The Wyoming Companion - Heritage and History

Wyoming Heritage & History

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Wyoming History -- Buffalo Bones
Ft. Laramie Living History
J. W. Powell & the Green River
Pioneer Woman Diary, Part 1
Pioneer Woman Diary, Part 2
Pioneer Woman Diary, Part 3
Heart Mountain

John Wesley Powell Explores Wyoming's Green River

In the late 1860's, Major John Wesley Powell and a survey party set out to explore and map the Colorado River and its tributaries. One of these tributaries is Wyoming's Green River which begins its meandering journey to the Colorado in Wyoming's western mountains. The following is an excerpt from his diary. It was written while exploring the Green River which makes its way from Wyoming to the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon and eventually to the Pacific Ocean.

Green River has its source in Fremont's Peak, high up in the Wind River Mountains, along glacial lakes and mountain cascades. This is the real source of the Colorado River and it stands in stark contrast with the mouth of that stream where it pours into the Gulf of California. The general course of the river is from north to south and from great altitudes to the level of the sea. Thus it runs from land of snow to land of sun.

The Wind River Mountains constitute one of the most imposing mountain ranges of the United States. Fremont's Peak, the culminating point, is 13,790 feet above the level of the of the sea. It stands in a wilderness of crags. Here at Fremont's Peak, three great rivers have their sources. Wind River flows eastward into the Mississippi, Green River flows southward into the Colorado, and Gros Ventre flows northward into the Columbia. From this dominating height, many ranges can be seen on every hand. About the sources of the Platte and the Big Horn that flow ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico, great ranges stand with their culminating peaks among the clouds and the mountains that extend into Yellowstone Park, the land of geyser wonders are seen. Yellowstone Park, at the southern extremity of a great system of mountain ranges, the northern Rocky Mountains, sometimes called the Geyser Ranges.

This geological province extends into British America but its most wonderful scenery is in the upper Yellowstone Basin where the geysers bombard the heavens with vapor distilled in subterranean depths. The springs which pour out their boiling waters are loaded with quartz and the waters of the springs flowing away over the rocks slowly discharge their fluid magma which crystallizes in beautiful forms and builds jeweled basins. To the north and west of Fremont's Peak are mountain ranges that give birth to rivers flowing into the great Columbia.

Conspicuous among these from this point of view, is the Great Teton Range with its towering facade of storm carved rocks. Then the Gros Ventre Mountains, the Snake River Range, the Wyoming Range, and still beyond the latter, the Bear River Range are seen. Far in the distant south, scarcely to be distinguished from the blue clouds on the horizon stand the Uintah Mountains. On every hand are deep mountain gorges where snows accumulate to form glaciers.

Below the glaciers throughout the entire Wind River Range, great numbers of morenal lakes are found. These lakes are gems. Deep sapphire waters fringed with emerald zones. From these lakes, creeks and rivers flow by cataracts and rapids to form the green. The mountain slopes below are covered by dense forest of pines and furs. The lakes are often fringed with beautiful aspen and when the autumn winds come their golden leaves are carried over the landscape in clouds of resplendent sheen. The creeks descend from the mountains in wild, rocky gorges until they flow out into the valley. Leaving the mountains, the river meanders through the Green River Plains, a cold and elevated district much like that of northern Norway except that the humidity of Norway is replaced by the aridity of Wyoming. South of the plains, the Big Sandy joins the Green from the east. South of the Big Sandy, a long zone of sand dunes stretches eastward.

The western winds blowing up the valley drift these sands from hill to hill so that the hills themselves are slowly journeying eastward on the wings of arid gales and sand tempests that may be encountered more terrible than storms of snow or hail. Here, the northern boundary of the plateau province is found. For mesas and high table lands are found on either side of the river.

The great basin which lies to the west of the plateau province forms a part of the basin range province. In past geological times, it was the site of a vast system of lakes but the climate has since changed and the water of most of these lakes has evaporated and sediments of the old lake beds are now desert sands. The ancient lake shores are often represented by conspicuous terraces, each one marking a stage in the height of the dead lake. While these lakes existed, the region was one of great volcanic activity and many eruptive mountains were formed. Some burst out beneath the waters. Others were piled up on the dry land. These badlands are of gray, green and brown shales that are carved in picturesque forms.

Domes, towers and pinnacles and minarets and bold cliffs with deep alcoves and all are naked rock and sediment of an ancient lake. These lake beds are filled with fossils, the preserved bones of fishes, reptiles, and mammals of strange and often gigantic forms no longer found living on the globe. It is a desert to the agriculturist, a mine to the paleontologist, and a paradise to the artist.

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Diary of a Wyoming Pioneer Woman, Part 1

The story of Aurelia Paez Jordan is a "composite oral history" of a Wyoming Pioneer Woman. Historian Bernice Harris who worked with the Wyoming Council for the Humanities in the 1980's researched the diaries of many of Wyoming's woman pioneers and put them together into one character. Aurelia Paez Jordan is fiction -- but she's historically accurate fiction.

