Dedicated to the traditions, legends, development, and history of Wyoming Cowboys.

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Congrats to
our 2024 inductees

Carl Jorgensen and Bud Jorgensen

Carl T. L. Jorgensen was born in Pinedale at the Jorgensen home place on October 12, 1902. He was the third son of Nels Jorgensen and Karen Lauritsen Jorgensen. The Upper Green River Cattle Association was formed in 1916 and his dad was one of the charter members and organizers. Carl was riding for the Association as early as 1915 and continued as a paid cowboy through 1931. Carl bought the Alva Thompson place on Boulder Creek in 1931 using his Hereford range cattle as collateral. He trailed his cattle from the Pinedale Country to the railhead at Opal and Rock Springs well into the 1930s. He sold the Thompson place in 1944 and moved to a ranch on the New Fork River. At one time Carl’s cattle operation, involving some 800 head of commercial cattle, was a family affair with his son Carl Ray (Bud) Jorgensen. Bud had polio when he was two years old and was in a body cast. His dad did not want him to be wheelchair bound his whole life because of the polio, so he put him on a horse and made him keep active. Bud Jorgensen was a rider for the Upper Green River Cattle Association in 1944, 1945 and from 1947 to 1953 taking care of the cattle on The Green River Drift. Bud walked with a pronounced limp because of his polio, but you would have never known that once he was on a horse.