement appreciated this necessity
[need for irrigation], and purposely fixed a boundary line of
the reservation at a point in the middle of the main channel
of Milk River ... I believe the intention was to reserve suffi-
cient of the waters to insure to the Indians the means wherevnth
to irrigate their farms.^'

Political issues also irvfluenced the court's decision.
Without water, the Indians could not achieve economic in-
dependence and hence would remain dependent upon the
federal government for survival. The judge pointed out
that this situation would be unfair to the tribes and to the
American taxpayers. Since assimilation required a self-
sufficient Indian economy, irrigation was necessary to
fulfill the goals of American Indian policy.*^

This court's justifications in upholding the tribes' rights
to water served as a model for other legal interpretations

Judge William H. Hunt upheld the Indians' water rights in a 1905
decision, stressing the social, economic and political concerns.

of this case. After an appeal by the Winter and Anderson
parties, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed
the lower branch's decision. On February 5, 1906, Judge
Hawley wrote that "... the Government and the Indians,
in agreeing to the terms of the treaty [1888 agreement],
acted in the utmost good faith toward each other . . . [and]
that they knew that the soil could not be cultivated without
the use of water to irrigate the same."'" Encountering
failure again in the judicial system, the White ranchers
turned to the Supreme Court for a different explanation
of the facts.

In Winters v United States, the 1908 U.S. Supreme
Court's decision upheld the tribes' water rights. Chief
Justice Joseph McKenna concurred with the lower courts'
considerations and stated that the Fort Belknap Indians
preserved their resource claims in the 1888 treaty.
The Indians had command of the lands and the waters-
command of all their beneficial use, whether kept for hunting,
"and grazing roving herds of stock" or turned to agriculture
and the arts of civilization. Did they give up all this [in the 1888
agreement]? Did they reduce the area of their occupation and
give up the waters which made it valuable or adequate? . . .
It would be extreme to believe that . . . Congress destroyed
the reservation and took from the Indians the consideration of

their grant, leaving them a barren waste— took from them the
means of continuing their old habits, yet did not leave them
the power to change to new ones.^°

Even though no specific clause of the agreement defined
these rights, the Indians realized that the land was worth-
less without water. When the tribes ceded some of their
ancestral land to the United States, they obviously did not
intend to relinquish all of their water. ^^

The court also based its decision upon federal jurisdic-
tion of reserved land. When the Indians signed the 1888
agreement, the federal government withdrew all the public
land that comprised the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.
Because the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the implied
reservation of Indian water rights, any future state laws
could not violate these Indian claims. As a result, Henry
Winter's diversion of the Milk River was in violation of
federal intent and national laws.'^

The 1908 decision set an important precedent in defin-
ing Indian water rights. The judges upheld the tribes'
rights to water and denied state interference in the Native
Americans' diversion of reservation rivers, streams or
lakes. In spite of these provisions, however. Western
pressure in Congress and the continued federal emphasis

:-f->r •>•

f^3^««

Dam across the Milk River at high water. The Fort Belknap Indian School stands nearby.
22

on local White control of reservation development pre-
vented the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres from im-
mediately realizing the complete potential of their claims.
Economic, social and legislative issues greatly affected
the Supreme Court's decision. The same forces that in-
fluenced this ruling also determined the manner in which
Congress interpreted the judgment. In 1908, White society
was not culturally pluralistic, and federal officials did not
recognize the validity of a reservation economy controlled
by the Indians. Instead, the pessimistic assimilation which
characterized American Indian policy from 1900-1920
shaped the administrators' attitudes toward the Winters
Doctrine.

Even though the Assiniboines' and Gros Ventres'
social and financial needs influenced the federal govern-
ment's decision to sue the Montanans, the decisive
pressure to restore the flow of the Milk River came from
the White reservation ranchers and agent Logan. Thus,
Fort Belknap's conquest in the Supreme Court battle was
more a victory for the Whites' motives than for the Indians'
desires. Federal officials used the Winters guarantee of
reservation irrigation to induce businessmen and settlers
into leasing or buying more tribal lands. As a result, a court
decision which supposedly upheld tribal water rights in
reality promoted White ownership of the Indians' land and
resources.

From 1908-1925, the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres
slowly lost control of most of their resources and witnessed
the erosion of their economy. Despite the Winters decision.
Whites soon gained possession of the tribes' water. In
1909, the Bureau of Reclamation assumed jurisdiction of
the reservation's Milk River Irrigation Project and increased
the canals' size and lengths. Money for this construction
came from the Indian Service funds, yet the agency fun-
nelled most of the additional water to off-reservation
ranches. As agent Logan declared:

In some cases I think a careful investigation will show that the
irrigation of the Indian lands is a secondary consideration in
the calculations of the Reclamation Service, and it will be found
that the canals are to be extended beyond the reservation boun-
dary and the waters used on other lands . . . this means a much
increased cost, and if this cost is paid from Indian Service money
. . . then some one other than the Indians will reap the
benefit."

The Fort Belknap Indians paid for a larger irrigation system
that benefitted White landowners throughout northern
Montana. 54

In addition to receiving no added advantages from the
Bureau of Reclamation projects, the tribes also consumed
less water due to the large influx of Whites onto the
reservation. The agents used the easily accessible canal
system to induce many businesses and cattlemen to lease
or buy Indian lands. With the promise of sufficient water
and cheap property, superintendent Logan rented thou-
sands of acres of irrigated land to sugar companies
for the growing of sugar beets. By 1915, the Matador Cat-
tle Company grazed over 15,000 cattle, about five times

the combined size of the Indians' herds. The only stipula-
tion attached to most of these leases was the requirement
of the Whites to irrigate the land.'^

Due to these leasing practices, the tribal economy was
in shambles by 1925. Since Whites controlled over 58% of
the tribes' irrigated lands, the Indians did not expand their
businesses or increase their use of the resource. Conse-
quently, the decade long drought that struck northern
Montana starting in 1915 destroyed many of the tribes'
farms and most of the stockraising industry. The agents
exacerbated this situation by allowing the Whites to ap-
propriate most of the dwindling water supply. Within
seventeen years after the Winters decision, the Indians had
lost control of their water and land, and had witnessed the
disintegration of their economy. Instead of becoming a self-
sufficient people, the Assiniboines and the Gros Ventres
owned a minority of the reservation and did not manage
their resources. '*

Despite its guarantee of water, the Winters Doctrine
did not prevent the economic and social disasters that the
Indians encountered after 1908. There were two reasons
for this. First, the Supreme Court judges provided the legal
interpretation, but the legislators determined how the deci-
sion was applied to the reservation. Federal officials be-
lieved that White ownership of Indian resources best
served the assimilative and economic interests of the tribes
and the country. Only when the Native Americans later
gained some control over reservation affairs did the Winters
decision provide some protection of the tribes' water. 5''

Second, the Winters Doctrine contained ambiguities
and omissions which prevented many Indians from real-
izing their water rights. The 1908 decision only applied to
those tribal lands such as Fort Belknap that were reserved
by executive agreement between the Indians and the
United States. The government administrators refused to
uphold the Indians' water rights on the reservations
formed by treaties, legislative bills or executive orders.
Westerners continued to appropriate tribal water on most
of the reservations, and a majority of Native Americans
gained no immediate legal protection from the Winters case.^

The court also neglected to define who owned the
water rights on the ceded portions of the Indians' territory.
For example, in 1905, Congress obtained sections of the
Wind River, Uintah, Flathead, Blackfoot and Yakima reser-
vations to buOd irrigation systems and to open these for-
merly arid lands for White settlement. McKenna failed to
clarify whether the national or state governments exerted
control over these irrigated tracts. With the Congressional
emphasis upon local White ownership of tribal resources,
the states assumed jurisdiction of these regions and pre-
vented the Indians from acquiring their water rights in
these areas. Confusion increased when some of these lands
were later returned to the Indians, such as on the Wind
River Reservation in Wyoming. Did the tribes' priority
rights on these tracts extend to the original treaty or begin
when the lands were returned?^'

These omissions and vague terminology have kept In-
dian water rights in flux to the present. The two most con-
troversial interpretations extending from the 1908 decision
are the determination of the exact water quantity that the
Indians possessed and who reserved the Indians' rights
to the water. William H. Veeder and other students of tribal
water rights contend that the Assiniboines and the Gros
Ventres reserved the rights to the Milk River. Since these
Indians had always utilized the northern Montana waters,
they established an "immemorial foundation" in that they
had used the Milk River as long as could be remembered.
According to the law of prior appropriation, these peo-
ple possessed senior water rights, and any state titles to
the Milk River could not interfere with this claim. ''° These
researchers note that in the 1908 Winters case, McKenna
stated that ". . . the Indians had command of the lands
and the waters— command of all their beneficial use."*^

Other people disagree. They assert that the federal
government reserved the water for the tribes. Thus, the
Indians' rights to this resource began with the creation of
the reservation. Any Whites who diverted the river or
streams before this date had the senior water rights. The
Winters decision also supports this position. '^ McKenna
stated that "... the government is asserting the rights
of the Indians."*' Later court cases have not clarified this
issue.

The 1908 Supreme Court was also vague on the quan-
tity of water that the Indians reserved. In one part of the
case, the judges indicated that the tribes possessed rights
to the entire flow of the Milk River. But, in another area,
they contended that the Indians were entitled to the
amount of water sufficient for irrigation.*^

To add to this confusion, the judges ruled that the In-
dians would not lose their water rights if they were not
using the resource at the time. Due to population growth
and the probable expansion in agriculture and stockrais-
ing, the judges recognized that the tribes' water re-
quirements would eventually increase. In more recent
court cases, other judges and many lawyers agreed with
this interpretation and defined the quantity of water re-
served for Indian consumption as the amount needed to
fulfill present and future needs. ^^

This formula was vague and confounding, for it failed
to provide a precise quantity that the tribes could ap-
propriate legally without complaints from the local Whites.
Because the Winters decision did not clarify this ambiguous
measurement, decades of litigation ensued between White
ranchers and the nearby reservations. Finally, in 1963, the
Supreme Court attempted to resolve this issue. In Arizona
V California,^'' the judges determined that the Indians' por-
tion of the Colorado River was the volume of water needed
to irrigate all potential agricultural land on the reservation.
This decision applied to the tribes on the Chemehuevi,
Cocopah, Yuma, Colorado River and Fort Mohave reser-
vations. *^

This interpretation clarified some aspects of the issue

but neglected to set measurable guidelines in determin-
ing the water quantity for all Indian lands. The court ruled
that these Indians' water rights began with the creation
of their reservations. However, these five reservations were
established by either an act of Congress or an executive
order. The judges remained sOent on the priority rights
for those tribes on reserves formed by treaties or agree-
ments. In addition, assessing water volume by the amount
of irrigable agricultural land was as imprecise and confus-
ing as the "future use" method. As a result, the debate
continues over this feature of Indian water rights.

In addition to the debate over quantity, water quality
has become an important issue. Water pollution was not
a pertinent question in 1908, and the Winters Doctrine does
not directly address the problem. Nevertheless, the in-
creased upstream contamination by industry and urban
areas decreases the usable amount of Native American
water claims. To many tribes, pollution minimizes the
quanfity of their guaranteed appropriafions and, therefore,
violates the intent of the Winters decision. The Spokane
and Quinault tribes in Washington state have recently ex-
perienced problems concerning water quality.**

As is the case with water quantity and quality, much
controversy exists concerning the use of appropriated
water. The 1908 court concluded that the tribes could
employ their water for purposes of irrigation. However,
later court decisions have contended that the Native
Americans may utilize their water for agriculture and other
beneficial uses. To the Indians, the "other beneficial uses"
clause indicated that they could implement their water for
any type of improvements that they desired. After World
War II, some tribes such as the Navajo, Crow and North-
ern Cheyenne appropriated their water for the commer-
cial development of their coal, gas and uranium deposits.

Since commercialization requires more water than the
limited farming previously pursued on the reservations,
many ranchers, industries and urban dwellers complained
of these additional appropriations of a dwindling resource.
Whites desired that employment of reservation water be
restricted to agricultural purposes only. This definition
severely confines the "other beneficial uses" clause and
prevents the Native Americans from completely utilizing
their water allocation. Presently, Whites continue in their
attempts to restrict the application of Indian water rights
and thus retard the development of tribal economic in-
dependence on some reservations.*'

Even though the 1908 Supreme Court judges appointed
the national government as the protector of Indian water
rights, federal officials have been among the worst trans-
gressors of the Winters principles. Tweedy v Texas Co^"
substantiates this charge. The United States District Court
of Montana limited Native American claims by setting the
reserved water quantity at what the tribes beneficially
employed at the present time. This conclusion violated the
future use clause.'''

In the past few years, the United States Supreme Court

Group of Assiniboines ready to round up cattle.

has been reluctant to uphold Indian water rights. Culmi-
nating in the 1983 case of Arizona v San Carlos Apache Tribe/^
the court has recently penrutted state courts to decide ques-
tions concerning the tribes' legal rights to water. Since local
judges have not traditionally protected the Indians' Winters
rights, their decisions could reduce the Indians' claims to
the region's streams and lakes. In following this new
philosophy, the Wind River Reservation tribes are pres-
ently defending their water rights in the Wyoming courts. ^^
In addition to the courts' attempted restrictions, federal
agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation blatantly ig-
nore the Winters Doctrine. Throughout this agency's
history, it has adhered to the strictest interpretation of In-
dian water rights in order to promote federal and private
resource development. Even though the 1937 decision in
Shoshoni Tribes of Indians v United States^* prohibited federal
theft of Native American priority rights, the BR continues
the policy of limiting tribal water allotments. For example,
the bureau sold Indian clainis without tribal consent to in-
dustrial users of the Big Horn River and the Big Horn Lake.
Also, the Reclamation Service's Pyramid Lake Project has
reduced the Paiute water supply by one-third and has en-

dangered the tribe's economy by raising the salinity con-
tent of the lake, thereby killing the trout. ''^

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has also bargained away
Indian water rights. In the coal, uranium and oil leases
of the 1950s and 1960s, the BIA not only leased or sold tribal
resources for low royalties, but the agency also allowed
White industries to appropriate much of the reservation
water, just as Logan and other agents had done on the Fort
Belknap Reservation earlier. Since the late 1960s, Indian
activist groups such as CERT (Council of Energy Resource
Tribes) and NARF (Native American Rights Fund) have re-
gained some of these past losses.''*

Federal officials' reluctance to guarantee tribal water
claims illustrates an important principle in Indian-White
relations. Even though a governmental decision such as
the Winters Doctrine upholds basic civil rights for the In-
dians, no White organization, including the federal govern-
ment, will always preserve those liberties. The events on
the Fort Belknap Reservation and the continued violations
of Indian water rights support this contention. The pro-
tection of tribal freedoms occurred only after the Native
Americans became active in the political and judicial pro-

cess, especially in the 1960s and the 1970s. The events sur-
rounding the Winters decision demonstrate that the Indians
and not the Whites must determine the tribes' futures.
Through these controversies, the Winters Doctrine re-
mains important today. Unfortunately, lawyers often
debate the varying interpretations of this 1908 case from
a strictly legal perspective. While judicial matters certainly
have significance, the more important cultural aspects
rarely become a determirung factor in the courts' or govern-
ments' decision making process. Yet, throughout many
reservations, the Indians need water to maintain their
society and to achieve some economic independence in
their lives. The roots of the Winters Doctrine and Indian
water rights stem from the social, economic and political
forces surrounding the Fort Belknap Reservation at the turn
of the century. These cultural considerations are crucial to-
day for a complete understanding of the American Indians'
water rights and their desire for self-determination.

1. Norris Hundley, Jr., Water and the West: The Colorado River Compact
and the Politics in the American West (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1975); Hundley, "The 'Winters' Decision and Indian Water
Rights: A Mystery Reexamined," in Western Historical Quarterly 13,
No. 1 (January 1982); See also Michael A. Massie, "The Defeat of
Assimilation and the Rise of Colonialism on the Fort Belknap Reser-
vation, 1873-1925," in American Indian Culture and Research Journal 7,
No, 4 (1984).

2. John C. Ewers, Blackfeet Indians: Ethnological Report On The Blackfeet
and Gros Ventre Tribes of Indians (New York: Garland Publishing Inc.,
1974), pp. 52-53; Michael Stephen Kennedy, The Assiniboines: From
the Accounts of the Old Ones Told to First Boy (James Larpenteur Long)
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), pp. xxiv-xxx; A.C.
Breton, "The Stoney Indians," in Man (1920):65; Robert H. Lowie,
"The Assiniboine, " Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of
Natural History 4, part 1 (November 1909): 7-8; Raoul Anderson,
"Alberta Stoney (Assiniboine) Origins and Adaptations: A Case for
Reappraisal," Ethnohistory 17, nos. 1-2 (Winter-Spring 1970):50-58;
Regena Hannery, The Gros Ventre of Montana (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1953), pp. 1-2; Alvin M. Josephy,
Jr., The Indian Heritage of America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974),
pp. 116-117, 308, 310.

3. Frank Raymond Decoy, Changing Military Patterns on the Great Plains:
Seventeenth Century Through Early Nineteenth Century (Locust Valley,
N.Y.: J. J. Augustin Pubhsher, 1953), pp. 41, 45-57, 66; Kennedy,
The Assiniboines, pp. xxx-xxxii; David Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap
Assiniboine of Montana," (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Penn-
sylvania, 1938), pp. 2-3; Flannery, The Gros Ventres, pp. 53-61, 73-80;
Clark Wissler, North American Indians of the Plains (New York:
American Museum of Natural History, 1912), pp. 18-21; Melvin R.
Gilmore, "Old Assiniboine Buffalo-Drive in North Dakota," Indian
Notes 1, No. 4 (1924): 210; Elliot Coues, editor. The Manuscript Jour-
nals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson, 1799-1814: Exploration
and Adventure Among the Indians on the Red, Saskatchewan, Missouri and
Columbia Rivers, 2 vols. (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1897): I, pp.
516-520; David Rodnick, "Political Structure and Status Among the
Assiniboine Indians," American Anthropologist 39, No. 3 (]uly-

September 1937): 408-409; Ewers, Blackfeet Indians, pp. 28-29; Sym-
mes C. Oliver, "Ecology and Cultural Continuity as Contributing Fac-
tors in the Social Organization of the Plains Indians," in Man in Adap-
tation: The Cultural Present, ed. Yehudi A. Cohen (Chicago: Aldine
Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 304-306; Charles Reher, Danny
Walker and Sandra Todd, "Natural Environment and Cultural
Ecology," in "Archaeology of the Eastern Powder River Basin," ed.
George M. Zetmens and Danny N. Walker (Bureau of Land Manage-
ment Contract #YA-512-RFP6-104, May 21, 1977), pp. 38-39; Robert
F. Spencer and Jesse D. Jennings, The Native Americans (New York:
Harper and Row Publishers, 1965), pp. 337-339.

4. Charles A. Reher, "Ethnology and Ethnohistory," in "Archaeology
of the Eastern Powder River Basin," ed. George M. Zeimens and
Danny N. Walker (Bureau of Land Management Contract #YA-
512-RFP6-104, May 21, 1977), pp. 198-200; Ewers, Blackfeet Indians,
pp. 32-34; "Declaration of the Indian Rights to the Natural Resources
in the Northern Great Plains States," Report, prepared by member
tribes in the Native American Natural Resources Development Federa-
tion of the Northern Great Plains in conjunction with the Native
American Rights Fund, Bureau of Indian Affairs and private con-
sultants, June, 1974, File 002635, Native American Rights Fund,
Boulder, Colorado, p. 5; Edwin T. Denig, "Of the Assiruboines,"
edited by John C. Ewers, Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 8, No. 2
Oanuary 1952): 122-123; William H. Veeder, "Indian Water Rights and
Reservation Development," in Red Power: The American Indians' Fight
For Freedom, ed. Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. (New York: American Heritage
Press, 1971), p. 190; Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap Assiniboine," p.
26; Kennedy, "The Assiniboines," pp. xxv, 3-7.

5. Secoy, Changing Military Patterns, pp. 39-41; Ewers, Blackfeet Indians,
p. 47; Edward E. Barry, Jr., "From Buffalo to Beef: Assimilation on
the Fort Belknap Reservation, " Montana Magazine 26, No. 1 (January
1976):40.

6. Denig, "Of the Assiniboines," pp. 144-145, 147; Ewers, Blackfeet In-
dians, pp. 165-166.

7. Everett W. Sterling, "The Indian Reservation System on the North
Central Plains," Montana Magazine 14, No. 2 (April 1964): 93-94; Barry,
"From Buffalo to Beef," p. 41.

8. W. L. Lincoln to Ezra A. Hoyt, October 7, 1878, Fort Belknap Indian
Agency Papers, Box 17, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
Record Group 75, Federal Archives and Records Center (Seattle,
Washington). All correspondence cited hereafter can be found in the
Fort Belknap Indian Agency Papers, Records of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Record Group 75, Federal Archives and Records Center in
Seattle, Washington; Lincoln to Hiram Price, April 3, 1882, and
January, 1884, Box 17.

9. Lincoln to Hoyt, August, 1879, Box 17; Lincoln to Price, May 1, 1882,
Box 17; Edwin Fields to John H. Oberiy, August 31, 1888, Box 18.

10. Lincoln to Price, August 22, 1884, Box 17.

11. Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap Assiniboine," p. 4.

12. Ibid., p. 8.

13. Ibid., pp. 4-5.

14. Kennedy, The Assiniboines, p. 187; Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap Assiru-
boine," pp. 8-9.

15. Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap Assiniboine," pp. 88-92, 123-125.

16. For a general background in 19th century assimilation policies see:
Bernard W. Sheehan, Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and
the American Indian (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1973); Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., Salvation and the Savage: An Analysis of
Protestant Missions and American Indian Response, 1787-1862 (Lexington:
University of Kentucky Press, 1965); and Francis Paul Prucha,
American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian,
1865-1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976).

17. Frederick E. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery: The Campaign to Assimilate
the American Indians, 1880-1920," (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis
University, 1977), pp. 93-95, 99-104 (In 1984, Hoxie's dissertation was
published under the book title A Final Promise: The Campaign to

Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920); S. Lyman Tyler, A History of Indian
Policy (Washington, D.C.; United States Department of Interior,
Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1973), pp. 95-97; Brian W. Dippie, "That
Bold But Wasting Race: Stereotypes and American Indian Policy,"
Montana Magazine 23, No. 1 (January 1973):4-6, 11-12; Prucha, American
Indian Policy in Crisis, pp. 258-262; Hemy L. Dawes, "Defense of the
Dawes Act," in Americanizing the American Indian: Writings by the
'Friends of the Indians' 1880-1900, ed. Francis Paul Prucha (Lincoln;
University of Nebraska Press, 1978), pp. 100-110.

18. U.S. Statutes at Large, 25:113-133 (1888).

19. Ibid.

20. Fields to John H. Oberly, August 31, 1888, Box 18; A. O. Sinunons
to Thomas Jefferson Morgan, November 25, 1891, Box 18; Luke C.
Hays to William A. Jones, August 7, 1899, Box 19; Rodnick, "The
Fort Belknap Assiruboine," pp. 6-7, 32; J. M. KeUey to Daniel M.
Browning, December 8, 1893, Box 54.

21. Sirrunons to Morgan, November 25, 1891, Box 18.

22. Fields to Oberly, August 31, 1888, Box 18; Hays to Jones, August 9,
1897, Box 18; Hays to Browning, August 8, 1896, Box 18; Rodiuck,
"The Fort Belknap Assiniboine, " pp. 6-7, 9-10.

23. Hays to Jones, August 13, 1893, Box 19.

24. Hays to Browning, August 8, 1896, Box 18; Hays to Jones, August
13, 1898, Box 19; U.S. Statutes at Urge, 26:989 (1891); 28:305 (1894);
29:341 (1896); 29:350-353 (1895); 30:592 (1898); 33:1048 (1905); 34:330
(1906); 34:1015-1017 (1907); 35:83 (1908).

25. Hays to Browning, August 8, 1896, Box 18; 1931 Summary Irrigation
Report, Fort Belknap Indian Agency Papers, Box 359, Records of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75, Federal Archives and
Records Center (Seattle, Washington); Hays to Jones, August 7, 1899,
Box 19; Hays to Jones, August 9, 1897, Box 18; William R. Logan to
Francis Ellington Leupp, September 1, 1905, Box 20; A. E. Curmnings
to Hays, April 25, 1898, Irrigation Program Records, Box 359.

26. Hays to Jones, August 9, 1897, Box 18; Hays to Jones, August 7, 1899,
Box 19; Hays to Jones, August 23, 1898, Box 19; Cummings to Hays,
April 25, 1898, Box 359; Robe to Browning, August 5, 1893, Box 18.

27. Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap Assiniboine," p. 10; E. B. Meritt to Cato
Sells, April 26, 1916, Box 30; Keimedy, The Assiniboines, p. 186; Logan
to Returning Hunter, March 8, 1905, Box 57.

28. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 214-217, 326-328.

29. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 343-344, 365-367, 399-401; Tyler, A
History of Indian Policy, pp. 96-106; Arrel Morgan Gibson, The American
Indian, Prehistory to the Present (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and
Company, 1980), pp. 500-501, 507-508; Robert E. Berkhofer, Jr., The
White Man 's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the
Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), pp. 174-175: Wilcomb E.
Washburn, The Indian in America (New York: Harper Colophon Books,
1975), pp. 243-244, 246-249.

30. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 419-432; U.S. Statutes at Large,
29:350-353 (1895); Barry, "From Buffalo to Beef," pp. 41, 46; H. H.
Miller to Sells, August 25, 1914, Box 22; Meritt to Sells, September
7, 1915, Box 23; J. T. Marshall to Charles Henry Burke, February 17,
1922, Box 27; Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap Assiniboine," p. 15; Logan
to Leupp, August 10, 1907, Box 21; Logan to Leupp, October 24, 1907,
Box 21.

31. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 422-432.

32. Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder, Montana: A History of Two
Centuries (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976), pp. 125-126;
Lincoln to Price, May 26, 1884, and August 5, 1884, Box 17.

33. Norris Hundley, Jr., "The Dark and Bloody Ground of Indian Water
Rights, Confusion Elevated to Principle," Western Historical Quarterly
IX, No. 4 (October 1978): 459-460; Hundley, Water and the West, pp.
66-69; Harold A. Ranquist, "The Winter's (sic) Doctrine and How
It Grew," Brigham Young University Press 3 (1975):645-647; William
H. Veeder, "Water Rights in the Coal Fields of the Yellowstone River
Basin," in American Indians and the Law, ed. Lawrence Rosen (New
Brunswick: Transaction Inc., 1976), pp. 80-81.

34. Robert D. DeUwo, "Indian Water Rights— The Winters Doctrine Up-
dated," Gonzaga Law Review 6 (Spring 1971):218-219; Edward W. Qyde,
"Indian Water Rights," in Water and Water Rights, ed. Robert Em-
met Clark (Indianapolis: The AUen Smith Company, 1967), pp.
377-379; "The Right to Remain Indian: The Failure of the Federal
Government to Protect Indian Land and Water Rights," Submitted
to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights by the AH Indian Pueblo
Council, Inc., Albuquerque, New Mexico, November 8, 1972, Folder
002579, Native American Rights Fund, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 12-15;
Arthur A. Butler, "Indian Reserved Water Rights and State Asser-
tions of Power to Control Waters on the Reservation," in Studies in
American Law, ed. by Ralph W. Johnson (Seattle: University of
Washington Problems Seminar Study, 1974), p. 30.

35. "United States v Mose Anderson et. al.: The Ninth Circuit Court of
the United States for the District of Montana," (July 12, 1905, and
March 4, 1906), Ninth Circuit Court Papers, Box 6659, District Court
Records, Record Group 21, Federal Archives and Records Center
(Seattle, Washington). All Ninth Circuit Court and Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals papers cited hereafter can be found in Box 6659, District
Court Records, Record Group 21, Federal Archives and Records
Center in Seattle, Washington; Malone and Roder, Montana, pp.
134-135; Hundley, "The 'Winters' Decision," pp! 19-22.

36. DeUwo, "Indian Water Rights," pp. 218-220; Hundley, "The Dark
and Bloody Ground," p. 45; Logan to Leupp, September 1, 1905,
Box 20; Logan to Carl Rasch, June 25, 1905, Box 57.

37. Logan to Leupp, June 3, 1905, Box 20.

38. Logan to Leupp, September 1, 1905, Box 20; Logan to Leupp, June
3, 1905, Box 20; Logan to Rasch, June 18, 1905, Box 57; Logan to Rasch,
June 25, 1905, Box 57; Logan to Rasch, July 11, 1905, Box 57; Logan
to Cyrus C. Bobb, July 12, 1905, Box 57.

39. Logan to Leupp, September 1, 1905, Box 20; Logan to Leupp, June
3, 1905, Box 20; "United States v Henry Winters et. al. :Appeal from
the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Montana,"
(9th Or. Ct. of Appeals, Feb. 5, 1906).

40. Logan to Leupp, July 28, 1909, Box 21.

41. "United States v Mose Anderson et. al.: Bill of Complaint," (9th Cir.
Ct., June 26,1905); Logan to Leupp, June 3 and September 1, 1905,
Box 20; Logan to Rasch, June 18, 1905, Box 57; Logan to Bobb, July
12, 1905, Box 57.

42. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 367, 404-434; Francis E. Leupp, The
Indian and His Problem (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910),
pp. 79-86, 305-327; Dudley Haskell Burney, "The Indian Policy of
the United States Government from 1870 to 1906 with Particular
Reference to Land Tenure," (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford Univer-
sity, 1936), pp. 213-233; Simmons to Morgan, March 28, 1892, Box
18; "United States v Mose Anderson et. al.: The Ninth Circuit Court
of the United States for the District of Montana," (July 12 and 17,
1905); Logan to Jones, August 26, 1902, Box 20; Logan to Leupp, July
28, 1909, Box 21; Logan to Coburn Cattle Company, April 27, 1905,
Box 57; Logan to Leupp, September 1, 1905, Box 20.

43. Logan to W. B. French, September 28, 1905, Box 57; Report on the
Agricultural Lease of Tribal Lands for Sugar Beet Culture, January
22 and December 9, 1908, February 26, 1909, Box 365; Rodnick, "The
Fort Belknap Assiniboine," pp. 15-16; Logan to Leupp, October 24,
1907, August 10, 1907, July 25, 1909, Box 21; Logan to Valentine, July
30, August 11, August 31, 1910, Box 21.

44. Logan to Leupp, September 1, 1905, Box 20; Logan to French,
September 28, 1905, Box 57; Logan to Leupp, June 19, 1905, Box 20;
Logan to Rasch, June 18, 1905, and June 25, 1905, Box 57; Logan to
Leupp, August 10, 1907, and July 25, 1908, Box 21.

45. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 430-434, 472-473, 475; Hundley,
"The 'Winters' Decision," pp. 22-23.

46. "United States v Mose Anderson et. al.: Injunction Hearing," (9th
Cir. Ct. July 17, 1905); "United States v Mose Anderson et. al.: De-
fendant Hearings," (9th Cir. Ct. July 15-17, 1905); Hundley, "The
'Winters' Decision," pp. 22-24.

47. "The United States v Mose Anderson et. al.: Memorandum Order,"
(9th Cir. Cf. August 7, 1905).

48. Ibid.; Monroe E. Price, Law and the American Indian (Indianapohs:
Bobbs-MerriU Co., Inc., 1973), p. 316; Bill Leaphart, "Sale and Lease
of Indian Water Rights," Montana Law Review 33 (Summer 1972):266;
Logan to Belknap Ditch Company, April 5, 1906, Box 56; "United
States V Mose Anderson et. al.: Petition for Order Allowing Appeal,"
(9th Cir. Cf. April 21, 1906); "The Right to Remain Indian," p. 13;
Hundley, "The 'Winters' Decision," pp. 24-31.

49. "The United States v Henry Winters et. al.; Appeals from the Cir-
cuit Court of the United States for the District of Montana," (9th Cir.
Ct. of Appeals, February 5, 1906).

50. Winters v United States, 207 US 555-576 (1908), 143F 740 (1906).

51. DeUwo, "Indian Water Rights— The Winters Doctrine Updated," pp.
221-224; Leaphart, "Sale and Lease of Indian Water Rights," pp.
266-267; Hundley, "The Dark and Bloody Ground," pp. 445-482;
Stephan C. Kenyon, "The Reserved Right to Water Quality: A Winters
Tale," in Studies in American Law, ed. Johnson, p. 9.

52. Veeder, "Indian Prior and Paramoimt Rights," pp. 640-641; Ranquist,
"The Winter's (sic) Doctrine and How It Grew," pp. 656-665; William
H. Veeder, "Winters Doctrine Rights in the Missouri River Basin,"
submitted to the Native American Rights Fund, Boulder, Colorado,
October 13, 1965, Folder #002309, pp. 5-7.

53. Logan to Robert Grosvenor Valentine, November 17, 1909, Box 21.

54. Ibid.

55. Logan to Leupp, October 24, 1907, July 25, 1908, Box 22; Logan to
Valentine, July 28, 1909, Box 22; Report on the Agricultural Lease
of Tribal Lands for Sugar Beet Culture, January 22, 1908, Fort Belknap
Indian Agency Papers, Box 365, Records of the Bureau of Indian Af-
fairs, Record Group 75, Federal Archives and Records Center (Seat-
tle, Washington); Miller to Sells, August 25, 1914, Box 23; Meritt to
Sells, August 4, 1915, Box 24.

56. Symons to Sells, February 25, 1920, Box 28; Summary Irrigation Data,
1931, Box 359; J. T. Marshall to Charles Henry Burke, March 18, 1924,
Box 28; Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap Assiniboine, " pp. 17-19; Hoxie,
"Beyond Savagery," p. 483.

57. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 430-434; Rodnick, "The Fort Belknap
Assiniboine," pp. 73-82.

58. Hoxie, "Beyond Savagery," pp. 430-432.

59. Ibid.

60. Veeder, "Winters Doctrine Rights in the Missouri River Basin," pp.
3-9; "Declaration of Indian Rights to the Natural Resources in the

Northern Great Plains States," June, 1974, Folder 002635, Native
American Rights Fund, Boulder, Colorado, p. 5; Ranquist, "The
Winter's (sic) Doctrine and How It Grew," p. 654.

61. Winters v United States, 207 US 576.

62. Leaphart, "Sale and Lease of Indian Water Rights," p. 272; Price,
Law and the American Indian, p. 318; Clyde, "Indian Water Rights,"
p. 388; Hundley, "The Dark and Bloody Ground," pp. 462-469.

63. Winters v United States, 207 US 576.

64. Ibid., 207 US 564-578.

65. Price, Law and the American Indian, p. 319; Leaphart, "Sale and Lease
of Indian Water Rights," p. 272.

66. Arizona v California 373 US 596, 598-601 (1963); 376 US 344-345 (1964).

67. Monroe E. Price and Gary D. Weatherford, "Indian Water Rights
in Theory and Practice: Navajo Experience in the Colorado River
Basin," in American Indians and the Law, Lawrence Rosen (New
Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1978), pp. 102-104; Clyde, "Indian
Water Rights," p. 386; Hundley, Water and the West, pp. 302-303.

68. Dellwo, "Indian Water Rights," pp. 239-240; Kenyon, "The Reserved
Right to Water Quality," pp. 2-11.

69. Veeder, "Indian Prior and Paramount Rights," p. 662; Price, Law and
the American Indian, p. 319; Ranquist, "The Winter's (sic) Doctrine
and How It Grew," pp. 657-658; Veeder, "Winters Doctrine Rights
in the Missouri River Basin," pp. 15-23; Veeder, "Water Rights in
the Coal Fields of the Yellowstone River Basin," pp. 89-90; Hundley,
Water and the West, pp. 303-306.

70. Tweedy v Texas Co., 286 F. Supp. 383 (District Court of Montana, 1968).

71. Leaphart, "Sale and Lease of Indian Water Rights," p. 246; Veeder,
"Water Rights in the Coal Fields of the Yellowstone River Basin,"
pp. 95-96.

72. Arizona v San Carlos Apache Tribe, 1035. Ct. 3201 (1983).

73. Mary Wallace, "The Supreme Court and Indian Water Rights," in
American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century, Vine Deloria, Jr. (Nor-
man: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), pp. 197-220.

74. Shoshone Tribes of Indians v U.S., 299 U.S. 476, 497 (1937).

75. Veeder, "Water Rights in the Coal Fields of the Yellowstone River
Basin," p. 94; Pat Porter, "Indian Resources: Struggles Over Water
Rights," The Christian Century 89, No. 7 (February 17, 1972);209-210;
"Declaration of Indian Rights," pp. 3-4.

76. Wallace and Page Stegner, "Arabs of the Plains," Atlantic 241, No.
4 (April 1978): 72-74; Veeder, "Indian Water Rights and Reservation
Development," pp. 191-195.

When the 11th Infantry Regiment returned from the
Philippine Islands in 1904 to take station at Fort D.A.
Russell near Cheyenne, Wyoming, now Francis E. Warren
Air Force Base, they brought war trophies taken in 1901
from the village of Balangiga. An insurgency had broken
out on the Islands in the Spring of 1899, soon after the end
of the Spanish- American War, when various tribal and na-
tional interests tried to take over. The United States ac-
cepted the task of protecting and pacifying these Islands.
A good part of the U.S. Army, regulars and volunteers,
had been shipped to the Philippines by mid- 1900 to put
down the insurrection; the number of troops there peaked
then at 63, 000. ^ The treaty with Spain ending the Spanish-
American War had resulted in the United States acquir-
ing Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba and the Philippine Islands.
The Philippines demanded the close attention of the U.S.
Army for some time.

duty, three officers and 72 enlisted. The commander of
Company C, Captain Thomas W. Connell, was no new-
comer to combat or the Philippines. He had graduated
from the U.S. Military Academy in 1894, served at the Bat-
tle of San Juan HUl in Cuba, saw combat in China with
the American contingent of the China Relief Expedition
and had participated in several engagements against Fili-
pino insurgents in northern Luzon. Perhaps he should
have known better, but he felt that the local Filipino of-
ficials in Balangiga were s5Tnpathetic to the Americans and
trustworthy, particularly the town's chief of police and the
presidente.

At 6:30 on the morning of September 28, 1901, when
Company C was at breakfast in the mess tent, a surprise
attack occurred. The trusted chief of police triggered the
attack by signaling for the church bell or bells to ring. He
and the town presidente then led the assault on Company

THE F.E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE

WAR TROPHIES FROM

BALANGIGA, P.I.

by Gerald M. Adams

Most important of the 11th Irifantry war trophies
brought back from the Philippines were two bells and a
cannon. Those trophies now occupy a place of honor near
the flagpole in Trophy Park at the center of Francis E.
Warren Air Force Base, a part of the rich heritage of this
historic western military installation.

Company C, 9th Infantry, occupied several buildings
in the small garrisoned village of Balangiga on the island
of Samar during the late summer of 1901, which included
a convent adjacent to the chiirch. Filipino resistance had
been expected to collapse with the capture of their leader,
Emilio Aguinaldo, in July, 1901. A reduction in American
forces, particularly the volunteers recruited by Congress
expressly for the occasion, had begun even before Aguinal-
do's capture. Still, guerilla warfare continued against the
American troops in different parts of the Islands with dif-
ferent factions, but in a less organized fashion.

Even though frequent insurgent activity continued on
the island of Samar throughout the summer of 1901, it
seemed that an adequate force occupied Balangiga in
September of that year; 75 men of Company C were on

C with an estimated 400 native bolomen who emerged
from various quarters of the village and the jungle that
skirted the village.^ The long bolo knife served the native
as a tool and a weapon, thus the term bolomen came to
be applied to these men by American soldiers. Forbidden
to own firearms, the bolomen captured or stole American
rifles and ammunition for their insurgent operations.

Three officers and 29 men, including the first ser-
geant, were killed during the initial attack, plus several
others whose bodies were never found. The senior non-
commissioned officer present. Sergeant Frank Betron,
organized a defense which successfully held off the at-
tackers even though they had captured a good supply of
arms and ammunition. Betron judged the Americans' posi-
tion in Balangiga to be untenable and so collected the
wounded and loaded the survivors into five barotos (native
boats) docked at the foot of the village. He hoped to reach
Basey, some 25 miles up the coast of Leyte Gulf, where
Company G of the 9th Infantry was located.

Before leaving the dock at Balangiga, three Americans
returned to the village to try to burn the barracks and

rescue the flag. Rifle fire from the insurgents prevented
burning the barracks, but Private Qaude C. Wingo did suc-
ceed in recovering the American flag.

