Of Cattle and Men

One of the panel's associations is still on the move. The Upper Green River Cattle Association, first recorded on the trail in 1896, still pushes its herds nearly sixty miles north each spring from the desert to a common summer allotment on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, and the cattle drift back south when fall turns cold. In November 2013 the route, the Green River Drift, went onto the National Register as a Traditional Cultural Property, the first tied to ranching in the nation. Its riders now share the allotment with grizzlies and wolves.

What the plaque says

Of Cattle and Men You are standing just north of the route taken by thousands of people, cattle and horses migrating west on the Lander Cut-off, the northern fork of the Oregon Trail, starting in 1858. None settled here then. By the late 1870s, cattle from the west were being trailed back to stock Wyoming ranges. The first Sublette County herds were a mix of western cattle but generally not Texas longhorns. In 1878-79, Ed Swan's PL, Otto Leifer's Circle, D.B. Budd's Quarter Circle Six, Hugh McKay's Sixty-Seven and A.W. Smith's Muleshoe outfits settled on nearby Piney Creek. In the early open range days, Big Piney ranches pastured cattle east of the Green River in winter and west of the Green River in summer. The devastating winter of 1889-1890 killed up to 90 percent of the stock, and from then on, ranchers grew hay to feed livestock in winter. Hay meadows were built by clearing sagebrush, running ditches and irrigating the land. The Big Piney Roundup Association formed in the early 1890s to self-manage grazing on open range, and other associations followed. With the creation of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905, grazing fees were implemented for the first time on public lands. In 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act was passed to manage grazing on all federal lands through permits and fees. Sublette County's ranchers and grazing associations are proud of their history of stewardship on the range, which has helped keep our area beautiful and rich in wildlife. For more information about Sublette County's historic ranches and agriculture industry, visit the Green River Valley Museum in Big Piney. Sublette County Museum Board

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Mountain Man — 23 mi
  Six fur-trade rendezvous met near here on the Green; the only artist who ever saw one, Alfred Jacob Miller, came in 1837.

More markers nearby

• To All Pioneers Who Passed This Way (Big Piney) — steps away
• The Prairie of the Mass — 18 mi
• Green River Rendezvous — 19 mi
• Narcissa Prentiss Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding — 19 mi