1885 Cattle Round Up

The strike of a rattlesnake, the danger of stampede, the whistling of cowboys, the swish of a lasso and the sting of the hot sun. 

 The cowboys on round-up are a true pioneer of Wyoming. 

Welcome to another episode of "Pioneers of Outlaw Country," where we delve into fascinating stories from Wyoming’s past that often go unnoticed. I am your host, Jackie Dorothy, and today we are traveling on a round-up with one of our favorite tourists, Owen Wister. 

His observations led him to write "The Viriginian" which became the most famous western romances in the world. He introduced an entire generation to the noble cowboy and a strange new world on the western frontier. 

It is the year 1885 and Owen Wister, the young tourist – and future novelist – has been invited to join a round-up with the Wolcott cowboys. He had been on the ranch for a month and was more comfortable in a saddle but still very much a greenhorn.  His journals capture the adventure he experienced on his very first cattle round-up.

 This episode has been brought to you in partnership with the Hot Springs County Pioneer Association and would not be possible without the support of the Wyoming Humanities. www.thinkwy.org 

Transcript

The strike of a rattlesnake, the danger of stampede, the whistling of cowboys, the swish of a lasso and the sting of the hot sun. 

 The cowboys on round-up are a true pioneer of Wyoming. 

The Pioneers of Outlaw Country. 

Cowboys, Lawmen and Outlaws… to the businessmen and women who all helped shape Wyoming. 

Here are their stories.

The Cattle Round-Up of 1885

 Welcome to another episode of "Pioneers of Outlaw Country," where we delve into fascinating stories from Wyoming’s past that often go unnoticed. I am your host, Jackie Dorothy, and today we are traveling on a round-up with one of our favorite tourists, Owen Wister. 

The opening of his novel, The Virginian, captures the scenes that Wister observed in the territory of Wyoming nearly 140 years ago. 

 “Some notable sight was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was.  I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughing men, and inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horses, plunging, huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of them would not be caught, no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of time to watch this sport, for our train had stopped that the engine might take water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the station platform of Medicine Bow.

Through the window-glass of our Pullman the thud of their mischievous hoofs reached us, and the strong, humorous curses of the cow-boys. Then for the first time I noticed a man who sat on the high gate of the corral, looking on. For he now climbed down with the undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy, as if his muscles flowed beneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope, some of them even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or move. He appeared to hold the rope down low, by his leg. But like a sudden snake I saw the noose go out its length and fall true; and the thing was done. As the captured pony walked in with a sweet, church-door expression, our train moved slowly on to the station, and a passenger remarked, “That man knows his business.”

 It is the year 1885 and Owen Wister, the young tourist – and future novelist – has been invited to join a round-up with the Wolcott cowboys. He had been on the ranch for a month and was more comfortable in a saddle but still very much a greenhorn.  His journals capture the adventure he experienced on his very first cattle round-up.

 August 4th

At a roundup – it’s very interesting, but beastly hot.

 August 6th, Thursday

On Tuesday we left camp on horseback for the roundup at five minutes before seven. On the way I rode over two rattlesnakes, who played a duet with their tails, allegro energetic. The darker one got away into his hole before I could stop him, but I killed the second and handsomer of the two. After I had cut his head off, it struck at me. The eye of Satan when plotting the destruction of the human race could not have been more malignant than the stare which this decapitated head gave me with its two minutes after the trunk was in my hands being skinned. He was four feet long, and when I put my foot on him as he was trying to get away into his hole, he felt very solid.

 We reached the roundup about nine. It took place in the big plain beyond our camping ground of the first night. There were two big bodies of cattle – many hundred – and about twelve cowboys scudding round and through them, cutting out those of the V. R. brand. The mass of animals stood still for the most part but now and then moved slowly round its own center, giving the effect of a gigantic leisurely eddy. Once or twice they broke ranks, which caused extra riding and barking and whistling from the cowboys, who flew this way and that to head them off, whirling their quirts and making sudden turns as if their ponies worked on a pivot. The sun grew very hot and shone down on the brown extent out of a cloudless sky. To the East, the peaks were covered with a light blue stifling haze and looked something like the scenery in the Dolomites, which I’ve noticed before.

 When our V. R. cattle had been cut out and bunched, the cowboys started the rest away over the hills. The whole mass began to move westward creeping over the undulations in the plain – moving steadily forward as a body and moving constantly backward and forward within its own ranks. A couple of cows would get ahead by trotting, then slow up and be overtaken by half a dozen more at different distances, while in the middle there was a constant seething to and fro. The twelve cowboys all gathered in a long line abreast behind their own cattle and drove them away in the opposite direction. 

Tom King, the foreman, says he likes this life and will never go East again. On Miss Irwin’s inquiry whether he will not get tired of it when he grows old, he replied that cowboys never live long enough to get old. They don’t, I believe. They’re a queer episode in the history of this country. Purely nomadic, and leaving no posterity, for they don’t marry. I’m told they’re without any moral sense whatever. Perhaps they are – but a I wonder how much less they have than the poor classes in New York.

On Tuesday, we were six hours and more in the saddle and I was not tired – to my satisfaction.

Owen Wister’s journals can be read at the American Heritage Center in Laramie where they are preserved for future generations. The observations of this young tenderfoot are a window into Wyoming’s past and are considered by many, more valuable than gold.

Thank you for listening to Outlaws of Pioneer Country. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of this historic series. The stories of our pioneers were brought to you by Hot Springs County Pioneer Association.  

 This program has been made possible through a grant from Wyoming Humanities.

 This was a production of Legend Rock Media.