Laserfiche WebLink
<br />' the time that Hayden published his reports in 1878 (Goff and McCaffree 1967: 46). Cattlemen, <br />awaze of the area's potential, waited impatiently for the opening of the Ute Reservation, which <br />finally came in 1881. Cattlemen, armed with Hayden's reports and their resolve bolstered by <br />the information offered by individuals such as 7.H. Crawford, were among the first permanent <br />' settlers into much of the azea when the government opened the Reservation for settlement. <br />The United States cattle industry changed and expanded rapidly after the Civil Waz. The boom <br />' period continued for slightly more than twenty years. The success stories from that period, <br />referred to as the "Beef Bonanza," encouraged hundreds of individuals to take advantage of the <br />vast, open spaces of the American West as a route to easy, nearly instant wealth. The <br />' arguments used by supporters of the cattle boom relied heavily on the economics of the industry. <br />For example, a calf or cow, worth about $4 in Texas could be taken to another ranch, fed on <br />the grasses of the unclaimed public domain for no chazge and then sold after about three years <br />' for $40 to $50 at mazket. As long as America's demand for beef went unsatisfied and the <br />grasslands were available, cattlemen saw no limits to their riches. This dream of wealth already <br />realized by Colorado stockmen, such as J. W. Prowers, on the eastern plains motivated hundreds <br />' to move to the Western Slope (Osgood 1929: 85-91). <br />Congress helped stimulate the spread of the beef bonanza through their liberalization of the land <br />' laws beginning with the Homestead Act of 1862. Congress, responding to pressure from settlers <br />and would-be settlers, started to use the Public Domain as a lure to encourage people to move <br />west and people the territories and states of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. During the <br />1870s the national legislature passed two more laws, the Desert Land Act and the Timber <br />Culture Act that further liberalized the use and claiming of Federal lands. In 1882 the <br />provisions of these laws were extended to the former Ute lands through the Ute Reservation Act <br />' of 1882. The land laws had many loopholes making fraudulent use of the lands a common <br />practice (Robbins 1976: 218-20). <br />In addition to the abuses of the land laws, cattlemen also took advantage of the Public Domain <br />in other ways, such as fencing waterholes. John W. Prowers brought the first bazbed wire to <br />' Colorado in 1878 and by 1884 its use had spread across the state. The competition for the <br />waterholes, exacerbated by the fencing, often caused trouble between rival stock growers <br />throughout Colorado. In 1884, alazmed by reports of the violence, Congress investigated the <br />' situation and the next yeaz President Grover Cleveland ordered all fences removed from public <br />lands. However, many illegal fences remained in place until the 1890s (Goff and McCaffree <br />1967: 120, 144-~. <br />' As part of the reforms made during the 1890s, Congress introduced a system of withdrawals of <br />Federal lands for forest reserves. This removed land from constant usage and was designed to <br />' conserve national lands for subsequent generations. However, the legislators recognized the <br />ranchers need to use the range lands and included a permit system to allow, but control, grazing <br />on the reserved lands. The new program, eventually tested and upheld by Federal courts <br />' impacted many Western Slope ranchers and marked a trend towazd aconservation-oriented <br />approach to the use of the Public Domain. The ranch under study and its owners participated <br />r <br /> <br />