By Mike Armstrong
Writer, Carbon County Comet
Some pioneers had the courage and will to face the trials Carbon County put forth and succeed. Carbon County can be unforgiving with its winters and this can be especially in the north, but due to the railroad and coal, the north also offered opportunity to prosper. There were ranches also in the north, but it was the mining and railroad towns where the bulk of the population settled in the 1870s.
Many of these towns are gone with few remnants. They even existed.
Carbon City was the largest to come and go and Olive Herman Ellis (1879-1950) knew Carbon City with its people from its flourishing years as a center of commerce and coal camp on the original line of the Union Pacific Railway to the time of being deserted.
As an infant Olive accompanied her parents, Civil War veteran Fred Herman and his wife Ellen, when they arrived at The Crossing (now the village of Elk Mountain) in 1880. Carbon was just a few miles north of the Herman home, which was on the Medicine Bow River. The 1900 census lists Fred as being a “road supervisor”; his main concern was maintaining the wagon trail to Carbon and beyond.
Olive grew up and at age 19 in January of 1899, Olive married Charles Ellis, and a few days later, the couple moved to a log cabin on Difficulty Creek, some miles to the north of Carbon. Here, she would raise her family, fulfill all the duties of a good ranch wife, and also document her place and time. Her writings speak for early Elk Mountain, Carbon, Medicine Bow, and all the North Country.
While she wrote for other publications, Olive’s most complete work appeared in the Rawlins Republican as early as 1907. In addition to the essential listings of people and happenings, these lively, literate columns combine historical narratives, personal essays, and poetry.
Olive’s narratives have kept alive a time in Carbon County’s history that could have easily been lost.
Grandson Don Ellis of Saratoga commented that “She was a woman ahead of her time.” Her energy and talent were displayed in many venues, including photography and gardening. Olive was postmistress at Difficulty for 34 years. She spoke for the ranching community through her memberships in various organizations. Mostly through the post, she conversed with scholars and others about her infinite interests.
It was a saying of the early days that “All that holds Wyoming together is baling wire and capable women.”
Olive is proof this was true.
Carbon County historian Nancy Anderson was responsible for much of the knowledge on Olive for our Legends article.
