Across The Fence - Welcome to Van Tassell: Population 15

On a recent trip to Rushville, where Deb and I frequently travel to visit her mother, we decided to take a different course from the usual Scottsbluff to Alliance to Hay Springs route.

Heading west out of Bushnell to Pine Bluffs, we struck a course due north to Albin, then on to Lagrange and up Highway 85 to Torrington. At Torrington, we took Highway 159 north – where after several miles – the pavement ends and gravel roads took us through wide-open grasslands. The scarcity of any dwellings along the way got me to thinking of what a long walk it would be if the old truck decided to blow a gasket.

It's easy to imagine the massive herds of buffalo that once grazed these lush grasslands. And equally easy to understand how vast cattle empires were built when the land was open range and settlers had not yet arrived. This is land that, for the most part, did not yield to the plow and still continues to be cow country as it stretches across the Wyoming border and into the fragile landscape of the Nebraska Sand hills.

Just as we thought we had reached the place known as "the middle of nowhere," we topped a rise that overlooked the sparse scattering of buildings of Van Tassell, Wyo. – population 15. Turning east on Highway 20, we soon crossed the Wyoming/Nebraska line and at mile marker No. 1 buzzed past Coffee Siding.

Though the actual Coffee Siding is no longer there, only the Nebraska Historical Marker remains where cattle pens and loading chutes once stood.

In 1914, the Rev. Annette B. Gray of the Congregational Churches of Wyoming was traveling west and wrote of her travels for the American Missionary Magazine. After crossing the Nebraska/Wyoming line she wrote:

"Traveling west from the Nebraska border on the Northwestern railway in Wyoming, one comes first to the little new village of Van Tassell with its pretty church. The train pushes on over the great undulating plains, where great ranches are being cut up into smaller holdings for dry farming. New families are coming in to occupy the scattered homes of which you get a glimpse on the horizon. They are from Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and other states farther east."

Born sometime around 1830, Rensselaer Schuyler Van Tassell established himself as a cattle baron when eastern Wyoming was still Dakota Territory. In 1877, Van Tassell added to his vast holdings by purchasing a large portion of the Jay Em Ranch from James Moore. Later, James Moore died in 1880 and Van Tassell married his widow, gaining control of the Moore estate in its entirety.

James Moore had established the JM Ranch alongside the Rawhide River in 1869. He along with his partner Charles Moore owned ranches on the North Platte near Cedar Creek, Neb., as well as holdings on the South Platte near Sterling, Colo.

As a young man, in 1860, James Moore was a rider for the Pony Express between Midway and Julesburg. On June 8, 1860, Moore made a 280-mile, round-trip ride from Midway to Julesburg and back in 14 hours and 46 minutes. The route included a change of mounts at Julesburg, Thirty-mile Ridge and Mud Springs stations. The epic ride is recounted in Colonel William F. Cody's 1898 book, "The Great Salt Lake Trail."

Van Tassell would eventually marry four more times enabling him to expand his holdings into one of the largest livestock operations in the state of Wyoming.

In 1886, the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad crossed the Nebraska/ Wyoming border as it stretched its way westward. Just west of the Wyoming border the F.E & MV established a depot and since Van Tassell owned the surrounding land, the railroad chose the name of Van Tassel for the end-of-track town.

Most people might be honored to have a town named after them, but such was not the case for R.S. Van Tassell. In fact, he so opposed the establishment of the town that he did his best to not support the growing settlement.

Despite the presence of a local depot and local merchants, Van Tassell ordered all of his goods and supplies from Chicago and had them delivered to Cheyenne. But the town continued to grow and by the turn of the century settlers were swarming into the area and the grand days of the great cattle barons was coming to a close.

By 1916, the town of Van Tassell had been incorporated and soon boasted a bank, furniture store, lumber yard, two hardware stores, two churches, a blacksmith, billiard parlor, hotel, three cafes, a sheriffs office and jail, two hometown newspapers and its own electric power plant.

Of course, long before the area became populated with farmers, dairymen and small ranchers, R.S. Van Tassell had settled in Cheyenne where he could enjoy his prosperity and prestige among his fellow cattlemen. In 1908, Van Tassell guided his good friend Theodore Roosevelt on a "hell bent for leather" horseback ride from Laramie to Cheyenne. It is said that the 70-year old Van Tassell set such a grueling pace that 50-year old President remarked, "Van, you old rascal, I believe you are trying to show me up!"

But now, going back to 1886 and the arrival of the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad, a Nebraska cattleman comes into the picture. Charles F. Coffee ran cattle in the area of Lusk, Wyo., on Rawhide Creek but his "Home Ranch" was located near Bowen, (now Harrison) Neb., on Hat Creek.

When the F.E. & MV arrived, Coffee shipped his first load of cattle to Chicago from his northwest Nebraska ranches on the new rail line. At that time freight rates from Wyoming were considerably higher than rates from Nebraska and so, to accommodate both Nebraska and Wyoming cattlemen, Charles F. Coffee built Coffee Siding about one mile east of the Wyoming border.

Charles Coffee was born in Dade County, Mo., in 1847 and at the age of 14, accompanied his father, Colonel John T. Coffee, during his father's service under Confederate General Price through the duration of the Civil War. At the close of the war, Colonel Coffee surrendered to General Custer at Austin, Texas.

Charles remained in Texas until 1871 when as foreman, on a Texas cattle drive, he drove a herd of Longhorns to Wyoming Territory. Upon his arrival in Wyoming, just outside the city of Cheyenne, an angry mayor confronted the young foreman. Apparently the Texas cowboy had watered his herd in the municipal reservoir.

Charles F. Coffee prospered in the cattle business and in 1879 had expanded his holdings into Nebraska eventually owning more than 10,000 acres and grazing more than 7,000 head of cattle. In 1886, he built the 1,024-foot long rail siding alongside the F.E. & MV Railroad. The shipping point consisted of seven large cattle pens where cattle could be loaded onto the waiting freight cars.

During the shipping season as many a three trains, with 14 cattle cars each, would load up and leave for Chicago every day. Cattle driven to the Coffee Siding for shipment would pasture on the Niobrara River to the south until the pens were emptied and ready for the next bunch. The siding was used through the 1940s until cattle trucks replaced the railroad for shipping cattle. The pens were dismantled in 1958 and the railroad was later abandoned.

In his later years, Charles F. Coffee made his home in Chadron, Neb., and was also a successful businessman as well as serving in the Nebraska Legislature for the 53rd district, (Sioux, Box Butte, Dawes and Sheridan Counties) in 1900. The Sandoz Center on the Chadron State College campus houses the Charles F. Coffee memorial museum, a small but impressive collection representing the history of the cattle industry in northwestern Nebraska.

Rensselaer Schuyler Van Tassell spent his final years in California, where he died in 1931 at nearly 100 years of age. He is buried in Cheyenne, Wyo., and remembered as a prominent member of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. Van Tassell, Wyo., the reluctant cattle baron's namesake, continues to hold on, surviving if not thriving along a stretch of highway almost in the middle of nowhere.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award-winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. Contact Tim via email at [email protected].