Pioneering on the Cheyenne River: Part 9, Biographies, continued

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HANS MENG

Hans Meng was born on April 4, 1886, at Scotland, So. Dak. On May 26 his parents came to Crawford, Neb., then the end of the railroad, and settled at Montrose, So. Dak. When Hans was 18 years of age, in 1904, he went to work for James Nolan on his cattle ranch. In the fall of 1901 he went to work for Sam Seaman looking after cattle. In the spring of 1908 he filed on his present homestead located on Old Woman Creek. For three summers, 1908, 1909 and 1910, he was with the Indian Creek roundup, and in the spring of 1911 he went to work for Tom Arnold, taking a string of horses and going to Sunrise on the Platte River. In the fall of 1911 he broke out some Southern horses for Tom Arnold, on the Box X ranch. In the spring of 1912 he took these broncs and went to Hat Creek. The CY wagon started at Hartville and worked west to Orin Junction and went north to the Cheyenne River and to Dry Creek, and west as far as Salt Creek, where the oil fields are now located, and back to the Platte River at Casper on the north side. The 77 wagon worked across from Edgemont west to the 77 ranch.

Many thrilling things happened in those days. For instance when they were camped near Casper, Hans and five other men decided to go to town, and had to cross the Platte River to get there. Inexperienced as they were they tried to cross in the wrong place and consequently one of the men and some horses nearly drowned.

Hans went to Whitewood, So. Dak., to help his sister, Marie Doolittle, whose husband had died, when he shipped her livestock and household goods to Ardmore, So. Dak., and in the spring of 1914 she moved there with her two children, Everette and Irene. In the summer of 1914 he broke horses for Mr. Blair for $5.00 per head.

In 1917 Mr. Meng was married to May Jones, daughter of Mert Jones. Their first child, Helen, was born in 1919, and James was born in 1920. Helen was married in 1938 to Vaughn Freeman, who enlisted on May 11, 1944, for service, and was released on December 8, 1945. He took training at Camp Mira, San Diego, Calif. James Meng enlisted in the Navy at St. Charles, Louisiana, in 1943, and was discharged at Los Angeles in January, 1946.

According to Mr. Meng, the winter of 1896 was a very bad one. Supplies and -communication were extremely difficult. For instance, Mr. Meng says he did not know of McKinley's election until the following January, when a cowboy came along and gave the news to the ranchers.

JACOB J. ZUMBRUNNEN

In the fall of 1888, Jacob J. ZumBrunnen of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, came to Wyoming and filed on a homestead, 25 miles northeast of Lusk, the first land to be taken up in that locality for miles around. While here he contracted for lumber for his buildings from a sawmill over the Nebraska State line. In January, 1889, he returned, leaving his family near Harrison, Neb. In March he moved them to the new home and built up the ranch he owned until his death in December of 1940. He and his family suffered all the hardships of pioneer life in the West, but by determination, courage and industry came success. During the years he raised many fine crops of grain, using scientific methods which he had learned on his father's farm in Wisconsin.

During the first summer water was hauled six miles for household use. A trip to Lusk meant a long, hard day, the only conveyance being a lumber wagon. His daughter Nellie (now Mrs. James W. Christian) was the first child born in this neighborhood.

Mr. ZumBrunnen was always interested and active in community life, ready to give time and effort for the advancement of any worthy cause. Never a neighbor's need in sickness or sorrow that he and his wife did not hear and heed the call for help. Oftentimes in the early days he performed the services of both undertaker and minister. The latchstring was always out at the ZumBrunnen home and many are the visitors who were entertained.

In January, 1896, Ida Williams ZumBrunnen passed away, leaving her husband and six children. In December of the same year he married Eva L Whipple of Monroe, Wisconsin. They reared nine children.