Betron reached Basey with two barotos the next morn-
ing at 4 o'clock, September 29, and gave the alarm of the
attack on Balangiga. His total party consisted of 25 in-
cluding 22 wounded and two who had died enroute. The
loss of life was finally established at three officers and 42
men of Company C Eight of those were either killed at
Balangiga, burned in the barracks by the insurgents or lost
in the Gulf in the barotos that failed to reach Basey. Wingo
was one of those lost from a baroto seen by a survivor to
swamp in the Gulf.*

An expedition to regain Balangiga left Basey on the
steamship S.S. Pittsburg at 9 a.m. on September 29th with
55 men of Company G, 9th Infantry. Commanded by Cap-
tain Edwin V. Bookmiller, Company G landed at Balan-
giga after a three hour trip and quickly recaptured the
village. They first secured the commissary and ordnance
supplies that had not been carried away by the insurgents.
Bookmiller' s men then buried the three officers and 29 men
killed the day before whose bodies still remained in the
plaza. They were buried in the plaza in front of the church.

Bookmiller knew that his force could not be absent
from Basey for too long without inviting an "insurrecto"
attack on Basey. Shortly after Balangiga was burned. Com-
pany G re-embarked on the S.S. Pittsburg at 6:15 p.m. for
the return trip to Basey, secure in the knowledge that not
much was left in Balangiga that could help the insurgents.

While enroute from Balangiga back to Basey, Book-
miller and Company G encountered a steamer carrying
Colonel Isaac D. DeRussy, commander of the 11th Infan-
try Regiment, with 132 men from Companies K and L.
They had been ordered from Tacloban to Balangiga by
Department of the Visayas Commander, Brigadier General
Robert P. Hughes, to "chastise the savages if found. "^

Although the insurgency movement on the island of
Samar remained active for several more years, the Balangiga
area quieted down after the September 28th attack. Units
of the 11th Irifantry remained at Balangiga until October
18, 1901, when they were relieved by the Marines. The
Marines were in turn relieved by Company C of the 15th
Infantry.

The prospect of the 11th Infantry returning in late 1903
to the United States was well received in the Regiment.
"We're Going Home," has been an announcement joy-
ously received by American troops throughout the world
and throughout the nation's history. The reduction of U.S.
forces in the Philippines had brought the strength there
to 843 officers and 14,667 enlisted by the end of 1903, down
from 63,000 in 1900.

While the 11th Infantry's experience at Balangiga
proved to be much less eventful than the 9th Infantry's,
the 11th Infantry brought home the war trophies. These
included two large bronze bells cast in the late 19th cen-
tury and a much older cannon. The bells had been taken

because one or both had been used by the insurgents to
signal the attack on Company C, 9th Infantry. The can-
non had been taken from the plaza in front of the church
because it looked like it might make a good war trophy.

Fort D.A. Russell had been founded in 1867, concur-
rently with and next to the city of Cheyenne, as a tem-
porary twelve company infantry/cavaky post to protect the
Union Pacific Railroad from the Indians. The post had been
declared permanent in 1884 with good brick structures
replacing many of the temporary wooden buildings. A
reduction in size came with the permanent post status to
an eight company complement.

After the end of the Spanish-American War and with
the Indian wars ended. Fort Russell came to be less im-
portant than before. No major units were assigned on a
permanent basis and the post stood in immediate danger
of being closed. There were other western military installa-
tions being dismantled at this time for minor reasons, but
the reasons for closing Fort Russell included one major one.
The army and Cheyenne had a disagreement over the divi-
sion of Crow Creek water and it threatened the existence
of the fort. The Department Commander's annual report
to Washington, dated August 31, 1902, sounded gloomy
indeed for the fort's future:

The long standing controversy between the city of Cheyenne,
Wyo., and the authorities of Fort D.A. Russell, Wyo., regard-
ing certain water rights has reached such a stage as to render
it necessary that the rights of the Government be ascertained
and upheld, or the post be abandoned, or the garrison greatly
reduced. This matter has already been made the subject of an
official report forwarded to the Adjutant-General of the Army.'

By 1904, the water problem had been resolved, most prob-
ably with the help of Wyoming's Senator Francis E. War-
ren, a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee.
Dr. T. A. Larson, of the University of Wyoming, gave a
good example of the Senator's well-known political
pragmatism in his book. History of Wyoming (revised), with
these words, "... Warren favored a large standing ar-
my, with as many men as possible stationed in Wyo-
ming."'' The U.S. Army did not object and the assignment
of the 11th Infantry opened a new era for Fort Russell and
for Cheyenne.

On March 23, 1904, the 11th Infantry Regiment with
eight companies and all their equipment, commanded by
Colonel Albert L. Meyer, started arriving at Fort Russell,
happy to be back in the United States.* Another four com-
panies were to follow within the year making one of the
largest infantry complements that had so-far been stationed
at the fort. The eight companies were housed in the eight
brick infantry barracks built in 1884 (still in use) on the site
of the early 1867 post.

Soon after the 11th Infantry began arriving, a local
newspaper report cited a sizeable appropriation forwarded
to the Senate for building additional barracks and other
buildings at Fort Russell to accommodate the additional
units to be assigned. The article went on to say how much

Cheyenne appreciated the efforts of Warren in making Fort
Russell one of the most important military posts in the
United States.' The post was being enlarged to become
brigade size, which was achieved in 1910. A brigade usu-
ally had three regiments assigned, consisting of infantry,
cavalry and artillery.

The 11th Infantry did not get around to unpacking all
the war trophies from Balangiga for a while or maybe they
were slow in arriving. On May 16, 1905, the Cheyenne Daily
Leader newspaper reported that the cannon had been
mounted on the parade ground near the flagpole along
with other relics from the Philippines ". . .to include the
famous bell which gave the signal for the massacre of a
whole company." Two large bells three feet tall and a
seven foot cannon were proudly displayed in front of the
flagpole on the parade ground, named Marne Parade in

the 1920s, after the famous World War I battlefield in
France. A sign was installed over one of the bells that said;

This bell hung in the church at Balangiga, Samar, PI, and rung
the signal for the attack on Company C, 9th U.S. Infantry, Sept
29 [28], 1901. Taken by Company L, 11th Infantry and detach-
ment of Company K, 11th Infantry, the first units to reach the
scene after the massacre.

In 1910, Lieutenant Paul M. Goodrich, who had served
with the 9th Infantry on Samar in 1901, visited Cheyenne
and Fort Russell. The 11th Infantry's claim stated on the
sign over the bell, of being the first to reach the scene of
the massacre, disturbed Goodrich. He sent a picture of the
beU and sign with a letter to the 9th Infantry Headquarters
at Warwick Barracks, Cebu, P.l. The 9th Infantry promptly
forwarded the letter and picture to Bookmiller in Boston

The sign above the bell

erroneously credited units of the

11th Infantry with being the

first to reach Balangiga after the

battle. After further research, the

sign was changed in 1911 giving

proper credit to Company G, 9th

Infantry, for recapturing

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T/je an;;;/ displayed the cannon and bells as war trophies on the parade ground near the flagpole on the western part of the post soon after the
11th Infantry returned from the Philippine Islands in March, 1904. The flagpole, cannon and hells were moved east on Randall Avenue in the
mid-1920s to Trophy Park.

for his comment." When Bookmiller's statement was
received, the regimental commancier. Colonel C.J. Crane,
requested in the 3rd Endorsement that the colonel of the
11th Infantry look into the matter and set the record
straight. According to Crane, who was also in the Philip-
pines in 1901, "... the best claim to priority of arrival at
Balangiga after the massacre belongs to Capt. Bookmiller
and his Company G of the 9th Inf."

A total of fifteen endorsements were added over the
next six months from officers who were in the Philippines
in 1901. In 1910, they were stationed at West Point, N.Y.,
Boston, Massachusetts, San Antonio, Texas, Washington,
D.C. and several different Army headquarters in the Philip-
pines. The respondents unanimously agreed with Book-
miller's report of being first on the scene with Com-
pany G, 9th Infantry, after the massacre at Balangiga in
September, 1901. When this mass of evidence reached him.
Colonel Arthur Williams, commander 11th Infantry on
maneuvers in Texas, agreed in one of the concluding en-

dorsements: "The inscription over the bells at Fort D.A.
Russell, Wyoming, clearly appears to be erroneous, and
will be corrected at the first opportunity."

One of many interesting comments sparked by Good-
rich's letter came from Major General James Franklin Bell
at Headquarters PhOippines Division in Manila. Bell had
been in the Philippines in 1901, served as Chief of Staff,
U.S. Army in Washington from 1906 to 1910, and was back
in the Philippines in 1911. In the 7th endorsement dated
March 23, 1911, he made this statement:

There seems no doubt that the 9th Infantry was first to arrive
at Balangiga after the massacre. ... In this connection it may
be appropriate to question the propriety of taking (even as a
souvenir) a bell belonging to the Catholic church simply be-
cause a recreant native priest either used it or permitted it
to be used to sound a signal of attack on American soldiers.
The bell belonged to the church and not to the priest. It was
not the fault of the church but that of the priest that it was mis-
used."

When the 11th Infantry departed for the Mexican
border in February, 1913, in response to the dangerous
situation developing in Mexico, the war trophies stayed
in front of the flagpole at Fort Russell. Orders had been
received at 6 p.m. and the first section of the 11th Infantry
entrained at midrught for Galveston, Texas. ^^ The 11th In-
fantry had expected to return to Fort Russell when the
emergency ended in Mexico, but that was not to be. The
11th Infantry was never again able to call Fort Russell
home.

As the years passed, the cannon and the bells became
a familiar part of the post scene in front of the flagpole on
the Marne Parade. The building program continued from
1904 to 1912 and moved the center of the post eastward
toward Cheyenne. When World War I broke out in 1917,
the infantry, cavalry and artillery regiments were soon in
France or on their way. Fort Russell served as an induc-
tion center and when the war was over, a discharge center.
It did not take long after the war to regain a full brigade
status with infantry, cavalry and artillery units again in
place.

In the 1920s, the flagpole was relocated from the Marne
Parade eastward to a more central location on the main
thoroughfare, a small triangular plot on Randall Avenue
named Trophy Park. The cannon and bells went along, the
cannon mounted on the same simple metal frame and the
bells resting on a thin wooden platform. On January 1,
1930, the post's name changed from Fort D. A. Russell to
Fort Francis E. Warren, in honor of the late and long-time
Wyoming senator.

In early 1941, when America began to rearm prior to
entering World War II, Fort Warren changed missions; no
longer would the combat arms of infantry, cavalry and ar-
tillery be assigned. The post became a Quartermaster Re-
placement Training Center (QRTC) in 1941, and a very
large one with troop strength reaching some 20,000 in 1943.
In 1947, the mission and service changed— Fort Francis E.
Warren became Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, also
known as F. E. Warren AFB, with the mission of technically
training young airmen. Things stayed much the same in
Trophy Park with not much attention paid to the bells or
cannon.

The years rolled by and memories faded, records were
lost or destroyed during World War II and people forgot
what the trophies were doing in Trophy Park. The bells
may have been stored for a while. When the Strategic Air
Command (SAC) started shopping in the mid-1950s for a
suitable area to deploy the first intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs), Warren AFB offered an excellent head-
quarters basing site. The Trairiing Command training Hus-
sion could easily be transferred to another base. The op-
portunity to be the first ICBM base posed an excitement
indeed for the Cheyenne community, military and civilian
alike.

A new command, new faces and new interests raised
some new questions, or questions about some old articles.

the bells and cannon in Trophy Park. It was felt that their
historical value should be established, if they had any
historical value and accountability assigned to some
responsible agency if the bells and cannon were to be re-
tained at Warren AFB. There was some sentiment for ship-
ping the bells back to the Philippines, or somewhere. So
little was known about the cannon in the 1950s that it was
sometimes referred to as a swivel gun, another tj^e of gun
entirely. A 1957 memo to the Base Commander from the
Information Services Officer reflected the difficulty often
encountered when trying to establish long dormant his-
torical values:

Basic questions involved with regard to the bronze swivel gun
and other items of historical value at Warren Air Force Base
remain unanswered. Correspondence on the questionable
items originated from this office as a result of a Base Inspector
report that accountability for these items must be assigned to
some responsible agency."

As a means of trying to recapture the history of the
bells and cannon, queries were sent from the base to
various archival and historical agencies asking for infor-
mation. The base might have indicated some willingness
in those queries to dispose of both the bells and cannon.
In any case, some interesting replies were received. A let-
ter from the Historian, Thirteenth Air Force located in the
Philippines, stated that the cannon had very little value
but the bells were another matter.^* He suggested that it
would be a very fine public relations gesture for the Air
Force to return the bells to the Philippines. He also offered
to work out all the details for returning the bells.

In 1982, 24 years later, the same historian related an
interesting story to a Department of the Air Force historic
preservation officer visiting the Philippines. According to
the historian's irvformation, the bells at Warren AFB came
from a mission near Fort Stotsenberg, earlier located close
to the present American Clark Air Base. These bells had
been taken by American troops to prevent the mustering
of Filipino "insurrectos" during the insurgency. He sug-
gested the existence and location of the bells be verified
and the possibility of their return to the Philippines be con-
sidered. The public relations benefits of returning the bells
to the Philippines again was mentioned. ^' There have been
more recent requests for the bells and they have been
answered with a polite no.

Another respondent, this one a firearms consultant in
Princeton, New Jersey, speculated in 1957, that the bells
and cannon were of some value and should not be de-
stroyed. He did not think that West Point or Annapolis
would be interested in the material, but the National Park
Department would welcome them for installation some-
place. The department had many tracts of land throughout
the United States which needed some form of decoration.
The Princeton consultant concluded with this, "... my
feeling is that it is safer for posterity where some young
regular Army officer will not be able to send it to be melted
down the next time we have an emergency. "^*

After Warren AFB had been a SAC ICBM base for
almost ten years, the late Colonel Robert J. Hill, com-
mander of the 90th Strategic Missile Wing, decided in 1967,
that the bells deserved a better presentation. He had an
attractive curved red brick wall constructed in Trophy Park
for the bells with a handsome bronze plaque on the wall
between the bells telling the story of the Massacre at
Balangiga. A faint inscription appears on the back of both
bells that has been there many years:

USED BY PHILIPPINOS

TO SOUND SIGNAL FOR MASSACRE

OF COMPANY "C" NINTH INFANTRY

AT BALANGIGA P.l.

28TH SEPTEMBER 1901

Some uncertainty has remained as to whether there
were one or two bells in the church at Balangiga, or
whether one or two bells were used to signal the attack
on Company C, 9th Infantry. There could have been a bell
in the church and one in the plaza. Several references men-
tion a bell and certainly most viUage churches in the Philip-
pines, or anywhere else in the world, are lucky to have
one bell. But the 11th Infantry brought home two large bells
about three feet high and supposedly from Balangiga. If
they acquired the second bell in Balangiga, did it come from
the church? The caption on the sign over the bell that
aroused Goodrich's ire in 1910 simply stated, "This bell
hung in the church at Balangiga and rung the signal for
the attack on Company C. . . ."

Both bells show the Franciscan emblem, the cross with
human arms crossed in front and the stigmata on the
hands. The Franciscans are a religious order founded in
the 13th century. Another religious order, the Society of
Jesus better known as the Jesuits and founded in 1534, had
been on Samar until 1768 when they were expelled from
the Philippines. ''' The Franciscans carried on the work of
the Jesuits. The bells were cast after the expulsion of the
Jesuits, one showing a date of 1863, and the other 1889.
A parish priest's name, Agustin Delgrado, appears on the
1889 bell but there is no identification of church or village.

Some conjecture has appeared in recent years that the
bells were brought from the Philippines to the United
States on the battleship Wyoming in 1904. No evidence
has been found to support such a happening. On the con-
trary, battleships are not good troop transports and have
rarely been used for such purposes. It seems more
reasonable to believe that the bells and gun were brought
to the United States in 1904 along with the unit equipment
of the 11th Infantry Regiment and on the same troop
transport ship.

After fixing up the bells nicely in 1967, Colonel HUl ap-
parently did not see much need to do anything for the
cannon. It stayed on its simple metal stand in front of the
flagpole, exposed to the elements and small children who
liked to stuff things down its 2.5 inch barrel opening.
Periodically the cannon would get a fresh coat of paint,
usually a tepid green.

The project to reconstruct the history of the bells and
cannon, started in the mid-1950s, continued through the
years and did bring in some useful information, but not
enough. The cannon might have gotten a new coat of paint
as a result of it all. One of the most useful letters received
came from retired Army Colonel William Alexander,
whose father. Captain Robert Alexander, had served as
quartermaster of the 11th Infantry in 1901-1904.1' Captain
Alexander had been largely responsible for shipping the
war trophies from the Philippines when the 11th Infantry
left to take station at Fort Russell in 1904. Alexander, later
a major general, had been aware of the origins of the can-
non, according to his son, and had probably been respon-
sible for selecting it as a regimental war trophy.

In 1979, and partly as a result of Colonel William Alex-
ander's earlier letters urging that inquiries be made to
England, 1' Wing Historian Staff Sergeant William E. Wood-
bridge, Jr., wrote to the Tower of London with a descrip-
tion and photographs of the cannon. ^^ The responding let-
ter stated that the cannon was a rare English Falcon cast
at Houndsditch near London by Robert Owen in the year
1557.2' The rose relief and the letters MR (Maria Regina)
on the cannon breech were Queen Mary's monogram. The
cannon had been cast during the short reign of Mary 1, thus
the rose, the only known cannon bearing Queen Mary's
monogram. The Tower of London's Deputy Master of the
Armouries, H.L. Blackmore, acknowledged that they
would be pleased to acquire the cannon, either by gift or
sale. If acquired, they would find it an honored place in the
Tower of London next to a cannon of the making of the
husband of Queen Mary (Philip of Spain).

When the cannon's vintage and ancestry became
known to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.,
it too wanted the piece. Restoration could be done by ex-
perts there but display space would be a problem for
several years, or until some additional building had been
completed. Still they wanted the cannon. The Falcon had
been a popular English artillery piece for ship and shore
up through the 18th century. Its presence in Balangiga
might have been due to the English occupying parts of the
Philippines in the late 18th century. They might have left
it behind then, or earlier.

Colonel Charles H. Greenley, commander 90th Stra-
tegic Missile Wing at Warren AFB in 1981, had the Falcon
taken from its nondescript stand in front of the flagpole
soon after its true identity and value became known. Kerry
Drake, editor of the Cheyenne Sunday Eagle-Tribune
newspaper, had written some excellent articles which gave
the cannon considerable notoriety. ^^ Placed in a secure
room in the base motor pool, the cannon awaited a deci-
sion on its next resting place. Even though a Falcon can-
non weighed 700 pounds and was seven feet long, it could
have been spirited away from its old stand in front of the
flagpole by any strong young man with a pickup truck.

With the Tower of London and the Smithsonian In-
stitute in Washington both anxious to acquire this rare and

(Above) The bells as they look today in Trophy Park. The plaque reads: "THE BELLS OF BALANGIGA: These bells
came from a church in Balangiga, Samar, located in the Philippine Islands. The ringing of these bells signalled the attack
by Bolo tribesmen on Sunday morning, the 28th of September, 1901, in which company 'G' of the Ninth US Infantry
was massacred." (Below) The restored cannon in its new shelter.

ancient cannon, the decision for its disposition passed to
higher headquarters. The agency that received the cannon
would be responsible for its professional restoration and
security.

Some sentiment surfaced for sending the cannon back
to London where it came from and where it could be prop-
erly restored and displayed. Others were all for sending
it to the Smithsonian where proper restoration could be
done. It could also be displayed there to a wide audience
as a U.S. Army war trophy. Sending the cannon some-
where, anywhere, "just to get it off the Base and out of
our hair," also had some advocates among the active duty
Air Force and particularly so when restoration costs and
security measures were considered. The costs would be
considerable and appropriated Air Force funds were not
available for such projects, historic as they might be.

A strong interest in keeping the Falcon in Wyoming
developed when it became apparent that it would soon be
gone if something was not done quickly. Interest rose high
among military retirees in Cheyenne and members of the
state and county historical societies. Fortunately, Air Force
retiree Edward A. Tarbell, a western history buff who
served as volunteer base museum curator and vice presi-
dent of the Rocky Mountain Department of the Council
on America's Military Past (CAMP), was able to rally the
historic preservation forces interested in keeping the Falcon
at Warren AFB where it belonged.

Through Tarbell's patient but persistent efforts, meet-
ings were held in April, 1981, with Greenley and his staff.
The proposals offered were designed to convince Greenley,
as well as his staff and higher headquarters, that proper
restoration could be done locally in order to keep the Falcon
cannon at Warren AFB. The key proposal included form-
ing a "Save the Cannon" committee to be headed by
retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert R. Scott, a
former wing and division commander at Warren AFB liv-
ing in Cheyenne. 23 Scott also headed the Military Retiree
Council, a volunteer organization that kept in touch with
the approximately 1,500 military retirees in the Cheyenne
area. 2*

As a first order of business, the help of the military
retiree community in the Cheyenne area was recruited.
Retired Air Force Master Sergeant Jerry Bresnahan, owner
of Elbe Arms in Cheyenne and a professional gunsmith,
volunteered to do the cannon restoration work. Donations
were solicited from the local community, mairJy the
military retirees. Active duty airmen and officers were also
invited to contribute. When the Warren AFB Federal Credit
Union generously offered to match contributions to the
"Save the Cannon" fund, the money problem disappeared.
With all the local interest generated in keeping the can-
non in Wyoming and the resources for cannon restoration
and shelter construction coming together so well, Greenley
strongly recommended to Headquarters SAC that the
restored Falcon cannon stay in Wyoming at Warren AFB.^^

By June, 1981, SAC agreed that Warren AFB would

be the proper place to keep the Falcon cannon and that
professional restoration could be done there by Bresnahan.
The letter of authority to Greenley was signed by the chief
of staff. Major General Andrew Pringle, Jr., and had these
good words:

"Restoration of the Falcon cannon would be in keeping with
F.E. Warren APB's long and distinguished heritage. It is an am-
bitious undertaking. As with other museum and heritage pro-
grams, additional appropriated funds cannot be provided by
this headquarters for restoration and display projects. Given
the lack of funding, it is with pleasure I note Colonel Adams'
interest in restoring the cannon in the local area. Once a prof-
fer of gift has been submitted and you are personally satisfied
that expertise is available to properly restore the cannon and
provide for its appropriate display, proceed with the acceptance
of the gift. "2^

The formalities for the proffer of gift and acceptance
of the gift, pertaining to the restoration of the cannon and
construction of a secure shelter, were quickly completed.
Then the long and painstaking task of restoring the can-
non began. The cannon was moved from the secured room
in the base motor pool to a horse stall in the old veterinary
stable where water, drainage and good light made for bet-
ter working conditions. A few months later, the onset of
a severe Wyoming winter required the cannon to be moved
again to a heated working area, this time to the Elbe Arms
shop in Cheyenne. Thdre Bresnahan spent more than 3,000
hours during the next four years restoring the cannon. Six
different colors of paint were encountered— white, black,
orange, gray, silver and green— and some of the colors had
been applied several times to the cannon during the
previous 424 years. Bresnahan estimated that there were
35-40 coats of paint on the piece. ^^

Two concerns of all preservationists restoring ancient
bronze pieces are (1) the extent of surface corrosion and
bronze disease that might appear when many layers of
paint are removed, and (2) saving the surface patina. After
many tests and calls to other arms restorers, several kinds
of chemicals and paint removers were used successfully
by Bresnahan. There were some easy areas where ancient
coats of paint came away as expected, but there were also
hundreds of hours spent with a dental pick, Q tips and
magnifying glass removing paint. When the restoration
was completed in 1985, basic bronze with a good patina
showed over most of the cannon surface. A few spots re-
tained a smattering of paint on small surfaces that had
granulated. Sand blasting or grinding, anathema to most
arms restorationists, would have been required to remove
these remaining traces. They were better left alone.

A handsome red brick and plate glass shelter with
shake shingle roof and concrete base, built by the Reserve
Naval Construction Force of the Naval Reserve Center of
Cheyenne, housed the cannon at the dedication on Sep-
tember 7, 1985. Now securely protected from the ravages
of Wyoming weather and small children, the Falcon rests
on a wooden gun carriage constructed by the 90th Civil
Engineering Squadron's carpenter shops. The carriage is

modeled after the English fortress canrion carriages of the
16th century. Located near the flagpole and bells in Trophy
Park as before, a vastly improved presentation is offered
of this noble war trophy.

As chairman of the "Save the Cannon" committee.
General Scott presided over a proper dedication ceremony
for the newly-constructed shelter and the restored Falcon
cannon. At the conclusion of the ceremony. Colonel Arlen
D. Jameson, commander of the 90th Strategic Missile Wing,
accepted the keys to the shelter.^* The Falcon cannon
looked very comfortable and right in its new setting, like
it might be good for another 424 years. An earlier
newspaper article caption had used words most ap-
propriate: "After n Years, Warren Cannon Now Has
Respect."^'

1. William Addleman Ganoe, History of the United States Army (New York:
D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1942), p. 47.

2. Principal soiirces for the Balangiga Massacre and the retaking of the
village were obtained from Captain Bookmiller's report, October 1,
1901, of the Balangiga action of September 28, 1901, found in the
records of the Adjutant General's Office, National Archives. A copy
in author's files.

3. United States Congress, House, Annual Reports of the War Department
for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1902, Vol DC, 57th Congress, 2d Ses-
sion, 1902, p. 609.

4. Captain F. L. Palmer's report of the statements of survivors of the
Balangiga Massacre obtained from records of the Adjutant General's
Office, National Archives. Mention is made by several survivors of
Private Qaude C. Wingo's brave actions and good leadership qualities.
He retrieved the flag at Balangiga and offered to stay behind if there
wasn't room for everyone in the barotos to leave and escape certain
death. His baroto was seen to sink in the Gulf by one of the survivors
in another baroto. A letter from the War Department to the Honorable
W. C. Adamson, House of Representatives, dated December 20, 1905,
returned a letter of Dr. J. Claude Wingo of Rock Springs, Wyoming,
father of Claude C. Wingo. Dr. Wingo had requested a copy of the
report of the massacre at Balangiga. Five years later, another letter
from the War Department to the Honorable W. C. Adamson, January
6, 1910, revealed that Dr. J. Claude Wingo, Clarendon, Kansas, still
sought a copy of the report of the massacre that cost his son his life.
Extracts of Palmer's report in author's files.

5. Actions taken following the Balangiga Massacre are found in "Final
Report of Brig. Gen. Robert P. Hughes, U.S. Army, Corrmianding
the Department of the Visayas," United States Congress, Annual
Reports of the War Department, Vol. DC, 57th Congress, 2d Session, 1902,
pp. 593-638.

6. "Report of Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston, U.S. Army, Commanding
the Department of the Colorado," United States Congress, House,
Annual Reports of the War Dqjartment, Vol. IX, 57th Congress, 2d Ses-
sion, 1902, pp. 20-29.

7. T. A. Larson, History of Wyoming (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, rev. 1978), p. 317.

8. "Eleventh Arrives," The Wyoming Tribune, March 24, 1904, p. 1.

9. "More Barracks for Fort Russell," Cheyenne Daily Leader, April 15,
1904, p. 6.

10. The fifteen endorsements responding to Lieutenant Paul M.
Goodrich's letter of 1910, complaining about the caption over the beUs
at Fort D. A. RusseU, were obtained from the records of the Adjutant
General's Office, National Archives, AGO 1778230 filed with AGO
400401. Copy in author's files.

11. Ibid.

12. "11th Infantry Quickly Follows Artillery to Border," Cheyenne State
Leader, February 25, 1913, p. 1.

13. Memo from Irvformation Services Officer Captain Arthur LaCroix to
Air Base Group Commander, F. E. Warren AFB, March 28, 1957, Sub-
ject: Historical Objects at Warren. On file in the Real Property Manage-
ment Office, 90th Civil Engineering Squadron, F. E. Warren AFB.

14. Letter to Coirunander, 3450th Techrvical Training Wing, F. E. War-
ren AFB, January 28, 1958, from Mr. W. T. T. Ward, Historian, Thir-
teenth Air Force, in the Philippines. On file in the Real Property Man-
agement Office, 90th Civil Engineering Squadron, F. E. Warren AFB.

15. Letter to Headquarters Strategic Air Command (Mr. Stark) from
Department of the Air Force Historic Preservation Officer, Ms. Joan
Scott, March 16, 1982, Subject; Historic Preservation— Philippine Mis-
sion Bells. On file in the Real Property Management Office, 90th Civil
Engineering Squadron, F. E. Warren AFB.

16. Letter from Mr. Mac Weller, firearms consultant, Princeton, New
Jersey, January 17, 1957, Subject: Weapons at Francis E. Warren AFB,
Wyoming. On file in the Real Property Management Office, 90th Civil
Engineering Squadron, F. E. Warren AFB.

17. Letter to Mr. Chips Ward, Command Historian, Headquarters Thir-
teenth Air Force from Faculty House at Ateneo de Manila, Marula,
P.I., H. de la Costa, S.J., Department of History, November 25, 1957.
Father de la Costa declared that bells with Franciscan emblems prop-
erly belonged to the Franciscan order. He also informed Mr. Ward
where the bells could be delivered in the Philippines.

18. Letter of inquiry to Commanding General, Frances E. Warren AFB
from Colonel William Alexander, USA(Ret), October 18, 1963.

19. Letter to Post Museum, F. E. Warren AFB, from Colonel William Alex-
ander, USA(Ret), August 2, 1968. Colonel Alexander wrote that his
father knew the cannon had been cast during the reign of "Bloody
Mary" and suggested the Museum write to England for more
information.

20. William E. Woodbridge, Jr., "A Tudor Cannon at Warren Air Force
Base," Annals of Wyoming, 52 (Spring 1980): 22-24.

21. Letter from H. L. Blackmore, Deputy Master of the Armouries, H.
M. Tower of London, July 2, 1979. Copy in author's files.

22. Kerry Drake, "After 77 Years, Warren Cannon Now Has Respect,"
Tribune-Eagle, April 19, 1981, p. 1; Kerry Drake, "Task Force to Save
Carmon Formed," Tribune-Eagle, April 26, 1981, p. 2; Kerry Drake,
"It's Here to Stay— Warren AFB Caimon Gets Face Lift," SunDAY
Magazine of the Wyoming Sunday Tribune-Eagle, November, 1981,
p. 3; "Carmon Restoration (photo)," Tribune-Eagle, June 20, 1982.

23. "Task Force to Save Caimon Formed," Tribune-Eagle, April 26, 1981,
p. 2.

24. Gerald Adams, "Military Retirees Consider Cheyeime More Popular
Now," Tribune-Eagle, August 23, 1981, p. 20.

25. Letter to Headquarters Sfrategic Air Command from Commander,
90th Sfrategic Missile Wing, April 23, 1981, Subject: Warren Falcon
Cannon.

26. Letter to Coiimiander, 90th Sfrategic Missile Wing from Headquarters
Sfrategic Air Command, June 11, 1981, Subject: Falcon Cannon.

27. Conversation with Jerry Bresnahan at Elbe Arms in Cheyerme, August
19, 1986.

28. Kerry Drake, "Tudor Cannon Dedicated at Warren Air Force Base,"
Tribune-Eagle, September 8, 1985, p. 3.

29. Kerry Drake, "After 77 Years, Warren Cannon Now Has Respect,"
Tribune-Eagle, April 19, 1981, p. 1.

THE HISTORY OF VOLUNTEERING
IN WYOMING

by Hugh Jackson

"^ government might perform the part of
some of the largest American companies,
. . . and several states . . . have already-
attempted it; but what political power could
ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser
undertakings which the American citizens
perform every day, with the assistance of the
principle of association?"^

Indeed, wherever one turns in the Uruted States, there
is an association of some sort. Volunteering, be it money
or time, is an integral aspect of American society. From
charities to civic groups, literary clubs to neo-Nazi
organizations, the voluntary sector has entrenched itself
in our lives in much the same way as have the sectors of
business and government. It is the third sector, and there
are very few, if any, of us who are not connected with it
in some manner. This seems obvious enough today, as we
are bombarded with television commercials and "junk" mail
soliciting support for a multitude of non-profit, non-
governmental causes. But America has always had a strong
penchant for volunteering. The lines quoted were writ-
ten by the French observer, Alexis de TocquevUle, 150
years ago.

People volunteer for various reasons. In Tocqueville's
time, volunteering, while taking many forms, was most
often associated with the philanthropic efforts of the upper
class, efforts aimed toward moral and cultural indoctrina-
tion as much as alleviating undesirable conditions. With
more leisure time and the advance in material conditions,
communications and other factors, middle and lower
stratas of society have gained the time, the inclination and
the administrative and technical skills to volunteer
themselves. Today, as in the 1830s, people join together
in accordance with their own needs as well as the needs
of others. Charities and charitable giving have expanded
greatly, but so has volunteering by people who are im-
mediately interested in their own problems. The banker
may send $500 to the American Cancer Society and also
be a member of his industry's legislative lobbying group.
The waitress may send $5 to the American Cancer Society
and also be a member of a neighborhood group attempt-
ing to get a street paved. While they have widely divergent
resources or immediate goals, both recognize the benefits
of volunteering and association. Whether their motives are
self-serving or grounded in a benevolent concern for a
cause, both the banker and the waitress are the inheritors
of an American cultural phenomenon that states: if we
want something done, we must do it ourselves.

Wyoming, like the rest of the nation, has had a strong
spirit of volunteerism. Like people throughout the nation,
volunteers in Wyoming have gathered for a veritable
plethora of reasons, as evidenced by these passages from
a letter by Mrs. Nellis E. CortheU, wife of a Laramie at-
torney, describing the first meeting of the Laramie
Woman's Club in 1898:

We began business with 135 charter members— then we hired
a hall .... But what a crudity in ideas and of opinions and aims.
Some came to embroider, some to read Schopenhauer . . . one
group of women was for making war on the trusts, another
wanted to banish the tin cans from the suburbs of Laramie. We
had a dear old lady in our midst who had not kith or kin or
home, so we started in to build an old lady's home around her

Volunteering, associating, can mean many things to many
people. The diversification of volunteerism is even more

astonishing when one considers that the concerns ex-
pressed, from intellectual endeavors to national politics,
came not from an eastern or even a midwestern city, but
from the scarcely populated Wyoming of 1898.

At the same time, Wyoming was and remains, unique
to the rest of the nation. Wyoming's resources, geography,
climate, all worked to forge a distinct economy, attracting
few yet particular types of people and establishing a clearly
identifiable cultural heritage. The shape taken by volun-
tary associations in Wyoming has been dictated by those
tangible factors, such as the economy. Voluntary as-
sociations in the state have also been an expression of Wyo-
ming culture. As the history of Wyoming differs from that
of other states, so does the history of volunteerism within
the state.

The preeminent figures in the settlement of Wyoming
are those of the cattleman and his employee, the cowboy.
Associated with rugged individualism, independence and
hard work, the cattle cultiire was the progenitor of the
Wyoming image. Though Wyoming was a backwater of
sorts, a frontier, the image was quite in keeping with the
19th century liberal spirit as might be found in England
or New York City: success or failure is wholly dependent
on individual merit or the lack thereof, the best govern-
ment is the least government and property is sacrosanct.
In a society ever more industrialized and urbanized, where
the individual seems to count for less and less, it is little
wonder that Wyomingites cling to the cowboy in\age of
independence and self-reliance. Wyomingites proudly call
their home the "Cowboy State," and they seem to agree
overwhelmingly that theirs, with the bucking horse and
rider, are the most distinct yet representative license plates
in the union. ^

When the cattlemen settled in Wyoming, they brought
the principle of association with them. There were no fire
departments, but there were still fires, and people faced
the choice of banding together or watching property bum.
Labor intensive processes such as branding and putting
up hay also required neighborly cooperation and a spirit
of self-help. But, probably the first formally organized
voluntary associations were those which would succeed
or fail in varying degrees and finally emerge as the Wyo-
ming Stock Growers Association.

The Wyoming Stock and Wool Growers Association
organized in Laramie, 1871. After changing its name to the
Wyoming Stock Graziers Association and electing the ter-
ritorial governor, John A. Campbell, as its president, the
stockmen went to the Legislature, requesting and receiv-
ing the enactment of stiff penalties for stealing livestock.'*
Although the extremely harsh winter of 1871-1872 wiped
out stock, stockmen and the Association, this early group
helped establish the close relationship the agricultural in-
dustry would share with state political power.

A new group, the Laramie County Stock Growers
Association, formed in Cheyenne, 1873. Introducing
cooperative roundups in an effort to curb cattle theft on

Stock Growers Convention in 1914.

the open, unguarded range, the Laramie County Associa-
tion evolved into the Wyoming Stock Growers Associa-
tion (WSGA) in 1879.5 1^ the boom period 1880-1887, the
WSGA expanded its interests to include freight rates,
brand inspection, disease prevention relative to cattle and
various questions concerning the use and purchase of
public lands.' In addition, the WSGA pushed the Maverick
Law through the territorial Legislature, allowing the
Association to decide who would receive unbranded cat-
tle found in official state roundups.^

With the Maverick Law, it would seem the WSGA was
having nothing but success in terms of protecting its in-
terests. After all, the cattle industry was the most well-
represented in the Legislature.* But apparently the enact-
ment and enforcement of laws in the territory were al-
together different things, for cattlemen felt compelled to
instigate the Johnson County War in 1892. Not an official
act of the WSGA, the cattlemen's invasion of Johnson
County to arrest rustlers, and the subsequent surrounding
of the invaders by Johnson County settlers had at least
imofficial support from the Association. As John Qay, then
president of the Association but in Europe at the time, later
wrote, "I was innocent as an unborn babe," but adds,
"some of my associates were in it tooth and nail."'

The Johnson County War has been fought again and
again in history books and Hollywood movies, the attach-
ment of sympathy and blame differing from version to ver-
sion. But assuming that the cattlemen's motives were

honorable, that the settlers were in alliance with rustlers,
the invasion was still illegal. Moreover, it marked a funda-
mental misconception on the part of the cattle culture men-
tality, ably expressed in the WSGA's official history:
The invasion failed because the cattlemen did not perceive that
vigilante days in Wyoming were over, that a blood purge would
not accomplish a moral reform. They sadly misjudged popular
sentiment; apparently they had no idea that Settlers had so
many on their side, or that the invasion would arouse such swift
and spirited resistance. They did not recognize the "rhythm of
change" that was at that time affecting the whole country . . .
historians have come to call this period the "Watershed of the
Nineties." On one side of the watershed lay pioneer America.
On the other side was the beginning of the modern era.'"

Time has healed the wounds of the Johnson County War.
But the war symbolizes a problem which the WSGA, in-
deed, much of Wyoming, has had to deal with since. The
"modem era" required the further expansion and centraliza-
tion of government and even the sacrifice of individual
liberty in the face of a larger public good. Laissez-faire
liberalism of the 19th century, passionately embraced by
ranchers, proved inadequate in meeting the political and
economic needs of the rest of Wyoming's population. The
resulting conflict in views of liberty has made it increas-
ingly difficult for a spirit of self-reliance, of independence,
in short, the Wyoming spirit, to be sustained.

While not its stated aim, the WSGA has been at the
forefront of maintaining the much-vaunted image of in-
dependence in Wyoming. True to the 19th century

liberalism which served as the philosophical framework for
the cattle culture, government presence in Wyoming is con-
sistently referred to as government intrusion. For instance,
the 1943 expansion of Grand Teton National Park was, in
the eyes of the Association, no less than a "seizure" of
private property. ^^ Regardless of the subsequent value of
the Park, in terms of both aesthetics and tourist dollars,
the WSGA's opposition is somewhat understandable since
over one-half of Wyoming was already owned by the
federal government at the time, and the creation of the Park
in 1929 was thought to be the last of Wyoming land set
aside for that purpose. ^^

Less understandable, and even distressing, was the
WSGA's continued opposition to a mineral severance tax.
Of course, taxation in general is a violation of the tradi-
tional free enterprise philosophy so prevalent in the
Wyoirung image. But considering the millions or even
billions of dollars diverted from state revenue between
statehood in 1890 and the adoption of a mineral severance
tax in 1969, WSGA opposition seems to be little more than
the expression of an outdated ideology, the type of anach-
ronistic thinking which led to the Johnson County War.

While the Wyoming Stock Grower's Association may
continue to espouse and attempt to preserve the indepen-
dent "cowboy state" ideology, its volunteerism has taken
many forms. The WSGA has donated vast historical re-
sources to the state archives and to the University of
Wyoming. This generosity, however, does not detract from
the fact that the Association represents primarily a self-
interested form of volunteering, its first order of business
being the health and development of the cattle industry
in Wyoming. The organization's success in its primary goal
has been clear, and its impact on the state of Wyoming,
whether through the Legislature or as custodian of the
Wyoming image, has been greater than that of any other
voluntary organization in the state.

