He was raised in the heat, smoke, and noise of iron furnaces as his family pounded out the first iron plows to open up the New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania countryside. John Cooper Burnet was born on June 6, 1865, in Newark, New Jersey, as the Civil War was coming to an end. His family business was in decline.
The iron plow dates back thousands of years to China. Thomas Jefferson made significant improvements to the design, but John Deere relegated iron plows to the dustbin of history with the introduction of his steel, moldboard design in 1837.
His father, Charles Alexander, knew the business was in decline. His mother, Frances Van Arsdale Norman Burnet, encouraged young John Cooper, his three brothers, Harry Wadsworth, Arthur Russel, and Frank, and his sister Julia to find other occupations.
At 21, in the spring of 1886, John Burnet left New Jersey with his friend Mose Spooner, for Wyoming Territory.
They took the Union Pacific to Rawlins, then rode the stage to Lander, arriving in May 1886. They began to explore the Wind River Indian Reservation, South Pass, and the High Country that would someday become Dubois.
Just a couple of weeks after they arrived, Spooner drowned trying to cross the Big Wind River at Merritts Crossing, the future site of Diversion Dam near Morton. Burnet couldn’t find his friend. Three weeks later, it washed ashore at Edmo LeClair’s ranch.
Burnet and Spooner were working for Metropolitan Life Insurance in New York City before they headed west.
Burnet found a job at a store owned by J.K. Moore in Lander in September 1886. He worked there, and at another store Moore owned at Wind River, located near present-day Milford.
Young John Cooper Burnet was an intelligent man, adept at languages and quick to learn and master new skills. As he worked at Wind River and in Lander, he studied the ways the settlers did things, and the customs and lifestyles of the Arapaho and Shoshone people.
He became a master of Indian Sign Language and was eventually fluent in both Arapaho and Shoshone.
At Fort Washakie, troops of the 9th and 10th United States Cavalry served at different times. J.K. Moore had a large store at the fort, and another one, almost as big, at the Office of Indian Affairs headquarters at Wind River.
The demand for goods for ranchers, government workers, and tribal members was brisk. Burnet impressed everyone he served with his friendly attitude, diligence, and hard work. If someone required something in the middle of the night, a knock at John Burnet’s door had him opening the store and providing the item.
In April 1897, his father passed away in New Jersey, and John received an inheritance. He took the money, the skills he learned from J.K. Moore, and the relationships he’d built with Native Americans and ranchers and started the plans for a store at Arapahoe, roughly 25 miles east of Fort Washakie.
The Office of Indian Affairs had a sub-agency at Arapahoe. The animosity between the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho was a problem. These two tribes were traditional enemies, and after the U.S. Seventh Cavalry was defeated at the Little Bighorn in June 1876, the Arapaho were forced onto the Shoshone Reservation, with concessions made to Chief Washakie and the Shoshone people.
The establishment of the sub-agency at Arapaho alleviated a lot of the concerns, and violence that sometimes erupted between the two ancient enemies.
Burnet was a cautious, calculating man. Now in his mid-30s, Burnet sought the counsel of many of the Arapaho elders in deciding where or even if he should build his store.
Part of the process was applying to the Office of Indian Affairs for a sutler’s license to operate a store within the confines of a reservation.
His Arapaho friends encouraged him to open the store. They knew it would cut down on travel to Lander, Wind River, or Fort Washakie and provide a great service to the many Arapaho families living in the area.
Acquiring the license took almost a year, but in 1898, “Burnet’s Store” opened on high ground between the Big and Little Wind Rivers.
The store was a hit. By 1901, Burnet enlarged the store, increased his inventory and the area around the store grew more populated.
Burnet was a well-liked, respected businessman who treated all his customers fairly, something the Arapaho and Shoshone people sometimes didn’t experience in Lander. When you shopped at Burnet’s Store, you got your money’s worth; that was the prevailing attitude among all his customers.
In 1904, he incorporated, creating the Arapahoe Mercantile Company with John Cooper Burnet listed as secretary and business manager.
In 1906, he opened the Arapahoe Post Office inside his store and served as postmaster. Business was booming. He built a two-story hotel adjacent to the store. It was furnished lavishly for the area, had a hotel restaurant that served outstanding meals, and served as the hotel manager.
Burnet never married. Without a wife and family, he was able to devote all his time to his businesses.
The store expansion, hotel, and restaurant were well timed. Burnet had connections in Casper and learned of the plans to advance the Chicago North Western Railroad to Lander earlier than anyone else in Fremont County.
The Chicago North Western built a station at Arapahoe. The passenger depots were used most often in Shoshoni and Lander, but livestock became the mainstay of the Arapahoe Station, especially cattle shipping, along with Hudson, and for sheep in Moneta, east of Shoshoni.
