The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-02-23


it was dead level plain The cattle
drifted with the wind in a bee line
When they reached the barb wire fence
they had to stop. Hundreds of them
mad tried to get through the fence and
there they lay, some with their heads
through, some halfway through. but
all frozen to death. Against the fence
they We're piled up in layers. There
We're punches arriving all the time and
other punches standing huddled togeth-
er, not yet frozen to death. We cut the
fence and tried to drive the cattle
through. but the skin and flesh of their
legs We're frozen SO stiff that when they
moved and bent their legs patches of
the skin as large as your hand dropped
on | saw lots of yearlings. their legs
frozen and broken off. Hundreds of
hoofs lay scattered around where the
flesh above them had frozen stiff and
cracked off. Among the cattle were
antelope and mustangs so benumbed
and tame that we ride right up to them.
We drove Il herd Of 200 antelope ahead
OF US and at no time were we fifty
yards from them
1T was the most disastrous storm
to cattle ever known upon the plains.
The Arkansas river between La Junta
and Grenada was the dividing line of
ranch and was fenced with wire on
both banks The cattle came down by
big ranches on the Smoky and died
against the fences. In the spring. when
the river raised. dead cattle floated
down in RATS. That storm ruined many
a man. Billy Thompson had 500 cattle
which he bought the previous spring
Every head of them except one was
frozen to death. Milt Hightower was
offered $35. 900 that fall for what cattle
he had in the Panhandle. He told me
/ the next spring that he would take
$500 for all he had brought through
the winter. Tt broke him and he has
never recovered his fortunes. He is
now living in Trinidad. Colo.'
Thomas Hutton, now in the livestock
business at the Kansas City stock
yards. spent that winter on the head
waters of Black Bear creek, sixty miles
from Pawnee agency. He says that the
winter of 1884 and 1885 was fully as
hard as the following one. but they
were both the most severe ever known
in Oklahoma. In November, 1884, it
sleeted and blew for fifty-two days
There was a foot of snow over all the
plains, and on top of it a frozen crust
so strong that horses and cattle could
walk upon it.
ut was not only bitterly cold, but
the crust prevented the cattle from
getting at the grass and thousands of
them died from starvation. l had $500
head and only wintered $500 of them,
said Mr.. Hutton. I'VE chopped down
every tree we could find along the
creeks and fed the branches to the cat
tie. l saw cattle eat cottonwood limbs
as large as my wrist that winter They
kept gnawing at it till it was all gone
1t was the most pitiful sight 1 ever
saw. The believing of the cattle, slow
ly starving to death, would touch
heart of stone. We could do nothing to
help them. Among the cattle 1 knew
of that came through that winter alive
not 800 of them had their horns in nat
ural positions. The flesh at the base
of the horn froze and the root froze,
too. When il thawed the horn dropped
and hung down. / saw thousands of
cattle thus deformed and without tails.
l saw many without feet, Stumping
around upon the bones of their legs.
l came upon covey of quail frozen
Stih in the meager shelter of a tuft of
long weeds. / saw hundreds of jack
rabbits frozen to death. In the winter
of 1885 and 1886 President Cleveland
ordered all cattle out of the Cheyenne
and Arapahoe country, and they were
driven farther north to the Cherokee
strip. Out of 500, 900 of those cattle I
don't suppose that 100000 survived the
winter. Tom Shows pasture was north
of mine and barbed wire fence di-
vided them. In the great storm of
January, 1886, they drifted down ahead
of the storm until they struck the fence.
There they stopped and stayed until
they fell, then others pushed up upon
their carcaSSes and stayed until they.
too. dropped, and still others walked
up over them until the layers were so
deep that their carcasses tumbled over
the high fence and fell into my pasture
counted $50 in one of these piles.
We had 500 antelope in our pasture
that winter and the next spring not
more than ten of them were alive.
''The carcasses of the cattle frozen
in those two winters lay out upon the
plains for many years afterward In
the clear air Of that country a carcass
does not rot as it does up north. 1t
simply dries up and years after a steer
has died upon the plain you can ride
that way and find the hide with the
bones inside of it. 1 have eaten my
dinner many time sitting upon one of
these old dried SKINS
Eli Titus, now a resident of Kansas
City, was upon a ranch in the Cherokee
strip, sixty miles south of Caldwell
the winter of 1885 and 1886.
II lost that winter IA 900 head of cat
tie" he said the other day. "They We're
frozen to death. The snow was a foot
deep and there was a crust on top that
you could walk over and the cattle
could not paw to the sod, consequent
ly they grew weak from hunger and
they succumbed more readily to the in
tense cold that came later. / ought to
remember that winter we'll, for it broke
me financially Our firm was Hawins
& Titus. We lost so many cattle that
the next spring there were places upon
our ranch where you could walk for a
quarter of mile over the carcasses of
cattle. The average loss of all the cat
tie in the Cherokee strip that winter
was 40 per cent. Besides losing $4,000
cattle of our own, we were wintering
that year 1900 cattle for Plumb &
Lyle, and in the spring we gathered
only 1880 of them. The rest were frozen
70 death