Dubois, WY

Badlands neat Dubois, WY (copyright 2009)

Dubois (Do, Boys) Wyoming is located on highway 26 close to the entrance to the Wind River Canyon in northwestern Wyoming. The area is surrounded by the Wind River and Absaroka Mountains and to the east by the badlands pictured here. It is called an “authentic western town” on the Dubois web page[1] The rustic log buildings along main street are much the same as in the 1800”s when the town was formed. The Wind River quietly runs through the town toward its destination of the Yellowstone.[2]

Dubois has a colorful history. American Indians lived on the land before whites settled there. The first known inhabitants were the Sheepeaters of the Mountain Shoshone Indians. The Wind River area was part of their annual migration route. You can still see petroglyphs and stone tipi circles in the Dubois area. [3] Early on French and British fur traders walked the rivers of the area trapping furs to be sent east and on to Europe. The first European trappers were Francois and Louis Verendrye in 1742–43. After them came Astorians who later established fur trade at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon territory. Mountain man Jim Bridger passed through the area in 1807 on his way to the Yellowstone.[4]

Then in the 1870’s came homesteaders who decided not to go on over South Pass to Utah or Oregon. Lumber was the main industry early on.[5] You can still see remnants of the tie hacks that worked there to fell the trees and create ties for the railroads. Though the actual buildings have been destroyed by time there is still glass, turned purple by the sun and age, from some of the buildings and you can find cross cut saws and axes and other artifacts of the tie timber industry.[6] The town even has ties to Butch Cassidy who, in 1890 prior to his infamous crime spree, owned and managed a ranch outside of town.[7] In 1886 the people wanted to call their town “Never Sweat.” There are two interpretations on why they wanted to name it that. One says that it was a joke because the men didn’t take work so seriously and never sweat.[8] Another is because of the dry Chinook winds that grace the area no one ever sweats.[9] However, the US Postal Service, in its infinite wisdom, decided that was not an appropriate name for a town and named it after an Idaho senator,[10] Senator Fred Thomas Dubois (1851-1930), a member of the Postal Committee. [11]

The geology of the area is one of its main attractions. The Dubois Badlands is located in Fremont County, about 2 miles east of of Dubois. Access is from a county road on the western boundary. [12] These are made of alluvial deposits from the Wind River made up of Sandstone and Mudstone. Conglomerate in the formation is from algae fossils that formed in ponds about 55 million years ago. These formations have light vegetation like a high desert. Cottonwoods grow in the deeper canyons along streams. There are no official trails through the badlands, but you can follow stock trails through the Mason Draw area. These beautiful formations are in danger from housing developments to the west and also from oil and gas development on their fringes.[13]

Dubois offers many recreational opportunities. You can visit the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center and learn about the large herd in the area. The Dubois Museum provides a look into the history of the area. Dubois is home to many who work in the arts and has a 17,000 sq ft facility known as the Headwaters Community Arts and Conference Center. There is the Tie Hack Memorial that recognizes the Scandinavian Tie cutters who worked in the area supplying ties to the CB&Q railroad. It is located northwest of Dubois on highway 26/287. Rodeo and square dancing are held during the summer for those who would like to get a real look at western life. The area also offers camping, hunting in season, hiking and rock hounding. [14]

[1] http://www.duboiswyoming.org/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming
[5] http://www.duboiswyoming.org/aboutdubois.html
[6] http://www.duboiswyomingchamber.org/see.html
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming
[8] http://www.duboiswyomingchamber.org/
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming
[10] http://www.duboiswyomingchamber.org/
[11] http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/dubois.html
[12] http://www.wildwyo.org/Dubois_Badlands.html
[13] (Movlar, Eric,
[14] http://www.duboiswyomingchamber.org/do.html
Wild Wyoming, Flash Floods, Badwater, p143-148: Globe Pequot Press; copyright 2001, A Falcon Guide)

Top of Texas Rodeo, Pampa, Tx

 "The Chutes" at the Top O'Texas Rodeo (copyright 2000)

Presenting the Colors (copyright 2000)

I remember when my Dad introduced me to my new family when I was 13 years old after my mother had died two years earlier. We would be moving from South Denver, Colorado to Littleton where my new step family lived. I suddenly gained 3 brothers and a sister in the deal. I would be the youngest. My biological mother had loved to paint. Her favorite topic was horses. She loved horses and so did I. I always wanted a pony, but living in the big city meant that wasn’t possible. So I thought it was really cool when we moved to Littleton on the little acreage and I met my brother Dale. He was a real rodeo cowboy. I got to exercise his horses for him and sometimes help out with moving cattle around in our arena when he practiced roping. I got to attend rodeos like the Greeley Independence Day Stampede where I sat on the chutes with the performers.

