Manville, Jireh & Keeline, A Day in the Life - Addison Augustus Spaugh with Kyle Gruwell

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Addison Augustus Spaugh

1857-1943

Addison Augustus Spaugh, of Cheyenne, has for many years been a most prominent and active citizen of Wyoming. He was long identified with the cattle and sheep industries when the stock ranged over the country and he is now concentrating his efforts and attention upon the banking business as president of the Citizens’ Bank of Cheyenne and of various other banks in this section of the state. He is likewise well known as the state humane officer.

A native of Indiana, Mr. Spaugh was born in the town of Hope, April 25, 1857, a son of Edward and Martha (Casteel) Spaugh. His father’s ancestors, originally from Germany, were among the earliest settlers in North America, taking up their abode in what has since become the state of South Carolina. In the maternal line A. A. Spaugh comes from Spanish ancestry, the first of the family being an exile from Spain who was driven from that country for preaching the Christian religion and who became one of the earliest colonists of the new world, he, too, settling in what is now South Carolina. Later both families became represented in North Carolina and from that state removed to Indiana, casting in their lot with pioneer settlers of the middle west. In 1867 Edward Spaugh removed with his family to Kansas.

Addison A. Spaugh was at that time a little lad of ten years. He acquired his education in the common schools of Kansas, for there were no high schools or colleges in the state at that time. He removed from Kansas to Texas in 1869, when a boy of but twelve years, and in 1874, when a youth of seventeen, came to Wyoming with a herd of cattle from Texas, delivering the cattle to the Red Cloud Agency near Fort Laramie. He remained a cowboy on the trail between Texas and Wyoming, making annual trips between 1874 and 1877, at which time he became employed on the old J H D ranch on Horse Creek, thirty-five miles north of Cheyenne, which at that time belonged to John H. and Thomas F. Durbin, brothers, the latter still a resident of Cheyenne. In 1879 he took charge of a cattle ranch for Manville & Peck seven miles west of the old Hat Creek stage station, one hundred and sixty-five miles north of Cheyenne. In 1880 the Converse Cattle Company was organized and A. R. Converse, the first president of the First National Bank of Cheyenne, became the president of the cattle company, with H. S. Manville as general manager, James S. Peck, secretary and treasurer and Mr. Spaugh in charge of the outfit. Besides being made foreman and range manager he was sold an interest in the business, which he continued to manage until 1885. He then disposed of his stock in that company in order to engage in the cattle business on his own account. He located on land at the head of Running Water, taking what was then known as a preemption and later a homestead where the town of Manville now stands. The following year the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad built its line up Running Water and over to the Platte River. The company established a town, asking Mr. Spaugh to name it, which he did, calling it Manville in honor of H. S. Manville, the much beloved general manager of the Converse Cattle Company. He also had the honor of being instrumental, if not having the privilege entirely, of naming Converse County after the equally beloved president of the Converse Cattle Company. At the time of the organization of the county Mr. Spaugh went to T. B. Hicks, who at that time was president of the First National Bank of Cheyenne, and told him that he would like to have the county named after Mr. Converse. Mr. Hicks took up the matter and Mr. Spaugh’s request was complied with.

