Pioneering on the Cheyenne River: Part 8, Biographies, continued

BIOGRAPHIES

FRANK HANSON

(Contributed by Mrs. Frank Hanson)

I was born in Illinois in 1870, the youngest child of a family of twelve­ three boys and nine girls. In about three weeks we moved to Tekamah, Neb., and settled in the country north of there on Silver Creek. When I was about 2½ or 3 years old there was a plank for a bridge across Silver Creek by the house. The creek was about three feet wide and about that deep. My red­ headed brother and sister crossed there on their way to school. No one was in sight so I followed them and fell into that cold, roaring creek. As soon as I hit the water I started squirming and kicking until I got hold of some slough grass (on the same side the house was on) and hung on and squalled until one of my little sisters heard me and came to my rescue.

When I was big enough to go to school in that neighborhood, I was 11 years old. In the spring when I was 11, coming 12, I went to work for my brother-in-law, Jim Olinger. I went to school from there in the wintertime. Then my red-headed brother, 0. J. Hanson, who had been working in Wyoming, came back on a visit one fall. The next spring, Red was going back to Wyoming. I begged to go along. Neither of us had much money. We bought our ticket to Fremont. From there on we caught rides and had quite a time until. we got to Sidney, Neb. We stayed at Sidney for a week or two and rested Up at our brother-in-law's. I had quite a lot of fun there catching rides on switch engines. I bought a cowboy hat while there, too, and a six­ shooter, but in jumping off an engine I lost my six-shooter.

We bought a snorty horse at Sidney. I wasn't much of a cowboy then, but we started out from Sidney, headed for Fort Laramie, taking turns riding that horse and walking. There were a lot of cattle all through that country and I was afraid of them. I had hat trouble, too, if it was the least bit windy when I mounted my horse. I had to make some pretty swift rides to overtake that hat several times before it rolled into the Platte River which we were following. Red would leave the horse when it was my turn and start out walking and I had to get on any way I could, usually getting the wrong foot in the stirrup. There was friction between my hat and coat collar, etc. When we got to Fort Laramie we stayed at the 4P ranch overnight. Red left me at the 4P, where I had been promised a job horse wrangling.

Louis Davis was the foreman at the 4P. It was then the latter part of March and my job didn't start until the first of May, but I stayed there anyway. There were quite a lot of cowboys coming and going all the time. There was a 4J Indian in the bunch and he was a good cowman. Every time the 4J Indian came down I had to share my bunk with him and usually got lice. There were a couple of other fellows there, one with a crippled hand. His name was Wash Croft. Then they had a Mexican cooking for the outfit.

On the first of May, when I was supposed to get the job, Louie Davis left with the outfit to start work on the roundup, and I was left sitting there without the promised job, so I went from there to the PF, about 15 miles from the 4P, where I got a job working on a ditch with a scraper. I worked there about three weeks. There were a couple of fellows on the job who claimed to be cowpunchers, but in about three weeks they got into a row with the boss and I quit with them. I followed them around looking for jobs, got sore-footed and tired until we got to Cheyenne.

I had heard that the authorities at Cheyenne would lock people up if they were out of money and begging around, so I walked out of town and headed back to Nebraska. It was 100 miles from Cheyenne to Sidney. When I got to Sidney I was all played out. After I rested up a while I got money to pay my carfare to Tekamah, Neb. I was about 17 then. As soon as I got to the depot I got a job cultivating corn.

That winter I went back to Jim Olinger's and went to school. That was in 1888, the year of the big blizzard there. Another big boy and I locked arms and walked home up a lane. We faced the storm and only had a little way to go, but were very tired when we got there. The snow was over our knees when we got there. The next spring my brother Hans went to Sidney. He rented a box car and I got a pass on the strength of that. I stayed at Sidney until some time in June. A neighbor wanted to come to Alliance to do some grading, so he took me along to drive a team on the scraper. When we got there the man had a row with his wife and I left. I walked to Lusk, catching a ride whenever I could. I expected to find Red at the OW, but he had gone to Ord, Neb., where he had some cattle his brother-in-law was keeping for him.

When I found out Red had gone, I looked up the OW ranch where he had been working and discovered they were getting ready to go on a roundup and were camped at Node. I walked down to Node, getting there just as they were eating. John B. Kendrick gave me a job at $25.00 per month to work as a cowboy. He gave me Red's string of horses to use. Kendrick put on a new man to cook. His name was Daye Loran, a fiddler and a good one.

