MOUNTAIN RIVER MEN[9]
THE STORY OF MENOR’S FERRY
By Frances Judge
“This ain’t W. D. Menor talking, this is H. H. Menor talking, by God. Holy Saviour, yes!”
Both Bill and Holiday carried a mouthful of oaths that spilled out whenever they spoke. They cursed their friends and neighbors, they cursed each other, and they cursed themselves. But to lighten this burden of words when women were around, Holiday would say, before a sentence, in the middle of a sentence or at the end of one, “Holy Savior, yes!” or “Holy Savior, no!”
Bill never bothered to lighten his profanity.
Yet, in spite of cursing, they were men of dignity.
Everyone in Jackson Hole knew Bill and Holiday Menor. They were as much a part of the country as the Snake River or the Teton Mountains. The type of men they were brought them here.
Then, as now, Jackson Hole had a marked collection of people. They were unshackled and they had color. Strength was intensified. Weakness was vivid. Bill and Holiday were plain spoken, strong-dyed individualists. They belonged here.
The Menor brothers came originally from Ohio. They were tall men. Bill, 11 years older than his brother, was thin and long-boned. His nose and sharp eyes were like an old eagle’s. Holiday’s long body sagged a little. He had a grizzled beard, long, shrewd nose, and amused, gray eyes. He prospected in Montana before coming to Jackson Hole. “My partner’s name was Mean, but I was Menor,” he would say. He claimed to have made over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in one prospect. When asked what happened to the money, he always said, “Wine, women and song.” He talked of going off to Old Mexico, prospecting, but he never went. There was too much living to be done on the banks of the Snake River.
Bill Menor, coming to this valley in 1892, settled on a homestead by squatter’s right. He settled where the Snake River hauls toward the great mountains. He was first to homestead on the west bank of the Snake River, under the Tetons. He built a low, log house among the cottonwoods on the shore of the river, collected a cow or two, and a horse; a few chickens; plowed up sage and made a field; planted a garden; built a blacksmith shop; and in time opened a small store where he sold a few groceries, a lot of Bull Durham, overalls, tin pans, fish hooks and odds and ends.
And he immediately constructed a ferry to ply the unreliable Snake. Before settling in the valley, he spent 10 days with John Shive and John Cherry “on the Buffalo.” At that time he considered establishing a ferry somewhere along the Buffalo, but after talking with Cherry and Shive, he decided on the Snake River. And his decision was wise and farsighted.