Cattle and Sheep
Ranching Business of Wyoming
To view captions for these pictures, see bottom of page
"Wyoming"
and "Cowboy" are synonymous. You can't have one without the
other. Cowboys drove their great herds of cattle north along the old Texas
Trail to the grass-rich prairies of eastern Wyoming in 
the
1860s. Flocks of sheep were not far behind, heading for the high, semi-desert
country of south-central Wyoming. 
Huge ranching operations were established, with land holdings measured in thousands of sections, not acres. The Swan Land and Cattle Company, headquartered in Cheyenne and Chugwater, once ran cattle from central Wyoming to west-central Nebraska. Sheep ranches prospered near Rawlins and Rock Springs. At one time, more sheep were sheared at the Wolcott pens than anywhere else in the United States.
Rodeo is Wyoming's favorite pastime. All along the corridor,
communities
celebrate the heritage of the cowboy with rodeos of all sizes. Leading the
list is Cheyenne Frontier Days, "The Daddy of 'em All."The world's largest outdoor rodeo has been happening for ten days every July for over 100 years. You'll find smaller, "up
close
and personal" rodeos in places like Pine Bluffs, Laramie, Encampment, Rawlins,
Rock Springs, Kemmerer and Evanston, to name a few. 