A more innocuous, if less important manifestation of
the cattle culture meeting volunteerism, can be found in
the annual summer celebrations held in nearly every Wyo-
ming towTi. These celebrations, marked by parades, rodeos,
contests and other forms of entertainment, are not only
a source of revenue for local economies, but also serve as
an expression of civic pride. They are usually organized
by a committee of volunteers in cooperation with local
government and business and they invariably operate
under a Western theme: Pioneer Days, Woodchoppers'
Jamboree, Cowboy Days, Jubilee Days (a celebration of
statehood), or, the most famous and successful in the state
if not all of the West, Cheyenne Frontier Days.

Frontier Days began in 1897. Then, as now, it was
planned by the Frontier Days Committee of the Chamber
of Commerce, an all-volunteer group which has assured
that the celebration has never missed a year since its in-
ception. In addition, the townspeople in general give
voluntary support through everything from dressing in
Western garb to restoring wagons for the parade. Proceeds

from the rodeo and other events have gone toward the
creation and maintenance of the parks system in Chey-
enne. Moreover, Frontier Days brings thousands of visi-
tors to Cheyenne each summer, providing profits for
hotels, restaurants, bars, retail stores and other businesses.
The prestige of "The Daddy of 'Em All" has attracted
opera, stage and movie personalities, journalists from
around the nation, and, once as President and later as Ex-
President, Theodore Roosevelt. Frontier Days has also
played host to visitors from around the world, including
a 1962 United Nations delegation representing 30 countries.

Colonel E. A. Slack, in reference to the celebration he
helped to found, stated: "It is simply remarkable that the
entire affair is managed by local talent."" This remark
seems as relevant today as when it was said in 1903. In-
deed, the unqualified success of Cheyenne Frontier Days,
as well as smaller yet similar celebrations throughout the
state, suggests that the "cowboy spirit" in Wyoming is quite
amenable to the spirit of volunteering.

To be sure, Wyoming is most often nicknamed the
Cowboy State. Yet the nickname as acknowledged on the
state seal recognizes the state as the first to allow women's
suffrage. The very first Legislature of the Wyoming Ter-
ritory, 1869, allowed women over the age of 21 and residing
in Wyoming the right to vote and hold elective office.
Women's suffrage was retained in the state constitutional
convention of 1889, and Wyoming has since been offici-
ally nicknamed "The Equality State."

Esther H. Morris, the "first woman judge," served as
Justice of the Peace in South Pass City for eight and one-
half months in 1870. Two months after leaving the bench,
she wrote to the National Woman's Suffrage Association
Convention: "So far as woman's suffrage has progressed
in this territory we are entirely indebted to men."" There
was no women's agitation for suffrage in 1869 or 1889. In
fact, there were hardly women, the man to woman ratio
in those years being six to one and three to one, respec-
tively. It would seem, then, that the men of Wyoming were
particularly forward-looking and enlightened relative to the
rest of the country. Certainly there were men who sup-
ported suffrage as an egalitarian cause. But the granting
of women's suffrage in Wyoming was, more than anything
else, part of an effort to remedy Wyoming's perennial prob-
lem of attracting population. As Wyoming's senior his-
torian, T. A. Larson, concludes: "Without the public rela-
tions angle, Wyoming's first legislature almost certairJy
would not have approved the suffrage biU.''^^

If any women decided to settle in Wyoming hoping
to enjoy equal rights, and there is no evidence to suggest
any did, they would soon have met with frustration, for
Wyoming remained a man's world. Women's role in the
rest of American society was an expanding one, the Civil
War eventually affording them an opportunity to make
contributions to the economy and to support the nation
in other areas. Wyoming's symbolic offer of suffrage was
simply not enough to draw women away from more pop-

ulated regions, and the practical reality was even less in-
viting; women's political influence and representation ac-
tually lagged behind that of the surrounding states of Col-
orado, Idaho and Utah."' The women of Wyoming did not
yet seem interested in fighting for political power. For
many, volunteering was an active, acceptable and sufficient
manner in which to affect their environment and be heard.

The Woman's Club of Cheyenne organized in 1894,
with only five charter members. The Club was abundant
in public spirit, sponsoring numerous fund-raising cam-
paigns and even furnishing the maternity room at the
County Hospital.'^ In 1903, Mrs. William Guiterman of the
Cheyenne Club became interested in the advantages of col-
lective action. In 1904, the Wyoming Federation of
Women's Clubs held its first meeting in the Cheyenne
Carnegie Library with delegates of fifteen clubs from
around the state in attendance.**

The Wyoming of the early 20th century did not easily
lend itself to a statewide voluntary organization. Towns
were few and far between, and travel, if not wholly im-
possible in winter, was difficult at best. The executive of-
ficers of the Federation of Women's Clubs could rarely
meet more than once a year, and delegates to the state con-
vention weathered what were often arduous, expensive
and time-consuming journeys." No doubt the Stock Grow-
ers Association faced a similar predicament, particularly
before 1900 when transportation and communications were
even less developed. But the ranchers organized out of self-
interest and viewed their Association as an economic and

political necessity. The Wyoming Federation of Women's
Clubs, on the other hand, organized out of beneficence and
civic responsibility. Overcoming the challenges posed by
a rustic environment frequently involved sacrifice. In this
light, the early achievements of the WFWC are aU the more
admirable.

A popular conception of women's clubs was expressed,
rather condescendingly, by a Glendo, Wyoming, man
answering his granddaughter's inquiry as to Grandma's
whereabouts: "She is at club. The ladies today, are to
decide whether to make the pot holders round or square."^"
Granted, women's clubs often discussed "ladies" concerns
about food preparation, sewing and cleaning. And the
WFWC had a Home Economics Division under a Depart-
ment of Applied Education. This Department, as outlined
in the President's Annual Address to the WFWC in 1921,
"has four subdivisions: Food, Clothing, County Coopera-
tion and Thrift. The conservation of natural resources has
also had a place on our programs and Wyoming wiU always
on account of her vast forests and national parks be greatly
interested in this division. Under this head comes Forestry,
Waterways, Bird and Natural Life."^* There is no mention
of pot holders, round or square and Grandpa's remark ex-
presses ignorance as much as levity.

In addition to the Department of Applied Education,
the WFWC had Departments of American Citizenship,
Fine Arts, Press, Public Welfare and Legislation. The Fed-
eration's success under these six departments were
substantial and, compared to any number of men's associa-

The Owls, a

Newcastle Women's

Club, 1907.

tions of the same period, far more important to Wyoming's
long-term development.

A notable interest of the WFWC was higher education.
Internally, the Federation established an endowment fund
to provide scholarships for women. Externally, it advocated
a women's residence hall and the creation of a Domestic
Science Department at the University of Wyoming.

Believing that "the greatest gift to any state is its boys
and girls ... so what better work could we enlist in,"^^
the Federation petitioned the Legislature for a reformatory
for boys. In 1911, the petition was answered with alloca-
tion of state funds for the Wyoming Industrial Institute.
The WFWC maintained an active concern for conditions
at the Institute, staunchly advocating continued Legislative
funding and generally receiving the same.^^ Comparable
success with the Legislature resulted from a WFWC cam-
paign for a constitutional amendment which established
the state juvenile court system. ^^

During World War I, the Federation joined with the
rest of the nation to aid the war effort through promoting
the purchase of Liberty Bonds, focusing attention on bet-
tering conditions in army camps, supporting education in
food production and conservation and establishing furlough
homes for American soldiers in France. Similar goals were
undertaken in World War II, including the organization
of USO centers and scrap metal campaigns. ^^

A major WFWC accomplishment was to firm the foun-
dation for the organization and preservation of historical
material in the state. In attempting to remove the political
patronage associated with the office of State Historian, as
weU as create a more harmonious relationship between the
state and the university in regard to preservation of
historical resources, the Federation immersed itself in
political controversy. Controversy ended in compromise,
and, much to the chagrin of the Federation, the State
Historian would continue to be appointed by the gover-
nor. But the system for preservation and organization of
state archives was enlarged and improved (with support
of the Stock Growers Association, it should be added), and
the Federation's efforts met with at least qualified success.^*

With their support of women's education or the boys'
reformatory, the Women's Clubs voiced concerns which
may have gone unheard. At the same time, issues raised
by the Clubs were often little more than echoes of a na-
tional mood. For instance, in the early 20th century, the
Federation advocated Prohibition, embraced the movement
for higher morality in motion pictures and was an integral
force in the Americanization of immigrants. But whether
introducing ideas or restating fashionable ones, the role
of the WFWC has been vital to the history of volunteerism
in Wyonung. If the Federation is not as active today as it
once was, it is perhaps due to the changing economic
climate in America which has placed women in the work
force and left them little time for volunteering. But that is
a problem of the present and not the past.

What is clear about the past is that Wyoming women

were eager volunteers. It is true that some volunteered out
of the boredom that must have accompanied the Wyoming
frontier. As one woman reminisced: "We really pioneered
for several years, living first in a tar paper shack ....
Within a year ... I had become a member of the Tues-
day Study Club (of Lingle) .... Membership in this small
club was all that kept me from rusticating completely. "2''
Certainly the clubs were fun, offering recreation and relief
in the place of day-to-day drudgery. But the Federation's
achievements represent an expression of altruism and civic
pride on the part of most Federation members. The volun-
tary spirit of Wyonung women is perhaps best expressed
by an outsider, a regional director of the League of Women
Voters in Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Iowa and Min-
nesota: "I really feel more in touch with the women of
Wyoming through these splendid club reports than I do
with any of my other states . . . ."^^

To be sure, the people of Wyoming take pride in their
heritage as residents of the Equality State. It is similar, if
less pronounced, to the affection they hold for the Cowboy
State theme. Equally significant to the state's development
is Wyoming's ethnic heritage. Yet that aspect of Wyo-
ming's cultiiral identification is less apparent, and perhaps
invisible. For some of the groups who came to Wyoming
early and in large numbers— Eastern Europeans, Germans,
Greeks, Italians or Irish— have since become fully as-
similated into American society. The passage of time,
periodically aided by the nationalism of World Wars and
Red Scares, has removed many descendants of these groups
from their European backgrounds, interest in foreign
languages or cultures dying among successive generations.
Such was not always the case. Early Wyoming im-
migrants, while desirous of success in the American system
for themselves and for their children, also felt the ties to
their original lands:

If persons are differentiated by color or complexion, language,
or any other means, they need to feel a part of something
which is uniquely their own. Foreign-born residents in an area
where they are called upon to interact on a daily basis with per-
sons of different backgrounds feel the need for establishing
themselves as something special in a foreign land.^'

Immigrants expressed these feelings through retaining
traditional foods, language, music or art and religion. The
"need to feel a part of something which is uniquely their
own" also led to the establishment of voluntary ethnic
organizations.

Ethnic groups in the state of any substantial popula-
tion organized in one or another form. The Maennerchor
Society, a German men's singing group in Laramie from
about 1880 to the early 1900s, the Dante Alighieri Society,
formed by Sunrise-Hartville Italians in 1906, the American
Hellenic Education Progressive Association and the Greek
American Progressive Association, plus the Swedish Be-
nevolence Society of Cheyenne were only a few of the
many organizations, some still in existence, which were
concerned with mutual aid and cultural preservation. One
of the most popular and active of these was the German

Turnverein Society of Cheyenne. Mention in the Cheyenne
Daily Leader newspaper in 1868 of a Turnverein ball
establishes it as one of the earliest as well.^"

The Turnverein Society built its own hall in Cheyenne
in 1891. It was large, and the community in general as well
as the Society made use of it. Formally opening with a
classical concert by the New York Philharmonic Club, the
hall hosted social events, church bazaars, balls, political
rallies, prize fights, theatricals and weekly Turnverein
meetings for nearly twenty years. ^^ While the Society's
basic goal was the preservation and continuance of Ger-
man culture, it proved to be a valuable asset to many
Cheyenne citizens. With later generations, interest in
things German declined, along with membership in the
Society, and the hall was sold. Not surprisingly. World
War 1 rendered German culture decidedly out of vogue and
the Society disbanded.

If the Stock Growers Association represents volunteer-
ing for self-Lnterest, and the Federation of Women's Clubs
for beneficence, then the ethnic organizations represent
both. Like the WFWC, the ethnic societies were often in-
volved in community service. Like the WSGA, the ethnic
societies were formed to preserve a way of life and work
for the betterment of a homogeneous group sharing
similar, often identical interests. The cattlemen joined for
economic and cultural survival, as did the ethnics. The
Stock Growers Association is a moderate success by any
standards. Relative to such groups as the Turnverein So-
ciety, the WSGA success is unqualified. To be sure, Wyo-
ming is the Cowboy State, not Little Germany or Little
Italy. Perhaps societies like the Turnverein simply could
not outlive their usefulness. On the other hand, there are
still cowboys in Wyoming, as there are still people who
take pride in and celebrate their ethnic backgrounds, and
the two groups are not mutually exclusive. That one type
of association has outgrown and survived the other is testa-
ment to the fact that the history of volunteering in Wyo-
ming is integrally linked to the broader story of Wyom-
ing's cultural development.

It may come as something of a surprise, then, that
there have been voluntary organizations in the state which,
far from representing traditional perceptions of Wyoming,
seem indigenous to other, more "civilized" areas. Few
people nationwide, or in the state for that matter, might
expect the cradle of American individualism and the do-
it-yourself attitude to have actively supported orphanages.
Perhaps fewer still would guess that the home of Frontier
Days long has been charmed by the presence of a local
theatre group or a literary society. While none may have
gone as far as Nellis Corthell, who routinely painted out
the cowboy on his license plate each year,'^ many people
throughout Wyoming's history were far more concerned
with creating a productive, enlightened environment than
promoting the cowboy image.

One of those so concerned was Patrick A. McGovern,
Roman Catholic Bishop of Cheyenne. Although the Epis-

copal Cathedral Home in Laramie, dating from 1910, and
the more recently established State Home for Dependent
Children in Cheyenne, offered facilities for homeless
children in the state, McGovern discovered in the early
1920s that 77 Wyoming children were being sheltered in
three Denver orphanages. Apparently of the mind that
Wyoming children should be cared for within Wyoming,
McGovern set the wheels in motion for the creation of an
orphanage in the state. In 1924, at a price so low it
amounted to a gift, a 93 acre farm was acquired near Tor-
rington. Between 1925 and 1928, the state was canvassed
and $175,000 raised. Ground was broken in the spring of
1929, and St. Joseph's Children's Home opened on Sep-
tember 1, 1930.33

The year 1930 was singular for the opening of an or-
phanage. Father John Henry, the first superintendent at
St. Joseph's, concisely and accurately noted the effects of
the Depression, writing: "When our income decreases our
enrollment increases. "3'' Yet during the 1930s, St. Joseph's
added a barn and other outbuildings, pavement and side-
walks, landscaping to remove the "penitentiary" look of
the building and a chapel. While these additions left the
institution substantially in debt, the amount owed had
been reduced to $10,000 by 1944, 3^ suggesting not only ef-
ficient administration on the part of the orphanage, but
generous giving on the part of Wyoming donors.

While St. Joseph's was open to children of all denom-
inations, it was run by Catholics. Torrington had only a
small population of Catholics, and many local residents in-
itially viewed the orphanage with skepticism. It did not
take long, however, before the town took pride in St.
Joseph's. The school system cooperated splendidly and
townspeople were quick to befriend the children, as well
as offer part-time employment. The children became very
active in local organizations such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts
and 4-H, the latter with the assistance of area farmers and
ranchers. The annual Christmas pageants staged by the
children were sell-outs. Indeed, the people of Torrington,
it seems, wanted the children "to believe that the world
beyond St. Joseph's would be a friendly and hospitable
place. "3*

Any discussion of St. Joseph's, or Wyoming volun-
teerism in general, would be sorely lacking were no men-
tion made of T. Joe CahiU. A "man with a million friends,"
it seems CahUl solicited funds from all of them for St.
Joseph's. On a more personal level, he was loved by the
children, frequently visiting them or taking them on ex-
cursions, particularly to Frontier Days, another voluntary
effort to which he gave 30 years of dedicated service. Born
in Wyoming in 1877, Cahill loved the state and was a true
inheritor of the cowboy image (he presided over Tom
Horn's hanging, at Horn's request). Yet Cahill, far from
the strong, silent type so often associated with perceptions
of the Cowboy State, was a tireless and vocal supporter
of a benevolent cause. Said Bishop Hubert Newell, at
Cahill' s funeral in 1965: "Wherever its [St. Joseph's] story

Patrick A. McGovem, Roman Catholic
Bishop of Cheyenne, was instrumental
in the founding of St. Joseph 's
Children's Home in Torrington.

is told in the future decades or even a century from now,
the name of T. Joe CahUl will be mentioned with reverence
and love, the children who have benefited through his
generosity will sing his praises to God and man."^'' Those
who view the Cowboy State as simply that and little more
should be surprised to find such words describing a man
who was so frequently referred to as "Mr. Wyoming."

St. Joseph's and Cahill are only two examples of a
cultural diversity in Wyoming that transcends the cowboy
image. Another is the existence of "Broadway in Cow
Country" as represented by the Cheyenne Little Theatre
Players. Inspired by the free theatres of Europe and similar
groups in Chicago, Qeveland, Detroit, Pasadena and other
cities, the Little Theatre Players sought to fill the void left
by road shows which had either gone bankrupt or settled
down in larger cities. Boasting a vaudeviUian-turned-
businessman, a former Redbook cover-girl, an aspiring ac-
tor with experience in motion pictures and active support
from several local volunteer groups, the CLTP presented
its first public performance on May 7, 1930. By 1979, the
CLTP had acquired properties in excess of a half-million
dollars and a reputation as one of the oldest community
theatres in the Uruted States. ^^

The Cheyenne Little Theatre was not the only cultural,
"high-brow" volunteer group in Cheyenne. In 1901, the

Young Men's Literary Club held its first meeting. The Club
was composed of the most prominent men in the com-
munity, if not the state, including former and futtire gover-
nors, senators, congressmen, judges and people of com-
parable importance. In their weekly meetings, these men
would hold lively discussions about the political questions
of the day or deliver papers on academic topics ranging
from Aristotle to Zoroaster. They were also beneficial to
the community in a practical sense, addressing issues such
as public lands use or sewer systems, and donating 40 acres
to a boys' lodge.

The existence of the Little Theatre Players and the
Young Men's Literary Club suggests that Wyoming was
not as backward or culturally destitute as many might
believe. It is only fair to add that both clubs were exclusive,
their membership rosters reading like the Cheyenne social
register. Volunteering in Wyoming, then, often might take
the appearance of a class affair. Even the Federation of
Women's Clubs, ostensibly a benevolent association, fell
under criticism on this point. To be sure, Wyoming, like
the rest of the nation, has had clearly identifiable class Hnes
between, say, the lawyer and the miner. But within a small
population, such as Wyoming's, the interests of lower and
upper class are more frequently intertwined with one
another than might be the case elsewhere:

The Cheyenne Little Theatre Players, 1940, from the play, "Yes and No.

Perhaps we were all the "Babbitts" of Main Street that Sinclair
Lewis ridiculed. He never knew the joys of achievement, the
vicissitudes and happy surprises of life in a small town. To him
had been denied the realization of the compelling activity in-
spired by the golden bonds of friendship that transcend that
of David and Jonathan. There were lost to him the pleasures
of exchanged ideas; lives snatched from defeat to be crowned
in victory; tragedy and sorrow dispelled by happiness as the
strong arm of a powerful and influential Qub member, without
ostentation, grasped the hand of a true and helpless friend."

When Harry B. Henderson delivered these remarks to the
Young Men's Literary Club, he spoke as a "powerful and
influential Club member," not a "helpless friend," and
he may have romanticized or exaggerated the democratic
character of small towns. At the same time, a project where
success or failure is dependent on voluntary effort often
cannot afford to be class exclusive, and Henderson's sen-
timents regarding volunteering in small towns ring at least
partly true.

Lower or upper class, self-serving or benevolent, there
is no doubt that volunteering in Wyoming has been sur-
prisingly diverse and has manifested itself in a multitude
of forms. Those noted here represent only an introduction
to private, non-profit groups and much work remains to
be done. Rotary Clubs and fraternal organizations, such
as the Elks and Kiwanis have a long history in the state,
knowledge of which would very likely be a source of pride
for Wyomingites. The efforts of churches may very well
constitute the largest single voluntary contribution to the
state in an organized sense, and their story should be told

as well. Voluntary support of the University of Wyoming
is a perennial source of both pride and controversy, and
one might ask if any volunteer group has ever been or-
ganized to assist the University in any significant way
beyond the promotion of athletics. An accurate list of all
non-profit, non-governmental associations, clubs and
societies in the state, both past and present, would be a
very long one. Yet the history of each, aside from being
interesting in itself, would say something about the state
in general. The countless occasions of neighbor helping
neighbor, without ever organizing formally, would prob-
ably say more about the people of Wyoming than would
the history of any association, club or society, but that type
of volunteering is rarely documented, hence, difficult to
research and its story may remain untold.

The cowboy image, the equality theme and a smaU
population necessarily produce a type of volunteering in
Wyoming which differs from that of other areas. Other
general themes of Wyoming history remain unaddressed
relative to volunteering. For instance, much of the state's
economic instability is a result of what is often referred to
as economic colonialism, where investment for industry
comes from outside the state and profit from industry
leaves the state. From the Union Pacific Railroad in the
1860s to the oil companies in the 1980s, economic col-
onialism has been a major theme in Wyoming's develop-
ment. How has volunteering been affected when profit
from the minerals industry has left the state? Has
volunteering suffered because a corporation operating in

Wyoming has had its best and brightest working out of
an office in Colorado, Texas or Pennsylvania? Or have cor-
porations in the state given generously to Wyoming volun-
tary enterprises? Similar questions could be asked in the
context of a north-south political split, an inordinate federal
presence or the boom-bust cycle.

Much has been written about politics and economics
in Wyoming. Volunteering, on the other hand, is too often
viewed as the activity of do-gooders, innocuous and of only
minor importance. It is ironic that there has been so little
written about volunteering in a state which prides itself
in its independence, where the much-vaunted image of
self-reliance professes to put faith in people and not
government. Perhaps this is due to overshadowing by
glamorous, romantic tales of rustlers and lawmen, cavalry
and Indians, trappers and entrepreneurs. The history of
volunteering seems pale by comparison. Yet without the
impact of the Stock Growers Association, the benefits
derived from Frontier Days, the Federation of Women's
Clubs or St. Joseph's Children's Home, the cultural con-
tributions of the ethnic societies, the Cheyenne Little
Theatre Players and the Young Men's Literary Club,
Wyoming would be much different, frequently much less,
than what it is.

T. Joe Cahill

1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Random
House, 1981), pp. 405-406.

2. Undated, unaddressed letter from Mrs. Nellis E. Corthell, CortheU
Family Collection, American Heritage Center, Laramie, Wyoming.

3. T. A. Larson, Wyoming, A History (New York: W, W. Norton and Com-
pany, Inc., 1977), pp. 108-142.

4. Ibid., pp. 114-115.

5. Ibid., p. 116.

6. Kathryn Gress, Ninety Years Cow Country (Wyoming Stock Growers
Association, 1963), p. 14.

7. Larson, Wyoming, A History, p. 120.

8. Ibid., p. 128.

9. Maurice Frink, Cou> Country Cavalcade (Denver: Old West Publishing
Co., 1954), p. 140.

10. Ibid., p. 147.

11. Gress, Ninety Years Cow Country, p. 23.

12. Frink, Cow Country Cavalcade, p. 173.

13. Robert D. Hanesworth, Daddy of 'Em All, The Story of Cheyenne Fron-
tier Days (Cheyenne, Wyoming: Flintlock Publishing Company, 1967),
p. 42.

14. Larson, Wyoming, A History, p. 91.

15. Ibid., p. 80.

16. Ibid., p. 103.

17. Mary B. Dahlgren, "Fifty Years Service: History of the Wyoming
Federation of Women's Clubs" (Master of Arts Thesis, Uruversity
of Wyoming, 1956), p. 130.

18. Ibid., p. 2.

19. Ibid., p. 53.

20. Douglas Budget, December 15, 1977.

21. The Wyoming Clubwoman, President's Annual Address, Mrs. Lin I.
Noble, V. 2, no. 9 (October 1921), p. 8.

22. Ibid.

23. Dahlgren, "Fifty Years Service," pp. 70-71.

24. Ibid., p. 73.

25. Ibid., pp. 81-85.

26. Ibid., pp. 75-77.

27. Ibid., p. 53.

28. The Wyoming Clubwoman, v. 1, no. 9 (October 1920), p. 2.

29. Gordon Olaf Hendrickson, ed., Peopling the High Plains, Wyoming's
European Heritage (Cheyerme: Wyoming State Archives and Historical
Department, 1977), p. 180.

30. Cheyenne Daily Leader, April 24, 1868.

31. Hendrickson, Peopling the High Plains, p. 42.

32. Roger L. Williams, Aven Nelson of Wyoming (Boulder: Colorado
Associated University Press, 1984), pp. 19-20.

33. JuUanne Lefevre, For Wyoming's Children, A Half-Century History of St.
Joseph's Children's Home (St. Joseph's Children's Home, 1980), p. 31.

34. Ibid., p. 42.

35. Ibid., p. 44.

36. Ibid., p. 40.

37. Ibid., pp. 55-56.

38. "Broadway in Cow Country," Annals of Wyoming, 52 (Fall 1980): 2-9.

39. Harry B. Henderson, "History of the Young Men's Literary Club,"
MSS 238A, Historical Research and Publications Division, Wyoming
State Archives, Museums and Historical Department, Cheyenne,
Wyoming.

"A Cheyenne Woman in the Robes of a Secret Society," by Leonard Baskin, color lithograph, 1974.
48

AMAZONS, WITCHES

AND

'COUNTRY WIVES':

Plains Indian Women

in
Historical Perspective

Thomas Schilz

and

Jodye Lynn Dickson Schilz

Describing the tribes of the Great Plains for the first
time, American males praised the bravery and self-
confidence of the Indian men while admiring the women
solely for their beauty and grace. Often long deprived of
female companionship, such White men ignored these
women's skill and courage, preferring instead to concen-
trate on, as William Clark put it, their amorous disposi-
tions. ^ Standards of beauty even determined how Indian
women were categorized, either as comely "maidens" or
plain "squaws." Indian males reiriforced White ideas of
masculine superiority on the plains by their frequently
abusive treatment of their wives. As a result, many White
observers regarded Native American women as the virtual
slaves of their male masters. ^ Yet Plains Indian women en-
joyed a much broader and more complex role in tribal
society than most of these Whites could have imagined
given their ideas as to "a woman's place." Native
American women, on the whole, enjoyed greater economic
and social freedom than their White contemporaries. Even
more importantly, Indian women often engaged in occupa-
tions usually reserved for men, and, with an attitude lack-
ing in most White males, their Indian counterparts often
openly encouraged and supported those females within
their tribe who took on roles of leadership.

Women provided important economic services in the
tribal community, making clothing, tipi covers and tools
as well as butchering and preserving meat plus dressing
hides and pelts. Their performance of such tasks gave
casual White observers the impression that Indian women
were confined solely to roles as domestic servants, but such
was not generally the case. In many instances. Plains In-
dian women possessed the sole right to dispose of the
hides, snowshoes, goosedown blankets, moccasins, agri-
cultural products and other goods that they produced.^
Through these means women became active entrepreneurs
who exercised a great deal of control over the distribution
of trade goods. In most tribes, women possessed their own
personal property such as tipis, horses and assorted
household items. While it is true that a man could cut off
his wife's nose or beat her for adultery, she could divorce
him by simply throwing his goods out of her lodge, and,
if necessary, she could even kill him.

Indian societies were dynamic systems that allowed an
individual to seek self -fulfillment. Custom defined specific
roles for the sexes, as it does in all societies, but individuals
of both sexes could satisfy themselves by participating in
nontraditional activities without fear of social censure. ■* In-
dian women often engaged in three occupations generally
reserved for men: as warriors, shamans and diplomats. In
these areas, individual women excelled and were fre-
quently mentioned by White observers not so much be-
cause of their uniqueness in Indian culture, perhaps, but
rather because such roles were denied to White females.

The number of women among Plains tribes who served
as warriors is unknown. Warriors were deemed successful
because they had special spiritual power, or medicine.

Generally speaking, this power was acquired through vi-
sions. Women did not as a rule seek visions, but if they did,
their power was considered as potent as a man's medicine.

In critical situations where the survival of a band was
at stake, women normally fought alongside men. In one
notable instance, Old-Lady-Grieves-the-Enemy, a Pawnee,
defended her village when it was attacked by Poncas.^
Pawnee men, seeing themselves outnumbered and believing
the Poncas intended to burn the village, resigned them-
selves to their fate and cowered in their lodges. Old-Lady-
Grieves-the-Enemy, however, smeared soot on her face as
war paint and sallied forth to face the Poncas on her own.
Aroused by her bravery, the men followed suit and de-
feated the enemy. Years afterward, when warriors from
both tribes reviewed this battle, the Poncas praised the
courage of the old man who had defeated them, and were
astonished to discover that the warrior had been a woman.

Several women became warriors out of choice rather
than necessity. Perhaps the best known of these was a
Crow called Woman Chief. A Gros Ventre by birth.
Woman Chief had been captured in a raid at about the age
of ten and was reared as a Crow. Her foster father en-
couraged her desire to assume a warrior role and gave her
weapons and horses. Upon his death, she began providing
meat for his household. Described as a tall and muscular
woman. Woman Chief wore traditional female clothing but
possessed her own lodge, horse herd and weapons. She
preferred to hunt rather than to engage in domestic pur-
suits.'■ Unlike some other women who became warriors.
Woman Chief never married because she refused to subor-
dinate herself to a husband. She became the third rank-
ing chief among the Crows and acquired four "wives,"
or female servants, who took care of her belongings.

Woman Chief acquired her status as a warrior during
a battle with the Blackfeet. In this encounter, several Crow
men were killed and the remaining warriors, with their
women and children, took refuge in the stockade of a
trader's fort. Refusing to run away from the Blackfeet,
Woman Chief rode out alone to face the enemy. She shot
and killed three Blackfeet who came forward to parley with
her and escaped unharmed from the remaining Blackfeet.''

Woman Chief quickly became an important war leader
and collected a number of followers. Her medicine was
regarded as especially strong, and male warriors eagerly
joined her raiding parties because they were always suc-
cessful. On her first raid, she captured 70 horses from a
Blackfeet camp and killed one of the enemy.* Following
the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1851, a Gros Ventre war party
ambushed and killed her.

Other women also adopted the lifestyle of warriors.
Two Crow women, The-Other-Magpie and Finds-Them-
and-Kills-Them, took part in the Battle of the Rosebud in
1876. A military column under General George Crook,
searching for Indians led by Crazy Horse and Dull Knife,
encountered a large war party of Sioux and Cheyennes
under Crazy Horse on Rosebud Creek in Wyoming. Sev-

"Dance of the Mandan Women," by Carl Bodmer, engraving, c. 1840.

eral Crows, including the two women warriors, accompanied
the White soldiers as scouts. During the course of the bat-
tle, The-Other-Magpie counted coup on a Sioux warrior
while Finds-Them-and-KUls-Them shot several of the
enemy using a borrowed rifle. Finds-Them-and-Kills-Them
also rescued a Crow warrior whose horse had been killed.'

Several women fought on the other side in the Battle
of the Rosebud. Buffalo Calf Road Woman, a sister of the
Cheyerme Chief Comes-in-Sight, followed her brother into
battle and participated in several Cheyenne charges against
Crook's troops. When Comes-in-Sight's horse was shot,
Buffalo Calf Road Woman rescued him by riding into the
melee and helping him up on her own horse. '" The Chey-
ennes referred to this engagement with Crook's soldiers
as "the battle where the girl saved her brother," in
remembrance of Buffalo Calf Road Woman's deed.

One month later, when General George Custer's
Seventh Cavalry attacked the Sioux-Cheyenne village on

the Little Big Horn, a Sioux woman named Moving Robe
led Gall's warriors into the fight. Carrying the weapons
of her brother, who had been killed in the Battle of the
Rosebud, Moving Robe inspired Sioux men to fight harder
to prevent being outshone by her."

Moving Robe and The-Other-Magpie became warriors
to seek revenge and quiet the dead's spirits who demanded
an eye for an eye. Other women also sought revenge for
relatives slain in battle. Running Eagle, a Piegan, sought
to avenge her husband who had been killed by the Crows.
In her first raid. Running Eagle brought back three Crow
horses. On another occasion, her medicine, which was
alleged to give her prophetic powers, enabled her to foretell
of an encounter with a Nez Perce camp while her war party
was exploring the Yellowstone River. In accordance with
her prediction, the Piegans encountered an enormous Nez
Perce encampment. Unable to retreat, the Piegans dug rifle
pits and repulsed several Nez Perce attacks. The Piegans

"Indian Women Moving," by Charles M. Russell, oil on canvas, 1898.
"The Silk Robe," by Charles M. Russell, oil on canvas, c. 1890.

(Above) ' 'Receiving A Draught of Water from an Indian Girl, ' ' by Alfred Jacob Miller,
pencil/pen/ink with grey wash, c. 1837. (Below) "Lewis and Clark on the Lower
Columbia," by Charles M. Russell, watercolor, 1905.

later attributed this victory to Running Eagle's medicine.

Running Eagle often discarded her role as a warrior
and dressed as a woman to gain entry to enemy camps
where a member of her sex would not be suspected of
being a spy. By this means, she was able to steal large
numbers of horses. Her career ended when the Flatheads
killed her during a raid.'^

Accounts of women warriors run throughout the his-
tories of tribes on both the northern and southern plains.
In the south, the Tonkawas, for example, produced a
number of such leaders. This tradition took firm root in
1872, when Tonkawas, scouting for the army, were led into
battle by a young woman who was the daughter of John-
son, the tribe's war chief. Two years later, when Ranald
MacKenzie's troops attacked the Southern Cheyennes,
Comanches and Kiowas at Palo Duro Canyon, several
women accompanied the scouts. These Torikawa women
rounded up horses, counted coup on wounded Coman-
che warriors and collected trophies of the campaign."

Women in Plains Indian society who were denied the
excitement of battle for one reason or another found solace
in their participation in scalp dances. In some instances,
women were allowed to torture male captives, but female
captives were generally safe from tortiire or mutilation from
any member of a tribe. Despite the role of women in war-
fare, most tribes subscribed to the old Gros Ventre adage
that "women and children do not make good charcoal."

Some Indian women who sought adventure chose to
find it in the pursuit of spiritual powers rather than war
honors. Among some tribes, like the Comanches and
Cheyennes, tradition held that the medicine man, or
shaman, was expected to have a female assistant— usually
his wife, sister or daughter. If a man could not find a female
relative who wanted to learn his art, he could seek female
help elsewhere. Spiritual power of this nature was con-
sidered so volatile that a woman's presence was thought
necessary to help control it. Women who could not or-
dinarily become shamans on their own in some tribes,
usually wielded power through their male associates in this
fashion. Often these women carried on as shamans after
their male comrade's death.

In several tribes, women could become shamans on
their own. Pawnee women were often shamans or
"witches" by profession, specializing in love magic and
controlling weather. War Leader Woman, an important
Pawnee shaman, kept a live rattlesnake under her pillow
as an animal helper and was feared by her people for her
power to bewitch her family's enemies. On one occasion
her son. Lone Chief, had quarreled with another warrior
over the distribution of horses taken in a raid. As a result
of this dispute. War Leader Woman and the mother of
Lone Chief's rival argued as well. Most of the tribe at-
tributed the sudden death of Lone Chief's enemy to War
Leader Woman's sorcery.**

Sometimes a shaman's power was said to be gained
from a near brush with death or a freak accident. Such was

the case with the Apache medicine woman Tze-go-juni,
who, in her youth, had been taken as a slave and lived
among the Mexicans of Sonora for five years. After return-
ing to her people, Tze-go-juni was attacked by a moun-
tain lion and badly mauled. She survived that ordeal only
to be struck by lightning. Once again she recovered, and
from that time forward the Apaches attributed her power
as a shaman to her encounters with nature. ^^

A number of medicine women used their powers to
heal the sick. Feather Woman, a Crow shaman, had been
captured during a raid on an Oglala Sioux camp along with
many other women and children. After several entreaties
by the Sioux, the Crows agreed to return their captives in
exchange for horses. The Sioux refused to take Feather
Woman or her young daughter because they claimed she
had stabbed her husband to death. Instead, the Crows
adopted Feather Woman and she began to practice heal-
ing arts. Her medicine animal, the mountain lion, was
greatly revered by the Crows, who regarded her associa-
tion with this animal and her own powerful visions with
awe. Feather Woman was reputed to be able to cure the
sick simply by touching them with her hand.** The Man-
dan medicine woman Stays Yellow, on the other hand,
used a thorough knowledge of wild plant pharmacology
to work her cures.

Women held important roles in tribal religious rites as
well. In the Blackfeet Sun Dance ceremony, for instance,
a female leader called a medicine woman organized the
ritual by vowing to undergo the sacrifice of leading the Sun
Dance. Among the medicine woman's many duties was
the preparation and distribution of buffalo tongues, the
holy food used in the Sun Dance communion meal.
Cheyenne women were expected to play an important role
in the construction of the Sun Dance lodge. Pawnee
women were the major contributors in the tribe's planting
ceremonies and Arapaho women summoned the buffalo
herds through their own rituals.*"

Among the Sioux, the culture hero. White Buffalo
Maiden, was responsible for giving her people buffalo and
teaching them how to live. Similar beliefs were found
among tribes on the southern margins of the Great Plains
in New Mexico.

The arrival of Europeans on the plains led to intermar-
riage between White men and Indian women. White
traders and Indian chiefs often arranged these "country
marriages," as Europeans called them, in order to secure
alliances through wedlock that would bring about in-
creased trade. "Country wives," the women who par-
ticipated in these marriages, often served as diplomats be-
tween their own people and those of their husbands. They
smoothed rough feelings caused by the inevitable cultural
friction and served as bridges for cultural exchange.**

One such woman diplomat was Owl Woman, the
"country wife" of trader William Bent. As the daughter
of Yellow Wolf, a noted Cheyenne chief. Owl Woman was
a shaman respected by her tribe who nurtured relations

.iP^

0]f-^

"Indian Maiden," by Charles M. Russell, watercolor, 1898.

between her people and white traders. Another "country
wife/' Medicine Snake Woman, was a Blood Indian who
married Alexander Culbertson, the bourgeois of Fort Union,
in 1828. Her influence among the chiefs of the Blackfeet
confederacy, especially with her brother, Seen-from-Afar
(head chief of the Bloods), and her cousin Little Dog (head
chief of the Piegans), allowed American traders to enter
the Blackfeet territory peacefully— a privilege not pre-
viously granted to Whites. Her influence helped the United
States sign a treaty with the Blackfeet in 1855, and she
made important contributions to Lewis Henry Morgan's
study of North American ethnology, by providing him
with information on the kinship systems of her people. ^'

Deer Little Woman was another of these women diplo-
mats who contributed to American-Indian peace. An Assi-
niboine who married Edwin Denig, Culbertson's successor
as bourgeois at Fort Union, Deer Little Woman influenced
her husband to further the careers of her brothers, First-
to-Fly and The Light. As a result of their good relations
with this White trader, both First-to-Ry and The Light were
able to supply their tribe with an abundant supply of trade
goods, and this, in turn, enabled them to become promi-
nent Assiniboine chiefs. Like Medicine Snake Woman,
Deer Little Woman made important contributions in
ethnology through her husband's writings about the In-
dian tribes of the upper Missouri. 2"

In Canada, Thanadethur, a Chipewayan woman cap-
tured by Crees and given to the English, brought her own
tribe into closer economic relations with the White men and
arranged peace between the Chipewayans and Crees.
Among the Arapahoes, Kit Carson's marriage to Singing
Wind probably saved his life since the Arapahoes had a
reputation for their inhospitable treatment of other White
trappers. As a kinsman by marriage, Carson could move
about freely in the Arapahoes' territory and gather pelts
for trade. Other "country wives" such as Sacagawea, a
Shoshoni, and Marie Dorion of the lowas, served as gviides
and interpreters for White explorers. ^^

As with their counterparts in White society, Indian
women fulfilled traditional roles as mothers, wives and
keepers of the family household. Yet Indian women were
not confined to these roles exclusively. Sometimes, as in
Comanche and Crow society, they were allowed to speak
in council and thereby attained a measure of political in-
fluence.^ Other Indian women broke completely from the
traditional mold to assvune identities as warriors, sorcerers,
chiefs and diplomats. In doing so, they made names for
themselves among their own people. Unlike their counter-
parts in the White world, these women were not looked
upon as aberrant nor criticized for betraying their sex. In-
stead, they were judged on their worth as individuals and
encouraged to fulfill their potential.

1. Rudolph Kurz, Journal of Rudolph Freidrich Kurz: An Account of His
Experiences Among Fur Traders and American Indians on the Mississippi
and the Upper Missouri Rivers During the Years 1846 to 1852, trans, by
Myrtio Jarrell, ed. by J.N.B. Hewitt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1970), p. 38.