The first circle we made from Node was up through Lusk. Doc Barton was foreman of that wagon and Tom Bell was with the outfit. We rode to the top of what is now the reservoir hill, from where we scattered out to gather cattle. I was riding a horse they called Devil. After a while Tom Bell told me to turn a cow back to the roundup. The men were all lying around sleeping, resting and waiting. Devil started to buck, making everyone get to his feet. I turned the reins loose and hung onto the horn and cantle and let him buck it out. I stayed with the roundup until they got through that spring, when I called myself a real cowboy.

Granville Hampton was a boy from Virginia about my age, and Kendrick thought the world of him. He was the horse wrangler. Granville got spotted fever and almost died. He was sick about a month and I got his job as horse wrangler. The roundup started again in the summer and I started to ride again. I didn't ride so very long this time until Red came back with his cattle from Ord, Neb. I called for my time then and went back to Lusk to mow hay. We had all kinds of broncs and balky horses which gave us a lot of trouble.

Red got a job looking after beef cattle on the range that was later the Billy Reynolds place. I had to batch there in a dugout alone. We didn't have any pastures and the cattle would drift around the railroad tracks. They got clear to Rawhide once and Red and I had to hunt them up. I got lost. Came night and I hunted shelter, finding an old board shack, but I had no matches and soon froze out. Then I left the creek and went to the hills and got warmed up among the high rocks. I stayed with the horse and let him graze with me still on him. The moon came out, but I couldn't tell which was east or west. The moon was bright overhead so I waited around for an hour or two to see which direction the moon was going, then I started in the opposite direction from that which the moon took. I was three or four miles too far west. I finally got to Pfister's or some place which was just across the trail from the dugout where I lived. I didn't tell anyone I was lost. I got there a little after noon. Fred Root was helping Red do the chores, so I went right to bed.

The next spring, in 1889, I went back to the OW and got a job for $30.00 a month on the first of April greasing harness for a while, then they moved the cattle down here from up north, so I went with Tom Avant, a wagon boss, to help trail the cattle north. We headed for a place about 40 miles north of Sheridan, where I worked all summer.

When we got there we sprayed the heifers, yearlings and twos-had to wrestle them like calves. Then I came back down after another bunch and did the same thing all over again.

In 1890 I worked for the LX. It was an all-steer outfit and Copps was the manager: We wintered and batched in Buffalo that winter, the year of the Indian scare. The next summer in '91 I worked for the UT. Tom Avant was working as foreman of this outfit, and everyone's cattle were all mixed up and scattered on the range for a hundred miles, there being no fences. I went by the name of "Fuzzy" at the UT. In '92 they had the "Johnson County War," and I stayed down at the CR and worked for Tom Bell. Tom Swan owned the outfit. In the next spring, '93, I went to a Valentine dance at Root's, or Smith's, where the teacher boarded. I left the next morning with a saddle horse and a pack horse for the LX, about 40 or 50 miles from the Missouri River, on Sandstone Creek. All the way to Sandstone Creek there was no snow. I stopped at a sheep camp that night and thought I could ride the remaining ten miles easily the next day. There was a family at this camp-had eight or ten children from little ones on up. Had a little one-room shack with bunks for beds. I slept with the old man and the youngest child. They told me the snow was awfully deep from there on. The next camp was under a big hill. Next morning I started out, got into snow two or three feet deep on the level. The horses were tired, so I traveled all day. I knew where the LX was--on the creek under a high bank, but I was afraid I would miss it, as a new storm was threatening, so I turned back and followed my tracks. On the way back I was pretty cold, so I decided to take shelter in a draw to rest. It was dark now and I crossed a draw and the snow crust broke through with the horses. While I was kicking the horses out of the draw I noticed a large pack of wolves smelling rabbit tracks, running back and forth. They nearly bumped into me, so I got scared and forgot the cold. I reached the sheep camp where I had stayed the night before about midnight, pretty badly frozen up. Stayed with them about ten days, then moved to another sheep camp after I got thawed out. I batched with a Frenchman (ranch cook) for about ten more days, then started out for the LX. The creeks were all running and getting pretty high. They had to start the wagon out on a raft to get it on the road.

I went on to Miles City, didn't work all summer, then struck out for the UT on Powder River. Just got in sight when Jim Barette hired me, working there until fall, then came back down to the Running Water near Lusk and Node.

