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The significance of the Divide Sheep Camp site is its role as a summer headquarters for a local sheep operation. The site was first utilized by the Niland-Tierney Company and later the Divide Sheep Company. Both were substantial operations on the upper middle size range of ranching during the early 1900s, and had important ties to other aspects of the Carbon County economy. The Divide Sheep Camp was first authorized by a U.S. Forest Service Special Use Permit in 1909 for a pasture to hold saddle horses, a small cabin and barn to be used as a sheep headquarters, a sheep corral used in separating, counting, and branding sheep and a dipping vat.
The site was a base summer camp which provided supplies to company employees herding sheep on public domain range and later on the reserved National Forest System land. Herders used sheep wagons in the lower desert country during the winter months. In the spring, they drove their charges upon higher elevation public range and stored their wagons at the camp. As many as 32 wagons were stored there.
The Divide Sheep Company ran approximately 3,400 sheep, but numerous other outfits were allowed use of the facilities. The site possesses a local significance to the early grazing history of the Medicine Bow National Forest and Carbon County.
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