2. Pierre Antoine Tabeau, Tabeau's Narrative of Loisel's Expedition to the
Upper Missouri, ed. by Annie H. Abel (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1939), p. 149.

3. George F. Will and George E. Hyde, Com Among the Indians of the
Upper Missouri (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964), p. 19.

4. Robert Lowie, The Crow Indians (New York: Holt and Reinhart, 1935),
p. 48. Men also adopted female roles and dress in many Indian
societies. These berdaches, or "men-women," were considered im-
portant individuals.

5. Gene Weltfish, The Lost Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1968), pp. 42-43.

6. Edwin Thompson Denig, Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, ed.
by John C. Ewers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961),
p. 196.

7. Ibid., p. 197.

8. Ibid.

9. Frank B. Linderman, Pretty Shield (New York: John Day Company,
1972), pp. 228-230.

10. George Bird Grinnell, The Fighting Cheyennes (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1915), p. 324.

11. Charles Eastman, "Rain-in-the-Face, The Story of a Sioux Warrior,"
Outlook 34 (October 27, 1906): 507-512.

12. John C. Ewers, "Deadlier than the Male," American Heritage 16 (June
1965): 12-13.

13. Robert Carter, On the Border with MacKenzie, or Winning West Texas
from the Comanches (Washington, D.C.: Eynon Press, 1935), pp.
488-493.

14. Weltfish, The Lost Universe, p. 336.

15. Thomas E. Mails, The People Called Apache (Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974), p. 147.

16. Linderman, Pretty Shield, pp. 177-179.

17. John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet, Raiders on the Northwestern Plains (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), pp. 175-180; Weltfish, The Lost
Universe, pp. 95-96; Alfred Kroeber, The Arapaho, 2nd ed. (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1983), pp. 210-225; Royal B. Hassrick,
The Sioux (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), p. 281.

18. Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur Trade Society,
1670-1870 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980), pp. 28-29.

19. John C. Ewers, Indian Life on the Upper Missouri (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1968), pp. 62-63.

20. Ibid.

21. Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties, pp. 66-67; David F. Hawke, Those Tremen-
dous Mountains: The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (New York:
W. W. Norton & Co., 1980), pp. 187-189. Many women also married
pronunent leaders of other Indian tribes, thereby improving inter-
tribal relations.

^ANNALS REVIEWS^

]. E. Stimson: Photographer of the West. By Mark Junge. Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press, 1985. 210 pp. Cloth $29.95.

Mark Junge's /. E. Stimson: Photographer of the V^est is
the biography of a Wyoming photographer whose career
extended from the late 1880s through the first half of the
20th century. Joseph E. Stimson was born in a rural area
of South Carolina in 1870, moved with his family to
Nebraska and, in 1889, settled in Cheyenne where he pur-
chased a photographer's studio and equipment to initiate
his life-long pursuit, of promotional and portrait pho-
tography. Endowed with a particularly good eye and ap-
preciation for pastoral settings, Stimson took a countless
number of scenic pictures for the Union Pacific Railroad,
the Wyoming Department of Immigration and even the
United States Bureau of Reclamation. His work, which
exists today in the form of nearly 7,500 glass-plate and
nitrate negatives, is of such high quality that his self-
proclaimed title as "scenic artist" is not an idle claim. The
majority of Stimson's negatives are at the Wyoming State
Archives, Museums and Historical Department, where
author Mark Junge first became engrossed in their historic
and fascinating properties.

/. £. Stimson is essentially a coffee-table book with the
added benefit of excellent scholarship and perceptive
thematic comments. In a brief but lucid fashion, Junge sug-
gests, with ample documentation, a belief that Stimson
deserves a place within the "pantheon of Western pho-
tographers" for two reasons. In the first place, Junge con-
tends that Stimson, whose most productive period was the
opening decade of the 20th century, was able to capture
the essence of the West at a moment when that region
crossed a threshold from the frontier to a more modern
state of existence represented by cities with elaborate brick
structures, large-scale coal mines, productive oil fields and
intricate railroad networks. Stated Junge: "What Stimson
offers is a frontal view of the American West as it wanted
to see itself, at a time when it was proudly emerging from
rude, frontier beginnings." Junge elaborates by com-
menting that Stimson's photographs fill a hiatus between
Francis Parkman's "Idyllic West" and David Plowden's
more contemporary scene. Second, the author argues that
Stimson's claim to enduring recognition is based in part
on the fact that he is one of the very few professional

photographers who spent their careers photographing the
Rocky Mountain region. In this respect, Junge compares
Stimson to William H. Jackson and Timothy O' Sullivan.
Junge's book works both as a collection of fine pho-
tographs and as an interpretative analysis of Stimson's con-
tributions to the recording of the development of the West
in the early 20th century. Through Stimson's camera lens,
Junge perceives the West as a dynamic region which has
endeavored to create and promote its claim to scenic
beauty, economic vitality and historic importance. Through
his own skill at organizing textual materials, Junge presents
Stimson's photographs in a series of subject-oriented sec-
tions that include chapters on portraits, urban settings,
railroads, farms and ranches, and the industrial and min-
ing West. Within each chapter is a sprinkling of notable
facts to enhance an understanding of many of the pho-
tographs, a number of provocative comments on the sig-
nificance of Stimson as a photographer, and a generous
number of black and white photographs that range from
farm and mountain settings of Wyoming and Colorado to
street scenes and buildings of such picturesque settings as
Salina, Kansas, Deadwood, South Dakota, Omaha,
Nebraska, and Salt Lake City, Utah. /. £. Stimson:
Photographer of the West, in short, is the well organized, well
researched, thought provoking and interesting account of
a Western photographer whose accomplishments merit
serious consideration by those who wish to understand the
importance of the history of the American West.

WALTER R. JONES
The reviewer is head of the Western Americana Division, Special Collections
Department, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

Teepee Neighbors. By Grace Coolidge. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, New Edition Reprint, 1984 (Originally published: Boston: The
Four Seas Co., 1917). Index. 163 pp. $7.95 paper.

Grace Wetherbee Coolidge was the wife of The
Reverend Sherman Coolidge, a fuU-blooded Arapahoe and
minister of the Episcopalian Church. She was born in
Boston of a very proper family. Early in her life the family
moved to New York City, where her father owned two
hotels.

Runs-on-Top, or Sherman Coolidge, was born some-
time in 1862 near Goose Creek, in the Wind River Country
of Wyoming. His parents were Arapahoes and his early
years were filled with the dangers with which all
persecuted peoples must contend.

In the springtime of 1870, Runs-on-Top's band was at-
tacked by a large band of Shoshones and the youngster
was taken captive. Not long afterward he was given to
American troops. The lad was befriended by an army
surgeon and renamed after General William Tecumseh
Sherman. Later that same year. Captain and Mrs. Charles
A. Coolidge adopted him.

Sherman Coolidge' s position among both Whites and
Indians was unique. He was respected by the White com-
munity because of his education and manner and because
he was Captain and Mrs. Collidge's son: on the other
hand, he was accepted by the Indians, though somewhat
hesitantly, because of his lineal descent from Arapahoe
leaders.

Teepee Neighbors is filled with the historical and
sociological perspectives of a woman who witnessed the
daily hardships of the Arapahoes and Shoshones in the
early 20th century.

Mrs. Coolidge's candid and straight-forward portrayals
of the everyday lives of ordinary people on the Wind River
Indian Reservation leaves us one of the most revealing ac-
counts of White-Indian relations of the period and an in-
sight into the roots of the problems of many Indians on
and off reservations today.

A woman is a woman and can talk to other women,
regardless of ethical, racial or even language barriers and
Mrs. Coolidge talked to her dusky-skinned neighbors. By
the time she had gotten around to setting down her opin-
ions and experiences she had identified herself with those
neighbors. The book is thus laden with personal insights
into the lives and condition of the Indians during that
period.

The author in her preface wrote: "The objection has
often been made to these sketches that they are sad. Peo-
ple won't read such painful stuff, editors have said to me.
Then I slowly look over and consider my pages. Am I
justified in changing this or that? There is only one
response for me to make; I'm sorry, but they are all true.
I cannot alter them."

During this period the infamous manual labor train-
ing schools, instituted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and
modeled after the Carlisle "experiment" were flourishing.
Grace Coolidge was bitterly opposed to the practice of
separating children from their parents and thoroughly
disliked and condemned the "Carlisle system" of Indian
education. She was never reconciled to the idea and
philosophy of boarding schools for Indian children, even
when some of these schools were established nearer to
tribal lands than Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

Teepee Neighbors is important to Native American
studies because it is a sympathetic, objective social history

of the Arapahoes and Shoshones as wards of the federal
government. It is simple, it is moving, and Grace Cool-
idge's humanity will undoubtedly leave something behind
for everyone.

NEAL L. BLAIR

The reviewer is former Editor of Special Publications for the Wyoming Game and
Fish Department.

Custer's Fall: The Indian Side of the Story. By David Humphreys Miller. Lin-
coln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. Bib. lllus.
Map. Table. 271 pp. $7.95.

Historians have written more about the 1876 battle of
the Little Bighorn than any other military engagement in
the world's history. Despite this intensive study, several
aspects of the fight remain questionable, particularly since
most of the early investigators ignored the Indian par-
ticipants who were the only surviving eyewitnesses of the
battle with Custer. However, David Humphreys Miller
sought to remedy this omission. For twenty years. Miller
interviewed many of the Crow, Arikara, Cheyenne,
Arapahoe and Sioux who participated in this conflict, and
he later published his findings in Custer's Tall, a 1957 work
which the University of Nebraska's Bison Books has re-
cently reprinted.

As the Northern Cheyenne and Sioux moved onto reser-
vations in the late 19th century, they were reluctant to
discuss the battle of the Little Bighorn, for they distrusted
the Whites and feared reprisals for their victory in Mon-
tana. Because Miller had visited or lived on the reserva-
tions for approximately twenty years and spoke the Lakota
language, many of these Indians trusted him and began
to elaborate on the details of the battle. After speaking to
more than 71 eyewitnesses individually and in groups and
to the surviving Crow and Arikara scouts. Miller recon-
structs the battle of the Little Bighorn from the viewpoints
of the Native Americans.

Following a brief chapter that places the battle into
historical context, the author provides an overview of the
1876 nulitary campaign against the Northern Plains tribes
and a detailed account of the Indians' and Whites' actions
on the Little Bighorn. He also explores many of the con-
troversial issues surrounding the battle, such as Custer's
alleged Indian mistress and child, his desire to become
President, his reasons for attacking a village of approx-
imately 12,000 Indians, Major Reno's attack, retreat and
eventual survival, the reports of suicides among the sol-
diers and the Indians' mutilations of the corpses. He also
notes that Custer was mortally wounded or killed early in
a fight that lasted for less than 30 minutes. In the final
chapter. Miller relates that myths about this battle were
created almost immediately, such as the incredible story

that Sitting Bull had attended West Point with Custer and
graduated as a better tactician than the horse-soldier.

While a few books relating a particular Indian's exploits
in the battle were printed in the 1930s, Miller's work is the
first attempt at a comprehensive account of the Little
Bighorn fight from the Native Americans' point of view.
In 1957, Custer's Fall provided new information that could
not be found in other reports of the battle, such as the
tribes' motives for resisting a forced reservation existence,
a detailed description of the destruction of Custer's com-
mand and the Indians' reactions to their victory. The book
also dispelled many popular myths about this fight.

Despite these important strengths, the book suffers
from a few weaknesses. The absence of footnotes prevents
the reader from verifying Miller's conclusions and from
analyzing his sources. This is particularly troublesome for
a work based primarily on oral interviews. In addition.
Miller does not indicate how he dealt with conflicting or
inaccurate information, which invariably occurs when one
tries to interview 70 eyewitnesses 60 to 80 years after an
event transpired. Finally, Bison Books should add an in-
dex and an updated preface that places Miller's work into
a historiographical context.

Regardless of these problems, Custer's Fall provides im-
portant information that any student of the battle of the
Little Bighorn will need to know. By focusing on the In-
dians' view of this fight. Miller demonstrates that the
cultural conflicts that precipitated this battle were more
significant than the military engagement in determining
the future of the Sioux and Cheyenne participants. This is
an important message for those researchers who seek to
uru-avel every unexplained detail of Custer's last minutes
while ignoring the cultural forces that symbolized the bat-
tle and have continued to affect the American Indians for
the past century.

MICHAEL MASSIE
The reviewer is historian and curator of South Pass City Historic Site.

Historic Ranches of Wyoming. By Judith Hancock Sandoval. Casper:
Nicolaysen Art Museum, 1986. List of Photographs. 97 pp. $12.00.

Wyoming's image is that of the "Cowboy State." We
are essentially rural and agricultural and— despite the
presence of oil wells, coal mines and farms— ranches are
symbols of that environment. Articles, books and films
have been done about ranches, ranch life, rodeos and
rodeo cowboys, but no one has systematically documented
with narrative and photographs the state's ranch
architecture.

With tenacity and aggressiveness, Judy Sandoval has
visited and photographed a number of Wyoming ranches,
and has managed to get her exhibit published as a book.
Ms. Sandoval's self-assigned task helps us realize that
there is a treasure of ranches and ranch structtires found

in this state and her work is a step toward their
preservation.

The book begins with an essay which, written by the
"Dean" of Wyoming historians. Dr. T. A. Larson, is a
scholarly and proper introduction. Robert Roripaugh's
essay near the end of the book is a wonderful reminiscence
that educates while it entertains— a nice touch to the book
by a well-known Wyoming author. One of the photo cap-
tions contains an interesting sidelight by Lucille Hicks and
there are occasional pieces of information from ranchers
that give the book flavor.

Ms. Sandoval admits on page one that the book is only
preliminary and that is the main reason why she can be
forgiven for the book's shortcomings. One of these short-
comings is organization. It is non-existent. There are no
table of contents, and no index, only a list of photographs.
A state map contains dots to indicate the location of ranches
but the dots are not numbered to correspond with ranches
or photographs. Cattle, sheep and dude ranches are mixed
together as if ranches are just ranches. The book was
adapted from an exhibit and maybe all pictorial books do
not need to be rigidly organized. But if Historic Ranches of
Wyoming was designed to be a photo essay only, there is
no need for extended captions with extraneous information.

Ms. Sandoval states that 40 per cent of her caption
material is from published sources and 60 per cent from
information provided by ranchers, but no documentation
exists for either. If nearly half of the book relates to pub-
lished sources, a bibliography would be helpful so that
other ranch studies, such as Wyoming's Pioneer Ranches by
Burns, Gillespie and Richardson, at least could be recog-
nized. In short, the book is not a scholarly work, even
though it contains a scholarly essay by Dr. Larson. Neither
is it prose, even though it contains a prose essay. The
narrative is a broken and arbitrary approach to docu-
menting ranches, and appears to be a quick transcription
of field notes.

In some cases photo captions do not provide enough
information about ranches— including their founders or
owners— in order to give you an understanding of them.
Basic information such as north-south directions is lack-
ing even though non-essential data is plentiful. Names of
people appear as if we had already been introduced to
everyone. For example, on pages 23 and 29 Sandoval
writes about sheep "jugs," stating: "Old Man Perry, who
built them, died of tick fever. Before the vaccine was in-
vented a man could pick 30 ticks off his body in a day and
not get them all before one got him." Who is "Old Man
Perry?" And, if the statement about ticks is not Sandoval's,
which probably it is not, who gets the credit? Who is Mary
Taylor Beach and what relation does she have to the Taylor
Ranch in Uinta County (p. 42)? Where, in that same en-
try, are the Uinta and Shoshone Reservations? Where is
Sam Parker's Mill and why is he important to the Bovee
Ranch (p. 53)? Why are L-shaped bams good against roar-
ing winds and blizzards (p. 29)?

Occasionally people are introduced whose identity you
do not learn until later. For example, Gerry Spence is men-
tioned on page sixteen, but you do not find out that he
is the famous Wyoming lawyer until page twenty. The
name David Williamson appears more than once, long
before his accomplishments as a stonemason are related
on page 48. One wonders why so many names are in-
cluded. If it is a matter of being polite, even the people
whose names appear in print could be offended because
it may be that not everyone was included who should have
been. The casual reader is offended, however, because he
is asked to read a string of names that mean nothing to
him without more background information.

Leased and deeded acreage is provided in some ranch
entries and not in others. The same is true of cattle and
sheep numbers, or tons of hay produced, or dates of
original water rights, or altitudes of ranches. Why are
various ranch buildings listed when they are not shown
in the photo? Some information is totally useless. For ex-
ample, on page 57, who cares that within weeks after the
sale of the Hereford Ranch bull, Lerch, progeny per-
formance and semen sales paid off? It has the ring of an
auctioneering advertisement. Why should it be noted that
an etching of a deer in a forest adorns a ranch house front
door if you cannot see it in the photograph (p. 53)?

Some statements are simply untrue. For example, in
the caption relating to the Horse Barn on the Lloyd Ranch
in Albany County, it is stated that no other buildings in
the state "have such an interesting history dating back to
the first settlement period by the white man" (p. 29). There
are still a few buildings along the Overland Trail dating
back to 1862, and a number of other buildings exist which
date back to the first settlement period by the White man,
depending upon the settlement since some areas of the
state were settled later than others. On page 58, Ms. San-
doval asserts that Cheyenne Indians made their "last
stand" at the Graves Ranch on Upper Red Fork of the
Powder River. The Cheyenne were not destroyed as a tribe
at that engagement, nor did they make a "stand." They
were routed out of their tepees by Colonel Mackenzie's
troops and retreated to the Powder River Basin, eventu-
ally reaching the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies.
On page 88, it is stated that A. A. Anderson convinced
President Roosevelt to create the first forest reserve in 1902
when, in fact, the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve was
created in 1891 by President Harrison.

Ms. Sandoval's strength is not documentation and
organization; rather, it is the accomplishment of being able
to visit as many ranches as she did in such a short period
of time. Given her access to so many ranches and ranching
people, it is a pity she did not take more time to study
Wyonning's ranch industry. The result is a work that is
neither fish nor fowl, neither scholarly nor coherent as a

photo essay. The lack of thoroughness might be due to Ms.
Sandoval's short tenure in the state. She is from New York
City and had to absorb a lot of information during her stay
in Wyoming. That may be why the East Fork of the Wind
River is described as the "East Fork of the Wind River Can-
yon" (p. 16); the term "cross-hairs telescope" used instead
of "transit" (p. 16); or the "Laramie Peak Range" (p. 45)
and "Laramie Mountain range" (p. 48) used instead of
"Laramie Range." It is perhaps why the term "log men"
(p. 70) is used instead of "tie hacks." It may be why the
Kite Ranch (p. 45) is described as being located north of
the Fetterman Road, a north-south trail. Although north-
south roads can take east-west bends, the exact location
of this particular ranch is not clear. It may be why the loca-
tion of the Hardpan Ranch is given as the valley of the
Shoshone River (p. 75) although the river has two major
forks. It may be the reason why, on page 30, a stock range
can be described in such mixed terms as having "extended
from Clarks Fork to Owl Creek, covered the south side of
the Big Horn River and the land along the Rocky Moun-
tains." On the other hand, lack of familiarity with the state
is not a reason for misspelling the word, Hambletonian
(pp. 42, 66).

The photographs in Historic Ranches of Wyoming
demonstrate the need for another work on Wyoming's
ranch architecture in which large-format photography is
used instead of small-format or 35mm, photography. A pic-
torial work on architecture needs large-format photography
for clarity as well as perspective correction. Some of the
book's prints are too grainy and some are too soft, if not
slightly out-of-focus, such as photographs #31, 50 and 64.
The quality of the photography is not consistent, even for
small-format photography. Some entries such as #7, 26,
47, 49, 50 and 57 could have been done by anyone with
a 35mm camera who bothered to get out of the car and
shoot. Finally, the book's design is such that you have to
flip a page or two forward or backward in order to see in
a photograph what the author describes in the caption.

Nevertheless, some photographs of ranch equipment
and outbuildings are interesting, since one does not usually
see lambing sheds, root cellars and slaughterhouses. Some
photographs display good composition, exposure, focus
and flair, such as entries #4, 24, 25, 37, 43, 53 and 74.

In summary, the Historic Ranches of Wyoming is an at-
tempt at something which should have been done long
ago: documentation of Wyoming's ranch architecture.
However, it needs to be done in a more systematic, com-
prehensive fashion using proper camera equipment and
incorporating more research.

MARK JUNGE
The reviewer is the Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer of the AMH
Department.

CONTRIBUTORS

MICHAEL MASSIE is the historian and site curator at
South Pass City Historic Site. He graduated from the
University of Wyoming in 1980 with a M.A. degree in
History. He has previously been published in the American
Indian Culture and Research Journal.

JODYE LYNN DICKSON SCHILZ now teaches at Mankato
State University, Minnesota. A Ph.D. candidate of U.S.
History at Texas Christian University, SchUz received her
M.A. degree in U.S. History at TCU in 1982.

THOMAS SCHILZ is Coordinator, American Indian
Studies Program, Mankato State University, Minnesota.
He received his Ph.D. degree in U.S. History at Texas
Christian University in 1983. His publications include two
books and numerous articles and book reviews.

HUGH JACKSON has a B.A. degree in History from the
University of Wyoming. Currently he is a graduate stu-
dent studying history at the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis.

GERALD M. ADAMS (Col. retired) now of Cheyenne
retired from the Air Force in 1978, after a long career as
a pilot, staff officer and unit commander. He holds M.A.
degrees from Long Island University in International Af-
fairs and History from the Uruversity of Wyoming. His ar-
ticles on early aviation in Wyorhing, western military
history and ranching have been published previously in
Annals of Wyoming and Cheyenne newspapers.

INSIDE WYOMING

Annals of Wyoming will be experiencing several changes
in the upcoming issues. First of all, the editorial staff has
started this column, "Inside Wyoming," which will be-
come a regular feature. The editors will include such things
as editorials, discussions of interesting historical topics, in-
triguing oral history interviews or descriptions of impor-
tant collections held in the Wyoming State Archives,
Museums and Historical Department.

Another item to be started will be a "Letters to the
Editor" section. Anyone may write to Annals and comment
on any article or book review included in the journal. If
you have more information you would like to share or per-
haps find something you believe to be in error, please write
in and tell us. We ask that letters be limited to 200 words.

The editors reserve the right to select those which will be
included and to edit the letters if necessary.

Wyoming will celebrate its centennial in 1990. The
editorial staff wishes to publish two special issues of An-
nals of Wyoming in honor of the celebration. We are issuing
a call for papers to include in those issues. Topics could
be the drive for statehood, the constitutional convention,
woman's suffrage, early government or other relevant
issues. However, they need not be confined to these issues,
but could explore any number of subjects and how they
have changed throughout Wyoiiiing's history. Proposals
should be submitted to the editor and should include the
title of the paper along with a 200 word summary and a
resume. Deadline is January 1, 1988.

INDEX

Adams, Gerald M., "The F. E. Warren Air Force Base War Trophies from

Balangiga, P.I." 29-37; biog., 61
A. Feick & Bro., 2-4, 13
Aguinaldo, Enulio, 29
Alexander, Robert, 34
Alexander, William, 34

Amalgamated Sugar Company, Montana, 19, 21
"Amazons, Witches and Country Wives: Plains Indian Women in

Historical Perspective," Thomas Schilz and Jodye Lyrm Dickson Schilz,

48-56
American Hellenic Education Progressive Association, 43
Anderson, Mose, 20-22
Arbuckle Ranch, 7
Arizona v California, 24
Ariwrm v San Carlos Apache Tribe, 25

Balangiga, Philippine Islands, 29-32, 34

Basey, Philippine Islands, 29-30

Battle of the Rosebud, 50-51

"Behind the Capitol Scenes: The Letters of John A. Feick," Rick Ewig,

ed., 2-14
Bell, James Franklin, 32
Bent, William, 54
Betron, Frank, 29-30

Blair, Neal L., review of Teepee Neighbors, 57-58
Bookmiller, Captain Edwin V., 30-32
Bresnahan, Jerry, 36
Browning, Matthew S., 21
Bureau of Indian Affairs, 25
Bureau of Reclamation, 23, 25

Eccles, David, 21
Eleventh Infantry, 29-34

Ewig, Rick, ed., "Behind the Capitol Scenes: The Letters of John A.
Feick," 2-14

Feick, Adam, 3, 13

Feick, George, 3-4, 6, 8-13

Feick, John A., 2-13; photo, 3

Feick, Lizzie, 4-13, photo, 2

Feick, Philip, 3

"The F. E. Warren Air Force Base War Trophies from Balangiga, P.I.

Gerald M. Adams, 29-37
Fort Belknap Reservation, 15-17, 19-26
FORTS

D. A. RusseU, 29-34; photos, 31-32

Francis E. Warren, 33
Francis E. Warren AFB, 29, 33-34, 36-37; photos, 35
French, W. B., 21
Frontier Days, 41, 44, 47

General Allotment Act of 1887, 17

German Turnverein Society, 43-44

Gibbs, David W., 3

Goodrich, Paul M., 31-32, 34

Grand Teton National Park, 41

Great Northern Railroad, 19-20

Greek American Progressive Association, 43

Greenlee, Robert C, 3-4

Greenley, Charles H., 34, 36

Guiterman, Mrs. William, 42

Cahill, T. Joe, 44-45; photo, 47
Campbell, John A., 39
Capitol Building Commission, 2-3, 8-9, 13
Carson, Kit, 56

Cheyenne Little Theatre Players, 45, 47; photo, 46
Cheyenne, Wyoming, 2-13, 29-31, 36, 39, 41-45
Clay, John, 40

Company C, Ninth Infantry, 29-31, 34
Company G, Ninth Infantry, 30, 32
Connell, Captain Thomas W., 29
Coolidge, Grace, Teepee Neighbors, review, 57-58
CortheU, Mrs. Nellis E., 39
Corthell, Nellis E., 44
Council of Energy Resource Tribes, 25
Crane, C. J., 32
Crook, George, 50
Culbertson, Alexander, 56

"The Cultural Roots of Indian Water Rights," Michael Massie, 15-28
Custer, George A., 51

Custer's Fall: The Indian Side of the Story, by David Humphreys Miller,
review, 58-59

Dante Alighieri Society, 43
Denig, Edwin, 56
DeRussy, Isaac D., 30
Drake, Kerry, 34

Hawley, Judge, 22

Hays, Luke C, 17

Henderson, Harry B., 46

Henry, John, 44

Hill, Robert J., 34

Historic Ranches of Wyoming, by Judith Hancock Sandoval, review, 59-60

"The History of Volunteering in Wyoming," Hugh Jackson, 38-48

Hughes, Robert P., 30

Hundley, Norris, 15

Hunt, Judge William H., 21; photo, 21

Indian Rights Association, 17, 21
INDLMvJS-CHIEFS AND INDIVIDUALS

Comes-in- Sight, 51

Crazy Horse, 50

First-to-Fly, 56

Gall, 51

Little Dog, 56

Lone Chief, 54

Seen-From-Afar, 56

The Light, 56

YeUow Wolf, 54
INDIANS-TRIBES

Apache, 54

Arapahoe, 15, 54, 56

Assiniboine, 15-17, 19-26, 56; photo, 25

Blackfeet, 15-16, 50, 54, 56

Cheyenne, 50-51, 54

Comanche, 54, 56

Cree, 16, 56

Crow, 50-51, 54, 56

Hathead, 54

Gros Ventre, 15-17, 19-26, 50, 54

Nez Perce, 51

Pawnee, 50, 54

Piegan, 51, 56

Ponca, 50

Shoshone, 15, 25

Sioux, 15-16, 50-51, 54

Tonkawa, 54
INDIANS-WOMEN

Buffalo Calf Road Woman, 51

Deer Little Woman, 56

Feather Woman, 54

Finds-Them-and-Kills Them, 50-51

Marie Dorion, 56

Medicine Snake Woman, 56

Moving Robe, 51

Old-Lady-Grieves-the-Enemy, 50

Owl Woman, 54

Running Eagle, 51, 54

Sacagawea, 56

Singing Wind, 56

Stays Yellow, 54

Thanadethur, 56

The-Other-Magpie, 50-51

Tze-go-juni, 54

War Leader Woman, 54

White Buffalo Maiden, 54

Woman Chief, 50
Indian Water Rights, 15-26
Indian Women, 50-56; photos, 48-49, 51-53, 55
brigation, 17, 19-24; photo, 18

Junge, Mark, /. E. Stimson: Photographer of the West, review, 57

Junge, Mark, review of Historic Ranches of Wyoming, 59-60

Jackson, Hugh, "The History of Volunteering in Wyoming," 38-48; biog.,

61
Jameson, Colonel Arlen D., 37

/. E. Stimson: Photographer of the West, by Mark Junge, review, 57
Johnson County War, 40-41
Jones, Walter R., review of /. E. Stimson: Photographer of the West, 57

Lacock, Edward A., 21

Laramie County Stock Growers Association, 39-40

Laramie Woman's Club, 39

Leupp, Francis, 21

Lincoln, W. L., 16

Logan, William R., 20-21, 23, 25

McGovem, Bishop Patrick A., 44; photo, 45

McKerma, Joseph, 22-24

Maennerchor Society, 43

Massie, Michael, "The Cultural Roots of Indian Water Rights," 15-28;

biog., 61
Massie, Michael, review of Custer's Fall: The Indian Side of the Story, 58-59

Matador Cattle Company, Trirudad, Colorado, 19, 21, 23

Maverick Law, 40

Meyer, Albert L., 30

Milk River, Montana, 15-17, 19-26; photo, 22

Miller, David Humphreys, Custer's Fall: The Indian Side of the Story, review,

58-59
Montana, 15-17, 19-26
Morris, Esther H., 41

Nagle, Erasmus, 2, 4, 7, 9-11
Native American Rights Fund, 25
Nelson, H. H., 21

O'Brien, Nicholas J., 8
The Owls; photo, 42

Philippine Islands, 29-34
Post, M.E., 7
Pringle, Andrew, Jr., 36
Prior Appropriation, 19, 24

Rasch, Carl, 21
Riparian water rights, 19
Rolapp, Henry H., 21

St. Joseph's Children's Home, 44-45, 47

St. Paul's Catholic Missionary School, Montana, 16

Samar, Island of, Philippine Islands, 29-31, 34

Sandoval, Judith Hancock, Historic Ranches of Wyoming, review, 59-60

SchUz, Jodye Lyrm Dickson, "Amazons, Witches and Country Wives:

Plains Indian Women in Historical Perspective," 48-56; biog., 61
SchHz, Thomas, "Amazons, Witches and Country Wives: Plains Indian

Women in Historical Perspective," 48-56; biog., 61
Scott, Robert R., 36-37
Shoshoni Tribes of Indians v United States, 25
Simmons, A. O., 17
Slack, E. A., 41
Swedish Benevolence Society, 43

Tacloban, Philippine Islands, 30

TarbeU, Edward A., 36

Teepee Neighbors, by Grace Coolidge, review, 57-58

Torrington, Wyoming, 44

Trophy Park, F. E. Warren AFB, 29, 34, 37; photos, 35

Tweedy v Texas Co., 24

United States Supreme Court, 15, 22-25

Veeder, William H., 24

Warren, Francis E., 2, 30-31
Wind River Reservation, 15, 23, 25
Wingo, Claude C, 30
Winter, Henry, 20-22

Winters Doctrine, 23-26

Winters v United States, 15, 22-26

Woman's Club of Cheyenne, 42

Woman's Suffrage, 41

Woodbridge, William E., 34

Wyoming Federation of Women's Clubs, 42-45, 47

Wyoming State Capitol, 2-13, photos; 8-9, 13-14

Wyoming Stock and Wool Growers Association, 39

Wyoming Stock Graziers Association, 39

Wyoming Stock Growers Association, 40-44, 46; photo, 40

Wyoming Supreme Court, 15

Young Men's Literary Club, 45-47

Zipfel, Constantine, 4

WYOMING STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Wyoming State Historical Society was organized in October, 1953.
Membership is open to anyone interested in history. County chapters of the society
have been chartered in most of the twenty-three counties of Wyoming. Past
presidents of the society include; Frank Bowron, Casper, 1953-55; William L.
Marion, Lander, 1955-56; Dr. DeWitt Dominick, Cody, 1956-57; Dr. T. A. Lar-
son, Laramie, 1957-58; A. H. MacDougall, Rawlins, 1958-59; Mrs. Thelma G. Con-
dit, Buffalo, 1959-60; E. A. Littleton, Gillette, 1960-61; Edness Kimball Wilkins,
Casper, 1961-62; Charles Ritter, Cheyenne, 1962-63; Neal E. Miller, Rawlins,
1963-65; Mrs. Charles Hord, Casper, 1965-66; Glenn Sweem, Sheridan, 1966-67;
Adrian Reynolds, Green River, 1967-68; Curtiss Root, Torrington, 1968-69; Mrs.
Hattie Burnstad, Worland, 1969-70; J. Reuel Armsh-ong, Rawlins, 1970-71; William
R. Dubois, Cheyenne, 1971-72; Henry F. Chadey, Rock Springs, 1972-73; Richard
S. Dumbrill, Newcastle, 1973-74; Henry Jensen, Casper, 1974-75; Jay Brazelton,
Jackson, 1975-76; Ray Pendergraft, Worland, 1976-77; David J. Wasden, Cody,
1977-78; Mabel Brown, Newcastle, 1978-79; James June, Green River, 1979-80;
William F. Bragg, Jr., Casper, 1980-81; Don Hodgson, Torrington, 1981-82, Clara
Jensen, Lysite-Casper, 1982-83; Fern Gaensslen, Green River, 1983-84; Dave
Kathka, Rock Springs, 1984-85; Mary Garman, Sundance, 1985-86.

Membership information may be obtained from the Executive Headquarters,
Wyoming State Historical Society, Barrett Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002.
Dues in the state society are:

Life Membership $100

Joint Life Membership (husband and wife) $150

Annual Membership $5

Joint Annual Membership (two persons of same family

at same address) $7

Institutional Membership $10

President, Ellen Mueller, Cheyenne

First Vice President, Mary Nielsen, Cody
1986-87 Second Vice President, Loren Jost, Riverton

Officers Secretary-Treasurer, Lucille Dumbrill, Newcastle

Executive-Secretary, Dr. Robert D. Bush

Coordinator, Judy West

.DOTING THE CHINESE

lock

Springs White Minors
Drive Them Out.

LLL THEIR HOUSES HUllNEI)

rhrcc of tlic IVIoiifil^oliniiN Known to

Be Killed and Probably IVIorc—

The Troubles Reach a Climax.

Special to TuxBun:

Rock Springs, "Wyoming, Septcm-
>cr 2. — ^Thc long brewing troubles bc-
iween the white miners and Chinese
;mploye4 by the Union Pacific com-
[mny here broke out today, culminat-
ing in a bloody attack upon the latter.
rhc trouble commeuccd this mor^ I
ing about 7 o'clock at miiif^^
and a fight occurred bo

NNALS of
WYOMING

Volume 59, No. 2 Fall, 1987

e^7i>"

^^'^ Further From the Scene of Bloo
^ shed and Fire at Rock Springs.

PIGTAIL DONE.

k Springs Exhibits a Dislike of
the Celestials,

Drives Them Out With Slaugh-
ter and Conflagration.

Lie j'esterday afternoon a Leader
rter received information that S — ^1
to pay at Rock Springs. The report
^hat the miners there had killed hun-
fs of the Chinese miners and had
eJ the Chinatown of that place, and
soldiers had been ordered from Fort
e to quell the riot. Forthwith the
rter hunted up Mr. L. M. Tisdell,
ock Springs, who is here attending
eachers' institute, but he having left

A Reign of Terror and Disgrace
Western Wyoming.

Yesterday morning Governor Wan
telegraphed from Rock Springs tl
every Chinaman in that place, 500
number, had been driven out. He &i
that at that time fifteen dead bodies h
been found and that is probably not h
of those killed by assault and burned
death. Fifty houses belonging to t
railroad company have been burned, a
fifty more belonging to Chinamen. T

nViincimpn wlin WArft drivfin out. ft]

THE WYOMING STATE ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS AND HISTORICAL DEPARTMENT

WYOMING STATE LIBRARY, ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS AND HISTORICAL BOARD

FrarJ<; Bowron, Casper, Chairman

Lucille Clarke Dumbrill, Newcastle

George Zebre, Kemmerer

Tom Mangan, Laramie

Bill Bruce Hines, Gillette

Gladys Hill, Douglas

Gretel Ehrlich, Shell

George Ziemans, Lingle

Mary Guthrie, Attorney General's Office, Ex-officio

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Dona Bachman

James Donahue

Rick Ewig

Mark Junge

Linda Rollins

Mary Nielsen, Ex-officio
President, Wyoming State Historical Society

Frank Bowron, Ex-officio
Chairman, State Library, Archives, Museums and Historical Board

ABOUT THE COVER— The Cheyenne newspapers carried extensive coverage of the event which
is now known as the "Chinese" or "Rock Springs Massacre." White miners rioted, killing
28 Chinese, wounding fifteen and chasing hundreds out of Rock Springs. Governor Francis E.
Warren played an active role in the resolution of this crisis as can be seen in the article,
"Governor Francis E. Warren, The United States Army and the Chinese Massacre at Rock
Springs."

NNALS of WYOMING

Volume 59, No. 2
Fall, 1987

GOVERNOR OF WYOMING

Mike Sullivan

DIRECTOR

David Kathka

ACTING EDITOR

Rick Ewig

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Jean Brainerd
Roger Joyce
Ann Nelson

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Kathy Martinez
Judy West

PHOTOGRAPHIC
ASSISTANTS

Paula West-Chavoya
Carroll Jones
Ed Fowler

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE MOUNTAIN MAN DOCUMENTARY AS

THE CONTRA WESTERN

by Patrick McCarthy

CROSSING WYOMING WITH THE FORTY-NINERS:

Cornish Impressions of the Trek West

by Brian P. Birch

GOVERNOR FRANCIS E. WARREN, THE
UNITED STATES ARMY AND THE CHINESE

MASSACRE AT ROCK SPRINGS

by Murray L. Carroll

THE LITTLE KNOWN BATTLE OF SNAKE

MOUNTAIN

by David M. Delo

DESERT DOCUMENTARY:

The William Lee Diary Account of the

James H. Simpson Expedition, 1858-1859 36

by John P. Langellier

REVIEWS 48

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 53

INDEX 54

ANNALS OF WYOMING is published biannually in the Spring and Fall by the Wyoming
State Press. It is received by all members of the Wyoming State Historical Society as the of-
ficial publication of that organization. Copies of previous and current issues may be purchased
from the Editor. Correspondence should be addressed to the Editor. Published articles repre-
sent the views of the author and are not necessarily those of the Wyoming State Archives,
Museums and Historical Department or the Wyoming State Historical Society. ANNALS OF
WYOMING articles are abstracted in Historical Abstracts. America: History and Life.
© Copyright 1987 by the Wyoming State Press

THE MOUNTAIN MAN

DOCUMENTARY

AS THE CONTRA WESTERN

by Patrick McCarthy

. . . there are in these prairies, and the forests of the Rocky
Mountains, beaver and fur trappers, who live at their own
cost. . . . They are, for the most part, enterprising, robust
men, capital riflemen, and, from their rude course in life,
are able to endure the greatest hardships.'^

Few early day travelers were as fortunate as German
Prince Maximilian to witness the mountain man— the fur
trapper and/or trader of the 19th century trans-Mississippi
West. Maximilian's account is testimony to the mountain
man's image in the late 1830s— the declining years of the
heyday of the western fur trade.

Once a subject left to historians and writers of popular
literature, this historical figure has been re-created in
twenty documentary films released over the past 35 years.
His presence on celluloid has led to a "sub-genre" of fOms
which can be termed "mountain man documentaries."
Despite his extensive characterization on-screen, what the
cinematic trapper symbolizes to society and how he com-
pares with any other media heroes have never been deter-
mined. Therefore, this essay summarizes the depiction of
the mountain man in the documentary mode while con-
trasting his screen "persona" with that of a more popular
media figure— the cowboy— in the classic Western movie.

The mountain man documentary and the Western
have endured because of common features; namely larger-
than-life protagonists like the mountain man and the cow-
boy. Both characters have qualities generally exceeding
human capabilities because they perform extraordinary
feats of strength and endurance. On a more earthly level,
they are brave and robust men who ride horses and carry

guns. These mutual attributes find them living in the same
place: the Intermontane West. Yet, their loyalties are divided
between the Western wOds and society; that is each man
has one foot in the wilderness and one foot in civilization.
This personal tension mirrors a theme shared by both types
of films: civilization versus the "wide open spaces" and
the intrinsic conflicts therein. Given such similar char-
acteristics, one might think that the universe of the moun-
tain man documentary matches the classic Western; how-
ever, closer inspection reveals that vast differences exist
between their filmic worlds.

