Few men had the life experiences of James Kerr Moore. As a youth, he met Abraham Lincoln, traveled with Jim Bridger, and became friends with Chief Washakie. Along the way, he established businesses in Lander and Fort Washakie. All in all, a remarkable man with an equally remarkable story.
James was born on Valentine’s Day, 1843, the oldest of five children. He was the only boy with four younger sisters and a stepsister.
His youngest sister was born in 1851. Tragedy soon struck the Moore family when his parents, Robert and Mary Moore died in a cholera epidemic that swept through their community in rural Georgia.
His widowed aunt, Rebecca Moore Ogden Bigelow, lived in Washington, D.C. “Auntie Bigelow,” Robert Moore’s younger sister, graciously took in James and his sisters.
James completed sixth grade, then went to work as a page in the United States Senate at 12. Two years later, as a 14-year-old, James took a position as a bailiff for the United States Supreme Court.
At 18, he was 6-2, very tall for the era, when he met Abraham Lincoln shortly before the March 1861 inauguration.
Lincoln, America’s tallest president with William Taft at 6-4 noticed the height of the young bailiff.
“How tall are you, son?” Lincoln asked.
When James replied, “Six feet two,” Lincoln laughed and reportedly said, “I could lick salt off your head.”
With the Civil War raging, James took a job as a clerk for McClelland, Blanchard and Mohun, a publishing firm specializing in maps. His interest in the American West started at a production table at the publishing firm.
James suffered from lung issues and severe allergies, as was common medical practice at the time, his doctor told him to move to a healthier climate.
In 1864, he headed west for the Montana gold fields with letters of introduction from a couple of Supreme Court justices and former U.S. Treasurer William Seldon.
James took the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad to Saint Joseph, Missouri, then caught a steamboat up the Missouri River to Omaha, Nebraska. From there, for $50 and agreeing to drive an ox team, he made it to Fort Laramie
At Fort Laramie, he joined a wagon train heading for Montana.
It was at Fort Laramie and on the following trek north to Montana that he came to know the Mountain Man Jim Bridger.
War was brewing on the trail north from Fort Laramie, but Bridger knew another route.
He took James and the others west from Fort Laramie, following the Platte River to the Platte River Bridge at modern-day Casper, then further west, connecting with Badwater Creek before leading the group over the future Birdseye Pass and into the Big Horn Basin.
The Big Horn Basin route took the party away from the hostile Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho and into the land of the Crow and Shoshone, two groups friendly to Americans.
Before crossing Birdseye Pass, Bridger set up camp at Badwater Creek, near present-day Lysite.
A Native American camp was found about a mile away. Not knowing if they were friends or foes, Bridger rode towards them with a white flag for a parlay.
As Bridger approached a half-dozen Native Americans mounted their horses and rode out to meet him.
When they were within voice range of each other, the Natives began shouting, “Bridger! Bridger!”
They were Eastern Shoshones, longtime friends of Bridger. With them was Chief Washakie, a close friend of Jim.
The Shoshones were hunting buffalo.
It made a huge impression on young James that his guide, a legend already in eastern dime novels, was a friend of the great Chief Washakie.
Little did James know that his life would become even more involved with the Shoshone people than the Mountain Man’s was.
They had a feast, exchanged gifts and Washakie gave them safe passage to Montana.
On the other side of the mountain, they found Kirby Creek about eight miles north of present-day Thermopolis.
The summer runoff was in full swing and travel was treacherous with flash floods and high water.
They constructed rafts from cottonwood logs and floated across the swollen Big Horn River.
They worked northwest, crossing the Greybull and Shoshone Rivers before reaching the Clarks Fork River in southern Montana.
James and several other young men in the party wandered along tributaries, panning for gold and looking to strike it rich, but none was found.
They arrived in Virginia City, Montana on July 10, 1864. Their trip from Fort Laramie had taken 55 days to cover slightly more than 500 miles.
Wyoming was five years away from receiving territorial status, and Fremont County wasn’t created until 20 years later.
Virginia City wasn’t for Jame Kerr Moore. It was rough, full of hard cases, criminals and mindless violence and nothing like what the young man had dreamed off back in Washington.
He quickly left and headed south to what would become Uinta County but was now in Utah Territory.
Bear River City was originally a small settlement called Gilmer until the Union Pacific Railroad arrived in 1868. James took a job as a station agent for the Holliday Stage Line operating out of Gilmer.
He worked for Holliday for two years from 1866 to 1867.
His entrepreneurial spirit kicked in when he saw the hordes of workers driving stakes, setting rails, leveling ties and dumping thousands of yards of gravel as the Union Pacific crews moved into the little town.
In 1868, with his partner Russell Thorp, James opened a mercantile in the newly renamed Bear River City.
Thorp was a freighter, earning his way by hauling potatoes from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City beginning in 1865. The railroad ended his freight operation but he had established customers on the Wasatch and used those connections to start his store with Moore.
