History of The Ryan Renegade Fishing Club
MEMORIES, by Alpha Newton (circa 2002)
I am the last living member of the original Renegade Club that began in the 1960s. Dr. Archie Hess and his wife Libby were wonderful people. He was President of the club then.
We first fished at the Sangor Ranch that was owned by Milly Sanger and she was hard to get along with but we stayed there for a good many years and Oh! what good fishing holes were there. We had them all named as we knew where we caught the big ones although you might catch a big one any where on the river.
We had tents when we first went up there then later on we got an old trailer house and had it moved up there. Pat and Mabel Murphy joined and the fee was $25. You were allowed 25 fish then. We were good friends with the Murphys and fished there the many years with them. Milly got greedy and upped the price so high the club decided to look elsewhere for fishing and Archie found the Ryan Ranch owned by Cecil and Stella Ryan and we moved over there.
The Ryans were wonderful people. Cecil had lost an eye in an explosion and had it sewn shut but he didn't miss a thing that was going on. We used to eat with them at times and they would come to the campgrounds and eat with us outside on the big homemade table, and he would tell us a lot of the history of the ranch and of the country around when they first came to Wyo. We loved them dearly. Later they were moved into Saratoga in a nursing home and we all felt very sad about that. Their son Victor then took over and ran the ranch but never moved out there. Then their son Greg took over and lived on the ranch but built them a house. And the old house stayed empty and I guess it still is.
We (the four of us) got too old to go fishing any more and now the grandchildren are taking over but the rules are a lot different now and you are only allowed 6 fish. Pat, Mabel, Harold are all gone now and I'm the last one of the bunch that I know of still living. I'm now 96 years old, but I think I could still cast a line down at the trailer hole, ha.
Alpha Newton
RYAN
Cecil (1888-1977)
Estella (Teale) (1887-1978)
An interview with Cecil Ryan in 1971, submitted by Victor A. Ryan (Cecil's son) from Saratoga & Encampment Wyoming, an Album of Family Histories, 1989:
"I guess I have been around here just about as long as anyone," 83 year old Cecil Ryan noted with modesty when he was quizzed about his life in the Saratoga Valley area.
The Ryan family roots go deep into the rich soil as Cecil’s father, B.T. Ryan, moved his family to the area in 1873 or 1874 (long before Cecil’s time). B.T. Ryan came to this country in 1868 and settled at Ft. Steele where he ran a sawmill for the government. Lumber from the mill was used to build officers’ quarters at Ft. Steele. In a picture which Ryan has fondly kept all these years, his father’s pet elk is shown at Ft. Steele. B.T. Ryan returned to Iowa ane married in 1870. The newlyweds returned to the west and again settled at Ft. Steele. It was here the first Ryan son was born in 1872. Then in 1873, as far as Ryan can remember, the family packed up their gear and settled south of Saratoga.
"When they moved here the Ryans were the first white family to settle between the Union Pacific Railroad and the Colorado state line," Ryan noted. He said, "However there were trappers and other transients in the area, but none had established permanent homes." The only other family in the vicinity, according to Ryan, was the Hawley family who lived below Saratoga. "They had a boy named Cecil and I was named after him," Ryan noted. "Cecil Hawley, in later years, used to come back to the area and visit with the Ferris family in Rawlins. I was always going to go see him but he died before I every got to go."
Ryan said his father bought the Jim Gregory place when he came into the Saratoga area. Gregory, according to Ryan, had never filed any of his land so when Ryan bought the outfit he said he paid Gregory $1,400 for a cook stove, but that a bunch of cattle were thrown in on the deal. The first Ryan home still stands on the Ryan Ranch and has been well preserved through the years by Cecil. Some newspaper clippings on the wall, Ryan noted, tell of Sitting Bull’s proposed meeting with Custer.
B.T. Ryan, who was engaged in the cattle business, ran his livestock around Satatoga and on the White River above Meeker, Colorado. Ryan was gathering cattle in the Meeker area when the Meeker Massacre took place. "But the Indians didn’t bother Dad as he got along with them." Ryan said his father always said to leave the Indians alone as they meant business and that if you ever shot at an Indian be sure that you killed him. Ryan also noted that the Indians had learned the meanness they knew form the white man.
Cecil Ryan was one of three boys born on the Ryan Ranch. He now lives in a house which was built almost 100 years ago. "It is one of the best in the country or it wouldn’t have stood so long," Ryan noted quickly. Ryan said he went to school "a little" in country schools and in Saratoga. Although he had been working on the ranch all his life, Ryan took over when he was 19 following his father’s death. When asked what was one of his first memories, Ryan replied that he could still see his brother riding home across the river with a bucket of raspberries in his hand. "I must have been about five then."
"My father was the first assessor in the county and J.B. Adams was the first sheriff." During this time the railroad apparently wasn’t paying its taxes so Ryan and Adams chained a railroad locomotive to the tracks in a threat to get the taxes. Some claimed that they were holding up the U.S. Mail, but Dad uncoupled the engine from the rest of the train and had moved it up the tracks so they really weren’t holding up the mail at all," Ryan laughed.
One of the first stores in Saratoga was the Hugus Store which moved from Ft. Steele to Saratoga, Ryan noted. At that time Saratoga was known as Warm Springs. "After my folks moved to the area, a bathhouse also started in Saratoga.
