The mountain wall which surrounded it
would turn aside pioneers going to Montana or northern Oregon. These
would head to the east of Big Horn Mountains, while those bound for
Utah, Idaho, and California would go to the south side of the Wind
River Mountains. He was confident, however, that some day the Basin
would be settled and developed, and that in its fertile valleys would
be found the most prosperous people in the world. It was there that my
interest in the great possibilities of the West was aroused.
I never forgot what I heard around the campfire. In 1894 the Carey
Irrigation Act was passed by Congress. A million acres of land was
given to each of the arid States. I was the first man to receive a
concession of two hundred thousand acres from the Wyoming State Land
Board.
I could not get away to the Basin till late in the autumn of 1894, so I
formed a partnership with George T. Beck, who proceeded to Wyoming,
where he was found by Professor Elwood Mead, then in the service of the
State. There a site was located and the line of an irrigation canal was
surveyed.
A town was laid out along the canal, and my friends insisted upon
naming it Cody. At this time there was no railroad in the Big Horn
Basin; but shortly afterward the Burlington sent a spur out from its
main line, with Cody as its terminus. In 1896 I went out on a scout to
locate the route of a wagon road from Cody into the Yellowstone Park.
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