William "Bill" Carr

William E. Carr was born September 5, 1895 in South Pass, Wyoming to William Joseph Carr and Ella Potter Carr. His siblings were Frank (1894-1963), Fred (1896-1964), Guy (1898-1992), Eugene Charles (1900-1947), Ella

"Mickey" Moore (1901-1979), Lillian Brown (1903- ), Lida Fister (1904-1974), Nellie Brundage (1905-1998), Samuel (1906-1992), Joseph Bayer (1907-1927), Doris Cary (1910- 2000), James (1914- ), Harry (1918-1995) and

Hazel Walker (1920-2003.) Bill went to school in South Pass. His first job was with Flick and Halter at Pacific Springs. He spent two summers on Smith and Sherlock's Sweetwater ranch where he batched, irrigated and took care of the cattle they kept there in the summer. Every so often he would have to take a cow or two into South Pass to be butchered for the hotel and Bill's dad's butcher shop. In the spring of 1912, he went to Big Piney where he started riding race horses for Hileman. At about the same time Bill Sherman came over from Lander. In a year or so, they went to work for A.W. Smith who owned the 67 ranch and the Muleshoe. Guy Decker was the ranch foreman at the Muleshoe and Lafe Griffen had charge of the horses. Bill worked with Lafe a couple of years running wild horses on the Little Colorado Desert east of Big Piney. A.W. Smith had as many as two thousand horses on the desert at that time. He rode for the Green River wagon one summer and spent the winter at Stan Murdock's ranch and did his winter riding. The winter of 1916 he spent on Cottonwood at Halfway breaking horses for Harry Munn. Bill went to World War I and enlisted in the army at Pinedale in 1917. When he came back from the war he went to work for Howell and Kendall as foreman for several years working for them at Vernal, Utah and Green River. He spent one summer at

Cokeville, Wyoming as a deputy sheriff because of range butchering. He rode for the ranchers on Fontenelle one year then came back to Big Piney. He married Reta Whitman on June 19, 1928 in Kemmerer, Wyoming. They lived in Big Piney their entire married life. He did ranch work until 1932 when he worked at a service station. In the summer of 1942, he took the job of Sublette County Under Sheriff and brand inspector and closed up the gas station due to gas rationing. He bought a 160-acre ranch on North Piney Creek later. He was brand inspector at Opal until 1973. While brand inspecting he shipped thousands of cattle from Opal. While at Opal he would take a cow camp every year down to the railroad for two or three months. William "Bill" Carr died June 9, 1983 at the Sublette County Retirement Center in Pinedale following a long illness.