My Wyoming Eight generations in state comes with responsibility

Although they have had eight generations living in Wyoming, the Driskill clan of Devils Tower originally came from Texas and as a result, it seems most everything about these folks is big.
State Sen. Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower) showed my wife Nancy and me around northeast Wyoming recently but also shared some of the more interesting things about his unusual clan.
As for big, Ogden was feeling pretty good about his newfound self, weighing just 315 pounds. During lunch in Hulett, he was eating a salad. I had the french dip and fries.
During the recent Legislative session, he ballooned to 345 pounds on his 6-1 frame as a result of good eats and not so good stress.  He and his colleagues had a difficult time cutting expenses to balance the budget during trying economic times.
The Driskill ranch is comprised of 10,000 acres that abuts Devils Tower on two sides.  Campbell Soup heir John Dorrance’s family owns the ranches on the other two sides.
Way back in the 1880s, the Driskill clan was doing well in Texas rounding up longhorn cattle and driving them to Wyoming. Over the decades, Ogden estimates over a million cattle were driven north on the Chisholm Trail.
One of his forebears, Jesse Lincoln Driskill, made enough money selling beef to both sides in the Civil War, that he built the most spectacular hotel in Texas, for $400,000, in Austin.
Ultimately he went broke, as his confederate money was worthless.

In 1878, Jesse Lincoln of the Driskill clan hired an African-American driver, bought a used confederate ambulance, and drove north to the Black Hills.  He wanted a place in the hills to winter cattle and where there were no towns for 30 miles. He picked Devils Tower.
The ranch is at 3,850 feet, which is nearly the lowest elevation in the state.  Without getting into an argument about climate change, Driskill says if they used to winter cattle in that area 130 years ago, it cannot be done today.
Ogden’s brother Matt operated a KOA campground at the base on Devils Tower but unfortunately was killed in an accident six years ago. Matt was also a well-respected member of the Wyoming Travel Commission. By his being on the ranch, it allowed Ogden to run for the state senate and be gone during the legislative sessions in January and February.
After Matt died, it has been difficult.  Ogden’s wife Rosanne, who is the daughter of Lysite artist Gary Shoop, now keeps tabs on the campground, which is a thriving business.
The punch line to the story of the campground, though, occurred over 40 years earlier when director Stephen Spielberg sat at the family’s kitchen table and offered them $40,000 if he could use their land at the base for his movie Close Encounters of a Third Kind.
The huge flat graveled area left over by Spielberg, became the base for the campground and other stores in that area.
Folks in neighboring Hulett are planning a 40th anniversary celebration later this year to celebrate the movie being filmed there.
We had originally planned to take our motorhome and stay at their campground but Ogden said, “heck no, stay in my guest house.”
We did and wow, what a place!  It is not just a guesthouse but also the original home place for the Campstool Ranch. It contains four bedrooms, three baths and a spectacular view out the big living room windows of Devils Tower.
We had always wanted to spend more time in the Wyoming Black Hills in the extreme northeast corner of the state and on this trip, we got that done. We had a personal tour of the Vore Buffalo Jump by Glen Wyatt, where some 15,000 bison plunged to their deaths over the last 600 years.
The town of Aladdin is pretty much one amazing country store which was sold at auction June 2 for $500,000. Some South Dakota buyers made a great deal on an amazing treasure trove of “stuff.”
The famous Ranch A, which is owned by the state of Wyoming, thanks to the Nels Smith family, was busy when we stopped by, but what a wonderful building in a terrific location on Sand Creek.  It cost $1 million to build in the 1930s.
And, of course, we spent time walking around Devils Tower. We ran into old friend Jeff Rose of Lingle, who was going to climb the tower with his daughter and son-in-law.  They did it, too.
Check out Bill Sniffin’s columns at billsniffin.com. He is a longtime Wyoming journalist from Lander who has written six books, which are available at fine stores.  His latest is Wyoming at 125. His books are also available at wyomingwonders.com.