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Sheep camp, Big Horn Mountains, 1917
Life in the sheep camp would be lonely. Usually there would be one sheepherder in a camp. He, with his only
companion a dog, would tend
to the sheep alone for months at a time. The camp would be established in the center of
the pasturage. When the sheep had exhausted the grass in the area, the flock and camp would be
moved to another area and the process repeated through the season. The loneliness of the
sheepherder was noted by the Episcopal Missionary Bishop of Wyoming, Ethelbert Talbot,
in his 1906 My People of the Plains:
The life of a sheep-herder is a peculiarly lonely one. Often months pass without giving him the opportunity
of seeing a human being. His faithful dog is his only companion. He generally has a
team and a covered wagon in which he sleeps at night during the winter, and wherein he stores
the necessary provisions for his daily food. It is his duty to seek the
best available pasturage, and, when the grass in one neighborhood has been exhausted, to
drive the flock to a new and fresh supply. It is not to be wondered at that such a life often
ends in insanity. It is said that the asylums are repleted year by year by a large contingent of
these unfortunates. Indeed, their lot is a most pathetic one, and they sometimes even
lose the power of speech and forget their own names.
Sheep camp, Box Elder Creek, 1910. Photo by H. R. Daniel.
In some areas such as Burntfork there might be two herders to a camp.
Elinore Pruitt Stewart (1876-1933) in 1909 took employment with in Burntfork as a housekeeper for a Wyoming ranchman
Henry Clyde Stewart(1868-1948). She began a series of letters to a former employer, Juliet
Coney of Denver. Not withstanding that Clyde Stewart,
to whom she later married, was a cattleman, Elinore was sympathetic to the loneliness of the
sheepherder's life. She observed in a letter reprinted
in her 1914 Letters of a Woman Homesteader:
If you only knew the hardships these poor men endure.
They go two together and sometimes it is months before they see
another soul, and rarely ever a woman.
Thus, without telling Mr. Stewart [Writer's note, In Burntfork there was a
mutual hatred between cattlemen and sheepmen], for Christmas, Elinore and a neighbor prepared care packages for
the sheepherders. On Christmas Day the two women made the rounds of the sheep camps in a four-horse sleigh delivering the goodies:
There were twelve camps and that means twenty-four men. We roasted six
geese, boiled three small hams and three hens. We had besides several
meat-loaves and links of sausage. We had twelve large loaves of the best
rye bread; a small tub of doughnuts; twelve coffee-cakes, more to be called
fruitcakes, and also a quantity of little cakes with seeds, nuts, and fruit
in them,--so pretty to look at and so good to taste. These had a thick coat
of icing, some brown, some pink, some white. I had thirteen pounds of
butter and six pint jars of jelly, so we melted the jelly and poured it
into twelve glasses.
* * * *
Then we clambered in and away we went. Mrs. Louderer drove, and Tam
O'Shanter and Paul Revere were snails compared to us. We didn't follow
any road either, but went sweeping along across country. No one else
in the world could have done it unless they were drunk. We went
careening along hill- sides without even slacking the trot. Occasionally
we struck a particularly stubborn bunch of sagebrush and even the
sled-runners would jump up into the air. We didn't stop
to light, but hit the earth several feet in advance of where we left it.
Luck was with us, though. I hardly expected to get through with my head
unbroken, but not even a glass was cracked.
It would have done your heart good to see the sheep-men. They were
all delighted, and when you consider that they live solely on canned
corn and tomatoes, beans, salt pork, and coffee, you can fancy what
they thought of their treat. They have mutton when it is fit to eat,
but that is certainly not in winter. One man at each camp does the
cooking and the other herds. It doesn't make any difference if the
cook never cooked before, and most of them never did.
Sheep wagon, 1936
As indicated in the above photo, on the outside of the sheep wagon there were boxes to hold food,
supplies, and equipment. The canvas top was stretched over hickory bows. The canvas would often be
in three layers and was insulated by woolen blanketing.
Interior Sheep Wagon, Photo by Geoff Dobson
In the interior of the sheep wagon there would be a bunk across the end. The
bunk would be about four feet above the floor. Above the bunk would be a small window
which, in conjunction with the window and dutch door at the tongue end of the wagon, would provide
cross ventilation. In the center beneath the bunk would be a slide-out table under which would be cabinets. On either side of
the table under the bunk would be drawers. On the right side next to the
door would be a stove in which one would burn coal, wood, or cow chips. Between the stove and the bunk would be a bench. On the left side would be
another bench with more cabinets below. The wash basin would not, as in the above photo,
be kept on the
pull out table because the table needs to be retracted in order to climb into the bunk, boosting oneself up on one
of the benches. The floor would be covered with linoleum, although the writer has seen some sheep wagons that
have been modernized with carpeting. [Nothing like alighting with bare feet
on cold linoleum in the wnter.] In some instances, the sheepherder might decorate the interior with
pictures cut out of magazines. Other than the built in benches on either side of the pull-out
table, there is no furniture. Sheep wagons were not limited to sheepherders, but were also used in
cowcamps and at the end of wagon trains as shelter for freighters much in the same
manner as modern semi-tractors have sleeper cabs.
