|
Bed & Breakfast Inns and Ranches of Wyoming |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
History of Shell as told by Gil Smith |
|
Gil Smith is the
great-grandson of Shell’s first white settlers. His private recollections
describe a tightly knit group of pioneers who, though far from perfect,
still pulled together and took care of their own. In 1886 the Jordan L. Smith family took up a ranch which includes present-day Shell. The Smith women raised a garden the first summer they pulled a halt along Shell Creek while the men were building the cabin and corrals. The grizzly bear were trapped out of the creek bottoms. The Smiths were fierce hunters and trappers: sage chicken in season, deer, elk, bear meat, even beaver, all filled their table. The family also brought cattle with them, and visitors knew there would always be beef at the Smiths -- one of their own or a "poached" one from Lovell's huge herd of free ranging longhorns. J. L. Smith ran a free hotel. Those were “make-do” days when all the boys slept together not only in one room, but in one bed. When weary travelers stopped by in the middle of the night, a blanket or two was pulled from the boys' bed for use on the straw tick in the lean-to shed or, if bitter cold, in front of the main room fire place. J. L would vacate his bed so female guests could sleep with his wife in this one private room of the house. Four years after her arrival in the valley, Lavinia Smith died in childbirth with her ninth child; she was the first Shell pioneer to be buried, so J. L. gave the community a rock strewn corner of the Smith homestead for a cemetery. That same year Jordan Jr. died of gangrene poisoning after breaking his leg. The Shell valley filled up fast after the Smiths landed there -- the Kershners and Sweeneys on Horse Creek, followed by the Lampmans and MacKensies, then the Tatlocks, Sabins, Lees, and Millers. In 1890 artist Clayton S. Price came with his family to the area below Shell, where the family wintered in a one-room cabin. There were no winter provisions, since the senior Price, who was to bring them down from Billings by wagon, got snowed in 'til spring in the Montana country. Neighbors helped as they could with flour and dried fruits, and the boys hunted. His daughter Ota Price, my grandmother who married Jordan Smith's son Edgar, said she never got warm again after that winter. Ten to twenty years after arriving in the valley, nearly all the families were connected by marriage. Almost every region of the United States and most all of the European countries were represented. There arose out of this diversity good-natured debate as well as bitter feuds based in part on ethnic prejudice. Often a battle over the ever-limited supply of irrigation water or a neighbor's bull in one's stock would lead to personal name-calling, and it was common to see grown men fighting with fists in front of the post office or MacKensie's store. The battles were bitter and not quickly forgotten; occasionally guns were threatened; in unusual cases, used. But when the community gathered for a dance or to watch the school children perform their Christmas play, the men would gather round the big stove together, truces made. They good-naturedly joked, told the old stories, and surreptitiously passed the jug. My grandmother lived along the cemetery road in the last years of her life, when I was not yet allowed to go to funerals and she was no longer able. Together we watched the hearse move slowly by and she would say we must stay inside until everyone in the procession had passed. Then, while she made me molasses cookies or her sour-cream raisin pie, or some other wonderful recipe which she knew by heart, she would tell me all the wonderful collection of memories surrounding the person being buried. Most of them were her friends, but she shed few tears. Her faith was strong and her experience with loss had taught her that our lives are, as Scripture observes, impermanent as a mist. The old ones are nearly gone now. The little white church, its unkempt land left to the community by my great-grandfather, stands mostly unused except for an occasional wedding or funeral. The two-room red school house in which every child in or near Shell received their elementary education only 15 years ago has fallen silent. My family's grizzly bear trap can now be set by hand, its metal weakened in a bunkhouse fire in the forties. Once, this region provided a living for at least fifty large families and possibly more -- especially during hard times. Now there are fewer children in the valley, although old (and new) ranching families still keep the community traditions alive. |