Moore was just 25 years old and Thorp only 22 when they went into business together.
The two had skills that augmented each other. Moore was great with people and organization, Thorp knew supply, shipping and both were willing to take risks.
Some of their success came via luck. Thorp discovered a coal seam north of Bear River City, filed a claim on it and began selling coal to the railroad.
The Union Pacific brought business to the duo, and so did the local residents who earned their living on the Bear River, floating down ties for the railroad that they cut in the nearby mountains.
By 1868, Bear River City was the fourth largest community in the future Wyoming Territory, smaller than just Cheyenne, Laramie and Rawlins.
Moore heard rumors that the Union Pacific was soon to abandon Bear River City in favor of a larger depot a few miles away at the new town of Evanston.
He left the partnership with Thorp and took a position at the Fort Bridger Trading Post working for William Alexander Carter.
Carter was a veteran of Wyoming. He began his career in 1858 as the sutler at Fort Bridger. Born in 1818 he had traveled the West for decades.
He took an instant liking to young Moore.
James worked as a postmaster, managed a sawmill, lumberyard, and store for Carter, and also learned the cattle business.
In addition to his varied business interests, Carter served as Justice of the Peace and as the first probate judge for Sweetwater County when it was formed as one of the original five counties of Wyoming Territory in 1869.
Moore worked with Charles Becker and Maurice Groshon, Carter’s two sons-in-law.
Carter’s brother Richard ran a depot on the Union Pacific 10 miles north of Fort Bridger.
It became known as Carter Station. Judge Carter sent Moore to serve as the first postmaster at Carter Station.
Carter ran a stage and freight line from Carter Station to the Montana Gold Fields over South Pass and into Utah.
A year before, in 1868, the Fort Bridger Treaty established the Shoshone / Bannock Reservation in the valley of the Wind River 150 miles north of Fort Bridger. Part of the treaty came about to carve out the South Pass gold rush area from Native American control.
As part of the treaty, a military garrison was to be set up within the confines of the new reservation.
On June 29, 1869, Camp Augur, was established near present-day Lander.
Judge Carter had a solid reputation with the U.S. Army, especially the officers at Ft. Bridger. Since Camp Augur was initially an extension of Ft. Bridger, his request to set up a store and begin a freighting operation on the new post was quickly granted.
Carter couldn’t think of a better man for the job than James Moore.
Moore took an initial investment of $4,000 from Judge Carter, purchasing wagons, mules and trade goods. In September 1870 he headed north to his new home on the Popo Agie River.
Two months later, in November, Moore was named the official Indian Trader at the Shoshone-Bannock Agency.
Backing Moore with a fiduciary bond was Dr. James Irwin, a physician at Atlantic City and the local justice of the peace.
In 1871, Dr. Irwin was appointed the Indian Agent by President Ulysses S. Grant.
It was a very beneficial appointment for Moore. Dr. Irwin had a great working relationship with him and his mercantile business soon expanded from serving the 100 or so soldiers at Camp Augur to the much larger population, estimated at 1,600, of Shoshone tribal members.
Camp Augur was renamed Camp Brown in honor of Capt. Frederick Brown who had been killed at the Fetterman Massacre on December 21, 1866.
In 1871, Camp Brown was moved 15 miles to the northwest along Trout Creek just above the Wind River.
Moore scouted the area for the location of the new post. It was ideal with clean water, good grass and timber nearby. Moore built a trading post on the site.
Moore’s first store was a log building measuring 32 x 42 feet. It faced west with a view of the Wind River Mountains. The positioning was ideal.
Six years later, when freight wagons and stage coaches began arriving at the fort from Rawlins, his store was just a few yards from the road.
Moore lived alone in the store until he built a house in anticipation of raising a family. J.K. had 12 x 14-foot cellar dug under the northwest corner of the store that kept perishables cool in the summer and canned goods from freezing in the winter.
Moore used the sub-zero winters to his advantage as well, cutting ice on the nearby Wind River and storing it in an icehouse adjacent to the store. The building of thick heavy logs and the ice covered with layers of sawdust kept all summer, with ice available well into the late autumn.
Like many wise general store owners, Moore had the Fort Washakie Post Office inside his store and took the position of postmaster in April 1875.
In 1877, he added another 32 feet to the store.
Outbuildings like corrals, barns and cabins for his workers sprang up like mushrooms. In the 1880s, he added a more permanent stone building about 26 feet on each side to the east end of the original structure.
While his retail business was thriving, J.K. Moore moved into ranching as well.
In 1872 he built the JK Ranch near Crowheart, on Meadow Creek. His friendship with Chief Washakie allowed him to bypass federal regulations concerning non-Indians grazing on reservations.
He partnered with Captain Robert A. Torrey in 1878 and they established the famous M brand. Torrey and his brother bought out Moore 1881 and moved the cattle operation to the foothills of the Owl Creek Mountains.
