Sears Gazetteer - Wyoming - Sears Ancestry

The Sears Gazetteer contains a list of locations in the USA with the name Sears, compiled by Ray Sears over the years. Also see Alabama, Maine, Mississippi, Alaska, New Mexico, Virginia and others on this site.

Wyoming has at least 2 geographical placemarks, Sears Ditch and Sears Draw. Let’s see if we can make a ditch and a draw as interesting as the other geographical features of Wyoming…

Sears Ditch

The Sears Ditch is located in Carbon County, Wyoming. J.D. Sears is cited in the USGS publication, Water Resources of Carbon County, Wyoming. Perhaps the Sears Ditch is named after him?

A ditch is a small to moderate trench created to channel water. Ditches are commonly seen around farmland, and there are more than a few ranches in Wyoming. A Bar A Ranch, Durham Bison Ranch, Hornbuckle Ranch, Fiddle Back Ranch, T A Ranch, White Grass Dude Ranch.

There’s even a Groenewold’s XB Ranch listed at 155 Sears Rd in Newcastle, Wyoming, though it might be closed now.

Sears Rd in Newcastle, Wyoming? Maybe we’ll get back to that.

Sears Ditch is considered a canal in Carbon County, 41°14’50″N, 106°51’16″W according to the Geographic Names System. Geonames ID 5837821, GNS Feature ID 1594071

A GNIS feature ID is a permanent, unique identifier for a feature in the Geographic Names Information Service (GNIS) database. GNIS is the U.S. federal government’s authoritative gazetteer. It contains an entry for each named place or point of interest recognized by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names within U.S. territory, based on submissions from federal, state, and local government agencies as well as from the general public through The National Map Corps.

The ditch is close to other Reservoirs, Creeks, and Ditches. Pilson Ditch Number 2 might be a good fishing hole.

The Sears Ditch runs off Otto Creek, about 45 minutes away from the Grand Encampment Museum in Encampment, Wyoming. Encampment is located in Southern Wyoming on the Colorado-Wyoming border.

Encampment, Wyoming

Encampment, WY, population 450, formerly Grand Encampment before some postal rules caused them to drop the name and perhaps led to its drop in population, was founded after a copper strike in the Sierra Madres in 1897. The mining bubble burst in 1908 when the mining company was indicted for over-capitalization and fraudulent stock sales. No less than 6 towns became ghost towns after the mining company failed.

In 1905, Encampment was the site of the third largest rabbit ranch in the country, with three thousand head of hares.

Nearby to Encampment is Riverside, Saratoga, Ryan Park, Tenmile, and Old Haymaker Place, Wyoming.
Old Haymaker Place is about 40 minutes or 30 miles north of Encampment. Not sure if there is much to do in Old Haymaker Place, though I did see a car parked in the middle of a ranch field off WY-130 (the Snowy Range Road) on street view.

From 1902 to 1908, the Ferris-Haggarty Tramway, outside Encampment was the longest aerial ore tram in the world.

Encampment’s aerial tram

The longest aerial ore tram in the world

Encampment may be a small town in Wyoming, but in the year 2000, Lost Springs, Wyoming was one of only 4 places in the US to have had a population of 1. Now it’s booming with a population of 6, and still on the charts as the least populated municipality in Wyoming. Wyoming being the least populated state in the US, with 576,851 inhabitants but the 9th largest by land area. Wyoming’s municipalities cover only 0.3% of the state’s land mass but are home to 68.3% of its population. That’s a lot of ranch land.

The smallest town in the world, at 9.9 acres is Buford Wyoming.

Sears Road in Newcastle, Wyoming

In researching the new-found Sears Rd in Wyoming, I found a link to a Sears family who owns a “29,000-acre ranch first established in 1878, which literally sits at the end of a long and winding road.”

A really fascinating story about the history of the 4W Ranch, (formerly Hammond Range started in 1879) run by a Sears family, 6-generation ranching family. https://www.tsln.com/news/4w-ranch-on-thecheyenne-river-combines-rich-history-and-smart-management/ and https://www.tsln.com/news/asdasda-91/

There are actually two Sears Roads, one in Sheridan and one near Newcastle.

