Postcard from the Past: Sheep and Wool Notes

by Dick Perue

This week’s Postcard comes from the pages of the April 1, 1903 issue of the Wyoming Industrial Journal. Enjoy.

The differences between the Carbon County flock masters and the authorities of Sweetwater County have been adjusted. 

It has been arranged for the treasurer of Carbon County to levy and collect taxes on all sheep owned in the county and ranged in Sweetwater County, the latter county to receive one-fourth of the amount collected and Carbon County to get the balance. 

In this way, the sheep will be taxed but once, and both counties will be satisfied.

The day when it was necessary to have lambs Mexican bred and Colorado fed in order to top the market has passed. 

H.H. Stedman of Shelton, Neb. came in with a double deck of lambs, brought down from Wyoming last fall, which sold on the market for $7.50 – the highest price ever paid for this class of stuff. 

They were sold straight, too, without any being thrown out to cheapen up the bunch. – Omaha Drovers Journal-Stockman

Shearing has been commenced in Carbon County. 

At the Miller pens, 110,000 sheep will be sheared; at William Daley’s pens, 75,000; at Cow Creek, 50,000; at Fort Steele, 88,000; at Walcott, 60,000 and at Medicine Bow, 50,000. 

This equates to a total of nearly 450,000 sheep. 

To these figures should be added fully 350,000 sheep which will be shorn at private pens.

The Converse County Wool Growers Association has offered $1,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the men who recently raided the Storrie sheep camps on Hat Creek.

The Natrona County Wool Growers Association has assessed its members 25 cents each for a fund with which they will prosecute persons bringing scabby sheep into the county.

The annual wool sales at Cody City will be held on June 1 and June 28 this year. The indications are the sales there this season will be much larger than ever before.

A big steam shearing plant with 28 machines is being established at Corbett – the center of the sheep-shearing district of Big Horn County.

Sheep are being lambed under sheds in Fremont and Natrona counties. This experiment is proving a success.

A recent shipment from Wheatland of alfalfa-fed sheep topped the Chicago market at $7.60 per hundred.

Eight cents will be the average price paid for shearing sheep in Wyoming this season.

M. Gibson of Wheatland will feed 10,000 lambs next season.

Australia has about 87,000,000 sheep.