The text presented here was originally intended as a live performance by Ms. Harris. It was written to be spoken and heard rather than read. It was adapted by Wyoming Public Radio for a radio history series called "Visions of the Past". What we present here is only a portion of the complete performance of the words and thoughts of Aurelia Paez Jordan, who moved to Wyoming with her husband and two daughters in the late 1800's and settled near Evanston, Embar and Owl Creek, Wyoming.

Now, David was born in 1886. That was the summer that it didn't rain all summer long. I know some of you remember that summer. By July, there wasn't anything green around, and by August, the dirt and the hills and the pastures were brown.

Well, then the snow came, and it did come late that year, but when the snow started coming down, it just piled up and piled up, and of course, there wasn't enough feed to begin with for the cattle. Well, up in Montana, that was the winter they called the "winter of white death", and it was because a lot of cattle died that winter.

Well, that spring, the spring of '87, Mr. Jordan and I rounded up what we had, and we'd lost maybe 40 percent of our herd. Now, we were lucky 'cause some had lost 80 or 90 percent of their herds. But we knew that it was gonna be hard to keep that ranch going, losing that much. We talked about what we were gonna do. Now, Mr. Jordan and I, we didn't know nothing else, and well, we decided we could keep the ranch going, and we knew it would be hard, and we knew we'd have to take a long time to make up for that winter.

Well, it did take a long time to recover, but life does go on, and the girls were six and eight that spring. They were old enough to help me out a bit, especially Lou. She loved the boys and, oh, she'd just entertain them for hours. Of course, Ginny...she was different. She'd take off and roam the hills or she'd be out there with her dad, "helping", she'd say. Of course, her way of helping was to sit on top of the corral fence for hours on end and watch. That's one little girl that never had a pair of clean white bloomers for very long. One day, in a brand new pair, and she'd have the three shades each of brown and gray...from pitch, dust, dirt and mud. She seemed to love the dirt the way I did. Well, I couldn't blame her much. She was out there doing what I'd done all my years growing up in Texas, and those two years we were down near Evanston City. I was glad somebody got to do that, because my days of being fancy free were over.

Oh, I had endless work. I made the bread and the butter and our soap. I made all our clothes, and I did the washing and the cooking and, well, trying to keep those little boys out of trouble. You know, people call Wyoming "the Equality State". Well, I'll tell you why. It's 'cause we women worked just as hard as the men do and, of course, now, the men...they know it. We do different work, but we work just as hard and the men respect us for it. Why, Mr. Jordan, he never called it HIS ranch. It was always OUR ranch. He thought of us as partners. Well, those years passed, and there was hard work, but somehow it just made you want to work harder.

"Visions of the Past", the public radio series that adapted the story of Aurelia Paez Jordan, was produced for Wyoming Public Radio with funds provided by the The Wyoming Council for the Humanities; The Wyoming State Historical Society; and The University of Wyoming American Studies Program.

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Diary of a Wyoming Pioneer Woman, Part 2

The story of Aurelia Paez Jordan is a "composite oral history" of a Wyoming Pioneer Woman. Historian Bernice Harris who worked with the Wyoming Council for the Humanities in the 1980's researched the diaries of many of Wyoming's woman pioneers and put them together into one character. Aurelia Paez Jordan is fiction -- but she's historically accurate fiction.

The text presented here was originally intended as a live performance by Ms. Harris. It was written to be spoken and heard rather than read. It was adapted by Wyoming Public Radio for a radio history series called "Visions of the Past". What we present here is only a portion of the complete performance of the words and thoughts of Aurelia Paez Jordan, who moved to Wyoming with her husband and two daughters in the late 1800's and settled near Evanston, Embar and Owl Creek, Wyoming.

Eighteen ninety came and Wyoming became a state. And a lot of things were changing here in Owl Creek. More and more families were moving in, and old Slim Murphy, he started a saloon down on his ranch. But we didn't have a school yet. We used to trade off with other families, tried to run something like a school. Of course, we didn't have much in the way of teaching supplies. I think our standard reader was the Montgomery Ward catalog.

Then finally one summer, we all got together, and we built us a school down near Embar. Now, there was a post office there, and it was kind of central, and so we all got together and put up the building and then we ordered teaching supplies from a company in the East. And then we hired a teacher. There was an agency in Nebraska and we hired a teacher to come out in the fall. Oh, we were so proud of our school. But, you know, there was one problem that came up that we never counted on, and that was the fact that we could never keep a teacher! Oh, we did have a young man here one year, a real nice young man from somewhere in Nebraska. I think he was a nephew of somebody's. But after a year of teaching, he decided he wanted to homestead, so we lost him. Of course, I can't blame him much. There's nothing like working your own land.

All the other teachers, they were young women. Oh, some of them would be barely seventeen. They'd pass the State Teachers' Examination, and they'd come out, and they'd live with a family and teach at the school. Of course, now, there weren't too many single women around, and a lot of cowhands. Well, it seemed like, by December they'd be courting and then by March, they'd be in love and, well, every June then, we had a wedding. And, of course, we'd have to order another teacher. Well, I guess that's one thing we learned to count on, and that was good old Mother Biology!