Moore continued to run around 2000 cattle and several hundred horses on Meadow Creek. When the federal government instituted grazing leases, Moore received 100,000 acres. Bull Lake and Bull Lake Creek were the southern boundary of his leased ground.
He sold the ranch to A.K. Kirkland in 1905.
In 1875, he expanded his business to Lander, opening another J.K. Moore Store in a building constructed and operated as a general store by Samuel Fairchild.
Moore hired his brother-in-law, Milton Shidy, married to his younger sister Mary, to manage the Lander store. He also hired J.L. Davis, one of Veda’s brothers-in-law.
In 1905, he sold the Lander store
J.K.’s close relationship with the Fort Washakie post commander and his connections back east brought him news that Fort Washakie would soon close as an army post. Moore knew this meant a drop in business, and the sales of his ranch and the Lander store were timely.
From 1872 to 1905, business was brisk.
Moore bought furs, buffalo robes, and beadwork from the Shoshone. He sold canned goods, dried fruit, cloth, matches, ammunition, coffee, flour, bacon, tent canvas, and tobacco.
He even copied his bosses’ practice of using brass tokens as money. It had a dual purpose; trade was expedited, and the tokens weren’t any good if his business partners traveled to nearby Lander and tried to use them there.
Moore hired many Shoshones to haul wood, harvest wheat, hay and corn and always paid them in tokens.
The Native Americans often called the tokens “yellow money.”
Shoshones and many other tribes enjoy gaming and gambling was frequent at J.K. Moore’s store.
Moore had a cattle herd he grazed near the post.
Irwin purchased steers from Moore to supplement the Shoshone.
Moore had a sweetheart deal with Irwin. He grazed his cattle without charge then sold the beef to the agency. Irwin purchased beef, bought emergency supplies, seed, and other sundries from Moore.
Moore made frequent trips over South Pass to meet with Judge Carter. On one of those trips in 1872, he met a young woman from Fulton, Missouri, named Nevada Cornell.
Cornell had been hired by the judge to work as a tutor, nurse and governess for his grandchildren.
Moore was smitten. On September 1, 1875, in Fulton, Missouri the couple were married.
Cornell went by the nickname “Veda.”
James and Veda had five children, James Jr. arrived in 1876, Anne in 1847, Charley in 1880, Lily in 1882, and finally Virginia in 1887.
Though Fulton, Missouri was far from the city lights of the East Coast, it was still a challenge for Neda to adjust to life on the frontier.
Business picked up for Moore in 1877 when the Arapaho were forced onto the Shoshone Reservation after the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
An entire regiment of United States Cavalry, the 9th and then the 10th, came to Fort Brown. In 1878, the fort was renamed Fort Washakie in honor of the great Chief.
Moore expanded to another store in Lander to handle the influx of settlers establishing farms and ranches along the Popo Agie and as far away as the Sweetwater Valley.
He had freight wagons rolling on the “Lander Road” to and from Rawlins beginning in 1878 and hired Shoshone men as drivers.
In 1883, a year before Fremont County was established, a historic precedent was set with the visit of the first sitting president of the United States to the Wind River Country.
President Chester A. Arthur toured the western territories in the spring and summer of 1883. Part of his visit was spent at the Wind River Agency. He visited J.K. Moore’s Trading Post. It was a badge of honor for Moore to meet the president and he told him of his encounters with President Lincoln 20 years before.
Working partly in conjunction with his mercantile establishment, Moore established the J.K. Moore Ranch, an enterprise that eventually spread over several thousand acres, with many more leased from the federal government for grazing.
He became one of the most prominent stock growers in Wyoming and perhaps the largest cattle producer outside Laramie County.
Moore brought in Angus, Hereford and Shorthorn cattle, all improved breeds over the previous Texas Longhorns that many ranchers continued to raise.
James Kerr Moore was an innovator, a man ahead of his time in many ways, and a man with impeccable timing when it came to making business decisions.
Moore began to irrigate sections of low-lying ground along the Wind River and Popo Agie. He was one of the first Fremont County farmers to raise winter wheat and grow alfalfa.
The ailment that brought the young James Moore west to Fort Bridger continued as he aged. The climate of the Wind River Valley was too cold for him in the winter and his lung condition grew steadily more severe.
By 1909, when Fort Washakie closed as a military base, J.K. Moore was almost completely separated from the business.
He resigned as postmaster that year and moved to California permanently.
In 1917, he collapsed. His family moved him to the Alder Sanatorium in San Francisco. He didn’t improve so the family moved him to a drier, warmer climate in San Diego.
On January 20, 1920, James Kerr Moore passed away.
His Lander store became a hotel. The ranch he created continued to thrive and the Fort Washakie Store stayed in business until the financial collapse of the Great Depression.
A man with impeccable timing, the legacy of J.K. Moore.