Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame

Three cowboys from Hot Springs County inducted last month

 

October 19, 2016



THERMOPOLIS — Three cowboys from Hot Springs County, two of them posthumously, were inducted in the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame in a ceremony Sept. 25 at the Casper Events Center.

Among the 53 inductees this year were Joe Campbell, Dub McQueen and Lee Martinez.

The following information on the three inductees were provided by the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame from nomination forms.

Joe Campbell

Joe Campbell was born in 1933 in Hot Springs County, the first of two sons of Ralph and Hazel (Sneider) Campbell. Joe began riding with his mother at an early age. In 1947, when Joe was a freshman in high school, Ralph and Hazel purchased the Weststone place 30 miles west of Thermopolis. Their operation began with a small herd of Hereford cattle. Prior to the purchase of “the ranch” Joe and family helped many area neighbors with their ranching needs. The boys and Hazel were always ready for riding and working cattle.

Acreage and cattle increased with the expansion of the ranching business over the years. Joe and his family acquired the “Bridges Place,” North Fork and Rock Creek property bordering the Shoshone National Forest in the Owl Creek and Absaroka Mountain ranges.

While in high school, Campbell participated in a variety of activities including FFA, Boy Scouts, Honor Society, class president, basketball, band, rodeo, calf roping and football.

He attended the University of Wyoming earning a bachelor’s degree in animal production in 1955. He was a member and president of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Joe joined the Wyoming National Guard, served in the US Army, and was stationed at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, from 1956-1958. He served as a tank recovery instructor.

While in Kentucky, Campbell met and married Barbara Jean Alvey. They returned to the family ranch in 1958. There they raised five children: Carolyn, Chris, Kathy, Connie, and Belinda.

From 1958, he took a lead role in the operation of the ranch. Cattle numbers fluctuated between 200-300 head depending on available feed. Campbell introduced Angus cattle into his herd in the late 1960s and began using artificial insemination with Simmental and Limousin breeds in 1971. When Campbell implemented the AI program he developed his own spreadsheet computer program to track the productivity of each animal.

He continues to show calves from his double turkey track herd which always excel at fair.

Campbell has worn many hats: cowboy, rancher, businessman, pilot, hunting guide for several years, and broker. Joe takes pride in being an active citizen of the Hot Springs County Community and this is especially true of his commitment to give back to the community. He has served on many boards taking key leadership positions on the boards and serving for long periods of time on most of the boards: REA, Farm Bureau (Northwest District President), School Board, Owl Creek Water District, Tri County Telecommunications, 4-H leader, Weed and Pest, Range Board, Wyoming Simmental Board, GOP Precinct committeeman, National Weather Service 50 years of dedicated services as a Cooperative Weather Observer, lifetime Elks member, and Roundtop Flyer’s.

As a cowboy, he has taught many family members and friends the skills of riding. Children, grandchildren, and now great-children enjoy being horseback. Many know the skills he possesses of not only riding horses but breaking and training them well.

Campbell is always up first putting the coffee on for others at camp or home, wrangles the horse in, gathers and starts cows out of draws so there are less hours and work for other horses and riders, and he continues to put in long hours on horseback.

Joe has trained countless horses that watch cows attentively and crouch down anticipating turning a fleeing cow. At the age of 81, he enjoys riding on North Fork and staying at the cow camp.

Dub McQueen

Dub McQueen was born March 18, 1902, in Dudley, South Dakota. His mother died and his Scottish father, Charlie McQueen, raised Dub, the youngest, and his six siblings Ray, Mary, Ruth, Ruby and Amy. In 1906 the family left their home in South Dakota and came to the Thermopolis area because they heard part of the Wind River Reservation had been opened up for homesteading. Homesteading didn’t work out so Charlie McQueen started a freight line between Thermopolis and Worland.

He later purchased a farm on Owl Creek across from the headquarters of the Arapahoe Ranch and purchased a band of sheep. Dub began herding the sheep and while riding his horse around the sheep would train his dogs to become sheep dogs. Dub McQueen could send his dogs around a band of sheep by just using his hat to tell the dog which way to take the sheep. He could also keep two bands of sheep from mixing by placing his dogs between his sheep and the neighbor’s sheep.

Before marrying, Dub McQueen worked for a brief time at the refinery in Casper, but didn’t like being inside all the time. In 1924, Dub and Lillian Freudenthal were married and lived in a sheep wagon. They raised sheep on the McQueen Ranch until 1945. They then sold the sheep and purchased and raised Braford (Hereford and Brahma) cattle as well as Appaloosa horses. Dub and Lillian raised two children, Arley and Ruby, who attended school at Hamilton Dome and later graduated high school from Hot Springs County High School.

He was on a horse most of his life. He sold horses to almost everyone and if he couldn’t sell you one, he would trade you a horse. Dub and Lillian furnished dry mares for bucking and brahma bulls for the riding events at both the Meeteetse Labor Day Rodeo and the Cody Nite Rodeo for several years.

Dub and Lillian’s homestead and ranch was on Cottonwood Creek and they purchased land on Rock Creek, a tributary of the south fork of Owl Creek. Moving their cattle from the ranch on Cottonwood Creek to Rock Creek took three days.

McQueen died mid-June, 1955, of a lightning strike on the middle fork of Owl Creek while moving his cattle to Rock Creek. When he was killed, Ross Rhodes, 10 years old, was also struck by the same bolt of lightning. Ross was unconscious when Arley, McQueen’s son, found them. Arley placed Ross on his stomach on the side of Dub’s dead horse so he wouldn’t drown in the deep water from the hail and rain. 

McQueen died doing what he loved most, riding his appaloosa horse, moving his cattle and visiting with his family and friends.

Leondro Lee Martinez

Born and raised on a “little” ranch out of Ocate, New Mexico, Lee Martinez left school at the age of 15 after finishing the eighth grade and set out to be a cowboy.

He hired on for the big outfits as a horse breaker around Springer and Cimarron, New Mexico. The Diamond A, the CS, and the Moreno Ranches. At the Diamond A Ranch, he was making $50 per month as a cowboy. They needed a rough string rider, so Martinez took the job, as it paid $60 a month, $10 more.

They wintered one winter in a cow camp where the roof of the rock house had collapsed. Lee and two others hung sacks and tarps on the roof and cooked their meals inside until the smoke would run them outside. He gathered wild horses for the CBC in Wyoming and South Dakota.

Lee and his wife, Esther, moved their family to Thermopolis in 1954. He cowboyed for the Sanford Ranches and the Arapahoe Ranch until he retired in 1980. He would help neighbors brand, ship and gather cattle. Lee often said “he never had a job in his whole life, he enjoyed cattle and horses so much he never considered it a job.”

Lee took pride in his cowboying and taught many young men the art of handling horses and cattle. He had pride in gathering and corralling wild cattle.

Lee was known as a good cowboy and a good stockman. He could read cattle and horses with the best of men.

Lee died in January 1985 at the age of 72, and is buried next to his wife Esther in Thermopolis. He was still riding, gathering and shipping cattle up to three weeks before he passed away.

 
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