There may be life off the ranch, but any Fremont County farmer or rancher will tell you – The #aglife is “the good life!” #Aglife is a County 10 series, brought to you by Wyoming Community Bank, that pulls the curtain back on farm and ranch life in Fremont County.
You might say that Dale and Amy Hamilton haven’t traveled far since their days as Hudson Outlaws in junior high school. The Hamilton’s have a hay and cattle operation bordering Hudson on the east and the west sides of the historic Fremont County town.
They raised three sons on the place that has now expanded to 1528 acres, and all three boys, Brady, Jared, and Lance carry on the agricultural traditions that run deep in the family.
Dale’s grandfather Bob Hamilton and his grandmother, Abby Megeath Hamilton came to Fremont County from Ft. Bridger early in the 20th century.
The couple ranched on the Wind River Reservation near Mexican Creek.
Dale’s father, Dick Hamilton, returned from the U.S. Army in the Korean War and went into business with Bob and his wife Caroline Stober Hamilton on the reservation initially but later on the North Fork.
Dick later moved his hay and cattle operation to Hudson, making up part of the present Dee Cross Ranch.
Dick had three children, Dale, Chris, and Susan.
“We went to school together. She was friends with my younger sister,” Dale said.
Dale graduated from Lander Valley High School in 1975 and Amy in 1976. Amy is the daughter of Frank and Elia Sabo.
Amy was one of the first Lady Tigers to play varsity basketball and volleyball after Title IX brought girls’ athletics on par with boys in the 1970s.
“I played for Bob Carey, and later at Central Wyoming College for Fran Buckless, “ Amy said.
Amy played both volleyball and basketball for the Rustlers.
The couple were married in 1978.
Amy went into banking, working for 14 years at Atlantic City Savings and Loan as a loan officer.
Dale didn’t waste much time getting to work on the ranch.
“I knew what I wanted to do in third grade,” Dale said.
In 1990, they purchased their ranch on the east side of Hudson from Danny Brown.
“We bought it in May of 1990, “Amy said. “We lived in the hired hand’s house for a couple of years.”
In quick succession the boys arrived, Brady in 1979, Jared in 1983, and Lance in 1987.
Dale worked as a mechanic for John Deere from 1976 to 1992.
With a first grader, a toddler, and one on the way, the Hamiltons started a custom haying business in 1986.
“We started with a 1380 Hesston and a Hesston 4800, 4×4 square baler,” Dale said.
They worked in shifts, taking turns on the tractor.
“Dale would relieve me on the baler,” Amy said. “He did night baling I worked at the El Toro. I kept makeup in the car and a butane curling iron so I could go straight to the bank.”
Making ends meet for young farmers with growing families is a team effort.
Amy worked at both of Hudson’s legendary steakhouses, the El Toro and Svilars in those early years.
She also served 10 years on the Fremont County Fair Board and ran the junior livestock division at the fair.
They picked up adjacent land as it became available, buying 728 acres from Jerry Schroeder.
They irrigated with gated pipe and wheel rows at first but now have a pair of pivots on their 260 irrigated acres.
They run 300 mostly Angus cows and are cross-breeding many of them with Hereford bulls.
“They look for that hybrid vigor at the sale barn,” Dale said.
Dale’s grandfather lived in a log cabin on the reservation over a century ago, Dale and Amy have carried on that tradition in building their present home.
The immaculate log structure started as a 30×50 log building built with logs from Louis Lake. The original section of the house is all single logs, without a splice.
Dale built the house, finishing it on July 24, 1995.
Part of the charm of the place is a large dimpled copper stove hood that Dale created with a ball peen hammer and a big sheet of copper from Spriggs Sheet Metal. Embossed in the metal hood are the ranch’s two brands, H Quarter Circle and Dee Cross.
On the north side of their home, facing the busy county road that runs nearby, they built the “Library.” A sunken room with a library of books, but also a full bar, complete with barstools on the east side.
History runs deep at their ranch with reminders of days gone by. A concrete cistern once held water for an irrigation system but has long since lost its purpose. They cleaned it out, leaving the manhole at the top of the roughly eight-foot structure open. As often occurs in farming and ranching the unexpected came after restoring the old structure. A calf went missing and they found it at the bottom of the cistern. It was fine, but they had to lower one of the kids into the manhole to tie the calf and lift it back to its mother. Everyone was fine after the experience.
On another section of the place, a concrete “dip tank” survives the elements. Weathered and filling with weeds, the tank was once part of Hudson’s thriving stockyards. The Hudson stop on the Chicago Northwestern was the prime loading area for cattle as far as Dubois in the southern half of Fremont County. Pavillion and the northern sections of the Wind River Reservation used similar yards in Shoshoni.
“They wouldn’t allow the cattle to be shipped back east until they’d been dipped,” Dale said. “They walked them into the tank on a slope and they walked back up another slope on the other end before they were herded to the stock pens.”
Though Dale and Amy own the ranch, the message didn’t get through to their pair of sometimes working dogs Cowlee and Bo.
When Dale and Amy walked toward their John Deere Gator to check wells on their property and on the BLM Leases they hold nearby, Cowlee and Bo were in the bed of the Gator before anyone had the chance to open a door.
The Dee Cross Ranch is thoroughly modern, with solar-powered water tanks, and high-end genetics in place, but the wilderness is just outside their front door, or sometimes in the garage.
Lance and his family returned home recently and found a huge rattlesnake in their garage.
“We found some little snakes on the road one day and thought they were garter snakes,” Amy said. “They turned out to be rattlesnakes from a den nearby.”
Their three sons are all extremely active in the ag community of Fremont County. Brady was a mechanic at Brown Company for many years but purchased Wyoming Hay Cubes from Llyod Dechert three years ago and purchased some of the Dechert ground. His operation is at the far north end of Burma Road.
Brady’s wife, Brandi (Homec) has strong roots in Hudson as well. They have two children, Lillyan and Kaleb.
Jared owned Wyoming Custom Meats but sold it in 2019 to Billy Brenton. Brenton named the Business Frank’s Butcher Shop and Jared now works as the manager.
Jared and his wife Jenny (Nauman) have three children, Cadence, Sadie, and Greyson.
Lance purchased Richard Haun’s farm and feedlot on North 8th West in Riverton and is currently feeding between 3,000 and 4,000 cattle.
Lance married Cori (Deneff) and they have four children, Samantha, Braxton, Braydon, and Branson.
Lily, the oldest grandchild, is a sophomore majoring in animal science, with an emphasis in livestock production. One of the Hamilton Angus herd bulls was a bottle calf, raised by Lily.
The plans for Dale and Amy are to continue on the ranch for a few more years. Their sons have expressed interest in taking over the operation when the time is right.
All three boys and their families live close by in Hudson, a grandparent’s dream.
“The place is here for them,” Dale said. “But I might be pushing up daisies.
Whether it’s Dale and Amy, one of their sons, or one of the grandchildren who are all active in agriculture, the Dee Cross is likely to remain a Hamilton operation for a long time.
“We’re like locusts,” Dale said. “Once we’re here, we’re stuck.”