Read the beginning of "Cowboy Days with the Old Union Cattle Company: Life Notes of Thomas Richardson" from Wyoming Folklore: Reminiscences, Folktales, Beliefs, Customs, and Folk Speech collected by the Federal Writers' Project, edited by James R. Dow, Roger L. Welsch, and Susan D. Dow:

"In 1884 my father decided that he had had enough of the Niobrara [River] (in northwestern Nebraska). Mostly, we had known hard times, strife, and disappointment there. In June we loaded up two covered wagons and started out on a long trek to find a new location.

We traveled south to Kearney, Nebraska, and went on into Kansas and Colorado along the Republican River. That country was similar to the Niobrara, so we returned to Kearney and spent the winter. On the first of April, 1885, we resumed our wandering, but headed north that time, traveling up the up [Union Pacific] Railroad through Cheyenne and Laramie until we came to Rock Springs. We crossed the LaBonte Mountains and came down on the Platte River at old Fort Fetterman. From there we turned north and came through Buffalo towards the Pumpkin Buttes and looked the Belle Fourche Country over, but my father could not find a location to suit him. Either the water was scanty or bad or something was the matter, so we kept right on traveling east through Sundance onto the head of Stockade Beaver Creek to the L. A. K. Ranch. Bill Smith (“Elk Mountain” Smith), who had been our neighbor on the Niobrara, had come to this country before us and was then nicely settled on a ranch at Elk Mountain. We decided to look him up and pulled on about eight miles farther to Elk Mountain.

In that vicinity our journey ended, for at last we had found the ideal location for which we had searched so long. In all our journeying we had not seen anything better than this. A huge spring gushed forth a stream of water large enough to take (care) of a thousand head of cattle, and there was grass and pasture land galore. There we set about building up a ranch.

For a couple of years I stayed at home and helped my father but I had always dreamed of becoming a cowboy and working on the great roundups. This was a wonderful stock country then. It was all one, big, open pasture with a luxuriant growth of grass and water in nearly every draw. There were cattle droves everywhere, it seemed, in the little valleys and scattered all over the hills. Many big outfits ran cattle over the far-flung range that as yet knew very few fences. One of the largest outfits was the Union Cattle Company that was formed (by) the merger of three big ranches, the S & G, the Bridle Bit, and the 70s.

On the 4th day of May I went to work for the Union Company. My first job with the outfit was far from the exciting life that I had pictured. Some of us younger men were detailed to roll wire in the mud. If there is one thing a cowhand hates it is riding or making any kind of fence. We loafed on the job until the boss came and gave us “thunder.” He sent us to the bunkhouse and we thought sure we were going to get our time, but instead he just gave us another good “bawlin’ out,” and said, “now, go on back and (loaf) as damned little as possible.” Well, we finally managed to get the fence fixed and on the 10th day of May the big roundup started."