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Show 38 The Grouse Creek Cultural Survey Before the range was fenced during the late 1930s and 1940s, the cattle drifted up the mountains from the lower winter range or home ranches. The roundup for spring branding was a community activity involving about a dozen men. Two wagons were outfitted, and one crew went to the range of mountains to the west while the other went east. Small groups of cattle were rodeered- as the activity of gathering and branding is called-during a two- to three-week period. There were no corrals on the range, and the calves were roped and branded in the open. Oren Kimber, a seventy-five-year-old buckaroo turned rancher, remembered that when he was young they rodeered in the open. "It would take quite a few [cowboys] to hold 'em," Kimber said. "Usually two roped, and maybe two or three on the ground to brand the calves. Two roped and dragged 'em out. At that time we worked them a lot, so they'd be not so hard to hold." Doug Tanner, a forty-two-year-old rancher, recalled that "before my time they used to not even come to the corral with them before the fences and all that, they used to have the rodeers, and hold 'em and brand 'em, and just move 'em from place to place, and hold 'em out on the open range." The open range was the key to the initial success of ranching in the valley. The availability of public grazing land meant that the families could run larger, more profitable herds. The openness of the range also dictated the pattern of life. Without fences the cattle would drift to both the west and north, forcing the buckaroos to cover a considerable amount of territory. In order to recover cattle that had drifted to ranches outside the valley, Grouse Creek men would have to work on adjoining ranches as representatives, or "reps," for Grouse Creek interests. Most Grouse Creek buckaroos repped on the Nevada ranches sometime during their lives, thus coming into direct contact with Nevada buckaroo crews. "You were expected to be there," Max Tanner said, "just like their cowboys." The spring roundup continues today, but it has been changed by enclosure of the range and the introduction of stock trucks. The public lands were fenced during the years following the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. The effect of fencing on Grouse Creek ranchers was significant, for it transformed the open range into a network of specific allotments, with each rancher receiving certain parcels of range according to the size of his herd and number of acres owned. The existence of the allotments meant that the cattle could no longer drift toward the higher range in the springtime. Instead, the cowboys now gather and move them on horseback to individual fields that are often scattered over several sections of land. The spring branding now takes place in corrals on the home ranch in April or early May. Several local ranchers like Doug Tanner continue to rope and throw calves for branding, although others, like Oren Kimber and his son Randy, use a mechanized table-chute for holding the calves. Branding is almost always done now with stamp irons, although running irons were once used, and propane tanks or even electric generators have replaced the open fire for heating the irons. The stock truck has changed ranching in Grouse Creek as it has throughout the |