Tag Archives: Brown’s Park Gang

“QUEEN” ANN BASSETT: RUSTLER & GUNSLINGER

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Queen ANn BassettQUEEN ANN BASSETT – Ann Bassett, like a female Michael Corleone out west, took over her late mother Beth’s leadership of the Brown’s Park Gang of rustlers. The Johnson County War proper was over and done with but Queen Ann led the band of Robin Hood rustlers in additional raids and other guerrilla strikes at the vicious Cattle Barons of Wyoming.  

When Ann was much younger Beth had sent her and Ann’s sister Josie to boarding school and while Josie excelled as a student Ann was a different story. The future Queen of the Rustlers enjoyed shocking people in her teen years, dolling up in the lastest fashions from back east and wearing (gasp) MAKEUP in a way that “decent” society knew was only done by Saloon Girls.

Ann at times put on a New England accent just to see people’s reactions to it and spouted made-up gibberish while claiming to be speaking Chinese. All the while she was absorbing every element of the way her mother Beth ran the Brown’s Park Gang. Sometimes the only things Ann agreed with her mother about were the beauty of Brown’s Park and the need to fight the Cattle Barons of the Wyoming Stock Grower’s Association. Continue reading

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BETH BASSETT AND HER BROWN’S PARK GANG

Beth BassettFrontierado is Friday, August 5th!

BETH BASSETT – Elizabeth Bassett, her husband Herb and their children were traveling by wagon toward California in 1877 when Beth was 22. They stopped off in Wyoming to visit Herb’s brother, who lived in a cabin along the Green River. Beth and her husband fell in love with the area and abandoned their plans to continue on to California.

The Bassetts established their home in a nearby valley originally called Brown’s Hole but renamed Brown’s Park by Beth. Unconventionally for the time period Beth oversaw the building and enlarging of the family’s ranch while Herb taught the children inside.

Browns Park WYIn September of 1879 the Ute Indians went on the warpath and the Bassetts, like all the other families in the region, temporarily relocated to Rock Springs while the U.S. Army and the Utes fought it out. By 1881 Beth and her family were back in Brown’s Park to pick up where they left off. Their ranch was becoming renowned for breeding some of the best horses in the West while also raising cattle, growing crops and establishing an orchard.    

The 1880s saw the crooked cattle barons of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (of Johnson County War fame) move into the area, driving many of the families out through violence, money and political maneuvering. The Bassetts and others stayed, only to see the WSGA use even dirtier tactics. Continue reading

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