Show sheep industry started in 1875 many of utah earllee earl let settler brought a few sheep across the plains these soon increased to mail small farmyard flocks and by the middle 70 a there were A number of lame large herds some privately and ome some co cooperatively 0 owned these co could u 1 jer no longer be handled in the farmyard wd and on the nearby near by ranges they y had to be moved onto the I 1 desert during the winter and into the high mountain mountains for the summer perhaps the first large herd to break permanently away from farmyard headed west in october 1875 following the old overland stage road the two young bedders herders were to see ke no one but t each other until they moved eastward over the same trail six alx lx months later the outfit consisted of thirty five hundred sheep a terrific berdi and one primitive can camp wagon the men handling this is enormous herd were two brothers 11 and 15 yeara years old their experiences of that first winter make fascinating reading one incident only c can an be e included during the winter a warm south wind melted the snow and the herd watched by the older boy scattered over the rolling foothills A mile or so away stood the camp wagon where the other boy prepared biscuits bli cults and the usual mutton stew suddenly the wind swung from the north and a wild blizzard c came iame roaring over the hills there was no possibility of getting the sheep back to camp in the face of such a storm they were already moving with the wind the boy took one despairing look it at the fading wagon then running wh chisling isling shouting he kept the herd together and guided them as best he could down the valley sometime in the night the lead sheep cam to some tall sheltering brush and stopped the rest test of the herd crowded in dose close and the young herder exhausted and almost frozen crawled in among the sheep taking enough warmth from their woolley b bodies to keep alive ILI till U morning thus began a new era in great sheep industry an i industry tha that has brought millions 0 of dollars to the hardy self denying men who have dared to leave their homes and families to follow the flocks into the lonely deserts and the high mountains onward to statehood |