Historic Sublette County of Cattle & Men
About 3 miles north of Big Piney on U.S. Highway 189

Thousands of people, cattle and horses passed this way to the Northwest when the Sublette Cut-off of the Oregon Trail was opened in 1857. None settled in this county. At the close of the Indian Wars in 1877, cattle herds from Oregon came this way to meet the railroad and to stock Wyoming ranges. The first Sublette County herds were started with other western cattle. In 1878-79 Ed Swan’s PL, Otto Leifer’s O Circle, Bud’s 6 Quarter Circle, Hugh McKay’s 67 and A.W. Smith’s Muleshoe outfits settled on nearby Piney Creek. Their cattle were not Longhorns. The county’s first barbed wire was unrolled in 1881 on the Circle outfit.