The earliest inhabitants of the forest are believed to have been Indians known as the “Sheepeaters.” Just who the “Sheepeaters” were is not definitely known. Some historians claim they were an unintellectual branch of the Snake tribe, others insist that they were renegades and misfits, driven out of the plains tribes, the Crows, Blackfeet, and Shoshones, who were forced to the timberclad hills where rough topography and cover permitted them to evade capture and killing at the hands of their erstwhile tribal members. They lived in crude tepees constructed entirely of poles. The “Sheepeaters” derived their name from the fact that they preyed extensively on mountain sheep and to some extent on other species of big game. They trapped their prey in pens or corrals made of stone.
F-308547
A section of the rugged Beartooth Plateau as seen from the Red Lodge-Cooke City Highway.
The first white men entered Wyoming more than 30 years before the American Revolution. In 1743, Francois and Louis De La Verendrye, French-Canadian brothers, traveled through the Rocky Mountain region to establish branch trading posts. Their home and main post was in the Great Lakes region. They entered the Big Horn Valley from the north and traveled up Wood River in the southern part of the forest and crossed the rugged Continental Divide near the Washakie Needles on their way into the Wind River country.
Years later, in 1807, John Colter, who startled the world with his fantastic and unbelievable stories of the natural wonders in Yellowstone Park, traveled up the Clarks Fork River, after leaving the Lewis and Clark Expedition on the Missouri. Colter’s exact routes of travel are hotly disputed by historians, but it is well established that he was the first white man to see the “Stinking Water” River (the Shoshone), so named by him because of the foul odors from mineral hot springs along its banks.
The trail along the Clarks Fork followed by Colter was for generations a transmountain route of Indian tribes living west of the Continental Divide which led to the great buffalo country to the east. Among the tribes using this trail were the Bannocks and Lemhi. After hunting among the herds in the Big Horn Basin and on the plains east of the Big Horn Mountains, they returned to their homes heavily laden with meat and hides. These expeditions frequently led to fiercely fought battles with the Shoshones and Crows, whose territories were being invaded.
The De La Verendryes and Colter were followed by other “mountain men,” equally venturesome, representing the American and Rocky Mountain fur companies and smaller independent concerns. These hardy, restless, rugged individuals, including such men as Lisa, Sublette Brothers, Fraeb, Gervais, and Bridger, were actually the first settlers in what is now the State of Wyoming, notwithstanding the common belief that the first settlements in the Territory were in the eastern and southern parts. These pioneers exploited the country, trapping fur-bearing animals and trading with the Indians for their take in the pelts.
Following them came the nomadic prospectors and miners, and after the miners came the first really permanent residents, the cattlemen. The establishment of the first Stockyards in Kansas City, in 1870, gave impetus to the expansion of cattle-raising in the West. From 1870 to the 1890’s, this industry grew with unprecedented speed. Charles Carter, in 1879, trailed in from Oregon the first herd of cattle brought into the Big Horn Basin. Later came Capt. Henry Belknap, Otto Franc, Col. W. D. Pickett, and J. M. Carey, all of whom shaped ranches out of virgin territory on the west side of the Big Horn Basin, immediately adjacent to the mountain slopes now inside the forest.
From the early eighties the herds increased, and more and more cattle came into the Big Horn Basin. Homesteaders and settlers were “squatting” on and taking up large acreages of the best range land, and finally, there was not enough year-long range for the increased number of livestock. The advent of the farmer forced drastic changes in livestock operations. Stockmen were obliged to produce forage crops to carry a part of their herds through the winter. Eventually it was necessary to increase the production of forage crops on the land under cultivation, and this led to the development of irrigation projects, first by the ranchers, and then by the Federal Government. With water for their lands and constantly improving transportation facilities, farmers were able to produce such cash crops as small grain, truck crops, sugar beets, potatoes, and peas.
As this country was further developed and became more heavily populated, stockmen grazed their livestock in the higher foothills and eventually in the mountains during summer, depending upon the Big Horn Basin, which had formerly been used year-long, for winter range. Thus began the first actual dependence of the community upon territory within the forest. As irrigation projects developed, the second—and now perhaps the most important—great economic value of the rugged mountains in the forest became apparent in their capacity to conserve and store water for summer use in the valleys below.