Sheepherder and his dog, 1906
Mrs. Stewart wrote of the daughter of settlers whose sympathies lay with the
cattlemen:
The Edmonsons had only one child, a daughter, who was to have married a
man whom her parents objected to solely because he was a sheep-man, while
their sympathies were with the cattle-men, although they
owned only a small bunch. To gain their consent the young man closed out
his interest in sheep, at a loss, filed on a splendid piece of land near
them, and built a little home for the girl he loved. Before they could get
to town to be married Grandpa was stricken with rheumatism. Grandma was
already almost past going on with it, so they postponed the marriage, and
as that winter was particularly severe, the young man took charge of the
Edmonson stock and kept them from starving. As soon as he was able he went for the license.
Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and a neighbor were hunting some cattle that had
wandered away and found the poor fellow shot in the back. He was not yet dead
and told them it was urgently necessary for them to hurry him to the Edmonsons'
and to get some one to perform the marriage ceremony as quickly as possible, for
he could not live long. They told him such haste meant quicker death because he
would bleed more; but he insisted, so they got a wagon and hurried all they
could. But they could not outrun death. When he knew he could not live to reach
home, he asked them to witness all he said. Everything he possessed he left
to the girl he was to have married, and said he was the father of the little
child that was to come. He begged them to befriend the poor girl he had to leave
in such a condition, and to take the marriage license as evidence that he had
tried to do right. The wagon was stopped so the jolting would not make death
any harder, and there in the shadow of the great twin buttes he died.
They took the body to the little home he had made, and Mrs. O'Shaughnessy
went to the Edmonsons' to do what she could there. Poor Cora Jane didn't
know how terrible a thing wounded pride is. She told her parents her
misdeeds. They couldn't see that they were in any way to blame. They
seemed to care nothing for her terrible sorrow nor for her weakened
condition. All they could
think of was that the child they had almost worshiped had disgraced
them; so they told her to go.
Mrs. O'Shaughnessy took her to the home that had been prepared for her,
where the poor body lay. Some way they got through those dark days, and
then began the waiting for the little one to come. Poor Cora Jane said she
would die then, and that she wanted to die, but she wanted the baby to know
it was loved,--she wanted to leave something that should speak of that love
when the child should come to understanding. So Mrs. O'Shaughnessy said
they would make all its little clothes with every care, and they should
tell of the love. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy is the daintiest needleworker I have
ever seen; she was taught by the nuns at St. Catherine's in the "ould
country." She was all patience with poor, unskilled Cora Jane, and the
little outfit that was finally finished was dainty enough for a fairy.
Little Cora Belle is so proud of it.
At last the time came and Mrs. O'Shaughnessy went after the parents.
Long before, they had repented and were only too glad to go. The poor
mother lived one day and night after the baby came. She laid the tiny
thing in her mother's arms and told them to call her Cora Belle. She told
them she gave them a pure little daughter in place of the sinful one they
had lost.
The young man's house and lands were placed in the name of the infant daughter. Twelve years later, the
grandparents, themselves, were raising sheep.
Sheep wagon, March 1940, photo by A. Rothstein
Sheep wagons were supposedly
invented by Rawlins blacksmith James Candlish in 1884. Around 1900, Schulte
Hardware Company of Casper standardized the wagon as 11 feet long and 6 1/2 feet wide, canvas top and
stove. By 1904, sheep wagons were being manufactured in the Big Horn Basin by
D. V. Bayne of Thermopolis. The wagons later could be purchased from,
among others the Studebaker Brothers of Southbend, Indiana. Some are still in use
in the Big Horn Basin.
The Basin is not the only place in the state, however, where sheep wagons were used
until comparatively recently. The above scene is on U.S. Highway 30, the Lincoln
Highway, in Sweetwater County.
Sheep wagon, March 1940, photo by A. Rothstein
The woolgrowing industry in Wyoming began a slow
decline after World War I. The decline was as a result of several factors including a reduction
in protective tariffs and an increase in homesteading. Sheep growing required large areas of
free range with as much as ten acres required for each sheep sheared. Homesteading broke up
large continquous tracts of free range and, thus, woolgrowers were required to pasture smaller flocks. Larger
woolgrowers bought or leased pasturage. Smaller growers were eliminated. Indeed, by 1920 most
woolgrowing was eliminated in eastern Wyoming.
Wool awaiting shipment, Cokeville, approx. 1910.
With World War II, due to
a shortage of manpower the decline increased. Although Wyoming in 1910 had approximately
5 1/2 million sheep, today it has barely 10% that number, hardly more than the number of
people in the state.
Sheep, U.S. Rte. 30, 1941, photo by J. Baylor Roberts
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