Laramie County WY Archives Biographies.....Mason, Augustus H. 1873 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/wy/wyfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 28, 2011, 5:01 pm

Source: See below
Author: A. W. Bowen (Publisher)

AUGUSTUS H. MASON.

   Belonging to that public spirited class of men identified with the live stock
industry, Augustus H. Mason, of this review, is entitled to more than a passing
notice in the list of Laramie county's enterprising and representative citizens.
His life forms an unbroken chain, linking the present with the past history of
the West, as his career has been confined entirely to the two states of Wyoming
and Colorado. His parents, Augustus and Lottie (Beebe) Mason, were natives of
Montreal, Canada, and of New York. For a number of years the father was employed
on the Erie Canal, but in 1866 moved to Colorado and purchasing land one mile
from Fort Collins engaged in farming, making his home in that part of the
country until 1892, when he came to Wyoming, locating on a ranch in the Platte
Valley which he had previously entered, and about 1866 he had begun dealing in
cattle, carrying on the business in different places until 1894, when he moved
to Nebraska, where he lived until the death of his wife in 1896, thereafter
coming to Wyoming, and until his death on April 8, 1901, he lived with his son,
Augustus. Augustus H. Mason was born on January 26, 1873, at Fort Collins,
Colo., and until his seventeenth year lived on the parental farm, attending the
schools of Fort Collins winters, during the rest of the year assisting his
father, growing strong and rugged and early developing the spirit of
independence and self-reliance by which his subsequent life has been
characterized. The habit of relying on himself was strikingly displayed in his
seventeenth year, when he left home and started out in quest of his own fortune,
going to Running Water, Wyoming, where he rode the range for one summer.
Returning to Fort Collins in the fall he spent the winter at home helping his
father, but in the spring he again took to the range, devoting the greater part
of the next year to cattle driving in Colorado. In 1891 he came to Laramie
county, Wyo., and settled on a place his father had previously taken up, and for
two years thereafter was engaged in cattleraising upon his own responsibility.
In July, 1893, Mr. Mason bought a stage line with headquarters at Alliance,
Neb., and for nearly a year thereafter gave his exclusive attention to its
operation. In the spring of 1894 ne purchased a livery barn in the town of
Gering, Neb., and carried on a livery business in connection with staging until
early in 1896 when he disposed of his Nebraska interests and, returning to
Wyoming, took up the ranch in Laramie county, two miles east of Torrington,
which he has since owned and operated. Meanwhile he lived on a ranch a short
distance west of Torrington, which he also owns, continuing to reside there
until the fall of 1900 when he changed his residence to the former place which
he still makes his home. This fine estate consists of 560 acres of fine grazing
land, lies in a beautiful valley and by a successful system of irrigation the
fertility of the soil has been greatly enhanced and its productiveness
increased. He devoted considerable attention to hay, from the sale of which no
small part of his income is derived, but his principal business is raising
horses, in which he has met with most gratifying success. He is also engaged in
the cattle industry, but not upon an extensive scale, although he has some fine
herds to which additions are being made from time to time. Mr. Mason is
up-to-date in all that he undertakes, conducting his affairs upon strictly
business principles, and by close application and good management he has
accumulated a handsome competence. He has made his home beautiful and
attractive, has provided liberally for his family and spared no reasonable
expense in surrounding those dependent upon him with the comforts and luxuries
of life. Like most western men he takes broad views of things and there is
nothing little or narrow in his make-up. A self-made man in the true sense of
the term, he appreciates the difficulties and trials which beset the beginner,
and is ever ready to encourage such with his advice, and in a more substantial
way should necessity require it. Liberal in his ideas and generous with his
means for the encouragement of laudable enterprises, he has won an enviable
position in the community, and his personal popularity is only circumscribed by
the bounds beyond which his name is not known. Mr. Mason is a married man and
has an interesting family of three children, namely: Eva I., Edith I. and
Florence B. The mother of these children before her marriage at Alliance, Neb.,
on January 5, 1897, was a Miss Gertrude A. Walsh, a native of Iowa, and a
daughter of Thomas and Kate Walsh, both of whom were born in Ireland, and are
now living on a farm in Scott's Bluff county, Neb. Fraternally, Mr. Mason is
affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America, belonging to the camp at Gering,
Neb. It is a fact worthy of mention that his mother was the second white woman
to locate within the present boundaries of Laramie county, Colo., the family
moving there before the country had been explored or surveyed, the only
inhabitants being Indians and a few scattering miners. His father was the first
man to drive a team from Fort Collins to Cheyenne. He was obliged to find his
way over a wild country which few white men had previously seen to haul lumber
for the construction of Fort Russell.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

PROGRESSIVE MEN OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO, ILL.
A. W. BOWEN & CO.
PUBLISHERS AND ENGRAVERS
1903


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wy/laramie/bios/mason51gbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wyfiles/

File size: 6.1 Kb