Thursday, April 21, 2011

Despite more than a century of change, Wyo. family still sees ranch as greatest place on Earth

The rhythmic rattle of rail cars as they pass by the Hines Ranch eight miles west of Gillette has intricately woven the lives of three generations of ranchers. When John Hines arrived in northeastern Wyoming in what was then Crook County in about 1900, he chose to make his homestead near the Oriva community, just off what is now Echeta Road. Born on May 1, 1875, in Louisville, Ky., Hines was raised in an orphanage in Pennsylvania. Little else is known about him, although his grandson, Bill Bruce Hines of Gillette, said John Hines' mother died when he was just 1. At the time, his great-grandfather, who was born in Ireland in 1848, had four children. That's when the children were likely put in an orphanage by their father. When he first came to Wyoming just a decade after statehood in 1900, Hines worked as teamster in LeRoy in southwestern Wyoming, a siding on the railroad. Hines filed for his homestead on Nov. 21, 1901, where the ranch headquarters and his grandson's log home now stand. At some point, he somehow ended up in Carlyle, Ill., a small town about 50 miles east of St. Louis, where he met Tague "Tiggie" M. Eagle. Just 14 days after filing for his homestead, they married and the couple moved to Wyoming with their belongings loaded in a railroad freight car...more

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