In '94, I worked on Hanging Woman Creek for the OW. That fall I stayed in a nice little warm shack about a mile west of Sheridan. It belonged to a County Clerk (or somebody) who forged a check and took a jail sentence. I just moved in for the winter.

In '95 I went to the Canadian line, another fellow and I riding horses to get there, arriving about the first of June. There were three Franks in the outfit and they called me "Big Frank." I got a job working for the Flury Company outfit. Cal Stewart was foreman (wagon boss). I worked there two seasons, '95 and '96, then came back to Red's place near Lusk. In the spring went back up on Powder River and worked for the MC in '97, '98 and '99.

In '95 I went to the Canadian line, another fellow and I riding horses to get there, arriving about the first of June. There were three Franks in the outfit and they called me "Big Frank." I got a job working for the Flury Company outfit. Cal Stewart was foreman (wagon boss). I worked there two seasons, '95 and '96, then came back to Red's place near Lusk. In the spring went back up on Powder River and worked for the MC in '97, '98 and '99.

In 1901 I went to work for the Fiddleback. George Lacy was running the outfit at the time, but it was owned by Tilson. A Cross-Anchor man brought word that they were going to start work in a few days. Our horse wrangler had to overtake George Lacy, who was on his way to Douglas, to find out what man and what horses he wanted to send to represent his brand. He chose me, telling the wrangler what horses to give me. There was one horse in the bunch I was afraid of. The Cross Anchor man had been bragging the night before what a good rider he was, so I thought I would get him to ride this bad horse. It would take us three or four days to get to the Cross Anchor wagon, so I asked him to top off this horse for me. He agreed and got on him in the Fiddleback corral. He got thrown three or four times.

The last time he laid there a while. I. got pretty uneasy about that. I was afraid he wouldn't get on the horse again. But he mounted him again and rode him from there to the ranch. He was a nice pacing horse. Then when we got to the roundup I tried to ride him. I saddled him up and made a long circle that forenoon. He paced so easy it was a delight to ride him. Then about noon while we were waiting for more cattle to come in there was a cow starting to leave and I got on the horse to tum her. In about 100 yards he started to buck, unseating me the first jump. My foot caught in the saddle rope, with my seat up and my head and shoulders on the ground. I was on a side hill from the bunch of men, and they made a circle part way around me with their horses. I could see the men getting their rifles and six-shooters and ropes down. Dan Owens decided to see if he could walk up to me. He did and the horse never made a move while he was getting me untangled. I got back on him and rode him to camp. That's the last time I rode that horse. I had a lame shoulder and couldn't use my arm for ten days or more, but I kept on riding until it got well.

When the roundup was over they sent me to Lusk to get a load of grain to feed the horses that winter. I worked for the Fiddleback all that winter until spring. That was about the last work I did on the range for big outfits. I had taken up a claim down near Node. In 1902 I built me a house on my claim and lived there that winter, then worked around until Red sold his claim to Tom Bell. I sold mine, too, and moved out north at the mouth of Young Woman Creek. I had a little bunch of cattle Red had been keeping  for me-25 head.

I met Mrs. Catharine Dorsey and later married her. We have two children -Dan and Sadie Hanson. Dan married Margaret Brock from the Powder River country. They have a boy, Oliver John, 2½ years old, and a girl, Katheryne Clare, about a year old. My wife had a daughter by a former marriage. She is now Mrs. Thomas 0. Miller.

I am now living in Lusk, Wyo., with my wife and daughter, Miss Sadie Hanson.

OSCAR H. JONES

Oscar H. Jones was born near Corybille, Kansas, in 1879. He traveled in a covered wagon to Chadron in 1887 and attended the public schools and the Academy.

Nellie Rose Lockett was born near Valentine, Neb., on the Niobrara River, in 1884. That was then the end of the Northwestern Railroad. She moved to Big Bordeau before the town of Chadron was located and attended Lockett School, Chadron High and Academy, and was married in 1902, Rev. D. J. Clark officiating. She moved by wagon to Wyoming in 1905, homesteaded on Antelope Flats and produced five children-Don, Ada, Ed, Ted and Betty.

I recall the trouble we had plastering our log house. Oscar couldn't make it stick, so he went up in the attic and spread it on top of the lathe, like the Irishman that carried the mortar up three flights of stairs, the man up there did the work. So we mixed and handed it up to him and he did the work. Moved to Lance Creek in 1924, the Mert Jones ranch. 

