Halfway Between Heaven and Hell – The Journey of a Pioneer Family from Halfway, Wyoming
Hattie Haley Johnson and her family settled and survived in the rural West when the region was no longer considered a wild frontier; but it wasn’t truly civilized, either. From the late nineteenth century until deep into the Great Depression, horses were vital for work and transportation, electricity was a dream, and the strength of a man’s back defined his ability to support his family.
Hattie’s life was full of challenges and hard work, but it also brimmed with adventure and variety. She ranched, raised children, helped her husband, Frank Johnson, run a freight operation between Jackson Hole and Idaho, and migrated from southwest Wyoming to the Canada border and back again. Through it all, she nourished herself and those around her with a caring spirit and sense of humor. That is why her story is so compelling.
ISBN: 0-9768113-5-9
148 Pages
Hardback
8 3/4″ x 11 1/4″
Sublette County Historical Society, 1980
The story of the settlement in western Wyoming’s Hoback Basin, told through fascinating tales and unusual characters: ordinary people who did extraordinary things, and who with courage and determination shaped history.
ISBN – 1-932636-28-5
365 Pages
Prong Horn Press, 2007
Have You Ever Seen a Bear with a Purple Smile?
Where are the bears with purple smiles? They are in the woods walking mile after mile searching for the next huckleberry pile.
ISBN: 1-978-1-59152-114-3
16 Pages
Hardback
11 1/4″ x 8 3/4″
Farcountry Press, 2013
Hello, Wyoming!
Join the Bison as they explore Wyoming!
ISBN – 978-1-64194-007-8
16 Pages
Hardback
6″x 6″
Applewood Books, 2020
Hidden Valley Homestead
Ben Whitaker left Pennsylvania in 1880 along with his friends, Will and Walt Stewart. With no clear plan, they worked their way west by helping drive cattle from Nebraska to Oregon. When they finished the cattle drive, the three men returned to the majestic mountains of Wyoming Territory, where the Stewart brothers set up a sawmill, and Ben became a cattle rancher.
The wide western valley was their dream come true. Abundant timber provided Will and Walt the lumber to build cabins and barns. A creek along the length of a meadow gave Ben plenty of water for his ranch.
Several years later, when the land was surveyed, they applied for homesteads to legally own the valley. Ben’s cabin was on his homestead but his barns and water well were on the vacant homestead between his own and the Stewarts. Desperate to secure those one hundred and sixty acres before someone else applied for them, Ben asked his brother Calen to come from Pennsylvania and take up the vacant land.
Caleb agreed, but he never arrived. In his stead, another hesitant pioneer appeared–someone who would take up the homestead only under certain conditions. Ben soon realized he would pay a high price to obtain the land on which he had set his heart.
ISBN – 978-0-9817649-2-4
241 pages
Hardback
5 3/4″ x 8 3/4″
Seven Cross Lazy L Productions, 2014
Historical Atlas of the American West
The enduring image evoked by the American West is one of grand physical and historical romance, spectacle, and drama. Many generations of historians, both popular and academic, have sought to communication the unique characteristics of this region, whose history and physical setting have for so long captured the public imagination. In the Historical Atlas of the American West, a historian and a geographer meet this challenge by telling the story of the region from a comprehensive geographical perspective. Defining the American West as the seventeen contiguous states from the one-hundredth meridian westward (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, California, Oregon, and Washington), Warren A. Beck and Ynez D. Haase provide seventy-eight maps, each with explanatory text and a selective bibliography of further readings.
ISBN – 978-0-8061-2456-8
111 Pages
Softback
8 1/2″ x 11″
University of Oklahoma Press, 1989
Hold Tight the Thread
As the 1840’s bring conflict to the Pacific Northwest’s rugged Columbia Country, new challenges face Marie Dorion Venier Toupin, the wife, mother and Ioway Indian woman who crossed the Rocky Mountains with the Astor expedition, the first big overland expedition after Lewis and Clark’s. On French Prairie in the newly forming Oregon Territory, Marie strives to meet the needs of her conflict-ridden neighbors; British settlers and Americans, missionaries and disease-stricken natives, fur trappers and French-Canadian farming families, and the surviving natives of the region.
At the same time, as a mother, Marie must weave together the threads of an unraveling family. One daughter compares and judges as she seeks to find her place; another reaches for elusive evidence of her mother’s love. As Marie’s memories are threatened with the emergence of a figure from the past, she discovers and empowering spiritual truth: Unconditional love can shed light on even the darkest places in the heart.
ISBN: 978-1-57856-501-6
410 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8 1/4″
Waterbrook Press, 2004
How the West was Drawn – Mapping, Indians, and the Construction of the Trans-Mississippi West
How the West was Drawn explores the geographic and historical experiences of the Pawnees, the Iowas, and the Lakotas during the European and American contest for imperial control of the Great Plains during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. David Bernstein argues that the American West was a collaborative construction between Native peoples and Euro-American empires that developed cartographic processes and culturally specific maps, which in turn reflected encounter and conflict between settler states and indigenous peoples.
