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.
History runs deep in the rocky cliffs above the Sweetwater River. The J J Ranch is one of the earliest ranches on the Sweetwater. It’s where legendary rancher John Carmody first built a cabin in 1892 and its now part of Troy Corbett’s livestock operation, Corbett Ranches, LLC.
Troy, a 1989 graduate of Jeffrey City High School met his wife Maria, when she was a foreign exchange student from Peru attending high school. It was quite a contrast for Maria from home to the isolation and economic decline that the former uranium boom town was experiencing.
In 1995 the couple were married and for the next 12 years, they lived on the ranch adjoining a section of the Sweetwater with just a wooden bridge built by Clarence Grieve in the early 1930s connecting them to the outside world.
The couple has five sons, John Paul 28, Tom 26, Tim 24, Jess 21 and Peter 19.
“We’ve leased the J J for 45 years,” Troy said. “Four generations with a little help.”
They also own the Hurner Ranch 14 miles west on Long Creek, purchased by Troy’s father Jack in 1966 and another place near Pavillion.
Jack passed away in September of 2020 at 81. He knew the country well, starting with Hereford cattle but moving to Angus with the market trends.
“It used to be the cheapest place in the country to raise cattle. I don’t know that it’s that cheap anymore, but the grass is good,” Jack said in a 2010 interview.
In 2007, Troy and Maria purchased their 335-acre farm north of Pavillion, split into two sections by a narrow strip of BLM land.
They moved for the boys. Jeffrey City lost its high school three decades ago, and while a rural K-5 school was provided, once they hit junior high and then high school it was a 130-mile round trip each day to attend school in Lander. All five sons graduated from Wind River High School.
The boy’s education was the prime factor for moving from the Sweetwater to Teachers Road north of Pavillion. Feed production was another. Hay production is much more reliable on irrigated acreage than on the open meadows along the Sweetwater River.
“We raise alfalfa at Pavillion and feed in the winter,” Troy said. “We feed calves there through the winter.”
That means splitting the herd each year, but with adult sons, the process is a bit easier.
Tom lives at the J J.
“Tom cuts the meadows along the river wherever the grass is deep enough, “Troy said.
Living alone three miles from a virtual ghost town would intimidate many young men, but not Tom.
“It’s isolated, but I like that,” Tom said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
The nearly thousand acres at the Hurner Ranch, the 5200 at the J J and the 335 at Pavillion seem like a lot to someone from the East or West Coast, but it’s not when you’re earning a living off beef cattle.
Corbett Ranch, LLC also grazes on 200,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management leases, but they’re not alone.
“There are eight to 10 ranches grazing around 4,000 head on the BLM,” Troy said. “There aren’t any fences and our cattle mix with others.”
It’s a taste of the Old West with roundup and sorting taking place along with a mix of modern beef production in cow/calf and yearling production.
“This country traditionally has more summer ground than winter ground, so they raise yearlings,” Troy said.
As they tested about 30 Angus bulls with veterinarian Dr. Lorna McPeek of the Carbon County Veterinary Hospital it was almost shirtsleeve weather, mid 40s just a few days before Christmas. These warm conditions may eventually change the pattern of the operation. Despite the warm temperatures, most of the Sweetwater was iced over with just a few sections of open water on faster moving sections.
Bridget Pokorny, a friend of Tom’s and a student at Lander’s Catholic College was clerking as Troy ran the head catch on the squeeze chute, Tom applied spray on flea and tick control and updated ear tags.
In traditional western fashion, where you write notes on any spare piece of paper, most often in the cab of a pickup, Bridget was recording tag and sample numbers on the back of a piece of cardboard torn off a box.
Peter and Jess herded the bulls into the chute and the entire process of checking 30 large Angus bulls took less than an hour.
When they were finished, Peter and Jess mounted their horses and herded the bulls to pasture.
One of the joys of an extended ranching operation, separated by a few miles on the Sweetwater but by 90 miles one way from Pavillion, is family.
“We are blessed,” Troy said. “Nobody works for anybody we all work together.”
The operation is large enough with adequate seasonal moisture, and steady, higher cattle prices for all his sons to eventually take on the operation.
Tom and Jess are active at the J J moving cattle to range, feeding through the winter and doing the ever-present job of fixing fence around the place. Tim is shoeing horses, working towards becoming a certified farrier and Peter just finished his first semester at Central Wyoming College where he is majoring in Ag Business.
Maria is the secretary at St. Margaret’s Catholic School in Riverton.
Troy and Maria didn’t just arrive and begin ranching, the J J and the Hurner Ranches have a long and storied history in Fremont County, long before Wyoming became a state.
The story begins when Gardiner Mills went west. Born on June 3, 1862, in Milwaukee, the young man arrived in the Sweetwater Country just as the traditional frontier of the American West was drawing to a close. With a little money, and a lot more grit, he purchased a ranch on Twin Creek, southwest of Lander in 1884.