These dissimilarities can be explained by using a
method of inquiry known as genre criticism. This approach
simply enables one to identify a category of films by generic
elements: (1) characterization; (2) iconography; (3) theme;
(4) setting; (5) plot structure; and (6) style (aesthetic
techniques).

Characterization basically refers to how an individual,
such as the mountain man or cowboy, is developed over
the course of a motion picture or series of films. In short,
what attributes make these dwellers of the cinematic West
distinct personalities? As a bold and resourceful drifter, the
mountain man goes wherever he wants, with whomever
he wishes and when he desires— in a womanless world.
He is an adventurer-explorer who does little trapping or

A contemporary mountain man.

trading, and he enjoys male companionship almost ex-
clusively. This self-contained soul is essentially a
wilderness stoic who directs all his energies to "surviv-
ing" in the wilds. His home is where he puts his head,
which is neither on a mattress nor next to a woman. Nar-
ration in the documentary film. The Mountain Men (1964;
Barr films), amplifies the autonomy the mountain men
relishes on celliiloid: "Life in the mountains required
tough, hardy men, men as wild and free as the country
in which they lived."

Even though he and the cowboy are restless people
"on the move," the latter is a forerunner of society and
protector of civilization. Scholar Will Wright says the classic
Western "is the story of the lone ranger who rides into
a troubled town and cleans it up, winning the respect of
the townsfolk and the love of the schoolmarm."^ Accord-
ingly, "Women are primary symbols of civilization in the
Western. "3 Scholar Philip French writes:

. . . there are two kinds of women [in the Western] . On the
one hand there is the unsullied pioneer heroine: virtuous wife,
rancher's virginal daughter, schoolteacher, etc.; on the other
hand there is the saloon girl with her entourage of dancers.
The former are in short supply, to be treated with respect and
protected. The latter are reasonably plentiful, sexually available
and cormnunity property.^

In the course of his activities, the cowboy interacts with
women and various townspeople. While he maintains con-
tact with civilization on a regular basis, the mountain man
is a refugee from society; his only constant companions
are horses and the nightly campfire.

Iconography— what a character wears and manipulates
as part of his daily existence— reveals that the celluloid
mountain man is "fitted" to the outdoors by the way he
dresses. He wears animal skins and usually a hat made
of fur. This is earthy clothing of a woodsman, a "natural"
man whose attire is practical and blends with the forest.
In such outdoor surroundings the mountain man enjoys
unrivaled mobility through the ready access of transport
and the skill by which he uses horses and other means,
such as watercraft, of getting around. An additional horse
or two may serve as a pack animal; for the mountain man
takes with him all his earthly possessions wherever he
goes. Large accessories are packed by horses or mules;
some small items go into a "possibles sack," which hangs
from his neck. Nothing impedes the mountain man's
wanderlust.

The cowboy travels equally as light; his pony carries
the cowboy himself, saddlebags and a blanket roll.

However, his costume is strikingly different from the
buckskin worn by the mountain man. The cowboy gen-
erally wears a white, ten-gallon hat, is clean-shaven, and
his clothes are often well-pressed. His boots, chaps, heavy
shirt and bandana symbolize a mixture of dandyism and
utilitarianism. In contrast, the mountain man's clothing
clearly illustrates that he identifies with wOd creatiires, and
like them he is a full fledged denizen of the woods. He
and the cowboy depend on natural instincts and few
material possessions to survive, but the trapper needs lit-
tle help from civilization.

How these two "westerners" lead their lives is also
determined by another icon— the gun. Unlike the cowboy,
who usually packs around a little, short pistol, the moun-
tain man lugs a big, long, heavy, frontloading rifle. This
death-dealing instrument is used expertly by the moun-
tain man to kill wild game with a skill that qualifies him
as a premier hunter on a plane with "the deerslayer." Most
often, his muzzleloader, as a symbol of machismo and

power, remains draped across one of the mountain man's

wide shoulders; for he participates in virtually no violence

involving humans. He is potentially as explosive as the

cowboy is violent in westerns, yet the mountain man's

virility— as represented by guns— is sublimated or diffused

through his association with nature.

In opposite fashion, the cowboy, according to scholar

Robert Warshow, is a "killer of men."^ He adds the gun

tells us that the cowboy "lives in a world of violence, and

even that he 'believes in violence.' " Scholar John Cawelti

asserts:

The most important implication of this killing procedure seems
to be the qualities of reluctance, control, and elegance which
itassociates with the hero. . . . The cowboy hero does not seek
out combat for its own sake and he typically shows an aver-
sion to the wanton shedding of blood. Killing is an act forced
upon him and he carries it out with the precision and skill of
a surgeon and the careful proportions of an artist.'

To maintain this code of honor, the cowboy participates
in gunfights, fistfights and various duels with men. The
celluloid mountain man would have none of this; he is a

pacifist who seeks in men comradeship and friendship,
although such meetings are brief. He enjoys what author
Leslie Fiedler terms "homoerotic relationship," or strong
friendships among men.^

The ultimate "foe" for the mountain man turns out
to be nature. Seasonal weather patterns, precipitous moim-
tains, attacks from grizzlies and freezing, turbulent rivers
are among the threats to his well-being. Inasmuch as
nature does not directly claim any mountain man's life in
these films, he becomes a "survivor." Referring to him in
this maimer would be the supreme compliment. Still, there
are no material rewards associated with his punishing
lifestyle. Unlike the real mountain man, this filmic figure
participates in "surviving" not as a direct outgrowth of
any trapping/trading ventures. It is a more basic gratifica-
tion which impels the cinematic trapper to endure the
greatest hardships imaginable in the western wUds. What
is at stake for him is some masculine ideal.

The man versus nature theme takes a different turn
in the classic Western. Whereas nature is the mountain
man's home, as well as a proving ground for him, the
cowboy views unsettled country in strictly an adversarial
light. Wilderness, then, should be subdued or conquered
in paving the way for civilization in the eyes of the cowboy.
Conversely, the trapper seeks not to harness the land; he
simply wants to exist peacefully and in harmony with the
outdoors. Thus, he winds up as an inhabitant of the deep
forest, a dark and frightening place where few cowboys go.

Setting— the physical environment where the film(s)
takes place— is further important insofar as the West in
mountain man films has not been made into an East, with
all the materialism of society. While the Western seeks to
preserve civilization, which extends from the East, the
mountain man's universe has largely been left unchanged
by his appearance on the scene. Civilization has tainted
the seductive landscape of the West in Hollywood "shoot-
em-ups," but there are no disturbing remnants of society,
such as ghost towns, in mountain man documentaries; the
impermanence of life is found only in moccasin tracks and
the ashes of campfires.

While the campfire acts as a social facilitator in bring-
ing mountain men together on rare evenings, the great
gathering of these staunch individualists occurs at filmic
restagings of the historical "rendezvous"— yearly meetings
of fur trappers, traders and Indians during the halcyon
years of the western fur trade (1825-1840). On this occasion
the celluloid trapper experiences his only contact with
civilization because he trades for goods with suppliers from
the East. In a sense, the rendezvous is the mountain man's
answer to the cowboy's saloon or "watering hole."
However, this get-together of the he-men in some high
valley is less an open-air bar and brothel than a chance to
re-establish the male camaraderie which unites these
celibate backwoodsmen.

Rendezvous (1976), a documentary made in Wyoming,
and the only mountain man film exclusively devoted to

re-creating this event, is a short motion picture about three
trappers who meet on the way to this "f of arrow" of old.
They are depicted as backslapping buddies and outdoors-
men with unusual skills. One member of this threesome
even catches a trout with his bare hands, a "fish" story
if there ever was one. Once they get to the rendezvous,
it is not trading furs which occupies their time, but par-
ticipating in the festivities of the occasion. At another point
in the film, Roy KerswUl, the producer of this documen-
tary, is seen— brush in hand— putting the finishing touches
on a painting. His voice-over is a telling tribute to this film's
characterization of the mountain man:

One has to live the life of a mountain man to really be able to
paint him. I think in every mountain man there was that little
spark of a need for total freedom. And he was as close to real
freedom as anyone could get. Once a year he had to attend
the rendezvous where he'd pick up more black powder. But
other than that he was totally free. He could go anywhere he
wanted to go. All his physical needs were right there. And I
think maybe this . . . [pause] this is what we look for— all of
us— one way or another we look for this. There are times,
perhaps, I wish I could put my buckskins on and take off.

This illusory portrait of the mountain man mirrors the
image painted of him by the combined plot structure of
these various documentary films. In essence, this generic
component relates to story lines built around "segmenta-
tion," a term which breaks down a filmic narrative into
a beginning, middle and an end usually developed in
chronological order. Mountain man documentaries gen-
erally lack this cohesive organization because plot struc-
ture portrays the trapper mainly as a "pathfinder"; only
what motivates him to follow so many different paths virtu-
ally remains a mystery. One clue is that his major activity
is traveling to and from locations which are practically
unknown to the viewer. Therefore, wanderlust appears to
be an end in itself.

Because of the various people the cowboy encounters,
and since he is basically an extra-legal agent on the side
of law and order, the classic Western may incorporate
involved plot structures to deal with the complexity of
human relationships. Whereas this generic element is
loosely arranged and quite simple in mountain man docu-
mentaries, the Western features plot "twists" which create
suspense and alter expectations of the viewer. Plot struc-
ture, then, is peripherally important to the mountain man
documentary.

Style— the final genre component— pertains to what
visual and aural techniques the filmmaker uses to present
subject matter. Such techniques include cinematographic
elements relating to the camera (i.e., shot types, angles,
camera movement, framing and composition); principles

of editing; aural devices (i.e., sound effects and narration);
lighting strategies; and special effects, such as (map)
animation, created by a film lab. These aspects are not
discussed owing to their diverse nature, and because con-
tent about the mountain man apparently does not demand
that documentarists use other than fundamental tech-
niques in portraying him. However, subject matter in the
classic Western is often depicted through the use of
sophisticated aesthetic techniques.

By any standards, the mountairi man emerges on cellu-
loid as an imposing, yet enigmatic, figure. Characteriza-
tion reveals that he has the leathery look of an out-
doorsman and the rugged qualities to match his appear-
ance. Iconography also gives him the exterior image of a
woodsman through the clothing he wears, his gun and
horse— a symbol of grace, dignity and power. Setting
places him in the Rocky Mountain West, and the theme
of man versus nature shows that he gets his masculine
identity from being able to survive in the wilderness. That
he leads a rootless, homeless and, outwardly, an aimless
existence is disclosed by examining plot structure. Subse-
quently, applying these genre elements to the mountain
man documentary strongly suggest that the trapper's
separation from civilization is complete.

How does one personalize this remote individual who
seems so detached from society? Initially, one can think
of a host of unflattering terms by which to characterize his
behavior. He could be thought of as gynephobic because
he seems to fear women. He could also be considered a
misanthrope since at the very least he seems to distrust
people. In addition, he may be deemed a mysogamist
because he appears to avoid or detest marriage. However,
any figure who would risk being known by all these terms
must find reward in his lifestyle beyond the individuality
and freedom he already has.

Perhaps author Phyllis Klotman provides a key to
understanding him as a type of "Running Man." To use
her description of this phrase, the mountain man is "the
protagonist who rejects the values of the culture or society
in which he finds himself by birth, compulsion or volition,
and literally takes flight."' As a person who rejects society,
the trapper seeks happiness through introspection and his
wandering ways, and without the help of a mountain
"ma'am." For him, domesticity and responsibility are out.
Symbolically speaking, he does not want to cut the lawn,
paint the picket fence white, feed the dog, take out the gar-
bage and put diapers on the baby; let alone take a nine
to five job. Moreover, the mountain man's life is simple
and austere. He has few creature comforts, such as a
house, and his world is not cluttered by modern con-
veniences, urban congestion and complexity. This man
finds reassurance in a tactile or sensory universe (i.e., what
he cannot feel, touch or smell does not exist). Moreover,
he is a universalist who identifies with all living things in
the forest. Klotman, therefore, may have the answer to
what ultimately propels the cinematic mountain man:

Perhaps he [Running Man] represents, in the romantic tradi-
tion, not what we were but what we wished to be. Perhaps
it is simply the desire to be free, unfettered, unconstrained;
the desire not to adjust; not to accommodate; not to belong;
alienation by choice."

It seems that the mountain man documentary has
resurrected James Fenimore Cooper's Natty Bumppo from
The Leatherstocking Tales or Rousseau's "natural man," the
romantic inhabitant of the forest. As a figure in real life,
the latter first captivated the public's imagination in the
late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was a frontiersman
then, when Americans began moving West from under the
shadow of the AUeghenies and the Great Smoky Mountains.

However, as author Marshall Fishwick notes, this
forerunner to the historical mountain man eventually
"traded coonskins for sombreros,- long rifles for six
shooters, and moccasins for spurs, without losing for a sec-
ond . . . [his] fascination for the hero-loving American
public."" In the meantime, the mountain man became a
transitional figure between the frontiersman of Daniel
Boone's time and the cowboy, who was more at home on
the Great Plains. Eventually, the cowboy fell heir to the
broad landscape of the West, which the buckskin-clad
mountain man, and the frontiersman before him, once had
claimed for themselves.

That the cowboy remains such a popular figure today
is owing to the dime novels and other popular paperbacks
which kept his image alive long after the cattle drive and
range wars became things of the past. It was only natural,
then, that mass media would adopt him, instead of the
mountain man, as "the Man of the West."

Furthermore, why the cowboy is more of a hero than
the mountain man could be traceable to the cinematic trap-
per's salient characteristics. Because of his wanderlust, the
mountain man personifies democratic ideals, such as in-
dividuality and freedom, and represents America's "tradi-
tion of mobility." Historian Ray Allen BUlington believes
that this last characteristic "was an integral part in the raw,
sweaty drama that was western economic development. "^^
The trapper's mobility, in turn, mirrors the restlessness of
the American people. Words once penned by Robert Louis
Stevenson attest to this characteristic:
For my part
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go

I travel for travel's sake
The great affair is to move."

Yet, the mountain man is such a mobile and solitary

figure that he becomes simultaneously an attractive and

repulsive character. Author Martha Wolfenstein writes

about filmic figures who have the trapper's qualities:

Perhaps the thing from which the hero suffers most, and which
contributes to the semblance of his guilt, is that he is alone . . .
Americans tend to feel uneasy alone; they feel they are unloved
and therefore unworthy of love— there must be something
wrong with them. . . . The image of the outcast ... is un-
congenial. Thus, if the hero is alone, even though we know
that the suspicions against him are unfounded, he tends to re-
tain an aura of guilt."

Thus, the cinematic mountain man has almost too much
individuality and freedom for Americans to embrace him

Scene from the

National Film Board of

Canada production,

"The Voyageurs. "

wholeheartedly as a cultural hero. Americans seem to ad-
mire the autonomous lifestyle of the cinematic trapper, but
in the end he is also a threatening figure owing to his
solitary nature, as well as his wanderlust.

In the final analysis, the cowboy has always enjoyed
overwhelming approval as America's chief western hero,
perhaps, because he has a clean, upright appearance, while
the mountain man is dark, disheveled and hairy. By these
characteristics the cinematic mountain man is also too "un-
civilized" to play any "civilized games," such as protecting
society, as the cowboy does in motion pictures. Even if the
mountain man were in the cowboy's shoes for a short time,
from what intruders would this earthy backwoodsman pro-
tect society? The traditional enemy of civilization in the
Western is the Indian. However, the human being the
filmic trapper most resembles is the red man. As such, the
mountain man is nomadic, lives off the land and par-
ticipates in an alternative lifestyle which is unacceptable
to society at large, which the cowboy ultimately protects.
Overall, then, the classic Western may represent aspects
of civilization such as the machine age, rational culture and
population density. Clearly, the mountain man documen-
tary turns this orientation upside down.

PATRICK McCarthy, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Film and Television
in the Department of Communication at Indiana State University.

1. Maximilian, Prince of Wied, Travels in the Interior of North America,
Part I, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed.. Early Western Travels, 32 vols.
(Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1907), vol. 22, p. 379.

2. WUl Wright, Six Guns and Society (University of California Press, 1975),
p. 32.

3. John Cawelti, The Six-Gun Mistique (Bowling Green University Popular
Press [no date]).

4. Philip French, Westerns, Cinema One series, no. 25 (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1977), p. 62.

5. Robert Warshow, "Movie Chronicle: The Westerner," in Gerald Mast
and Marshall Cohen, eds.. Film Theory and Criticism 2nd ed. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 475.

6. Ibid., p. 486.

7. Cawelti, The Six-Gun Mistique, p. 59.

8. Leslie Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel (New York, 1966),
p. 194.

9. PhyUis Rauch Klotman, Another Man Gone: The Black Runner in Con-
temporary Afro-American Literature (Port Washington, N. Y. : Kennikat
Press, 1977), p. 3.

10. Ibid., p. 41.

11. Marshall W. Fishwick, "The Cowboy: America's Contribution to the
Worid's Mythology," Western Folklore 11 (April 1952): 77.

12. Ray AUen Billington cited in Clark C. Spence, "Knights of the Tie
and Rail— Tramps and Hoboes in the West," Western Historical Quar-
terly 2 Oanuary 1971): 19.

13. Robert Louis Stevenson quoted in a Nissan advertisement on the back
cover of America [the Nissan student travel guide]. Fall 1984.

14. Martha WoUenstein, Movies: A Psychological Study (Glencoe, Illinois:
Free Press, 1950), p. 184.

During the middle years of the last century, the valley
of the Platte, leading up to South Pass, acted as a great
funnel which led thousands of migrants and adventurers
v^festwards across the Plains and through Wyoming. Whether
this westward crossing was made in the company of one
of the many ox-wagon trains which rolled along the trail
in the late 1840s, or as part of the much more lightly-
equipped "handcart migration" of the Mormons a decade
later, all of those who recorded their impressions of the
trek spoke of the numerous privations and dangers they
faced. 1 For the most part, the increased traffic along the
trail as the years passed did little to reduce the simi of those
difficulties. It is true, of course, that some of the hazards
of the journey, such as the dangers of the river crossings
and the threat of Indian attacks, were gradually reduced
as more ferries and forts were set up along the trail. Yet
as each year went by and as each season advanced, parts
of the trail suffered further overgrazing and the increased
rutting of the various paths further slowed one's passage.

Some groups, like the gold-seeking forty-niners, for
whom the crossing seemed but a frustrating obstacle to a
fortune awaiting them in the Sierra Nevada, were often
less well-prepared for the difficulties of the trip. Because
they needed to get to the Californian gold fields as quickly
as possible, the gold-seekers were often tempted to take
greater risks than other users of the trail, and sometimes
paid for these with their lives. Seldom were they willing
to halt their journey for any length of time to recuperate
their animals, or to wait often for days at a ferry point to
cross a river. Too often they were unprepared to jettison
equipment and supplies in order to lighten the load. As
a result, during the peak months of the gold rush the trail
became littered with the evidence of defeat, with dead
animals and abandoned provisions. As one Englishman
who joined the trek to California from the mines of Wiscon-
sin noted in 1850: "you would be surprised to see the prop-
erty left and destroyed on that road: it was a hard time
with a great many in crossing, the provisions getting short
and no means to get more. The migration across the plains
last season was estimated at 80,000 persons and reports
said 5000 died on the way."^

There is now a vast literature on the overland emi-
grants and especially those who joined the gold rush. Well
over 100 preserved travel diaries, written by overland
emigrants during 1849 alone, have been analyzed to see
what they tell of the difficulties of the passage and the
travelers' reactions to them.' Remarkably, little evidence
has come to light of European parties who made up part
of this westward flow. Coming from the more crowded
and tamed environments of Europe, these nugrants could
be expected to find the dry, empty West an even greater
challenge than their American counterparts.

Prominent among the Europeans rushing to the gold-
fields were considerable numbers of Cornish miners who
were either being attracted away from the declining tin and
copper mines of southwest England, or who were moving

0f ti|e Srek WtBt

bH Srian i. fStrcl;

on from the Wisconsin lead-mining district to which they
had gone from Cornwall by the thousands in the 1830s and
1840s. No record exists of the number of Cornish who
were enticed from Cornwall or Wisconsin to the far West,
but thousands gathered in the goldfields. Nevada County,
California, for example, had 500 English miners among its
population by 1860, and most of these were from Cornwall.*

No record exists of the number of Cornish who found
their way to California by the various routes open to them.
Some undoubtedly took direct sea passages from England
to San Francisco via Panama while some endured the
17,000 mile, eight month voyage around Cape Horn.^ It
seems likely, however, that just as many made the overland
journey west from New York or Wisconsin. Not orJy was
the land route a shorter way to California— especially for
those already in Wisconsin— but it was also generally a
quicker and less expensive way west, and few Cornish
miners could afford to spend many months on route with-
out an income. Going overland also avoided the extra cost
of getting inland to the goldfields once one had disem-
barked at San Francisco at the end of a long sea voyage.*

As a result, not only did hundreds of Cornish miners
in Wisconsin hit the overland trail to California, but many
others coming from England rejected the longer sea
passage to San Francisco. They instead chose a shorter
Atlantic crossing to New York, or some other port on the
Atlantic seaboard, followed by travel overland often via
Wisconsin, where one might also join up with other Cor-
nishmen planning the journey west.

'MONTANA

I NORTH DAKOTA

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^MINNESOTA-

SOUTH DAKOTA

WISCONSIN ji^

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Salt Lake City

UTAH 11

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Point
IOWA Dubuqu^^ _ _^^e,
Iowa y^ ,

'^° NEBRASKA .^aiil^ \«>-^^

Council Bluffs ,

-f ILLINOIS

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COLORADO

"f" KANSAS

I MISSOURI

-^R/ZONA

NEW MEXICO

OKLAHOMA

TEXAS

The route followed
500 km

250miles

Route followed by Walters-Uren party from Wisconsin to California.

The recent discovery of the daily journal of a miner
from Cornwall who took this route to California provides
some graphic detail of the experiences of one small group
of Cornishmen on the California trail. These experiences
paralleled those recorded by a few of the many others
whose letters home to Cornwall have been preserved.''

Little can be discovered of the writer of this journal,
a major portion of which is reproduced here. He did not
even reveal his name although we know that he joined up
with his Cornish cousin John Walters and William Uren,
another Cornishman, in Wisconsin for the trek to the
goldfields. We also know that the writer of the journal left
Cornwall early in April, 1849, and reached Quebec seven
weeks later. He continued his journey on to Wisconsin by
river and lake boats to Milwaukee which he reached by
early June. He stayed in Wisconsin for nine months work-
ing, presumably as a miner. Then at the end of March, 1850,
he left Mineral Point, Wisconsin, with his compatriots
Walters and Uren, on the four month trek west that was
to be full of dangers and privations.

In several ways the journal of the Walters-Uren party
shows the conditions and pace of their crossing were not
unlike those endured by many other Cornish miners
heading for California at about this time. Three similarities
in particular can be noted.

First, the four month period which it took the Walters-
Uren group to reach the goldfields from Wisconsin was
of the same order of duration as for many other parties
of miners caught up in the rush, and was a faster crossing

than achieved by those who were not spurred on by the
same panic. John Grenfell, another Cornishman who
reached the goldfields in July, 1850, and within a few days
of the Walters-Uren party, also took four months on the
overland route from east to west.^ Edward Dale, a Cor-
nishman who reached California in September, 1850, took
a little longer.' He spent three months covering only the
second half of the journey from Laramie to California
mainly because he took a fifteen day break in Salt Lake
City to recuperate. He later regretted this lost time although
those who took no time off did find the trek very ex-
hausting. Grenfell noted it as a "tiresome journey both for
man and beast" and concluded it "has wasted my strength
considerably and 1 was getting very thin.""

In contrast to the forty-niners, those going west at this
time who were not caught up in the gold fever normally
took longer on the journey in order to reduce the fatigue
and the perils, especially from being caught in the moun-
tains in the winter and from over-working their animals.
Again we can quote the case of a Cornishman, Samuel
James, who, fresh from England, set out from Wisconsin
with a party heading along the California trail in October,
1850, with Oregon as their eventual destination." But they
did not reach this point until eleven months after leaving
eastern Wisconsin, mainly because they chose to over-
winter for five months in Iowa before attempting the most
hazardous part of their trek.

When on the move, however, all groups seemed to go
along at about the same pace, covering ten to twenty miles

a day depending on local conditions and the type of ani-
mals being used. There is little to suggest that progress got
slower the longer the trail extended. Indeed, the Walters-
Uren group seemed to make their slowest progress on the
first leg of their journey across Iowa and to speed up con-
siderably on the more grueling westerly parts of the trek
when the need to cover ground was most urgent.

A second point of similarity in the experience of many
of the Cornish, like others, on the gold rush trail was the
degree of privation they suffered on the western, mainly
desert, parts of the journey, and their general underestima-
tion of the dangers that faced them. The Comishman, John
Grenfell, believed he fared better than many in not losing
any horses to fatigue or to the Indians, and in having to
jettison only a few belongings, but when his party reached
the Sierra Nevada they found that they had to cross snow
up to twenty feet deep. Edward Dale, another Cornish-
man, lost his prized ox after only a two hour illness on the
Humbolt River and told of many who had lost far more
in this area. As he wrote: "The destruction of property in
this desert is beyond my description. You will scarcely
believe me when I say that I do not think $250,000 will
cover the loss of property on this 45 miles; dead horses,
mules, oxen, wagons, harness, and all kinds of outfits were
strewed all over the place; the stench from so many dead
cattle were almost insupportable. "'^ The Walters-Uren
party similarly suffered and had finally to abandon its
wagon and join up with another Cornish party before
reaching the Sierra Nevada, but as the journal which
follows makes clear they witnessed other trekkers who suf-
fered far more than they.

A third point of similarity in all of these accounts by
the Cornish on the California traU can be seen in their com-
mon reaction to Wyoming and their first encounter there
with a western mountain environment. After the relative
tedium and ease of crossing the grassy plains of Nebraska,
Wyoming confronted the Cornish, like others, both with
greater difficulties and delays and yet a quality of scenic
grandeur which, for the spirit at least, offered some com-
pensation. The West, and especially the Mountain West
was a region that appeared larger than life. As a result,
their accounts of the trek through Wyoming and the
Rockies are often fuller than for any other part of the
journey. The Walters-Uren journal that follows clearly
shows that they experienced no major delays on the trek
west until they reached and attempted to cross the Green
and other rivers in Wyoming, rivers which they heard
claimed the lives of others who risked too much in at-
tempting to wade across. In a similar way, the Comishman
Edward Dale, on his group's passage through Wyoming,
reported very long delays at the river ferries which he said
were "so crowded that there was no chance for us cross-
ing the Platte for a week so we thought we had better build
a boat and put ourselves across." They then sold their boat
"at a high price" and continued their journey, but not
before hearing of another adventurer upstream who was

making $3,000 a day from ferrying emigrants across the
Platte."

All of these difficulties on the Wyoming part of the
trek, which were but a prelude to much greater privations
awaiting the forty-niners to the west, also provided the
Cornish with time to admire the mountain scenery, much
as the English have always taken an interest in their sur-
roundings.** Once they had gotten as far as Nevada, they
found nothing of interest to relieve the harshness, but in
Wyoming there was much to soothe the frustrations. At
several points west of Scotts Bluff, the writer of the Wal-
ters-Uren journal was clearly impressed with the moun-
tain scenery, part of which he rather grudgingly described
as "grand and picturesq." But other Cornishmen on the
trek were more fulsome like Samyel James who believed
the scenery just east of Fort Laramie resembled "some fine
scenery in Old England" and saw the upper Platte Coun-
try as "delightful country fit for angels to dwell in."*^

The first part of the Walters-Uren journal is simply a
description of the writer's Atlantic crossing and onward
journey to Wisconsin. There he met up with his two Cor-
nish compatriots and recommenced his jovimal as they set
out for California.

I left Minerall Point March 28th 1850 in company with
cousin John Walters and William Uren for California and reach'd
Dubuque on the 29th and started the next morning for Iowa
City and reach'd it on April 3rd. Came through Cascade,
Animosa, Iowa City moving on, and went off the road to
Montezuma. Came though Newton, Fort Desmoine. Cross'd
the Mokokida [MaquoketaJ, Cedar, Iowa, Skunk, Desmoine,
Coon and three other rivers and reach'd Kawsville [Council
Bluffs] on the 22nd. We have paid $1.75 per hundred for hay
and $1.00 per bushell for corn. We left Kawsville on the 25th
and cross'd the Missouri river on the 26th on the south side
of the Piatt river.

Sunday 28th we encamped on Salt Creek. 29th we had a
very stormy night, had our tents blown down. May 1st saw
the remains of several waggons that were deserted by persons
that was carrien provisions out to the forts. We struck the Piatt
bottom and kept on the south side of it. 2nd we came through
a large Indian village, it was deserted. The part of the country
we have come through is verry thinly timbered. 6th reach'd
Fort Kearney 246 miles from the Misouri river. Saw severall
young buffaloes which they had kept into a yard. 12th we
cross'd the south fork of the Piatt river. It is a wide stream about
from a ¥4 to V2 a mile wide and a sandy bottom, several teams
got stuck into it. Game appears to be more plentiful than before
and feed better. In the evening five men from our company
went out to hunt buffalo and killed one and next morning 13
of us went out for some of it and killed another, about sb< or
eight hundredweight. Antelope and wolves verry plenty. 15th
killed another young buffalo and met with a great number of
soux, sioux or siux Indians which appears to be verry friendly
and beggin of every teem that pass by. We came through Ash
Hollow today, feed verry scarce, scenery rather more picturesq
than what we had previously pass'd.

16th and 17th we met with a great deal of Indians and came
through their village. They would trade anything for wiskey,
suggar or bread but money they did not care about. 18th we
pass'd by what is called the Courthouse Rock and got in sight
of the Chimney Rock. 20th we got up to it, it is said to be 200
feet high and it is composed of a kind of clay. 21st we pass'd

Scots Bluffs and Cold Springs at which last place their is a
trading post. The scenery that we pass'd through today was
grand and picturesq, the bluffs high on each side and thinly
scatter'd over with cedar wood. 22nd we pass'd another trading
post. 23rd we reach'd fort Laramie. The fort is situated on the
Laramie river. We had to ford it to reach the fort. We stopt their
and got some bread at 14 cents per lb, and then went out about
IVi miles and encamp'd. 24th Black Hills in sight. Had a hail
and thunderstorm. 25th encamp'd on Horseshoe creek. 26th
laid over, had wind, rain, haU, snow, hot and cold. 27th drove
about 30 miles over the Black HUls, roads bad and feed verry
scarce. 29th we cross'd Deer creek and struck the Piatt river
again. Weather verry warm, see snow on the tops of the moun-
tains. 30th we reach'd the ferry, had to pay $4.00 per waggon
and 25 cents per horse for crossing. 31st we cross'd the river
and drove out about 12 rrules through a sandy country thickly
covered with wild saige and encamp'd on some minerall
springs.

June 1st we pass'd some alkali springs. 2nd we pass'd near
some alkali lakes and saw a great quantity of saleratus and en-
camp'd close to Independence Rock which rock is worthy the
emigrants notice. 3rd we pass'd the Devils Gate. It is a narrow
pass through which the Sweetwater river runs, the sides of
which is 400 feet high. 6th we came by considerable snow and
went a snowballing one another. 7th we reached the famous
South Pass of the Rocky mountains. 8th we came to the junc-
tion of California and Oregon roads. We took the right-hand
road and encamp'd near the Big Sandy. 9th we left the Big
Sandy about 4 o'clock in the afternoon for the desert lying be-
tween the Sandy and Green river which we consider about 45

or 50 miles. We reached the river about 10 or 11 o'clock in the
morning when we had to swim our horses across the river,
some men rafting, and others took off the box of their wag-
gons to cross the river. There was one man wash'd off his horse
in fording the river and drowned. 11th there was two men
drowned. We got ferry'd over in the evening, pay'd $10 per wag-
gon and had to work the boat a good deal ourselves to get
across. 12th we left Green river. The country that we pass'd
through was very mountainous. 13th just the same. Reach'd
Hams fork of Bear river. Here we had to see a little of the
Elephant.'* We had to take out all our things out of the wag-
gon and haul them across the stream in a waggon box and take
the waggon aboard and put it over in the same way. 14th and
15th we had verry cold weather, hail and snow. 15th we cross'd
several branches of Bear river and descended some verry steep
mountains. 16th we reach'd Thomas's fork of Bear river where
we had to take our things out of the waggon, and carry them
across the stream on horseback. Verry cold, snow'd a great part
of the night, good grass now.

18th we reach'd the Sodaw springs and drank out of them
and near by we came through an Indian encampment [Snake
tribe] and bought a poney. About two irules from here the road
forks, one going to Fort Hall and the other the cutoff to Califor-
nia. The road through the cutoff is generally through a moun-
tainous country and is said to be 108 miles through to the Fort
Hall road again but it is from 125 to 135 miles. Sunday 23rd
we cross'd several streams and made about 6 or 8 miles. 25th
we reach'd the Salt Lake road again. 26th we came up by Goose
Creek and took a desert of fifteen miles. 27th we came through
Thousand Springs valley, feed verry scarce a great part of the

Crossing the North Platte above the mouth of Deer Creek by ferry.

Devil's Gate

way. Friday 28th I saw some hot springs and wash'd my hands
in it. It was so hot I could not bear to keep my hands in it. Satur-
day 29th we reached the Humbolt river and had to take our
things across the stream in the waggon box. Sunday we lay
over and ferry'd severall waggons across the stream.

July 1st we went down the river and cross'd another stream.
Their was good grass some part of the way down the river and
a great part of the way there was scarce any grass and watter
bad. Sunday 7th we reach'd what we supposed was St. Mary's
sink where we stopt to cut grass to carry across the desert. There
was one man drown'd crossing the river to see about grass.

8th we started in the evening about 8 o'clock expecting to
drive to the sulphur springs but was sadly disappointed. Then
we kept down the river until Sunday where we found plenty
of good grass. Through the last week we have seen a great quan-
tity of horses left on the road some dead and some alive and
waggons left at almost every camping place. We left our own
waggon and took Thomas Prisks and joined teems with Gregory
Philips and the Davys. Their is no grass to be got from where
we started last Monday to where we now are except going into
watter and mud two or three feet deep. Saw a great many nearly
out of provisions, some entirely so. One company killed a mule
to try and eat for want of other food. The watter is bad down
in this part of the river but we have to use that or none. We
have seen dead horses floating down the river near where we
was using it and yesterday there was a man seen floating in
the watter but they could not take him out. 14th and 15th we
lay over to rest oiu: horses hoping to put them across this
dreaded desert. 16th we left the slough about 6 o'clock in the

evening and drove down to the sulphur springs where we
reach'd in the morning some very steep mountains and pass'd
the summit of the Sierra Nevada or California mountains and
the most horrid roads that even came under my notice. Snow
very deep in the mountains. Meeting a great many speculators
everry day going out with provisions to meet the emigrants.'''
27th we drove about 1 rmle south of the road and lay over just
all day. 28th we came within about 1 mile of Weavertown. 29th
we drove into the town and sold one of our horses for $55 and
saw a great many folks diggin which all appear to be getting
some gold. 29th we commenced to work in Neber Creek two
or three days and then removed to Hangtown or Placerville.

The journal ends on the writer's arrival in the gold-
fields apart from a short note on his return journey to
England less than a year and a half later." He had spent
fourteen months searching for gold. The journal gives no
indication of his success apart from a reference to his sell-
ing twelve ounces of gold dust at seventeen dollars an
ounce at Sacramento at the end of his stay in California,
but we cannot know if that was the total of his find.

It is of interest to note, however, that on deciding to
return to England, the writer of the journal chose the sea
route via San Francisco and Panama where he walked
across the isthmus. He was clearly not alone in making this
choice of route for his return journey, and many of the Cor-
nish, like others leaving California, did everything to avoid

0> Mm^^m.; *

South Pass
11k- G-iteway of the Rockies. Over rliis ca.sy upLind w.iy during open months of [he y
passed the high tide of covered-wagon migration.

K.MIGKANT TKAIX ()\ THE OrI.C.ON TraII., CROSSING CiRI-i-V Rl\lR
Fmm an orifiinal i>;iiiitiMe made in iS>^

another crossing of the continent by land. As John Grenfell
wrote after reaching California by the overland crossing
in 1850: "I should be very sorry to have to travel it
again. ... 1 believe I shall take the timbering horse [sail-
ing ship] next trip."" In choosing the sea route back to
England the writer of the journal was able to reach
Southampton less than two months after leaving the gold-
fields and to enjoy such an uneventful journey that it only
rated these few lines:

Staid in the gold mines until the 28th day of September 1851,
on which day I left for Sacremento and home in company with
Christopher Clemence and several others going to Wisconsin
to their familys. We reached Sacremento City on the 29th about
11 o'clock in the forenoon and left it again about 2 o'clock in
the afternoon for San Francisco which we reached about 11
o'clock in the evening. We left San Francisco on October 1st
for Panama on board the steam ship Oregon. On our way down
we put into Monteray and St. Diego and Aucapulco and reach'd
Panama on the 18th of October and walk'd about 11 or 12 miles
across the Ismus of Panama and took lodgings for the night
in a rag house. We reach'd Cruses the next evening and stop
that night at Millers Hotel and next morning 20th hired a boat
to take us down to Chagres for which we had to pay $5.00 each
(60 miles). 23rd we went on the Med way steamship bound for
Southampton. We sail'd from Chagres and put into Carthagena
for the mail and arrived at St. Thomas on the 31st where we
had to stop untU the 5th of November taking in cargo and to
stop for the mail when we again started for Southampton and
reach'd it on the 26th.

Brian P. Birch is Senior Lecturer in Geography, Southampton University,
England. Annals published his previous article, "From Old England to Old
Faithful: A Victorian Englishman's View of the West," in Spring, 1982.

1. See R. H. Brown, Historical Geography of the United States (New York,
1948), p. 502, and John D. Unruh, The Plains Across: The Overland
Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 (Urbana, Chicago,
London: University of Illinois Press, 1979).

2. Letter from John T. Grenfell, a Cornish miner in California, in Royal
Cornwall Gazette, January 16, 1852. Grenfell's figure of 80,000 cross-
ing the plains in 1850, a peak year, was probably an over-estimate.
Others have suggested little more than half that figure. Nor did 5,000
die although the best recent estimate suggests that 2,000 may have
died on the trails in 1849, another peak year like 1850. Nevertheless,
Grenfell was right to point, as many others did, to the scenes of
desolation along the way as animals died, equipment was abandoned
and parties turned back. Unruh, The Plains Across, p. 152.

3. Dale Morgan, "The Significance and Value of the Overland Journal,"
in K. Ross Toole et al.. Probing the American West (Santa Fe: Museum
of New Mexico Press, 1962), pp. 26-34.

4. The two main sources on Cornish miners in America are A. C. Todd,
The Cornish Miner in America (Glendale, California: Arthur Clark Co.,
1967), and J. Rowe, The Hard-Rock Men, Cornish Immigrants and the
North American Mining Frontier (Liverpool University Press, 1974). For
information on Cornish miners in Wisconsin, see L. A. Copeland,
"The Cornish in South-West Wisconsin," Wisconsin Historical Collec-
tions 14 (1898), and J. Schaefer, The Wisconsin Lead Region (Madison,
1932).

5. O. Lewis, Sea Routes to the Cold Fields (New York, 1949). As many
as 16,000 gold seekers took the Cape Horn route to San Francisco
and the gold fields in 1849 compared with about 25,000 who crossed
the plains, but it is not known how many of those were from England
or from Cornwall. See D. Wright, "The Making of Cosmopolitan
California: An Analysis of Immigration 1848-1870," California Historical
Society Quarterly 19 (1940): 323-43.

6. Few details are available of the costs of passage on the variety of routes
available from England to the Califorrua gold fields. One report in
an English newspaper in early 1849 indicated that there were plenty
of ships going out by various routes in order to cater for what it termed
the "goldmania" then sweeping England. These rates started at £25
sterling and the route to Galveston, Texas, was particularly recom-
mended. Royal Cornwall Gazette, January 19, 1849. Taking into account
the combined cost of their fare and wages lost during the time on
route, a faster, overland route would generally be the cheapest. On
the basis of the cost of the fare alone, one Enghsh newspaper, the
West Briton, in December, 1850, gave the Cape Horn route as cheaper
than the alternative across Central America either through Panama
or Nicaragua, but made no mention of a land route such as that
westwards from New York. West Briton, December 13, 1850. For more
general information on the relative advantages and costs of each route,
see Unruh, The Plains Across, pp. 400-403.