Bernstein explores the cartographic creation on the Tran-Mississippi West through an interdisciplinary methodology in geography and history. He shows how the Pawnees and the Iowas — wedged between powerful Osages, Sioux, the horse- and captive-rich Comanche Empire, French fur traders, Spanish merchants, and American Indian agents and explorers–devised strategies or survivance and diplomacy to retain autonomy during this era. The Pawnees and the Iowas developed a strategy of cartographic resistance to predations by both Euro-American imperial powers and strong indigenous empires, navigating the volatile and rapidly changing world of the Great Plains by brokering their spatial and territorial knowledge either to stronger indigenous nations or to much weaker and conquerable American and European powers.
ISBN – 978-0-8032-4930-1
303 Pages
Hardback
6 1/4″ x 9 1/4″
University of Nebraska Press, 2018
Hugh Glass – Grizzly Survivor
In 1823 a bear attack left Hugh Glass struggling for life on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Abandoned by his comrades, he crawled two hundred miles to the nearest trading post before setting out on an odyssey of revenge, only to forgive the men who had deserted him. The story of Hugh Glass has provided fertile grounds for novels, biographies, stories, comics, and an Oscar-winning film, but the real man remains a mystery.
Little is known about Glass’s origins, and nothing remains to document his physical appearance. Like most mountain men, he might have simply faded into history. Instead, Glass’s encounter with bear sparked a great western myth, as a series of writers built on his story to illustrate their visions of the American Character. Glass’s legend is still growing today, magnified through bestselling books and films like Lord Grizzly and The Revenant.
ISBN: 978-0-9852905-3-5
238 Pages
Softback
4 3/4″ x 8″
South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2016
Hurry McMurry – W. N. “Neil” McMurry, Wyoming Entrepreneur
This biography clearly illustrates what an individual with both ambition and high moral standards can accomplish.
W.N. “Neil” McMurry grew up in Depression-era Casper, Wyoming, survived the freezing turret of a B-17 Flying Fortress dodging flak over Germany, and has persevered through the booms and bust of Wyoming’s business environment. His companies have built much of the state’s infrastructure and were instrumental in opening the huge gas fields of the Jonah Prospect and Pinedale Anticline. With an eye on Wyoming’s future, he has continued to develop new companies and ventures into the twenty-first century.
By assuming responsibility, taking personal risks, and working incredibly hard, Neil McMurry became a true entrepreneur. But most importantly, he has succeeded through honest business practices and by caring about the people around him.
As we struggle with the fallout from one of our nation’s worst recessions, brought on by unethical business dealings, it is refreshing to read about those who have achieved their goals with their characters intact. Neil McMurry is proof that it can be done.
Neil also believes that financial success is accompanied by an obligation to give back. Neil’s foresight and philanthropy have directly benefited thousands of people, especially those whom he respects the most: the hard-working men and women of Wyoming. He is a role model for all.
ISBN – 978-0-615-37646-2
161 Pages
Hardback
11″ x 8 3/4″
VLM Publishing LLC, 2010
Images of America – Big Piney and Marbleton
Big Piney and Marbleton are one mile apart, and attempts to combine the two towns have been unsuccessful. The area had been home to family-operated cattle ranches starting in 1878, and a year later Daniel B. Budd and Hugh McKay brought 1,000 cattle from Nevada and were stopped here due to the weather. Founded by Daniel, Big Piney was incorporated in a boggy area on July 5, 1913, and is the oldest settlement in Sublette County. Daniel’s eldest son, Charles, had hoped to build the town up on the bench to alleviate the problem of wet land. He founded Marbleton, the newer town, which was incorporated in 1914. Big Piney has been called the “Icebox of the Nation because it had the coldest year-round average temperature in the country when it was officially made a weather station in 1930. Cattle remain a vibrant part of the local economy, and the land has been drilled for oil since the 1920’s. Both towns have known several booms and busts, typical of the energy industry.
ISBN – 978-0-7385-7588-9
128 Pages
Softback
6 1/2″ x 9 1/4”
Arcadia Publishing, 2011
Images of America – Fort Bridger
The history of Fort Bridger represents a microcosm of the development of the American West. Situated in an area initially inhabited by the Shoshone people, Fort Bridger was established during a transitional phase between the fur-trade era and the period of western migration. The fort became one of the most important supply points along the nation’s western trail network. Later, the post served as bastion of civilization as of a number of western military posts. Soldiers at the fort protected not only the lives and property of its local citizenry but also the emerging transportation and communication advancements of a nation. Following the Army’s departure, a small settlement emerged as Fort Bridger, using buildings and materials from the old military garrison. Today, the fort and town remain active, in part as a respite for travelers just as it had been more than 150 years ago.
