1 Tapes: unknown (recording is missing) Transcript of Interview with Dan S. Budd Conducted by Cecil Roberts June 1, 1998 Disclaimer: The Bureau of Land Management Library does not verify the accuracy of the accounts by participants in the Oral History Project. Individual stories are voluntarily submitted and are placed in the Library's permanent collection. These histories are the personal recollections and perspectives of participating individuals and are not intended as a substitute for an official record of the federal government. Transcripts have not been edited and may contain errors. 2 INTERVIEW WITH DAN BUDD [Conducted June 1st, 1998, outside of Big Piney, Wyoming, by Cecil Roberts] CECIL: This is a BLM oral history interview. This morning, we are interviewing Dan S. Budd, rancher of Big Piney, Wyoming, with a long history in the area and a long history of relationship with BLM. The interview is being conducted on the morning of June 1st at Dan's ranch, outside of Big Piney. And the interviewer is Cecil Roberts. Dan, as we were getting acquainted, when we first came in this morning, you told me a little bit of the history of your family in the area and the ranch. Would you talk a little bit about that to sort of set the stage, please? DAN: My great grandfather came in this area with a trail herd out of Nevada. He had a brother in Nevada that after the Civil War that died, and he got word and went to settle the estate in Nevada. And he was a guard at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after the Civil War. And his brother, Phillip, had a ranch in what was now the State of Nevada. It had been part of the state Desert, the old DS church had established. He gathered the cattle up and took a partner in by the name of McKay to finance taking those cattle back. And they were to take them back to Abilene, to Kansas, because he had been a guard at Leavenworth, in St. Joe and sell those cattle. They got as far on the trail as Evanston at the three crossings and a money panic was on nationally. And the expression "not worth a continental" was the prime topic in those days. The banks issued script, and they operated on what they called script. So, in order to wait out the panic, they drifted up the Green River on the desert side on the Little Colorado River side, Little Colorado Desert side, and came up just south of where, east of where Big Piney is presently located, and crossed the river and made their camp and built a house to winter. And they wintered those cattle here. And it didn't look like there would be much chance of the market progressing much, so they decided that they would stay and raise the cattle. And that next year, my great grandfather went to Oregon and brought another trail herd in. The original trail herd was about 1,000 cows. The second trail herd was about another 2,000 cows. And they came in up out from Oregon. We don't know where he put the cattle together. We do know that 3 he had his picture taken in Seattle. We have a picture of him and on the tintype, it says Seattle, Washington. So, evidently, he got as far as Seattle and then put that trail herd together and came back in here. CECIL: Now the first time he came in was 1878? DAN: And '79 was the first. CECIL: Okay. DAN: So, then he kept a diary of, a daily diary. It was rather interesting. He touched things as feed, cattle that they'd lose or horses they'd lose when they camped that would get away from them, cattle would drift off from the night herds. And then they talked about feed. And even running into some buffalo still out on the Little Colorado Desert and even up in this area where a few buffalo were left. And in the diary, it would say, feed poor, short, and part of that reason was that through this area, the Lander cutoff where the Oregon Trail was established. And according, there were several reasons but one of the reasons was that the anticipation of the Civil War and the loss of the cotton market, they would, the Union was established, the Lander cutoff at the Oregon Trail in order so that they could trail those {***weather?***} bands from the migrant sheep outfits out of Canada and Idaho. And they trailed them through and sold wool, the clip and the wool and the mutton, the {***weather?***} bands to the Union army. The Lander cutoff was the first established federal road. They appropriated, Congress did, $30,000 as I recall the figure, can't recall it exactly, but that was part of the reason that the Lander cutoff was established. And then thousands of immigrants came through this country with their sheep bands going from Idaho east and then with the ever much growing western Oregon, the Oregon territory with all the grazing, it pretty well deteriorated most of the grazing in this area. At that time, they decided that it was being over grazed and the Spur outfit, which was English, ran a lot of cattle. They ran mostly steers and they ran around 10,000 steers, 2- and 3-year-old steers. They didn't sell anything till it was at least a 2-year-old. So, they established what they called the deadline. And that's this range of mountains right back here from Snider Basin south to 4 below Kemmerer. And that was called the deadline. What it was there were no migrant sheep bands or cattle herds could come through there. They had to deter and go south. And I asked my grandfather if there were any general conflicts and he said, well, he said, some sheepherders committed suicide. I said, how did they do that? And he said, well, they hung themselves to the wagon tongue. Evidently, they stood the wagon tongue up and tied the rope at the end of the wagon tongue. So, that was the starting of what later became was the public lands, the federal lands, which had been established back when the colonies came and those federal lands were from east of the Ohio River, everything west, and were all open for public use and for homesteading, grazing, whatever. The railroad lands had been taken out and the railroad started promoting people to move west to take those sections that the railroad had been given 20 miles each side of the railroad and to settle those, then the railroad would sell those to homesteaders. Well, Wyoming wasn't conducive to farming and ranching, only to grazing. And they established, the first that was established was the Rock Springs Grazing Association, which is a large grazing association, which got every other section of land along the UP railroad from Rock Springs, west of Rock