Edward Johnson

Edward, or “Ed,” was born at Salem, Wyoming, west of Albin. His father, Hajelmer August Johnson was a Swedish immigrant. His mother, Janet Brown Johnson was the daughter of a coal miner. Just before Ed’s first birthday the family bought CP Ranch north of Albin on the Goshen-Laramie County line. In his early teens, Ed became one of the top heelers in the area because he was not big enough to wrestle calves. By the 1930s, along with their cattle, the Johnson’s raised some of the last remount horses for Fort D.A. Russell in Cheyenne. Ed and his brother Archie bought the SS Ranch near LaGrange on December 31, 1940. When they purchased the ranch, they got it “lock, stock, and barrel.” So, that included cattle, horses, a couple pigs, chickens, grain, equipment, shop tools, and the SS brand. Archie died in 1943, so Ed and wife Elizabeth bought and ran the ranch the rest of their lives. The first summer the Johnsons were on the ranch, they only had one broke team when they started haying. They broke 23 Belgian horses that summer without a run-away! Ed said there was only two ways to handle cattle, “horseback and wrong.”