A Town's History in Print

by Laurie Quade

Everyone who’d ever lived in Daniel, Wyo., created its colorful history—yesterdays rich with mountain men, American Indians, frontier settlers, ranchers, and rugged souls who braved the bitter Wyoming winters to stake their future in this scenic valley. Generations later, nearly all of Daniel’s 110 residents have paid homage to those predecessors by co-authoring Daniel, Wyoming: The First Hundred Years, an 800-page, two-volume limited edition that details those vibrant times gone by.

Every resident in the town’s centurylong history is included in, or had an opportunity to contribute to, the book, which was conceived in 1998 by a handful of residents to commemorate Daniel’s Feb. 1, 2000, centennial.

“It was just an informal group, and we had one meeting with all of us. It went extremely well, and it just kept growing,” explains Pat Walker, who helped spearhead the project. They quickly enlisted the help of residents past and present to write their own histories and those of others.

Taking stock of everyone was not difficult; Daniel’s population has remained constant for generations. “As long as I can remember, the population sign outside town has read 110,” says Dianne Boroff, who comes from a long line of ranchers. “We’ve always thought they must have counted all the cats and dogs to reach 110.”

Though “downtown” Daniel, divided by Highway 189, consists of just a handful of buildings—a post office, general store, tavern, a few scattered cabins and a few dwellings—there was plenty to write about.

American Indians, then mountain men in search of beaver pelts and other fur, first inhabited this rancher’s paradise, a valley at 7,200 feet elevation surrounded by three majestic mountain ranges. It was the site of the Green River Rendezvous, an annual gathering during the 1830s where mountain men left months of solitary living to trade their furs for supplies and socialize with others.

“The rendezvous was the one opportunity of the year for the mountain man to do his shopping. Then it was time to squander the rest of his money, and even go into debt, on glittering trinkets, gambling, and firewater,” wrote Daniel native and historian Hayden Huston in one chapter.

On the same bluff as the town cemetery, a small, stone chapel marks the site in 1840 where Father Pierre DeSmet held the first Catholic Mass in Wyoming.

Dudley Key, who served as the project’s finance officer, discovered, as did nearly everyone in that project, more than the town’s history; they researched and learned about their own families, whose individual stories weave together to form the fabric of present-day Daniel.

“I did an awful lot of research because no one had written things down,” says Key of his family who had been there since 1906.

His grandparents ran what once was the general store but is now a tavern. “One was a Republican and one was a Democrat, and when people went into the store, it was divided, with the Democrats on one side and the Republicans on the other,” he says.

Then there’s the tale of Ira “Bear Face” Dodge, an early road and bridge builder who earned his nickname after a turn-of-the-century fight with a grizzly bear—a fight Dodge won with his knife.

Doing the legwork

Huston, who had collected much of Daniel’s recorded history for a planned book, always had an interest in history, though that didn’t include Daniel until many years later.

“When I was a kid, I dreamed of getting as far away from Daniel as I could, and so I did. I lived all over the world until I retired in 1989 and moved back to Daniel,” says Huston, who summers in his hometown and spends winter in Salt Lake City, Utah. “I’ve always had an interest in history, but when I retired 10 years ago, I said I needed to study the history of Daniel.”

That newfound interest led him to research identities of long-gone residents buried in Daniel Cemetery, located on a low bluff overlooking the upper Green River Valley. But no registry existed; indeed, many were buried before death certificates were kept.

“We were trying to figure out who was buried there, and I researched the obituaries in the Pinedale Roundup and the Big Piney Examiner,” says Huston, who purchased copies of the newspapers from those nearby towns on microfilm from the Wyoming Historical Society.

He documented the burials up to the mid-1950s. Walker and others also took on the challenge and eventually documented 130 people buried in the cemetery up to the year 2000.

Researching and writing Daniel’s history was only part of the effort; they also had to pay for printing the book. Everyone “from the lady who baked a pie to sell, to the $10,000 contribution,” from a Denver woman and Daniel landowner who was “enchanted” with the book project, helped finance the $35,000 printing costs for the burgeoning book, Walker says.

Private donations paid for most of the costs, along with a loan that was repaid quickly. In the first week alone, book sales generated enough money to pay off a $12,000 loan.

The co-authors agreed that profits from book sales would go toward improvements on the community center building, originally built as a school in 1920 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “That way, we use the money twice,” Walker says.

The old school was converted in 1956 to the Daniel Community Club, the heart of the community’s social activities. But the aging building needs constant maintenance and upgrades. Work on a septic system and indoor plumbing began a year ago.

Binding the community together

The community building gave Daniel residents a tangible reason to get involved with the book, says Cris Paravicini, whose history dates back to the turn-of-the-century homesteads of the Pape and Pearson families, some of Daniel’s earliest settlers.

“There’s nothing like a center to bring people together, and we encourage and look forward to it,” Paravicini says. “The school is the heart of Daniel’s community, and you know it the minute you step in the door. I learned to dance there as a child.”

And if the community center is the heart of Daniel, then the book has become its spirit, Paravicini says.

“The book illustrates what we stand for. It would be, perhaps, the community bible. It has strongly captured the spirit and soul so people who haven’t even been here can know us,” Paravicini says.

The neighboring communities of Boulder and Cora have expressed interest in publishing books on their histories. “It was contagious from Daniel people,” she says.

Besides the spirit of community embodied by the book, the educational significance is tremendous. “I understand the value of this so much more, and 40 years from now, this is going to have even more value,” says Linda Graziano, a newcomer who helped Key research his family history.

Walker also appreciates the personal significance of the book.

“The neatest thing is having people say, ‘I never knew that,’” she says. Her own questions about the town’s founders and history also have been answered.

“I’ve always stood here and looked out at that view and wondered who else saw what I’m seeing,” Walker says. “Now, I know.”

Laurie Quade is a freelance writer living in Cody, Wyo.

first appeared: 9/15/2002