There was big money in the cattle business in those days and Mr. Spaugh’s business grew rapidly, but he had the settlement to contend with, the settlement that always follows a new railroad. All of the land around Manville was taken up by the settlers and back from the town the creek land was all soon occupied. The settlers remained until the widespread financial panic of 1893 and most of them had title to their land and were willing to part with it for whatever they could get. Mr. Spaugh paid one hundred dollars for a quarter section of land and bought out the settlers along the streams both north and south of Manville for as much as five miles in a single day. T. B. Hoard was one of his strong competitors for the land, having secured some fine holdings, but about 1898 Mr. Spaugh purchased the famous 77 and Horseshoe ranches on Lance Creek, for which he paid sixteen thousand dollars, or what seemed an enormous price at that time, but ten years later he sold the property for ninety-six thousand dollars. The first big cattle deal which he ever put through occurred about a year or two after he purchased the 77 ranch, when he purchased from McPherson & Hyshem twenty-five hundred and twenty cows and calves which they had purchased from the Ogallala Cattle Company. Mr. Spaugh’s cattle business grew rapidly and he more and more largely concentrated his attention upon the raising of steers. About 1902 he found himself in possession of over twenty thousand head of cattle, most of which were steers. This was about the time that ranchmen and their bankers, especially the bankers, evolved the idea of keeping their cattle all under fence and Mr. Spaugh had at one time over one million, five hundred thousand acres under fence, but the sheep crowded into his pastures and onto his range and forced him out of the cattle business, so that from 1902 until 1904 he sold his cattle on the lowest market the cattle business ever saw. In 1902 he bought out a large sheep ranch that was causing him much trouble, it being purchased from Blaine Brothers, who were also hard competitors for the lands offered for sale. Mr. Spaugh disliked the idea of the sheep business, as most cattlemen did at that time, but his attorney advised him that it would be cheaper to buy the Blaine Brothers out rather than to undertake to establish business in other ways. The sheep made money and compensated him for his losses in the cattle business. He had as many as thirty thousand head of sheep at one time. He continued in the sheep industry and also handled some cattle until 1916, when he sold out his sheep interests, as the settlers were crowding him off the range and were coming too thick and fast for him to undertake to buy them out. In the year 1917, therefore, he closed out his cattle business and turned his attention to banking. He had already been interested in a small bank at Manville for a decade and in 1917 he became an important factor in banking circles in his section of the state. In March of that year he organized the Bank of Keeline at Keeline, Wyoming, in June organized the Bank of Glenrock at Glenrock, and in August organized the First State Bank of Cheyenne, while in September he purchased the Citizens’ National Bank of Cheyenne and in October purchased the Commercial Bank and Trust Company of Douglas. He is president of all of these and owns a majority of the stock in each.

On the 5^th
of January, 1886, in Rochester, New York, Mr. Spaugh was united in marriage to Miss Estella Roseltha Bailey, a daughter of S. L. Bailey, who, in partnership with Robert Seaman, of New York, built the great Wyoming smelter at Silver Cliff near where the town of Lusk now stands, and it was at this mining camp that Mr. Spaugh first met the lady who afterward became his wife. She lived for only two and a half years after their marriage and passed away in Salt Lake City, June 20, 1888, Mr. Spaugh having taken her there for the benefit of her health. On the 10^th of February, 1909, he wedded Mary Ella Kern, of Manville, a daughter of the Rev. J. Kern, formerly of the central Illinois conference of the methodist Episcopal church, and a sister-in-law of J.A. Manorgan, a prominent merchant and banker of Manville.

In politics Mr. Spaugh has always been a republican and he served in 1907 as a member of the state legislature. He was also at one time a candidate for probate judge of Converse County on the republican ticket. Fraternally he is connected with Ashlar Lodge, No. 10. A. F. & A. M., of Douglas, Wyoming; Wyoming Commandery, No. 1, K. T.; Wyoming Consistory, No. 1, S. F. R. S.; and Korein Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Rawlins. He likewise belongs to the Elks Lodge at Cheyenne, the Modern Woodman of America at Manville and the Eastern Star at Lusk. He was for many years a member of the Cheyenne Club and, associated with T. B. Hicks, he kept the club open for many years after the palmy days of the cattle business had ended. He was foreman of the famous “round-up of 1884,” where there were over four hundred men and four thousand saddle horses. This was held at the old Hat Creek station, in what is now known as Niobrara County, on which occasion W. C. Irvine, John B. Kendrick, J. W. Hammond and Harry Crane were present. For ten years Mr. Spaugh has been a director in the Methodist church of Manville and throughout the greater part of his life he has been a member of the Manville school board and has taken deep pride in the advancement of the schools and the development of the educational interests of the district. He is now state humane officer. There is no phase of the development of this section of Wyoming with which Mr. Spaugh is not thoroughly familiar and he has figured most prominently in connection with its public interests and has left and is leaving the impress of his individuality upon its history in many ways.

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The Famous OW Roundup of 1884

By A. A. Spaugh Foreman of Roundup No. 15

Manville, Wyoming May 14, 1934

Mr. Arthur Vogel, Editor

Lusk Free Lance

Lusk, WY

Dear Mr. Vogel:

Pursuant to out talk yesterday, I am writing you some pioneer history leading up to the famous OW Roundup of 1884.

In the summer of 1879, John Kendrick drove a herd of cattle from Texas up the Chisholm Trail for C. W. Wulfgen and turned them loose in the late summer just west of the old Madden ranch, a stage station on the Cheyenne and Black Hills Trail, on what was then known as the west prong of Running Water, later on taking the name of Quinn Creek, and on another creek north called Duck Creek. During the winter the cattle drifted over on the head of Old Woman Creek.

