Pierre Wibaux, Bad Lands rancher

"The passage of time has, in a large sense, served to make the name of Pierre Wibaux legendary. He has been called the largest individual cattle owner in the United States, which is not true. He has been pointed out as the only rancher having the wisdom to profit from circumstances following the winter of 1886-1887, which is not fact. He has been spoken of as living in circumstances of splendor, with a host of servants at hand at all times to fulfill his every command. This, also, is false. The writer developed an interest in Pierre Wibaux many years ago. Eight years of his education were received in a building whose windows overlook the statue of the wily Frenchman. He heard the legends which had grown about the W Ranch, its owner, and its operations. He decided that if the possibility should present itself he would someday attempt to dispel the myth and portray the man and his ranch as they really existed. This study is the fruit of that attempt. Unfortunately, this work was begun forty years too late. Those who knew Wibaux well during his first years on the ranch are no longer living. Those who are familiar with Wibaux's later years have not discussed him recently and the years have obscured their memories. Unfortunately too, the main body of Pierre Wibaux's correspondence and business documents remains in Roubaix, France, and has not been available to the writer. Neither could he secure any response from Wibaux's only child, a son who lives in Paris. This picture of Pierre Wibaux and the W Ranch has, then, been produced from a study of some 400 pieces of Wibaux's correspondence, which were made available to the writer, from a careful reading of contemporary newspapers, and from interviews with those who recall Wibaux personally. It is an attempt to portray Wibaux realistically--a young man, born into a wealthy industrial family, who turned down a life of ease among cultured friends and came to the American West to engage in the range-stock industry; an individual capable of undergoing periods of extreme physical exertion, who familiarized himself with the heat and dirt and sweat of the roundup; a person capable of choosing his help wisely and then turning responsibility over to those whom he selected; a foreigner who, although he loved the West, remained in many ways a Frenchman. The story of Pierre Wibaux and the W Ranch departs from the typical ranch account in many ways. It is, rather, a study of a Frenchman who came to America, adopted much of that which he saw about him, but retained some Old World ideas of living and comfort. Pierre Wibaux succeeded as a rancher because he proceeded in a careful and intelligent fashion, because he secured adequate financial support, and because at times fortune seemed to smile upon him. His neighbors coined the term, "Wibaux's luck," in speaking of some of the fortunate events which befell him. Unhampered by tradition, Wibaux became a progressive rancher. Many of the practices which he inaugurated on the W Ranch in the eighties and nineties are common practice in the range country today."--Preface.