Now, it wasn't long then before Lou was our teacher. Oh, I was so proud. She was our teacher there at Embar....my little girl! Of course, now, what we did is we sent all our kids to high school in Thermopolis. They'd ride into town on a Monday morning, and they would stay with a family in town through the week and help out for their board and room and, of course, they'd work on the ranch on weekends. And one by one, that's how they went to high school.

Well, Lou, she finished high school, and passed the Teachers' Exam, and she was back at Embar and she was the teacher. Well, sure enough, just like all the others...by December she was courting, and by March she was in love. And that June we had a wedding.

And, oh, that Ginny! She was the picture of me in my younger days. Only she didn't ride sidesaddle. Not Ginny! She'd ride to work right along with the men.

Well, Mr. Jordan and I, we were just beginning to think about changes for us. We knew that it wouldn't be long and the boys would be running the ranch and, well, in a lot of ways, we'd lived our dreams. We didn't have a big ranch, but we had a ranch that was enough to feed us all and provide for us. Our children were almost grown and we looked forward to the years ahead with maybe a little less work and with grandchildren to spoil.

"Visions of the Past", the public radio series that adapted the story of Aurelia Paez Jordan, was produced for Wyoming Public Radio with funds provided by the The Wyoming Council for the Humanities; The Wyoming State Historical Society; and The University of Wyoming American Studies Program.

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Diary of a Wyoming Pioneer Woman, Part 3

The story of Aurelia Paez Jordan is a "composite oral history" of a Wyoming Pioneer Woman. Historian Bernice Harris who worked with the Wyoming Council for the Humanities in the 1980's researched the diaries of many of Wyoming's woman pioneers and put them together into one character. Aurelia Paez Jordan is fiction -- but she's historically accurate fiction.

The text presented here was originally intended as a live performance by Ms. Harris. It was written to be spoken and heard rather than read. It was adapted by Wyoming Public Radio for a radio history series called "Visions of the Past". What we present here is only a portion of the complete performance of the words and thoughts of Aurelia Paez Jordan, who moved to Wyoming with her husband and two daughters in the late 1800's and settled near Evanston, Embar and Owl Creek, Wyoming.

Then in 1902...that's when it happened. It was in the early morning in the spring. One of our boys, Matt, and Mr. Jordan always got up early and they'd leave the house and work outside a bit, and then they'd come in for breakfast. Now, in the spring and the summer, I always had breakfast on the table at eight, and in my house, if you wanted a warm breakfast, you came in at eight. Now, oh, I know once in a while there would be trouble, and they'd have to send somebody in to tell me that they'd be a bit late, but they'd always send someone.

And I remember that morning so well. It was so pretty out. It had rained the night before and, well, there was water on the grass. You could see it sparkling; and there was a bird up in the cottonwood tree as I was coming back to the house after I got the milk. Well, I remember, too, looking over at my garden and thinking about how it wouldn't be long before it would be time to plant. Well, I fixed breakfast like always and I had it on the table at eight. Eight o'clock came and they weren't there; and I'm thinking, "Well, they can eat it cold".

Well, by 8:15 I was beginning to wonder what had happened because nobody had come in to tell me why they were late. By 8:30 I was getting a little worried. You know, it's times like that you always think the worse, but I don't think you ever really believe it.

By a quarter to nine, I was getting my shawl and I was gonna go see what had happened, when Matt walked in. His face was all white. And I said, "What happened, Matt?" He started crying. It seems they had gotten up early and headed out to the south pasture that morning. They had a filly down there that's about ready to foal, and they wanted to bring her up near the house so they could keep an eye on her. Mr. Jordan was riding a horse that he had broken just the summer before; but that horse had been turned out all winter and, well, the grass was so green that spring and the horse was kind of feisty. He hadn't been ridden much.

I guess that horse shied at something and Mr. Jordan just kind of pulled up on the reins a bit and said, "Now, quit it". Well, I guess that spooked the horse, because it started jumping and well, that surprised Mr. Jordan and I guess he was bucked off. I guess that surprised the horse even more because he was just a going up and down. Well, the horse came down on Mr. Jordan. You know, Matt said he finally got that crazy horse out of the way and he got over to Mr. Jordan, and he was holding him, trying to figure out what to do next...when he died.

Matt told me later, he said he sat there for the longest time just a praying to God that it weren't true. Well, I survived. It wasn't easy. Mr. Jordan was my life. I never thought I'd have to live so much of my life without him. Oh, I knew he might go before me, but I thought we'd both be kinda old, and I'd be ready for it.

Our other boy, David, came home from school and said he could finish by correspondence course. I don't think he ever did. David, Matt and I sat down and talked about what to do. Well, I knew I could work on the ranch outside just like a man. I was young by my standards. I was in my late forties and my body was strong and I knew the three of us could keep the ranch going. I knew the neighbors would help us if they could.

It was hard work, but it's times like that I think the hard work is a blessing. Somehow we got through that time. Sometimes it was day by day and sometimes it was minute by minute.

"Visions of the Past", the public radio series that adapted the story of Aurelia Paez Jordan, was produced for Wyoming Public Radio with funds provided by the The Wyoming Council for the Humanities; The Wyoming State Historical Society; and The University of Wyoming American Studies Program.

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