We had an interesting happening this morning. After breakfast there was a phone call and a man asked if this was Lynn Thomas, yes, and he said my name is John Boulter. Of course I recognized the name because we live on the old John and Lillian Boulter homestead. They were out on the road calling on a cell phone and wanted to know if they could come and see the place. He was old John Boulter's great nephew and his son Casey was with him. Casey oversees a ranch on the Green River and his hobby is running sled dogs. John is from Utah. We had a nice visit and showed him around where all the old buildings used to be. I showed him photos Verla had given me taken in the 1930s. So I decided to to scan the photos and show them to you today. It needed to be done anyway to save them in the computer. Another learning process working in a new area of the scanner program.
Their family is having a reunion in Pinedale on Memorial Day and they would like to bring some of the family out to see the place that Saturday. I told them it would be fine.
The caption on the back of this photo reads: Ruth Boulter about 1939. Shows the old barn that we took down on the left, corrals and chicken house. They drilled the well in about '33 or '34, its the well we still use. After M. Johnson proved up on his homestead they brought his cabin over here and built the second house onto it, combined with part of the first big house.
Boulter Place taken in 1929 or 30 looking southeast toward The Butte you see in many of my photos. Notice Bessie, Ethel, Ruth Boulter in the center on the fence. Chicken house, outhouse, shop and first house. Taken standing on a shed that was behind about where our barn is now. The small log building was the first one built here. They lived in it while they built the log house. John Boulter's mother homesteaded here. Verla thinks Morris Johnson built the house.
Etheyl Boulter, Verla Richie, Ruth Boulter, Jep Richie, Bessie Boulter about 1936. This was the second house. This was the kitchen. A living room and 3 bedrooms were on the left. This was combined from part of the old house and Morris Johnson's cabin. The kitchen was the kitchen of the old house. This house was here when Joe's dad bought the ranch in 1949 (about 1400 acres) from John Boulter. They lived in it until the house we live in now was built. Joe said the cracks between the logs were so big that their beds would be covered with snow in the morning.
I didn't see the old house and they had just torn it down the spring that I came here so it sat there for 20 more years. All the buildings and corrals were hauled to a huge wood pile we have near the gate. We've always been going to burn it but its so big we're afraid to set it on fire now. The haystack and the horse shed are nearby too.
1933 Bessie, Ruth and Ethyl Boulter with Muddy Canyon in the background. Dogs are pulling the little sled. Shows the outhouse (which is the one that is in our back yard -the only remnant of the old place left standing - I use it for a garden shed) and the barn. There are horses and cattle on a feed line in the background.
Ethyl and her husband came to visit us about 10 years ago. They lived on a farm in Kansas at that time. It was fun to meet them. I've also gone back and visited the house I liked best twice where we lived in California, so understand how people feel about visiting their roots.
The kids went to school together at a one room log schoolhouse that sat near our front gate. It was still standing when I first came here. There is a lot of history in our neighborhood, a land where the Indians lived, exploration and the fur trade era, the Lander Cutoff of the Oregon Trail goes past here, and the Homesteading Days....births, life stories, deaths, even murders.
A thought occured to me as I was putting the photos into the blog. Ruth, Bessie and Ethyl never would have imagined in the 1930s that their pictures and home would be on the world wide web 70 years later. What a concept.
This is the woodpile where all the old buildings and corrals have been taken.
