Trailblazer
William Hall Ogle
The very first president of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association has been called a gentleman and a cowboy. William Hall Ogle left his roots in England’s aristocracy; arrived in Wood Mountain in 1888 with dreams of adventure in the Canadian West. He proved his worth on a wild buckskin a friend caught for him to ride. After an hour of pitching he pretty well had the horse broke, and that’s when his friend Fred Brown said, that horse killed a man last year, so I got him cheap!
After cowboy work in Montana, Bill Ogle set up his own operation on the Milk River. It was there around 1890 that he met a native woman, Tasunke Hin Watewin, also known as Roan Horse and Mary, and they raised a family of seven children.
When the homesteaders and sheep men put pressure on the land around the Milk River, Bill Ogle moved back to Wood Mountain where he raised some cattle and a lot of good draft horses.
He was a judge at the first Calgary Stampede in 1912. As the first president and voice of Saskatchewan Stock Growers, his accomplishments included having lease tenures reinstated to a minimum of ten years, giving ranchers a chance to manage grazing land for the future.
When WWI broke out he returned to England to fight and when the war ended he came back to Wood Mountain to disperse his property along with 1000 head of horses and 650 head of cattle. His wife remained in Canada and spent her last years on the First Nation Reserve at Wood Mountain.
After serving in two World Wars, William Ogle died in 1953.
|
