Gene Wollen learned to walk when he was 9 months old and his favorite destination was out to the barn and corrals to see the horses.
As the youngest of four children born to pioneer homesteaders Byron E. and Flora L. Wollen, young Gene learned to ride at a young age on the homestead located northeast of Bill, Wyoming.
He attended Converse County rural schools and later schools in town. When not in school, he worked alongside his father helping with the care of the Thunder Basin Grazing Association Community Pasture.
Once when working with his dad and some other cowboys, Gene was bucked off his horse and rolled through the cactus. His dad and the cowboys spent the evening pulling the cactus out of him with pliers by lantern light until he couldn’t take it anymore.
He always said he didn’t know why he didn’t get an infection and die.
Like other ranch kids, Gene learned from his father. When he was 14, he asked his dad to shoe his horse and was told that he knew where the shoeing supplies were.
This was the message: “Shoe your own horse.”
Earning His Spurs
As he got older, Gene worked for Herman Werner of 55 Ranch and the VR Ranch, both near Glenrock, as well as for Morton’s Fiddle Back Ranch northeast of Bill and the Lee Moore Ranch near Douglas.
He broke many horses for these ranches in addition to his other cowboy duties. His family has stories of him once roping an antelope and another time putting a lasso around an eagle, but the bird quickly let Gene know it wasn’t about to be tied down as it “came back up the rope to meet him.”
In addition to ranch work, Gene took part in weekend rodeos, riding saddle broncs, bulls and competing in wild horse races.
After his marriage to Esther Grant in 1954, Gene broke horses for his father-in-law John Grant until he moved to Fort Hood, Texas, to serve in the U.S. Army.
But horses were in his blood and while in the Army he found a ranch in Texas where he could ride and break horses.
Gene Wollen will be inducrted into the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame on Oct. 12, 2024. (Courtesy Photo) 
Gene Wollen will be inducrted into the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame on Oct. 12, 2024. (Courtesy Photo)
Back To Wyoming
The family, which by then included two sons, returned to Wyoming after Gene’s hitch in the Army ended, and he began working for Hugh Duncan in the Glenrock area. But Gene would also work on other ranches near Douglas, Bill and Glendo before eventually purchasing George Carothers’ Wagonhound Ranch south of Douglas.
By then the family included another son and two daughters.
On the Wagonhound, Gene raised Hereford and Angus cattle along with registered quarter horses. He continued breaking the new colts and shoeing all the horsing into the 1980s — that skill learned when he was just 14 was obviously carefully honed during the decades.
Gene Wollen will be inducted into the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame on Oct. 12 in Casper. He will be the second generation from his family to be recognized.
Second-Generation Hall-Of-Famer
His father, Byron E. Wollen, was inducted in 2017.
Byron Wollen was born in 1898 in Ceresco, Nebraska. As a young man, he worked on the family farm. They used a lot of work mules, but he preferred horses.
He served in the Army during World War I and moved to Converse County in 1918 after the armistice was signed to homestead near the Bill Post Office.
The elder Wollen worked for many ranches in Converse County and was the cowboy for the Thunder Basin Grazing Association Community Pasture, with his son often riding along on that job.
Over the years Byron raised and trained many fine teams of horses — but no mules. He’d had enough of them on the farm in Nebraska.
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com.
