Natrona County WY Archives History - Books .....Wild Horses 1923 ************************************************ 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 sdgenweb@yahoo.com May 5, 2005, 7:07 pm Book Title: History Of Natrona County, Wyoming WILD HORSES In the early days of Wyoming and up until the early '90's a great many wild horses roamed over the broad plains. Some of these horses had been tamed, branded and worked by cowboys and ranchmen, but when they were turned out on the open range for a few months they again took up with the wild bunch. Cowboys, stockmen and ranchmen often times trapped and caught these wild horses, and broke them, and as a general rule, after they were broken, they proved to be the equal of any of the horses, both in endurance and intelligence. About the first of June, 1890, a large bunch of these wild horses were ranging in the Salt Creek country, and Joseph Slaughter, John Arnold and James and Charles Macy of Glenrock spent two weeks chasing the wild animals. The first band they encountered contained five horses and two mules, and they were all captured after a chase of sixty hours without intermission. The mules were the first to give up, and they were thrown and tied, and the horses were given the same treatment when they were caught. Another band of eleven animals were captured after being chased for seventy- five miles. The unbranded horses are called "slicks," but all of the bunch captured on this trip were branded, but they were all thoroughly wild, having roamed over the plains for a number of years without being molested. When the chase is first begun the wild bunch will run ten or twelve miles in a direct line, and then they will gradually circle back to their old range. The men would station themselves along the circuit with fresh horses, and the wild bunch was kept constantly on the run without rest, food or water, until they became exhausted and gave up. When captured they were fairly well broken before they had time to rest from the long chase. Sometimes a bunch of wild horses were chased for a week before they were captured, especially if the country was rough, where there was feed and water and an occasional draw or ravine where they could hide for an hour and rest, and sometimes when the wild bunch would get into this kind of country, they made good their escape. The wild horses in this country, however, like the wild west, are a thing of the past. You come across a bunch of horses occasionally on the range that appear to be wild, the same as you come across some men who would have you believe they belong to that class of men who thirty or forty years ago were rough and always ready for any emergency, but these fellows nowadays are as easily tamed as the bunch of horses on the range that have not been out of the sight of man for a week. Additional Comments: History of NATRONA COUNTY WYOMING 1888-1922 True Portrayal of the Yesterdays of a New County and a Typical Frontier Town of the Middle West. Fortunes and Misfortunes, Tragedies and Comedies, Struggles and Triumphs of the Pioneers and Illustrations BY ALFRED JAMES MOKLER Publisher of the Natrona County Tribune from June 1, 1897, to October 15, 1914 R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO (1923) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wy/natrona/history/1923/historyo/wildhors15gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wyfiles/ File size: 3.7 Kb