7. Diary of a journey made in 1849 to Canada and the USA, Cornwall
Record Office document FS.3/81. This is a 31 page handwritten journal
of which the first half is a daily log of the writer's Atlantic crossing
to Quebec. The second half of the journal, reproduced here with per-
mission, describes the four month onward journey the writer made
from Wisconsin to California. The writer wishes to acknowledge the
help of the Cornwall County Record Office, Truro, and Mr. H. Douch,
of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Truro, in tracking down the
materials used in this article. The journal is published with the per-
mission of the Cornwall Record Office.

8. Royal Cornwall Gazette, January 16, 1852. Four months was about the
average time for the overland journey in the late 1840s, but this fell
to about three and a half months in the 1850s. These averages,
however, are based on the time taken to cross only from the outfit-
ting towns, normally on the Missouri, to California. The Walters-Uren
party started their journey 300 miles farther east and took nearly a
month to reach the Missouri River. See Unruh, The Plains Across, p.
403.

9. Letter from Edward Dale, a Cornish miner in California, in West Briton,
August 29, 1851.

10. Royal Cornwall Gazette, January 16, 1852.

11. D. James, From Grand Mound to Scatter Creek (Olympia: State Capital
Historical Association of Washington, 1980).

12. West Briton, August 29, 1851.

13. Ibid. Trail stories and the West in general led to exaggerated claims
of which this is one example. Ferrymen generally charged three to
five dollars a crossing so that no single ferry could make $3,000 a
day, although large sums were made during the course of a season
leading to a proliferation of ferry points on the North Platte.

14. For an account of another later 19th century Englishman who admired
the scenery of part of Wyoming, see Brian P. Birch, "From Old
England to Old Faithful: A Victorian Englishman's View of the West,"
Annals of Wyoming 54 (Spring 1982): 2-9.

15. D. James, From Grand Mound to Scatter Creek, p. 15.

16. A term used on the trail referring to the need to disassemble equip-
ment to get across a river.

17. Over the years the trail attracted many traders and others anxious
to cash in on the needs of the travelers. Unruh devotes no less than
two of his eleven chapters to this aspect of the overland emigration.
See Unruh, The Plains Across, pp. 244-301.

18. The Walters-Uren group was not unusual in staying only a few
months in the gold fields. Most saw California as a place in which
to try to make a fortune and then to leave as quickly as possible.

19. Royal Cornwall Gazette, January 16, 1852.

Governor Francis E. Warren,

The United States Army

and the

Chinese Massacre at

Rock Springs

No white miner can afford to vote for Warren
and his Chinese record.

^'GuilfT/t or itot yuilty^ theymust he convicted."

He believes in protecting American labor.
See other side.

"Afore soldiers and bayoiuU, my friartdi the ChiTiese must be
protected"

He is peculiar for ways that are dark and
tricks that are vain.

*'/ propose to keep tfte Chinese here and if you make any fur-
tJuT trouble with them, I'll leave a hole in the ground where Almy
now stands^

If he can't keep his Chinese friends in •'he
mines, he is going to employ them to l)ld
down his fraudulent pre-emption claims.

^ F. E. tK^% THE djllE^E pi^OTEdTOl^. ♦

•Pack the Jury. They Must be Convicted."-^-

by hiurray L. Carroll

(Above and left) Two sides of poster published by the Evanston Register
during Warren's Gubernatorial campaign in 1890 blasting him for his
role in the events following the Chinese Massacre in Rock Springs in 1885.

The "Chinese Massacre" at Rock Springs, Wyoming,
occurred on September 2, 1885. For Francis E. Warren,
Governor of Wyoming Territory, it was a major crisis,
possibly the most serious crisis to face a governor in the
nearly sixteen years of the Territory's existence.

Beyond the inherent seriousness of the situation itself,
for Warren it was a personal political crisis. A republican,
he had been appointed by lame-duck President Chester
A. Arthur on February 27, 1885, less than a week before
democrat Crover Cleveland's inaugtu-ation. As expected,
the republican-controlled senate confirmed his appoint-
ment, but it also was anticipated that he would be replaced
shortly by a democrat. Although Warren was generally
liked and respected throughout the territory, Wyoming
democrats wanted one of their number in the governor's
chair. From the establishment of Wyoming as a separate
territory, the White House had been under republican con-
trol, and all the territorial governors had been republican.

W. H. HoUiday of Laramie, recently defeated by republi-
can Joseph M. Carey for the seat as delegate to Congress,
was mentioned frequently in democratic newspapers as a
potential nominee. Forty-one year old Warren, a wealthy
Cheyenne merchant and stock grower, was the first Wyo-
ming resident appointed to the governorship. He had been
active in territorial politics for many years, having served
as Territorial Treasurer, Mayor of Cheyenne and as a
member and President of the territorial legislature. He did
pass up a chance to enter the national political scene by
refusing his party's nomination as territorial delegate in
the 1884 election. This powerless position was not sought
after, and both parties had trouble finding nominees in 1884.

Although the outbreak of trouble in Rock Springs at
this particular time came as a surprise, the seeds of the
dispute had been sown ten years earlier. When the Union
Pacific Railroad opened the coal rrunes in Rock Springs in
1868, most of the miners were European immigrants from
Scandinavia and the British Isles. Following a bitter labor
dispute and strike in 1875, during which army troops were
called in to restore order, the Union Pacific contracted with
Beckwith, Quinn & Company of Evanston to provide
Chinese miners for the mines at both Rock Springs and
Almy. Later, Beckwith and Quinn furnished miners of all
nationalities for the railroad's mines handling all the details
such as payrolls, hiring, firing and operating the company
stores. 1 For the most part, there was no open antipathy
between the Chinese and the White miners, but there was
a strong, underlying, latent resentment of the Chinese by
the White miners. The Chinese kept to themselves, worked
hard without complaint, often in areas where other miners
refused to work. All along the Union Pacific Railroad line,
the Knights of Labor organized the mines and railroad
shops, as well as other industries. One major goal of this
growing national labor movement was the exclusion of
Chinese labor from the United States.

In April, 1885, for example, the following advertise-
ment appeared in the Laramie Daily Boomerang:

BOYCOTT MILLER & BENSON
To all Knights of Labor and workingmen in Laramie and
vicinity:

Whereas, Miller & Benson, proprietors of the Wyoming
House, have refused to take any notice of our request that they
employ other than Chinese cooks, you are hereby notified that
an order of boycott has been issued against said firm of Miller
& Benson, and we request our friends and instruct our members
to use all lawfxil means to withdraw patronage from said firm
until their practice of employing Chinamen is discontinued.
Dawn of Light Assembly 3256^

There was no pay differential between the Chinese and
European miners, both were paid at the same rate per ton,
although the White miners averaged a little more per day
in wages, probably owing to higher production on their
part.^ The Chinese, however, would not strike, nor would
they join the White rruners in complaining to the Union
Pacific or Beckwith, Quinn & Company about working con-
ditions. Out of the some 500 miners employed in Rock
Springs in September, 1885, 150 were White and the
balance Chinese. There were 100 or more unemployed
White miners living in town as weU."* Since Rock Springs
was a company town, the plight of the unemployed miners
was particularly difficult.

On the morning of September 2, 1885, a conflict be-
tween White and Chinese miners over work assignments
at No. 6 mine apparently was the catalyst precipitating the
mob action that has come to be known as the "Chinese
Massacre."' About 2 p.m., a mob of some 150 White
miners armed with rifles opened fire on the Chinese sec-
tion of town and then set it afire. All of the residents not
killed or wounded fled into the surrounding hills. The
Whites killed 28 Chinese, either by gun or fire, severely
wounded fifteen and forced some 500 to leave town. About
$148,000 worth of property was looted or destroyed.' The
railroad immediately instructed its train crews to pick up
any refugees found along the right-of-way and transport
them to Evanston. Special trains carrying food, water and
medical supplies were dispatched in both directions from
Rock Springs to provide aid to those who had taken refuge
in the hiUs. Those rescued were taken first to Green River,
then to Evanston.

Neither the town officials in Rock Springs nor the
Sweetwater County officials were able to restore order or
protect the Chinese and their property. Joseph Young, the
Sweetwater County Sheriff, was at the coimty seat in Green
River. When he became aware of the conditions in Rock
Springs, he requested help from the territorial govern-
ment.'' Sheriff Young arrived from Green River on the
evening of September 2, but, as he had notified Governor
Warren, he found it impossible to restore order without
outside aid. Later he told a reporter from the Salt Lake
Tribune that he could not have gotten the services of three
men to suppress the riot, or maintain order after it was sup-
pressed; he therefore turned to the territorial government
for help.*

Warren was almost as helpless as the sheriff. Wyoming
Territory did not have a militia, and Warren did not have
the authority to declare martial law even if there had been

a militia for him to call upon to enforce it. In 1856, the
United States Attorney General had ruled that territorial
legislatiires, not territorial governors, were vested with the
power to declare martial law.'

Warren telegraphed General O. O. Howard, Com-
mander of the Department of the Platte in Omaha, for
troops. He also telegraphed Secretary of War William C.
Endicott.i" Neither Howard nor Endicott had the author-
ity to help him. As a result of a struggle between a
republican president and a democratic congress over fed-
eral intervention in elections in the South, the Army Ap-
propriation Act for 1879 included a provision commonly
called the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibited the use
of any part of the army as a posse comitatus for the execu-
tion of laws except as provided by the Constitution or by
act of congress." On September 3, Warren appealed directly
to the president for aid.^^

He was advised by telegraph that he must make per-
sonal application to the president in the manner and form
indicated in the Constitution and statutes. At the same
time, however, at the president's direction, Endicott
ordered the movement of two companies to Rock Springs
under his authority to prevent interference with the United
States mail or mail routes. ^^

Meanwhile, Warren and Union Pacific Superinten-
dents Wurtele and Dickenson went to Rock Springs by
special train. They stopped in Laramie and picked up N. K.
Boswell, Chief Detective of the Wyoming Stock Growers
Association. Boswell was a close friend of Warren and had
served as a special agent for the Union Pacific since 1867.
Boswell was undoubtedly the most experienced law en-
forcement officer in the territory." Before leaving
Cheyenne, Warren had taken the precaution of making a
personal call on Colonel John S. Mason, commander of
Fort D. A. Russell, alerting him to the problem, and sug-
gesting that he have troops ready to move if approval for
the use of Federal troops was received. ^^

When he arrived in Rock Springs, Warren found condi-
tions even worse than he had been led to believe from the
communications he had received. All the buildings in the
Chinese community, as well as railroad section houses
which the Chinese occupied, had been burned. The mob
had ordered the Superintendent of Mine Number 6, James
Evans, and W. H. O'Donnell, store manager and contract
labor manager for Beckwith & Quinn in Rock Springs, to
leave town. The smouldering ruins of the burned buildings
were looted for money or other valuables the Chinese may
have cached and not been able to retrieve. ^* Later, in an
interview with a reporter from the St. Louis Republican, War-
ren stated:

It is the most damnable and brutal outrage that ever occurred
in any country. Those fellows actually attacked the Chinese in
their own abodes while they were packing to get away, and
in many instances shot them unresistingly, and pushed them
back into the shanties and roasted them like so many rats, and
for miles around Rock Springs on the morning when I arrived—
which was the morning after the riot— the air was fairly reek-
ing with the smell of burnt human flesh."

On September 3, the governor and his party conferred
with Sweetwater County officials in Green River before
returning to Cheyenne. A message was received from
Evanston that the arrival of the Chinese who fled Rock
Springs was creating friction between the White and
Chinese miners in Almy, three miles from Evanston. The
danger of the Rock Springs outrages being repeated in
Evanston aiid Almy appeared imminent.^*

Warren and party proceeded to Evanston on Sep-
tember 4." He telegraphed the president from Evanston
stating there was open insurrection in Rock Springs; the
Chinese who had taken refuge in Evanston had been
ordered to leave; the sheriffs were powerless; and, since
Wyoming had no territorial militia, troops were needed not
only to protect the mail and mail routes, but to support
civil authority. 2" Warren returned to Rock Springs on
September 5 and again telegraphed the president, point-
ing out that the legislature of Wyoming was not in session
and could not be called in time to request help as required
by law.^^ The Salt Lake newspapers noted that Warren's
first request ignored Section 4, Article III of the Constitu-
tion requiring applications for aid to be from the legislature
if it could be convened. He also telegraphed S. R. Callo-
way, General Manager of the Union Pacific, suggesting
that the railroad complain vigorously to Howard's head-
quarters in Omaha, and through its Boston offices directly
to the secretary of war, charging insurrection and con-
spiracy.^^

Since tensions in the Evanston-Almy area remained
high, Warren and party returned there September 7. Large
numbers of White miners had quit work at Almy. They
threatened the Chinese with death if they did not leave.
They also held public meetings in Evanston and Almy to
incite action against the Chinese. Anonymous threatening
letters were received by Union Pacific officials and promi-
nent Evanston residents who were known to support the
Chinese."

In compliance with the president's instructions to En-
dicott of September 3, Lt. Colonel H. L. Chipman and two
companies of the 7th Infantry from Fort Fred Steele were
sent to Rock Springs. In response to Warren's September
4 telegram, Lt. Colonel T. M. Anderson and one company
of the 14th Infantry from Fort D. A. Russell were sent to
Evanston. ^''

At the same time. Colonel A. McD. McCook, Com-
mander of the 6th Infantry at Camp Murray, Utah, was
alerted to the possible movement of his troops. Camp Mur-
ray was fourteen miles from Wauship Station, the nearest
rail and telegraph connection, adding to the communica-
tions difficulties. On September 8, McCook received orders
to send six companies to Wauship Station for transporta-
tion by rail to Evanston where they would be under the
command of Anderson. The orders were received at 4:30
p.m., and the troops departed for Wauship Station at 6:30
p.m., and entrained for Evanston shortly after midnight.^'

On September 7, Warren had again telegraphed the
president from Evanston, stating:

—the unlawful organized mobs in possession of coal mines at
Almy, near here, will not permit Chinamen to approach their
own homes, property, or employment. From the nature of the
outbreak sheriff of county caimot rally sufficient posse and Ter-
ritorial government caimot sufficiently aid him. Insurrectionists
know through newspapers and dispatches that troops will not
interfere under present orders, and moral effect of presence
of troops is destroyed. If troops were known to have orders
to assist sheriff posse in case driven back, I am quite sure civil
authorities could restore order without actual use of soldiers;
but unless United States Government can find way to relieve
us immediately, believe worse scenes than those at Rock
Springs will foUow and all Chinamen driven from the Territory.
I beg an early reply and information regarding the attitude of
the United States Government.

Francis E. Warren
Governor^*
Warren sent the message because the miners found out
through the Salt Lake newspapers, and probably from the
soldiers, that the army's role was limited to protecting the
mail and mail routes. He feared they would assume
that the mines and the Chinese were fair game unless the
civil authorities had the army to back them. Major General
John M. Schofield, commander of the Division of Missouri,
and Endicott, tried to find some means of meeting War-
ren's requests and at the same time not violate the Posse
Comitatus Act. Schofield was of the opinion that since the
Union Pacific had been established by an act of Congress
and was an indispensable military and mail route, it should
be placed under the protection of United States Army
troops. His definition included the property and employees
and extended to the mines and miners since they were
necessary for the continued operation of the railroad. ^^
Endicott and Secretary of State Bayard came up with
a more unusual solution, however. Under Article VI of the
Constitution, treaties are part of the supreme law of the
land; under Article II, the power to enforce the law is
vested in the president. The United States had signed a
new treaty with China on November 17, 1880. Article III
of this treaty stated in part:

If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either
permanently or temporarily residing in the territory of the
United States, meet with ill-treatment at the hands of any other
persons, the Government of the United States will exert all its
power to devise measures for their protection, and to secure
to them the same rights, privileges, immunities, and exemp-
tions as may be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most
favored nation, and to which they are entitled by treaty. 2*

It was because of this treaty, and the president's
responsibility to enforce it, that the companies of the 6th
Infantry were dispatched to Evanston to reinforce Ander-
son. This avoided martial law, and politically was a more
palatable reason for intervention than Schofield's.

Meanwhile, Warren and the Union Pacific officials met
with a delegation of six miners from Almy, Leban Heward,
John Haldane, John Shaw, William Reese, Samuel Young
and Hezekiah Turner. An agreement was reached to return
all the Chinese miners to Rock Springs and use only White
miners at Almy.^^ This decision was made in spite of the
fact that Evanston had a large Chinese population, and
with its Joss House was one of the major Chinese social

Francis E. Warren

and cultural centers in the United States. There are indica-
tions that members of this delegation later may have been
subject to some retaliatory measures by the Union Pacific
Coal Company or Beckwith & Quinn.^""

It is fortunate that the presence of the army seemed
to calm the situation without the need for actual use of
force, since the president vested the direct control over the
use of the troops in Schofield in Chicago:

If necessity actually exists for the actual employment of this
force in protecting life and property and aiding the civU
authorities in preserving the peace and in the arrest of those
committing offenses against the laws, you are authorized to
use it for these purposes;— The President desires that the com-
mander of each detachment communicate with you and receive
instructions directly from you, to make sure that the force is
not unnecessarily used.'*

Schofield telegraphed Warren repeating the instruc-
tions he had received from the president. This severely
limited the latitude of authority of the field commanders.
It also removed the post commanders at Forts D. A. Russell
and Fred Steele from the chain of command, as well as
Howard, Commander of the Department of the Platte in
Omaha. It made it clear that Warren had no authority over

Harper's Weekly, in its ScpHember 2b, 1885, issue, printed this drawing by T. de Thulstrup of the Chinese Massacre.

the use of the troops beyond making suggestions to the
respective commanders in Evanston and Rock Springs for
Schofield's decision.

On September 9, a train carrying approximately 700
Chinese nuners, laborers, their families and some civilian
officials departed Evanston for Rock Springs. It was
preceded by another train carrying four of the six com-
panies of the 6th Infantry to protect the returning Chinese
enroute and to reinforce the troops already in Rock
Springs. ^^

A delegation of White miners from Rock Springs went
to Denver for a meeting with the general manager of the
Union Pacific to protest the return of the Chinese to Rock
Springs, but received no satisfaction. Warren stayed in
Rock Springs until September 11. Although the situation
remained tense, the presence of the governor and the
troops seemed to prevent more violence. ^^

The government directors of the Union Pacific, General

E. P. Alexander, M. A. Hanna and Judge James W. Savage,
happened to be in the West making an inspection tour of
the railroad. They met in Rock Springs on September 17-18
with members of the examining commission established
by order of the Chinese Minister, and consisting of Colonel

F. A. Bee, Chinese Consul General from San Francisco,

his interpreter, Tseng Hoy, and Huang Sih Chen, Consul
General from New York. The Commission was escorted
by McCook, 6th Infantry Regimental Commander. United
States Attorney A. C. Campbell and Warren represented
the territory. The directors agreed to meet with the miners'
delegation which had met previously with the railroad of-
ficials in Denver, and any other residents who wanted a
hearing. The Chinese commission established the identity
of its deceased countrymen and made arrangements for
the disposition of the remains. Jointly, the Chinese officials,
the directors, Warren and Campbell met to take testimony
from some of the Chinese survivors and others in order
to try and determine what had happened, and who had
participated.'^

On September 21, the mines reopened. The railroad
issued a notice that mines 1, 3, 4 and 5 would resume
operations at 7 a.m., and that all miners and other
employees were expected to report to work at that time.
All those not intending to work were instructed to pick up
their time checks. Some known or at least suspected par-
ticipants in the riot had been discharged. Those discharged
and those who refused to return to work were not to be
employed by the company in the future. '^ They were of-
fered passes for themselves and their families to leave Rock

Springs at the company's expense, provided they accepted

the offer before September 26. Warren, Chipman and the

railroad officials agreed that the tensions would be eased

if the unemployed White population was encouraged to

leave the area. Some did leave. The results, however, were

not all that had been hoped. Many had no place to go, and

failing to take advantage of the railroad's offer, were forced

to remain in Rock Springs. Others who could leave chose

not to, feeling that in time the Union Pacific would be

forced to compromise. Simultaneous with the reopening

of the mines, two more companies of troops from the 21st

Infantry at Fort Sidney, Nebraska, were sent to Rock

Springs. 3* Schofield, members of his staff and Warren, who

had retiirned to Cheyenne to meet the general, arrived in

Rock Springs September 21.^''

Newspapers in the West vehemently criticized the

decision to return the Chinese to Rock Springs. The editor

of the Boomerang for example wrote:

Does the Union Pacific company, the firm of Beckwith, Quinn
& Company and other Chinese sympathizers, realize the task
they are undertaking. If they are so blind as to expect to rule
by the use of bayonets and bullets, they deserve the fate which
is reserved for them. —It is easy to say: "We vi\& enforce our
rule by the use of troops," but soon the dynamite and the torch
will be called into requisition, and the railroad company will
find too late that they have made a bargain with the devU.''

The Salt Lake Tribune questioned the wisdom of
employing Chinese, pointing out that the railroad's prop-
erty extended for some distance without any protection ex-
cept the "forbearance and good will of the people."^' The

Knights of Labor threatened a general strike which it was
sure would be respected and joined by the other railway
unions, paralyzing the Union Pacific from Omaha to
Ogden. The following notice was posted prominently in
Cheyenne on the night of September 26:

A FAIR WARNING!

ALL CHINAMEN found in the City of Cheyenne after

October 1st will be subject to a

COAT OF TAR & FEATHERS

AND RIDDEN from the City on a raU.

WORKING MEN,

THE CHINESE MUST GO!

In messages to A. C. Campbell, U.S. Attorney, N. N.
Craig, Laramie County Sheriff, A. H. Reel, Mayor of
Cheyenne, E. W. Mann, Prosecuting and County Attorney
for Laramie County, and T. Jefferson Carr, U.S. Marshal,
Warren cited the contents of the poster and made it clear
that he had no intention of allowing any more anti-Chinese
activity in Wyoming. To each of the addressees he stated,
"I trust you will find a way to bring the perpetrators of
this to justice, and to this end I desire to call the matter
to your official attention."*" Warren also urged Calloway
not to compromise with the White miners because he felt
that the good order of the Territory and the discipline of
the railroad were both at stake. *^

Sixteen men had been arrested and held in Green River
for suspicion of mvirder based on Chinese testimony. The
Sweetwater County Grand Jury opened hearings in early
October, and on October 7 they announced their findings:

Chinese preparing to board box cars for return to Rock Springs from Evanston, September 9, 1885.

In the foreground of this photograph of Rock Springs can be seen New China Town and Camp Pilot Butte Center, area ISSS.

that although they had examined a large number of wit-
nesses, "no one was able to testify to a single criminal act
committed by any known white person that day." The
Grand Jury report went on to state:

While we find no excuse for the crimes committed, there
appears to be no doubt of abuses existing that should have been
promptly adjusted by the railroad company and its officers. If
this had been done, the fair name of our Territory would not
have been stained by the terrible events of the 2nd of
September.'^

It was implied by the Grand Jury and in the press that
the Chinese themselves had fired their homes, although
no explanation was offered for this strange charge. The
findings were not too surprising, since of the sixteen grand
jurors, eleven were from Rock Springs.

That evening, a large rally was held in Green River to
protest the continued use of Chinese labor in the mines
and the presence of troops to enforce the laws. Petitions
were drawn up on both issues together with a resolution
to send the petitions to the territorial delegate in congress
to be presented to the president. Among the prominent
speakers present was Melville C. Brown from Laramie, at-

torney for the White miners. Brown was one of Warren's
most bitter enemies, both political and personal, although
they were both members of the republican party. *^ The next
day, the men who had been jailed in Green River were
greeted by a large crowd at the railroad station in Rock
Springs and welcomed home as heroes.

To add to the problems of Warren and the railroad,
the miners at Carbon went on strike October 1 in sympathy
with the miners at Rock Springs and Almy. There were
no Chinese miners in Carbon, and neither the railroad nor
Beckwith, Quinn & Company had any plans to use them
there. Warren characterized the miners at Carbon as
"disposed to be a little ugly."**

Despite the continued tension, the War Department
proposed withdrawing all the troops from Evanston and
the majority from Rock Springs by the end of October. Ex-
cept for the mine officials, the Chinese and possibly the
prostitutes and saloon keepers, most of the residents of
Rock Springs probably would not have missed the soldiers.
However, several residents of Evanston petitioned War-
ren to have the military presence retained in that city.*^
Except for two companies at Rock Springs and one at

Evanston, all the troops returned to their home duty sta-
tions by November 1.** The Catling gun detachment mem-
bers in Evanston returned to their parent regiments. The
Catling gun itself was transferred to Rock Springs, in-
dicating the army was prepared to use major force should
trouble flair up again. *^

The railroad assigned six special agents, possibly
Pinkerton Detectives, to Rock Springs. These six carried
deputy sheriff's commissions from Sheriff Young as well
as deputy marshal's commissions from United States Mar-
shal Carr. Warren also tried, unsuccessfully, to make
similar arrangements with Sheriff Rankin of Carbon
County. Carr did agree to deputize the railroad special
agents for duty in Carbon if necessary.*^

Special Order 105, Platte Department, dated October
20, 1885, designated the camp at Rock Springs Camp Pilot
Butte, and the one at Evanston Camp Medicine Butte.*'
The Uruon Pacific Railroad started construction of perma-
nent buildings for both camps. Camp Medicine Butte con-
sisted of a single 50-man barracks, a guardhouse and a
warehouse. The detachment officers lived in private facili-
ties, such as the Pacific Hotel, owned by the railroad. Camp

Pilot Butte was a little more elaborate, consisting of dou-
ble barracks, 200 feet long by 28 feet wide, housing two
companies, 104 men, orderly rooms, kitchens and mess
halls. Opposite the barracks, two triple sets of officers'
quarters stood. Other buildings on the post included
stables, warehouses and service buildings. A special spur
was laid from the main line of the railroad to the camp site.
The camp was built along Bitter Creek, adjacent to the site
of the burned-over Chinese settlement. The railroad leveled
this area and constructed 62 frame and two log buildings
to replace the destroyed Chinese homes. 5°

The Laramie Boomerang editorialized: "The Mongolians
will not feel entirely at home, however, until they get their
homes in a comparatively filthy state, nor will they feel free
of fear for some time to come, even though they have a
Catling gun there to protect them."^^ This probably re-
flected the opinion of most of the residents of the territory.
Coal production was down, and rumors persisted that
when the railroad had established its control unequi-
vocally, the White miners would be invited back to work.

Warren and the railroad had no intention of knuckhng
under to public opinion or to the White miners, however.
Beckwith, Quinn & Co. recruited some Mormon miners
from Utah for both the Almy and Rock Springs mines, but
continued to use mostly Chinese miners in Rock Springs.
The policy announced when the mines reopened on Sep-
tember 21 remained in effect. Those miners who had not
reported back were struck from the roles and could not ex-
pect future employment with the company. Winter found
many Rock Springs residents in difficult circumstances.
The company offered low-cost transportation out of Rock
Springs at the rate of one cent per mile. Many who had
chosen to stay in September now no longer had the means
to leave at any price.

In early December, the buildings at both Camp Pilot
Butte and Camp Medicine Butte were finished. The troops
abandoned their tent camps and settled into permanent
quarters. ^^

Despite increased tension in Rock Springs, caused by
the hardships suffered by the unemployed White miners,
the winter passed quietly. In March, 1886, Howard asked
Warren and the Union Pacific officials about the advisability
of removing the troops. Both agreed that the troops could
leave Evanston safely, but recommended that the troops
should be left in Rock Springs "until there is a more set-
tled feeling among laboring men in that vicinity." Warren
pointed out that many of the White miners who had been
in Rock Springs when the trouble started were still there,
that they were unrepentant and sullen and that their hatred
of the Chinese was unabated. '^

For some reason. Camp Medicine Butte was not com-
pletely abandoned until April 4, 1887.5* Camp Pilot Butte
continued in use until February, 1899. It was a sub-post
of Fort D. A. Russell in Cheyenne for the last years of its
existence. 55 The other major military posts in Wyoming
when Camp Pilot Butte was founded. Fort Bridger, Fort

Fred Steele, Fort McKinney, Fort Laramie, all relics of the
Indian Wars, had been abandoned. In a strange twist of
irony, the last unit to garrison Pilot Butte was Company
"K," 24th Infantry Regiment, a Black unit.s*

The presence of the troops did seem to help keep the
peace in Rock Springs, since in the entire thirteen and a
half years the troops were there, they were never called
upon to intervene on behalf of the Chinese. The 1882
Chinese Exclusion Act, and the 1892 ten-year extension,
resulted in a declining availability of Chinese labor. By the
time the army abandoned Camp Pilot Butte, miners rep-
resenting several nationalities were employed in Rock
Springs, including many Japanese.^''

Warren's actions in Rock Springs aroused hostile
response in the democratic press, and generated strong
protests among the largely democratic labor organizations.
He not only had problems with the democrats, but Wyo-
ming republicans split on the issue as well. Many, such
as Judge James W. Hayford, editor of the Laramie Sentinel,
and Melville C. Brown, were out-spokenly anti-Chinese
and were critical of Warren's handling of the affair. While
Hayford recognized that Warren had done his duty as a
federal officer, he was critical of the return of the Chinese
to Rock Springs and of some of the governor's statements.
His political opponents on both sides continued to raise
the issue throughout his political career. Former Gover-
nor Fenimore C. Chatterton noted in his memoirs that after
the Rock Springs incident, Warren often was referred to
as "Chinese Warren."^*

It may temporarily have cost him political support
within Wyoming, but the speed of his reaction, his per-
sonal attention to the situation and the fact that order was
restored without further loss of life or property damage
did not go unnoticed. In their report for 1885, the govern-
ment directors of the Union Pacific Railroad stated:

The conclusion forced upon the directors was that the massacre
was without cause or excuse, unless a violent and wide-spread
race prejudice may furnish the latter. To such feeHngs, however,
the governor of Wyonung afforded a conspicuous exception.
His firmness and courage, together with the ready response
made by the President to his requisition for troops, prevented
a more general uprising, in which the property and interests
of the Government and the road might have been alike sacri-
ficed."

The support of powerful individuals such as Mark

Hanna, James Savage and E. P. Alexander, as well as that

of an institution as important as the Union Pacific Railroad,

made it unlikely that President Cleveland summarily

would replace Warren as governor. His decisions on the

Rock Springs massacre appear to have been made with less

concern for his own political future than with fulfilling his

responsibilities as governor. He saw what occurred in Rock

Springs as illegal, inhumane and beyond the willingness

or ability of local authorities to control. The massacre was

a challenge to the authority of the territorial government,

in danger of spreading and possibly increasing in intensity

and seriousness. It was a situation that needed to be met

quickly and firmly and controlled by the most expedient

means available. He also saw it as a violation of the rights
of the Chinese miners, both legal and human, which was
intolerable. He was well aware of the violent anti-Chinese
sentiment prevalent throughout not only the territory but
the entire West, and that supporting the rights of the
Chinese over the claims of the Whites would not be a
popular position with either his party or the democrats.
He made the choice of asking for military assistance
because it was the only option open to him to restore order
and assert the authority of the territorial government. He
supported the return of the Chinese miners to Rock
Springs both as an expression of support of their rights
and as a message to those who had instigated and par-
ticipated in the riots that their lawlessness might go un-
punished by law but would not be rewarded by a moral
victory.

Although the Chinese Massacre probably was not the
key factor in launching Francis E. Warren on a major
political career, it undoubtedly played an important role.
Had he failed to act decisively, or had the situation escaped
his control, he certainly would have been replaced im-
mediately and his political future placed in serious
jeopardy. Instead, he continued to serve under the first
Qeveland administration for almost half of its term, despite
the constant clamor of the democratic party for his replace-
ment by one of their own. He had made politically power-
ful allies and had gained favorable publicity on a national
level, both important factors in establishing a successful
political career. After a two and a half year hiatus, he
returned as governor during the last eighteen months of
Wyoming's territorial days, and was the first elected gover-
nor of the state. He resigned the governorship after one

month to accept appointment to the United States Senate,
where, except for the period 1893 to 1895, he represented
Wyoming continuously until his death in 1929.

MURRAY L. CARROLL received his Ph.D. in International Relations and
Diplomatic History from the University of Connecticut. He presently is a retired
Lt. Colonel of the U. S. Army and is a full-time researcher and writer of Western
history.

After the "Massacre," the Union Pacific Railroad built "New China Town" in Rock Springs.

:«.J:.^*iMit:

^gJl^ .^^

Photograph taken of Camp Pilot Butte from southwest bank of Bitter Creek. Buildings (left to right) are Officers Quarters, Quartermaster Warehouse,
and Enlisted Barracks. Note freight car on siding and dugout houses in the bank of Bitter Creek.

1. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Af-
fairs, Providing Indemnity to Certain Chinese Subjects, House Executive
Documents, Vol. 12, Report 2044, 49th Congress, 1st Sess.
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1886), p. 13.

2. Laramie Daily Boomerang, April 2, 1885.

3. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Providing Indemnity.

4. U.S. Adjutant General's Office, Federal Aid in Domestic Disturbances
1787-1903, Senate Documents, Vol. 15, No. 209, 57th Congress, 2d
Sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903), p. 215.

5. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Providing Indemnity, p. 15.

6. Ibid., p. 4.

7. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Special Report Concerning
Chinese Labor Troubles, 49th Congress, 1st Session, House Exec. Doc,
Vol. 12, No. 1, Part 5 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of-
fice, 1886), p. 1225 (Telegram, Sheriff Joseph Young to Governor Fran-
cis E. Warren, September 2, 1885).

8. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Providing Indemnity, p. 24.

9. William E. Birkhimer, Military Government and Martial Law (Kansas
City: Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1914), p. 498.

10. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial Papers, Microcopy No.
204, Roll 2, telegrams. Governor Francis E. Warren to General
O. O. Howard and Secretary of War William C. Endicott.

11. Sec. 15, Army Appropriation Act of June 18, 1878, 20 Stat. 152.

12. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial Papers, Telegram,
Governor Francis E. Warren to the President, September 3, 1885.

13. United States Congress, Senate, op. cit., p. 216.

14. Laramie Boomerang, September 5, 1885. For details of BosweU's career,
see Mary Lou Pence, Boswell the Story of a Frontier Laivman (Laranue:
By the Author, 1978).

15. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Chinese Labor Troubles, p.
1226.

16. Mrs. J. H. Goodnough, "David G. Thomas' Memories of the Chinese
Riot as Told to His Daughter," Annals of Wyoming, 19 (July 1947):
105-111.

17. Laramie Weekly Sentinel, September 12, 1885.

18. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Chinese Labor Troubles, p. 1228.

19. Ibid.

20. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial Papers, telegram
Governor Francis E. Warren to the President, September 4, 1885.

21. Ibid., telegram. Governor Francis E. Warren to the President,
September 5, 1885.

22. Ibid., telegram. Governor Francis E. Warren to S. R. Calloway,
General Manager U.P.R.R., September 5, 1885.

23. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Chinese Labor Troubles, p. 1230.

24. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Providing Indemnity, p. 18.

25. Department of War, Returns From U.S. Military Posts, Camp Medicine
Butte, Wyoming Territory, Microcopy No. 617, Roll 767, September, 1885.

26. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial Papers, telegram.
Governor Francis E. Warren to the President, September 7, 1885.

27. U.S. Congress, Senate, Federal Aid in Domestic Disturbances, p. 216.

28. Sidney L. Gulick, The American-Japanese Problem (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1914), p. 332.

29. Elizabeth Arnold Stone, Uinta County and Us Place in History (Laramie:
The Laramie Printing Company, 1924), p. 120.

30. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial Papers, Letter,
Governor Francis E. Warren to E. Dickinson, Asst. Supt. U.P.R.R.,
December 10, 1885.

31. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Chinese Labor Troubles, p. 1231.

32. Department of War, Returns from U.S. Military Posts, Camp Medicine
Butte, Microcopy 617, Roll 767, September, 1885.

33. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Providing Indemnity, p. 19.

34. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, 49th Cong., 1st Sess.,
House Executive Doc. 12, No. 1, Part 5 11, Report of the Government
Directors of the Union Pacific Railway Company (Washington, D.C.:
Goverrunent Printing Office, 1886), p. 1235; and Providing Indemnity,
pp. 23-25.

35. Laramie Boomerang, September 21, 1885.

36. Department of War, Returns from U.S. Military Posts, Camp Pilot Butte,
Microcopy 617, Roll 926, September, 1885.

37. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial Papers, telegram,
Governor Francis E. Warren to Major General J. N. Schofield,
September 20, 1885.

38. Laramie Boomerang, September 11, 1885.

39. Laramie Boomerang, September 21, 1885.

40. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial papers, letters.
Governor Francis E. Warren to A. C. Campbell, U.S. Attorney, N.
N. Craig, Sheriff, Laramie County, A. H. Reel, Mayor of Cheyenne,
E. W. Mann, Prosecuting Attorney, Laramie County, and T. J. Carr,
U.S. Marshal.

41. Ibid., telegram. Governor Francis E. Warren to S. R. Calloway,
September 18, 1885.

42. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Chinese Labor Troubles, p. 1233.

43. Laramie Boomerang, October 8, 1885.

44. Department of the Interior, Wyoming Territorial Papers, letter. Gover-
nor Francis E. Warren to D. O. Clark, October 24, 1885.

45. Ibid., letter. Governor Francis E. Warren to C. D. Clark, October 16,
1885.

46. Department of War, Post Returns, Camp Medicine Butte, and Post
Returns, Camp Pilot Butte, October, 1885.

47. Ibid.

48. Laramie Boomerang, September 25, 1885, and letter. Governor Fran-
cis E. Warren to D. O. Clark, October 24, 1885.

49. Department of War, Post Returns, Camp Medicine Butte, and Post
Returns, Camp Pilot Butte, October, 1885.

50. Laramie Boomerang, October 24, 1885, and Department of War, Descrip-
tive Commentaries From the Medical Histories of Posts, Microcopy No.
M903, Roll 4, Capt. Walter D. McCaw, "Special Report on Camp Pilot
Butte, Rock Springs, Wyoming."

51. Laramie Boomerang, October 24, 1885.

52. Department of War, Post Returns, Camp Medicine Butte, and Post
Returns, Camp Pilot Butte, December, 1885.

53. Department of the Interior, Wyorrung Territorial Papers, telegram.
Governor Francis E. Warren to Major General O. O. Howard, April
2, 1886, and letter, April 5, 1886.

54. Department of War, Post Returns, Camp Medicine Butte, April, 1887.

55. Department of War, Post Returns, Camp Medicine Butte, August, 1894.

56. Department of War, Post Returns, Camp Pilot Butte, February, 1899.

57. Department of Commerce, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900,
Microcopy No. T623, RoU 1827.

58. Ferumore C. Chatterton, Yesterdays' Wyoming (Aurora: Powder River
Books, 1957), p. 32.

59. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, House Executive Docu-
ment, Government Directors, p. 1235.

h'rl Smilk

"';\UPP^RCjj|jrsER

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Map /ound in ]. H. Triggs "History of Cheyenne and Northern Wyoming, " 1876.

The Little Known

Battle of
Snake Mountain

Map taken from "Report of Expedition Through the
dated September 20, 1881.

Horn Mountains, Yellowstone Park, Etc., by Lieutenant General P. H. Sheridan,

Captain Alfred Elliott Bates

June 30, 1874, Camp Brown, Territory of Wyoming:
"Scene of unusual activity at the post," recorded Dr.
Thomas Maghee in the post medical journal. Touring
military brass had arrived, including Regional Com-
manding General Philip Sheridan of Civil War fame. The
same day. Chief Washakie's Shoshone scouts reported
they had found a camp of Northern Arapahoes and Sioux
hidden in the Owl Creek Mountains.

The Owl Creeks were off-linuts to reservation Indians
and there was reason to believe the warriors of that village
were responsible for six years of raids in the valley. When
Sheridan heard the report, he approved of a full punitive
expedition, which meant the Shoshones would accompany
the cavalry.

The Second Cavalry and Chief Washakie's Shoshones
had often worked together. Not orJy was Camp Brown
located on the Wind River Indian Reservation in the Wind
River Valley, its primary mission was to protect the
Shoshone tribe from their enemies.

The Shoshones had migrated from the Green River to
the Wind River Valley for their annual fall buffalo hunt
since the 1840s. The advantages that made the area a choice
location— abundance of game, warm winter weather and

an interstitial position between Sioux, Crow and Cheyerme
territories— also made it a frequent battleground.

Until the late 1860s, the Shoshones were frequently
challenged by roving Teton Blackfoot. They also lost hun-
dreds of warriors in a protracted conflict with the Crow.
In a bloody three day contest called the Battle of Crowheart
Butte, Chiefs Washakie and Big Robber of the Crow set-
tled the issue of hunting rights by personal combat.
Washakie, then nearly 60 years old, allegedly killed his op-
ponent, ripped out his heart and ate it to signify his
prowess and the Shoshone victory. The Crow and
Shoshones made peace in 1870.

