City of Rocks Historic Resources Study

[We] decided to lay over for several days in order to rest our cattle before entering the Snake desert. The mountains here afford a magnificent summer range, the bunch grass waving like a wheat field and with water abundant. [130]

The "pioneer" herdsman in the Raft River region were American Indians, who first grazed large herds of horses and later the cattle procured from overland emigrants; long after the Indians had been ushered to Fort Hall, these wild herds roamed the City of Rocks region feeding on the native bunchgrass (agropyrum spicatum), white sage (artemisia cana), buckbrush (Antelope Bitterbrush; purshia tridentata) and shadscale Atriplex Confertifolia)." [131] By the 1850s, the captive and inflated market of the California mining camps had attracted eastern stockmen, who drove their herds of Texas longhorns and (less often) sheep to the Sacramento Valley by one of three routes: the Gila and Old Spanish trails through Arizona and southern California and the Northern Trail, along the emigrant trail through the City of Rocks. [132]

As Richard Dana and the other California boosters had promised, the Golden State's agricultural potential was enormous. When in the 1860s the West's gold camps shifted from the Sacramento Valley to Idaho, Nevada, and Montana, California ranchers were ready to herd their cattle "east." Here they competed with the Texas ranchers for a share of the Boise Basin, Pierce, and Virginia City markets. [133] The California stock drives traveled from Junction Valley to the Raft River Valley along Trail Creek, through the City of Rocks; Texas drives passed just east, through the Raft River Valley.

By the 1870s, cattle competed with sheep on these eastward drives. California sheepmen most commonly trailed their bands on one of three routes: along Goose Creek (west) through Oakley; along the California Trail through the City of Rocks, and east along the Salt Lake Alternate. [134]

"Cattle Dealer" James Q. Shirley was the first non-Indian to use the City of Rocks as a home base. In 1869, Shirley and his "hired man" trailed 13,000 head of Texas longhorns to "a place called the City of Rocks." Here they "made camp," raising a garden and utilizing "The Cove" below Graham Peak as a natural corral. When the census taker knocked in the spring of 1880, Shirley shared the City of Rocks camp with seven "stockherders." The Keogh brothers purchased Shirley's cattle and landholdings in 1881, forming the Keogh Ranch. [135]

Neighboring cattle ranches included the Emery Ranch in the Raft River Valley, A. D. Norton and M. G. Robinson's outfit along the Snake River at Rock Creek, and the Shoe Sole and Winecup ranches located in the Goose Creek Valley west of the City of Rocks. (By 1882, the Winecup ranch alone had 175,000 cattle ranging from the Goose Creek Mountains (Albion Mountains) on the east to the Bruneau River on the west.) These operations used the City of Rocks region as summer range for their cattle and ranch horses, constructing stock ponds, corrals, and the "line cabins" that provided food and shelter to herders. [136]

By the 1880s, the Raft River Valley, with its abundant plantings of alfalfa hay, "became known as the best place in the west to winter sheep... There were free open range privileges and the general area was safe for the bands." Sheepmen, primarily headquartered in northern Utah, also relied upon the Goose Creek Range and the City of Rocks as summer range. [137]

Stock trails historically included that from Junction Valley to the Raft River Valley, along Trail Creek; a trail up the Raft River Valley to Starrh's Ferry, on the Snake River north of present Burley (from which cattle and sheep were shipped to the Wood River Mining District near Hailey); and a trail roughly following the Kelton Road, leading to shipping points on the Union Pacific Railroad. [138]

The drought of 1886-1891 and the endless winters of 1882, 1886, and 1889 brought "years of continual overgrazing" and winter range use to a screeching halt. [139] The "old time cowmen" reported losses of 50 to 90 percent during the winter of 1882. The Winecup, which branded 38,000 calves in 1885, branded 68 in 1891; the nascent local sheep industry was similarly devastated. [140] In one of the West's great ironies, the fenced fields of the settlers — anathema of the free range cowboy — saved the Idaho stock industry:

The necessity of providing feed for range stock under Idaho conditions was learned by bitter experience in the 80's and put into practice during the 90's. The change increased operating expenses but put the range industry on a safe and sane basis. . . . The cattle are winter fed. Operation costs are greatly increased but the cattle are improved and the danger of heavy losses removed. [141]