ISBN – 978-1-4671-3145-2
127 Pages
Softback
6 1/2″ x 9 1/4″
Arcadia Publishing, 2014
Images of America – Fort Yellowstone
On August 17, 1886, Capt. Moses Harris and the troops of Company M rode into Yellowstone to take over guardianship of America’s first national park. Receiving orders thereupon that the company was staying indefinitely, Captain Harris ordered the construction of Camp Sheridan. Seeing no end in sight for this “temporary” duty, the US War Department established Fort Yellowstone in 1891. For 32 Years, ceremonial splendor of the US Army filled this era of Yellowstone with booming cannons at sunrise and sunset, crackling rifle-range practices, flashing saber drills, exacting military maneuvers, and dashing dress parades led by the regimental band. With the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, the Army began a two-year administrative transitioned and formally abandoned Fort Yellowstone in October 1918.
ISBN – 978-0-7385-9314-2
128 Pages
Softback
6 1/2″ x 9 1/4″
Arcadia Publishing, 2012
Images of America – Jackson Hole
The broad valley of Jackson Hole and the ridges and slopes around what would become Jackson, Wyoming, had long been a crossroads to the region’s Indigenous people when fur trappers arrived in early decades of the 19th century and made Jackson Hole a lynchpin of their continental commerce. Many came and went, but some stayed, with a settlement taking form near the banks of Flat Creek at the base of East Gros Ventre Butte. Small-scale cattle ranching formed the first economic base of this frontier town, but before long, the valley’s incomparable elk herds drew market hunters, game wardens, and hunting guides. Jackson became a ski town with turn-of-the-20th-century cross-country skiing, the 1920s and 1930s development of Mount Snow King, and the 1960s opening of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. These years saw the development of an authentic Western skiing culture and demonstrated Jackson’s pivot from sleepy frontier town to major logistical hub for recreational visitors. Two beloved national parks just to the north added to the flow of visitors as postwar prosperity funded new road trips and mountain vacations.
ISBN – 978-1-4671-6097-1
127 Pages
Softback
6 1/2″ x 9 1/4″
Arcadia Publishing, 2024
Images of America – Pinedale
John F. Patterson founded Pinedale in 1904 after proposing the establishment of a town along Pine Creek in western Wyoming. Patterson offered to build and stock a general store if local ranchers Charles Petersen and Robert Graham would donate five acres each for the site. Petersen and Graham agreed to this plan, a surveyor was hired, and Pinedale — named after the post office on Petersen’s ranch — was officially established. Free town lots were offered to early settlers, and Pinedale was incorporated in 1912, becoming the farthest incorporated town from a railroad, and later from a major highway, in the country. The community survived in fierce isolation, and the townspeople originally made their living supplying the ranchers, outfitters, and tie hacks. Ranching and tourism helped sustain Pinedale from the beginning, and in the 1900s, the community underwent a fundamental change with the introduction of natural-gas mining in the area. Pinedale residents continue to live and thrive on this harsh but beautiful land.
Historian Ann Chambers Noble has researched and written extensively about Pinedale and the surrounding areas. Many of the photographs in this book were drawn from the Sublette County Historical Society collection. Additional images came from the family collections of longtime Pinedale residents and have not been published until now.
ISBN: 978-0-7385-5883-7
127 Pages
Softback
6 1/2″ x 9″
Arcadia Publishing, 2008
Sublette County, Wyoming
Sublette County encompasses much of the upper Green River Valley, a stunningly beautiful area encased on three sides by rugged mountain ranges.
The county is named in honor of fur trapper and trader William Sublette, who attended several Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Rendezvous in the early 19th century. The short-lived fur trade era had a lasting impact when the mountain men, with Native American assistance, passed on the knowledge of the area’s geography, including migration routes used by the next group to travel to the area, the homesteaders. Permanent settlement started in the 1870s by stubborn, hardy settlers who maintained cattle and sheep herds despite the high altitude and harsh climate. Sublette County was Wyoming’s last county created when it was officially organized in 1923. The county’s economic base also included tourism and energy extraction. Supporting the small population over the vast landscape were only three incorporated towns, making post offices, trading posts, and schools scattered throughout the county important for the isolated communities.
Ann Chambers Noble has authored several award-winning histories of Sublette County in Arcadia’s Images of America series, including Pinedale and Big Piney and Marbleton. The photographs in this book are new to the series and are provided by the county’s museums and Sublette County family albums.
ISBN – 978-1-4671-6151-0
127 Pages
Softback
6 1/2″ x 9 1/4″
Arcadia Publishing, 2024