But as of 1874, Washakie still had enemies, because
in 1865 he had rejected Red Cloud's offer to join the Sioux
in the fight against the Wliites. That decision also made
him an enemy of the Cheyenne and Northern Arapahoe,
the Sioux's allies. ^

These three tribes had not only harassed Washakie's
people, they had taken the lives of more than 50 residents
in the mining towns of South Pass City, Atlantic City and
Miner's Delight since 1867. ^

The location of the reservation— granted to the Sho-
shones at the treaty of Fort Bridger in 1868— had been Chief
Washakie's choice.* But his tribe was relatively weak in
1868. He had recently lost 30 of his best men to the Sioux,
and no Indian Agency had been put up for his people. He
thus refused to occupy his new home until the United
States government provided military protection. Some-
what belatedly, the military established the Shoshone
Agency and Camp Augur (later named Camp Brown),
which it garrisoned with 50 men.^

In retrospect, Washakie's request appears well jus-
tified, for both Camp Brown's infantry and cavalry had
skirmished with raiding Indians from the first days of sum-
mer, 1869, through the sununer of 1876. The situation at
Camp Stambaugh* was identical.

The June 30 discovery of the Owl Creek village came
several weeks after two men from A Company, 13th In-
fantry, had had a brief run-in with a roving band of In-
dians near Bull Lake. The soldiers, part of Captain Robert
Torrey's road construction gang,^ had been ordered back
to the post on muleback, to pick up the mail.

The two soldiers scrambled to the top of the closest
bluff and prepared to defend themselves. The Indians,
which the men later identified as Sioux, sent one warrior
forward who questioned them about the location of
Washakie and his Shoshones.*

Torrey's muleback mailmen made their report to Cap-
tain Alfred Elliott Bates, Company B, Second Cavalry, who
was in charge whUe Torrey was away. Bates, who had ar-
rived at Camp Brown four months earlier, had spent a hec-
tic spring with Lieutenants Robert H. Young and Frank
V. Robinson and Company B, chasing Indians who were
raiding local settlements.'

The next day, with a combined force of cavalry and
Shoshones, Bates tracked the Sioux band, but quit when

the trail left the valley via the Owl Creeks. Washakie
assigned six braves to "dog" the trail. When they returned
and reported that the trail led into the Big Horn Valley,
Young allegedly urged Washakie to send additional scouts
to explore the source of Nowood and Bad Water Creeks
in the southern rim of the Big Horns. Washakie concur-
red and it was there his scouts found the village. i"

"The atmosphere was almost festive," permed Maghee
in retrospect. "We knew the village was the rendez-vous,
the infernal nest of the hellish, murderous scoundrels
which had infested this country since the white people had
attempted to make an honest living there. "^^

Camp Brown's assault force, 56 men of Company B
under second-in-command Lieutenant Robinson, plus
twenty Indian scouts under Lieutenant Young, 4th Infan-
try, was issued four days of rations and 200 rounds of am-
munition.^^ Medical officer Maghee was accompanied by
a wagon and four hospital men. A ten mule pack train car-
ried extra ammunition.

The Shoshone contingent under Washakie included
his English-speaking sub-chief, Narkok, and 167 warriors.
Six White hunters, who resided near the post or were
employed by the government, went along. ^^ The officer
in charge was Bates.

The war party rode out from Camp Brown at eight
o'clock the evening of July 1. Years later. Post Trader James
K. Moore^* told his son he remembered the stately
Shoshone's battle parade around the post prior to their
departure. 15

The troupe traveled east, past the mouth of the Little
Wind River to Big Wind River where they made camp.
After the 35 mile night march, Maghee wrote " . . .under
the bluffs, secreted in timber and bushes, we remained all
day. No fires."

The colimin remounted when the sun set. By dawn, they
covered 45 miles of "mean country" to the confluence of
the Bridger and Bad Water Creeks. Maghee said alkali
made the creek look like mUky soap suds and advised
against driiiking it.^^ As the men spread saddle blankets
in the tall sage and cottonwoods, Robinson was struck by
the silence. Horses and men alike "took on that quiet
business air that is so noticeable when aU realize something
serious is at hand."^^ Once again, no fires.

North of their bivouac, an outcrop of deep magenta
was visible in the sharp foothills which marked the end
of open desert. Farther north, at the entrance of Bridger
Creek Trail and Cottonwood Canyon, the color changed
to red-orange. A lonely hump of land marked the track of
Bad Water Creek, then the plain stretched south towards
the Oregon Trail. ^^

That rught, the warriors pressed north into the moun-
tains, unaware their target was still 30 miles away. Maghee
recalled "sorrowfvd calls" of the coyote that rose from the
front ranks to advise advance scouts of the command's
position. The column probably saw the Wind Rivers on
their left. In late evening, it stands up on the horizon as

Dr. Thomas Maghee

a long grey shadow with an uneven crest, sometimes
crowned by a thunderhead, or a cape of white.

Robinson noted from the stars that they traveled north-
east. "No sounds except the occasional click of horses feet
on rocks. Good trail and good time." Maghee had a con-
trasting opinion. "We had several boggy, alkali creeks to
cross and deep arroyos, ravines, high sandy ridges and
infernal sage brush deserts found the terrain treacherous
and taxing," he wrote."

The original location of the village, described by Robin-
son as a "close valley,"^" was deserted, but scouts cap-
tured two Sioux horses. The village, they concluded, was
still near. So Bates called a quick council. "Flowing hair
and swarthy countenances [of the Shoshones] mingled
with the eager faces and courtly uniforms of the officers,
a scene worthy of the pencil of the artist, " penned Maghee
in his diary.

Washakie sent out scouts, but Bates could not wait.
Robinson said he ordered everyone to mount. They
galloped across the high plateau for nearly an hour. The
pack train with the extra ammunition would have to try
to find us on its own, he recalled. Now, time was of the
essence, for daylight was breaking upon the command and
surprise could be lost if they did not hurry.

Scouts rode in to say the village was less than a mile
away, so Bates took a scout and galloped away to see for
himself. The village stretched along a narrow valley 500

feet below the edge of the rock strewn plateau. ^^ A Y-
shaped stream meandered east along the valley floor. The
downslope approach from Bates' position was easy on
horseback, yet the slope on the opposite side to the north,
behind the village, was too steep to escape from on
horseback.

While Bates was away, Shoshone warriors a half mile
to the rear began to don war dresses and sing their war
chant. Robinson cussed and shouted to Washakie, "in
Heaven's name" to stop them or "all hope of surprising
the village would be at an end." In desperation, he
repeated what his commanding officer had done earlier
that morning— ordered everyone to mount.

Robinson met Bates coming back. Still mounted, the
captain informed him the village was not 40 lodges as
reported, but 112. Robinson wrote that he contemplated his
death that July 4th, while Bates described his plan.

Bates ordered Young to descend into the canyon from
the head of the west fork of the stream.^ He (Bates), Robin-
son and Company B would attack from the heights of the
tableland. Bates' first report to his Commanding Officer,
Torrey, perhaps in hindsight, declared that the Shoshone
would have to keep the Arapahoes from taking the bluffs
on the far side if the attack was to be successful. No one
knows, however, whether that message was delivered
loudly and clearly to Washakie's interpreter, Narkok,
before the fight. This point was to become a bone of con-
tention later.

In early July, the morrung sun lights the tops, then the
flanks of the tablelands. The gorge in which the village was
ensconsed remained in shadow. As the sun rose, it popped
up behind the northeast shoulder of Battle Mountain, ^^ and
shone directly on the slope Young was ordered to take into
the gorge.

Bates decided the cavalry must attack on foot, so he
ordered Sergeant Fuller and every fourth man to hold the
horses. That left 32 men for the charge. Each trooper had
80 cartridges in his belt for his Springfield .45 carbine and
a colt revolver.

As for the Shoshones, Maghee said they remained
mounted in a straight line. Robinson, who never referred
to more than 50 Shoshone warriors at any time, said they
were afoot, behind them. "In the sleepy village, all was
silent as death, the ponies lying lariated at the doors of
the teepees [sic]," stated Maghee's medical journal.

Bates ordered the men to descend at the double. "We
had gone but a short distance," stated Robinson, "when,
seeing such a hot time ahead of us. Bates and 1 and many
of the men threw away our blouses, for we preferred to
meet it in blue shirts." Halfway down the hill, they heard
yells and the cracks of rifles to their left. Young and the
scouts entered into the battle.

Bates' men pressed into the village in close skirmish
order. The Shoshones fired into the village over their
heads. To Robinson, the attack was almost a complete sur-
prise; to Maghee, less complete than it could have been.^''

Horses broke their pickets and fled through the village.
Young killed a medicine chief before his party lost two
Shoshones. Fighting was hand to hand— "in some in-
stances, men fighting for the same rifle. "^^ By the time the
attackers dominated the village, more than a dozen enemy
lay dead in the valley.

Many Arapahoe, rifles in hand, had escaped down the
ravine that ran through the village and climbed crevices
up the far slope. One hundred feet up that hillside, directly
above the village, was a narrow plateau the length of a foot-
ball field. The Shoshones, Bates emphasized in his report,
had not been aggressive enough to deny the enemy the
heights.

Robinson reported yells, cries and curses rang out far
above the incessant rattle of the carbines and the sharp
crack of the Winchesters with which the Arapahoes were
armed. Young, a squad of soldiers and a force of
Shoshones under Washakie, attempted to dislodge the
Arapahoes with a flank attack. They moved up a draw
north of the village, but came under sharp fire.

While Company B held the center of the village,
Maghee set up his field hospital at a tepee. The assault
party around him remained in hot engagement, killing In-
dians at close range with revolvers. A wounded Indian
fired at Bates from less than twenty feet. Bates dispatched
him with a pistol shot.

Bullets whined around Maghee as he tended a
wounded Shoshone. One bullet creased his forehead.
"When an Indian rushed from a lodge and took aim at one
of our men," said Robinson, "Maghee dropped his
bandages, picked up a carbine and shot the man, then
coolly returned to work."

Momentum of the fight shifted as the Arapahoes con-
solidated their position on the bluff. Within one minute's
time. Private James M. Walker was shot through the head
and Private Peter F. Engell through the lungs and heart.
A ball went through Private CD. French's nose into his
eye (which he later lost).

As Young, Cosgrove, Yamell and Indian scouts fought
their way up the bluff, Leslie Gable was shot in the arm
and Pierson was shot through the hand. Several
Shoshones were immediately killed and two more
wounded. The fight was sharp and confusing, partly
because there were so many horses in the way.^* Then
Young was shot in the upper thigh.

About that time. Bates decided to pull out of the
village. Enemy fire was becoming too effective. Ordering
the surgeon to move to a safer locality, he withdrew
towards the hill from which they had attacked. Maghee
wrote that Bates could have burned the village, but his men
had reported the lodges full of children and women.
"Besides," he added, "Bates fully intended to return."

When Washakie saw the captain withdrawing, he told
Cosgrove and Le Clair to get Young off the cliff. They
hoisted Young on Cosgrove 's horse, then Cosgrove
mounted another and led Young out. With Bates' men out

Crowheart Butte, where

Chiefs Washakie and Big

Robber fought and settled

the issue of hunting

rights between the

Shoshones and Crow.

of range, the fxill enemy above turned on Young's party.
Washakie and his men covered the rear as the men
descended the hluii.

Nearly three hours had passed. ^^ Young's estimates
of casualties, according to Maghee, was "up to a hundred
killed and 175 wounded." An "Eye Witness" account
printed in the Cheyenne Daily Leader, July 14, 1874, said
about 50 were killed and twice the number wounded.
Robinson said that as nearly as he could count, the enemy
lost 60 in the village. At least 250 horses had been captured.

The conmnand, however, was at a disadvantage. The
enemy was stiU strong, well armed and in position. Young
and seven others were wounded and ammunition was run-
ning low.^^ Shoshones also reported seeing smokes from

above the bluffs. The Arapahoes were signaling a friendly
group whose identity, size and location were unknown.
To try to re-enter the canyon to destroy the village or root
the Arapahoes from their perch could be costly. With four
dead, eight wounded and an anxious band of Shoshones,
Bates gave the signal to withdraw.

The day had been hot, the journey back, slow. Robin-
son and the ten men who had held the horses served as
rear guard. Robinson wrote that the enemy followed them
with some force, but as they were tired and also probably
low on ammunition, did not attack. When the sun set, the
column halted by a creek near the eastern end of the Owl
Creek Mountains, far north of their original route.

Bates sent two noncommissioned officers on fresh

stock to Camp Brown to alert Torrey of the fight and their
need of assistance. Two hours later, the column moved
on, and about daylight crossed near the head of Bad Water
Creek. At ten that morning they hit the Big Wind River.
The command bivouacked, and after lying down, Robin-
son said they "all were like dead men."^'

At sundown, July 5, Torrey met the column about 30
miles east of the post. After resting four hours, the command
moved to big bend of Wind River where many settlers had
gathered. Ambulances and medicine were on hand. The
battle group made it to the post by 3:00 p.m. July 6.^°

Torrey's initial report reflected what Bates had told
him. "Owing to the failure of the Shoshones to perform
their part allotted them," wrote Torrey, "the enemy ob-
tained possession of a high sandstone bluff, . . . and from
this point in a few minutes inflicted severe loss on the
party." He approved of Bates' decision to terminate the
attack, not only because he was low on ammunition and
the enemy was still strong and building signal fires, but
because he had been unable "to get any assistance from
his Indian allies to carry the bluff occupied by hostile
forces. "^^

Maghee was kinder. He differentiated between young,
diffident Shoshones who had not been in battle before, and
veteran Shoshones under Washakie whom he said had
fought well. Robinson made no mention of Shoshone
performance.

Shoshone Indian Agent James Irwin was infuriated.
When General Sheridan wrote that the battle did not end
as satisfactorily as desired due to bad conduct on the part
of the Shoshones, he wrote the Commission of Indian Af-
fairs.^^ The "Shoshones," he said, "lost as many killed
and wounded as the white troopers." Then he addressed
the rear guard action the Indians had taken to protect
Young's evacuation.

Irwin also wrote that several young Indians told him
they were alarmed when Bates and his men started
shooting desperately towards the slopes. They did not
have any markings to separate them from the Arapahoes
and feared the cavalry would shoot them as well.

"Finally," added Irwin contritely, "The interpreter has
several times complained to me that he could not under-
stand Captain Bates, as he speaks fast and uses better
language than the poor fellow had been used to hearing."^'
He concluded his letter by saying that "Captain Bates is
a young officer . . . and did his work well, but may
perhaps have expected too much of others."

Robinson, who referred to the battle as "one of the
most gallant and spirited fights that ever occurred in the
West," added that "Bates deserves well of his country and
the hearty thanks of the settlers in the Wind River Valley
country even to the present day."

DAVID M. DELO is studying for his Ph.D. in History at the University of Wyo-
ming. He has had published a number of historical articles in Wind River Moun-
taineer and is also a writer of novels.

1. Also known as the Battle of Bates.

2. Colonel J. M. Chivington's troops massacred several hundred men,
women and children in an Arapahoe-Cheyenne village at Sand Creek,
Colorado, November, 1864. The following month, after a 1,000 lodge
council at Cherry Creek, the two tribes joined the already warring
Sioux to initiate the Sioux Indian War of 1865-1868. See Fort Laramie
and The Sioux (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1967).

3. The raids began July, 1867, the summer that placer miners, working
the streams in South Pass, located the gold-rich Cariso shelf that
marked the beginning of the South Pass gold rush. A letter to editor,
Cheyenne Daily Leader, March 14, 1874, listed men killed on the Sweet-
water since 1867.

4. Although a successful war chief, Washakie was also a noble, intelligent
man who had promoted peace with Whites and had favored the reser-
vation system as early as 1850. See Indian Agent Luther Mann's
reports, "Utah Superintendency Records," Vols. 27-30, Annals of
Wyoming.

5. Letter from Governor Campbell to Indian Commissioner, May 18,
1869, in Letters Received by Office of Indian Affairs from Wyoming
Superintendency, microfilm fUes, Denver Archives. Note: Camp
Augur (1869-1870), was renamed Camp Brown (1870-1879), which
was then renamed Fort Washakie (1878-1909). Until 1871, Brown was
located at present day Lander, Wyoming, then relocated fifteen miles
north to the Popo Agie, the site of current Fort Washakie.

6. Stambaugh was established at Atlantic City in June, 1870, to protect
the mining towns. See Major J. Lambert, One Hundred Years With The
Second Cavalry (Topeka, Kansas: Press of the Capper Printing Co.,
Inc., 1939).

7. Captain Torrey was Camp Brown's Commanding Officer from May,
1871, until January, 1875 (minus a leave of absence). He developed
the first 90 rrules of the road to Yellowstone National Park, which
was finally punched through Togwotee Pass in 1898. Robert was also
the brother of Lin Torrey, the Wyoming Representative who created
Torrey's Rough Riders for the Spanish-American War in 1898 and
who ran the M- (EMBAR) ranch in the Owl Creeks. See David M.
Delo, "Yellowstone Road," Wind River Mountaineer, Spring, 1986. See
also, J. Lin Torrey file, American Heritage Center, University of
Wyoming.

8. The story of the two soldiers, printed in the Cheyenne Daily Leader,
July, 1874, was submitted by "Lone Star" from Fort Washakie. This
author believes Lone Star is Assistant Medical Officer Thomas Maghee
who maintained a diary, wrote the Fort Washakie medical journal
between 1873 and 1878, and recorded bits of Indian lore.

9. Lambert, One Hundred Years. Company B was also the most active
of all Second Cavalry companies the previous sununer when it was
stationed at Camp Stambaugh.

10. The Jim Bridger Mountains.

11. Fort Washakie Medical Journal, Denver Public Library.

12. Brigadier General Robinson's account of the Snake Mountain
expedition— one of the two eyewitness accounts— originally written
for an organization called the "Order of Indian Battle," in 1933, as
reprinted as Appendix 28 in Lambert, One Hundred Years.

13. The six included Texan Nelson Yamell, friend and assistant to Thomas
Cosgrove, Camp Brown's chief scout, and John Dwight Woodruff,
a legend in his own right as an early Wyoming hunter, mountaineer.

trapper, explorer, miner and military scout and guide. Medical Jour-
nal. See also, "Diary of Dr. Maghee," Nebraska History Magazine,
12 (July, 1931).

14. From a 1956 letter by James K. Moore Jr. James K. Moore Sr. was
Post and Indian Trader from the fall of 1870 until 1906. See David
M. Delo, "Post Trader, Indian Trader," Wind River Mountaineer,
Fall, 1986, and Winter, 1987.

15. The Shoshones' precision battle parade, which impressed fur traders
as early as rendezvous in the late 1820s, was the subject of a painting
by Alfred Jacob Miller. V. C. TrerJiolm and M. Carley, The Shoshones:
Sentinels of the Rockies (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964).

16. Maghee identified the stream as Bad Water Creek because of the alkali
water. Robinson was sure it was Bridger Creek, a tributary of Bad Water.

17. Robinson, "Order of Indian Battle," p. 293.

18. The author hiked the country the first week of July, 1986.

19. Cheyenne Daily Leader, July 25, 1874.

20. This might have been Cottonwood Canyon.

21. The battlegroimd occurred in central Wyoming— 30 rrules north of Lysite
in the Jim Bridger Mountains, at the northern end of a dissected plateau.

22. Young's sortie consisted of himself, twenty scouts, the six hunters,
Washakie, Narkok and an unknown number of Shoshones. Medical
Journal.

23. Snake Mountain's name on current Topographic maps.

24. Maghee said the young and inexperienced Shoshones raised a ruckus
that prevented a complete surprise.

25. Robinson, "Order of Battle," p. 295.

26. In their haste to secure the bluff— according to Robinson— the enemy
had driven 150 horses up with them. Many were killed during the
battle.

27. The only reference to the length of the battle was made by Indian
Agent Irwin. Letter to The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July (no
day given), 1874.

28. The ammunition train that was left behind in the rush had never
found the command.

29. Robinson was the orjy person to describe the return trip.

30. Captain Robert A. Torrey, "Preliminary Report" to Asst. Adjutant
General, HQ Dept. of the Platte, Omaha, Nebraska, July 7, 1874.

31. Ibid.

32. Letter, Dr. James Irwin, Shoshone Indian Agency to Indian Com-
missioner, July 15, 1874, Denver Archives.

33. Ibid. Note: Narkok was one of many who, in 1859, "set Washakie
aside" to raid White settlers and emigrant trains with chiefs Pocatello,
Sagowitz and Sanpintz. Alter Colonel Connors defeated the raiders
at the Battle of Bear River in 1862, Narkok returned to Washakie. See
"Utah Superintendency Records," Vols. 27-30, Annals of Wyoming.

DESERT DOCUMENTARY:

THE WILLIAM LEE DIARY

ACCOUNT OF THE

JAMES H. SIMPSON EXPEDITION,

1858-1859

by John P. Langellier

William Lee

When the author of this article first read the manuscript account
which serves as the basis of the following narrative, it started
a hunt to find the "missing" photographs from the Simpson Ex-
pedition. After several years, he located what may well be the
earliest photographs taken of the American West, scattered among
four institutions. Examples of these pictures accompany the text
of William Lee's 1858-1859 "diary" now held by the Library of
Congress. Several of the accompanying photographs first appeared
in William P. MacKinnon's article, "125 Years of Conspiracy
Theories: Origins of the Utah Expedition," Utah Historical
Quarterly, Volume 52, Number 3, Summer, 1984.

EDITOR

In the wake of the war with Mexico the spirit of
Mariifest Destiny continued to fire American expansion.
Acquisition of new territory and the discovery of gold in
California also stimulated this westward course of empire.
Often, elements of the United States Army contributed to
the march toward the Pacific. Nowhere was the military's
influence felt with more effect than as a result of expedi-
tions conducted by Uncle Sam's elite Corps of Topographi-
cal Engineers.

Indeed, during the 1850s, many of these "Topogs"
followed the example set by Lewis and Qark, Zebulon Pike
and John C. Fremont. Some sought routes for the construc-
tion of railways so that the nation would be linked with rib-
bons of iron from coast to coast. Others looked to the
establishment of wagon roads to carry the ever increasing
numbers of pioneers to the edge of the continent.

These military men did more than map the regions
they explored. They led complements of geologists,
paleontologists, naturalists and other men of science and
letters who helped chart and change the image of the
"Great American Desert." In so doing, they opened the
way for the conquest of the frontier.^

Captain James H. Simpson characterized the officers
involved in this dynamic work. A native of New Jersey,
Simpson was orJy fifteen years old when he entered the
United States Military Academy in 1828. Shortly after his
graduation from West Point, the new "shavetail" received
a post graduate education in the Florida swamps against
the hard fighting Seminoles. Then, in 1838, he transferred
from the Artillery to the newly formed Topographical
Engineers. For the next two decades he remained active
in this branch which took him to various assignments in
the East and the South. ^ Having built a solid reputation,
Simpson caught the eye of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston,
who, during the late 1850s, commanded a large field force
raised to march for Utah. This unit of more than 2,000 men
responded to orders from Washington to accompany
Utah's new chief executive and a number of lesser ter-
ritorial officials sent to replace Brigham Young, so that the
Mormons would not thwart federal authority.^

Originally, Simpson was to prepare itineraries and
maps for various reinforcements sent out from Fort Leaven-
worth since Johnston went in the vanguard with only part
of his authorized strength. The captain began to carry out
this assignment with the aid of many able assistants, in-
cluding junior officers and civilians who performed a wide
range of scientific and technical tasks. He also brought "a
photographic apparatus" with him along with all the
"necessary chemicals." Simpson realized that other ex-
peditions had attempted similar experiments with the
camera as a means to record their journeys. He confessed
that in "every instance, and even with operators of un-
doubted skill, the enterprise" had proven a failure in the
past. For this reason he exhibited little faith in the daguer-
reotype which he said provided fair portraits and could
capture "objects close at hand," but was no match for the

trained illustrator when it came to "extensive mountain
chains and other objects having considerable extent"— the
meat of any expedition to the vastness of the West. Given
this attitude, Simpson dismissed the efforts of the two
photographers who accompanied him. He even declined
to mention their names in his published Report of the Ex-
plorations Across the Great Basin in 1859, the resume of the
entire trip which he presented at the conclusion of his
assignment.

Fortunately, one of his young civilian assistants
thought more highly of the photographers and their abil-
ity. William Lee, an adventurous youth of some means,
found the camera an ideal way to record his sojourn. As
a consequence, he kept a number of the images and placed
them with his own unpublished notes. These views, along
with Lee's diary, flesh out Simpson's excellent, yet imper-
sonal official narrative. Select pictures and excerpts from
Lee's account help document this fascinating footnote of
American heritage, and appear here as windows to the past.

Lee began his journal the day he left Washington, '
D.C., April 11, 1858. Boarding a train for Cincinnati he met >
some others from the party, including Charles S. McCar- I
thy, the taxidermist for the group. ^ They passed through '
Harpers Ferry, soon to become a milestone in national
history, but to Lee was merely a stop for dinner on the
first leg of the trip. The train traveled through the night.
Rain and excitement made it impossible for him to "sleep
a wink. "5

Two days later, Lee reached Ohio where he received
word to join Simpson and the rest of the contingent on
Wednesday. Reporting at the appointed time and place in-
troductions were made. It seemed as if everyone took stock
of their new traveling companions. Once on the train, the
quiet broke. Soon, every man became "very talkative and
cracking jokes all the way" to St. Louis. Arriving in the
bustling river city, each member sought lodging and food.
Once they took care of these needs, most purchased items
for the trip and enjoyed one last glimpse of "civilization."
Lee even managed to see a circus and attended Senator
Thomas Hart Benton's funeral.* The death of this cham-
pion of national expansion came at the very time that Lee
and his associates were about to help fiirther the famous
politician's dreams.

After this brief layover, the men boarded a steamboat
bound for Fort Leavenworth, an important outpost which
overlooked the banks of the Missouri River since its
founding in 1827. The craft, the Minnehaha, boasted "a fine
band on board and a nine-pounder whose business it was
to salute every boat it meets." Lee pronounced the cuisine
"excellent but the company bad." While playing cards, "a
gentlemanly sharper" bested him for $2.50 before being
put off the boat when he was discovered as a cheat. The
gambler and some other unsavory sorts went ashore at 1
midnight while a drenching rain fell to dampen their I
larcenous spirits.^

Sunday the 18th proved less exciting, although Lee met

Fort Leavenworth's dragoon bar-
racks, erected in the 1830s under
the supervision of Stephen Watts
Kearny, served as Lee's "hostelry"
during his first night in Kansas.
The officers quarters to the left were
erected in 1855 and are still
standing.

some Bostonians and enjoyed the magnificent scenery
along the Missouri. Later, he joined in singing and
dancing. By Tuesday, after "a rousing big supper with
wine of all kinds furnished by the boat . . . everyone got
tight and had a free fight by night." The next day they
landed at Leavenworth where Lee spent a more subdued
evening "in the barracks with soldiers." This was the last
time he would sleep indoors for many months.* On the
morning of April 22, he breakfasted with the legion of
teamsters who drove the massive freight wagons that sup-
plied Johnston's army with its lifeblood. With a full
stomach, Lee then made his way with others to report to
Lieutenant Kirby Smith, destined to become a Union
Volunteer infantry colonel in a few more years.'

The subaltern saw to it that the party received tents.
They spent that night under canvas, but awoke chilled
from the morning frost. i" When Simpson arrived on the
23rd, he arranged for blankets and other equipment which
made things somewhat more comfortable. Lee contended
that he began "to get used to camp life" after that,
although he admitted that after a month away from his
family he heard "a sweet female voice" sing Annie Laurie,
which triggered a bit of homesickness." The melancholy
faded soon since Lee and his colleagues started to learn
the mysteries of their astronomical and magnetic instru-
ments, along with gaining familiarity with the transit and
sextant.

The completion of this training phase coincided with
improved relations in Utah, yet Simpson's people still had

a valuable mission to perform. On May 31, 1858, they left
the nest at Fort Leavenworth for the long trek west. The
first miles followed the rut-worn tracks taken by so many
earlier military columns. Sometimes, during these open-
ing days, Lee simply threw himself on the ground and
slept exhausted, under the stars. He eventually thought
better of this and pitched a tent, but after waking up one
night in the middle of a "young river," he learned to dig
a trench around his shelter in the event of rain.^^

Moving forward, Lee helped Henry Engleman, the
major scientist of the group, gather geological specimens
and fossils. 1^ He performed a number of other duties,
observed the strange surroundings and tasted his first buf-
falo which he found "very like beef."^*

Comradeship strengthened. Data expanded. The party
pressed through Nebraska. Here they celebrated the
Fourth of July with the troop escort turning out in full dress
and firing volleys of musketry. ^^ Two days later, Lee ob-
served his first Sioux. He recorded, "They traded almost
everything they had for sugar." With this discovery, Lee
was able to obtain a bow and arrows and a pair of moc-
casins. The tribesmen seemed just as intrigued with white
accoutrements since Lee noticed one Oglala with a watch
chain just like his.

Indians became more common sights as the column
continued. No clashes erupted, however, as they passed
villages of Native Americans. Countless prairie dog villages
dotted the countryside too. The only thing which seemed
to outnumber these amusing little creatures were swarms

On July 25, Lee noted that the ex-
pedition "stopped at Courthouse Rock
on our road today and Mills took a
picture. Engleman and myself as-
cended the bluff— it IS 300 feet
high—formed by sandstone— very
steep with several names cut on top,
but bears a very slight resemblance to
a Court House. "

In mid-August, the group reached In-
dependence Rock and Devil's Gate.
Lee found the second landmark to be
"merely an opening in the mountains
through which the Sweetwater
[River] passes." Nevertheless, he kept
the three pictures of this formation
which the photographer took from
various distances.

of mosquitoes. These pests caused Lee and his tent mates
to burn gunpowder inside to drive them away."

Toward the end of July, the rather passive nature of
the trip was shattered. Two of the men started an argu-
ment. Finally, one attempted to strike the other with a
spade. His opponent responded with lightning quick
thrusts of a Bowie knife. He inflicted "three severe
woimds, one being just below the appex [sic] of the heart."
On July 21, the victim died. A drum head court martial
found the killer guilty. The sentence was discharge from
the train, some 188 miles from the nearest settlement. Fort
Kearney, Nebraska. ^^ The man forfeited most of his belong-
ings and with only his blankets strapped on his back, he
set out on foot, hoping to reach his destination before
natural or human dangers overtook him. Later, the man's
kit was sold at auction.^'

After the harsh realities of frontier justice, more cheer-
ing news reached the men when they chanced upon the
peace commissioners returning from Salt Lake. They con-
firmed the settlement which avoided bloodshed with the
Latter Day Saints." From then on, the remainder of the
trip seemed less urgent. During the following weeks Lee
enjoyed his work and went with Engleman and the pho-
tographer, C. C. Mills, to Court House Rock for a picture.

The next day, they spied Chimney Rock which Lee found
more interesting. He maintained "it is one of the most
singular works of nature 1 have ever seen." At twenty
miles it appeared to him as "a lighthouse and you can
easily imagine the broad prairie 'water.' It consists of sand-
stone and is a long chimney (as it were) on top of a high
and perfectly conical hUl. . . ."'^°

While Lee mentioned that the photographers made
views through High Bluff the day after sighting Chimney
Rock, no pictures remain to record this portion of the jour-
ney. By July 30, however, the men had set the camera up
again. On that day they came to Fort Laramie, a former
trading post purchased for the United States Army in 1849.^1
Lee favored the place more than Fort Kearney, perhaps
because he spent one night with several of his colleagues
in Mills' tent drinking "Longworth's Sparkling Catawba,"
a gift from one of the local officers on August 3.^^

After this brief rest, the expedition again broke camp
and continued. They saw many new sites and even wit-
nessed a victory dance of some Arapahoes at the Platte
River Trading Post where these "finelooking fellows"
displayed the scalp of a fallen Ute enemy. Diversions,
duties and hunting forays left the band with few idle hours
as they followed the Oregon Trail and passed such land-

When the party arrived at Fort Laramie, Lee found the installation ' 'a pleasanter place than Kearny [Kearney], " perhaps
because he helped empty "a few bottles of Longworth's Sparkling Cataivba" there on August 3.

marks as Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, the Sweet-
water and the Green River."

On September 2, 1858, they reached Fort Bridger in
the far southwestern corner of modern Wyoming. ^^ Jim
Bridger originally selected this spot more than a decade
and a half earlier to supply the last of the fur trappers and
traders, as well as to provide goods for the overland
pioneers who came in increasing numbers after the death
of the beaver hat industry. Bridger eventually left the area
in haste when Brigham Young sent out a posse of more
than 100 "avenging angels" from Salt Lake to arrest the
old scout for alleged infractions in his dealings with the
Indians. Years later, when Johnston's army marched
against the Mormons, Bridger guided them back to his
former business locale. ^^ The site had changed since his
tenure, for the industrious Mormons made many improve-
ments, including the completion of a substantial stone
stockade which replaced Bridger's crude wooden facUity.
When news came that the U.S. Army approached, the
Mormons abandoned the compound, but not before torch-
ing the buildings and whatever other material they had
to leave behind, thus denying it to the oncoming enemy.

When Johnston's advance force arrived, they gathered
at a nearby area which they called Camp Scott. Some
detachments went back to Fort Bridger and attempted to
make it habitable. All suffered in the valley, spending a
miserable winter with short supplies. Eventually, they left
Camp Scott. While the main body proceeded to Utah,
Johnston left behind a garrison to repair and expand Fort
Bridger. To maintain his lines of communication with this
post, he ordered Simpson's men to survey a road to his
new headquarters at Camp Floyd, Utah.^^ The engineer,
who had raced ahead of Lee and most of the other expedi-
tion members, accomplished this task before the group
reached Bridger Valley. After a brief rest there, they con-
tinued the march over the new road Simpson had surveyed.

As they entered Utah, Lee noticed evidence of the
preparations the Mormons had made to repel the military
units sent against them. At Echo Canyon they took advan-
tage of the strongpoint nature provided them and en-
hanced the defenses with "piles of rocks in the shape of
barricades" on the heights. Ditches crossed the road as did
breastworks, while the bushes concealed the remains of
huts for the defenders to use as shelter while not on the
lookout for their federal foes. 2''

These relics of the war that never exploded slipped by
as the column neared Salt Lake. On September 13, they
plodded over the roughest part of the road yet encoun-
tered. They were rewarded for their efforts by a glimpse
of Salt Lake City. Lee exclaimed, "it was a beautiful sight."
Anxious to obtain a closer view, Lee hastily left his things
in camp and went with McCarthy into town. The place
continued to impress him, especially since he discovered
that "there were some fine looking women in the city."^*

The following day brought the entire force into the
community, "with colors flying and the band playing

Lee spent a considerable part of the winter of 1858 at Fort Bridger working with the road survey between that former trading post and Salt Lake.
The stone stockade was erected by the Mormons after they replaced Jim Bridger and his more primitive wooden outpost. The U.S. Army used the
facility for many years until they demolished it to make way for a new barracks late in the Victorian era.

which created quite a sensation." After the grand entrance,
Lee again wandered about and concluded that "there are
several fine stores here and a prison" with only a handful
of Indians as inmates. Two or three gambling houses also
existed, "but they are frequented only by Gentiles," Lee
maintained. That night, a Mormon visited their camp and
a friendly conversation followed. In general, the party en-
joyed good relations with the local population despite the
fact the two sides had recently been ready to fight each
other."

While the people were civil, Lee did not like the dust
which covered the countryside. Yet, life in the territory was
much improved over that on the trail. When Lee and the
others reached Simpson at Camp Floyd on September 15,
they not only saw a circus performance, but also they took
in a presentation at the post theater. The following eve-
ning Lee partook of an excellent dinner at one of the of-
ficer's quarters and met General Johnston at last.^"

After these exchanges, Lee headed back to Fort Bridger
where he was to perform a number of duties, including
some survey work. He managed to accept some dinner in-
vitations from the post commander and his wife in addi-
tion to other social events, but Lee mostly concentrated
on his assignments.^^

Winter set in just as Lee and his crew concluded their
efforts. At the end of November they mounted, having
broken camp, and started back to Camp Floyd. Sub-zero

temperatures, wind, snow and storms slowed their move-
ment. Lee and several others sustained frostbite. The situa-
hon deteriorated to such an extent that some of the govern-
ment property had to be abandoned, "with the exception
of the ambulance with ten mules attached to it." Lee went
on, leaving McCarthy and two wagons with several of the
other men behind. On December 18, his contingent linked
up with a rescue party sent out by Johnston. Lee directed
them to McCarthy. He then brought his weary comrades
into Camp Floyd the next day. Here, quarters awaited
them. The comforts were most welcome. ^^

During the holiday Lee revived, obtained a new hat
and some boots and watched another theatrical offering.
A grand review and the drumming out of a thief likewise
caught his eye in the days just after Christmas. New Years
brought a round of visiting and the arrival of McCarthy
and his party. With the exception of a horse race, where
"bets ran high," and the arrival of some Ute Indians into
Camp Floyd, Lee found little to say in his journal for the
remainder of the winter. ^^

The approach of spring unlimbered his pen once more.
On April 20, 1859, Lee again visited Salt Lake City where
he "met a great many Mormons emigrating north." He
"noticed in almost every wagon a man with at least two
wives and lots of children." His jaunt about town also
brought him into contact with the territorial governor,
Alfred Cummings, and Brigham Young's brother-in-law.^

Lee casually mentioned that on January 20, 1859, "a party of 6 Ute Indians visited . . . and the quartermaster provided
them with a Sibley tent [the teepee shaped shelter in-the background] and provisions. " The central figure in this portrait
is "Arrapene (Sinnearoach) the head chief" of the Utes, and "Luke the interpretor" was another member of the tribal
delegation.

Lieutenant Smith, destined to die as a Union officer in the Civil War, works with Lee and McCarthy to make solar
observations at Camp Floyd late in 1858.

Salt Lake City greeted the weary column when it arrived on September 13, 1858. Lee seemed particularly interested
in "Brigham Young's Harem— a house (surrounded by a high wall) with 60 windows each window lighted a room
with a wife in it. On the outside was a porch with a lion carved in granite. " The stately structure can still be visited today.

The Tabernacle was another prominent feature of early Salt Lake. Lee described the community as having many un-
bumt brick homes, "several fine stores," a prison and two or three gambling houses which were "frequented only
by Gentiles. " He also took note of "some fine looking women" while passing through town for the first time.

Lee made these rounds with John Reese, the founder of
Genoa, the first settlement in Nevada. ^^ This trail blazer
was hired to guide Simpson's group on their next, and
most important assignment, the exploration of a direct
route to northern California. Before setting out, Lee com-
pleted some last minute shopping. His souvenirs consisted
of a pair of moccasins to send home, two copies of the Book
of Mormon and a daguerreotype portrait of Brigham Young
made from the original taken the previous July. With pur-
chases in hand, he soon retraced his steps to Camp Floyd. ^^
Final preparation lasted but a few days. By May 3,
Simpson gave the order to his men and their military escort
to begin their historic foray. During the next several
months, the 64 member expedition crossed desert and
mountain, reaching Genoa, a small settlement at the base
of the Sierra Nevadas on June 13. Here, Simpson left his
tired command, then caught the stage to Placerville. Once
in California, he made his way to San Francisco where he
reported his progress to his superiors. Toward the end of
the month he rejoined his men, setting out for the return
to Camp Hoyd on July 24. 3'' Lee's diary essentially mirrors
Simpson's report during this phase of the story.'* What
neither man's account records is the importance of this ac-
complishment. Within days of the party's return in early
August to Camp Floyd, pioneers repeated the route Simp-
son's party blazed. Their efforts cut off some 250 miles to
San Francisco, thereby reducing the journey by an average
of two weeks through very rugged terrain.

Emigrant traffic flowed over the trail on a regular basis
thereafter. The Pony Express also selected his northern
route as its course through this region. The telegraph lines
followed suit. In modem times, U.S. Highway 50 continues
to run along Simpson's road for most of its length through
the Great Basin. ^^

When Lee's train pulled into Washington, D.C. on
October 25, 1859, he must have returned with a sense of j
satisfaction.^" His overland odyssey ranks as one of the
most significant chapters in the opening of a vital region.
While the major credit for this feat belongs to Simpson,
Lee's part, and that of his companions, deserves to be
recorded along with the other explorers who helped build
a nation.

JOHNP. LANGELLIER, Ph.D., former Head of the Wyoming State Museum,
is now Senior Research Historian and Head of the Library at the Gene Autry
Western Heritage Museum in Los Angeles. His most recent book, The Drums
Would Roll; U.S. Army Bands on the Frontier, 1866-1900, is the first in
a series printed by Arms and Armour Press of London.

1. For details on this subject consult William H. Goetzmann, Army
Exploration in the American West, 1803-1863 (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1959).

2. Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the
United States Army, Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Print-
ing Office, 1903), p. 888, and Report of the Explorations Across the Great
Basin in 1859 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1983 reprint), pp. 6a-6b.

