Carl Philip Mathisen, born September 1, 1912, known to everyone in Sublette and Fremont Counties as “Red” because of his hair, was truly a cowboy in the basic sense of the word. He knew cows! His family, as well as the dozens of cowpokes who worked with and for him, can attest to him reciting the genealogy of a “mother” cow and her many years of calves as if he was reading it out of one of his little red journals. He would make references to the markings or disposition of a critter and expect everyone to know exactly to which cow he was referring.
“Cowboying” to Red was done on the back of a horse, period — no excuses. For 63 years he was paid to care for other ranchers’ herds from the back of a horse. How many horses that required is an unanswered question. He had no use for a young “kid” who thought they were going to climb on top of a motorcycle or 4-wheeler to “get the job done.” If it couldn’t be done on a horse, then someone probably got assigned the job instead of Red. These cowboy days were every day and usually started before 5 a.m. The flies were out by 10 a.m. and the day was wasted by then anyway. A true cowboy phrase.
Red’s life started out as the baby of nine, outside Lander, on the Mathisen homestead at Dead-Man’s Gulch. By the age of 15 he had lost both of his parents and the homestead, as seven brothers and one sister had all moved out on their own. He joined his brother Walter on Twin Creek and cared for cattle for the Cattlemen’s Association for about 15 years. He never owned a piece of land, but he certainly could have been described as the caretaker of thousands of acres in Sublette and Fremont counties.
He had a lifetime partnership, which began on January 1, 1941, when he married Maxine Ferry. He tied the knot and swept her off to a lovely sheep wagon in the middle of nowhere for the winter. Good thing it was a strong love match, between the red-headed temper tantrums Red was known to display, and the close living quarters, it was really a wonder that they celebrated 56 years of wedded bliss together.
Red and Maxine moved cattle herds and that sheep wagon around Fremont County for a few years and leased the Hardin Place between Lander and Hudson before finally moving to Boulder, Wyoming, in the winter of 1948-49. Red was hired by Johnny Vible to manage his lower ranch that winter. The move was challenging enough in a blizzard. Then they were snowed in all winter, but Maxine was finally out of the sheep wagon. All their food froze. Johnny and Red would ride out on horseback, half way each, and meet once a week to touch base. All survived the winter of ‘49!
The Mathisens raised two children, Gary and Kathleen (Seeley), survived a house fire on Christmas day in Boulder, water freezing next to their beds at night, and isolation during long hard winters, before moving to Cora in 1956 to start a twenty-year tenure at the Bar Cross for Norm and Miriam Barlow. The deal was set when Maxine got the job as ranch cook and a brand-new cookhouse, too. Maxine kept everyone happy and fed inside and in the hay meadows, as Red managed the “dudes,” the visitors, the politicians, and on occasion, the Kennedys. He had them all on horseback and at the tail end of a long dusty line of slow-moving cows.
Speaking of cattle drives — Red was never at the end of a drive, in the dust or traffic. He was always in the lead and at the counting gate. God forgive the person who opened a gate before him and let any cow through before he could give her his own personal “look see” to know all was well. At branding, Red was the one on horseback dragging another hogtied calf to the fire, never rolling in the muck or getting dirty.
At the Bar Cross, Red was finally able to run his own cattle and started up a small herd of his own. The sale of calves eventually enabled Red and Maxine to enjoy the hobby they both loved so much, chariot racing!
Red bought and raced several teams of horses, made lifelong friendships, and traveled all over several states for the next 20 years. They had trophies all over their home. Maxine was the calcutta mastermind. She would bet on teams each weekend to finance their expenses, to keep the teams and travel to all the races. Red ran teams from the mid 1960s until 1988, when he finally had to put away the reins and watch from the track banks like the rest of us. For 25 years, Red was known as the racer with the nylon stocking on his head to keep his ear warm, and Maxine as the woman you wanted to trade insider information with at dinner the night before.
Red and Maxine worked at the Bar Cross for 20 years. They kept trying to modernize him, but he just didn’t think there was any job worthwhile if it couldn’t be done on the back of a horse. He left the Bar Cross in 1976 with his own 50 head of cattle, raised and nurtured throughout those years. He took them to Daniel to the Copeland Ranch and worked for Emma Meeks for a couple of years before coming full circle again, back to the Cattlemen’s Association, just as he had as a boy of 15. He put his cows out on shares, and took his bride up to the mountains near Fish Creek.
Instead of a sheep wagon, he put her up in a camper with an outhouse nearby and the promise that the Association would build her a cabin. For the next 12 years, Red thrived in his glory job, riding cattle for the Green River Cattlemen’s Association. He rode his horses so hard each day that he had to have a spare so he could rest one every other day. Each acre of the Green River Drift was familiar to him and it was hard to say farewell to a job where he got to be on horseback every day.
Eventually, Red had to come down off of the mountains he loved. He helped Johnny Wardell and Garlie Swain calve out their cows between their two places on the river near Daniel for several more years until Maxine’s illness and death in 1997. For over 70 years, Red Mathisen, who died November 29, 1998, at age 86, was a friend to the cow, the cowboy, and the land. He was one of the good ones. One of the men who gave their word and meant it, and their handshake was all it took to seal the deal.