We had two sons, one son-in-law and two grandsons in the service-Pfc. Donald A. Jones, Staff Sergeant Theo. 0. Jones, Sergt. James Sable, Sergt. Bill McDaniel and Richard Jones, aerial gunner. Ted was at Panama nine months, then Africa, Italy, France, Germany and Austria. We have thirteen grandchildren and one great-grandchild, Linda Rae McDaniel.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF IRA THOMAS

I was born in Watseegee, Illinois, on January 11, 1878. When I was 4 years old we moved to Battle Creek, Iowa, in a covered wagon drawn by horses. When I was 10 years old we moved to Sioux County, Nebraska, north of Bowen, which is now known as Harrison. We arrived on Thanksgiving Day in the year 1888. The trip was approximately 600 miles. We traveled in a covered wagon drawn by a team of mules and it took us 43 days to make the trip. Everything we owned was in the wagon and my parents had the total sum of $25.00.

Our party included my mother, father and five children-Theresa, Charlie, myself, Harry and Sam. In 1900 my brother Charlie and I came to Wyoming and homesteaded on Old Woman Creek.

On January 7, 1903, Christina Peterson and I were married. My wife passed away at the age of 61 on November 2, 1943.

I have lived in the same location since we came here in 1900. There are four children in my family. Irene, the oldest, was born on September 21, 1909; Everett was born on July 10, 1913; Ralph was born on August 31, 1915; Ruth was born on September 5, 1921. Irene married Ira Roth and they have two daughters--Dorothy and Marlene; one son, Charles, passed away at the age of 16. Everett married Grace Martin, there being no children in their family. Ralph is not married. Ruth married Richard Montgomery and they have two daughters, Fay and Betty Jo. Ralph served in the Army in. the Southwest Pacific theatre. His outfit was the 658th Amphibious Landing Battalion, Company A. He returned to the States in March of 1946 and was discharged from active duty on April 29th at Fort Douglas, Utah, but stayed in the Enlisted Reserve.

There were several Indian outbreaks after my family came here. We were living north of Harrison at the time of the Battle of Wounded Knee. Some of the settlers in the neighborhood where we lived built a fort for protection from the Indians.

CHARLIE THOMAS

Charlie Thomas was born at Watseegee, Illinois, on February 11, 1876. He came to Nebraska with his parents in 1888. In 1900 he homesteaded on Old Woman Creek. In 1898 he and Mary Turner were married. They had three children-Albert, Addie and Robert. They lived here until Charlie passed away in 1916.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF W. H. SMYTH

I was born in Somers County, West Virginia, February 14, 1886. My family moved to Wythe County, Virginia, when I was three months old. My father died when I was 12 years old. Being the oldest boy in a family of five children, it fell my lot to help support the family. I started working in the iron mines as water boy at the age of 12. I worked during the summer months and attended school during the winter.

I liked farming and stock of all kinds, but I was not interested in mining. Although I was considered a top hand in the mines when I was 16 years of age, I didn't like it, so when my mother re-married, I decided to come West and try my luck. I first came to Harrisonville, Missouri, and worked on a farm for a year. There I met a brother of M. W. Jones. He told me of his brother operating a cattle ranch in Wyoming, so in the spring of 1904 or 1905 I landed in Lusk. Demmon was carrying the mail, but not being acquainted with the departure of the mail wagon, I missed the first trip out after I landed.

I liked the West from the beginning. The people were strangers, but sociable. Men would holler across the street and ask me if I wanted a job.

The people were even interested in a stray kid. I only weighed about I00 pounds. One big giant of a man said he knew Mert Jones and only lived 12 miles from Mert's ranch. He was going out next day with a freight wagon and said I could ride with him. He told me his name was Pete Somers. The next morning early we were rattling north from Lusk and landed at the Hat Creek store about noon. At sundown we pulled in at Pete's ranch at the mouth of Sage Creek on Old Woman Creek. I spent the night with Pete. The next morning I rode behind Pete across Old Woman Creek, and Pete turned me loose, telling me to follow the old trails until I could look down and see the cottonwood trees on a creek, then take the first right-hand wagon track and follow it down until I could see a large creek with lots of cottonwood trees-there I would see Mert's house, for the road went direct to the house. The trails I was following were the old Texas­ Montana cow trails. The creek that I first saw was Buck Creek. I probably am the only living man who came up the Texas Trail on foot.

