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. ranchers need to use the range lands and included a pe,^.ni[ system to allow, but control, gr,,zing on the reserved lands. The new program, eventually tested and upheld by Federal couru impacted many Western Slope ranchers and marked a trend toward aconservation-oriented approach to the use of the Public Domain. The ranch under study and its owners par~cipated in this pattern, acquiring grazing rights du:-ing the 1930s [hat remain pan of the propem today (Shoemaker 1958: ~ 1-6j. The stockmen of Delta and Gunnison Counties shared many other things with their counteroaru throughout the West. Clad in boots with pointed toes, chaps, awide-brimmed ha[ and bandanna, the local cowboys came to stock raising from many walks of life. The sons of midwes:ern farmers hoped to break from the "dull" life in Iowa, drfters trom across the country and rose needing a new star all found jobs on the cattle ranches of Colorado's Weston Slope. Aso, some of the cow hands came from the Teller Institute Indian School in Grand junction. The ranches also looked similar to those throughout the West at the time with an emphasis on utilitarian buildings and the use of logs and other native building materials wherever possible. Dimensioned lumber, usually reserved for construction of the main house and other key buildings only came into use after the ranch became established. Lumber and other relatively expensive building materials then were used and the older log buildings either abandoned or modified in both function and fonrt (O'Rourke 1980: 121-4). The early Delta and Gunnison County stock growers drove their herds overland to reach the ranges until the railroads arrived. Even though the area did not sit astride a major cattle trail from Texas, occasional herds from the Lone Star state arrived in the area after long drives. After the railroads arrived the necessity to move cattle from ranch to market and between summer and winter ranges meant that the tradition of the cattle drive remained alive in western Colorado into the twentieth century. One change that did take place that mazked the closing years of the nineteenth century and the beginnings of the twentieth century ranching was the introduction of blooded livestock to meet consumer demands for certain characteristics in their beef. The stockmen replied by upgrading their herds and, through their associations, enforcing range divisions to protect their new animals (Goff and McCaffree 1967: 101-10). The turn of the century period also witnessed other changes in west-central cattle growing. Generally, ranches were consolidated into lazger holdings, some as a result of the Panic of 1393. For those that survived, such as the Cooks, the period was one of re;rouping to face the new century. The rarchers survived, but did not prosper at the same rate as eazlier. The years from 1910 to 1920 witnessed a renewed prosperity for the cattle industry in westen Colorado. The rapidly growing American urban population could no[ feed itself and demand for beef increased and the economic dislocation in European agriculture combined with increased demands at .`.ome expanded the markets for meat of all varieties. Stockmen replied by increasing the sizes of their herds and over-expanding that would prove detrimental after the wartime emergency had passed. By the end of the war it can be azgued that the cattleman's frontier had passed (Steinel 1926: 165). 10