Ed Lemmon managed the largest fenced pasture in the world (865,000 acres - an area larger than Rhode Island), bossed the single biggest roundup in history, held the record for the largest number of cattle (900) cut out, roped, and brought to the branding fire in a single day, and handled more cattle (more than a million head) than any other man. He was where the action was before he was dry behind the ears. As a seven-year-old on the Little Blue he was in on the Indian raids of '64, and before he was fifteen he had carried the mail through hostile Indian country and was punching cows. In his years as cowhand, trail rider, wagon boss, range manager, and ranch owner he covered virtually every foot of range in western South Dakota and parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska on horseback, and knew every important brand in the West. His recollections read like a Who's Who of the good-old-bad-old-days: cattle kings and saddle tramps, stock detectives and cattle rustlers, stage drivers and stage robbers, ranch wives and 'scarlet poppies' - Ed Lemmon knew them all or had 'heard tell'.
Nellie Snyder Yost was the author of several volumes of cowboy history and reminiscences, including "Pinnacle Jake". Richard W. Slatta is Professor of History, North Carolina State University. His books include "Cowboys of the Americas and "Gauchos and the Vanishing Frontier", available in a Bison Books edition.
- ISBN10 0803280173
- ISBN13 9780803280175
- Publish Date 1 December 2002 (first published 1 September 1974)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 2 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Nebraska Press
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 327
- Language English