The Kirtley postoffice was established in 1898, and Mr. ZumBrunnen was the first mail carrier, carrying the mail thrice weekly for eight years, never missing a trip. At that time the roads were merely trails and in winter the snow was deep, but the mail went through. In later years he was postmaster for several years. He also served four years as commissioner on the State Farm Board and ten years on the School Board. After his wife passed away in 1934, he lived among his children. The old homestead is now owned by his son, Roy L. ZumBrunnen.

In August, 1946, his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren held a family reunion at Lusk. Of the 85 descendants, 63 were present. They came from south, midwest and west.

JOHN PFISTER

(By Maggie Pfister Olinger)

John Pfister was born at Junction, Kansas, February 2, 1857, he being the first white child born in Geary County, Kansas, where he grew to manhood. On May 22, 1879, Mr. Pfister was married to Ella Josephine Arnold, who was born at Kansas City, Mo., on November 11, 1861. Mr. Pfister died at the age of 82 years.

My mother, with her four small children, came to Laramie County, Wyoming Territory, in July, 1884, from Junction City, Kansas, my father having come in the spring and found a location southwest of Lusk. We came by train to Cheyenne, then by covered wagon, my mother driving the wagon while my father and my uncle, Edward M. Arnold, drove the cattle and horses, which had also been shipped to Cheyenne.

After we arrived at our new home I remember of my mother, then 22 years of age, lying in the wagon, suffering from rheumatism so that she was unable to get up, while we four children played about. She had been subject to these attacks, but that was the last one she ever had. While we were building a three-room log house, we were camped near a spring and had  a cook shed open on all sides, with a roof of pine twigs. One morning while mother was at the spring caring for the milk, the roof of the shed caught fire. My twin brother, Valentine Pfister, Jr., 4½ years old, my sister, Jane, 2½ years old, and baby brother John, were under the shed. My twin brother and I pulled the cradle with the baby in it out from under the burning shed, then ran to the spring for mother. The shed burned to the ground, but mother saved most of the contents.

There was no school in our community, so when my brother and I were 10 years old my parents moved to a new home near Node, where to.ere was a school, and where my parents lived on a ranch during the balance of their lifetime.

I remember quite well the big blizzard of May 1, 1886. My uncle, Edward M. Arnold, and my father, John Pfister, rode for days getting the drifted cattle home again.

Twice a year my father or Uncle Ed took the wagon with a double box, drawn by a four-horse team, to Cheyenne for supplies, which had to last for the next six months.

My parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Pfister, were the parents of thirteen chil­dren-Valentine, who lives on the old ranch at Node, Wyo.; Mrs. Albert Olinger of Hat Creek,-Wyo.; Mrs. Andrew Joy, Kaycee, Wyo.; John Pfister, Sheridan, Wyo.; Richard Pfister, Edgemont, So. Oak.; Mrs. Earl Anderson. Omaha, Neb.; William Pfister, Billings, Mont.; Mrs. Carl Dean, Node, Wyo.; Vincent Pfister, Node, Wyo.; Edwin Pfister, Hat Creek, Wyo.; Leo and Paul, who died in infancy, and Mrs. Henry Wasserburger of Hat Creek, Wyo.

7L RANCH

THIS SHEEP RANCH was built in 1905. Located on the Cheyenne River, M. D. McKeon was the owner. He trailed his sheep from the western part of Wyoming to his new location on. the Cheyenne River and Alkali Creek. There were twenty-four bands, consisting of about 2,500 sheep to a band. Henrick Hanson was the sheep foreman and also helped him trail the sheep to the Cheyenne River. Mr. McKeon built up a fine ranch, irrigated about 200 acres of alfalfa from the flood water of Cheyenne River. Hank Magdon was supervisor and helped build the irrigation project.

This old 7L ranch has changed ownership a number of times. The present owner is E. C. (Jim) Reed. Jim has lived here since 1927 and he and Mrs. Reed have remodeled the house and made it into one of the most modern· ranch houses in this country. They are the parents of two sons-James and Thomas.

