As young boys, we would trek out into this wild mecca with our BB guns and hunting dogs, free in life, with our nostrils full of excitement and adventure. I have many fond memories of sun-filled days with my hunting dog Coco, and my best friend Terry with his dog Trixie. We would hunt the ditch banks, thick bull rush, and tamaracks looking for anything that caught our attention. Our mothers would supply us with sack lunches and we would walk through the fields all day until sunset came, then we would be home just in time for the dinner bell.
Now, as you read this, you might think this is not too uncommon a scene, but in those days we were barely 8 years old. No one would have the slightest idea where we would be. We could walk 5-8 miles in less than half a day and explore the farmland, but our rules were strict and we were required to be home for dinner time.
Jump ahead to this day and age and you would need to be missing a couple of screws in the old noggin to allow your 8-year-old out into the prairie belt, alone with nothing but a dog and BB gun. I'm not sure we have more human predators today than we had back in those days, but one thing we do have and that is mass transportation and access to all areas of the earth on any given day. This is the change that has brought about the end of the good old days as we termed them.
The 1950's brought out the best in our country, as most of the war-weary adults turned their attention to the better sides of life. Big cars and fast food became very popular along with the silver screen. In Lehi, we had two movie theaters along with several malt shops of the era. You could watch your heroes on Saturday's for a quarter a show and then hit the malt shop for a cherry coke and a french fry for another quarter. This made for great entertainment and many memories for all. My favorite hero was Gene Autry and his horse Chief. I would sit as close to the front row of the movie house screen as I could and it felt like I could jump right into the scene and help Gene with the badmen, as he fought and shot his way through the show. Then, as he would pull out his guitar and sing his prairie lullabies, he would sway us back into our seats and ride into the sunsets of our dreams forever.
As my mind reaches back for some of those golden day memories, I find myself in the saddle on my dad's horse Cricket, following cattle as they were being driven west along the road towards Cedar Fort. My grandfather was a rancher/farmer and he would drive his cattle out to the mountains each spring, along with many other local ranchers that had property and permits for summer grazing in the mountains above Cedar Fort and Herriman, Utah. The local ranchers would congregate their cattle in some corral pens just East of the Jordan river bridge, west of Lehi.
Around the first of May each year the ranchers would start staging the cattle out at the pens and make ready for a Saturday drive out to the mountains. The final destination for the cattle would be in an area known to the locals as West Canyon. To this very day, this is a favorite camping, recreational, hunting area that most of the locals in the surrounding cities frequent during the various summer and fall seasons.
Back in those days, the Cattlemen's Association would hire a salt packer to ride and pack salt after the cattle arrived in the high ranges and keep an eye out for trouble if any should arise with the cattle spread out all along the mountains. When I was a young man I rode my horses along with this gentleman many times as he would pack salt, fix fences, and tend to the summer grazing cattle. I have many memories and stories from that era and all of them are special to my heart.
As the cattle drive would start, my grandfather and several other ranchers would take a pickup truck and lay a straw bale in the bed of the truck and make a soft bedding. Then they would take several newborn calves and tie their feet with twine, then they would lay the calves in the straw bed and have their mothers follow the truck slowly down the road and out west toward the mountains. The other cattle would see these cattle traveling out to the mountains and like herd animals, they would follow the mother cows along the 25-mile stretch and up into the canyon, until they were beyond several cattle guards and free to roam the mountain canyons and byways. Some of the cattle were used to the trip each year and they would gladly make the trek without any prodding, but others would be stubborn and that is where the work came in.
I remember my first all day ride, out on the cattle drive, I was barely 8 years old. I had gone on two previous years but I fell asleep both times on my horse and had to be put in the cab of the cattle truck by my Grandfather. This day would be different because I made the whole trip to the canyon and up through the second cattle guard. I remember being saddle sore for a week and every time I sat down at my desk at school my butt ached.