It was the first day of April when I walked into Mert's house. Mert was as fine a man as ever lived-in fact, he was a father to me. I remember Pete Somers' parting words when he was directing me to Mert's ranch-"Now, kid, you will find Mert and his family above the damned average." I was interested and Mert was an excellent teacher. He was one of the boys from the old school. There I met many of those noble characters who made the country safe for the honyokers. If I remember right, I came to Wyoming the spring after the Lightning Creek battle with the Sioux Indians-the time Sheriff Miller was killed. In 1906 I witnessed the Ute Indians round up the antelope in Little Thunder Basin. 

I filed on a homestead in 1907 on Lance Creek, joining Mert Jones on the east and joining George Lacy on the west. I bought my first cattle in June of the same year. I bought20 yearling heifers from Andrew Falconer; I was working for Mert and carried the mail from Warren to Taylorville twice a week-made the round in. day horseback. In 1909 I worked for Charles Hitshew. He and Charles Bright ran a roundup wagon. That fall, after roundup was over, Sourdough Ike and I trapped. We were living in my cabin on Lance Creek. In 1910 I worked for J. M. Carey Cattle Co. until after the beef roundup, then looked after my own cattle on Lance Creek until spring. The year 1911 was spent with the Carey Cattle Co. until after beefwork. That was my last year working out. I was kept busy looking after my own outfit. The gray wolves were pretty bad and I spent the spring season denning for wolf pups.

In 1916 I joined the Third Wyoming Infantry at the time of the Pancho Villa uprising. We soldiered, or rather we were camped, at Demming, New Mexico, about 30 miles from Columbus. We spent the winter at Demming. In March, 1917, we were shipped back to what was known at that time as Fort D. A. Russell at Cheyenne. We were mustered out there, but were called back when President Wilson declared war on Germany. We did outpost duty at Fort Mackenzie, near Sheridan. In August we were called to Cheyenne and were there about a month, then were sent to Camp Green, North Carolina, where we spent two months. While there my Army career came near coming to an abrupt end. Five other soldiers and myself were victims of spinal meningitis. We were treated by a Dr. Hart, who made a world’,s record of not losing a patient. While at Camp Green the Third Wyoming Infantry was reorganized as the 166th AM TN and 148th Field Artillery of the 41st or Sunset Division. We left Camp Green for Camp Mills, Long Island, where we spent about six weeks. On the 12th of December, 1917, we were loaded on a transport at Hoboken, N. J. I have smelt better wolf dens than the lower deck of that transport, which was an interned German cattle boat by the name of Antigony, but at least it was warm. One of the boys asked a colored man who worked in the dining room the name of the boat. He said, "Ant-I-Gone." We made the trip in the rear of seven convoys without any interference until we reached the other side near Bell Island, when a sub woke us up. We landed at St. Nazier. I think it was the 2nd of January, 1918, when we unloaded before daylight, bitter cold and snow on the ground. We were loaded in bare box cars made each for 40 men or 8 horses. The one I was in had three square wheels and one three-cornered wheel and a shell hole from the roof through the floor, so we weren't bothered for ventilation. We sat like a bunch of chickens on benches or roosts about three feet apart. We would all lean one way and sleep, then lean the other way and sleep to break the monotony. We had hard tack and corned willy to quench our thirst. We didn't know enough French to get any spirits, besides we couldn't leave the train. We traveled in this luxurious fashion for 36 hours before we detrained. At a place by the name of LaCourtain about dark the snow was a foot deep, a bunch of Russians had mutinied and broke out the windows. The stone buildings were in rooms about 60x40, with a stove about the size of a tomato can to heat it. We were there about a month, then moved to a town by the name of Theese. By then some of the boys could speak French very fluently, so we organized the ancient Order of Old Soaks. After a couple of months we were taken to LaCelle Boure, where we did remount until fall, then were sent ' to St. Julian for a training cadre. We embarked some time early in February, 1919, from Brest. The ship we came home on was the battleship Kansas. I was discharged on March 8, 1919.

I came back and started up in the cow business the following year. On October 27, 1920, I married Dorothy Frances Watson. I met her while she was teaching school at the Clay Jenkins ranch in 1919. Miss Watson was a Maryland girl and had taught school on the Standing Rock Agency at Fort Yates, North Dakota. She got along fine with the Indians, so she had very little trouble with me. On January 21, 1922, we had a pair of twins born to us-a boy, Samuel W., and a girl, Mary V. Sam served in World War II as gunner in the 8th Air Force and was wounded over Augsberg, Germany. Virginia is married and has a daughter. Her home is in Leonardtown, Maryland.