RICHARD V. PFISTER

WHEN asked by the authors of this booklet to write a sketch of his life during his long residence in Wyoming, Mr. Richard V. Pfister sent in the following:

I came to Wyoming in 1887 with my parents while Wyoming was still a territory. The Pfisters came from Junction City, Kansas. I was 10 years old when we left Junction City on April 28, with a bunch of cattle, accompanied by my father and my brother, the late Valentine Pfister, and me. We had forty head of cows and calves and were assisted by a man by the name of Ben Jordan who drove the wagon. Some of the calves got sore feet and my father bought some leather and made leather shoes for several of them.

On June 4, 1887, we arrived at my brother's ranch, now known as the old Wood ranch, south of Lusk. As we came up Rawhide Creek the water was so full of dead cattle from the hard winter of 1886-87 that it was hard to get a decent drink of water. There was nobody living on Rawhide at that time except Frank Bartlett, Tom Snow and Billy Reynolds. The round-up wagons went down the Rawhide in the spring of 1887 to gather up their cattle.

My father came to Wyoming in March, 1887, and homesteaded 6 1/2 miles southeast of Lusk, where Jane Geiser and family now live. Jane is my daughter. We had a pretty hard struggle for a while, for the country was beginning to settle up and many were trying to farm. In 1889 we had a real drought and most of these farmers had to leave, but the few who did stay mixed their farming with stockraising and that is all that saved them. We had several years of drought and we had to do a lot of scraping to get feed for our livestock, for we had gone through a hard winter with lots of blizzards and our cattle were not in very good shape. Of course we had plenty of range, no fences anywhere except on your 160-acre homestead.

When I first came to the country the area east of Lusk was all fenced up. Grover Cleveland, then President, ordered all fences on government land to be taken down. Some did not comply with the President's orders and he sent Federal troops to pull them down. Then again in the early 90's the small ranchers got the fencing fever and they began to fence and the real battle began. The man who could buy the most wire and posts got the biggest end of the range--claiming for his own whatever he got his wire around first.

In 1909 the country around Lusk began to settle up, the land agents locating people on the government public domain. Up to this time the small ranchers had the country all fenced up, and there was plenty of land-fighting among them. It was not long until all the best land had been homesteaded. The homesteaders went into the big pastures and this put a stop to our own fighting among ourselves.

We had a couple of Indian scares that I can recall. One was the time that Sitting Bull was killed, the battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota. They then had reports that the Indians were coming toward Lusk, so the people built a fort just west of the Creamery, which was constructed out of logs and rock. This was built for the purpose of putting the women and children in. However, the Indians did not come as the soldiers at Fort Robinson and Fort Mead put a stop to their activity after the battle of Wounded Knee and we did not get a chance to use our fort at Lusk. Then in 1903 we had another Indian excitement, but did not amount to much. This was caused by a bunch of Indians out on a hunting expedition who had refused to go back to the reservation at Pine Ridge. This happened at the Jacob Mill cow camp on Big Lightning. The Sheriff at Newcastle was ordered to arrest the Indians in this hunting party. Accordingly Sheriff Miller organized a posse composed of ranchers in the vicinity, and he had with him a man by the name of Johnnie Owens. This man Owens did most of the killing, for he was a sure shot. When Sheriff Miller went to arrest the Indians they opened fire on him, but after the fight started most of them broke and ran. Chief One Squaw and two young Indians were killed and Sheriff Miller lost his life in the fight. After that the Indians hurried back to the reservation any way they could get there.

From Northern Wyoming and Montana what remained of the big trail herds began to drift back through this section. Many of the herds had lost about 60 per cent during the hard winter. Thousands of head of cattle drifted down to the Sidney bridge, where they were gathered. There was nothing to stop them. Cattlemen in those days did not put up feed like they do today, and most of the cattle on the ranges belonged to the big cattle barons of England, Scotland ·and Germany-mostly syndicates. Early in 1890 we had the big trail herds from Texas. They would start down in Texas and it would take them until late summer to get to Montana, Northern Wyoming and Dakota. Jim Saffel and myself hired out to the XIT at Lusk and I went as far as the Old Woman Crossing, when I had had enough of trail herds so I quit and came back. There must have been ten or twelve herds through during the summer. They would come by Lusk to load their chuck wagons and would camp below town down by the trees now in Jim Christian's pasture. Sometimes there would be two herds a day. They had quite a time watering at the creek at Lusk. The creek used to run during most of the summer, but there was nothing to hold the water back, such as the dams, like there is now.

