A series where we take a #lookback at the stories and history of our community, brought to you by Mick Pryor, Financial Advisor with Edward Jones.
As one of the first businesses incorporated in the newly founded town of Riverton in 1906, the Fremont Sheep Company is one of the longest-lasting businesses in the area that is still in operation. Now owned by former Wyoming Senator Eli Bebout, the company had humble beginnings as a small sheep business run by two French immigrants hoping to make a decent living in a land of opportunity. Not only did their hard work pay off for themselves and future generations of their family, but the company they founded has left a lasting legacy in the history of Riverton and Eastern Fremont County.
Jean “John” and Jacques “Jack” Geraud were born in Oust, which lies in the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France. Their parents owned a family farm with a flock of sheep. Little is known of their early life other than the fact that it was difficult to make a living on the mountainous terrain and that the brothers never received a formal education. Hoping for better opportunities across the ocean, older brother, John, left for the Americas when he was 17 years old. He first traveled to Canada, South America, and then to Texas. At this point, Jack, now 17 years old himself, joined John at Pecos, Tex, in approximately 1896 to herd sheep for two years. However, Jack was then called back to France to complete his compulsory military service. When it was over, he returned to the United States in 1903.
By this time, John was now working for the Johnson and Halsted Sheep Company at Rawlins. After a couple of years of brutally cold winters on the Red Desert, the company decided to try the open range surrounding the newly-founded settlement of Riverton as well as the areas around Morton and Ocean Lake. The company was incorporated in Riverton on November 15, 1906. A summer range was then established south of the Sweetwater River with a headquarters located on East Alkali Creek in Fremont County. Each brother also set up a homestead in the area, approximately two miles apart from each other. By 1909, this became the base for the business.
To convey their homestead land to the Johnson & Halsted Sheep Company, the brothers received corporate shares of stock, and additional shares were issued to them on a continuing basis as payments for their work. To reflect the fact that Fremont County was the location for the company’s rangeland sheep operations, the company changed its name to Fremont Sheep Company in 1917.
Each fall, the company would lead its sheep from the summer open range to Paradise Valley. In the spring, they would return to the open range for shearing, lambing, and summer grazing.
Bringing the sheep from Paradise Valley required herding them along Burma Hill Road to the intersection with Highway 26 north of Riverton. From there, they traveled south along the highway through Riverton on Federal Boulevard, crossing the bridges over the Big and Little Wind Rivers, then over the Sweetwater River bridge, before finally reaching the summer range around East Alkali Creek, approximately 17 miles south of Highway 287. Today, herding thousands of sheep across Federal Boulevard would be a logistical challenge with modern traffic and stoplights. However, in those days, there were few vehicles, and no one seemed to mind the sheep residue left on the highway.
The shearing pens were also located about 17 miles south of the Sweetwater bridge. Shearing began each spring, with at least three company members assisting in the process. The large bags of wool then had to be transported by horse teams and wagon to Rawlins for shipment by railroad to wool mills.
The company managed approximately 4,000 breeding ewes, which were divided into smaller groups of 800 to 1,000 head, known as “drop” herds. One of these herds consisted of yearling ewes. Each drop herd was bedded near water at night, and in the morning, the herders would separate the ewes that had given birth overnight. These ewes and their lambs remained at the drop site, while the rest of the herd moved to another location for grazing and further births. This process was repeated every morning and evening for about three weeks.
Springtime conditions were typically cold and wet, and sheep riders often covered up to 30 miles a day, checking on small drop herds near water sources. They not only protected the newborn lambs from predatory coyotes but also ensured that each lamb stayed with its mother. Occasionally, yearling ewes would abandon their lambs. In such cases, workers used long-handled lambing hooks to catch the ewes, tying them to sagebrush or hobbling their legs to prevent them from running. This allowed time for the lambs to bond with their mothers and begin nursing. After several days, the smaller daily drop groups were combined into larger herds of 1,800 to 2,000 ewes and lambs, which were then placed under the care of a summer herder with a sheep wagon on the open range.