In the spring of 1880, they gathered the cattle and drove them down onto Lower Lance Creek, near where the old Warren post office was located later on, and built the ULA ranch, and located there permanently.

In the summer of 1880, while on a roundup where the town of Wheatland is now located, I was introduced to Mr. H. S. Manville and James S. Peck by A. H. Swan, the owner of Swan Land & Cattle Company, who had contracted a herd of 2, 000 Oregon cattle to be delivered to Manville & Peck on the Laramie Plains in August of 1880. They wanted to hire a man to receive the cattle after having looked up and located a range for them. I was working for John Sparks at the time from his ranch at Pine Bluffs. After the roundup was over, I joined Mr. Manville in Cheyenne for the purpose of looking up a location for his cattle. We bought a team of horses and a buggy in Cheyenne and started north.

Manville & Peck were much impressed with the land and ranch in Cheyenne Pass 30 miles northwest of Cheyenne which was offered for sale, but I argued with them that if they were looking for a summer resort, that would be a fine place, but if they wanted to build up a cattle ranch, we should go some place north of the North Platte River. We went from Cheyenne to Ft. Laramie and from there to Ft. Robinson to look over the White River country and from there to Hat Creek station on the Cheyenne & Black Hills stage line, looking over the country enroute.

We met a man at Hat Creek by the name of O. C. Wade, who had a mule train and also an ox train freighting on the Cheyenne-Black Hills Trail. He also had a ranch and 1, 200 head of cattle 8 miles west of Hat Creek on the Old Woman Creek. There was nothing to the ranch but a squatter’s right, as the country had not at that time been surveyed, a dug-out, a small stable, a corral and a small tract of land fenced in for a meadow. But he did have 1,200 head of fine cattle on the ranch. He wanted to sell the cattle and ranch, and we were not long in making a trade with him, since people bought cattle in those days by book account, taking the man’s word for what he had. Mr. Manville thought that was like buying a school of fish in the sea, but the trade went through.

We looked the cattle over for a day or so, as best we could, as there was no other cattle on the range at that time, and saw that they were all well branded with an OW on the left side. Wade also had a few saddle horses which we bought. We left a man in charge of the ranch and cattle and Mr. Manville and I returned to Cheyenne to make preparations to receive the Oregon cattle on the Laramie Plains from Mr. Swan. I bought some saddle horses and rigged up a camp wagon in Cheyenne and pulled out for the Laramie Plains where we received the cattle and drove them down across the mountains, just east of Laramie Peak, across the Platte River at the mouth of Muddy.

It was on this trip up the Muddy that I discovered the Spanish Diggings. Thinking I had discovered a Spanish gold mine, I reported the fact to Mr. Manville, and he reported it to Adams and Glover, two drug store men in Cheyenne, who had two men mining in the Hartville country by the name of Locke & Stein and who afterwards made some exploration of the Diggins. I will write more about the Spanish Diggings later on. We arrived safely at the OW ranch with the cattle. It was on the fall roundup of 1880 in the Lance Creek country that I first met John Kendrick. After the roundup was over, I hired a woodsman, whose name I cannot remember now, and a man to help him, and set them to work to build a house of logs and a barn and prepare for winter, for we had already put up what hay there was in the meadow and stacked it in the corral near where the barn was to be built.

That winter we organized what was called The Converse Cattle Co. in Cheyenne with a capital stock of one million dollars. W. C. Irvine, who owned the JY herd on the north side of the North Platte River consisting of about 5,000 head of cattle, where the railroad station of Irvine is now located, went in with us, and was made vice-president of the company. A. R. Converse, president of the First National Bank of Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, also joined us and was made president of the company. Mr. H. S. Manville was made general manager, Mr. James S. Peck, Secretary and Treasurer and I was made the range manager.

During the winter of 1880 and 1881, I succeeded in getting a very good ranch built up: a three room log house, a store house for storing provisions, which was very necessary in those days when we bought our supplies in large quantities, a good log barn that would hold twenty horses, wagon shed, blacksmith shop, which was also very necessary on a well equipped ranch in those days.

In the spring of ’82 and before the spring roundup started, we bought the Horse Shoe Bar hers on the head of Lance Creek from a man by the name of Andy Carr. Later on, we bought the V5 ranch on Lance Creek from a man by the name of Harkness, where the Lance Creek oil field is now located. Still later, we bought the U Bar L ranch on Lance Creek, ten miles below the V5, and a little later bought the ULA ranch from Kendrick & Wulfgen which was located in Lower Lance Creek. These outfits consisted of about 3,000 head of cattle to each outfit, but no land was purchased with these ranches as at that time the land had not been surveyed, and we could get only a squatter’s right with each ranch.

