Financial History Issue 121 (Spring 2017) | Page 10
EDUCATORS’ PERSPECTIVE
Risk Management on the Range
By Brian Grinder and Dan Cooper
Bill Grinder walked out of the bank, hat
in hand, with a heavy heart. He had just
lost his ranch south of Buffalo, Wyoming,
where he had lived since his youth. The
banker refused to loan him the money
needed to meet operating expenses for
the coming year. It was 1939. Bill and his
father, Edward, had weathered the worst
of the Great Depression only to lose it
all just as things were beginning to turn
around. “How,” he wondered, “would he
tell his wife, Anna? Where would they go?
What would happen to them and their
two small children, Edwin and Miriam?”
This was the second time the Grinder
family had lost a ranch. In 1910, their
ranch near Marquette, Wyoming literally
went under water with the completion of
the Shoshone Dam. 1 Bill was nine years
old, and his brother Sam was six when the
water rose and submerged the log build-
ings on their ranch. The federal govern-
ment paid them for their land, 2 and the
family set off for the Nebraska Sandhills to
start over. After three years, they decided
to move back to Wyoming and settled in
the Buffalo area.
There were no safety nets for a Wyoming
rancher in the 1930s, no social programs for
failed ranchers or their families. All Bill had
left to his name after he lost the ranch was a
string of saddle horses. He eventually found
a cabin near Boulder, Wyoming where he
and his family could stay rent free, but he
needed to find a way to get his horses there.
Trucking them was out of the question;
there was simply no money for that. So Bill
and Don Rogers, a family friend, saddled up
their horses and trailed the herd a distance
of about 300 miles, crossing two mountain
passes, to get them to their new home. The
horses were sold off over the next several
months to pay for living expenses until Bill
could find work as a ranch hand on some of
the area’s larger spreads.
The 1940 Census for the unincorpo-
rated town of Boulder, Wyoming indi-
cates that neither Bill nor his 71-year-
old father was working or seeking work.
Under the heading “Occupation, Industry,
and Class of Worker,” the Census form
indicates that the families surveyed both
before and after the Grinders owned their
own ranches and were engaged in ranch-
ing as an occupation. Under the Grinder
family, all of the boxes under this category
are ominously empty.
The Census also identifies Edward
Grinder as the head of the household
with three generations living under the
same roof. There was no Medicare at that
time, and Social Security was only about
five years old. It was common for families
to take care of their elderly parents and
grandparents at home. Any sort of insur-
ance, not to mention something as extrav-
agant as long-term care insurance, was out
of the question for most rural folks.
Bill eventually found work as a ranch
hand on several of the larger ranches in
the area, such as the Tanner Ranch, the
Quarter Circle 5 Ranch and the Maytag
Ranch. The owner of the Quarter Circle
5 Ranch was married to a descendant of
blue jean magnate Levi Strauss, and the
Maytag Ranch was a fishing playground
for Lewis Bergman “Bud” Maytag, son
of the founder of the Maytag Washing
Machine Company.
In her book, Rough Breaks: A Wyoming
High Country Memoir, Laurie Wagner
Buyer captures the essence of what Bill
Grinder and other local ranchers have
long felt about wealthy absentee ranch
owne