In 1929, shortly before the stock market crash, the Geraud brothers purchased the majority stock ownership of the corporation. The timing seemed unfortunate for them as the Great Depression era and the implementation of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934 caused wool and lamb prices to hit all-time lows. Due to the Taylor Grazing Act, grazing on public lands became contingent on the owner’s ability to provide privately owned grazing areas or feed if suitable rental land was unavailable. Additionally, a grazing allotment from the Bureau of Land Management was required. Most other sheep businesses in the area went under during this time, but the Geraud brothers labored extra hard to keep the business growing so they could pay back their loans from the Rawlins National Bank.
To sustain their sheep through the colder months during the 1930s and ‘40s, the Fremont Sheep Company developed a symbiotic relationship with local farmers. They leased land with sugar beet tops, a byproduct of beet harvesting. Agricultural workers would chop off the tops and leave them on the ground, providing an ideal food source for the sheep. In return, the sheep helped clean up the fields while fertilizing the soil. Once the beet tops were consumed, the company purchased hay from Paradise or Missouri Valley for winter feed. This mutually beneficial arrangement not only sustained the sheep with high-quality feed but also supported local agricultural industries. By the end of World War II, the Fremont Sheep Company managed approximately 4,200 breeding ewes and had begun using trucks to transport sheep to and from pastures.
Aside from a three-week marriage that he called an “expensive diversion,” John Geraud remained a bachelor all his life. He died on January 19, 1939, in Riverton while undergoing a hernia repair operation. Jack, meanwhile, married Marie Lavin in 1922. Marie’s parents were immigrants Augustine and Amalia Levin from Vizcaya, Spain, who had come to Riverton in 1917. Augustine had worked for the Fremont Sheep Company for a time before becoming a regular employee of the Chicago-Northwestern Railroad. Jack and Marie had four children together from 1924 to 1929: three boys and a girl.
Of this second generation, the oldest sibling, Lawrence, also known as “Jack”, assumed more responsibilities for the company as his father grew older, eventually becoming president of the company in the 1960s. He continued to expand and modernize it, purchasing old homesteads and pasture lands as a means for increasing BLM permits on federal land. This included lands once held by the Yellowstone Sheep Company. Still, as the price of everything else continued to climb in the 1970s, wool prices remained the same, thanks to the invention of synthetic fibers. So, Jack decided to diversify the company’s activities and invested the money in other enterprises.
These new investments, including a business park in Riverton and a housing development in Lander, were made at a time when the uranium and iron business booms were impacting the county. Several new energy companies were also chosen for investment. Unfortunately, the county’s economy collapsed suddenly in 1980. The housing development in Lander became bankrupt. A herd of 2,000 breeding ewes that had been sold with the purchase price secured by a mortgage on a ranch in Nevada defaulted. The acquisition of another loan was required to continue company operations. Perhaps as a result of the worries that came with the economic downturn, Jack died of a heart attack at his home in Riverton in September 1981.
At the time of his death, Fremont Sheep Company had become the only sheep operator holding grazing permits from the BLM in the Green Mountain Unit lying south of the Sweetwater River and westward of Jeffrey City. The open, unfenced grazing unit was shared with 17 individual ranchers who turned their cattle loose within the unit for summer grazing in common with the Fremont’s sheep herds. The Company had also acquired 7,660 deeded acres, 4,480 acres of state leases, and BLM permits within the BLM Muskrat/Poison Creek allotment lying south and east of Shoshoni for its winter range. Two additional farms and other farmland was leased for the production of corn or alfalfa hay to be cubed and fed to the sheep during winter months.
Following Jack’s death, his youngest brother, Pete, became the new president. Pete had formerly been responsible for overseeing the care and movement of the Company’s sheep. Now, he had to deal with the fallout of the economic crash of the early 1980s. He relied on the help of Vicente Vasco, an immigrant from Spain who had come to Riverton under the sponsorship of Pete’s parents, Jack and Marie Geraud, to work for the Fremont Sheep Company. Vicente quickly assumed the farming and hay cubing work as well as assisting Pete with sheep operations. (Vicente and his wife, Lenora, still live in the area and now have their own family cow-calf cattle operation.)
