A Tennant Family

One year before the Northwestern railroad reached Douglas, a young miner came into the county. Years have passed, 62 in all, and he still is active in the community.

Tom Cook was working in mines at Moingona, Iowa, when the president of the Northwestern railroad selected Cook and four other men to come to Wyoming to prospect for coal for the railroad.

With a span of mules, a wagon and drilling tools, the crew came as far into Wyoming as 10 miles northeast of Lusk, the end of the railroad. The grade into Lusk has been washed out and it was necessary to grade up the dirt again and install a bridge.

The crew stopped over in Lusk, then a tent town, composed mostly of establishments moved in from the mining town of Silver Creek.

The next morning the men moved to Shawnee Creek where they started sinking the shaft for the coal mine. The prospected with test drills until they found the deepest location for the coal so that the water could drain to the mouth of the shaft. A six-foot vein of coal was found at 120 feet and a four-foot vein of better quality coal 15 feet deeper.

Finally the shaft was completed and mining operations started. A number of carloads of coal went to Nebraska but the Northwestern railroad never was able to use any of the coal in its locomotives. Its loose composition resulted in flaming sparks when in the locomotive fireboxes.

The job eneded when the son of the engineer at the mine went to sleep, allowing the boiler to go dry. The introduction of cold water into the overheated boiler resulted in an explosion.

From Shawnee Creek, Tom and his brother, A. D. Cook, after working on a railroad section crew, were engaged to sink a 100-foot slope shaft 18 miles northwest of Douglas. The bonus pay failed to materialize and the brothers then left the mining business.

Various ventures and occupations were undertaken following retirement from mining. At various times Tom Cook worked in a meat shop, operated the pump engine for the water plant, was a partner with Frank George in a blacksmith shop and was a public employee.

In the blacksmith shop, located in the section between the present Burlington and Northwestern railroads, the partners built the first two sheep wagons to be constructed in this section. They used as a pattern two sheep wagons built in the east and being taken to Casper.

The launching of the town's water plant and Mr. Cook's employment as engineer for the pump was synonymous. The first pumping station was located at the park at the edge of town. A few years later it was moved to its present location.

Douglas' first band was organized in 1888 by Tom and A. D. Cook. Liking music, they were affiliated with the community's musical organizations and Tom Cook apears in the picture of the 1916 Eagles band which is reproduced this week as the "Do You Remember" feature. His first instrument was a B-flat Cornet. The first band played for Douglas' first state fair in 1365. He also helped organize the first baseball team here and played first base with the aggregation.

He took time out from his busy life to return to Nebraska where he was married at Chadron. Mrs. Cook died in 1917 and in 1919 he was united with Miss Ada Brown who lived until two years ago.

Douglas was tiny village when Mr. Cook arrived. He remembers Bill Barlow's Budget, a blacksmith shop, a saloon, church, and a small general store. All moved to the present location of the town when the railroad arrived.

Mr. Cook still remains extremely active and has been custodian at the Masonic Temple. On the afternoon he entertained the Enterprixe he was making plans to go to the Congregational Church where he made the coffee for the annual Turkey dinner.

He resides with his daughter, Miss Florence Cook, who has taught music here for many years.

Miss Cook relates that she should be considered a native Douglasite although Iowa is her official birthplace. Her mother returned to Iowa to be with her family for the event.

She studied music for years at the conservatory at Yankton, S.D., studied in New York City, Berkeley, and at Northwestern university.

Until her stepmother's health started to fail, Miss Cook maintained her own apartment and her proudest achievement is the raising of her nephew, Don Jamieson, whose mother died when he was seven. Don made his home with his aunt until his marriage and now, with his wife, the former Eva Schlister, and a small son, reside at Powell.

In connection with her music work, Miss Cook has been the director of the Congregational Church choir for many years.

She worked two night as relief at the telephone office, and avocation started during the war. She told that she liked the diversion immensely but would not care to do it as a full-time occupation. Her music lessons and the care of the home occupy much of her time.

She is a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, the Order of Eastern Star, and the Jolly Thirteen Sewing club.

The Temple work has been done from a parish record by some project or something else. The name listed in the IGI is: Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. So, the birth place listed by each Cook child is correct according to the family records.

The following is recorded from the "Pages From Converse County's Past" published in 1986. Carolyn and I baught two of these publications in 1997 for $10 each.

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COOK, ARCHIBALD and FLORENCE H. COOK, TOM and NELLIE. Written by Annetta Smith Walker.