3. Harold D. Langley, ed.. To Utah with the Dragoons and Glimpses of Life
in Arizona and California 1858-1859 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 1974), pp. 1-16 provide a useful overview of the complex ac-
tivities related to the Utah Expedition. Also see Leroy R. and Ann
W. Hafen, eds.. The Utah Expedition, 1857-1858 (Glendale, Califor-
nia: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1958).

4. Report of the Explorations.

5. WilliamLee, "ACopy of My Notes Taken WhUe on a Journey Across
the Plains from Washington, to Genoa, Carson Valley Utah. From
April 11th 1858 to Oct. 25th 1859" (unpublished MSS, Library of Con-
gress Manuscript Division, Lee-Palfrey Family Collection, Box 4).
Hereafter referred to as "Lee Diary" with dates of entry.

6. Some suggestions about this influential man's thoughts on westward
expansion can be found in Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Year's View,
2 vols. (New Haven: Greenwood Press, 1968).

7. "Lee Diary," April 14-April 17, 1858. For a basic account of Fort
Leavenworth's early years read Elvid Hunt and Walter E. Lorence,
History of Fort Leavenworth, 3827-2837 (Fort Leavenworth: Command
and General Staff CoUege, 1937).

8. "Lee Diary," April 18-April 21, 1858.

9. Joseph Lee Kirby Smith, a New Yorker, graduated from West Point
in 1857, receiving a commission as a second lieutenant of
Topographical Engineers. During the Civil War, he became the com-
mander of the 3rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He died in October, 1862,
from wounds received at the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi. Heitman,
Historical Register, p. 901.

10. "Lee Diary," April 22, 1858.

11. Ibid., May 9, 1858.

12. Ibid., May 10-June 2, 1858.

13. Examples of Engleman's work can be found in Report of Explorations,
pp. 169-207, 247-336, 435-447.

14. "Lee Diary," June 12 and June 22, 1858.

15. Ibid., July 4, 1858.

16. Ibid., July 6-7, 1858.

17. Estabhshed in 1848 on the right bank of the Platte River near present-
day Kearney, Nebraska, the post served as one of the original guar-
dians of the Oregon Trail. It continued in use until 1871. D. Ray
Wilson, Fort Kearney on the Platte (Dundee, Illinois: Crossroads Com-
munications, 1980). The "Lee Diary" entry for June 18, 1858, described
it as "a mean place-4 wooden houses and a few mud huts for the
garrison."

18. "Lee Diary," July 2-21, 1858.

19. Ibid., July 23, 1858.

20. Ibid., July 25, 1858.

21. A former fur trade site. Fort Laramie came into the hands of the U.S.
Army in 1849. Many fine histories treat various aspects of this post's
past. Perhaps the best known account continues to be Leroy R. Hafen
and Francis Marion Young, fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West
1834-1890 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984).

22. "Lee Diary," July 30 and August 3, 1858.

23. Ibid., August 16-31, 1858. Aubrey L. Haines, Historic Sites Along the
Oregon Trail (Gerald, Missouri: The Patrice Press, 1981), pp. 197-269
provide a summary of the route followed by the Simpson Expedi-
tion as it went along the Oregon TraQ during this period.

24. R. S. Ellison, Fort Bridger: A Brief History (Cheyenne: Wyoming State
Archives, Museums and Historical Department, 1981), details the
history of this one-time trading post that became a U.S. military in-
stallation from 1858 through 1890.

25. Two biographies discuss this colorful character. They are: J. Cecil
Alter, Jim Bridger (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982); and
Stanley Vestal, Jim Bridger Mountain Man (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1970).

26. First called Camp Hoyd in honor of the Secretary of War, John Floyd,
when founded in 1858, the post was renamed Fort Crittenden at the
outbreak of the Civil War. The founding of Fort Douglas in Salt Lake
City, in 1862, led to the abandonment of the earlier post which was
located at Provo, Utah. Robert W. Frazer, Forts of the West (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), p. 166.

27. "Lee Diary," September 10, 1858.

28. Ibid., September 13, 1858.

29. Ibid., September 14, 1858.

30. Ibid., September 15, 1858. For a useful biography of this interesting
military figm-e obtain Charles P. Roland, Albert Sidney Johnston, Soldier
of Three Republics (Austin: University of Texas, 1964).

31. "Lee Diary," September 29-October 30, 1858.

32. Ibid., November 28-December 19, 1858.

33. Ibid., December 21, 1858-March 20, 1859.

34. Ibid., April 20, 1858.

35. "In the spring of 1851 Reese and his companions loaded ten wagons
with flour, bacon, butter, eggs and many other articles, and set out
for Carson Valley." They arrived and purchased Mormon Station,
founded in 1849, and renamed Genoa in 1855. This trading outpost
became the first permanent settlement in Nevada, and Reese enjoyed
a fairly active role in early Nevada political history. Effie Mona Mack
and Byrd Wall Sawyer, Our State: Nevada (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton
Printers, 1956), pp. 57, 171.

36. "Lee Diary," AprU 21, 1859.

37. Ibid., May 3-July 24, 1859.

38. "Lee Diary" for the months of May and June closely parallel segments
of Simpson's Report of Explorations for the same period.

39. Report of Explorations, p. 6c.

40. "Lee Diary," October 25, 1859.

ANNAL'S REVIEWS

Seeds-Ke-Dee Reflections. Published by the Sublette County Artist's Guild.
Printed by Modern Printing, Laramie, 1985. 393 pp. Illustrated.

The Crow Indians called it Seeds-Ke-Dee Agie or
Prairie Hen River. Today, we know it as the Green River.
It is a thread that winds through the tapestry of one of
Wyoming's most important ranching regions. And it ties
together the lives and experiences of the area's residents.

Like people in other areas of Wyoming, the people of
the Green River Valley are often isolated from each other
by distance and weather. So they cherish the opportunities
they have to get together and share stories of their ex-
periences, their good times and their difficulties. The
Sublette County Artist's Guild has long served a useful
function in gathering some of those stories and publishing
them. Seeds-Ke-Dee Reflections is the third such publication
from that organization and it is served up with a liberal
sprinkling of local artwork and poetry.

In the introduction, the guild's Book Committee says
the purpose of the book is to preserve a part of the history
of the Green River Valley. And, the committee writes, the
stories have been "written as life has been lived here,
honestly, and simply."

And so it is. You will find no scholarly treatises here,
no footnotes, no bibliographies. None are needed. What
you will find is a cornucopia of short historical sketches.
Most are first-hand accounts written by the people who
were participants in the events described, and family
histories written by children and grandchildren of the peo-
ple who settled the valley. Some of the stories tell of signifi-
cant events. Others tell of everyday events— the things that
will not make the history books of the future. And it is
these stories which give us a valuable look at life as it was
lived.

As with most books of this type there are high points
and lows. Among the best stories are "The Ferry Boat and
Footbridge," by Caryn Murdock Bing, "His Last Tune,"
by Madge McHugh Funk, "The Changing Face of Hay-
ing," by Pearl Budd Spencer, "The Green River Bar-
Daniel, Wyoming," by Pat Walker and "Community Halls
Areas Community Halls Do," by WUda Springman. Also
worthy of note are "Electric Power in Pinedale," by Bar-
bara Wise, "Vint Faler— My Father, My Friend, My Pal,"
by Faren Faler, "Pay Dirt for the Preacher or Our Favorite

Poker Game," by Helen Sargent and "A Study in Con-
trast," by Peggy Kvenild.

Those who enjoy homespun poetry will find a feast of
material here as the historical sketches are interspersed
with a wide variety of verse. As with most books of local
history, this one would be more useful had an index been
included.

WREN ]OST

The reviewer is first I'ice-president of the Wyoming State Historical Society and
Public Information Officer, Central Wyoming College, Riverton.

Letters from Honeyhill: A Woman's View of Homesteading 1914-1931. By
Cecilia Hennel Hendricks. Boulder, Colorado: Pruett Publishing
Company, 1986. Introduction. Illustrations. Postscript. Index. 704 pp.
$22.95 cloth.

In December, 1913, Cecilia Hennel, a professor at In-
diana University, married John Hendricks, a seriously
wounded veteran of the Spanish American War who
turned to homesteading in Wyoming in an effort to recover
his health. To her family and close circle of university
friends, the marriage and the move to Wyoming in
January, 1914, must have seemed dubious.

But for Cecilia Hennel Hendricks, the marriage and the
homesteading experience proved catalysts to her artistic
temperament. In John she found more than a husband,
she found a soul mate with whom she could share "ideas
and ideals"; a partner whose love, courage, sympathy and
general "live-ableness-with" fostered her artistic growth.

The homesteading experience on Honeyhill Farm in
the Shoshone Valley near Powell, where she and John kept
bees and produced honey provided the raw information
for meticulously detailed— usually typed— letters to her
parents and sisters back home in Indiana. The almost daily
letters home provided her family with richly catholic
vignettes of homesteading. There are details on raising
bees, marketing honey, canning, butchering, churning but-
ter, baking bread, irrigating, gardening, cooking, making
improvements and all the operations involved in convert-
ing "raw desert to full bloom."

Letters from Honeyhill is much more than a factual
eyewitness account of homesteading. It chronicles tech-
nological developments— automobiles, airplanes, radios,
picture shows, "talkies," telephones, victrolas and

electricity— with a freshness and a sense of the marvelous.
It reminds us of important roles played by the railroads
and mail order catalogs in connecting Wyoming's rural
population with the outside world. It provides us with
patriotic and sometimes nativist glimpses of life on the
home front during World War 1.

The letters also serve as reminder that for much of
Wyoming the 1920s was the start of the Great Depression.
They powerfully convey the struggle against forces— un-
predictable prices, growing competition, rising freight
rates, taxes, bad investments and weather— which spelled
ruin for thousands of homesteaders. And they portray the
heroic efforts of families "up against it," fighting to
preserve their places. One cannot read the letters without
feeling the numerous parallels between the Great Depres-
sion and the agricultural crisis of the 1980s. But despite
mounting sense of financial crisis in the volume, there is
a counterbalancing optimism, part of which is rooted in
values— self-reliance, hard work, frugality and faith— the
Hendricks and other homesteaders lived by.

Yet another source of their optimism was a commu-
nity spirit reflected in numerous activities and organiza-
tions: charivari, gargantuan dinners, booster clubs, ladies
aid groups, churches, good roads organizations, chautau-
qua, fairs, carnivals, circuses, oyster feeds, the Red Cross
and so forth. Neighbors helping neighbors is a recurrent
theme throughout the volume.

Mrs. Hendricks' portraits of rural and small town life
are not romanticized, but sharply drawn and realistic
statements covering a range of emotions: amusement, frus-
tration and occasional disbelief. We share her amusement
over paper wads in church, party line gossips and hired
hands who always show off with a car. We catch her frus-
tration with long-winded ministers and prudish mentalities
who label O'Henry a "nasty" author. And we smile at her
disbelief and frustration with wives who make a crusade
of rescuing spinsters from the stigma of remaining single.

At the heart of Letters from Honeywell is the un-
mistakable presence of the author doing what she did best:
working and sacrificing for her family and practicing her
craft— writing. And that craft reflects her many-sided
interests- women's issues, teaching, literature, music,
politics, farming, community, family and university life.

When growing financial pressures forced Mrs. Hen-
dricks to return to Indiana University in 1931, the long
separations from John intensified their love. Their cor-
respondence reflects a deeply sacrificial love and is
poignantly moving. By 1936, John's health had failed and
Cecilia returned to Billings, Montana, where he was hos-
pitalized. Following his death in December, 1936, Cecilia
took him back to Indiana for burial, retracing the same
route they had taken on their honeymoon.

The editorial work of the Hendrick's daughter, Cecilia
Hendricks Wahl, is an admirable contribution to the Let-
ters. Her introduction, postscript and photos provide a
valuable focus.

Letters from Honeyhill rightfully deserves a place
alongside Elinore Pruitt Stewart's classic: Letters of a Woman
Homesteader.

ROBERT CAMPBELL
The reviezver is an Associate Professor, University School, University of Wyoming.

New Courses for the Colorado River: Major Issues for the Next Century. Edited
by Gary D. Weatherford and F. Lee Brown. Albuquerque: Univer-
sity of New Mexico Press, 1986. 253 pp. $35 doth. $17.50 paper.

This book is the uneven result of collective scholarship.
The work of sixteen different authors is based on the pro-
ceedings of the Colorado River Working Symposium held
at Santa Fe, New Mexico, May, 1983. Weatherford and
Brown have compiled a useful history of the Colorado
River Compact in particular and the management and
political manipulation of western water resources in
general. It does not carry the profound impact of Donald
Worster's Rivers of Empire (1986), but the editors have done
us a service by displaying the range of interests in western
water.

The separate articles are given scope by Arizona's
Governor Bruce Babbitt as he briefly lays out the nature
of political ventures in water development. Roderick Nash,
the indefatigable keeper of the "wilderness mind" in
America, gives evidence that he is now in danger of becom-
ing irrelevant. A prestigious scholar cannot afford to be
out of step with political realities and to plead simply, that
"development has gone far enough." As much as we may
search for "wilderness values" and agree with the need
to "transcend utilitarianism," we need also to realize that
the changes civilization brings to the natural landscape are
also part of the inevitable result of our very human
existence.

At the same time, B. Delworth Gardner's reflexive
commitment to a "free market economy" nears self-cari-
cature. He is as surprised as though it were a fresh revela-
tion that "political and legal criteria would allocate water
on the basis of constitutional right" rather than on purely
economic criteria. He appears actually to be unaware, if not
insensitive, that these very acts of political influence are
the American method of creating a democratic process.

As we have come to expect, it is Norris Hundley who
provides the necessary historical sweep of western water
law. He makes the case for a "West against itself." It is
the rivalry, ambitions and fears of the states, a cautious,
inconsistent Supreme Court, and the political calculations
of Congress which manifest the political contest called
federalism.

Between the idealists focusing on the need for an "ethic
of (human) responsibility" in natural development and the
undisturbed seeing only an urgency for the "economic
good," we learn a good deal of history in this useful volume.

We are given renewed insight into the vitality of fed-
eralism. Indeed, the courts. Congress and the states have

been overly deferential to the custom of laissez-faire. If
there is any unifying theme to these disparate essays, it
is a call for new federal-interstate relations in terms of water
development.

We see that the recent rulings of the Supreme Court
declaring water to be an article of interstate commerce ac-
tually make fiction out of a state's (e.g. Wyoming's) claim
to "ownership" of water. The concerns of the states of the
Colorado River Basin, such as Wyoming, are intrinsically
involved in foreign affairs; their concern cannot only be
with domestic consumption.

Interstate water compacts do not bind the Indian tribes;
Indians' water rights exist whether or not they actually use
the water. Reservation "rights" are superior to later non-
Indian rights. Indian water claims, via the Winters Doc-
trine, represent an enormous collection of possible pre-
emptive claims.

While the particular works of Worster, Hundley or
Gates may be more penetrating, there are not many re-
cent volumes more useful than this in reflecting policies
and attitudes toward western water.

ROY JORDAN

The reviewer is Associate Professor of History, Northwest Community College,
Powell, Wyoming.

The Native Home of Hope: People and the Northern Rockies. Edited by Thomas
N. BetheU, Deborah E. Tuck and Michael S. Clark. Salt Lake City and
Chicago: Howe Brothers, 1986. xi + 196 pp. Illustrated. $12.50 paper.

Historians prefer the convfortable distance of several
generations to provide them with historical perspective on
the larger events which shape an area or a region. Jour-
nalists, on the other hand, are constantly faced with the
need for front page news, and in their rush to chronicle
current events they frequently report irrmiediate facts
without analyzing the larger issues involved. The Native
Home of Hope: People of the Northern Rockies is a successful
synthesis of both current events and historical perspective,
and it functions admirably as a contemporary oral history
of concerned citizens from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

As the central Rockies prepared for the onslaught of
mineral and energy extraction produced by inflation and
the energy crisis in the 1970s, numerous governmental
associations and groups formed to help rural communities
cope with distinctively urban problems. Most of those
groups have dissolved as boomtowns have gone bust, but
one group which remains, the Northern Lights Research
& Education Institute, continues to provide thoughtful
commentary on current economic and environmental
issues. This book is a result of that involvement, and it
takes its title from Wallace Stegner's statement that "Angry
as one may be at what heedless men have done and still
do to a noble habitat, one cannot be pessimistic about the
West. This is the native home of hope."

This book rings of promise and hope without wallow-
ing in self-delusion. Times are tough across all segments

of the Western economy from agriculture to mining, and
the bloom is definitely off the energy rose. Traditional
economic mainstays and lifestyles are being threatened,
and the optimistic in-migration of the 1970s has given way
to retrenchment and out-migration in the 1980s. All these
issues as well as commentary on water rights, higher ed-
ucation, agricultural debt, MX missiles and regional
political action are thoughtfully addressed in The Native
Home of Hope, which is a careful compilation of superbly
edited oral histories by 25 farmers, ranchers, conserva-
tionists, politicians, businessmen, students, unemployed
miners, wildlife experts, white water guides, artists,
scholars and Hispanic organizers.

Interviews by labor leaders, Indian filmmakers and en-
vironmentalists also speak to the deep sense of commu-
nity which abides in the small towns and ranching areas
of the West. Rugged individualism must of necessity give
way to concessions and compromise, and though few
political conservatives are interviewed, most of the views
expressed in these pages focus on the need to retain tradi-
tional family values and unexploited open space. The
theme "quality of life" runs like a hidden thread through
every oral history.

The volume features fine photographs by Mike
McClure and a useful introduction by Montana writer
William Kittredge. Dan Whipple of the Northern Lights
Institute also provides a succinct "Guide to the Northern
Rockies" as an informational appendix. The book's only
problems are in presentation not in content. To be useful,
the photographs should have been captioned with date
and place. The oral histories also should have been dated.
The table of contents should have clarified in a few words
the context of each interview rather than simply listing the
names of the interviewees. For example, to state that Tom
Preuit is a beet farmer and rancher, and that Gretchen and
Harry Billings edited The People's Voice would have in-
creased the book's value as a reference work. As it is, with
edited interviews in lieu of thematic chapters, and without
an index, finding subject references can be unnecessarily
time consuming.

The Native Home of Hope: People and the Northern Rockies
is a highly successful book in a very readable format which
will stand as a major contribution to understanding the
20th century West in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The
precise oral histories clarify that however rural and remote,
international economics reach to the heart of every Western
town dependent on dollars from agriculture, energy or
tourism. The reader comes away with a much better
understanding of how Westerners must grapple with the
vagaries of the marketplace while retaining their own com-
munities and sense of rootedness.

ANDREW GULLIFORD

Vie reviewer is Director of the Western New Mexico University Museum in Silver
City.

The Mythic West in Twentieth Century America. By Robert G. Athearn.
Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1986. Index. Illustrated. 275 pp.
$25.00 cloth.

The well-known western historian and historian of the
American West, Robert G. Athearn, presents a convinc-
ing account as to how and why the mythic West has sur-
vived in a highly technical, industrial and urbanized
American society of the 20th century. For Athearn, the
legendary traditions inherited from this country's last fron-
tier, located in the plains and Rockies region of the United
States, are now so firmly entrenched in the American mind
that they have become an integral part of our national iden-
tity and cultural experience. The myth has become real
because our view of the past, be it based in legend or real-
ity, influences our expectations and hopes for the future.

However, Athearn proceeds well beyond rehashing or
redefining the role of myth in the American West. He, in-
stead, examines the on-going interrelationships between
the romantic legacies of the plains and Rockies frontier (Old
West) and the events and circumstances of the 20th
century.

Despite the interpretive nature of The Mythic West,
Athearn is able to avoid becoming overly academic for a
general audience while, at the same time, presenting
enough substance to challenge the interests of those with
more scholarly inclinations. Rather than plaguing the
reader with innumerable details and bits of data, the author
offers insight and anecdotal passages which spark a degree
of introspection and even wonderment.

This clearly is a book full of messages about serious
issues confronting a unique region of this country. Within
the context of exploring the mythic West in modern times,
the author examines a variety of subjects including: psy-
chological uncertainty and economic depression in the
West during the 1920s and 1930s; tourism's increasing role
in the western economy; the dilemma of colonialism; con-
tinued perpetuation of the Old West through fictionalized
accounts; and controversy over the appropriate use of
public lands.

Athearn's selection of themes is apropos for the 1980s
when states as Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah,
Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and the western segments
of other Great Plains states from North Dakota to Texas,
exist in a cultural environment partially created by the in-
teraction of modernizing forces with those values,
behaviors and traditions associated with the Old West.

Athearn devotes the beginning chapters of his book
to describing the affects of rapid change on the West of
the Rockies and Great Plains. Rather quickly the Old West
passed from the scene as the forces of industrialization
swept over the country near the turn of the century. In
the West, the livestock industry with its enduring connec-
tion to the frontier and the frontier hero-type, the cowboy,
increasingly found itself sharing the land with farmers who
formed communities, plowed up the land at an alarming
rate and finally succumbed to industrial agriculture. These

20th century westerners, though still hundreds of iiiiles
from any modern, urban center, eagerly sought the bene-
fits of technical progress in the form of paved streets,
motion picture houses, automobiles, radios and a wealth
of merchandise from mail-order houses.

One spin-off of this maturing process in the West is
what Athearn calls the "nervous years." As the nation was
finding a sense of identity in the values of the Old West,
westerners were busy searching for respectability and
economic stability. Their nervousness stemmed from
sweeping social changes impacting the West during the
early 20th century and from a national expectation that the
West should continue to be the repository of the country's
raw and dynamic past at a time when the West was more
interested in shaking off the turbulence of its frontier
heritage.

M the reader is looking for a polemic on the West as
being the last bastion of genuine Americanism, Athearn
will prove disappointing since he quickly exposes the stan-
dard myths surrounding the western traits of rugged in-
dividualism, independent mindedness, tolerance, pa-
triotism and progressiveness. Throughout the book,
Athearn is more concerned about hard realities and
paradoxes facing the West and refrains from getting
sidetracked into intellectualizing the mythic theme. One
example of this approach is his treatment of the mythic
West during the depression of the 1930s.

The Great Depression did more than devastate the
West economically, it also threatened the popular image
of a region. Rather than being self-sustaining the fragile
western economy was highly dependent on natural forces,
outside investment and, now with the New Deal, the
largesse of the federal government. After adequately
describing the negative impact the depression had on the
West, Athearn presents a dilemma confronting westerns—
the reality of dependency versus the mind set and image
of championing independence and individualism. West-
erners, such as latter day beef barons, quickly criticized
the "foreign power on the banks of the Potomac" and
eastern financial interests for infringing upon their domain.
Athearn, however, accurately recognizes that the economic
security of the West rests with outside irifluences, be it the
federal government, oil companies or tourists. The depres-
sion of the 1930s in combination with the dust bowl
severely called into question certain mythic qualities of
the West.

Economic colonialism is not entirely a pejorative
phenomenon for Athearn, because in his view westerners
were not always the victims of outside forces but often
learned to play the game as in the case of tourism. Many
western communities with their staged gunfights, rodeos
and wild west depictions learned the value of hawking
nostalgia despite their resentment of the "dudes" who
showed up to grab a part of the mythic West within the
content of its majestic landscape. The Irma, Cody, Wyo-
ming's, $80,000 luxury hotel, which opened in 1902, and

the more than 100 dude ranches in Wyoming alone were
designed to capture the tourist dollar. The author rec-
ognizes that during most of the 20th century, the mythic
West has been used as a means for turning a buck.

For those who were unable to see the "real" thing
firsthand, the fictional West, as presented through novels,
movies and television, offered them the cowboy, a hero
type possessing simple tastes, a strong character, rugged
qualities, righteous wrath and impeccable survival skills.
Author Owen Wister, in his book The Virginian (1902), first
captured the essence of what would become the arche-
typical American hero, the cowboy. Despite brief periods
of declining audience or reader interest, the western movie,
television show and novel persisted, and in Athearn's
opinion have made the mythic West such an integral part
of American folklore that we now need it as a staple part
of our cultural diet.

While recognizing the mythic West's national appeal
and its usefulness as a binding force and element in the
collective experience of Americans, Athearn resists the
temptation to apply mythic frontier qualities to the 20th
century residents of this region. For example, he views
westerners as being more oriented towards conservatism
and provincialism than to experimentation and broad-
mindedness. Trying to fit Frederick Jackson Turner's fron-
tier traits into the West and westerners of the 20th cen-
tury is anachronistic and distorts reality, but this distor-
tion or exaggeration, it appears, has become vital to per-
petuating the mystic West. A specific contribution of the
author is his ability to explain the myth and how it func-
tions without losing sight of actual historical and behavioral
patterns.

One chapter in the book was not written by Athearn,
who died in 1983, three years before this book was pub-
lished. An associate of Athearn, Elliott West, and other
friends pulled the book together into final form with one
chapter, "The Wilderness Evangelists," being written by
West, who drew extensively from Athearn's notes. Pre-
sented in this chapter is an overview of a struggle between
conservationists and preservationists over how public

lands of the West either should or should not be used. The
wilderness evangelists or preservationists favor maintain-
ing nature in as a pure a form as possible, which
necessitates severely restricting human use of pristine
regions of the West. They are outspokenly opposed to the
increased economic and recreational exploitation of the
West's natural wonders. For them, the preservation of
these natural assets is essential to sustaining the spirit of
the United States and is, therefore, symbolic of the promise
of the country's future.

Others, labeled as conservationists, are more inclined
towards wise usage of the land, be it for livestock graz-
ing, reservoir development, mining, timbering or tourism.
There has emerged what the author calls the dilemma of
purity or growth.

After tracing the philosophies and impact of key con-
servationists and preservationists, the author concludes the
chapter by recognizing how even the most diehard pro-
ponents of multiple use (of land) have been influenced by
the wilderness evangelists. Though the reader might dis-
agree with Athearn's or West's slant on the issue of preser-
vation versus conservation, one must recognize how well
the chapter ties this issue in with the historical and
symbolic West of the 20th century.

Throughout The Mythic West, Athearn skillfully sifts
through the complexities of modern developments in the
West and clearly explains how societal changes moulded
people's perceptions about the land, themselves and the
frontier legacy. In addition to being a highly respected
scholar, Athearn also is a keen observer of his western en-
vironment. Through The Mythic West, he has left us with
a lively, thought provoking account of how myth and
reality have become so intertwined that a knowledge of
both are required to provide us with a basis for under-
standing the modern West.

JIM JOHNS

The reviewer is Social Science Division Director, Laramie County Community
College, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

LETTERS TO THE
EDITOR

Editor:

I would like to comment on Mark Junge's review of my exhibition
catalog, "Historic Ranches of Wyoming," which appeared in the Spring,
1987, issue ot Annals of Wyoming. 1 particvilarly wish to rebut the reviewer's
comments with regard to: the photography; the alleged "errors"; and
the content, style and organization of the exhibition and captions.

First, the photographs. Mr. Junge argues that 35mm photography
does not provide the clarity and perspective correction available with 4x5
and larger format cameras, but, in fact, 35mm cameras with perspective
corrective lenses are the format most often used in svu-veys of historical
architecture. The 35mm format provides advantages that larger cameras
do not. For example, the smaller format camera equipment better cap-
tures the mood and activities on a ranch site for documentary purposes
when nothing is staged. In addition, representatives of the Wyoming
Council for the Humanities, the University of Wyoming, the Nicolaysen
Art Museum and the University of Nebraska Press, as well as Mr. Junge,
all reviewed my work prior to beginrung this project and no one criti-
cized or questioned the 35mm format. The photographs stand on their
own merit. 1 hope that anyone who wishes to truly judge the quality of
my work will view the original photographs (at the American Heritage
Center) and not simply the reproductions which appear in the catalog.

Second, the alleged "errors." Mr. Junge suggests that not enough in-
formation is included in the captions to give the reader an understand-
ing of the ranches and the people associated with them. But in most in-
stances they are mentioned and the catalog contains a variety of facts,
colorful stories, and htmiaruzing detail. I believe this pioneering work
provides the viewer/reader with a sense of the subject, the questions
scholars should ask when studying material culture, and leads for future
investigation. The catalog answers the questions raised by the Larson
and Roripaugh essays, tells us what Wyoming ranches look like and what
is important about these places. Finally, Mr. Jvmge takes words or phrases
out of context and then charges that what 1 say is not true. To this, 1 can
only say that I did my research and 1 have sources for the statements
he questions.

And finally, the content, style and organization. The content is based
on a prodigious amount of research covering twenty-eight months, four-
teen of which were spent in the field. I researched thousands of sources
including books, oral interviews, maps, etc. I know more Wyoming history
and geography than 75% of the state's residents. I read it, Uved it, walked

it. I hunted through cemeteries, hauled my truck out of mudholes and
found remote abandoned sites by horseback and hiking. Ask the hun-
dreds of people I have called and gone to see how thorough my research is.

This is not a "photo essay" (those appear in magazines); it is an ex-
hibition and exhibitions are unique. Each exhibition has its own format
and design. As exhibition catalogs go, this one is pretty good. It pro-
motes the beauties of Wyoming and the ranch culture, the main purpose
of the project.

The content and style of the captions are cohesive, sensitive, careful
combinations of information from many kinds of sources, including direct
observations. They give the humorous side of the story and my audience
keeps reading and looking.

If Mr. Junge did not see the organization in this book he wasn't pay-
ing attention. The photographs cover from early to late buildings in the
major sections (time). The buildings of different kinds of materials are
grouped— stone, log, frame. The kinds of building are grouped— houses,
other dwellings, bams, other work buildings. The kinds of buildings for
sheep ranching are together. The guest ranches are at the end, then come
the graveyards— of people and machinery. It took thirty years of ex-
perience designing exhibitions to be able to coordinate the information
and visual images from hundreds of places in sixteen counties in a way
that makes seeing the show a pleasure, not a lesson. All of the people
I have heard from who have seen the exhibition— people of all ages, pro-
fessions and levels of society seem to understand it and be intrigued by it.

Finally, I resent Mr. Junge's remark about my place of birth and
residence. New York City. This is the worst kind of chauviiusm, an at-
titude Wyoming should avoid like the plague as it seeks to attract tourists
and international business enterprises into the state.

Anyone who wishes is welcome to improve, expand upon, or write
poetry about the beginning I made with "Fhstoric Ranches of Wyoming."
I developed and carried out the project in hopes someone would. For
the past several months I have been trying to raise the money to provide
my archive of 11,000 photographs— with the survey forms, maps, inter-
views and documentation— to a state institution. Most of the people in
Wyoming have been extremely helpful, generous and wonderful to me,
particularly the ranchers. Thank you, Wyoming— 1 vdll never forget you.

JUDITH SANDOVAL
(This letter was shortened.)

INDEX

Alexander, General E. P., 20, 24
Almy, Wyoming, 17-18, 22-23
Anderson, Lieutenant Colonel T. M., 18-19

Atheam, Robert G., The Mythic West in Twentieth Century America, review,
51-52

Bates, Captain Alfred Elliott, 30-34; photo, 30

Battle of Crowheart Butte, 30; photo, 33

Bear River, 11

Beckwith, Quinn & Company, 17-19, 21-23

Bee, Colonel F. A., 20

Bethell, Thomas N., Deborah E. Tuck and Michael S. Clark, editors. The
Native Home of Hope: People and the Northern Rockies, review, 50

Big Sandy River, 11

BUlington, Ray Allen, 6

Birch, Brian P., "Crossing Wyoming with the Forty-Niners: Cornish Im-
pressions of the Trek West," 8-15

BosweU, N. K., 18

Bridger, Jim, 42

Brown, F. Lee and Gary D. Weatherford, editors. New Courses for the Col-
orado River: Major Issues for the Next Century, review, 49-50

Brown, Melville C, 22, 24

California, 8-10, 13-14

Calloway, S. R,, 18, 21

Campbell, A. C, 20-21

Campbell, Robert, review of Letters from Honeyhill: A Woman's View of

Homesteading, 48-49
CAMPS

Augur, 30

Brown, 30-31, 34

Floyd, Utah, 42, 44, 46; photo, 45

Medicine Butte, 23

Murray, Utah, 18

PUot Butte, 23-24; photos, 22-23, 26

Scott, 42

Stambaugh, 30
Carbon, Wyoming, 22
Carr, U.S. Marshal T. Jefferson, 21, 23
Carroll, Murray L., "Governor Francis E. Warren, the United States Army

and the Chinese Massacre at Rock Springs," 16-27
Cawelti, John, 4
Chatterton, Fenimore C, 24
Cheyenne, Wyoming, 21
Chimney, Rock, 41
Chinese, 17-25
Chinese Massacre, 17-25
Chipman, Lieutenant Colonel H. L., 18, 21
Clark, Michael S., Thomas N. Bethell and Deborah E. Tuck, editors. The

Native Home of Hope: People and the Northern Rockies, review, 50
Cleveland, President Grover, 17-19, 24-25
Cornish Miners, 8-10

Court House Rock, 41; photo, 40

Craig, N. N. 21

"Crossing Wyoming with the Forty-Niners: Cornish Impressions of the

Trek West," Brian P. Birch, 8-15
Cummings, Alfred, 44

Dale, Edward, 9-10

Delo, David M., "The Little Known Battle of Snake Mountain," 28-35

"Desert Documentary: The William Lee Diary Account of the James H.

Simpson Expedition, 1858-1859," John P. Langellier, 36-47
Devil's Gate, 11, 42; photos, 12, 40

Endicott, Secretary of War William C, 18-19

Engleman, Henry, 39, 41

Evans, James, 18

Evanston, Wyoming, 17-20, 22-23

Fiedler, Leslie, 5
Fishwick, Marshall, 6
FORTS

Bridger, 42, 44; photo, 42-43

D. A. Russell, 18-19, 23

Fred Steele, 18-19

Laramie, 11, 41; photo, 41

Leavenworth, Kansas, 38-39; photo, 39

Sidney, Nebraska, 21
French, Philip, 3

"Governor Francis E. Warren, the United States Army and the Chinese
Massacre at Rock Springs," Murray L. Carroll, 16-27

Green River, 11

Green River, Wyoming, 17, 21-22

Grenfell, John, 9-10, 14

Gulliford, Andrew, review of The Native Home of Hope: People and the North-
em Rockies, 50

Haldane, John, 19

Hanna, M. A., 20, 24

Hayford, Judge James W., 24

Hendricks, Cecilia Hennel, Letters from Honeyhill: A Woman's View of

Homesteading, review, 48-49
Heward, Leban, 19
HolUday, W. H., 17
Howard, General O. O., 18-19, 23
Huang Sih Chen, 20

INDIANS-CHIEFS AND INDIVIDUALS

Big Robber, 30

Narkok, 31-32

Red Cloud, 30

Washakie, 30-32, 34
INDIANS-TRIBES

Cheyenne, 30

Crow, 30

Northern Arapahoe, 30-34, 41

Shoshone, 30-34

Sioux, 30, 39

Teton Blackfoot, 30

Ute, 44; photo, 44
Irwin, James, 34

O'Donnell, W. H., 18
Oregon-California Trail, 8-14

Posse Comitatus Act, 18-19

Reel, Mayor A. H.,

Reese, John, 46

Reese, William, 19

Robinson, Lieutenant Frank V., 30-34

Rock Springs, Wyoming, 17-25; photos, 22-25

James, Samuel, 9-10

Johns, Jim, review of The Mythic West in Twentieth Century America, 51-52

Johnston, Colonel Albert Sidney, 38, 42, 44

Jordan, Roy, review of New Courses for the Colorado River: Major Issues for

the Next Century, 49-50
Jost, Loren, review of Seeds-Ke-Dee Reflections, 48

KerswUl, Roy, 5
Klotman, Phyllis, 6
Knights of Labor, 17, 21

Langellier, John P., "Desert Documentary: The William Lee Diary Ac-
count of the James H. Simpson Expedition, 1858-1859," 36-47

Lee, William, 38-46; photos, 37, 45

Letters from Honeyhill: A Woman's View of Homesteading, by Cecilia Hennel
Hendricks, review, 48-49

"The Little Known Battle of Snake Mountain," David M. Delo, 28-35

McCarthy, Charles S., 38, 42, 44

McCarthy, Patrick, "The Mountain Man Documentary as the Contra

Western," 2-7
McCook, Colonel A. Mc D., 18, 20
Maghee, Dr. Thomas, 30-34; Photo, 31
Mann, E. W., 21
Mason, Colonel John S., 18
Maximilian, Prince, 2
Mills, C. C, 41
Moore, James K., 31
Mormons, 38, 41-42, 44
"The Mountain Man Documentary as the Contra Western," Patrick

McCarthy, 2-7
The Mythic West in Twentieth Century America, by Robert G. Athearn,

review, 51-52

The Native Home of Hope: People and the Northern Rockies, edited by Thomas
N. Bethell, Deborah E. Tuck and Michael S. Clark, review, 50

New Courses for the Colorado River: Major /ssues for the Next Century, edited
by Gary D. Weatherford and F. Lee Brown, review, 49-50

Salt Lake City, 41-42, 44; photos, 45-46

Savage, Judge James W., 20, 24

Schofield, Major General John M., 19-21

Seeds-Ke-Dee Reflections, by Sublette County Artist's Guild, review,

Shaw, John, 19

Sheridan, General Philip, 30, 34

Simpson, Captain James H., 38-39, 42, 44, 46

Smith, Lieutenant Kirby, 39; photo, 45

Sublette County Artist's GuUd, Seeds-Ke-Dee Reflections, review, 48

Sweetwater County, Wyoming, 18-19, 21

Torrey, Captain Robert, 30, 32, 34

Tseng Hoy, 20

Tuck, Deborah E., Thomas N. Bethell and Michael S. Clark, editors. The

Native Home of Hope: People and the Northern Rockies, review, 50
Turner, Hezekiah, 19

Union Pacific Railroad, 17-24
Uren, William, 9-13

Walters, John, 9-13

Warren, Gov. Francis E., 16-25; photo, 19
Warshow, Robert, 4
Wauship Station, 18

Weatherford, Gary D. and F. Lee Brown, editors. New Courses for the Col-
orado River: Major Issues for the Next Century, review, 49-50
Wind River Indian Reservation, 30
Wisconsin, 8-10, 14
Wolfenstein, Martha, 6
Wright, Will, 3

Young, Brigham, 38, 42
Young, Joseph, 17, 23
Young, Lieutenant Robert H.,
Young, Samuel, 19

WYOMING STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Wyoming State Historical Society was organized in October, 1953.
Membership is open to anyone interested in history. County chapters of the society
have been chartered in most of the twenty-three counties of Wyoming. Past
presidents of the society include; Frank Bowron, Casper, 1953-55; William L.
Marion, Lander, 1955-56; Dr. DeWitt Dominick, Cody, 1956-57; Dr. T. A. Lar-
son, Laramie, 1957-58; A. H. MacDougall, Rawlins, 1958-59; Mrs. Thelma G. Con-
dit, Buffalo, 1959-60; E. A. Littleton, GUlette, 1960-61; Edness Kimball WUkins,
Casper, 1961-62; Charles Ritter, Cheyenne, 1962-63; Neal E. Miller, Rawlins,
1963-65; Mrs. Charles Hord, Casper, 1965-66; Glenn Sweem, Sheridan, 1966-67;
Adrian Reynolds, Green River, 1967-68; Curtiss Root, Torrington, 1968-69; Mrs.
Hattie Burnstad, Worland, 1969-70; J. Reuel Armstrong, Rawlins, 1970-71; William
R. Dubois, Cheyenne, 1971-72; Henry F. Chadey, Rock Springs, 1972-73; Richard
S. Dumbrill, Newcastle, 1973-74; Henry Jensen, Casper, 1974-75; Jay Brazelton,
Jackson, 1975-76; Ray Pendergraft, Worland, 1976-77; David J. Wasden, Cody,
1977-78; Mabel Brown, Newcastle, 1978-79; James June, Green River, 1979-80;
William F. Bragg, Jr., Casper, 1980-81; Don Hodgson, Torrington, 1981-82, Clara
Jensen, Lysite-Casper, 1982-83; Fern Gaensslen, Green River, 1983-84; Dave
Kathka, Rock Springs, 1984-85; Mary Garman, Sundance, 1985-86; Ellen Mueller,
1986-87.

Membership information may be obtained from the Executive Headquarters,
Wyoming State Historical Society, Barrett Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002.
Dues in the state society are:

Life Membership $100

Joint Life Membership (husband and wife) $150

Annual Membership $5

Joint Annual Membership (two persons of same family

at same address) $7

Institutional Membership $10

President, Mary Nielsen, Cody

First Vice President, Loren Jost, Riverton
1987-88 Second Vice-President, Lucille Dumbrill, Newcastle
Officers Secretary-Treasurer, Roseine Church, Cheyenne

Executive-Secretary, David Kathka

Coordinator, Judy West

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