Alex Swan and the Swan Companies (Western Lands and Waters Series)

( The Swan name is inseparable from the history of Wyomin...)

The Swan name is inseparable from the history of Wyoming and the West, and when Swan made his mark in Wyoming in the 1880s, ranching was king. The largest among Alex Swan’s many corporate creations, The Swan Land and Cattle Company, Ltd., was one of the larger livestock companies to operate in the American West, and it survived long after it founder’s financial debacle in the great winter of 1886-1887. At one time, the Swan was said to be the largest private landowner in Wyoming, and at its peak it was certainly one of the largest sheep companies in the country. This new work for the first time relates the life of Alex Swan, and offers a complete history of the Swan companies. Lawrence M. Woods has combed the surviving corporate records and other documents held in the United States and abroad. At the height of his financial life, Swan was said to be the richest man in Wyoming Territory, and his influence extended beyond business affairs to community service, both in Wyoming and in Iowa. Yet, after his dramatic financial collapse, there were many who ridiculed what he had done, and Swan’s silence has left those criticisms on the record, without rebuttal. Swan, a leader in the Wyoming Stock Growers Association from its founding in 1873, served as its second president. Promoting the use of Hereford cattle on the high plains, he was a force in the Wyoming ranching world, especially after his move to Cheyenne in 1874. Woods details Swan’s life in the years after his separation from the Scottish-controlled Swan Land and Cattle Company, especially his activities in Ogden, Utah. The Swan companies continued operation into the mid-twentieth century. John Clay played a major role in their operation, and he figures prominently in their story. Alex Swan and the Swan Companies is an important portrait of the inner workings of the western cattle industry and its leaders. The book has a bibliography, index, and three appendices. It is bound in rich brown linen cloth and has a foil stamped spine and front cover. Western Lands and Waters Series, XXII

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087062346X/?tag=2022091-20

British Gentlemen in the Wild West (The Era of the Intensely English Cowboy)

(245pp These were not effete English looking for cheap thr...)

245pp These were not effete English looking for cheap thrills. This book tells of the tough ones that came over to help settle the west

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1861055935/?tag=2022091-20

Horace Plunkett in America: An Irish Aristocrat on the Wyoming Range (Western Frontiersmen Series) by Woods, Lawrence M. (2010) Hardcover

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011WA9SXQ/?tag=2022091-20

Sometimes the Books Froze: Wyoming's Economy and Its Banks

(1985 1st Colorado Associated University Press. ISBN 0-870...)

1985 1st Colorado Associated University Press. ISBN 0-87081-153-3. Hardcover. Octavo, 198pp., cloth. Review copy. Good, lightly soiled and spotted, no DJ.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870811533/?tag=2022091-20

Wyoming Biographies

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962333379/?tag=2022091-20

Asa Shinn Mercer: Western Promoter and Newspaperman, 1839–1917 (Western Frontiersmen Series)

( The almost incredible diversity of Asa Mercer's experie...)

The almost incredible diversity of Asa Mercer's experiences is striking. In adventures spanning the American continent, Asa was a surveyor, teacher, immigration promoter, collector of customs, ship salvager, manager of a shipping line, editor and publisher of books and newspapers, and finally a farmer and rancher. The list boggles the mind, and the unlikelihood of it all mounts up when one considers that these experiences were mostly financed by others' money. It is, withal, a remarkable story, and if written as fiction, would be termed unbelievable. His tale of the Johnson County War, and the story of "Mercer's Belles" are his best-known legacies today, but his career in the West encompassed far more, and his life is for the first time given full consideration in this excellent new biography. Seattle, 1861. After helping to survey Seattle, Mercer became the first instructor at the University of Washington (and, according to his memory, its first president), when it was a fledgling institution with one building and virtually no students. Through 1863 he directed the small school and recruited most of its students. He also was elected to and served one term in the territorial legislature. Mercer's Belles: Appointed as Immigration Commissioner for Washington Territory in 1863, he undertook the heavy responsibility of trying to correct the 9 to 1 imbalance of men to women. The story of his recruitment of women and others to immigrate to the Northwest is treated in detail. Secretary of War Stanton, Gen. U. S. Grant and many others, including stage coach king Ben Holladay, play prominent roles in this bizarre scheme. Promotional work: While in the Pacific Northwest, he authored The Washington Territory: The Great North-West, Her Material Resources and Claims to Emigration (1865). This was the first of many promotional tracts prepared throughout his career on various Western locations, all of which have become exceedingly scarce and extremely collectible. Oregon: As customs collector in Astoria, Oregon, he was accused of and tried for smuggling. He then became involved in shipping concerns and real estate speculation around Astoria. It was in western Oregon that he began his journalism career. Texas: In the early 1880s he founded and edited a number of newspapers in north Texas in the counties bordering the Red River and into the Panhandle, and became acquainted with range cattle industry. Wyoming and the Johnson County War: As founder and editor of the Northwestern Live Stock Journal he became associated with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. He served as their mouthpiece until the infamous 1892 invasion of Johnson County by cattle barons, whereupon he turned on his supporters and wrote the classic Banditti of the Plains. Big Horn Basin: Mercer finished his long life on the western slopes of the Big Horn Mountains, and for him to finish a lifetime of adventure in such a quiet place was almost anticlimactic. He was still a booster and speculator, chasing oil claims and writing promotional tracts until his death in 1917. The work includes notes, bibliography, and index. Printed on acid-free paper and bound in rich red linen cloth with foil stamped spine and front cover. Issued in a limited edition of 500 copies. Western Frontiersmen Series, XXXI.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087062315X/?tag=2022091-20

British Gentlemen in the Wild West: The Era of the Intensely English Cowboy

(Looks at the role of British ranchers and investors in th...)

Looks at the role of British ranchers and investors in the development of the West, and discusses the management practices for free-range ranches.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0029356016/?tag=2022091-20

Horace Plunkett in America: An Irish Aristocrat on the Wyoming Range (Western Frontiersmen Series)

( When Horace Plunkett left Britain for the American West...)

When Horace Plunkett left Britain for the American West in 1879, seeking relief for lung problems, he launched a ranching career in Wyoming that influenced the cattle industry and altered the course of his own life. Previous biographers have studied his career in British politics and his involvement in the agricultural cooperative movement. Lawrence M. Woods now offers a detailed look at Plunkett’s American years. This is the first book to portray Plunkett as a major figure in the western-range cattle industry, unearthing new evidence that reveals how he mastered the microeconomics of ranching. Woods brings his own business and legal acumen to the narrative to describe how, even as other Britons failed to find fortune in the West, Plunkett continually pursued new business arrangements while navigating the thickets of American law. Woods also shows that Plunkett’s influence carried well beyond the range. In Washington, D.C., he promoted his ideas on agricultural education and the rural cooperative movement, earning him the ear of President Theodore Roosevelt. And when the Great War broke out, Plunkett functioned as a kind of private diplomat, carrying messages back and forth between the administration of President Woodrow Wilson and the British government. Horace Plunkett in America draws on Plunkett’s extensive diaries and on American sources hitherto unexplored by previous biographers to disclose more of the man than has ever been known. Featuring three dozen illustrations, it is a definitive look at the American chapter of a distinguished career.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087062394X/?tag=2022091-20

Asa Shinn Mercer: Western Promoter and Newspaperman, 1839?1917 (Western Frontiersmen Series) First edition by Woods, Lawrence M. (2003) Hardcover

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011WA9MSC/?tag=2022091-20