When the McLaughlin Agreement opened the Northeast area of the Wind River Reservation to homesteading in 1906, Burnet already had choice parcels selected, had filed his own claim, and was serving as agent for others for whom he filed.
Burnet had the dream of a large farming community around Arapahoe, with the Arapahoe people changing from their traditional nomadic lifestyle to a more agrarian one.
To aid his Native American friends, Burnet designed and helped construct many ditches off the Popo Agie River, and the Little and Big Wind Rivers.
He was more than a respected man among the Arapaho people; he was a friend, a confidant, and an advisor to many.
His fluency in both the Arapaho and Shoshone languages greatly aided his business. Few whites were able to speak either, and he spoke both. With the arrival of other tribal members, he could converse just as easily in sign language.
In a narrative written about Burnet in 1938 by his friend Walter T. Schmehl, this relationship was explained:
“A strong friendship thus was created between Mr. Burnet and the Indians, and they came to him for advice in their troubles, comfort in their sorrows, and help in their financial difficulties. It might be said that not only did the Indians come to him, but also the white settlers. His name was known by the greater part of the people of the state of Wyoming, and his honest dealings with his fellow men were often spoken of by both his enemies and his friends.”
With John Cooper Burnet, you always had a fair word or a fair fight. He was respected for that.
“He aided the Indians in the building of the ditches and hired men to teach them how to farm, as he always figured that if he could once get the Indians to settle on their allotments and become farmers, his store would prosper and the community itself would become prosperous. Schools and churches would be built, and the people would be happy and cheerful,” Schmehl continued.
Before the arrival of the railroad in 1906, Burnet made the 130-mile trek to Casper for supplies. It was a major enterprise with dozens of freight wagons.
“The goods for his store were all freighted from Casper, before the railroad came to Arapahoe, and he usually took forty teams and Indian drivers, together with their families, with him when he went to Casper for the supplies. It was a long, hard trip, and a great deal of patience had to be displayed in the handling of the caravan to get something done,” Schmehl wrote.
Burnet established an apple orchard below the store, a popular trend in Fremont County at the time, with large orchards in Red Canyon, Sinks Canyon, and Hailey.
Burnet ventured north of the Wind River Canyon, buying land along the Greybull River.
With livestock transportation much easier thanks to the railroad, Burnet began purchasing pure-bred bulls and stallions, increasing the vitality, survivability, and value of local cattle and horses.
“He was always starting ventures of some kind with his own money, thinking that others would keep them going by contributing time, money, and effort,” Schmehl wrote.
Distant financial woes back east, in the land the Burnet had migrated from, led to the end of his store. The Financial Crisis of 1913 led to the creation of the Federal Reserve in December, but the damage at the Arapahoe Mercantile couldn’t be undone.
His inventory expired on the shelves with few customers since money was so tight. Burnet extended credit to anyone who asked. In the end, this is what closed his operation.
“The many friends whom he had helped and worked honestly for refused to pay their just debts, and the store went into the hands of a receiver, thus ending the remarkable business which Mr. Burnet had started and the community which he had built up, slowing up the agricultural development of this vicinity for many years to come,” Schmehl wrote.
Burnet wasn’t finished the Fremont County or the Wind River Indian Reservation. He began working for the Indian Irrigation Service at Wind River in 1919. For the next dozen years, he defended native farmers, designed laterals to the many canals being built in the county, and served as an advisor to hundreds of early farmers.
In an unanticipated series of events, eastern writers and Hollywood movie producers began to seek out Burnet. He was used as a research tool and as an interpreter for non-English speaking Shoshone and Arapaho people. The era of the “Old West” was ending. The stories of the cowboy, the homesteader, and primarily the free-ranging Native American were fading into legend. Burnet filled in the blanks for many researchers and was able to translate the stories from Native people for the writers and producers.
In the late 1920s, he began to experience digestive problems. He was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1931. He had a successful operation to remove the tumor, but at 68, and with a reduced immune system from cancer. He passed away in November 1931.
He’s buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Lander.
“He lived a life of sacrifice, never lost his faith in men even though they contributed to his financial failure; and whose faith, patience, and endurance were never shaken, even when it seemed that the world had forsaken him,” Schmehl wrote. “Although his friends were annoyed at him, he still carried on because he was a friend to all, and never an angry word fell from his lips, even though many angry words were spoken to him. He did more for the community in which he lived than any other man before him or since. His name should go down in our local history as a true benefactor and an outstanding man.”
The store closed forever in 1914, the hotel with it. Chicago North Western closed the rail station. The Arapahoe Post Office he established served the area until 1966, when it too was closed.
The man, the buildings, and the businesses are gone, but the water still flows in the many ditches he helped build and his legacy lives on.