Gasconade County Republican

If it sounds like a tale straight out of the American West, that’s because it is. By way of Iowa and Nebraska, two families of 19th Century immigrants to the United States, one from Germany and the other from Switzerland, end up in east central Wyoming. The result 130 years later is a ranch that covers several square miles and consists of many thousands of acres owned outright as well as many thousands more leased acres.

Artie Joss and his wife Freida own and operate the ranch that his great-great grandparents homesteaded a few miles west of Lusk, Wyo. For several years, that ranch has been the destination of a group of Owensville hunters seeking trophy mule deer and antelope which are plentiful in a rugged landscape crisscrossed by deep canyons and impossible rock formations.

For the last five or six years, we have pestered Artie for a history of the ranch and his family. Artie, now in his 70s, is a busy man so we didn’t push too hard, just a gentle reminder now and then. This year, with the help of one of his and Freida’s daughters who is an attorney in Laramie, Wyo., and with his herd of between 4,000 and 5,000 Herefords safely on their winter range, Artie completed the ranch’s history, or as much of it as he wanted to tell us. Westerners are closed mouth about some things.

But what is there makes fascinating reading and sometime later, once I manage to separate and identify for certain all the Hitshew and Joss ancestors, there will be an in-depth feature story that I am counting on being published in The Gasconade County Republican.

Artie’s predecessors dealt with Indians who “visited” the ranch frequently and apparently believed every horse they saw belonged to them. Ethel Hitshew, Artie’s great-great aunt on that side of the family wrote in her journal: “The most excitement was when the Indians came through. We were afraid of them. One time mother took us children up on a hill east of the house, but we got back before they (the Indians) had left. One old buck said ‘fraid, heap ‘fraid. One time the Indians came, they took Retta my sister, and carried her to their camp. As George (her father) was traveling by team and wagon to Cheyenne for supplies, Mattie’s brother (Ethel’s and Retta’s uncle) went and got Retta from the Indians.”

Ethel didn’t say in her journal how her uncle got Retta back from the Indians, whether it was through negotiation or gun play, but he apparently had no help nor did he need it. He brought Retta home regardless and after that the Indians didn’t take anymore girls from the ranch, at least not that ranch. A favorite John Wayne movie of mine, “The Searchers,” was based on a similar theme: an uncle searching for a niece taken by the Indians.

Artie’s ancestors witnessed the coming of the first stage line to that part of Wyoming and later the first railroad. They also witnessed part of the infamous Johnson County War including the last killing in that dispute between big ranchers and “upstart” homesteaders. The shooting took place eight miles north of Keeline, Wyo., a location that puts it almost smack dab in the middle of Artie’s ranch.

One great-great uncle also witnessed the Battle of Lightning Creek which was the last conflict between white men and Indians in the area. It took place Oct. 31, 1903, near the western edge of central Niobrara County where most of the Joss ranch is located.

Artie’s great-great grandparents, after getting married in Tennessee, established the present day Joss ranch seven miles north of Keeline, once a major cattle and hog shipping stop for the railroad. The couple lived in a dugout along a creek bank the first year of their marriage before completing a house in 1884 or 1885. In those days, many ranches were built and kept with Winchesters and Colts.

With an avid interest in history, including western history, I found this firsthand account of families settling part of the “Wild West”  fascinating. With a little luck and some more digging, maybe you will too.