"Now I’ll tell you something which very few people know about," Ryan stated. "At one time the Union Pacific Railroad," according to Ryan, "had several thousand men working on the Saratoga stretch of track which was a spur off the main line. However, they had to stop because the railroad owed the government money and government officials said they had to pay their debts before they (the railroad) could do any more developing," he said. "The railroad never laid the rails although they had installed rock culverts...You can still see the grade. Things would have been different if the Union Pacific Railroad would have come in here," Ryan emphasized.
Every section of the country seems to have its own unique titles and Ryan knows how many of these areas around Saratoga received their names. Ryan’s father used most of the country around Brush Creek as his range country. "He used to call it Brushy Bottom," Ryan noted. Then there was Corral Creek, a famous fishing place. I t was named after a corral which Dad built to gather his cattle," he continued. "And you know Ryan Park also was named after my Dad," he said.
The Ryan Ranch originally called the Cedar Hill Ranch. "It was the only place where the cedars came clear down to the creek," Ryan said in explaining how his father named his holdings. Then there was the Christmas that the Ryans went to Ft. Steele to obtain the holiday turkey. "When they got back to the ranch the turkey was gone so a search party was formed. The turkey was found in a little draw where it apparently had bounced out of the wagon. That because known as Turkey Hollow," Ryan noted.
"And then there was the story about Al Huston and his elk meat," Ryan said. Huston, who was lined with the Cow Creek area, came to the region after the Ryans. Huston, according to Ryan, used to kill elk and then take the hindquarters on a four horse-drawn wagon to Ft. Steele where he would sell the meat to immigrants and soldiers. One time Huston apparently had to borrow a wagon wheel from the Ryans after his elk-laden wagon broke down. The place where the wagon broke down became known as Elk Gulch.
When asked what started Saratoga, Ryan said that in his opinion it was the Hot Springs Hotel. "It was a drawing card...people came here to soak in the hot water. The hotel, located at the site of the present Saratoga Inn, burned in 1902, I think it was April 14, 1902. I just happened to be in town that day and I saw it burn up."
Since B.T. Ryan had such a large range for his cattle, Ryan said he had a big roundup at the end of every year. "He had quite an empire in cattle. He was in partnership with Hugus and they ran 7,000 head of cattle at one time. Dad would gather cattle from Brush Creek to Walcott and at the end of the roundup he wouldn’t have ten head of cattle in the herd that weren’t his. I never went on the roundup but eight or ten men used to help him." He said he still has the old mess box which the men used on the annual excursion.
"In the early 1900s there was a mining boom in Encampment which developed the country." In discussing the area, Ryan mentioned the longest tramway in the world (16 miles) which ran from the Ferris Haggarty mine to the smelter in Encampment, the four-mile pipeline which carried water from the South Fork to power a smelter at Encampment, and the big freight teams which hauled staples to Encampment from Ft. Steele. He rattled off names like Purgatorty Gulch, Golden Eagle, Lode Claim, Ferris Haggarty mine, Rudefeha, Battle and Dillon, all the names connected with the early day minting. "Several thousand families moved into the area during the boom which lasted 15 years or longer, from the Golden Eagle claim to the time the smelter closed down," Ryan continued. When asked what caused the mining rush to falter, Ryan explained, "All the mines in the area were in the ground and tunnels and shafts had to be constructed through the hard rock. Now places like Butte, Montana, Salt Lake City, Utah, Silver City, New Mexico had cut mines and could operate so much cheaper.... That’s what choked this place out."
Mrs. B.T. Ryan had the first water right out of the North Platte River in 1875. " Why in a few more years it will be 100 years old," Ryan noted. The original copy of the water right has been placed in the Grand Encampment Museum in a display case which was donated by Ryan.
"I told you before that Dad liked the Indians. My brother Will, he was the second oldest, one time told about the Indians coming along and staying a day or two while they filled their bellies and their horses too." When the Indians left the Ryan place, they traveled through Twin Groves on their way toward Rock Springs. At Twin Groves the Indians apparently saw men driving several hundred head of cattle. The Indians rode ahead, found a place where they could turn around without leaving any tracks and returned to the Ryan place where they told Ryan about the cattle. In the company of several men, Ryan followed the tracks and found his cattle which had apparently been abandoned after the rustlers saw the Indians.
B.T. Ryan could have been considered a jack-of-all-trades. He had a sawmill at Ryan Park, was one of the first ranchers in the area, and had the first stamp mill on the Snowy Range following the Gold Hill Discovery in that area. "Dad was an expert at setting up machinery."
Cecil Ryan and his wife of 57 years have a son who is a chemistry professor at the University of Wyoming and a daughter who is director of publications at Denver University. Although Ryan has leased his ranch he says he continues to work every day "doing something."
The Ryans are true Carbon County pioneers and their story tells the history of a place which Ryan says with a smile "Is great."
This interview, conducted by Patty Burke, was published in the Rawlins Daily Times August 14, 1971. Cecil and Stella Ryan are both gone now and their grandson Greg Ryan and his family in 1989 are on the ranch.
Submitted by Victor A. Ryan (Cecil’s son)