James McCormick (Mac) was born to Les and Margaret McCormick in the spring of 1957. At that time, his parents were employed by the Warren Livestock Company near Cheyenne, Wyoming. He joined five-year-old sister, Jean.
The McCormick family moved to the Willow Creek Ranch north of Cora, Wyoming in 1965. The ranch was owned by John and Mary Helen Welborn at that time.
Mac’s first paid ranch employment was during high school, working summers and into the autumns for Gene Pfisterer on his ranch on Forty Rod. Gene made an impression on Mac which has lasted his lifetime.
Mac had all the necessary credits to graduate from Pinedale High School by January of 1975. He left home and spent January through late April riding and calving horned Hereford cattle on open range for Matador Ranch near Moneta, Wyoming.
Mac returned to Sublette County in the spring of 1975 to start some colts for Gene Pfisterer. Throughout the years, he has had a deep-seated preference to use horses for cattle work and teams to feed cattle. He got his first, owned horse in trade for starting the colts for Gene. Mac has ridden some horses for others and along with his wife, Delta, owned and raised several horses. He used teams to feed cattle for many decades of his time on ranches. The rest of 1975, Mac spent working under Shorty Tatro at the Winkelman Place (ranch) of the Mickelson family.
Stan and Madeleine Murdock were next to employ Mac. His duties included feeding cattle in the winter and helping to brand, move, doctor and process cattle throughout the year. While using teams and sleds to feed cattle, Mac developed his lifelong love of draft horses. That job was Mac’s first experience with the Green River Drift. Murdock’s cattle ran with other permittees’ cattle in the BLM allotment south of Pinedale locally known as “The Mesa” in the spring and then moved to the Upper Green by owners and employees. In the fall, the Green River Drift cattle trailed back south to the cutting grounds at the intersection of the Cora highway, South Green River Road and Highway 191 between Pinedale and Daniel. The cattle owners, employees and friends sorted the cattle horseback by ownership and then generally trailed the cattle back to the home ranches. Mac continued working for Stan and Madeleine until July of 1980 when he married Delta Lozier. Mac and Delta lived in Laramie that fall so that Delta could complete her college education.
After Delta’s graduation, the couple moved to Opal, where Mac was employed by Bobby Lozier tending cattle on winter range until April when he returned to Sublette County to work again for Stan and Madeleine Murdock doing the same tasks as during his previous employment there. Daughter Megan was born in 1983. Mac and Delta began to develop a small herd of their own cattle during that time.
In June of 1987, Mac accepted an offer to be foreman for Rusty and Ted Higgins at the old Bloom place on the Green River. After spring branding, the Higgins cows and calves were trailed south to Alkali and South Desert to graze, before being trailed back north to the mountains with Wardell cattle on the Green River Drift. In the fall, Mac gathered the Higgins cattle trailing home from the mountains as they passed the ranch on the way to the lower Green River Drift cutting grounds. As foreman, Mac was responsible for and actively involved in all aspects of care for the cattle.
Mac’s experience with the Green River Drift continued after he left the Higgins ranch and went to work for Bob and Ena Olson in 1991 for three years, feeding, calving, branding, trailing, sorting, weaning, and shipping cattle. Those Olson cattle ran in the Blue Rim pasture of the Desert in the spring and then were trailed to the mountains of the Upper Green with Pete Olson and Piney Murdock cattle on the Green River Drift trails. The cattle owners and employees sorted the cattle by ownership upon their return in the fall at the lower Drift cutting ground near the Big Piney cutoff road.
The McCormick family moved to Bar Cross Ranch in May 1994 and stayed there until the spring of 2024 while the ranch was under four separate ownerships with varying property combinations including being combined with adjacent Willow Creek Ranch and Scab Creek property at Boulder, Wyoming. The varying operations at Bar Cross Ranch offered an opportunity to enjoy different ranching methods. Mac spent most of the thirty years at the Bar Cross Ranch. His work included calving, branding, moving, doctoring, feeding, processing, receiving, shipping or some other cow-related work. Cow-calf and yearlings (both owned and pastured) operations were done on the ranch’s private land, BLM allotments, and US Forest Service allotments from Willow Creek Guard Station north of Cora to Jim Creek in the Upper Green.
Mac and Delta kept their own cow herd from the early 1980s until 2022. After Mac left full-time employment with Bar Cross Ranch in 2024, Mac and Delta began contracting Bar Cross Ranch cattle care on New Fork and Pot Creek USFS allotments.
At every opportunity he can get, Mac enjoys riding and working cattle with friends and neighbors.