The Great Die-up was an event that affected Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas in the winter of 1886-87.  It was a weather catastrophe that killed millions of cattle.  “The Great Die-up” is a macabre word play on the term “round-up.”

The cattle industry prior to that time was a hugely profitable, boundary-less, open-range system managed by the cowboy way of life.  The Great Die-up put an abrupt end to all of that.  Cattle barons from back east, and as far away as England, owned vast herds, and grazed them freely on the open plains.  Great cattle drives moved as many as 5.7 million head to market between 1866-1885.

Cattlemen were proud of their special cows.  The cows of that day were hardy, and took care of themselves.  Wintertime was no problem because the cattle would paw through the snow, and feed on the dry grass beneath.  All that was necessary for their owners to do was to employ cowboys to conduct a spring round-up for branding, a fall round-up to separate the steers, and a cattle drive to take them hundreds of miles to market.  Millions of cows were turned loose on the limitless plains, and no management was thought necessary.

The range suffered from over-grazing.  Soils were compacted by the cattle's hooves, and stream banks were eroded.  Then came the spring of 1886.  There was no rain.  Water sources dried up.  The lack of grass made that hot summer difficult for the cows.  They were in poor shape as winter approached.

Snow came early in November.  On January 9, 1887 a blizzard with gale-force winds drove the cattle to take shelter in every swale, gully, low spot, and thicket that they could find.  Snow fell at the rate of an inch every hour for 16 hours.  The bunched-up cattle suffocated from nostrils plugged by the swirling snow, and were covered by drifts.  Some froze to death standing up.  The temperature dropped to 50-degrees below zero, followed by a brief thaw.  The thaw melted the top layer of snow.  When the temperature plummeted again, the melted snow turned into an impenetrable layer of ice.

Young Charlie Russell was working as a cowboy on a ranch in Wyoming.  A letter came from the owner asking the foreman about the condition of the cattle.  The foreman said he'd write a reply.  Charlie said, “I'll make a sketch to go with it.”  He entitled it “Waiting for a Chinook.”  Its subtitle was “Last of the 5,000.”  That famous painting of an emaciated, hunched-up, head-down cow, surrounded by wolves, said it all.  The foreman took one look at the picture and said, “He don't need a letter, this will be enough.”  This iconic painting became the symbol of The Great Die-up.

The spring thaw revealed cow carcasses as far as the eye could see.  They were washed into the streams where their bodies made log jams in the rivers.  The stench was unbelievable.  Hundreds of ranches went bankrupt.  Of the 58 large-scale cattle companies that existed in 1885, only nine were left by 1888.

The over-grazed, abused land enjoyed a sabbath in 1887 and in the years following.  Gone were the days of boundary-less ranching.  Ranchers became farmers.  Fences were erected to keep the cattle close to home.  Pastures were managed.  Hay was put up to provide a winter feed supply.  Herds became smaller.  The cowboy way of life ended.

My grandfather and father were products of the aftermath of The Great Die-up.  James Wesley Kerns moved his family from Osceola, Iowa and bought a ranch at Parkman, Wyoming in 1900, just after The Great Die-up.  My father was born there in 1910.  He spent his childhood and youth helping with his father's herd of Hereford cattle, and putting up hay.  The hay equipment was horse-drawn.  Haying was a full-time summer job.  The cows spent the summers in the nearby Big Horn Mountains.  In the wintertime wagon loads of hay were loaded by hand and fed each day by pitchfork.  It was hard work, and a hard life.  The family made a living, and was very happy; but there was no fortune to be made, as in former days.  The cows were different, too.  They had not yet been bred up to today's standards.  A good weaner calf back then weighed 300 pounds.  A calf today of the same age should weigh more than double that.