Wyoming
Candy Moulton: Give Me A Homestead
“Any woman who can stand her own company, can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing things, and is willing to put in as much time at careful labor as she does over the washtub, will certainly succeed,” wrote Elenore Pruitt Stewart in 1913 of her effort to establish a Wyoming homestead for herself and her daughter.
Not only will such women succeed, Stewart wrote in one of her letters to a former employer in Denver on Jan. 23, 1913, but she “will have independence, plenty to eat all the time, and a home of her own in the end.”
Oh, and she will have calloused hands, dirt under her nails, and most likely freckles on her nose even if she wears a good sunbonnet or hat.
Homesteading was not for the faint at heart as Elenore and her young daughter Jerrine found out.
They had been living in Denver but left the city for the small southwestern Wyoming community of Burntfork in response to an ad placed in early 1909 by Clyde Stewart, whose wife had died.
Stewart wanted to hire a woman who could assist with housekeeping but he wasn’t seeking a mail order bride (at least not in an outright appeal for one!)
Working for Stewart, Elinore and Jerrine enjoyed Wyoming’s wide-open spaces. They went on camping trips and she wrote about some of those adventures in other letters that became her book Letters On An Elk Hunt.
Elinore was a pragmatic woman, who had every intention of filing on homestead land when she made the decision to take her daughter and leave Denver.
Aware of homestead laws, she knew she could qualify for a 160-acre section and that claiming land would give her more opportunity.
Determined to improve her lot in life, soon after she started working for Stewart she filed a homestead claim on land adjacent to his.
And while she may have craved independence, Elinore was also a practical woman. Because a house was a requirement to prove up on any homestead, she and Clyde joined efforts.
Instead of constructing a separate house that was one key component to proving up on a homestead, they built a 12 x 16-foot addition to his house. It straddled the property line of their two homesteads.
This meant it was a single house to maintain and they believed that the two adjacent living spaces fulfilled the requirements of the 1862 homestead law.
The house she and Clyde lived in became a sprawling structure that is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Elinore wanted her own land, and her own house, but once she had set herself up for independence, she and Clyde Stewart got married!
This change in her domestic status put Elinore’s homestead claim at risk since married women could only claim jointly with their husbands.
Further, if a husband and wife filed on separate homesteads, as Elinore and Clyde had done, they needed to maintain separate residences.
Instead of adding on to his house they should have built a separate structure just feet from his home.
Now married and not willing to risk losing the land she had claimed, Elinore relinquished her claim to her new mother-in-law and in that way kept the land in the family.
While the land might not have remained in her name, almost certainly she still felt the attachment and opportunity it offered to her.
For years after she moved to Wyoming, Elinore wrote letters to her former employer in Denver, expressing her interest in and work developing the homestead.
The letters Elinor Pruitt Stewart wrote became a book Letters From a Woman Homesteader. Decades later the material became inspiration for the film “Heartland.”
Homesteading was a long-established practice in the West by the time Elinor Pruitt filed her claim.
When the Homestead Act went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman was in Brownville, Neb., to claim the ground he wanted along Cub Creek not far from the town of Beatrice, Neb. His claim was recorded as Certificate No. 1, Application No. 1, in the Brownville land office.
More than 400 other men also filed for homesteads that day in other land offices, but Freeman’s land claim is promoted as the first in the nation. His land near Beatrice, Neb., is now a part of Homestead National Monument of America.
The homestead law was open to anyone who met very basic and progressive requirements, including women, most (but not all) immigrants, and, beginning in 1868, African Americans. Eventually, homesteads were found in 30 states.
Because government regulations defined the head of household as the husband, women were forced to forestall marriage for five years if they wished their land titled to themselves, but this did not deter many women who were determined to strike out on their own.
Cases in point are the Chrisman sisters, who lived in Custer County, Nebraska, in the heart of the Sandhills near Broken Bow. Their father and brothers already had homesteads. Lizzie Chrisman was the first of the girls to file a homestead claim near her male relatives, doing so in 1887.
Sister Lutie Chrisman filed her claim the following year. Although both built homes, they took turns living with each other so they could fulfill the residence requirements without being alone.
Younger sisters, Hattie and Jennie Ruth, had to wait until they came of age to file and while Hattie did claim land, the nearby property was all taken before youngest sister Jennie could homestead.
The Chrisman sisters had claimed their own land, but it like the land Elinor Pruitt had claimed, became part of a larger family ranching operation.
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
Most 18-year-olds focus on deciding what they want to do after high school.
Alyssa Shade already knows.
The Yoder teen already is a certified EMT, a red-carded wildland firefighter and a member of the all-volunteer Yoder Fire Department.
Another 18-year-old, J.R. Ruiz, joined the department only a few months ago. He recently returned from a wildfire-severity assignment in Colorado and, this past week, was helping on the South Fork Fire near Cody.
Behind them is another generation waiting in the wings. Fire Chief Justin Burkart’s 17-year-old son, Jayden, is already part of the department, while his 16-year-old daughter, Maykayla, recently joined as a junior firefighter.
In a profession where volunteer departments nationwide are struggling to recruit younger members, Yoder appears to be on a different track.
How does a town of just 134 people keep producing firefighters sought out and trusted to fight some of the nation’s biggest wildfires?
The answer starts with volunteers investing in one another.