There would be many riders on some years and very few on others. People would show up from town, being asked by various ranchers to come and help drive the cattle out to the canyon so, on some years you would see all sorts of horses and riders. There were many horses that were winter sour and many cowboy wrecks over the years. I've seen cowboys after being bucked off their horses doing all kinds of somersaults through the air landing on the hard dry grain fields that dotted the landscape. Some horses would run off and it would take cowboys several days to locate them and have them returned to town. Other horses would shed their riders and then gallop joyfully out into the grain fields, just to enjoy some bigtime eating on the lush green sprouts that covered the ground on both sides of the road.
The cattle drive out to the canyon was a dusty dirty horse ride, because back in those days the road to Cedar Fort turned into a gravel road just past the crossroads where Walmart stands today. The drive would not stop once the cattle started heading towards the mountains. The Cowboys could not even stop for lunch or a saddle break, because when the cattle hit the dry farm areas they would need to be kept on the main road and off of the newly planted grain fields and this required a lot of hard saddle time and tired horseflesh.
The drives would take place at daylight and usually end late in the afternoon of the same day, which required about 8-10 hours in the saddle. After the cattle were pushed up the canyon a short way, then the drive for all intense and purposes was over until the fall roundup.
Fall time would find us saddled up again and riding the high range, herding the cattle back down the canyon and into corrals at the mouth of the canyon. From there, the cattle would be loaded in large trucks and trailers and hauled back into town and released into pastures and feedlots where they were fed summer hay, and silage throughout the winter months until the whole process started over. Some cattle were taken to the auctions and sold, while others were processed through the slaughterhouses that were found in Lehi and other local farming towns. This process of ranching was a mainstay for many Lehi ranchers back in those days, but today it is a small shadow of its former self. The cattle drive is gone and the massive herds of white-faced Herefords and Charolais cattle have all but disappeared from the local scene. There are still a few Cattlemen that raise Angus cattle that are very popular with today's restaurants, and the mountains are still grazed in the summer months but the large herds of cattle that once dotted the landscape are only a memory that some of us experienced back in the 50's and 60's.
A story that comes to mind during the spring cattle drive around May 1962 was witnessed by myself and several other members of my family and friends. That year the drive started off like many others before had and the cattle were following the calf truck smartly down the road. The day had been a successful one for the most part and there had not been any mishaps or bad experiences throughout the day. As the cattle were nearing the mouth of the canyon, some of the headstrong cows decided they were going to quit the main herd and find their own way up the canyon. About twenty head turned up a small canyon and headed for the military range that is now present-day Camp Williams. This was totally unacceptable and would put the cattle on the wrong side of a grazing fence that stretched 15 miles or more over towards Herriman. Several cowboys took off after the stray cattle and I asked my grandfather if I could go help. Being 10 years old and a good horseman, he said it was ok and to be careful. I followed the others as the horses broke into a lope up the sidehill and out of sight of the main herd. I was following a cowboy that was riding a horse he had borrowed from a man in town so that the horse could get the fluff rode off of him on the long cattle drive.
As we were tracking along a steep canyon sidehill, the horse in front of me turned quickly, put his head down and went to bucking down the hillside. The cowboy on top of him made about two jumps and then went flying through the air and landed in a tall patch of sagebrush. The big palomino horse bucked all the way across the canyon and out of sight over the next hill. I rode down to where the cowboy was picking himself up, and I got off and helped the best I could. He was alright but shaken up after the launching the horse put on him. He asked if I would go get his horse and I gladly said yes. When I rode to the top of the ridge I could not see the Palomino horse anywhere, he had disappeared.
As the story unfolded, several riders searched for the rest of the day and all of the following day but the horse could not be found anywhere. A week later at school, I was told by a friend of mine that knew the cowboy that had been bucked off, and he said that they found the big Palomino clear back in the Lehi lakeshore area. The frightened horse had shed its rider and made his way back 25 miles or more to the pasture that he had been taken from at the start of the cattle drive. When they found the big Palomino, he was gazing intently in his pasture with the saddle and headstall still on his frame. He had jumped the barbed wire fence upon his return and proved that nothing was going to stand in his way of good grazing and no work.