After establishing his ranch, he returned to Milwaukee and married Mary Wells Bachelor in June 1887.
The young couple returned to Twin Creek and had three children, daughters Kathryn, and Margaret and their only son, Sandford.
The couple arrived back in Wyoming after the devastating winter of 1886-87 that killed untold numbers of cattle and sheep across the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains.
The girls married Fremont County ranchers. Kathryn married Chauncey Noble and Margaret married Lloyd Calvert.
Lloyd was a soldier in World War I.
Sandford moved away for a while, working as a Ranger in the Washakie National Forrest from 1910 to 1914, but he returned to Twin Creek and took up ranching with his father when his mom fell ill.
Mary passed away after a lingering illness in 1919.
The myth of the rugged individual, standing alone and conquering all challenges flies in the face of reality when living in the often harsh conditions that stretch from the Sweetwater to the top of South Pass. The Mills helped and were helped by many neighboring ranchers including Fred Crittenden, W.E. Ehler, William Schlicting, John Pelon, Jules Howard, Iva Hardenberg and Scotty Johnson.
Sandford took over the ranch and never married.
Kathryn and Margaret each had six children.
Kathryn and Chauncy’s children were Mary, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Myra, Chauncey and Harry.
Margaret and Lloyd were married in 1921 after Lloyd returned from France. The couple had five sons, Roscoe, Walter, Edward, Earle, Wayne and a daughter, Kathryn.
Life wasn’t easy in depression era Fremont County. The Great Depression may have arrived officially nationwide in 1929, but it came much earlier to Wyoming when the markets boosted by World War I came to an end with sheep, cattle and wool prices plummeting in the post-war years.
Chauncey worked for ranches near Lander and on Twin Creek. Kathryn raised the children and gardened by carrying water for her plants in buckets up from Twin Creek. They took whatever jobs they could find, just to survive.
Chuancey cleared the sagebrush in bends of Twin Creek where he could divert water for irrigation and planted alfalfa. He harvested these small patches of alfalfa with a team and stacked the hay nearby for the cattle in winter. Nature has taken back the work he did, returning the land to its original sagebrush.
Edward was a United States Marine and was killed on September 18, 1944, fighting the Japanese at Peleliu.
Mary Noble married Thad Vern Corbett on March 27, 1938.
Thad’s family came from Utah.
Francis Lafayette Corbette was born on October 23, 1876, in Hyrum, Utah. His parents Samuel and Camilla Jacobsen Corbett were Mormon pioneers. He grew up working on the family farm and at 24, he married Edith Annie Taylor.
The couple left Utah and started a ranch on Table Mountain above Twin Creek. Camilla worked at the home place and Francis worked his own livestock and hired out to other ranchers.
On February 9, 1905, their first son, Thad, was born. They had nine more children, George, Eva, Isabel, Irma, Marion, Orville, William, Glen and Gladys.
One of Thad’s jobs was cutting logs on Green Mountain. The log cabin on the southeast side of Jeffrey City was made of logs that Thad cut and hauled from Green Mountain with a team. You can still see it with the sign “Home on the Range.” It was the original name of Jeffrey City.
Their first son, John “Jack” was born on December 16, 1938, in Lander. They had three more sons, Speed, Gary and Don and daughters, Kate, Edith, Shirley and Julie.
Jack was a cowboy. He grew up working for his uncle Sandford at the Red Bluff Ranch. As a teenager and young man, Jack began working for ranchers on the Sweetwater.
In 1959, Jack began working for Albert and Barbara Myers at their ranch six miles northeast of Sweetwater Station. Jack broke horses for 13 years at the Myers place and for other ranchers. He married Jean Ann Rogers on September 6, 1964, in Hudson.
Jack and Jean loved the Sweetwater Country and purchased the Hurner Ranch on Long Creek in 1966.
The Hurner Ranch also has quite a history. Homesteaded by Jesse Brown. Brown was a successful rancher, but a more successful moonshiner during the Prohibition Era. He lost his ranch in November 1927, at a sheriff’s sale.
George Titzell moved in and took over the ranch. He began building log structures, improving the place and turning it into a working ranch. The logs were all hauled off Green Mountain, a distance of about 20 miles. George fancied himself a bronc rider and built a large, log round pen to work green horses.
Titzell was followed briefly by a man named Dollar and in 1939, William Scarlett purchased the place before he sold it to Walt Hurner.
Bob Jamerman then owned it and sold it to Jack and Jean.
In addition to ranching, Jack was an accomplished western artist, and a Fremont County brand inspector for 40 years.
His artistic side extended to his grandson Jess, who is an accomplished guitar player and western music performer.
Jack’s legacy from his days as a Hall of Fame Cowboy and mainstay of the Sweetwater Country continues with his son’s family.
It’s hard work, and it comes at a risk, but ranching has survived the pitfalls and challenges of almost a century-and-half along the Sweetwater River and will continue.