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Robert Simpson Follis: A Mountain West Cattleman in the Hall of Great Westerners

A cattleman of the northern range era whose public record is thin but whose national honor is on the books.

Who Was Robert Simpson Follis?

Robert Simpson Follis (1842 to 1914) is listed as a cattleman of the Mountain West in the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. His roster entry gives his name, life dates and region, and the year of his induction, 1958. That is nearly all that the public sources reviewed for this profile say about him in detail.

Because the record is short, this page keeps every personal claim to what the roster supports and uses the rest of its space to explain the world he lived and worked in. Readers should not assume a ranch name, herd size or home county that the sources do not give.

A Name Easy to Confuse With Another Follis

Searches for his name often turn up James William Follis (1865 to 1950), a North Dakota cattleman inducted in 1967 who appears on the same museum's 1968 honoree listing as a neighbor to Peter Pauly's entry. They share a surname and a profession, but they are different men born more than 20 years apart, and nothing in the sources links them as relatives.

What the Hall of Great Westerners Is

The Hall of Great Westerners recognizes people who shaped the American West. As the museum's honoree pages show, each year's class is listed together with life dates and a state or region. The 1960 class, for example, included Montana's John M. Holt, Nevada's Pedro Altube and Colorado's William W. Bent, according to the museum's 1960 honoree page. A broader overview is on the hall's Wikipedia entry.

Classes mix ranchers with bankers and figures from other fields, which tells you the hall treats ranching as one thread in a larger regional story.

The Cattle Business He Worked In

A cattleman born in 1842 and dying in 1914 would have seen the northern range rise and change. In Montana, Granville Stuart helped organize the Montana Stock Growers Association in 1884, according to a Legends of America biography. Texas cattle were driven north to supply mining camps and new ranges, as Myron Jeffers did in 1869 and 1871.

Then came the severe winter of 1886 and 1887, which hit Montana ranchers hard. A few operations, such as the JO Ranch in the Tongue River Valley, came through it. Anyone running cattle in the Mountain West in those years lived through the same shift from open range toward smaller, managed ranches.

Why It Mattered

The relevance of Follis is the relevance of the honor itself: a national museum judged him worth recording, and later readers can follow up on that lead.

Where the documented record is thin, an honest profile says so.

  • His name, 1842 to 1914 life span and cattleman role are on the museum roster.
  • His induction year, 1958, places him in the hall's earlier decades.
  • The roster ties him to the Mountain West rather than a single ranch.
  • His lifetime spanned the 1884 stock association movement and the winter of 1886 and 1887.
  • No source reviewed for this profile documents controversies or ranch details, so none are asserted.

Researching Follis Further

State historical societies, territorial newspapers, county histories and the museum's own archive are the places to look for a fuller account. Brand records and county tax rolls often list stock owners by name, and a genealogy search can distinguish this Follis from others. If you hold family papers or a published biography, those would improve this entry.

To explore the wider story, see the ranching section on farm.FM, or read a farm.FM story about Mountain West cattle history.

Timeline

  1. 1842Born
  2. 1884Montana Stock Growers Association is organized, a mark of the era's growing organization
  3. 1886Winter of 1886 and 1887 begins hitting northern range cattle
  4. 1914Dies
  5. 1958Inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners

Frequently asked questions

Who was Robert Simpson Follis?

Robert Simpson Follis (1842 to 1914) was a Mountain West cattleman honored in the Hall of Great Westerners. Few detailed public biographies exist, so his documented profile is short.

When was Follis inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners?

He is listed with a 1958 induction year in the hall's roster at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Is Robert Simpson Follis the same as James William Follis?

No. James William Follis (1865 to 1950) was a North Dakota cattleman inducted in 1967. They are separate men and no source reviewed ties them together.

What is the Hall of Great Westerners?

It is an honor roll kept by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum recognizing people who shaped the American West, listed by induction year, life dates and region.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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