When the railroad was built from Cheyenne to Wendover and then on to Orin Junction the trail herds stopped coming. They would ship to Orin and then come near Lusk on their way to Dakota and the northern ranges. When shipments were made over what is now the Chicago & Northwestern railroad, Lusk was a feeding point. There were good stockyards at Lusk. They had five chutes instead of the two, and they had a big steam pumping plant to supply water for stock unloaded in transit.I was working for the Ogallala Cattle & Land Co. in 1903, the time of the so-called Johnson County Raid, and there was a lot of excitement around Lusk, for there were quite a few men here that the cattle barons had on their list to get rid of, and of course the people here were in sympathy with the "nesters," or "rustlers," as they were called, and everybody was glad when they about blew up that bunch of cutthroats the cattle barons had shipped up from Texas to dispose of the settlers they had on their list. The Federal troops from Fort McKenzie were the only thing that saved them. The rustlers were closing in to blow up the fort the cattlemen had built. Two hours more and they wouldn't have to walk back to Cheyenne. Federal troops took them back to Cheyenne, where they stood trial, but money got them out.

The next few years things went pretty good-fighting for range, fighting the drought and rustling for feed for our cattle in the wintertime. But it was well worth it and most of us came out pretty good and have enjoyed our life in Wyoming.

EDWARD M. ARNOLD

I AM so very much interested in the work that so many of my real friends are doing in compiling and publishing this historical booklet that, as much as I dislike to talk about myself, I am glad to contribute what I can to its success. In sketching the advance proofs of this booklet I see the names of many who have contributed much to the upbuilding of our State and county.

What should have been my high school days were spent on the range of Niobrara County, which was then Laramie County. I started in high school at Junction City, Kansas, but I wanted to go to Wyoming instead. My mother insisted that I finish high school, and very reluctantly I started and tried to study, but didn't do much good. About all I did was look out of the window facing the West. I went to Junction City one Saturday and met a boy friend who said, "I am going to Wyoming." I asked him when he was going and he said "this evening." I thought a minute and said, "I am going with you." At 4:00 p.m. we were on the train heading for Rawhide Buttes in Wyoming. I had $40.00 in my pocket and only the clothes I had on at the time.

We arrived at Denver, then a town of about 12,000, and took the stage to Cheyenne, which had about 2,500 population then. As soon as we could we took the stage to Rawhide Buttes. We were headed for the Western Livestock Co., 30 miles east of Rawhide Buttes (now the Jim Christian ranch), which was later the Tom Bell home and ranch, east of Node. We had to walk the 30 miles from Rawhide ranch to the Livestock Co. We made 1t all right. That was the 8th of March, 1881. The foreman said he couldn't give us a job until about May 1, when the roundup started. A few days later he got word that wire was being freighted from Cheyenne to fence a few sections of pasture-the first wire fence to be built in Northern Wyoming. He gave us a job, and we were to go to the head of Indian Creek to get out dry posts. There were several Texas cowboys waiting for only cowboy jobs, but they didn't want fence jobs. We camped in a tent and had a white mule named "Balaam" to snake the posts in piles, and Fred Redington hauled a load each day.