In 1983, Pete resorted to a bankruptcy reorganization plan and was able to restore the sheep numbers to approximately 10,000 head. However, in the fall of 1992, he injured his foot and, because of his diabetes, was unable to fully heal and continue working. The family ultimately reached the conclusion that they needed to liquidate assets as necessary, starting with the sale of all sheep and land other than a farm located on Riverview Road that could still produce alfalfa hay cubes. Pete died on November 24, 1995, due to a massive stroke and his share of the Fremont Sheep Company passed to his wife, Orpha.
There would be one more Geraud brother to serve as president of the Fremont Sheep Company. Joseph, aka “Joe”, was the second-oldest of the four Geraud children. Unlike his siblings, who had remained in Riverton after high school, Joe’s desire was to attend college and become a lawyer. World War II caused his eventual assignment by the U. S. Navy to a Naval officer training program at Oregon State College. Through the G.I. Bill he was then able to attend the University of Wyoming, where he obtained his law degree in 1950. Five years later, he returned to the University and was appointed to the College of Law faculty. Over the next 37 years, Joe and his wife, Bette, lived in Laramie where Joe performed a variety of duties for the University in addition to teaching. Upon his retirement in 1992, he returned to Riverton and joined the CWC Foundation Board for 19 years, during which he served as president for 10 of those years.
Following his brother Pete’s death in 1995, Joe succeeded him in becoming the President of Fremont Sheep Company. As there were few family members left willing to work for the company by this point, the decision was made to sell the farm on Riverview Road as well. Joe was then contacted by Eli Bebout, who was, at the time, serving in the Wyoming House of Representatives. Bebout was interested in acquiring the farm as he and his family already controlled land abutting it. The sale of the Fremont Sheep Company to Eli and Lorraine Bebout was completed in 1997. Joe continued to have a minority share of the company until 2011, when it was sold to the Bebouts. Joe Geraud died in Idaho in 2023 and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Riverton.
The Fremont Sheep Company’s story is one of perseverance, adaptability, and lasting impact. From its humble beginnings with the Geraud brothers to its expansion and modernization under successive generations, the company has played a significant role in Riverton’s history and the broader sheep industry. Despite economic downturns, changing agricultural practices, and evolving markets, the Fremont Sheep Company has remained a testament to the resilience of those who built it. Now, under the ownership of Eli Bebout, it continues to be a part of the region’s landscape, bridging the past with the present while maintaining its legacy in Fremont County.
Author: April Peregoy, Riverton Museum
Next up for the Fremont County Museum
March 29, 1-3 pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Celebrating Women’s History Month” Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
April 19, 1-3 pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Sheep Shearing Day” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
April 26, 9-2 with the Pioneer Museum, “Garden Expo Craft Booth” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
April 26, 10 am at the Dubois Museum, “Wind River Kites: Make Your Own Kite” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
May 1, 2 pm at the Dubois Museum, “Shippen Family Legacy in Dubois” Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
May 17, 9 am with the Dubois Museum, “Butch Cassidy at Jakey’s Fork” Wind River Visitors Council Adventure Trek Series
May 22, 7 pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Lander 1925” Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
May 24, 1-3 pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Being a Pioneer Kid” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
May 24, 10 am at the Pioneer Museum, “Lander Main Street Trek” Wind River Visitors Council Adventure Trek Series
May 31, 11 am at the Riverton Museum, “Horned Owl Draper Raptor Experience” Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
Call the Dubois Museum at 1-307-455-2284, the Pioneer Museum at 1-307-332-3339, or the Riverton Museum at 1-307-856-2665 for details regarding their programs.
The Dubois Museum, the Pioneer Museum in Lander and the Riverton Museum need your financial support. In the current economic environment, museums are more reliant than ever on donations from the private sector to continue to provide the quality programs, collections management, exhibits and services that have become their hallmark over the last four years. Please make your tax deductible contribution through the Wind River Cultural Centers Foundation www.windriverccf.com or by sending a check to Fremont County Museums 450 N 2nd Rm 320 or taking it directly to the museum you choose to support.