Springs clear to Green River. CECIL: Do you know about when that was established, Dan? DAN: To come back to this area, in about early 1890, they had what they called the hard winter across the state of Wyoming. And it killed a majority of the cattle, most of the cattle. In fact, the Budd outfit branded over 3,000 calves, Budd-McKay, before the hard winter and after the hard winter, the next spring, they branded 320. They said that you could walk on Budd-McKay and Spur cattle from Big Piney to Green River City which is approximately 100 miles and never step on the ground. Those storms drifted on east. My grandfather and a fellow by the name of Tode Houston [Todd Houston??] were repping the Green River wagon when the Johnson County war broke out over in Johnson County. They didn't have any stake in the war, so they cut their cattle out and their horses and raided the grub box and brought those cattle back. CECIL: Repping. You use the word repping. What does that mean? DAN: They represented. CECIL: Okay. DAN: They were the rep, what they called the rep, and they represented all of the membership in the Green River, what they called the Green River Cattle Association. Those people that ran together here and were friends and belonged to the association. They came back and then that broke the major big cow outfits that were controlling basically all of the range, the federal lands, in the territory of Wyoming. It was at about that time to become a state. Then when that happened, it allowed the nesters, what they called the nesters, and that was a small homesteader to come in and they homesteaded and ran cattle and it was the start of the competition that led to, in some instances, over grazing of the public lands. CECIL: And this was about when? DAN: This was about early 1900's. CECIL: Okay. DAN: So, then the large, the railroad was pushing, the east was saying, go west young man, Horace Greeley said. And everything in the east was that the opportunities are all in the west. So, those people started to come in and settle this arid land. And basically because of our growing season, cattle or sheep were about the basic agricultural operations that will apply on this area. And as these small outfits came in and homesteaded, then as they would starve out, the bigger outfits would buy them up and they gradually built it back to larger, much larger, cattle operations again. And that took up until about ’19, after the First World War, they built those outfits up. And after the First World War, they had another economic downturn, right after the war was over, the First World War was over. And they were having a lot of problems with the veterans. They'd marched on Washington. They'd called MacArthur out to dispel what they called Cox's Army that was camped on the mall and demanding payment for service, severance pay, whatever. And the government, MacArthur was ordered to remove them off the mall and to disperse them. So, they had to come back and allow these people an opportunity to live or survive. And they came up with taking this land and establishing the Grazing Service about 1921 under Hoover and they allowed the additional 640-acre grazing homesteads which were very popular. And the outfits that were established would hire or either in the family or they would hire outsiders to come in and they would take up 640-acre grazing homesteads. They lived on them for a period of time, fenced them, and then they got a deed. They came in and took a lot of the better land with water and homesteaded it. Well, that withdrew that acreage out of the grazing, out of the federal public lands and it further contributed to the overgrazing problem and the conflicts on the public lands between the larger cattle operations and sheep operations and the smaller ones. So, they needed to do something, and they formed what they called the Taylor Grazing Act from a man, a Senator by the name of Taylor, out of Idaho. And that established the first of the Grazing Service. The first Director of the Grazing Service was Farrington Carpenter, and he went back to Washington, was an attorney, and had a cow outfit in Colorado out of Steamboat Springs or out of, not Steamboat Springs, out of Hayden, Colorado, where he was from. And he established the Grazing Service. And they set up the Grazing Service in order to try to administer and get some semblance of a grazing pattern and permits. And at that time, they withdrew all the land from homesteading. The last of the homesteads basically were taken about 1933. They were filed on and the last of them were under the first of the Roosevelt administration about 1933. They had to have them fenced and be living on them in order to prove up on them. Well, that started what later became, has evolved into what we know now as the Bureau of Land Management. There were several intervening Acts in between, FLPMA [Federal Land Policy and Management Act] and several others that have evolved during this period. CECIL: That was your first personal remembrance of relationship with the Grazing Service and BLM? DAN: Right. And they established Grazing Districts. One in Rock Springs and Pinedale, Kemmerer, and all these areas had originally one District Supervisor, and he would have the basic authority as they were working out the details and getting down of how to manage this great public lands or federal lands as they are today. It would generally be made up of one Director, and he had a board of, a Grazing Board that was established that would give him directions and they would meet with the committees and meet with the Grazing Board and then they would sit down and work out grazing permits, grazing areas, associations, these types of things. And then at that time, they were very interested in developing and improving basically the range resources and they spent a lot of time up until the Second World War building water pits because water was the key to a good grazing pattern. And a lot of water, when they allowed the homesteads to start, the water had been taken off the federal lands in many instances. So, a lot of these permits were pretty arid. They went out and established. They had a crew. In this area, they had a man by the name of Jim Greeny [Greeney??] and Ivan Vickers was the first of the BLM, the head of the Grazing Service in this area. And he could see the need to develop water to spread these cattle out and to get some semblance of a grazing pattern and establish a permit system. CECIL: Was he in Pinedale? DAN: He was in Rock Springs and Pinedale. CECIL: Okay. DAN: And at that time, CECIL: We're back on the tape after a short interruption. And, Dan, you were speaking about a Mr. Ivan Vickers who was the District Grazier or whatever the title was at that time. Was this your first relationship with the Grazing Service and BLM, and how did that fit together? DAN: Yes. The Grazier generally was pretty familiar with the area and was familiar with the operations. He had to become familiar with them to know how to establish your allotment or your number of cattle or sheep that you are going to be allowed to run and it was generally based on. It was similar to the commensurability that the Forest had only the BLM came out and looked and decided that you could run. You told them how many cattle that you ran, then they established your permit based on that figure. So, it was pretty much of a trust me type of a situation that ranchers told the District Grazier how many cattle that they ran on the public land and basically, they were fairly honest because he generally had a fairly good idea from his personal knowledge and from the Grazing Board of how many cattle or sheep these people ran. So, then they set up, basically, districts that were contiguous to your operation or close to contiguous with the operation even though some of the operations were spread out in different areas. So, that's the way they established the first numbers on the land. And it wasn't based so much on the carrying capacity of the land but with the entire use of these people. It was at that time, we were in the middle of a depression and were very sensitive to public opinion. And, of course, at that time, agriculture had a very big vote in Washington, DC, which made it extremely sensitive of Washington to accept these of agriculture interest. I can recall when President Roosevelt was elected that it had to be, basically, even though he won by a landslide, they had to wait to confirm it until the farm vote as they called it came in. At that time, people were engaged primarily in agriculture. So, it was a very delicate relationship with the District Grazier and the permittees and the elected BLM Advisory Boards that had been established at that time to give him direction and to allow input from basically the agricultural interests at that time, recreation and all of those things weren't even considered. So, basically the Advisory Board was made up of users and they met sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly meetings and discussed the problems, discussed areas, and worked through the District Grazier to resolve the conflicts and the other interests in managing what later became FLPMA then involved into BLM as we know it today. CECIL: What was the general nature of the relationship between the users and the District Grazier, even Mr. Vickers or whoever followed him. DAN: It was very good. Generally, you felt that he had your interests at heart, that he was doing everything that he could to help because it was extremely difficult times when you're going through a drought plus a depression, and a lot of outfits were going broke. A few of the outfits that could get capital were buying up some of the smaller outfits. But the basic relationship at that time between the District Grazier and the majority of the permittees was excellent. CECIL: And he was pretty much a one-man show, was he? DAN: A one-man show. He had to be very diplomatic and very knowledgeable and basically did a pretty good job of trying to compromise the conflicts between operators and protecting what he could of the land and setting up the basis of what's evolved much further than today. CECIL: Now, back in the beginning with the Advisory Boards, you know, there's the obvious question of a conflict of interest. They are in a position to influence decisions in their own favor maybe at the expense of their neighbors or whatever else. How did that work out in those times, Dan? DAN: Well, it was there, certainly. But, through the election process that they were appointed originally and then later became elected, it gave them not quite as much personal conflict. I know that some of the people that were on the Grazing Board, those are the only meetings they ever attended. And, certainly, it was for their own interests. And there was some, but in many cases that the Grazier was aware of this also and he took that, I'm sure, into some consideration as he made his deliberations. CECIL: And what we've been talking about is all pre-World War II? DAN: Up to World War II. CECIL: Yes. DAN: Then most of those in Interior being young men and pretty good with background all went to the service, a big portion of them. I think the Department of the Interior, the Grazing Service, probably had one of the highest casualty rates of any group of government employees. Many of them went to the Marine Corps. And, then when the war was over, they came back. CECIL: What about during the war? DAN: During the war, there wasn't anything really done. You had a district manager, you still had your Advisory Boards, and it was pretty status quo. They'd frozen the price of meat. Agriculture was pretty stable. The BLM ceased doing any land improvements at that time. Up until that time, they'd done quite a lot of land improvement. They'd done a few fences basically with CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] labor. And the CCCs would treat the posts and build fences where you needed them, and it was a start of more intense range planning that we've evolved in today. Started the allotment type instead of in the common practices that we see more of. CECIL: Getting into more individual allotments rather than group allotments? DAN: Right. CECIL: And then right after the war, of course, the Grazing Service and the General Land Office were merged to form BLM and that created, at least within the organization, quite some dramatic changes. How did that relate to relationships with permittees and the ranching operations? DAN: At that point, they started to expand the personnel and most of them started to get a staff of a full-time secretary, staff people on range, and many of these things that later developed. But this took a considerable amount of time because after the war was over, things were pretty stable. The veterans came back, and they were predicting a great depression similar to the First World War. But, it didn't happen. They had the GI