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Working Cowboys, Cowgirls and Stockmen

Wilse L. Richards, the North Dakota Stockman Who Lived Through the Open Range

A North Dakota stockman whose 91 years ran from the open range through the homestead era.

Who was Wilse L. Richards?

Wilse L. Richards lived from 1862 to 1953. The one firm piece of public record about his career is his place in the Hall of Great Westerners, which lists him as a stockman from North Dakota and gives 1958 as his induction year. The museum named him five years after his death at about age 91.

A stockman, in the language of the time, was someone who raised or managed livestock for a living. The Hall's published inductee list does not break that down further for Richards, and we could not find a longer documented biography. The rest of this profile therefore explains the North Dakota cattle world that a man born in 1862 passed through, and labels it as context.

A long life across a changing range

If Richards worked cattle from his early twenties, he would have started just as large-scale open-range ranching reached North Dakota. According to the State Historical Society's study, that business developed around 1883, and the first cattle shipment from the area left Dickinson on September 14, 1883. By then the Northern Pacific Railroad had made shipping possible from Medora, Dickinson and Bismarck.

Richards was about 21 that year, a fact based on his birth year alone. What he did that year is not documented in the sources we could open. We know the scene: a business of free grazing on federal and railroad land, branded cattle mixed together, and spring and fall roundups.

The boom, the crash and the bad winter

The numbers around Richards's early adulthood were dramatic. Large companies ran 10,000 to 25,000 head each. Local estimates in 1885 counted nearly 400,000 cattle in Dakota Territory. Then prices collapsed, with best steers at Chicago falling from $9.35 per hundredweight in May 1882 to $4.25 in April 1883 and $1.00 in autumn 1886.

The winter of 1886 and 1887 finished the job for many outfits. Overstocking, prairie fires in 1885, drought in 1886 and an early storm on November 4 left cattle thin, and some accounts say they lost from 60 to 80 percent of the herds. British investors alone lost about $10 million in English money and $7 to 8 million in Scottish money in the open-range years, though many recovered some capital when herds and land were sold, as the open range study reports.

How stockmen organized themselves

Because the range was open, ranchers organized to share work and settle disputes. Theodore Roosevelt helped lead the Little Missouri Stockmen's Association, organized on December 19, 1884, which gave each firm one vote. The Black Hills Livestock Association, founded in 1880, grew from 52 members in 1881 to 60 ranchers or companies with 264,000 head in 1882.

These groups ran roundups, defended brands and lobbied on land and rail issues. Whether Richards belonged to any of them is not documented, so we do not say.

Why It Mattered

Richards's listing matters mostly because it shows who the Hall chose to honor in its first years: working stockmen from every part of the West, not just famous owners. Because his own record is thin, the lessons below come from the documented conditions of his era.

They are the kind of facts a stockman of his generation had to deal with.

  • Price swings were brutal: best steers fell from $9.35 to $1.00 per hundredweight between 1882 and 1886.
  • Overstocking and drought made the range fragile, and many big companies went broke after 1887.
  • Survivors added hay, kept smaller herds and moved to fenced pastures; after 1900, average herds in western North Dakota ran 300 to 600 head, occasionally 1,000 to 1,200.
  • Homesteaders pushed in after 1903, so stockmen shifted to owned or leased land and family operations.
  • A note on costs: the open-range years also depended on the loss of bison and the displacement of Native peoples from the grass, as the same study explains.

Learn more

For more on the setting, read the Historical Society study and the North Dakota Studies agriculture overview. For ranching history and stories more broadly, see the ranching pages of farm.FM and a farm.FM story about open range ranching.

Timeline

  1. 1862Wilse L. Richards is born.
  2. 1880The Northern Pacific reaches the Montana-Dakota border; Black Hills Livestock Association is founded.
  3. 1883Large-scale open-range ranching develops; first cattle shipment leaves Dickinson.
  4. 1886-1887Overstocking, drought and a brutal winter devastate northern herds.
  5. about 1903Open-range ranching ends as homesteaders move onto former range.
  6. 1953Richards dies at about 91.
  7. 1958Inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Wilse L. Richards?

Wilse L. Richards (1862-1953) was a North Dakota stockman. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum inducted him into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1958.

What is a stockman?

A stockman raised or managed livestock, usually cattle, horses or sheep, as a business. The term often covered both owners and the managers who ran herds on open range.

What happened to North Dakota cattle in 1886 and 1887?

Overstocked range, a dry summer and a harsh winter killed a large share of the herds. Accounts range from 60 to 80 percent losses in western Dakota, and many large companies failed.

Is there a full biography of Richards?

Not that we could verify. The public record is the Hall of Great Westerners listing, so this profile separates his documented dates and honor from the general history of his era.

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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