Following the sale of the ULA ranch to the OW outfit, Kendrick took an interest in the 77 ranch on Wyatt Creek, a tributary to Lance Creek, with T. B. Hord, and did much improving and building at the 77 ranch which still stands out as his handiwork in ranch building today.

It will be fifty years ago tomorrow, May 15^th, 1934, that Kendrick met me and many others at the OW ranch for the famous OW Roundup of ’84. We made the first roundup that morning at Hat Creek station on the Cheyenne-Black Hills stage line. There were about 20 different cattle outfits represented by nearly 200 men with 2,000 horses. Among them were:

Tom Bell Cattle Co., Range, Lance Creek, 15,000 cattle.

Boyd Bros. OU, Range, Cheyenne River, 10,000 cattle.

J. M. Carey & Bro., CY, Range, Platte River, 60,000 cattle.

Carlisle Cattle Co., 000, Range, Salt Creek, 12,000 cattle.

Concord Cattle Co., CCD, Range, Powder River, 10,000 cattle.

C. F. Coffee, 010 Bar, Range, Hat Creek Basin, 10,000 cattle.

M. O. Connors, MC, Range, Powder River, 8,000 cattle.

Converse Cattle Co., OW, Range, Lance Creek, 40,000 cattle.

Dater Bros. & Co., O Bar O, Range, Cheyenne River, 15,000 cattle.

Davis & Robins, Spectacle Brand, Powder River, 9,000 Cattle.

J. H. Ford, A, Range, Cheyenne River, 12,000 cattle.

Plunket Cattle Co., EK, Range, Powder River, 15,000 cattle.

Dr. E. B. Graham, 04, Range, Running Water, 8,000 cattle.

Hammond Cattle Co., 4W, Range, Cheyenne River, 9,000 cattle.

Mike Henry, 88, Range, Lance Creek, 7,000 cattle.

Geo. Keeline & Sons, Hog Eye Brand, Platte River, 15,000 cattle.

Ogallala Cattle Co., Keystone Brand, Cheyenne River 60,000 cattle.

Union Cattle Co., Bridle Bit, Range, Cheyenne River, 50,000 cattle.

Suffolk Cattle Co., AU7, Range, Cheyenne River, 25,000 cattle.

Circle Bar, Outfit, Range, Indian Creek, 30,000 cattle.

Bar T outfit, Range, Indian Creek, E. W. Whitcomb, 15,000 cattle.

Major Wolcott, VR, Range, Platte River, 15,000 cattle.

This roundup is listed on the roundup bill of 1884 as number 15, and it worked the Cheyenne River and all its tributaries west of Hot Spring, So. Dakota. It rounded up and worked 400,000 cattle in six weeks. I was the foreman of this roundup, and C. E. Spaugh was the assistant foreman to the mouth of Black Thunder on the Cheyenne River and J. B. Moore was the assistant foreman.

What happened after the roundup?

The Cheyenne River Ranges and its tributaries became badly overstocked. In the winter of 1885, I sold out my interest in the OW outfit and started the ranch that I now own at the head of Running Water and Lance Creek. W. C. Irvine, the vice president of the Converse Cattle Co., took over the range management of the OW outfit. A year later, he accepted the management of the Ogallala Lang & Cattle Co., and the OW outfit. This was about 1886 and 1887, and he moved the outfit to hanging Woman in northern Wyoming where he operated a cattle ranch up to the time of his death. What happened to A. A. Spaugh, the foreman of the Roundup of ’84, will be related in a book entitled, “Fifty-Seven Years in the Shadows of the Rockies,” which means all the way from Old Mexico to Canada.

Yours truly,

A.A. Spaugh

P.S.-I have a photograph taken ten years ago of the survivors of the Roundup of ’84. Among them were Senator Kendrick, Tom Bell, Lee Moore, Mark Beatham, Billy Irvine, C. L. Talbot, Harry Crain, J. W. Hammond, A. A. Spaugh. Four from this group have since passed away. Among those in this community who were here during the Roundup of ’84 are Edward M. Arnold, Lee Miller, Frank DeCastro, Harry Card and Jack Blackwell.

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