William A. Richards Diaries of a Frontier Surveyor

These unique diaries give a vivid, you-are-there view of what surveyors went through during the westward expansion. Richards, who eventually becomes governor of Wyoming and commissioner of the U.S. General Land Office, tells his story, one day at a time. The 1869 diary details his life in rural Wisconsin and frustration with teaching Going west to the burgeoning frontier town of Omaha His surveying apprenticeship in the Indian country of Nebraska.ExcerptsIn Omaha: "Went to the car shops of the U.P. yesterday afternoon and applied for a job. If I were a mechanic of any kind could get work in an hour. ...Several of their men quit last night as they have not been paid off for more than two months and the Co. is owing more than two million dollars in this city. In the evening went around to see the town after dark. Visited the Academy of Fun which is a low theater and beer hall. Their performances are not very chaste surely."On the plains: "No mail when we came to camp. But after I had gone to bed I heard some one shout Hurrah for Tom. We were out of bed in a twinkly. He swam the river at Willow Island but came near getting drowned. Was carried down stream two miles. After getting the mail he went up above Brady Island to cross the river and yesterday traveled over fifty miles. Swam the river with the letters tied on his head." We see first-hand the challenges on the surveys of the rugged southern and western boundaries of Wyoming Territory in 1873 and 1874, and his encounters with the frontier folk he meets. From 1874 diary:"We're delayed by an accident to one of the mules (Dandy Pat) who tipped over backwards off a cliff forty feet high, made two complete revolutions lengthwise, and landed square on his back in the stream.""We slept one on each side of the fire and while we kept it going we were warm and slept, but not very good. Went in to town to breakfast, ... Bought a few things needed in camp, ... The main camp is the one we visited called Iowa Bar. There are about twelve log houses there & five saloons, so many Bars that I could not distinguish the 'Iowa.' " Excerpt from one of his hunting stories, 1874, Yellowstone:"I had gone but a short distance when my left foot slipped and something seemed to snap in my left knee. Only a little sprain, and no time to nurse it. But it grew worse. . . .There was no human being, aside from our party, within 50 miles, and I was unable to travel, under ordinary circumstances. ...No one could find me or help me out of the scrape I was in."The 1884 and 1885 diaries cover his exploration of Wyoming's Bighorn Basin and his return to establish a homestead and begin the large-scale irrigation project that would finance the move. Through all the uncertainty, dangers and hardships, Richards keeps his sly sense of humor as he reveals a sometimes enchanting, sometimes harrowing tale of adventure, guts, and accomplishment. When surveying terms are mentioned, they are explained by Wyoming surveyor-scholar Dr. Herbert W. Stoughton and others, both in footnotes and in essays in the appendix. To fill out the story, the book presents biographical articles, Richards's dramatic published hunting stories, and his relevant letters, among them "W.A. Richards: Surveyor to Statesman" Accounts of surveyors' later returns to the remote boundaries such as Wyoming surveyor Paul Scherbel's 1990s remonumentation campaign, which included the state boundary "corners" established by William and his brother Alonzo.The appendix features an essay and maps of Richards's Nebraska surveys by Gene A. Thomsen, a Nebraska deputy state surveyor and historian.