The Sears Rd near Newcastle looks to be a dirt road in the middle of a ranch. Flat plains and cows for miles.

According to WYOHISTORY.ORG, Newcastle, Wyo. began as a product of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in the late 1880s. The city’s first ordinance banned the discharge of firearms within the city limits. The town’s first mayor was Frank Mondell, who had a .45-calibre bullet lodged close to his spine while serving in the US congress for 26 years. There might be a coincidence here.

Cowboys, miners and railroad workers were a tough bunch.

There was a water shortage in the town, and water was sold at 10 cents a gallon, which is actually pretty standard at about $0.02 per bottle of water, or $0.75 in today’s dollars. Still, the Burlington Railroad needed more than 66,000 gallons of water so they built some water pipelines.

Back in 1902, the Newlands Reclamation Act allows for construction of irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands, in states including Wyoming. The North Platte Project, originally the Sweetwater Project, provides irrigation to about 335,000 acres in Wyoming and Nebraska. The Pathfinder Reservoir, one of those government irrigation projects built in Carbon county, is Wyoming’s second largest reservoir.

W.E. Sears & the Platte Valley Railroad Committee

In 1928, a group of citizens formed the Platte Valley Railroad Committee and purchased a bankrupt Saratoga and Encampment (S&E) Valley Railroad in 1928. W.E. Sears was on the Platte Valley Railroad Committee for the purchase of the “Slow and Easy” Railroad.

Willis Edwin (W.E.) Sears obituary is in a Sears Family Association Newsletter. A cattle rancher, He married Minnie M. Huston, who was descended from five generations of family born and living in Wyoming.

https://www.searsr.com/member/NEWS20.pdf

Julian Ducker Sears

Julian Ducker Sears (1891-1970), or J.D. Sears, was a field geologist, scientist-administrator and Acting Director of the U.S. Geological Survey. J.D. contributed to publications and surveys of the Baxter Basin gas field in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, among many others in his long career. J.D. was given the Interior Department’s Distinguished Service Award in 1961, and was a Fellow of The Geological Society of America.

Baxter Basin Gas Fields

The Geology of the Baxter Basin Gas Field, Sweetwater County, Wyoming, by Julian D. Sears is a gripping 27-page page-turner on the Baxter Basin and, well, its geology.

The Baxter Basin Gas Fields were proven in 1922 with the completion of 2 wells in Sweetwater County. As of 2020, the population of Sweetwater County was about 42,272 people.

As of 2020, Carbon County, Wyoming has a population of 14,537.

That’s a lot of people for Wyoming.

Sears Draw

Sears Draw is in Sheridan Wyoming. A draw is a terrain feature formed by two parallel ridges or spurs with low ground in between them. The area of low ground itself is the draw, and it is defined by the spurs surrounding it. Draws are similar to valleys on a smaller scale, however while valleys are by nature parallel to a ridgeline, a draw is perpendicular to the ridge, and rises with the surrounding ground, disappearing up-slope.

Sears Draw sits near the intersection of Sears Road and SR Buffalo Creek Road, about 25 miles from Sheridan, Wyoming. 44.8091419 (North), -106.6561679 (West) and 4,029 feet in elevation.

Other Draws, or nearby valleys include Ash Draw, Grouse Draw, Spear Draw, Lanters Draw, Jones Draw, and Lanbaugh Number 4 Draw.

Sears Homes

J.C. Penney (James Cash Penney) opened a Golden Rule Store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on April 14, 1902. This is now located in the J.C. Penney Historical district of the town. Penney sold to the coal miners in town and started expanding the Golden Rule stores. He moved the company’s head office to Salt Lake City in 1909. The JC Penney Company was rebranded from the various Golden Rule stores in 1913.

Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward would take his ideas and run with them.

There are a few Sears kit houses in Wyoming.