America’s First Forest Ranger:
Bronco
Bustin’ and Drinking “Stone Fence”
The cowboys regarded him as a government “city slicker” and bet he
couldn’t even ride a horse!
At the
age of 21, Bill Kreutzer was transferred to Battlement Mesa National
Forest, which in that year of 1901 included Grand Mesa. He was the nation’s first
career forest ranger assigned to national forests.
Forest
reserves had been established ten years earlier, but there had been
no law enforcement. The
attitude of ranchers, miners, and lumbermen was generally “git and
grab.” Kreutzer was
originally signed up to administer Plum Creek National Forest south
of Denver, but he was soon transferred to the town of Mesa,
Colorado, at the foot of Grand Mesa on its north side.
Kreutzer had descended from a long line of foresters and grew up on
a Colorado ranch. When he
arrived in Mesa, he tried to convince cattlemen to rotate their
grazing areas. The cowboys
regarded him as a government “city slicker” and bet he couldn’t even
ride a horse! They brought
forth a wild bronco for him.
Bill took the bets and offered to double them, but the ranchers were
so certain they would win, they held at even money.
Kreutzer mounted the wild
horse which was considered “high, wide, and handsome” in his leaps.
The ranger soon tamed the
animal, however, and won the respect of the ranchers who later took
his advice and found much better profits when they rotated grazing
areas.
A few months later,
Kreutzer was transferred to the Town of Cedaredge on the south side
of the Grand Mesa. He
was not welcomed there as a government man who would interfere with
the illegal use of the forest lands.
The greeting given him in town by some armed men was an
invitation to leave town, but he held out and eventually made some
progress.
One weekend, a few riders were shooting up the town on an
alcoholic binge when they encountered the new ranger, whom they
accused of removing one of their fences.
Bill told them that he had
not done the deed; he would have made them tear it down themselves,
if it were illegal.
This softened the matter a bit, and the riders invited him to join
them in a drink. They forced
a bottle of what was called “stone fence” on him.
According to Kreutzer, stone fence was a mixture of bad
whiskey and hard cider. After the third drink, an imbiber would be
afraid he would die, and after the fourth he was afraid he wouldn’t
die! However, after Bill’s
second drink, the hell-raisers let him alone and continued their
riding until one of them fell off his horse.
When the ranger told the story later, a friend asked if he was
scared at that time. Bill
answered, “Well, no – at least I wasn’t scared after the second
drink of stone fence!”
He had many other adventures on Grand Mesa, and eventually became
supervisor of the Gunnison National Forest and later a key advisor
to the National Forest Service.
By Abbot Fay, Historian