In 1928 we moved to Washington, D. C. Mrs. Smyth was employed in the Compensation Department. I worked in the Zoological Department at Beltsville, Maryland. There my work was along experimental lines with livestock and poultry. I learned first-hand the diseases and parasites causing diseases of most domestic animals. From 1942 to 1945 I did guard duty in the War Department, the Office of Strategic Service.

In September, 1945, I returned to my old stomping ground on Lance Creek, where I hope to remain on the old homestead. The oldtimers have gone, but I cherish the memory of once knowing and working with them. My hat is off to Mert Jones, Ed Lindsy, Jim Shaw, George Lacy, Ed Riley, Ed Wilson, Fred Sullivan, Steve Franklin, Lee Moore, Pete Somers, Bill Pearson and Rhody Adams. Charley McGinnis is the only one left that I know. With each of those I have mentioned, a volume of unwritten history of the real West went with him.

-W. H. SMYTH.

WM. L. MAGOON, SR.

William L. Magoon was born in Ontario, Canada, on April 4, 1863. When still a small lad he moved with his folks to Harrisville, New York. He went through school in that part of the country. The local district wanted a man to teach a school where the big boys had run a woman teacher away. He thought that teaching school would be a good job, so he started to work, but in a short time got tired of it and quit, going to work in the lumber woods. This kind of work was more appealing to him, so he worked in the woods until he and some other young fellow decided to go West.

They landed at Kearney, Neb., in the spring of 1884. Bill, as he was always known, got very homesick for the woods and thought very much of going back. To make up his mind he called the head of a dollar "Go West" and the tail "Go Back to New York Woods." Well, when it landed heads that meant to keep going west and he did. He stopped in Cheyenne, Wyo., and caught a stage coach to the village of Silver Cliff. His first job was moving sheep wagons. That got old pretty quick and he went to the roundup, but that was not yet the life he was looking for, but he cooked on the roundup all that season. He then went back moving camps, trapping wolves and a dozen different jobs for a few years, but none was what he wanted. He thought he wanted to go on farther West and so wound up at Yellowstone Park as a guide, but was soon back around Lusk and Manville. He had had a little experience as a lad in the cheese business, so he started a cheese factory in Manville. The building still stands just north of town. The factory ran until the big cheese companies started to ship in cheese on the railroad and that was the end of the cheese factory in Manville-in reality the first cheese factory in Wyoming. It was moved to Lander, Wyo., and after operating a short time was sold.

Coming back to Lusk, Mr. Magoon started in the ranching business. He bought 320 acres of land and started raising horses and cattle-mostly horses­ shipping them to Wisconsin and getting good prices for them. That was in 1898, or a couple of years thereafter. On one of these trips he met a young lady by the name of Elvina Lipke, to whom he was married in 1902 and brought her to his ranch on Young Woman Creek. They went into the cow business and dropped the biggest part of the horses. Their first child,a girl, was born in 1905. Her name was Charlls and she was born on the old place about six miles north of the present ranch buildings.

In 1907 Bill bought out his brother, Jim Magoon, and at this location is where the Magoon ranch buildings stand today. At the same time he bought out the Fred Jones place.

Along in 1913, Bill, Jr., was born. Two years later, in 1915, another son, Jack, who lives south of Van Tassell at the present time.  ·

About this time, Bill Magoon, Sr., John Slater and Bill Hassed bought out The Lusk Standard, one of the weekly newspapers in Lusk. They ran it in 1915, but very soon got enough of the newspaper business and Mr. Magoon sold out his interests.

A year or so afterward a horse fell with Bill, crushing his foot, which never did heal properly, so during the first World War he sold all his cattle and moved to Florida. It was while in Florida that he had to have his leg taken off. In a short while the family moved back to the ranch and again started in the cow business and stayed in the business until the fall of 1933, when all of the cattle were sold and a bunch of sheep bought.

In December, 1933, Bill, Sr., got very sick and went away to a hospital, but they could do him no good, and he passed away on February 23, 1934, at the age of 71 years.

Bill Magoon, Jr., took over the old ranch on Young Woman Creek and ran sheep on it until 1942, then went back into the cow business and has built back a nice herd.

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