Archibald David and Tom Cook were born in Scotland to John and Margaret Johnstone Cook. Tom on January 19, 1861 and A.D. on October 31, 1862. John, a coal miner, brought his family to America in 1868. They settled 1in Mildred, Pennsylvania. The boys heeded the admonition to "go west, young man, go west" when their father was hurt in a mining accident.

A.D. Cook maried Florence H. Hartman on August 19, 1880. Florence was born at Van Buren, Ohio. She came, at the age of four, to Boone County, Iowa, in 1864 with her parents, Amos William and Eleanor Trout Hartman. There she received her education and taught at Moingonia, Iowa. Archie was busy working for a general store in Moingonia but when the Black Hills gold strike occured, he took part in the excitement, making the trip by way of the old stage route from Sidney, Nebraska. Two years later he returned to Iowa to enter the employ of the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley R.R. prospecting for coal in Iowa and further west at a salary of $100 a month.

I am going to let my grandmother, Florence H. Hartman Cook, tell their story of early day Converse County which was published in the Douglas Enterprise, Tuesday, June 23, 1926.

"A new coal mine was opened on Shawnee Creek, three miles from the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley R.R. Archie and Tom Cook signed a contract with the company to drive entry. Tom was there before us, as a log cabin had to be built for us by the company. It was small and poorly built, mud being used instead of plaster. Near dusk we saw our first herd of antelope from the train windows, hundreds of them. We thought the hill was moving. It was October 30, 1886, when we arrived at Shawnee Station with our small children, Arthur and Ethel, and a few boxes of household goods. We were taken to camp in a lumber wagon, sitting on our trunks. The camp consisted of a country store, selling only staple groceries and camp supplies, a bunkhouse for the single men, a boarding house and six cabins for the families who were all from our hometown in Boone County, Iowa.

"At the boarding house we ate our first 'Wyoming potatoes,' dumplings and slumgulleon.' During our stay of eighteen months we enjoyed eating fresh antelope and deer, hunting them from a lumber wagon, jolting over sagebrush and gullies. The sunshine was so bright and warm that we did not realize until later that it was Wyoming's coldest winter, although the range cattle died by the hundreds around our camp.

"During the blizzards we had to hang our surplus carpets and blankets on the walls to keep out the snow. During one of the worst storms a passenger train was snowed in near Shawnee for about a week. The crew managed to get through to us for aid and it taxed the larders of the camp to feed them. We cooked meat and made biscuits for hours each day. We supposed it was western hospitality we were giving and it was like finding money, when months later, the railroad company paid us ten cents for every biscuit sandwich.

"During the winter, Tom met my sister, Nellie, at Chadron, Nebraska, and were married on December 18, 1886. The men were all at work but the women and children greeted them in true western style as they arrived. There was a shortage of dishpans afterwards, due to the children's enthusiasm with the drum sticks. We had no school nor church, but neither were there saloons nor gambling houses.

"For recreation we roamed the hills and chald buttes, being interested in the rock formations, pine trees and shrubs, so different from our Iowa rolling prairies. The wild flowers, too, were a joy to us.

"In the evenings the families visited together playing Pedro and High Five by kerosene lamps. The men must have been more amused than interested in the games as most of their wives had never seen a deck of cards before and could not understand why a one-spot counted more than a two-spot.

"Douglas was already on the map and was our trading place. After the doctor would hold a clinic for the whole camp, pulling teeth, prescribing for minor ails, he was paid his regular office fees.

"Early in the spring Archie and Tom built us each a better cabin, peeling the logs, using plaster, dirt roof and good flooring. Housekeeping was easier.

"There were rumors of an Indian uprising. The men made light of it, but we were still tenderfeet so we moved the children's trundle bed into the corner behind our bed, and kept the axe beside the pillows.

"The mine closed for the summer, and both the Cook families camped at Irvine while Archie and Tom worked for the section boss, Fred Hilebrand, Sr. Irvine was a tie camp then, and Alex Cunningham was running a store there for C.H. King of Douglas.

"Our keenest remembrance of our stay there was the hot sun, the swarms of rattlesnakes, and assisting at the birth of Carl Hildebrand without a doctor's supervision. Carl, when grown up, became a noted bronco buster at our state fairs and at other rodeo gatherings.

"At Shawnee camp that winter we wanted to celebrate Christmas with a community tree. Trees has never been so easy to get, but trimmings? Neither Lusk nor Douglas (Wyoming) had trimmings for sale, not even popcorn, cranberries, candles, not even oranges and apples, not even toys left when we tried to buy. So we contented ourselves with hanging up stockings filled with cookies.