Rodeo type competitions have been around for a long time. They may date back to the Greeks and Minoans where bull wrestling and bull jumping was practiced. The American version probably came from Spain. As the Spanish Conquistadores moved up into the southwestern United States on their explorations of the New World they brought with them their horses and cattle and their ways of handling the stock. These had developed from the sports of Spanish bull fighting and cattle wrangling. The vaqueros had rodeos of sorts but they didn’t look like the American version of today. [1]

American rodeo started from everyday ranching activities such as roping calves that strayed from the herd or for branding and taming horses.[2] In Texas with its extensive grasslands cattle were fed and then herded long distance to market in large cattle drives. Some of the names are familiar especially to those in the Texas Panhandle, names like John S. Chrisom, Oliver Loving, and Charles Goodnight. Young men began to join these cattle drives and the American cowboy was born. As the railroads were builto into the southwest it became much more profitable to keep cattle on large ranch holdings where they didn’t have to make the arduous trip to market. This meant they remained fatter and brought more money when sold. The cowboys of the trail drive settled on ranches such as the XIT of the Texas Panhandle. As is the case when a bunch of guys get together they decided to compete with each other during their off time. They competed in the skills that they had acquired on the trail and on the ranches and the American rodeo was born.[3] Soon the competitions began to spread and at the same time Wild Bill Cody started his Wild West Show exhibiting western lifestyles to the people of the east and mid west and even Europe. Rodeo type exhibitions and the Wild West shows went hand in hand. Rodeo and anything “western” was exciting for people of the east coast[4]

After WWI rodeo became even more institutionalized. Madison Square Garden put on a rodeo in 1922 overshadowing Cheyenne Frontier Days which had been the premier rodeo to that point. In the early 1930s rodeo associations were formed to govern events and to make sure that cowboys were paid fairly. To that point some promoters took advantage of the performers and kept more of the prize money than they handed out. Many rodeos claimed to be the “championships,” which caused a lot of confusion. In 1958 the National Finals Rodeo was started, giving rodeo a national TV audience. Rodeo had joined the world of big business and big media. The NFC has been held in Las Vegas, Nevada since 1985.[5] The history of rodeo is much more extensive than covered here. There are many venues, Omak Stampede, Greeley Stampede, Pendleton Roundup and Cheyenne Frontier Days to name just a very few.

The pictures here were taken at the Top of Texas Rodeo in Pampa, Texas in the northern part of the Texas Panhandle in 2000. This rodeo was started when some Pampa businessmen were meeting for coffee and decided it would be a great idea to provide some kind of entertainment for the people of Pampa. It made sense to let the cowboys and girls of the area show off their skills. The Top O’ Texas Rodeo Association was born. This rodeo has been held annually since then except for 1970 and 71. In 1970 a tornado tore apart some of the stands in the arena and in 71 there was quarantine on Panhandle livestock do to Venezuelan Equine Encephalomyelitis. [6]

The city of Pampa is the second largest city in the Panhandle. It was built up due to oil and its allied industries and became a market center for agriculture and livestock.[7] The Santa Fe Railroad was constructed through the area in 1888. A train station and telegraph office as built and the town site established by George Tyng who was he manager of the White Deer Lands ranch. People settled and developed the land sold by Timothy Hobard. Gas and oil were discovered in the Panhandle in 1916 and in the resulting oil boom Pampa prospered. In 1928 it became Gray County seat. [8]


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rodeo

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rodeo

[3]http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/llr01

[4] . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rodeo

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rodeo

[6] http://topoftexasrodeo.com/

[7] http://www.cityofpampa.org/

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pampa,_Texas

Fort Laramie Historical Site

"Ghosts of Fort Laramie" The ruins of the old fort hospital that sit above the main site of Fort Laramie.   Also there are 3 graves located by the hospital 2 Indian graves and 1 of unknown soldiers.  (copyright Lee Ann Forrester 2007)

One of the wonderful things about Wyoming is the vast openness of the state.  Sometimes if you squint your eyes and look away from the highway you are on, fences disappear, cattle turn into buffalo and you can almost picture yourself back in a time before the white settlers came to the area.  In areas you can feel the beginning of the settling of the frontier as if you were there.  One time sitting on the porch of “Old Bedlam”, one of the many buildings at Fort Laramie Historic Site, I could see the cavalry mounted on their horses on the parade ground I was looking at.  Two women and a child in bustled dresses walked up the path to the old building.  Later I learned of a woman who had a small boy who died at Fort Laramie while his father was out fighting the Indian Wars.  I have often wondered if it was this woman, her sickly son and the commanders wife of the post that I had seen that day in a ghostly apparition. 