It was certainly lonesome out there-the coyotes howled and the owls hooted at night-and wasn't I homesick! At any rate I decided to stay until fall, then go back to Kansas and stay there. We got out the posts in twelve days and earned $72.00 each. It would take seven months in Kansas to earn $72.00, and we knew from then that we would love Wyoming. We went to work at once by the month and started building the fence. I asked the foreman what he was going to pay me. I knew that kids like me got less than grown men. He said he was paying the old hands $40.00 and kids $35.00. I then said to him, "Charlie, if I do as much work as the old hands will you pay me $40.00?" He replied, "I will pay you $40.00 anyway." It sure was hard to dig as many postholes as the men, but I did not have time to be homesick any more. I worked there two years, then my friend and I started for Kansas horseback. It took us 17½ days to reach Junction City. When I came back, John Pfister and I drove a team and wagon to Wyoming.

I went to work in a short time, and John Pfister drove back to Kansas, loaded all his worldly possessions into two railroad cars and landed in Cheyenne with his family about July 10, 1883. Mrs. Albert Olinger has related some of our later experiences. Our entire capital and all our worldly possessions amounted to little, and besides we had borrowed cash to help us get to Wyoming. Get a job and get to work seemed to be the thing to do, and we did. We had to build a house and put up hay, but we got by some way. Looking back now, I can see that the Indian way of life had nothing on us. There were very few people living here then-not a dozen women. It seemed that the range had plenty of cattle on it, but very few people lived here. We were all having the same struggle for existence, but most of them gave it up after six months and left for Cheyenne, the nearest town. We wonder why we ever stayed, but now we are all glad we did, and I for one would be glad to do it all over again-so many advantages and such wonderful citizens.

In the month of September, when I was riding on Duck Creek, I stopped at a cabin where Hank Green and his wife lived. He was a reckless cow­ puncher and they had been married about a year. It was nothing for Hank to go to some ranch and stay a few days. I knocked on the door and Mrs. Green said "come in." I opened the door and Mrs. Green greeted me with the expression, "Oh, I am so sick, I am having a baby." My first thought was to get out of there, and I told her I would go and get Mrs. Kingman, ten miles away, but she said, "Don't leave me, I am dying!" I thought, "Lady, you ain't got anything on me." I didn't have time for many thoughts until the baby let out a real howl. It is strange how I quieted down. Mrs. Green couldn't tell me a thing to do. She didn't know any more than I did, and that was nothing. I got some warm water to wash the baby, and as I didn't have enough water I poured some hot tea in the water. When it came to tying the knots, that was some problem, but I got by all right and believe I did a good job. Some 50 years later I received a letter from this little girl, written from Spokane, Washington, asking the circumstances of her birth. I have often wondered if it wasn't the Green experience that caused my hair to get grey so early in life.

Myself and family lived ten miles south of Lusk for about twenty years. It was a wonderful cattle country. The cattle ranged east in the summer and we had windmills for water. There was no limit to the free range to the east in the summer. There were not settlers, the grass was good and the cattle put on weight fast. In the fall when it got cold and snowy, they would all drift home to go in the hills where the grass was plentiful. It cost me $16.00 each for four school sections, and I wondered if that was necessary. Finally settlers came and settled the land up in almost a year. I sold out my holdings and cattle, intending to move to Junction City, Kansas, where I had been planting my profits in good farm land in Kansas, which cost me about $32.00 an acre. I thought I would like it on a farm in Kansas, but my wife told me "You can't and won't live in Kansas." It was getting time to move on the place, and she asked why I wasn't making preparations to move. I sat there rather dumb, and she asked, "What are you thinking about?" and I replied, "I am not going to take the farm, I am going back to Wyoming."

We got back to Wyoming on April 20, rather happy and relieved. I sold the Kansas land to a land company at $86.00 per acre, and two years later they sold it for $150.00 per acre.

About 1910 I bought the Webster sheep and holdings, and we moved to the Webster ranch on the Cheyenne River. My daughter Lillian was born at Edgemont, So. Dak., while we lived there. There was lots of free grass for summer along East Moss Agate, Fiddle Creek and Mule Creek. We would lamb along Lance Creek and the Cheyenne River and then go east and come back in November, get the bands in shape for the winter, then drift west to the Snyder Creek country until spring. About 1915 I sold the sheep and the whole outfit to George Blain and moved back to Lusk. We met and enjoyed a fine lot of friends and neighbors while living on the Cheyenne River! and I am always glad to meet and visit with them again.

