The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1883-10-27
PAST. PREsENT AND FUTURE OF
WYOMING.
laramie BoomerangJ

Laramie BoomerangJ
Some writer has said that no portion
oi the globe is at this time so full OF
mighty possibilities. or so rich in prom.
lses ior the future, as the broad stretch
Of rich territory lying west OF tho Missia-
sippi, and this assertion comes rs near
the truth as newspaper man dare get.
Bat lew years ago this portion OF the
Union was, very appropriately, termed a
wilderness. The coyote squatting in the
shelter Of the outrageous sage tree sang
his tnneful lay, and the cactus stood
sadly in the midst OF the wide expanse of
country known as the Laramie plains,
with no human being to love it and cher
ish it-and sit down on it. The very
thought OF an orphan cactus being
doomed to sit in eternal silence, with no
kind word or look for centuries, and with
no picnic party and no soft-eyed young
man with ice cream pants on to come and
nestle lovingly down on its fuzzy bosom.
is sad enough to draw tears from the
eyes OF Bob Ingersoll himself-at the
usual Star Route price. Until lately,
too, the Westerner who ventured across
the Missouri River was looked upon as
curiosity, and the people watched him
with apprehension for fear he might be
loaded. Within the last half score of
years. however, the West, particularly
this portion of it, has waltzed to the
front and demanded recognition among
the countries of the world, and got it,
too. The only objection to
farming On the plains is that the land
comes pretty high--about 5000 feet.
The assertion, however, that there is al.
ways sea breeze blowing at that eleva.
tion, just moving the leaves of the trees
and blowing the cellars out from under
the houses occasionally, is false. True,
sometimes whisper OF wind springs up
on the starboard iib and blows about due
west by galley-west for an hour or two,
but nothing heavier than corner lots with
bigimortgages on them have been blown
sway that We ever heard Of
Raising cattle in Wyoming's chief in.
dustry at this writing. With a good
branding iron the humble ranchman can
get up a pretty nice little herd in a few
years. One who went into the cattle
business up in the Sweetwater four or
five years ago, with an /. c. mule and
healthy iron is now worth a million.
He carried a charcoal furnace with him,
and had the brand tied to rope. He
kept the iron hot, and could throw it 80
as to leave his brand on every maverick
he saw, if he could get within twenty
yards of it. He just branded all the
cattle he could find every spring. and let
nature take her course.
II tell you, pard," said old Jimmy
Cannon, the guide, to the writer recently,
the West has lost its romance. Only
little while ago, it seems to me, where
once there was nothing but the whoop Of
the Indian and the song Of the six shooter,
now there are railroads and churches,
and commercial men, and high schools,
and three-card monte men, and lecturers,
and daily newspapers, and, every little
while' a natural death. Why, within
the past two months, if the blasted "a.
pers tell the truth, several men have
died in Wyoming of disease. 1 tell YOU
it looks as though US old.timers would
have to move away. When we have to
wait for lingering disease to snuff us out.
it's time to light out for the frontier"