Fort Laramie sits at the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers.  It is a very peaceful place.  Sometimes I would go to the area behind the original site and sit by the Laramie River and meditate under two huge cottonwood trees.  I would have liked to have asked those old trees about the things they had seen over their lifetimes. The fort came into being as a fur trader’s fort in the in 1834 established by Robert Campbell and William Sublette and was named Fort William.  It was a very small fort, only about 100x80 feet.  Its stockade was made of 15 ft high hewn cottonwood logs.  As the beaver traded at the fort were trapped to near extinction, the two founders realized that their money was to be made in the buffalo trade with the Indians of the area. Their monopoly on the trade lasted until Fort Platte was built about a mile away in 1841. (A marker stands at the sight on the road to Fort Laramie) At that time Sublette and Campbell refurbished their fort and made it larger and more substantial with adobe walls.  They renamed it Fort John. Tons of buffalo hides were brought to the fort and in the fall sent east to the coast and beyond. [1]

As the buffalo trade declined Fort John took on a new role.  In 1841 the first westward-bound emigrants arrived at Fort John. Tens of thousands would follow on their way to Oregon, California and Utah’s Salt Lake Valley.  In 1849 the US Army purchased Fort John, making it one of the posts established by the military to protect emigrants on the Oregon and Mormon trails. [2]

The fort grew quickly to serve a garrison of soldiers.  They constructed stables, officers housing, soldiers’ quarters, a bakery, guardhouse and a powder magazine.  All these structures are still at Fort Laramie today in various stages of repair and disrepair. During the summer the Park Service and the Fort Laramie Historical Society have people in authentic dress doing the everyday things that went on at the fort. [3]

 Fort Laramie as it was renamed after Jacques La Ramee and became the principal military outpost on the Northern Great Plains.  It also became the center of transportation and communication in the central Rockies.  Through it passed emigrant trails, stage lines, the Pony Express and the transcontinental telegraph.[4]

Fort Laramie is probably remembered for two treaties with the Northern Plains Indian Nations that were negotiated there.  The first was the Horse Creek Treaty of 1851 which was actually signed further east just past the Wyoming border in Nebraska on a flat spot where Horse Creek enters the North Platte River.  It was signed there rather than at the fort because the number of Indians that appeared at the signing were so numerous it had to be moved to a larger area to accommodate the people. [5]

The second was a highly disputed treated of 1868. This treaty among other things was supposed to keep white settlers out of the Black Hills of South Dakota at the northeastern boundary of Wyoming.  Fort Laramie was charged with the enforcement of the treaty.  At first they did, but as more and more miners and settlers moved into the area it became impossible for them to do it.  Disputes arose.  Settlers, miners and military died as well as Indians.  Policy changed toward the Indians and the 1868 treaty like so many others was never enforced. [6]

Fort Laramie became less important to the area as the Indian Wars came to an end and the Indian peoples were moved onto reservations.[7]  The building of the Transcontinental Railroad made wagon travel and the need for the fort less important. The last soldiers left the post on April 20, 1890[8] and sold at auction.[9]  The area was opened up to settlers on October 5, 1891.[10]  For 48 years it languished and fell into disrepair. In 1938 it became part of the National Park System and was refurbished.

Along with the fort a town grew up to the north across the North Platte River.  The small town still stands there today.  Their welcome sign says it all

Just after you cross the tracks to go to the Fort you will see a building decorated with American flags and buntings.  It sits in front of an RV park.  This is the Fort Laramie American Grill or FLAG.  It is a small restaurant and it is good to call ahead to make reservations (you can do so on line) or if you don’t mind sharing a table with someone you don’t know you can take your chance at the busy hours.  FLAG is one of the best restaurants I have eaten at.  A husband and wife from Boston 

wikapedia free image[11]

moved west and started this business.  Make sure to stop by and have a Bison Burger or one of their other great menu items.  Say Lee Ann sent you and tell Paul “hi” for us. http://www.flagcafe.com/

Guernsey State Park mentioned earlier in the blog is just west of Fort Laramie. To the East is Torrington WY and just about 45 minutes further is Scottsbluff, NE.  All of these towns have historical significance to the Oregon Trail. Further South you can visit Wheatland and Cheyenne. 

I miss my visits to Fort Laramie on cool summer mornings or brisk autumn days.  I miss the mysterious peace I found sitting under those lovely cottonwoods by the river and the ghosts of the past that entertained me from the porch of Old Bedlam.

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[1] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[2] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[3] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[4] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[5] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[6] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[7] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Laramie

[9] http://www.nps.gov/fola/historyculture/folacrossroads.htm

[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Laramie

[11] http://wyoshpo.state.wy.us/trailsdemo/ftlrmie.htm