Starting in 1858, thousands of people, cattle, and horses migrating west traveled along the Lander Cut-off, the northern fork of the Oregon Trail, just south of this area, though none settled here then. By the late 1870s, cattle from the west were being trailed back to stock Wyoming ranges, and the first Sublette County herds were a mix of western cattle but generally not Texas longhorns. In 1878-79, Ed Swan’s PL, Otto Leifer’s Circle, D.B. Budd’s Quarter Circle Six, Hugh McKay’s Sixty-Seven, and A.W. Smith’s Muleshoe outfits settled on nearby Piney Creek. In the early open range days, Big Piney ranches pastured cattle east of the Green River in winter and west of the Green River in summer. The devastating winter of 1889-1890 killed up to 90 percent of the stock, and afterward ranchers grew hay to feed livestock in winter by clearing sagebrush, running ditches, and irrigating the land to create hay meadows. The Big Piney Roundup Association formed in the early 1890s to self-manage grazing on the open range, and other associations followed. With the creation of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905, grazing fees were implemented for the first time on public lands, and in 1934 the Taylor Grazing Act established management of grazing on all federal lands through permits and fees. Sublette County’s ranchers and grazing associations take pride in a history of stewardship on the range that has helped keep the area beautiful and rich in wildlife.