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History of Johnson County, Wyoming
Johnson County was organized in 1879, and was named after E. P. Johnson, a prominent attorney of Cheyenne. It has an area of 4,046 square miles. The total assessed valuation of the county in 1900 was $2,341,448.12; the population of the county, 3,027. With its rolling plains, extensive forests and fertile valleys, it is
justly regarded as one of the best sections of the state. The Big Horn Mountains have an elevation of 14,000 feet, while many of the valleys are less than 4,000 feet above the sea level.
The resources of Ihe county are varied. Stock raising is the chief industry. The vast open range and abundant streams of pure water make it a paradise for cattle. There are thousands of acres of grazing lands, and sufficient land can be irrigated to produce enough hay, grain and alfalfa to make winter feed for all the live stock that the range will support in summer. The county is one of the best watered counties in Wyoming, being well supplied with small streams heading in the Big Horn Mountains, and flowing generally to the northeast or northwest.
The northern part of the county is a good farming country and easily accessible by means of the Burlington railway. All kinds of vegetables are successfully raised; cabbage, turnips, rutabagas, lettuce, parsnips, cauliflower, beets, carrots, celery, broomcorn and sorghum cane are all grown with success, while melons and small fruits of unequalled flavor and excellence are cultivated. Yield of oats per acre is forty-five bushels and upwards; potatoes average 400 bushels; alfalfa produces two crops per year, of from four to seven tons per acre; and other crops in proportion.
There are 30,000 acres under irrigation, and 200,000 acres are susceptible of irrigation and only await the advent of the industrious settler, who can here obtain a good home cheap, and there are 2,000,000 acres of available grazing land. Pasture lands sell for $2. irrigated from $15 to $25. Prices of products obtained by ranchmen are as follows: Alfalfa, $3.50; timothy. $0; bluestem, native, $8 per ton; oats, $1.25 per cwt.; wheat and potatoes, $1 per cwt. There is a large supply of pine timber taken from the mountains, which is well suited for building purposes. Along the streams are thrifty groves of cotton wood, and experiments have shown that timber of various kinds can be as successfully grown here as in the prairie states of Kansas and Nebraska.
Minerals are yet undeveloped, but valuable prospects in gold, silver and copper are found in the Big Horn Mountains. Oil is found in large quantities, but because of a lack of transportation facilities is not worked.
This county is. without doubt, one of the best range counties in the state. It has one of the finest winter ranges in the west, where stock can roam at will, secure from winter storms in the shelter afforded by the high hills and deep gulches, while on account of the protection given by the location of the Big Horn Mountains and its spurs, lying to the west and north, blizzards are unknown, and the fall of snow is the least, especially on the head of Powder River and its tributaries, of any place in the same latitude in the United States, with the probable exception of a small strip on the Pacific coast. The hills are covered with a thick sod of buffalo and other native grasses, and the cattle on the range in the central and southern parts of the county keep in as good condition as many of those in pastures where they have been fed nearly all winter.
Buffalo, the county seat, has always been a prosperous town, and at the present time has a population of 1,000. It is the business center of a fine grazing and agricultural district and has superior natural advantages.
Clear Creek could furnish water power for a hundred factories, besides irrigating several thousand acres of land. At the present time Buffalo is thirty-two miles from the Burlington railroad, but at no distant day expects to have a railroad connection. Its citizens have been very enterprising in building up the town, having erected a $40,000 court house, a $15,000 school house and numerous brick buildings. The city also maintains an electric light plant, flouring mill, water works and two newspapers. Two
stage lines are operated, one leaving daily for Sheridan and the other for Clearmont, the nearest railroad point. The town of Buffalo needs an electric railway connection with the Burlington Route, a distance of forty miles down Clear Creek, where water
power can be obtained therefor.
The Sahara Ditch Company has built a canal to irrigate some 10,000 acres of fine land in southern Johnson County, which will afford homes for a considerable number of prospective settlers. The increased number of sheep and cattle being fed each year in
this county affords a ready market for the sale of all grain and forage which can be raised. A private company has secured the use of Lake De Smet for an irrigation reservoir and contemplates raising the lake level so as to afford sufficient water for the irrigation of large tracts of land in northern Johnson County and in southern and central Sheridan County.
Here is located the State Soldiers' Home, upon 1,270 acres of fertile land. The buildings cost over $100,000.
The United States land office for this county is at Buffalo.
(Source: The State of Wyoming, Published by Authority of the Ninth Legislature, 1919 - Transcribed by C. Anthony)
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