“We’re 100% volunteer,” Burkart told Cowboy State Daily.
Beyond Wyoming
The tiny Goshen County community sits along U.S. Highway 85 south of Torrington, surrounded by hay fields and open prairie.
The Yoder Volunteer Fire Department protects roughly 248 square miles and serves about 700 residents throughout its fire district.
Yet those volunteers routinely deploy across the West, cutting fire lines with bulldozers, staffing engines on major incidents and supporting wildfire operations from Colorado to Virginia.
“We have a reputation of really sending out some professional firefighters to these incidents,” Burkart said. “It’s not a game to us. It’s something that we really take some pride in.”
Burkart joined the department as an 18-year-old in 1999 after discovering federal wildfire assignments could help pay for college.
“I found out it was a good way for me to pay for college,” he said.
Today, the department routinely sends engines, a water tender and two dozers on federal assignments, with about 22 members participating regularly in the federal fire program.
Last year, Yoder firefighters collectively spent about three months helping battle wildfires in California. Burkart said the department paid roughly $1 million to firefighters and seasonal personnel through federal assignments in 2025.
For a department staffed entirely by volunteers, those assignments have become far more than an opportunity to earn extra income.
“They’ll have more contact with live fire over a two-week period than most volunteers would have in a three- or four-year period,” Burkart said.
The knowledge comes home.
Heather Trompke, who serves on a Rocky Mountain incident management team, works in the finance section tracking personnel and equipment time during major incidents.
“We get to bring all of this stuff back,” Trompke said. “We can train and show how to fill out documents properly, and that translates into a smoother fire for everyone else when they go out.”
“There’s always something to learn in wildland firefighting,” added firefighter Bailey Powell. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing it for 60 years or five.”
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With flames consuming palm trees behind him, Yoder firefighter Shane Tromke pauses during a federal wildfire assignment. (Yoder Volunteer Fire Department) -
Father and daughter Robert and Alyssa Shade are volunteers who work side-by-side. (Yoder Volunteer Fire Department) -
Yoder firefighters spend countless hours training on specialized equipment and techniques before deploying incidents across the West. (Yoder Volunteer Fire Department) -
Alyssa Shade is only 18, but she is confident that wildland firefighting is going to be a part of her future. (Yoder Volunteer Fire Department)
Growing Firefighters
Like volunteer departments across America, Yoder faces a challenge that has nothing to do with flames.
Recruiting.
“If you look nationwide, the volunteer fire service is aging out,” Burkart said. “The younger generation is not really involved in that.”
Instead of waiting for volunteers to walk through the station doors, Yoder and neighboring Goshen County departments are trying to grow their own.
Robert Shade helps coordinate a countywide junior firefighter program that introduces teenagers to the fire service before they turn 18.
“Right now, nationally, pretty much every trade, every job there is, there’s a lack of young people getting involved,” Shade said.
Junior firefighters learn equipment familiarization, truck maintenance, hose deployment, pump operations and safety procedures before becoming full firefighters.
“They’re the future,” Shade said. “We’ve got to make sure that we get them involved.”
Rather than keeping the program confined to Yoder, departments across Goshen County work together so young firefighters train alongside one another.
“We’re reaching out and kind of working with the whole county,” Shade said. “It helps everyone get to know each other.”
The program appears to be paying off.
Shade started attending meetings as a teenager after encouragement from her boyfriend, who happens to be Burkart’s son.
“I kind of started coming for fun,” she said. “Then I got a true understanding of everything, and it just became really interesting.”
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Flames creep across the landscape behind Yoder Volunteer Fire Department trucks. The tiny Goshen County department has become an outsized force in Wyoming’s wildfire response efforts. (Yoder Volunteer Fire Department) -
Firefighters with the Yoder Volunteer Fire Department serve roughly 248 square miles in Goshen County. (Yoder Volunteer Fire Department) -
Pink fire retardant streams from an air tanker above a dozer carving a containment line during a wildfire operation. (Yoder Volunteer Fire Department)
A Family Tradition
Volunteer firefighting isn’t just passed from one generation to the next in Yoder.
It’s often passed around the dinner table.
Burkart’s wife left this week for a federal wildfire assignment in Colorado. Robert Shade serves alongside daughter Alyssa.
“There are families on the department,” Shade said. “Husbands and wives, fathers and sons, fathers and daughters.”
For him, volunteering alongside Alyssa is one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
“It’s a lot of fun to go out with Alyssa and do what we both love,” he said.
The work isn’t without sacrifice.
“When the pager goes off, you could be at a dinner with your family,” Burkart said. “You could be at your kid’s birthday party. You could be at a track event for your kids.”
And the sacrifice isn’t limited to firefighters.
“It’s not only the members that have to make that sacrifice,” he said. “It’s also the family.”
When firefighters deploy on federal assignments, the department still has to answer calls at home.
“We do have a lot of members that deploy nationally, but we also have to protect home when they’re gone,” Burkart said.
That responsibility is shared with neighboring departments through mutual-aid agreements.
Last year alone, Yoder firefighters assisted neighboring agencies 26 times, while local farmers and ranchers helped firefighters cut fire lines during large grass fires.
Yoder’s firefighters have built something much larger than a volunteer department.
They’ve built a pipeline to answer the call.
One generation trains the next.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
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