For the next five years my son Tom and I lived mostly at Billings, Montana. We ran sheep on the Big and Little Musselshell River. We bought yearling ewes, sheared them .at Miles City, Mont., threw them into bands and trailed them south toward Gillette, and when we arrived at Gillette we sold the

My life has been happily spent here, and I have never had reason to regret coming to Wyoming when I did.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF. LAWRENCE JOHNSON

I was born in Columbus, Neb:, September 27, 1874, and came to Lusk in April, 1887, by train over the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad. I first herded sheep in Lusk for a butcher, but that job only lasted four days because a dog got after the little band of twenty big wethers and ran them a mile west of town before I could stop them.

The town of Lusk was started in 1883, one mile west of the present site, and was called Running Water, Laramie County, Wyoming Territory. My father had a homestead at the old town. The railroad wanted to plot it out in lots, but father thought they wanted too much, so the railroad built a depot at the present townsite and the town was soon established there. Frank Lusk had a horse ranch here, so the town was called Lusk.

In 1887 I saw what was the last string of oxen, ten yoke (20 oxen) bring in a government load of mostly ammunition and unload it here in their freight depot.

In 1888 a trail herd came by Lusk and the horse jingler quit and I got his job. These cattle belonged to Ed Stinger Cattle Co., who had a ranch a few miles out from Rapid City. In those good old days a horse jingler's job was to herd the horses, rustle up water and wood for the cook, and if you could not find wood you had to sack up buffalo chips. As we neared Edgemont and the gumbo belt, it began to rain and the cook and I had a sweet job digging the gumbo from the wagon wheels. We could go about 200 yards and dig again. We were in the rain so long, and I had had my wet boots on  so long, that when I got to the ranch and took them off, the skin came off of my feet with them. But I did get in 21 days of work at $1.00 a day and my fare back to Lusk.

I was married to Edith Hancock, daughter of J. J. Hancock, in 1894. The Hancocks had come to this country in 1888. Mr. Hancock was a preacher and was sent here by the John Wanamaker Society to help organize the Congregational churches in Lusk, Douglas and Casper.

In 1892 I started a confectionery store in Lusk. It was estimated that 100,000 Southern trail cattle passed by Lusk each year, and I did a fair business with the cowboys. In 1895 my brother Alfred (Petty) and I went into the saloon business. We quit that in 1899. Meantime, in 1893, we commenced the JA6 ranch.

 In 1901, Bill Bonsell, Bill Magoon and I met on the head of Buck Creek and discussed this thing of the Indians coming in with ten or fifteen wagons and slaughtering deer and antelope. We were also satisfied they got more than game. Later, nine Indians were arrested and tried at Lusk and sent to jail in Douglas, then the county seat. I tried to have them arrested again. Then in 1903 they came up the Cheyenne River way and a posse of five men from Newcastle got after them, arresting seven Indians. When the Indians became hostile the men scattered and got more help and overtook the Indians just as they were ready to camp on Big Lightning Creek. In the fight that followed, Sheriff Miller and his deputy, Falkenburg, were killed, along with seven Indians. After the killing, Albert Rochelle rode down to our ranch wanting help. Some of the Indians were captured near Edgemont and some came by Lusk driving their little ponies fifty miles in one night.

Life on the range between Lance Creek and the Cheyenne River provided many interesting experiences. We cattle men had some heavy jolts from rustlers in the years of 1918 and 1919.

I have one son, Harleigh Lawrence Johnson, and two daughters,: lhla Grace Anderson and Avaley Loraine McWillians, and four grandchildren, Yoy Whitfield Johnson, William Faulkner Anderson, Lawrence Louis Anderson and Iris Lorain Anderson.

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