"We had not yet learned of the pioneer's best book, Montgomery Ward's catalogue. The Douglas stores had nothing finer than cambric in white goods and Nellie and Florence ripped up their fine white dresses for material and lace for baby dresses for her first child.

"The mine closed for good in January 1888, and we left our homes and four of the families moved to Douglas, the two Cooks, Tom McPherson, and Jim Peyton. They, or their descendants still live there. (1926)

"Archie worked on the streets until he was employed in a meat market owned by Floyd Lockwood, who was from our old home in Iowa. We were happy to attend church and Sunday School again, and to send Arthur to school. His first teacher was Attorney William F. Mecum. Two years later Miss Mary Cooper was Ethel's first grade teacher. Our water, for all purposes, was hauled from the Platte River and cost us 35 cents a barrel. We became experts in saving water. We had no ice for a few years. Except for the abundant game and the wild small fruits, the living expenses were high, as there were no gardens.

"We remeber only one tree, a cottonwood beside a well on Second Street. A few doors north Mr. Olivereau had a few shrubs and flowers in his back yard. His daughter, Mrs. Harry Pollard, and children, are still living in Douglas (1926). We had no green grass, but our streets all sparkled with bits of broken bottles from the 13 saloons we were reported to have had at that time. It is not probable that our good citizens needed all these liquid refreshments, even with only unfiltered river water to drink, but our cattle country was full of cowboys who made frequent visits to town.

"Our marshal, John W. Overman, used to appoint specal officers at such times to help him. Archie was helping him arrest a man one night. They were chasing him through a vacant lot and to frighten him Overman fired near his feet just as he ran into a clothes line. His fall knocked him unconscious for a minute and the marshal thought he had killed him with his shot. He was so shaken that the crowd joked about it for years.

"July 4, 1889, we were invited to a country picnic at the Natural Bridge given by the ranchers on Lower LaPrele Creek and it was our first view of Wyoming ranches. In the evening we ate supper at the George Powell Ranch, where he already was trying out fruit trees for an orchard. That night we attended a country dance at Captain and Mrs. O'Brien's. People came from miles around. The beds were covered with sleeping babies, just as Owen Wister described it in 'The Virginian.' Even the pretty school marm was there and those O'Brian boys could call the changes in the square dances more musically than we hear them called now on our radios.

"That day we met people who later retired,, moved to town and were our neighbors and friends. There were no fences in the early days and the herds of range cattle driven past the town to the shipping pens were a menace to our small children.

"When Wyoming gave her women the franchise, Nellie and Florence voted but felt we had no knowledge of the issues nor did we know the candidates. A few years later when Archie was on the county ticket seven times in succession and then on the state ticket twice, we lost all our scruples and voted the Republican ticket straight every time. Bread and butter for the children seemed more important than conscience. We never locked our doors when we went hunting or fishing for a few days, nor did we ever find a ranch home locked when the family was absent. Our husbands were always playing in the band during those meetings. Our last three children, Douglas C., Beatrice, and Nell, were born in Douglas, as were Tom and Nellie's three girls, Florence, Donna and Eleanor. When Archie's work for the government compelled us to leave Douglas in 1922, we moved away parting from our family and friends with sincere regret.

"We are thankful for the 30 years we lived there and glad that three of our children, Tud Cook, Mrs. Ben J. Steffen, and Mrs. William J. Smith, and their children are still a part of that community. When we hear the song, 'The Hills of Home,' to us it always means Douglas, Wyoming."

Some of the members of that band she mentioned were Esmays, Cooks, Rices, Anthens, Steffens, Rouses, Ruhls, Schmidts. Harry Ruhl lived in Lost Springs for many years.

Florence always loved the Laramie Peak area and her dying request that her ashes be strewen among the wild flowers in the mountains south of Douglas where she had spent so many happy days on early-day camping trips was respected. On March 17, 1942, Archie joined her in death and his ashes, too, were brought to the mountain meadows.

Tom built his own home on North Third Street in Douglas with brick made in the kilns of Mr. Peters where he lived out his life. He was known for his work in the famous Florence Hardware sheepwagons, and was also a deputy sheriff for Sheriff Campbell during the Johnson County War. Many houses in Douglas were built by Tom Cook. Tom and Nellie's children were: Florence H., Donna (Chapin) and Eleanor (Jamieson). His beloved Nellie left him on April 17, 1917. On June 11, 1919 he married Ada B. Brown, daughter of Walter and Dora Bennett Brown. Ada was an early day teacher in the Douglas school. Ada died August 25, 1947. Tom died on September 8, 1950. by Annetta Smith Walker.