One odd year we had an early snowstorm in the fall that pushed most of the cattle off the mountain early, and down onto the roads west of town. My Grandfather had a young bull that he had purchased from a man back East. This bull was a special one and his breeding was new to the area for that day and time. He was a crossbred Semittal bull. They were much larger than the white-faced Herefords and the calves they produced would bring a larger price on the market. Some of the ranchers in the area had purchased some of these bulls and they were experimenting with them to see how they would fit in with the birthing methods in their herds.
Grandfather's bull named Willy was only two years old and it was his first year out in the mountains, so he was a rookie when it came to the fall and knowing when its time to head down off the mountains for the pasture.
After all the cows were gathered and trucked into town that year, it was discovered that a handful was still out in the canyon in the deep snow. A party of men was organized with horses and gear for the trek to the mountains to find the missing stock. I was asked to go that trip and before anyone could change their mind and say I was too young I had my horse saddled and ready to ride.
I remember that day was very cold. It was the first week of November 1964. Back in those days, the clothing we wore didn't have the insulating factors that our modern clothing is made of today. You wore cotton long johns and Levi pants with cotton flannel shirts. Your boots were regular cowboy boots so you could fit a spur on the heel. I remember my mom making me put on a pair of wool socks over my regular ones and when I put them into my cowboy boots they were so tight I could hardly feel my toes. Later in the morning, I was sure glad I had them extra socks on because when you're riding, your feet are not being used like when you are walking, so the blood doesn't circulate as it would normally. I was numb from the cold about an hour into the ride. My father rode up alongside me as we were searching the side canyons and asked me how I was doing. He could see from my purple lips that I was half frozen. He got off his slicker on his saddle and made me put it on and wrapped it around my saddle and buttoned me up so I was nice and comfy. I remember it made a big difference and I soon warmed up a little.
Well, as the story goes on, we split up our search and I was told to ride back down the canyon to the truck and see if I could make a fire so we could all warm up later in the morning. I cut my horse out of the bunch and started following the road back to the corral area. On my way, I spied some movement over in an area known as Muggins spring. I rode my horse up the narrow canyon and found Grandpa's bull Willy, and a small Hereford yearling calf. I worked hard by myself getting around the pair because they were frightened from the deep snow, cold and hungry. Finally, I got my horse above them and started them down for the road. When they hit that road, they shot down that canyon like they were on fire, and by the time I hit the road they had disappeared from sight. I continued down to the trucks and both of the cows were right against the gate. I got off my horse and pushed them into the corral and figured I would have a real story to tell, once my Dad and Grandfather got back to the trucks. Little did I know but the back gate to the corral was opened so the pair of cows ran out the back and down into the dry farm area. This made for a long day when everyone realized what had happened. We spent most of the day herding them back up the canyon and back into the corrals, so we could load them in the stock truck.
After it was all said and done, I remember I was so cold. I huddled on the floor of my Dad's truck on the way home. The heater was on the floor and I surrounded myself with the big yellow slicker and made a tent so I could feel the heat blow around my hands and feet. The cows were spared the harsh elements of the winter range and I had a story to tell. Looking back on that time of my life, I vividly remember that frosty morning with the ground frozen solid and the crunching sounds my horse made, as he broke through the crusted snow. I can see the two young cows as they approached the road and it all comes back in living color to my mind.
I grew up from that era and I'm thankful for the times I had and memories in my mind. Many years later when I became a man, I enlisted in the Army and after serving a time away from the farm, I came home to find my Grandfather was on the last of his trails in life. His cattle were nearly gone and so was the days of the big cattle drives. Many years late,r I painted a painting that resides in my home today of that cold November day and the memory of a young boy's adventure. I have included it here on my blog for others to view and enjoy.
Life has many memories for me, but the ones that strike my mind the hardest are those special few that I can really feel inside. As I close my eyes and dream, I can still feel the canyon air and the smell of horseflesh under me, as I ride along with the sounds of the cattle, as they bellow and moan while winding their way through the trails to better pastures.
