This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

In a remote mountain valley extending from northeastern Utah toward south-central Wyoming and spilling into northwestern Colorado, Brown's Park (formerly known as Brown's Hole) was a 19th century frontier.

It was the winter home to Comanche, Green River Shoshoni and Ute tribes. Chartered in 1805 by Lewis and Clark, it was foraged by Euro-American hunters and fur trappers. In the 1830s, several mountain men built a mud-and-timber trading post, a social hub for travelers. Called Fort Davy Crockett, it was known as "Fort Misery." After an associate joined a band of thieves, stole some horses and escaped capture, the partnership folded and the abandoned fort turned to rubble.

By the 1870s, this small but largely inaccessible and rugged territory—some six miles wide and 40 miles in length along the Green River — attracted a diverse community of settlers governed by their own code of ethics and interpretation of law.

There were small ranchers, cattlemen, and trades people; cattle barons and thieves; rustlers and outlaws. According to BLM's cultural resource series on Utah, Brown's Park was "one of three major hideouts along the Outlaw Trail and "cattle rustling and outlaw sheltering" were common. From 1871 to 1913 nearly all the Park's citizenry were "cattle rustlers to some degree."

Including, within fact and lore, the legendary Bassett women and their association with Butch Cassidy's "Wild Bunch."

Advised by his brother to seek clean mountain air to relieve his asthma, Herb and Elizabeth Bassett with 4-year-old Josephine (Josie) moved to Brown's Hole in 1877 to make a homestead, raise Durham cattle and breed horses.

In 1878, their daughter Ann was born. Unable to provide milk, Elizabeth never forgot how a Yampatika Ute mother, Seeabaka, nursed her starving infant to life.

Herb Bassett was an educated, musical and generous man. Seemingly out of place in the wilderness. He read Emerson and Shakespeare to his children, organized a public school, built a post office on his land, worked with wood, supplied beef and horses to outlaws like Cassidy, Sundance, Black Jack Ketchum and Kid Curry — and allowed his wife to take the reins.

Elizabeth took on the tough, competitive male environment. At 5-feet 6-inches, the blond Southern belle could ride a horse, handle a shotgun, set bones, put in stitches, and, if necessary, rustle for their livelihood.

She cultivated a cooperative working relationship with several supporters who also were willing to help her acquire cattle and horses and fend against intimidation from empire-building cattle barons.

Arriving from Texas, the exceptionally strong cowhand and former slave Isom Dart built his own herd and became an integral "mainstay" in Elizabeth's family history. Davy Crockett's nephew Matt Rash met the family's need for mutual conversation. And a lanky Scotsman named Jim McKnight, whose blue eyes turned green when angered, rounded out the informal "Bassett Gang."

The family prospered. Herb expanded their small cabin into a well-lit, spacious ranch house stocked with books and stringed instruments, and welcomed visitors from businessmen and neighbors to outlaws with no questions asked.

"My mother [respected, traded] and kept the treaty with the Indians with undeviating faithfulness and became a vigorous advocate of national suffrage for women," Ann wrote in a 1952 autobiography for Colorado Magazine. "She was noted for intrepidity in any time of danger or alarm."

In 1892, an ailing Elizabeth, then 37, rose from her sick bed to give chase and retrieve a favored milk cow from an intruder's herd of cattle. By morning, the force-of-nature had died — some speculate from a burst appendix, others say a miscarriage.

Historian Grace McClure wrote Josie was often called "another Elizabeth," complementing her mother's indomitable will, and "well-controlled but volcanic temper," softened by her father's kindness. The young and more mercurial Ann would eventually become Queen Ann Bassett.

But for now, the family was devastated.

Historian Eileen Hallet Stone is the author of Hidden History of Utah, a compilation of her Living History columns in the Salt Lake Tribune. She may be reached at ehswriter@aol.com. Additional Sources: Grace McClure's, The Bassett Women.