Slim Whitt was born in Albion, Nebraska, on Dec. 26, 1929. His father died when he was five and his mother died four years later. At age 14 he caught a Greyhound bus that brought him to Cheyenne. He traveled north to the Bighorn Basin and worked on ranches around Shell, Wyoming, and other areas in the region before he moved to Thermopolis where he went to work for Friday Rathbun.
Whitt joined the Wyoming National Guard, and he, along with his two brothers served in the Korean War. After coming home, he married Betty Lou Jones, and continued working in the Thermopolis area. They then moved to British Columbia, where he worked on a couple ranches for a year before they returned to Thermopolis so their twins could start school. They expanded their family to six children and worked on a variety of ranches.
Whitt bought a ranch in the Morton/Pavillion area and lived there until the late 1960s, when he leased a ranch in the Lysite area. He continued to ranch in that area for a few years, moved to Cody, and worked on a ranch there, and then moved to the Ten Sleep area, where he continued day working for different ranches in the region.
At a young age, while working in the Shell area, Slim started riding bareback horses, and continued this for several years. In about 1974, he, along with all six of his kids, was entered in the local rodeo in Pavillion, Wyo. He rode a bareback horse at this time, being about 45 years old.
Whitt was also pretty good at wrangling words, producing several fine books of cowboy poems and stories.